How did I get this way? Well the album following the jump will illustrate the whole evening. Here is the final installment of the St. Patty's Day weekend in Buffalo. These were taken by me mainly at the parade in Allentown - which is where we go each year for this event -. The usual suspects were there -with the exception of Mordiki and Paul- but you will see Anth, Dave Jeremy and a few new faces.

This album is very overdue for publishing but what can I say, it does take time to process all of these, plus I can get a bit lazy. These were taken at Buke and my house at our St. Patrick's Day party this year. My old man and Mr. Doyle came which was really cool, a number of friends from work as well as the regular Goonies. Check them out and feel free to make fun of us in the comments.

Anthony, my roommate Buke and I recently went to Philadelphia for a little R&R. While we were there we just had to spend some quality time with one of our childhood hero's - Rocky. Here is the pictures we took while hanging all over this classic statue.

I was going to wait until I had touched up all of the trip pics, but my Scottish friend Richard from the Movie Blog, just recently posted a story on the new Rocky Blog, so I figured I would toss them up on the site as is.

It has been a few weeks since I have been able to go out on the boat. The last trip out, I broke my rudder, but that was all fixed -thanks to Bill at Fleet 119-. My sister surprised me with a visit this weekend, so I decided to take her out for a ride on the Hobie. Sunday morning I get up and track Karen down. I also get Mordiki -my crew for the boat- to join us since he has had the most exposure to sailing the boat.

When we get to the boat, I put the rudder back on and prep it for launch. We take it down to the beach and raise the main. I was a bit worried about the weather, it had rained all morning and the wind was very strong. Lake Erie can be rather unpredictable, there were about 3 - 4 foot waves -if not larger- and I was slightly concerned about the sailing conditions. We were the only ones on the water, no one out on their boats for as far as the eyes could see. This meant that if an emergency was to happen, we would have been in dire stress.

Not to fear, I've been becoming a fine skipper and was very confident in my skills. I felt it would be safe to explore and pressed on out into the lake. The water was rough, I placed Karen in the middle of the boat to keep her out of the way and she was being splashed and pushed around by the waves coming over the bow. It was very intense, the boat was up on one hull and we were reaching speeds I have yet to reach. Suddenly the boat began to raise much to high. The mast was almost laying on the water and my sister had already slid off the middle of the boat. Mordiki bailed off the starboard hull, and I fell into the main sail. We had turtled the boat and been over powerd by the wind. Quickly Mordiki and I hopped up on the port hull and began tugging the writing line to lift the boat back. This was a very strenuous task. We tugged and tugged, Mordiki began screaming "I can't hold on, I am losing my grip!"

"Hold on man, it's coming up, I can see it, just a bit longer we can do it!" I screamed as my sister floated in the warter behind us. We finally got the boat righted and boarded it again. Now understanding the strength the wind had, I took a much more tender approach for the rest of the adventure.

After some time out in the lake, the wind picked up more and the waves grew larger. I felt that it was time to head back to shore. With our adrenaline still flowing madly through us, we sailed the "Blue Torpedo" back to shore and celebrated the most radical trip we've had yet.

So sorry for the delay, but I have been so busy these days moving into my new place (pictures of that coming soon). Well here they are, the long awaited pictures from our camping trip on the 4th.

The whole trip started off great, then after sailing with a few friends I broke a rudder coming back into shore. So the boat was out of commission for the rest of the trip. Still we all had a great time.

[See pic set after the jump]

This past Fourth of July a number of close friends and I went camping at Evangola State Park (pictures coming so check back) to hang out on the beach and of course do a little bit of sailing. I arrived on the 3rd in order to set up the camp site and prepare for the Holiday weekend of festivities. My Fleet was also having their 4th of July BBQ that day and my friends were invited to join in on the food and drink.

After introducing my gaggle of misfits to the rest of the fleet members and completed a bit of winch work on my boat trailer, I trackered the "Blue Torpedo" down to the beach and set the main. Now it was just a matter of choosing who I could take out for a pleasure cruise. Of course I never just go out for a pleasure cruise - each adventure on the water as of lately has brought some excitement and I was a bit worried about my cargo.

My buddy Pete and his girlfriend Kelly joined me and we headed out about 2 miles from shore in order to catch the offshore wind. This had proven to be successful -thanks to the tutelage of my fellow fleet members- and I was sailing with the strongest wind I have encountered before. At times we even had one hull out of the water and if Pete knew what to do, it would have bee trapeze time for him. Instead we just leaned into the port hull for counter weight and let Kelly man the Jib as she drug her feet along the rushing water.

