(click on images for full view – photos by Andrew Golebiowski)
The Solemnity of Corpus Christi was celebrated on Sunday June 26, with a Holy Mass in Polish and English at 11:30a.m. at Corpus Christi Church.
A traditional outdoor Procession with the Blessed Sacrament to four altars will followed immediately afterward.
HT Andrew Golebiowski for some awesome photos!!!
Click if U Mad, Bro.
After seven months of handcuffs, venue changes, endless legal filings and a surreal oral argument session we can finally be assured that it is legal to say ‘Thank you,’ to an elected official in Genesee County. I want to thank all of the people who provided moral support during one of the most difficult and emotionally draining periods of my life. Most of all, I want to thank my father for telling me not to let these people fuck with me. The day he found out about this farce, he sat with me, listened to me and said, ‘You can’t back down, you have to take this all the way.’ I did, and I won.
Ewok Pics? Yeah, I have those.
There will be much more on this subject, I promise. For now though, I just want to enjoy being able to walk into a room without someone asking me how ‘that thing’ is going.
By the way, Genesee County has a new website and there doesn’t seem to be a way to find your legislator’s contact information. If that bothers you, get in touch with me. We’ll raise hell about it; I’m actually allowed to do that again.
A proud day for all New Yorkers
A week ago, marriage was legalized in New York State. I will no longer call it ‘gay marriage’ because the law doesn’t make distinctions based on sexual orientation; can I get an , ‘Amen?!’. Congratulations to all the people who will soon be able to celebrate their love. I’m sorry it took so long.
As far as I know, the upcoming nuptials between people with identical naughty parts hasn’t caused the imminent implosion of morality in America. The reality is that marriage isn’t about sex (insert tired, overused joke here.) Marriage is about love and respect. Marriage is a difficult and rewarding institution where two people try their best to honor each other for a lifetime. Good luck to those citizens of New York who are ready to take on that responsibility and thank you to all of those who fought so hard to make marriage a reality.
I’m going to indulge myself and talk about hockey, because I love it and this year there’s a whole lot more to love about the Sabres. Free agency starts today and the Buffalo Sabres are going to be serious players. When is the last time a a Buffalo hockey fan could say that without being consumed by uncontrollable laughter?
I’m in man-love with Terry Pegula right now. Not because he bought the team from an absentee owner, or because he made huge promises to the fans and not because he brings his dog to the arena and lets the furry little bastard insinuate himself into press scrums. I dig this guy because he bought the team from an absentee owner and he made huge promises to the fans and he brings his dog to the arena and lets the furry little bastard insinuate himself into press scrums. On top of all that he kept the promises and, in just about three months, changed the perception people had of our hockey team entirely. He has sent a message to players in the NHL that Buffalo is a destination city and, if we want you, we’ll do what’s necessary to get you.
The two newest Sabres acquisitions are Robyn Regehr and Christian Ehrhoff. Here’s what you need to know about them:
Regehr:
Think the Sabres defense was a little soft last year? Meet Robyn Regehr. That video was the gritty defensive defenseman’s trifecta.
1: Embarrass oppostiion player by cramming him into his own bench while his backup goalie watches, horrified.
2: Give him a love tap on the nose while he’s sprawled, defenseless over the boards.
3: Smile while he bitches to the refs.
Bonus: No penalty
Ehrhoff:
Ehrhoff is an offensive defenseman at the peak of his prime. He’s proven he can score when it counts and his last two years in the league have been his best yet. His +/- rating is +74 for his career and +55 since 2009. If you liked the addition of Jordan Leopold to our team this year, then buckle your seatbelt.
I love that the Sabres started their off season with the acquisition of two, top-four, defensmen. For years, fans have been griping that our team isn’t hard to play against. That has changed drastically in the last week and free agency hasn’t even started yet. Whatever the Sabres end up doing today, I can’t wait for October.
Sleeper Cell, Hockey Style.
