The thing about parking

I would just like to thank the guy who parked his little grey car outside my house. He parked it in front of my tragically narrow shared driveway and now neither my neighbors or I are going anywhere. My neighbor tried to leave first, honking her horn at first, hoping the park job was a quick fix. But on a Sunday at 11 a.m. no one wants to knock on every door in the neighborhood. After about 20 minutes of deliberation she resorted to calling the cops.

An hour or so later...
The cops came, gave the car a ticket and said the driver was from out of town aka likely college student. He assured us the tow truck was "en route" and he left.

Three hours later...

The police tow truck came. It hooked the car up, pushed it four feet, just enough to get it out of the path of the driveway and left it. Then it left.

Seriously? You've not only thrown a wrench in the day of one house full of people, but two, and all you get is a ticket? At any given moment there are no less than 60 cars parked on our street and somehow everyone else manages to avoid parking in front of the pathetic little driveways.

What's worse, the driver didn't return for the car until the next day meaning had we not called, we could have been stuck through Monday...eeek.

What really puzzles me about situations like this, is how confused the driver must have been when he returned to see a ticket on his car for parking poorly, when his car was now legally parked thanks to Mr. Tow Truck. Hmmm.



I'm sure the ticket was bad enough. Having your car towed would stink. But now that I think of it, being trapped in your house half the weekend stinks too... Maybe I'll send the photos to this website .

The thing about snow

This just in:

Lake Effect Snow Warning tonight: 6"-12" snow expected in the next 24 hours.

On Friday it was 70°F/21°C and I had the windows open. Monday we're expecting 6" of snow. What a difference a weekend makes.

Only in Western New York.


Technical difficulties have kept me from updating for the last few days. My apologies, we'll be back online soon.

The thing about Halloween part 2

This post has been delayed a bit due to technical difficulties when first published. Oh well. Enjoy the pics.

Two days before Halloween I was in the mood to carve pumpkins. Like decorating a Christmas tree before the holidays, it just seems like part of the obligatory festivities. We headed to Wegmans, my fav grocery store, (they should really pay me considering the amount of publicity I give them) to purchase said pumpkins.

Unlike hanging ornaments, you can't carve pumpkins too prematurely because, well, they'll rot. I figured two days in advance would keep the decomposition smell to a minimum when children dressed as zombies eventually came banging down our doors in search of high fructose corn syrup.

When we arrived, we were startled to discover there were NO PUMPKINS.

Zero. Mind you, this is a store that has fresh sushi and stuffed cornish hens in stock 24-hours a day and started stocking pumpkins in September---and now, two days before the big event and there are NO pumpkins?! They even had those teeny, wimpy pie-making pumpkins for sale in the veggie aisle, but nothing worth carving!?

What's worse, the customer service people said most of their stores within a 10-mile-radius were completely sold out. They didn't even have those great little pumpkin carving knives left over. Incredible. If Wegman's doesn't have it...no one will. Tragic.

Pumpkin shortage hits Western New York.

I started to regret not having bought a pumpkin at the Great Pumpkin Farm back in early October. Come Thursday we were about to throw in the towel, but my landlord had placed 5 (FIVE!!!) un-carved pumpkins on the porch and they were very tempting.

Lucky for us our landlord supports Obama and likes "spreading the wealth around." Specifically the pumpkin wealth.

We snagged two pumpkins and since neither us nor our landlord were going to be home to hand out candy, I carved one pumpkin with a helpful arrow for neighborhood children encouraging them to head to the next house.

Unfortunately, come sun down on Halloween, the first floor neighbor rang our doorbell and told us he was planning on handing out candy. Oops.

We suggested turning the arrow towards the house for good measure. Alas. It was fun while it lasted!

The thing about pumpkins

A few weeks ago I mentioned a pie eating contest at the Great Pumpkin Farm in Clarence, NY. I was at the GPF covering The World Pumpkin Weigh-Off. I met a handful of really interesting folks whose principal hobby is growing ridiculously large pumpkins. They meet for competitions, sell winning seeds and exchange tips and war stories about growing ridiculously large pumpkins.

Like many hobbies, giant pumpkin growing can be a time-consuming activity. Here are some details:

1. To grow a giant pumpkin you must dedicate between 1-3 hours a day. Activities include, watering, weeding, fertilizing (never underestimate that last part,) and in one man's case, playing his pumpkin heavy metal music.

2. To grow a giant pumpkin you must plant early. We're talking March or April. Get those seeds in your favorite greenhouse or put them on top of your fridge to get them warm and sprouting. From there, various transfers might be necessary---especially in Western New York, where the weather can include hail, snow, ice, wind or rain nearly all year round.

3. Get the family involved. Naming your pumpkin might increase its self-confidence and speed up its growth.

4. Come October, dust off your forklift, oh wait, no forklift? Call a bunch of your heftiest friends and offer them beer to help move your gargantuan squash. If you've followed the above steps, your pumpkin probably weighs over 500lbs (226kls).

5. Decide what you're going to do with Your Pumpkin afterwards. Save the seeds? Genetics is important, after all. Carve it? Hide your children inside?...it's up to you.


Now that you know everything you need to grow a giant pumpkin, how about some motivational photos from the event?


That's 981 lbs., for those of you paying attention to the scale.

Transportation is an important consideration as well...


For those of you who don't succeed...well, 10lbs isn't so bad either.
The winner at 1075lbs.