I TOLD you that was a big snake!

So, I cleaned some stuff out of the garden shed today, the same shed where I found the ... ahem....large snake. He was gone, but he left behind a present. Apparantly I was right about him shedding his skin. This is laid out on a six foot table, and the tail end of the skin was missing. I'd guess there was another 10" of skin somewhere.

This is the middle of the skin, just to give some perspective. The belly scales were almost 2" wide

The head of the snake was just as big as it looked in the earlier pictures

You may not realize that a snake's skin stretches as he sheds it, so the actual snake is never as long as the skin you find. Still, considering the skin was over six feet if you include the missing tail portion, that means the actual snake was just north of 5 feet long.

Told you that was a big snake.

Always Rotate Your Tires

It's time to replace the tires on the pony car. The tire shops always want to charge me a fee to dispose of the tires. I had a different idea....

Crikey that's a big snake

So, having been gone a week, I had to do some lawn work. With as much rain as we've been getting, mowing weekly seems to be the name of the game, at least for the front yard. After mowing, spraying some herbicide and weed slaying, I took a stab at cleaning up my garage a little. As part of the process I took the yard tools that had collected in the corner and moved them back out to the storage shed.

Let me explain about the shed. This is one of those little 8x8, prebuilt sheds that are kind of barn shaped. You can buy them at most of the major home improvement chains. This particular shed was purchased by the previous homeowner to store his yard stuff in. There are assorted chemicals, grass seed, and some small tools and stuff out there. I'm not sure what all may be there, because I've never done more than open the front door and throw a rake or two in. It seemed fairly mouse infested, and cleaning it out was a pretty low priority. It's probably been six months since I opened it.

So today when I carried the garden hoe, 2 shovels and rake out, I was in full cleaning mode. Looking around the shed from safely outside, I noticed an open cardboard box sitting in the top of a two-wheeled push spreader full of grass seed in the back corner away from the door. Sticking out through the hole in the box was some shredded pieces of trashbag. Now, I'm thinking, If I was a mouse I'd be camped out in that box and setting up housekeeping. Nice and cozy, right on top of the buffet. So, being the kind of guy I am, I decide to whack the box with the garden hoe and scatter the mice.

Whack. Box rocks up on one side. Nothing.

Whack harder. Still nothing. That box seems heavier than I expected. Hmm....

So I lean in to the shed a little where I can see into one of the holes a little better. Wow that trashbag looks like.....scales.....

Is that a SNAKE??!!

No, he'd have bailed out after I shook it....I think. Well, I'm at the other end of a garden hoe, maybe I can pull the top of the box toward me and look in.

Holy CRAP, that's a SNAKE!!! **drop box**

man, the coils on that thing had to be two-and-a-half inches thick.....that makes him four feet or better, depending on what type of snake....

What kind was he? That's a good question... Hmm...Very dark, but I think I saw a pattern....That could be a black snake...or something poisonous.....crap. If it's a four-foot-plus poisonous snake, I'm going to have to figure out a way to kill it, for my safety and my dogs'. I wonder what a shotgun would sound like inside that shed. This could get messy. I'm going to have to look again. Ehhh, crap.

Okay, tilt the box, gently....little more....Okay, dark black with just a hint of a pattern, that's a black snake. Good, non poisonous, but that means at 2.5" thick, he's pushing six feet long. or better.

That's a lot of snake. And he's looking at me. Um, .... hello. Yep, oval head, non poisonous. Seems pretty calm as much as I've harassed him. Eyes are clouded, he must be about to shed his skin, so he's laying low.

Okay big fella, smile for the camera.....

Now, you stay in there and eat all the mice you want. But stay out of my garage, mister. Please.

Shuffle off, Buffalo

Once again, I'm at the gate 2 hours before my flight. I guess I've got time to grab some munch before the flight, and offer my last thoughts on Buffalo (and Tonawanda, et al.)
Buffalo is a good solid town. I've enjoyed being here. Contrary to expectations, everyone i met was extremely nice, maybe nicer than the average joe back in the sunny south. It's very obvious that this is an area with a long history of hevy insdustry. I've never thought about how the economy of an area impacts the aesthetic, baut I really saw that here. The town is worn around the edges, a little beat up and kind of....gritty. Buildings are close together, the atmosphere bustles without seeming overly tense. It's almost as if the entire area is one big factory. The colorful, homey touches you see in the local restarants and bars remind me of the personal items you invariably see tacked up at work stations on a production line. People go a little out of their way to knock the edge off the hard edged, heavy equipment town. It's a pretty neat place because of the people. There's a sense of pulling together on a small group basis, be it with family or the folks that immediately work together . I think this is the reult of generations of hard daily work and god-awful weather conditions. Survival (and sanity) meant tight knit relationships through months of lake effect snow. It still hangs on.

I did notice some differences in people here. Foul language is much more prevalent and accepted. I found it fairly entertaining at times. People here are generally better drivers. Most of the downtown streets have a double yellow center line but are two lanes wide on each side. The fun thing is that there are no lane dividers, and no real lanes. Traffic organically flows from two wide, back to one around turning and parked cars, with no accidents witnessed in a full week. They also know how to merge with no drama, no wrecks and in very short distances with no disruption to traffic flow. It was refreshing and amazing.