Terry Pegula has been getting a ton of deserved credit for this new excitement about the Sabres, but I’d like to say something about Darcy Regier as well. For all the mud that has been slung at Darcy over the years, I don’t think there’s a single person out there who can bring up a legitimate beef with him since Pegula purchased the team. This leads me to believe that Regier is simply a good employee and that’s not a sin, no matter how much you love your hockey team. Under Knox and Rigas, Darcy made some deals (Grosek to Chicago for Gilmour and Dumont has always stuck in my head as one of the great deals in recent Sabres history) that helped the Sabres immensely. Under Golisano, he wasn’t idle, he just did what made sense money-wise. There were quite a few busts during that era, but let’s not forget that Drury and Briere made fiscal sense and helped give us a couple of the best years the franchise has ever had.
Now that Terry Pegula is in charge, Darcy has a new directive and he’s performing admirably. I can’t help but wonder if Regier was the perfect GM to have in place when the Pegula era began. There doesn’t seem to be an ego problem, just a, ‘Yes, Boss,’ mentality that gets ownership what it wants. Darcy has worn a few different hats in his role as GM over the years, but I think I like this one the best.
Not Yours.
1. There won’t be a new Peace Bridge. After what – 12, 13 years‘ worth of planning, threats, lies, and nonsense, the aging span won’t have a modern or signature companion span. The real signature of Buffalo is our inability and unwillingness to change anything, ever. In other words, Buffalo’s real signature bridge is the existing 1912 span of steel – a symbol of past glories and past progress. What we will be getting is a newer inspection plaza – but not so big that it upsets any of the people who made the conscious decision to purchase real estate within walking distance of a major interstate highway and multilane international car and truck crossing (see: “coming to the nuisance“) . A prediction I made three years ago has finally come true. Lesson: in WNY, never bet on progress.
2. The Erie Canal terminus food shack is opening today at 1:30. Believe it or not, elected officials such as Byron Brown (he who is single-handedly blocking construction of a restaurant at the Naval Museum next door) and Chris Collins (who detests everything and everyone) will be there to celebrate and cheer the historic opening of a building that is dwarfed by Little League clubhouses throughout the country.
3. Congratulations to Nick Mendola and his F.C. Buffalo Blitzers for the great turnout the other night, and for winning the “Lord Bedlington Cup” in a friendly match against the Bedlington Terriers. I regret not having been able to attend, but hope to check out a game or two in the near future.
4. There was another great turnout last night at the Bisons game for recovering Buffalo Police officer Gary Sengbusch. Just weeks ago, people were excited that he was in any way responsive. He’s on the way to recovery and last night’s game was a huge fundraiser for him. There’s something to be said about injured Americans needing a fundraiser in order to pay medical bills and rehabilitation costs, but let’s just be happy that Mr. Sengbusch is doing well.
People often ask, so here’s the answer: a Mark V VW GTI. In orange, please, just like Annie’s from Everything Annie Likes. It’s the car I covet. Read the original Car and Driver review/drive report here. — Jim Corbran, You Auto Know 2007 VW GTi
7/1/2011
I have a voracious appetite for internet memes, video, podcasts, news and analysis, so each morning I’ll share several links that you can consume during your “morning grumpy”.
1. Van Jones, liberal firebrand, has started a new movement you should give a shit about. It’s called “Rebuild The Dream“. It’s the liberal answer to the Koch-funded Tea Party. I’ll let Van explain the three pillars of the movement. Check it out.
2. This conversation at Forbes is about Detroit, but it might as well be about any rust belt city.
3. The Sunlight Foundation has created some excellent tools to increase government transparency, including something called the Influence Explorer. The tool shows that Bank of America is among the heaviest investors in Congress. Bank of America made $3,613,051 in campaign contributions in the 2009-10 election cycle, 62 percent of which went to Republicans. Read about how much other banks and investment firms have donated to influence policy.
