Crazy Weekend Fun
The weekend was amazing.
Hands down one of the best in quite a while.
Saturday, after work, went to the library for a while. Couldn't find the book I was looking for, but thats okay.
Afterwards, biked around a bit, rode up Elmwood with the intention of going to Scott's house, ran into a bunch of folks at Bidwell Park on the way. They were playing hacky-sack, so I sat on the grass reading and hanging out.
After it started getting dark, my friends Kevin, John, and myself went across from Bidwell to Cafe Aroma to watch the game.
Sabres...omg...it was soo intense. When they tied the game, with 5.8 seconds left of regular play, the entire coffee shop just exploded with awesome. It felt really amazing. Then, overtime, the cafe closed, so we went across the street to McGarrets to watch the rest of the game.
Ran into my friend Chris at McGarrets, and he, Kevin, myself, and this kid Pete went to his house. Chris and Kevin played video games, and Pete and I had pretty intense conversations. He peaked my interest a little bit (c'mon. it is spring afterall).
Around 3, I rode back down to Allentown. Ended up at the Pink with no money at last call. My ex-landlord Jeff was there and bought me beer. For some reason not really known to any of us, he was wearing fuzzy rabbit ears and a Flyer's jersey, which, needless to say, started more than one confrontation.
From there, Jeff, his friend's Jay and Mark, and myself went around the corner to where Jay and Mark have a radio station. Which is just neat. It's an online station soley based off of Buffalo, Buffalo politics, Buffalo news, Buffalo artists, and the etcetera.
Jay walked drunk Jeff home, and Mark and I listened to music and had more intense conversation. At one point, he decided to film me reading poetry, which was kinda fun. He said it would be up on the website, but it isn't there yet.
From there, home, sleep.
Woke up at noon Sunday. Met my co-worker Mary up at SpOt coffee for a bike ride. Went around the West Side and down to Squaw Island. It was really kinda fun.
Went to her house afterwards. It was sweet. Her and her four roommates, and their two kids, moved here from California to form their own Church. Thats kinda nifty.
The kids were awesome, too. Super smart little kids, and adorable.
From there, Allentown. From Allentown, back to Bidwell to watch the hacky-sackers doing there thing.
On the way to Bidwell, from all the way downtown, I could see this crazy black cloud of smoke in the air. It looked a heck of a lot closer than it proved to be.
Got to the park, continued watching the smoke cloud, which by that point was intense, and thick, and really unhealthy awful looking. Found out later on that an abandoned factory exploded, which is just crazy. Apparently, there were three tankers of propane inside, and something ignited them, and the entire building literally exploded. Like, kids on the adjacent bike path had to run for their lives, kind of exploded. This was sometime around 7:00pm.
Stayed at the park for hours with the hackers. I don't hack, just watch, but it was nice and lazy social. Pete showed up after a little while. That was nice.
Left the park around 11:45 to head to Essex for the Midnight Bike Ride. Alex, one of the kids at the park, came with me.
At first, I didn't think anyone was going to show up. But, after a while, everyone got there, and after a headcount at the beginning of the night, we had 56 people there. Wo0t.
Once the height of the summer hits, we can get as many as 80 bikes deep.
So, Midnight bike ride, aka midnight mass, aka drunk kids on bikes, decided that we should go to try to find the crazy-explodey-building.
Rode around, rode around, rode around...headed through Buff State area, cutting behind to Grant Street and Niagara to the old bike path down that way. We were told that the building was right along the bike path, so it was a good place to start.
Once we started to get closer to the sight, the smell became overpoweringly chemical and awful. A bunch of people turned around, afraid of the fumes. And me being me, I just pulled a skank over my face and headed into the cloud with the other brave cyclists.
At 1:30 in the morning, they were still trying to put out the fire. There were firetrucks everywhere, ambulances, cop cars, the like...we watched from the bike path as the firefighters tried to put the flames out with the hose...and the smell from this point was terrible.
It was pretty quieting, all things considered.
From there, we rode on and on...ended up back at Squaw Island, which was funny for me, because it was the beginning and ending point of my day.
Stayed out until almost 4:00 in the morning with the crew. Then, we headed towards Allentown, and I headed home.
Got up this morning at 7:45...got to work by 8:00...
Here I am.
Now...do I sleep, go walk dogs, study, or all three?