After sailing back and forth a few times we decided to go back to shore so I could pick up a few new passengers for another pleasure cruise around the lake. Due to the wind I was heading into shore much faster than I was use to and was unclear on when to furl the Jib and pull up the dagger boards. Once I reached a close enough distance to shore I furled the Jib and pulled up the dagger boards, forgetting about the rudders. As I landed on the beach I heard a crack N' Snap which worried me. I knew it couldn't be good and that I shouldn't even turn around to look at what had broken, but I did and I saw that I had broken one of my rudders in half right at the gudgen.

I held my composure well - like all skippers should, because this is the nature of the sport and things will break when mistakes are made. Thanks to the assistance of my fleet, the rudders will be ready for this weekend, but for the rest of the camping trip there was no more sailing on the "Blue Torpedo".

Yesterday my boy Paul had a little get together at his place. Nothing major just some good friends, food, beer and some summer brew. It was good practice for the coming weekend, but I for one should have stopped around 6:00 - but noooo, I had to keep going, and getting into Paul's Johnny Walker Gold Label and getting completely hammered. So needless to say I was relatively useless at work today. But I don't think I was the only one suck'n them down lile Coca-Cola.

Today marked the first voyage of the new boat with my father aboard. It was fathers day and I decided to take the old man sailing. We arrived at the boat around 12:00 pm and sst sail shortly after. The wind was at approximately 7-9 with 1.5 - 2 ft waves on the lake. This was the most wind I have dealt since putting the boat in the water, but I remained confident in my newly acquired skills.

The boat was sailing well, we had good speed and were sailing towards Angola. I decided to tack to the opposite direction and sail farther up tide, this way if anything bad was to happen, we would at least be drifting in the direction of the beach we launched from. This approach was working well, we had great speed and at times we were very close to getting the starboard hull out of the water. A few hours of sailing and we found ourselves roughly a mile or two off shore. We were sailing with the wind on the port side when my father noticed the shroud on the port side swinging in the breeze and clanging on the trapeze wires. "That can't be good" my father points out with concerned question.

"No that's not good!" "Grab that quick!" I shout as I jump up immediately and drop the main sail and roll up the jib, we were in danger of losing the mast and if that was to come crashing down it would be difficult from stoping it from sinking to the bottom of the lake, or ripping my main sail in half.

This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of my favorite and one of the best movies ever filmed Jaws. Martha's Vineyard -filming location of the original film- is celebrating with Jaws Fest 05, and placing a life sized replica of the monster great white -carcaridon carcarious- named Bruce. In addition to showing off their new attraction Jaws Fest will display Amity Island just as in the 1975 film.

Jaws Fest begins as guests arrive by ferry or plane and are greeted with signage and banners welcoming them to AMITY ISLAND. Local businesses will again display their 1975 signage from the filming, and over 25 members of the original cast & crew return to Amity for a fabulous weekend celebration. See schedule of events for where and when to see cast & crew.

What a great idea! I only whish Anth and I could make it, we would go crazy there -it's our favorite movie of all time-. I'm also surprised that none of my daily read movie sites have mentioned this. I must be getting better at this stuff?

It's official, I've bought my fist sail boat, and it is all set up and ready to be sailed -all I need to do is learn how to sail-. I am now the proud owner of a 1979 -I like retro- 18' Hobie Cat, and the cool thing is that it is the same color as my first car. So I will be christening "The Blue Torpedo" this weekend. I have joined Fleet 119 right here in Buffalo and will be sailing out of Evangola State Park. Gonna be partying it up this summer on Sunset Bay and Angola with my new crew of Bukezilla, Mordiki and Anth. Ahoy!

Today is the day that I will be introduced to the world of Sailboat racing. I have agreed to become a member of a 9 man crew for a weekly racing team that meets on the waters of Buffalo. I am very excited about this. For some time now I have been trying to get into this sport, and now I finally can.

To make things even more exciting - I am purchasing my first boat this weekend. It is an 18' Hobie Cat and I will be storing it at Evangola State Park. Should be a very fun summer!

Those of you who have hung out in Buffalo's oldest Punk Rock bar the Continental, might recognize it's most famous employee Jesse. Ass kicker, bartender, talent booking, manager, store owner [second skin], real estate owner and coming soon night club owner. For years the underground community has been gossiping about the bar Jesse is building and finally our wait comes to a conclusion. Club Diablo is scheduled to have it's grand grand opening some time after May (you can get more information and updates on the clubs process at their web site).

This is great news for the city of Buffalo, which lives and breathes by it's constantly morphing night life. The demographic that the Continental attracts is a small percentage of the total liquor swilling population, and Club Diablo is not going to be the Continental part II. Diablo is for every one, a night club with an edge and surronded by creative design. At first glance you would never take Jesse as a successful entrepreneur, but with this mans previous track record of business ventures, Club Diablo is bound to be a favorite.

Stay informed and I'll see you on Washington Street.