4. In the current economic recovery, 88% of national income growth has gone to corporate profits while just 1% has gone to wages. Wow.
5. Have kids? You’ve undoubtedly read them the book “Goodnight Moon“. Here is the backstory of the meandering, royalty-funded life of the guy who inherited the rights to the book.
6. Contrary to what Republicans keep repeating on all those “liberal media” channels, Americans are fine with raising some taxes along with cutting spending in a bid to cut the deficit and the debt.
7. Still think Fox is “Fair and Balanced”? Well, let this be proof that it was never intended to be anything but a GOP propaganda machine. Seriously.
8. Keith Olbermann says goodbye to Glenn Beck. Fantastic.
9. Reading material for the weekend, The Atlantic highlights the 14 Biggest Ideas of the year.
It was easy to understand why so much attention was given to the defensive additions made by the Bills in the 2011 NFL draft. With seven of the nine picks used on defensive players it was a natural...
There’s something a grandmother from Cheektowaga, a University at Buffalo student and 48 others savored Thursday morning: freedom.
This is the second part in my ongoing series about the ins and outs of our CSA, Thorpes Organic Family Farm:
Last week, I wrote about an abundance of garlic scapes. This week the wife and I had an overload of a much more familiar food 
item: strawberries. We got a little carried away picking our own and came home with 20 quarts of fresh organic strawberries. After an initial gorging left us red of face and hand, we still found ourselves with about 18 and 1/2 quarts of strawberries mocking us from the top shelf of our fridge– ok, only 14 fit, so some had to be processed immediately…
One important thing to remember whenever processing strawberries is to always pick or purchase more than your recipes call for, as the rate of snacking attrition can be immense. Berries to be eaten fresh aside, we processed the berries in three different ways: dehydrating, freezing, and jams/marmalades. In the interest of weirdness, we decided to skip making plain strawberry jam, although the recipes we used can easily be modified to make a plain strawberry jam. We intend to trade some of our strawberry lavender jam with local designer Jon Furman of derailleur who went picking with us and made his own jam.
I’ll start with the simplest process: freezing.
1: Wash strawberries and remove tops and any spoiled spots
2: Cover a cookie sheet in wax paper and place the strawberries on the tray so that they don’t touch one another (the berries should be relatively dry, but unless they are dripping, you don’t need to actively dry them)
3: Place in freezer over night
4: Put berries into a freezer bag
The next simplest process was, dehydration.
1: Thoroughly wash berries and remove tops and any spoiled parts. (The directions we used said to wash with vinegar as the berries will be warmed, but not enough to kill germs. If you do wash with vinegar, rinse the berries until you are absolutely sure that any trace of vinegar has been washed away and then rinse some more.)
2: Place the berries on a dehydrator rack that you borrowed from your mother-in-law* (*supplies may vary)
3: Dehydrate overnight
4: Remove from dehdrator and place in dry packaging like a jar (a lot of the berries stuck to the tray and we found best success poking at them from beneath with a chop stick)
The dehydrated berries can then be used all winter in cereal, oatmeal, added to biscuits, and, of course, trail mixes. The Mrs. plans to add hers to herbal teas as well. We experimented with powdering some along with chocolate in our coffee grinder to make strawberry mochas; the results of the experiment were mixed. The flavor of the beverage was extraordinary, but the powdered berries separated from the rest of the drink to make a strange slick on top, requiring regular and vigorous stirring. If anyone else has tried to make a powdered-strawberry beverage with more success, please let me know how in the comments.
Lastly, we made the jams and marmalades.
Our first recipe was a Balsamic Strawberry and Pink Peppercorn Jam:
12 Cups Strawberries
1- 1.75 Ounce Package Powdered Fruit Pectin1/2 teaspoon butter
3 and 1/2 cups honey (or sugar)*
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup pink peppercorns
1: Place 12 cups of strawberries in a large pot and crush (I used my hands, but you can use a potato masher, or even a food processor)
2: Stir in the pectin, vinegar and the butter and bring to a rolling boil. Stir constantly.