-Off
Hands down one of the best in quite a while.
Saturday, after work, went to the library for a while. Couldn't find the book I was looking for, but thats okay.
Afterwards, biked around a bit, rode up Elmwood with the intention of going to Scott's house, ran into a bunch of folks at Bidwell Park on the way. They were playing hacky-sack, so I sat on the grass reading and hanging out.
After it started getting dark, my friends Kevin, John, and myself went across from Bidwell to Cafe Aroma to watch the game.
Sabres...omg...it was soo intense. When they tied the game, with 5.8 seconds left of regular play, the entire coffee shop just exploded with awesome. It felt really amazing. Then, overtime, the cafe closed, so we went across the street to McGarrets to watch the rest of the game.
Ran into my friend Chris at McGarrets, and he, Kevin, myself, and this kid Pete went to his house. Chris and Kevin played video games, and Pete and I had pretty intense conversations. He peaked my interest a little bit (c'mon. it is spring afterall).
Around 3, I rode back down to Allentown. Ended up at the Pink with no money at last call. My ex-landlord Jeff was there and bought me beer. For some reason not really known to any of us, he was wearing fuzzy rabbit ears and a Flyer's jersey, which, needless to say, started more than one confrontation.
From there, Jeff, his friend's Jay and Mark, and myself went around the corner to where Jay and Mark have a radio station. Which is just neat. It's an online station soley based off of Buffalo, Buffalo politics, Buffalo news, Buffalo artists, and the etcetera.
Jay walked drunk Jeff home, and Mark and I listened to music and had more intense conversation. At one point, he decided to film me reading poetry, which was kinda fun. He said it would be up on the website, but it isn't there yet.
From there, home, sleep.
Woke up at noon Sunday. Met my co-worker Mary up at SpOt coffee for a bike ride. Went around the West Side and down to Squaw Island. It was really kinda fun.
Went to her house afterwards. It was sweet. Her and her four roommates, and their two kids, moved here from California to form their own Church. Thats kinda nifty.
The kids were awesome, too. Super smart little kids, and adorable.
From there, Allentown. From Allentown, back to Bidwell to watch the hacky-sackers doing there thing.
On the way to Bidwell, from all the way downtown, I could see this crazy black cloud of smoke in the air. It looked a heck of a lot closer than it proved to be.
Got to the park, continued watching the smoke cloud, which by that point was intense, and thick, and really unhealthy awful looking. Found out later on that an abandoned factory exploded, which is just crazy. Apparently, there were three tankers of propane inside, and something ignited them, and the entire building literally exploded. Like, kids on the adjacent bike path had to run for their lives, kind of exploded. This was sometime around 7:00pm.
Stayed at the park for hours with the hackers. I don't hack, just watch, but it was nice and lazy social. Pete showed up after a little while. That was nice.
Left the park around 11:45 to head to Essex for the Midnight Bike Ride. Alex, one of the kids at the park, came with me.
At first, I didn't think anyone was going to show up. But, after a while, everyone got there, and after a headcount at the beginning of the night, we had 56 people there. Wo0t.
Once the height of the summer hits, we can get as many as 80 bikes deep.
So, Midnight bike ride, aka midnight mass, aka drunk kids on bikes, decided that we should go to try to find the crazy-explodey-building.
Rode around, rode around, rode around...headed through Buff State area, cutting behind to Grant Street and Niagara to the old bike path down that way. We were told that the building was right along the bike path, so it was a good place to start.
Once we started to get closer to the sight, the smell became overpoweringly chemical and awful. A bunch of people turned around, afraid of the fumes. And me being me, I just pulled a skank over my face and headed into the cloud with the other brave cyclists.
At 1:30 in the morning, they were still trying to put out the fire. There were firetrucks everywhere, ambulances, cop cars, the like...we watched from the bike path as the firefighters tried to put the flames out with the hose...and the smell from this point was terrible.
It was pretty quieting, all things considered.
From there, we rode on and on...ended up back at Squaw Island, which was funny for me, because it was the beginning and ending point of my day.
Stayed out until almost 4:00 in the morning with the crew. Then, we headed towards Allentown, and I headed home.
Got up this morning at 7:45...got to work by 8:00...
Here I am.
Now...do I sleep, go walk dogs, study, or all three?
-Off