After almost a full week here, I can say I'd love to come back. If the winters weren't so god forsaken, it wouldn't be a half bad place to live. I could be happy here if they could fix that.

But don't come here in the winter.

Damn, still in Buffalo

I woke up this morning and looked outside, only to be greeted by this. I'm still in Buffalo. Damn.
It's not that bad, really, but I've reached the point where I'm ready to go home. Busines travel by yourself is rough.

Once again, I started my dining day at Tim's, and once again the toasted bagel, banana nut muffin and XL double-double coffee was freakin' excellent for $4. Really, can't we start a petition to bring them to Georgia?

At Midland Asphalt, I got to run two more mixes on the mill. We made, 12,000 gallons of Tack Coat and 9,500 gallons of CRS-2P asphalt emulsion (cationic rapid set - #2 hardness with polymer.) Both runs semed to turn out well and I didn't break any equipment. Running the mill feels very comfortable to me. Using the computer control system and setting percentages and such is squarely inside my comfortable knowledge base. While I still have plenty to learn about the process, I can already see that I will enjoy the job and do it well. Believe me, that's a big relief.

For lunch I went across the street to Athena's Family Restaurant which is, surprise, a Greek place. It really reminded me of a lot of the midsized, family-owned, home cookin' restaurants we have at home. It's just different comfort food. I had the stuffed cabbage special with a cup of split pea soup. The soup was good and thick with lots of flavor without being too salty as is sometimes the case with split pea. The smooth texture and rich flavor is quite a surprise given the scary baby food appearance. Clearly, this stuff didn't come from a can. The stuffed cabbage was two fist-sized meatballs made from savory seasoned ground beef mixed with brown rice, then wrapped with cabbage leaves and cooked with a light tomato gravy. They were even better than they sound, somehow tasting like food I grew up with, although I don't think I've ever eaten it before. The side of slightly lumpy homemade mashed potatos topped with tomato gravy was also great, but the mixed vegetables had seen better days. I'm not sure if they were canned, frozen, or just homeless, but I do know they were inedible. Wrap it all up with a glass of tea and a dinner roll for just under 10 bucks, and I can understand why the place has been busy all week.

For dinner tonight, I set out to find Andersons, another locally famous joint for Beef-On-Weck and milk shakes. I got lost because they had half of buffalo blocked off for a charity marathon of some sort. I ended up within a couple blocks of the Lake Effect Diner and decided to go there instead and try their version of the Buff-town classic. I should have done it sooner. The Kimmelweck (I finally got it right) roll was a work of art. I wish I'd had my camera. A nice high-domed roll crusted with course salt and toasted rye seeds that gleamed like rock sugar and sprinkles was piled with tender roast beef that was sliced slightly thicker than normal and served with a side of fresh horseradish and au jus. I opted to spread on the horse and pour the juice over the beef and top bun before assembly. This makes for one messy sandwich, but more importantly, it was traffic-stopping, jaw-dropping delicious. Of all the Beef-On-Wecks I've had this week, this was miles ahead. The accompanying serving of home fries tasted like i had cubed the tubers and cooked them myself. Since it is, after all, a diner, I added on chocolate malt milkshake to go. Now, I've got a longstanding relationship with the chocalate malted. We go way back. This malt was the best I've ever had, bar none. It wasn't overwhelmingly large, and the chocolate was dark, rich and fudgey, not the limp-wristed, look-I-added-syrup-to-vanilla crap that fast food joints foist off on you as chocolate. Scrum-diddily-umptious, to quote Willy Wonka.

Honestly, if the winters weren't so horrible beyond comprehension, I'd consider moving here just to be on a first name basis with the staff at the Lake Effect. Damn.

Now I'm back at the hotel, mostly packed, printed Delta boarding pass in hand, and I'm ready to wing out of here. I've come to some conclusions about this northern town on the edge of the canals, but you'll have to tune in tomorrow to hear them. Gotta keep you coming back after all....

Hump day in the Buff (part 1)

Since good ole blogspot limits my total picture uploads, I've been forced to break this entry into 2 parts. In the first I'll cover mill training and gastronomy, and in the second I'll show you the cool stuff I found after work.

Since the hotel buffet sucked like a big suckin' thing, I decided to give my new friend Tim Horton a chance at breakfast. They have an assortment of breakfast combos ranging from simple muffin and coffee to full blown sandwich with choice of side and choice of beverage. I opted for the full deal, sausage-egg-and-cheese-on-toasted-sesame-bagel with XL coffee and glazed sour cream doughnut as my side instead of hashbrowns. The coffee was good, if a little weak for my taste, and the sandwich was top notch. Nicely toasted bagel with solid, nongreasy sausage and a fluffy egg, and they had it ready in a heartbeat. It's not what you'd call gourmet, but it's hard to go wrong with solid food done well. The doughnut was as fantastic as the one yesterday, so no complaints, only raves. Total for the meal? $4.85 with tax.


