4th of July in New York City

I decided to head east to New York City for the 4th of July weekend. I went by myself, so I was able to pack light and stay mobile. I stayed at the Pod Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The room was tiny and I had to share a bathroom, but it was very nice and very efficiently organized. And it was cheap! Well worth it to be in the middle of everything. I stayed on 51st and Lexington just 1 block from a Lexline subway stop. It was really easy to get to the Upper East Side (that was also walkable) as well as going downtown. I went to the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney, where I saw this great exhibit on the work of Buckminster Fuller. I hung out and napped in Central Park and saw a free concert there. Finally, I saw the Macy's fireworks from a bridge on the East River. And I went to this bar in the East Village called the Burp Castle, with a great selection of Belgian beers.

Check out the pictures on Picasa:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kbaron/Buffalo2008

Erie Canal

I poked around North Tonawanda last weekend and walked along the Niagara river around Grand Island as well as the Erie Canal. Check out the picks in the Picasa album: http://picasaweb.google.com/kbaron/Buffalo2008.

Friends of the Night

Did a little volunteer work at a relief organization in Downtown Buffalo with a bunch of Cognigen folks. Kathie, Jill, Cindy, Darcy, Chris and I served up meals for some homeless / needy folks at this place called Friends of the Night (http://www.friendsofnightpeople.com/index.html). Anyone can come in and get some clothes and a meal 7 days a week, 365 days a year. On the menu tonight was polish sausage on a bun, pork 'n beans, macaroni salad, and a variety of deserts. I was working the ketchup and the beans on the serving line. We got to meet some incredible people tonight. The people are definitely what it's all about. So it was a great experience and the pleasure was all mine. Cognigen sends a delegation down there 4 times a year, so I'm glad I got in on this one.

Anchor Bar

David and I went down to the Anchor Bar on Thursday night. This is the birthplace of the buffalo wing, so it's been a must-do item on my itinerary this summer. I don't generally like to eat buffalo wings (a la BW3 in Minneapolis / St. Paul), so I was expecting the visit to be more symbolic than anything. But David and I got there, ordered a couple of Molsons and a double order of the medium wings. These things were unbelievable.... and nothing like what we get in Minnesota. The wings had been tossed in a thin buffalo sauce but were generally dry by the time they made it to our spot at the bar (they aren't slathered in the thick sauce like they do in MN). Really juicy, really tender meat. Very different, very tasty. Anyway, they're pretty serious about their buffalo wings here. Duffs is the other place that everyone agrees has a good buffalo wing. David, a self-proclaimed buffalo wing connoisseur, told me about this Buffalo Wing Fest they have in Erie County. He wasn't generally positive about it just because they let restaurants from all over the country come to Western New York for this festival. They're very skeptical that "some guy from Denver" could make a decent buffalo wing. We were sitting at the bar next to this couple from Cape Cod who had driven to Buffalo / Niagara on vacation. (In fact, half of the cars in the parking lot had non-NY plates). They were really cool, fun people... with very thick New England accents... and really liked to talk. So we sat and ate wings, drank Canadian beer, and talked for about 2 hours. Nice night.

Update

http://picasaweb.google.com/kbaron/Buffalo2008

Well... this is my first update on the Buffalo Blog. I had intended to update more often, but I have NO internet at the apartment and I'm not entirely comfortable spending much time on FB / Blogger etc when I'm at work.

Anyway... everything is cool in Buffalo. I'm getting settled in at work and still finding some time to check out Buffalo / Niagara. I've been to The Falls and to a Bisons game. We also did the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge... a 5k race / walk through downtown Buffalo with a bunch of Cognigen folks... and 20,000 other Buffalonians. Buffalo corporations pitch tents and fire up the BBQs in this huge park near Buff State starting around 4pm. The race started at 7pm. I came to Cognigen too late to register for the race, but I was called on fill in as a walker when Marilyn's leg was bothering her.

I'm currently attending Eastern Hills Weslyan Church in Williamsville, NY. My mom actually found out about this church from one of her friends in the women's bible study at her church in Austin, TX. It's a lot like Wooddale. (http://www.easternhillschurch.org/)

CHECK OUT THE OTHER PHOTOS AT:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kbaron/Buffalo2008

TO DO LIST:

(1) Thursday in the Square - an outdoor concert series that takes place every Thursday somewhere in Downtown Buffalo. Apparently TONS of people show up for this . (http://www.buffaloplace.com/aboutus/marketing/summerconcertseries.html)

(2) Beef and Keg - a restaurant in North Tonawanda where they serve... well... beef and beer. The locals tell me they have a good roast beef on kimmelweck sandwich ("beef on weck") (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kummelweck). Kimmelweck is a salted bun to make the sandwich. Joy (a coworker at Cognigen) says they also wet the roll a bit and sprinkle caraway seed on the bun before adding the beef.

(3) Erie County Fair - apparently this is a big deal. They get 1million (plus) people attending every year... and that's for a COUNTY fair. The fairgrounds are in Hamburg, just south of Buffalo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_County_Fair).

(4) Travel: Going to DC in July for Andrew's baptism (July 12). Also, hopefully going to Toronto (1.5 hr), Pittsburgh (3 hr), NYC (7 hr), Rochester (1.5 hr), Cleveland (3 hr, to see Indians Game) before the summer ends.

(5) Anchor Bar... the birthplace of the Buffalo Wing.

(6) Erie Canal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_canal). The Erie Canal starts in Albany, NY and joins up with the Niagara River / Lake Erie in Buffalo. It runs through North Tonawanda (about 5 min north of me) along the Tonawanda Creek. Apparently, when they started building this thing, there wasn't much here. Buffalo compteted with another city to be the place where the canal joined up with Lake Erie. Buffalo won out grew like crazy because they were at the end of the Erie Canal.

(7) Ted's hot dogs (http://www.tedsonline.com/). Apparently people drive miles and miles to get these things.

MORE TO COME!

KTB

Manishas going away party

Travel Schedule

Matt and I met last night to work out travel plans. We will be leaving Minnesota on Friday, May 30 and spending the night in Milwaukee. We hope to meet up with Derek, and old friend from HHS who is living there with his family. Day 2 will take us across I90 to Cleveland. Day 3 will be a short jaunt into Buffalo.

UPDATE: Bogus... Dys won't be in Milwaukee when we're passing through! Would have been cool to meet up. Maybe on the way back. Looks like a game at Miller Park might be a possibility now.