November 2nd thru November 29th, 2009
East Aurora is a quaint little village. It works extremely hard at being quaint. The businesses of the Main Street are barber shops, hair salons, restaurants, banks, drug stores, gas stations (mini marts), dress shops, a tack shop, local insurance agencies, lawyers and the like. The big Main Street retailer is Vidler's 5 and Dime. The claim to fame is it is the headquarters for Fisher Price Toys Division of Mattel, and the home of Elbert Hubbard’s Roycroft artisans.
At 6:30 on this Sunday morning there was more traffic than I anticipated on the quaint newly bricked Main Street. It was hard to get a 30 second exposure off without some vehicular interference.
Although I was a West Falls boy and went to Springville Griffith Institute High School, I still consider East Aurora home. There have been Niemans in this area for about 150 years. So I guess calling it home is ok.
October 26th thru November 1st, 2009
Well, we closed on the house in East Aurora. Lots and lots of work needs to be done. It is November 1st and the pool hasn't been closed, the yard hasn't been mowed nor the leaves raked. The whole house needs to be painted inside. Carpeting requires replacement in a couple rooms, and, in general, just all over the place the house needs to be cleaned and cared for. Drains drain slowly, the outside trim on the house needs painting and those shutters, well, that color needs to be modified. I'm sure Elaine and I will make it our own in no time. It is four bedrooms, two and a half baths, very large living room, dining room, and kitchen, family room with fireplace and, my very favorite room, the "four season room". I'm calling it the "Alaskan room" as the walls and the wood burning stove remind me of a cabin in Alaska. All on .7 of an acre in a nice little neighborhood just off the village of East Aurora, NY. Elaine says we're going to die here, I say I'm going to die drinking my first cup of coffee of the morning, on the porch, in a little cabin on the side of a forested mountain overlooking a glacier lake. She's probably right.
None the less it is a great deal different than the neighborhood in Buffalo.
October 19th thru October 25th, 2009
These are some of the homes on the souteast side of Colonial Circle in Buffalo. It was an autumn morning meant to be experienced.
Everything is hecktic; work, home, hobbie all providing some stress. Work because it is work, home because we're moving and hobbie because I'm not getting the time to enjoy it as I would like.
I have got to tell you a story. You see, we're selling our house, actually we sold it and the appraisal for the buyer's bank was accomplished a few weeks ago. We get this notice, they want me to paint the front steps and touch up the garage door. I have never heard of such a request. Put gutters on , maybe; Install a sump pump, could be; New furnace that is up to code ok; but paint the front steps. They weren't that bad, what do you think this dim witted appraiser woman was thinking?
Oh well, they're painted. Beautiful fall day I could have been walking out in the woods, but I was painting a garage door and front steps.
Oct ober 12th thru October 18th, 2009
A beautiful autumn Sunday in Buffalo. Sunshine and cool autumn winds lighted up and caused the turning leaves to dance.
I went to a gallery showing of some fellow Buffalo photogtaphers Friday night and on the way home stopped by the Albright Knox and Buff State. This shot was taken from Albright Knox looking over across Elmwood to Rockwell Hall.
Buffalo's beauty is not hard to notice.
October 5th thru October 11th, 2009
Sage College in Albany,NY just off of New Scottland Road heading downtown. While Erin and Chris (daughter and son-in-law)lived in Albany, they lived not far from here and Chris attended Albany Medical College just down the road. It was a beautiful Autumn day in Albany, Sunday.
September 28th thru October 4th, 2009
I've missed a couple weeks of Plogs as I have been busier than a bear in a honeycomb working on shooting pictures in Albany and Syracuse. Additionally, work at my day job has been it's typical fun and games place. And, Elaine and I are moving soon so are packing up the house. Plus, PBase was down for days. I can't imagine the issues those guys must be experiencing to have a site like PBase down for days. Not good, guys. PBase must really be like a mom and pop shop. Oh well, I have too many photos on here to move so I'm going down with the ship. I got up early Saturday morning to catch this shot of the back side of the University at Buffalo's North Campus.
September 7th thru September 13th, 2009
This week I had the opportunity to reacquaint myself with some of the architecture on the West Side of Buffalo. The old First Presbyterian Church and Kleinhans Music Hall on Symphony Circle are two that were a part of my visits this week. I, for some reason am drawn to the curves of the portico on the entrance to Kleinhans. It's an amazing structure, but I'm not quite sure why the bell tower required such height on the church (see my Buffalo galleries). It seems a bit disproportional.