Every year my friends and I take the Buffalo St. Paddy’s Day Parade very seriously. We don’t mess around; each year there is a new crazy story to tell and battle wounds to boot. This year I couldn’t get the following day off to recuperate, but I still made it out alive with only a minor headache at work today. I am trying to make up for the lack of pictures I took in Las Vegas, so I warn you there are many more in this collection. Check them out we had a great time.

As I mentioned before, I am back from Las Vegas and holly shit what a trip. I think we spent a few too many days there – at least that was what every one we met told us – five whole days in sin city, and let me tell you friend, 3 days would have sufficed. I would love to write all night about my experiences but I just don’t think I would do it justice, so instead I am just going to show you the pictures I took – when I could remember to bring my camera -. As you will see the majority of the pictures were took in the hotel room, so you will really have to use your imagination; but common who wants to lugg around a camera in Vegas baby.

It has been a few days since I last added to my weblog of random findings and rants, and for that I do apologize – of course I highly doubt I really need to -, but I have been working on a few things and that has eaten up much of my time. In addition to the things that have been taking my attention away from BerfNet, I am also packing for a week long journey to Las Vegas. Yes I had mentioned this trip in a prior posting, but for those of you who are new comers let me add a bit of back round to set the mood. I will be flying to Vegas with 8 –oh yes count them 8- of my old high school buddies to see just how much alcohol we can consume, how much money we can hand over, and exactly what type of trouble can we find while in Sin City. So needless to say I am pretty damn excited. We will be flying out of Buffalo tomorrow and landing in Vegas around 6:00pm. Then after finding the rest of the crew –not all of them are from Buffalo- we will settle in and then get right to the misbehaving –why waste time-. I was going to attempt to take my laptop with me on the voyage and blog while sobering up from the nights of too many Johnny Walker’s. But then I thought I don’t want to miss anything while farting around with my computer. I will be returning on Sunday of next week, and I do plan on publishing all of the pictures I take and a little blurb about what I can recollect. Catch ya later.

More people watch the Super Bowl than any other event on television. Each year fans huddle around their boob-tubes to watch the favorites dominate or the underdogs make history. This was the first year I can honestly say I had little interest in the outcome of the game, until I began to watch, and was surprisingly captured by the war that unfolded. I share a mild hatred for the Patriots, mainly because they dumbed Drew Bledsoe, and much for the same reason people hate the Yankees -I get tired of always seeing them win-. But I have a new found respect the the Patriots and their leader QB Bradey. Hell they are a dynasty, and you can not take that away, regardless of how you truly feel about the team. I would like to add that I wasn't really cheering for the Eagles, but on kick off, my feelings were that I did not want to see New England win. McNaab did not have an impressive game, he wasn't scrambling like we normally see him do, and his passing completions was un-regularly low. This was a deffensive game, which provided us with many hihlight reel type plays, and what was thought to be a kicking game certainly turned out to be a back and forth TD battle all the way to the end. My friends and I stayed in and drank a few brews, we were disapointed in the comercials -but the - and stayed up to watch the preview of American Dad -very funny-. All in all I would call it a successful Super Bowl on many levels. How was yours?

It is official, the boys and I are going to Las Vegas for the first week in March. This is going to be awsome -perhaps costly, but awsome none the less-. We will be leaving from Snowy Buffalo on Tuesday March 1st at 3:00pm. Then with a short 1hr layover in Atlanta -for coctails of course-, we continue to Las Vegas and arrive around 6:00pm. We will be staying at the Luxor -which is the big frick'n pyramid- for four nights. A number of years ago I went to Vegas and stayed at the Luxor, it is one of the cheaper hotels on the strip, but hey whats your walking legs for. Plus you save a few bucks to gample with. Oh yes there will be some serious gampling had. I don't know how much I am going to use for the casinos, but I am definitly going to hit up the tables a bit. Anth is quite the black jack player, so as long as I hang near him, I should be ok. But with the popularity of poker, I am going to want and try my hand at that as well -no pun intended-. I mean, we play a bit of texas hold'em from time to time, and I seem to do alright -I have walked out with more than I came with at least-, so we will have to see.
Also while on this trip, I will be spending some time with my brother Dave - who moved there years ago and I have yet to vist -. Dave just had a son in September, so I want to go hold'em and see his daughter Shelby.
To continue the reunions, my boys Jamie and Nick who live in Arizona are going to stop down for a few night to party it up with us, which is going to rock, since those were the guys I went to Vegas with the first time. So to sum up, I am going to be drunk, broke and tired on the Saturday we return, but as they say "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"!

What happened during your trip to Vegas?