3: Once boiling, add the honey (or sugar) and peppercorns. Once the pot has returned to a rolling boil, let it boil for one minute. Remove from the heat and skim the foam.
4: Ladle the jam into jars (sterilize and pre-heat the jars). Leave 1/4 inch of head-space and attach lids.
5: Process jars for 5 minutes, and allow to cool slowly.
Well this post is running a bit long, so I’ll wrap it up next week by finishing the tales of the strawberries, giving you an update on our scape infestation, and a look into the world of a lavender addict.
*The Mrs. and I prefer our jams and marmalades on the tart side, so we end up using less sugar than most recipes call for. If you like sweeter jams and marmalades you can increase the amount of sugar up to about double what we use.
Welcome to the Canada Day Live Chat. A whole bunch of people will be stopping by throughout the day to react to whatever July 1 brings us and you’re invited, too.
We’re opening up at 10 a.m., a full two hours before the levees on the free agent floodgates break.
Join us, won’t you?
You can get to the chat through this link, too.
By Chris
Forget what you thought you knew. These are Terry Pegula’s Sabres and that’s become quite clear in the last week.
When Pegula and Ted Black rolled into town on February they made some fancy promises, rolled out some new marketing slogans and catchphrases — “Hockey Heaven,” “Winning Is Not A Goal, It Is A Belief,” “The Chains Are Off,” “Jump On The Bandwagon Now Because We’re Going To Be Super Awesome” (OK, I kind of made that last one up, but not really) — and shared their big ideas that just so happened match up pretty well with the big ideas of their team’s fans.
In the small amount of time they controlled the team during the season, they made some nice improvements to the game presentation and made heading down to the arena feel like an event, especially for that Fan Appreciation Night.
We got a glimpse of what they wanted to do with the roster when they took on Brad Boyes at the deadline, a relaitvely expensive player who still had another year left on his contract. New ownership gave Darcy Regier the “OK” to look beyond the rentals when he went shopping. We saw that again this week.
Robyn Regehr had a no movement clause in his contract. If Darcy Regier had been encouraged to go after higher profile players with fancy clauses in their contracts under the old regime, I’m pretty sure we would have heard about it at some point. Suddenly, he’s got new bosses who encourage him to do what he feels is best for the hockey club and suddenly he’s making calls about players who are, by contract, untouchable.
Next thing you know, Lindy Ruff and Pegula are on a plane to convince Regehr that Buffalo is the right place for him. And then Regehr accepted the trade. That’s a big deal for Buffalo fans. We have a major inferiority complex. There’s an effort from the top of the organization on down to improve the hockey club and it’s showing.
Homegrown products Drew Stafford and Nathan Gerbe are now signed on for the next few seasons at very reasonable prices to show that “Old Darcy” — Smeagol, if you will — still cares about holding onto his own guys. Oh yeah, the Sabres bought the Rochester Americans last week, too, so they control the pipeline. That’s pretty cool.
And “New Darcy” — I guess that would make him Gollum — came kicking down the door with an AK-47 in each hand and took aim at Christian Ehrhoff, who might be the best defensemen about to hit unrestricted free agency. Darcy traded for Ehrhoff’s rights and nailed down a 10-year, $40 million contract less than 24 hours later.
The Sabres defense went from young and iffy to rough and solid (at least on paper) faster than Jaromir Jagr’s plane ride back to the States.
But do you want to know the best part about “New Darcy?” He’s not done yet. So much for #DoSomethingDarcy.
And that brings us to today. The Sabres are already better and the free agent market is still closed. Now trades are still a possibility and Regier has shown with the Regehr deal that he still has the ability to put a pretty good package together for guys he really wants.
So with that, we’re looking at a new era in Sabres history. The team doesn’t operate like we’re used to. They operate now like the teams that Sabres fans used to envy when it came to chasing premier players, even if the pursuit didn’t prove to be successful.