First Presbyterian Church.
Click here from more photos of
CHURCH
August 31st thru September 6th, 2009
We had a great family get together Sunday. Erin, Andy, Chase, Julie, Ben, Dad, Chris, Elaine and me. Hot dogs, tuna macaroni salad, and corn on the cob. How much more American can you get? After we the food we sat around the fire. Also Saturday, Elaine and I met some visitors from Germany and spent the afternoon and evening showing them Buffalo before they continued on the rest of thier 6 week tour of America. Johann and Irene...great people and we had lots of laughs.
August 17th thru August 23rd, 2009
We were sitting in my fathers front yard. There were six of us in chairs on the stone patio under the shade of huge towering Maple trees. This deer moved out from the edge of the wooded area on the west side of my fathers property and stood not more than 25 yards away from us. She stood right under a relatively tall apple tree and helped herself to apples off the ground. She stood there until Andre, Dad and Chris's Standard French Poodle, left his place next to my father and chased the intruding deer as far as his respect for the invisible fence around the yard would allow. The doe liked those apples so much that in the short time we sat there she returned four times; all to end in the same style chase.
August 3rd thru August 10th, 2009
This was the second week of a two week vacation. I had planned, in the two weeks, to spend a couple days on a bike ride out toward Batavia and Rochester, then Elaine and I were going to take a trip to NYC and Washington, DC. Well...I did neither of those. Instead, we bought a house. Yep, we're moving back to East Aurora/Elma. Actually the house is in Elma with an East Aurora mailing address.
We are not buying on contingency of selling our current house, but as I really don't think paying two mortgages is best for us right now, we spent all this second week of my vacation getting the current house ready to sell. Our plan is to stay in the current house and spend a little time tweaking the new house before we move in.
I did spend a lot of time on photography though, and it was profitable.
This shot from below the Oak Street off ramp downtown was shot early on Friday morning. I was right next to the City Mission and under the ramp overpass I found a couple sleeping on cardboard boxes sharing an old dirty blanket with Old Milwaukee Beer cans scattered all around. One of the other guys on the street said those two were going to sleep through the breakfast at the City Mission if they didn't get up soon. Not only are they homeless and jobless, but can't get up in time for a free breakfast at the City Mission. I sometimes find it hard to sympathize.
Still, I consider myself very lucky and know, but by the grace of God, that could be me, and I do owe something toward the assistance of these folks.
July 20th thru July 26th, 2009
This week at work was productive. We have good folks who want to work diligently. They are in tough positions, too, with the divestiture and all the uncertainty that situation fosters. Oh well, it's just business.
Elaine and I toured the USS Little Rock, a ship in the Buffalo Harbor that has become a permanent fixture in the Naval Park here. When I was in the Marine Corps, as a young CH-46 Helicopter pilot, in 1973 our squadron (HMM 264 The Black Knights, Call Sign "Leroy" (pronounced "Lee Roy")) was on a Mediterranean Tour. I was on the USS Guadalcanal and remember flying some CINCLANT Leaders to the USS Little Rock for a meeting. That was 36 years ago, now. Then I was a young 24 years old Marine Corps 1st Lieutenant, aircraft commander, cocky and self assured. It was strange to walk the flight deck and tour the ship with my wife after so many years. It was emotional for me. There were young kids with their parents escorting them through the check in process to a US Naval Sea Cadet Corps camp to be held onboard the ship for the next week. I remembered when this ship was really alive. The diesel smells are gone, the activity much more subdued, the ladders steeper and the passageways much narrower than I remember them.
This is a view of City Hall from the restored Commercial Slip of the Erie Canal on the waterfront near the Naval Park.
July 13th thru July 19th, 2009
This shot is from my neighbor's sidewalk about three houses down. It was a beautiful Saturday morning for July; sunny yet cool. I carried my camera and tripod to Amy's Place (really greasy spoon)up on Main Street where I enjoyed a comfortable breakfast. You have to be able to ignore a lot when you eat at Amy's. Our section of Buffalo is called the "University Heights" neighborhood. Really eclectic. Professors, judges, politicians, doctors, lawyers, bankers, students, unemployed, under privileged, thieves, sex offenders and criminals live in University Heights. The Buffalo Garden Walk tours our neighborhood; just weeks after the police picked a recent college graduate's body off the center of Main Street after being shot in the back over an argument concerning a girl. You need to lock your doors and some folks have alarm systems. We have a dog that barks but would lick you to death before biting you. The city has been a real learning situation for me..