Tonight Anthony, Paul and I are going to be heading up to the HSBC Arena to check out the Buffalo Bandits take on the Toronto Rock. I am very excited, we all played Lacrosse together in high school and have a very fond attatchment to the sport. This will be the Bandits first game of the season, so it should be a good one. Plus since there is no hockey, I think we will all appreciate the action.

Well for New Years Eve, I had a little get together at my house with some of my closest friends, and it was a blast. Here are a few pics from the night that I took on my digital camera. Most of them are just touched up a bit, but some I jazzed up, tell me what you think.

Mordiki, Anthony and Buke

 
For those who know me well -and not that well for that matter-, I have had a stiffy for sailboats. I have been trying to save some money to buy a used boat this year. Nothing to fancy but something in the range of 19-21 ft with a wheel. It would be awsome, going out with the crew and playing pirate on the weekends. Now a few week ago Anth and I went to the Bills game to see them spank the Rams, and I saw this old style Winnebago -which I thought was supper coo-. It looked a basic as could be, and was a classic, around 1976 was my guess. I like classic looking things; they have more character. So when we went to the game yesterday -in the snow and cold, but was a great time anyway-, we saw it again and thought it would be alot of fun to use one of those. So I have been mulling over the idea of going in on one as a friendly project btween some friends and I. Lets just hope there would still be room for the boat. -the RV thing is prob. just a fantasy, I have alot of those-

Well today is Friday and I was proposed the idea of hitting up a happy hour. So I guess the big question is, we should we go for happy hour today after work?

-Comments Damn it-

So the last month or so has been very strange. I'm going to try my best not to write to much about my X, since my friends told me it was a sissy winy thing to do, but hey; I figure I have to take off the gloves and not be inhibited about the topics I post on this blog, if I want it to be successful.
So back to the story. This weekend was a real winner. First work actually didn't drive me mad this week. Granted I still had times where I wanted to stand up and belt out my discontent with the company and the work I am doing, but I choke those feelings back, I think that is the more professional thing to do. As always when Friday rolls around, I am thankful for the workweek to be at its end. Then I immediately charge through the house gathering my things for a weekend at my buddies Anthony and Mordiki's place. See this year I have been living at home with the fam, so needless to say when it isn't a work night, I am out never to return until Sunday night. It's a needed escape from the constant questions and orders. Each weekend is planned to be 2 nights of drunken merriment and you cant forget about darts. But sometimes this doesn't happen, especially when my friends and I are the world biggest procrastinators and lazy bones.
Night 1 was spent at one of our favorite holes in the wall Bruners. Everyone has to have their favorite hole in the wall bar, the place that you are always comfortable, you get drinks for free, and on the rare occasion there might actually be women in the bar, but of course you never actually talk to them.
Then on day 2, the crew went off to a Buffalo icon, The Old Pink. Way back in my fathers days of drunken flirt days the bar was know as the Pink Flamingo, and famous for their steak sandwiches and hookers. But today it is better known for the steak sandwiches and normally good music, but on this weekend day 2 it was emo night, and I hate emo. Nothing but wimpy winning pussies signing about love and gray rainbows. Despite the musical selections we hung out and took the night for what it was, simply a laid back time with some beers, the boys and a crushed velvet picture of the king of rock and roll. The next stop was not to far, we ventured over to the Brick Bar right next store, which I now feel was the best move of the night. The bar was filled with a great mix of people, and at the level of intoxication I was at; I was in prime form for some ladies man one-liners. Just kidding, I have never been one for cheesy notes.
It's strange, at times I know everyone has tried to hard to impress, and it ends up failing every time, but when you are at the moments of nonchalant and unaware you can shine. And it was in this mode that I met someone. Now lets not get carried away here, I certainly didn't get lucky or wake up next to some stranger, but I did hang out with some new people, and gave me something new to think about besides what my X might be doing.
This morning I woke up differently than I have since the release. Well as soon as I cleaned off the hangover and had some hair of the dog, I didn't think of anything depressing at all. Finally light at the end of the tunnel, and a clear sense that every thing is going to be OK. Now that I think about it, that tunnel wasn't so long.

Sunday, some friends and I went to the Ralph and watched the Bills trounce all over the St. Louis Rams. What a game, 3 touchdowns in the 3rd quarter, 4 turnovers, and a punt return for a TD. We had a blast, and I am so happy that I was able to make a game this season. I almost thought I wouldn't this year. Of course we are going to try and make it to the Cleveland game, since I know we don't have a prayer against the Steelers.

What do you do? Well I can tell you what we are doing. A bunch of us are going to check out the Rochester Americans aka the Amerks at Buffalo's HSBC arena on Friday this week. The 7:35 p.m. contest is the first of two in Buffalo for the Amerks during the 2004-05 American Hockey League season. So with no hockey to watch on the tube, and ofcourse in the spirit of keeping myself busy; GO AMERCS !!