If the Sabres sign Brad Richards, that’s awesome. No matter the price, they’re a better team down the middle with him in the lineup. Of course, there could be salary cap issues in the final few years of the contract, but in the relative near-future (the next three or four years), Richards puts the Sabres closer to their goal of winning a Stanley Cup.
If they don’t sign him, then at least they’ll almost certainly be among the teams that tried. The fact that their name is realistically in the conversation to sign the top free agent out there is a big deal. Until February, it would sound crazy to talk about any free agent more prominent than an Eric Belanger (who’s not a bad player, but he’s certainly not elite).
Things are different now. The check book is open and the only limit is the salary cap.
Email: chris@thegoosesroost.com
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For the record, the title of this post was almost “Djarcy Unchained” but I figured too many people would think I’d made a mistake.
Jun 26 (Bulletin)
(click om image to view bulletin)
Benderson Development was the only firm that responded to an Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation (ECHDC) request for proposals (RFP) to redevelop the Donovan Building at the foot of Main Street. Ellicott Development is said to have expressed interest in the site but did not submit a proposal. Ciminelli Development was also interested but objected to the submittal requirements and claimed the RFP afforded "unique advantage and favor to one or more entities with whom the ECHDC has had extensive private negotiations in the past few years- namely Benderson Development." One of the more onerous requirements was that commercial proposals had to demonstrate that 25 percent of the building's space was pre-leased.
The eight-story former Donovan State Office building contains approximately 160,000 square feet of developable space. The site, which borders Main Street, Washington Street, Scott Street and the on-ramp to the I-190, is approximately 2.3 acres.
Benderson is expected to have teamed with Clark Construction Group based in Maryland on the project. Clark is the largest privately-held construction firm in the U.S. and has completed over 100 million sq.ft. of interior building construction since 1969 with substantial experience working with law firms.
Law firm Phillips Lytle is interested in anchoring the Benderson project after its lease expires at HSBC Center. It would occupy the top four floors of the Donovan Building.
"Our Firm's Partners recently voted in favor of entering into a lease with Benderson Development to relocate our Buffalo offices to the Donovan Building site in the Canalside area of downtown Buffalo when our current lease expires at the end of 2013," said David J. McNamara, Phillips Lytle LLP Managing Partner. "The lease is contingent on Benderson being awarded development rights in the RFP process that is being conducted by the current owner of the Donovan Building, the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation. We are thrilled by the prospect of continuing our 176-year presence on lower Main Street and contributing to the next step in the redevelopment of the Canalside district."
Development proposals were required to include at submission a $250,000 deposit. Once selected, expected in mid-July, Benderson must increase the deposit to $1,000,000. Barring lawsuits, construction on the Donovan re-do must begin by December 15, 2011 or the deposit is forfeited. Work must be complete by January 1, 2014.
Work has started on repairing Corpus Christi Church’s beautiful Radziewicz pipe organ.
As many of you may know, our organ had extensive water damage from a storm in the fall of 2009. This affected 2/3 of the Swell Division of our historic instrument, and caused “pulling” of many pipes, and continuous ciphers in the organ. There was also damage to the leather pneumatics or pouches that allow air to pass into the pipes and to the reservoir that holds air within the organ.
The cost of repair is in the range of $37,000.00, and will be covered by our insurance policy. Another $5,000.00 worth of work will be done on major problems in other areas of the instrument.
These repairs are needed to prevent further catastrophic damage to the organ and the blower. This will be covered by the Phase II Preservation Fund that has been established at Corpus Christi.
The organ will be unavailable for use during a portion of the summer months, starting this week. We are blessed to not only have a wonderful pipe organ, but also a fine piano in our church for sung prayer, and Eucharistic Liturgies.
A concert is being planned for the first Sunday of Advent to celebrate, and give thanks for the repair
of the Radziewicz pipe organ in our church.
Great news!!!
