Super Sweet Shirt Co.

Super Sweet Stuff Review: Roku 2 HD Streaming Player

2012-02-13T22:27:00.002-05:00

A few weeks back, I bought myself the Roku 2 HD streaming player for my entertainment needs. I say "I bought myself" the item because Nicole doesn't care about cool electronic devices, in fact she totally hates them. The Roku HD streaming player runs about 60-100 bucks on amazon depending on which model you buy, I bought the least expensive model (the more expensive models didn't have an features I was interested in). The player itself is about the size of a hockey puck and comes with a simple and small remote.

The main reason I wanted this device was for Amazon's Prime Streaming service. The Xbox 360 doesn't have an app available to watch Amazon's service so unless I wanted to watch on my computer, I was out of luck. This device has the Amazon app. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, basically Amazon offers a service called "Amazon Prime". It runs about $70.00 a year and gets you free 2 day shipping on any orders, and $3.99 1-day shipping. If you order things on Amazon a lot, this service pays for itself quickly. Now here is the real kicker. Included in your membership at no extra cost, is Amazon's streaming service, which is comparable to the Netflix streaming service. No extra cost. It rules. With the Roku box you can watch all of this entertainment in HD on your TV.
The Roku box runs hundreds of apps like Pandora, Facebook, Netflix, etc and also allows private apps, which are apps that are developed my other people that Roku doesn't recognize or endorse, but offers the freedom for developers to make their own channels. It is pretty awesome. There are plenty of channels that offer free movies of all kinds, all unedited, all in HD. There really is no need for cable TV these days unless you are the kind of person that watches 50 different cable shows religiously. If I could get hockey in HD without subscribing to cable or satellite, I would no longer be a customer.

Now for the negatives. This device does a ton of cool things, but it has its flaws. First off, you can't network it to other devices in our house and play files from them. There are third party apps that allow this but its a pain in the ass and they don't work well. The other major thing that annoys me is that sometimes the Roku will freeze up while your browsing an app. It's not a big deal you just back out of the app and go back in, but it does get annoying sometimes. I've done some research on this, and it's a common problem that Roku has been working to fix for a future software update.
All in all, this item is worth the money. With new apps added all the time this little box offers huge entertainment at a super low price. I'm enjoying it.

Sabres "Fans"

2012-02-11T14:12:00.000-05:00

Last night the Sabres took out Dallas in overtime. In super exciting fashion, the Sabres scored 5 minutes into the third to come within one. With most of the third period left, and a Sabres team getting hot, the crowd got insane. They got completely out of control! It was like when the Bills beat the Patriots in 2011. Actually no. It was super embarrassing. Hordes of people got out of their seats....and headed to the exits. Normally I don't curse on this blog, but what the fuck is this? Stay at home. We don't want you at the games. What is the point of going out to the games, sitting on your asses in silence, and then leaving early when the team is rallying from behind? I wish Time Warner upon all of their homes.

2012 Site Design and some random notes...

2012-02-06T22:25:00.000-05:00

I've decided to change up the main website over at http://www.supersweetshirts.com . There are no visible changes yet, but soon I will have them published. Every year I change it up, it's nothing major, I just need to keep things fresh. I started redesigning some things today.
Now, for some random ramblings. We watched "50/50" last night. It was great and I am a gigantic baby. If you are unfamiliar with this movie, it stars Seth Rogan and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The film is about two friends, one of which (Levitt) is diagnosed with a rare for of cancer; a tumor near his spine. Sounds depressing? It totally is and I was sobbing like a baby. I'm not good at holding back tears during super sad movies which is why I hate watching them, but this one I took exception to. It is definitely worth watching and probably a breakout performance for (Levitt) who seems to get more impressive as an actor every time I see him.

Now it's time to rant about Chuck Norris. I respect Chuck Norris, he is a legendary action hero. As you may have heard, The Expendables 2 is PG-13 because Chuck Norris has a problem with language. From what I have read, Stallone insists that it's just the language that was cut out, and that its still an ass kicking action film. And sure, the DVD will probably be more violent or there will be some sort of director's cut, and that's fine. I still have a problem with Chuck Norris throwing his weight around, protecting his "brand". First off, young kids are no longer looking up to him, I'm not sure who he is protecting here. His brand spawned from an ongoing joke about how he's the toughest man on earth. After this stunt, he is forever tarnished in my eyes. There are plenty of dudes that could kick his ass. Dudes like:

Arnold and Carl Weathers could kick his ass. I mean look at this.

Dolph Lundgren could kick Chuck Norris's ass. I didn't see Chuck Norris cast as "He-Man", that's because he doesn't have what it takes.

Bolo. (No words are needed here)

I'm not Irish....but if i were, I'd fancy this shirt.

2012-02-02T17:44:00.001-05:00

Time for a cheap plug. St. Patrick's day is approaching with it's parades, drunken escapades, and yes, witty t-shirts. I have been doing shirts for over 5 years now, and every year I mean to do a St. Patrick's day shirt, but I totally forget. This year, I have not! Nicole had a pretty cool idea using the "Mad Lib" format with the shirt. I got pretty excited at the idea, but I probably should have looked at a Mad Lib again before jumping the gun. I haven't seen one since i was a kid, so what I pictured in my head was totally off, causing me to royally waste a screen. I'm an idiot.

So I design the shirt with my flawed mental image of a Mad Lib, make the screen, do the print, and send a picture of it to Nicole. At this point, I'm pretty excited about the new shirt. She texts me back saying that it looks cool however its not what she had in mind. She explained to me that a Mad Lib would have the "Verb" under the blank line. Of course it would....how would you fill in the blank line with something already in it...dammit! So I had to go back and make some corrections so that my new shirt would make sense.