I took a minute to look at the lunch combo menu. You can get a sandwich or roll-up combo with a cup of soup with your choice of beverage for $6.99. If you just want fries, it's even cheaper. Not bad. The shot below is the interior of the restaurant, all decorated for "Camp Day." They collect donations one day a year to send needy kids to summer camp. Pretty cool.


For lunch, Jeff and Stu ordered pizza and wings from their favorite local joint, whose name I'll have to find out tomorrow. The local pizza is a semi-deep dish affair, not quite the bread-fest that Chicago deep dish pizza is, but far from the thin-and-floppy NYC stuff. Honestly, I can easily understand why Pizza Hut and Papa Johns went out of business here. These guys put 1/2" of cheese on top of a hand tossed crust with sauce that's MADE FROM SCRATCH every day. Wow. The Cheese and pepporoni we had was easily the best simple pizza I've every had.
The wings were really good, nice and meaty with a good crisp base and a tasty hot sauce, coupled with a kickin blue cheese dip. To be honest, I don't think that Buffalo has some magic touchjust because they invented the wing. THese wings were really good, but I'v ehad a good run of wings back home that would go toe-to-toe with these. Specifically, I'm thinking of The Wild Wing Cafe in North Macon on a good night. Honestly, I don't want to diminish the rating on the ings I had today, but if you can't get wings next time you're in Buffalo, don't let it keep you up at night.

Post work I visited the Buffalo Naval and Maritime Museum (see part 2 of this post for details) and then went back to the Pearl St Brewery for a couple beers. Since I was planning on having leftover wings and pizza, I didn't sample the food this time, only the beer. I started with a pint of their Lake Effect IPA. It was good, but not the kick-in-the-teeth IPA I've become accustomed to. It was darker than most IPAs, and had a nice sweet touch. I followed that with a pint of thei Street Brawler Oatmeal Stout. It was VERY good, bringin in a distinctly smoky flavor with lots of stout meatiness, but finishing mild with little to no metallic aftertaste. It was also lighter on the palette than most without the syrupy edge that some stouts develop. Taking a risk, i opted to get a growler of their seasonal Saber's Edge Double IPA to take back to the hotel and enjoy with the leftovers from lunch. For those of you not familiar with local brew pubs, a 'growler' is a half-gallon, refillable bottle that can be brought back to the brewery and filled with any of their house brews. To give you an idea why this was a good idea, a pint costs $4 and a half-gallon is only $19. It's even cheaper if you bring it back for a refill. I really lucked out on the double IPA. It's by far the best I've had from their brewed-on-site offerings. It's very hoppy, but not quick the swift kick to the head that you get from Stone Brewery's Ruination. It's more like Stone's standard IPA or Sweetwater's IPA, but with a darker nut-brown color and lots of thick sweetness. It almost tastes like there's lots of local honey involved. Its very drinkable without the normal bad aftertaste of a really hoppy IPA. SO drinkable that I finished the growler, and now I'm having a hard time typing.

The back decks of the Pearl St. Brewery as seen from the Parking lot

The first level deck (2nd story) has a great view of the strangest interstate exchange I've ever seen. You really have to drive this beast to understand how odd it is.

Yes, Virginia, you can make a cooler out of a hotel bathroom sink. MacGuyver, Take that!

You can't go wrong with leftovers, especially paired with good local beer.

Hump Day in the Buff (part 2)

So, continuing from above...
One of the guys mentioned the Buffalo Maritime and Naval Museum as something I should see since i was downtown. It turns out there are a vietnam era Guided Missle Light Cruiser, WWII Destroyer and WWII Submarine tied up at a dock right behind my hotel, and they're open for tours. So, for $9 I got to go on a self guided walking tour that covered every inch of each vessel. It was amazing, and I took tons of pictures. Here are the best

USS Little Rock Guided Missle Light Cruiser (big boat on right), Uss The Sullivans destroyer (smaller boat on left) and the USS Croaker submarine (um, it's the black one):

Prow of the Little Rock (sorry, don't know how to rotate these after upload)

Prow of The Sullivans

Ordinance for the 5" 38 gun on The Sullivans. I like the way the b&w setting came out looking very flat and vintage

The view from the hotseat, sitting in the starboard bofor's gun seat - twin 50's on the right.

The Talos nuclear missles on the aft deck of the Little Rock. This is the only guided missle cruiser on display in the US

Self portrait on the prow of the Little Rock

Galley of the USS Croaker sub. Man, there is a reason they don't crew guys my size on these things. Clausterphobia, hello. Notice the cake mixer center left is so big it would barely fit through the door center right. Just for the reference, the CO's suite is smaller than the closet in our spare bedroom, and it was the luxury accomodation.

The aft torpedo room on the USS Croaker

Self portrait leaning on 2 brass screws. Those are propellers for you land lubbers. The boat in the background is a 'Nam era PT boat, ala The Kennedy years. I never knew those were so ... big.

My best John pose