So here it is! Get it for St. Patrick's day festivities!

Project: Curtains

2012-01-31T15:30:00.000-05:00

Nicole and I took off Monday because neither of us felt like working after the Royal Rumble party. What a perfect day to complete a project. A few weeks ago, Nicole had ordered some fabric online for some curtains she was planning on making for the second floor landing. Curtains can be really expensive depending on what you want, we figured we would make them ourselves and get exactly what we want for a fraction of the cost.

We ran to Target and picked up a curtain rod for the window on the second landing. Slowly, we are starting to bring life to different areas in the house.

This is the fabric that Nicole picked up online.


We needed a big space to spread the fabric out so we moved the couch and made our measurements marking the floor with white tape so that it was easy to identify the marks for cutting.

You don't have to be a sewing master to make these, we picked up two rolls of hemming tape. Its simple to use, you just stick one end to the fabric, fold it over and iron the area for 20 seconds. It went pretty smooth for Nicole who can get angry quickly. I was amazed that she didn't throw the iron through the window. She didn't get angry once.

After we finished the first curtain, the second wasn't nearly as tough because we sort of had a system down.

Simple curtain clips from Target.

Boom.

2012-01-30T17:29:00.000-05:00

Last night was Royal Rumble night. I have been a wrestling fan for as far back as I can remember, literally. I have memories of being very young, and watching Hulk Hogan with my great grandmother who had a picture of him in her house. She loved him, and although I have grown to hate Hulk Hogan, that event of watching it over where she lived set the stage for an obsession that has not gone away and most likely will never. I don't particularly like the WWE as much these days, but I still watch and pay attention. TNA is my favorite promotion. Enough of that, lets get into last night.

Usually the wrestling PPV events at my house consist of my soon-to-be brother in-law Bill and our friend Doug. Last night we had 14 people, it was pretty ridiculous but extremely awesome. The fact that you can get 14 people in one room to watch wrestling brings a smile to my face. Nicole read online, from one of the many blogs she reads, about setting up a baked potato bar. That idea was genius. We grabbed a big bag of baked potatoes, some chili, cheese, sour cream, butter, and bacon.

I whipped up a carrot cake last minute for a little desert!

The potato bar ended up being a hit and our living room ended up being perfect for this large crowd. Unfortunately the Royal Rumble was straight up awful. You don't realize how incredibly bad the roster is in the WWE until they are all featured in one match. This may have been one of the worst pay per views all year.
Tomorrow I will be posting Nicole's curtain project upstairs which ended up being a success. A nice set of curtains can get expensive fast. Nicole ordered some cool fabric online and made a great set of curtains in a few hours.

Cantina Loco! Meh.

2012-01-29T11:57:00.001-05:00

There's been a buzz about a new mexican style restaurant opening in Allentown here in Buffalo, NY. Nicole had been reading up on the place months before it had even opened and had been pretty excited about it. Friday night, we got together with some friends had decided to give it a try.

The outside of the building looked great; including the fantastic vintage sign they put up outside. It really is different than anything else on the street. I love it when these empty spaces come alive from the exciting makeovers they get when a business moves in. It's nice to see change beginning to happen throughout different neighborhoods.

If you are going on a weekend night, prepare for absolutely no parking and a series of one way streets that make things even more difficult and obnoxious. Luckily after traveling around the block several times, I was actually able to find something somewhat close to the restaurant. I had dropped the ladies off at the restaurant prior to my parking adventure, so they were inside at the table. That's right..."ladies".

The inside was packed with people of all ages and it was insanely loud. We got a table that was a few feet from the packed bar (about 4 people deep) so occasionally we'd get bumped into. As an experiment, our friend sitting at the end of the table (we were there with 5 people, so our table was a regular 4 top with an extra chair stuck on the end) tilted her head backward and it came to rest on a young man standing at the bar. That's how close the dining area is to the bar. I did my best to ignore that and took a look at the menu.

The owner of this restaurant also owns another restaurant in the city that is known for great sushi and incredible inventive menu items. This menu was small, simple, and surprisingly boring. I'm not saying that the menu options didn't look appetizing, it was easy to find something that I was going to eat, but I think with the amount of build up this restaurant had, we were all just expecting something a little more. I ordered a beer, and Nicole went with a "Smoked Margarita." Her drink was pretty amazing and had a really awesome smokey flavor from the smoked salt they used on the glass. A pretty impressive drink.

We started off with "Nachos Locos", an attractive presentation of 2 cheeses, Pork, Onion, Jalapeno, Cilantro, and Pablano cream. The nachos were pretty tasty although the chips were too thin for the load which made it difficult to pick up any toppings. Other than this, they tasted great. Nicole was a big fan of them.

After the nachos, I ordered the Steak and Cheese Burrito. It consisted of grilled steak, cheese, rice and pinto beans. The steak was seasoned well and very tender. I've had steak burritos at other places, and the steak ends up being tough making the whole experience pretty awful. This was pretty good.


Not a fan of the open burrito. Finish the job. Close my burrito. The shell was semi toasted which made it impossible to finish wrapping it. You ended up having to eat this "burrito" like a floppy, sloppy taco.

Nicole ordered the "Carnita", which was pork, avocado, lettuce, cheese, cilantro, onion, and lime. Hers was pretty tasty, the ingredients were incredibly fresh, and she enjoyed it. After a taste, I think that I liked hers better than mine. Our other friends ordered the Bean and Cheese burrito, Chicken burrito, Fish taco and Koreatown taco. Everyone pretty much said the same thing, it was good, but nothing blew anyone away.

The over-all experience was average for me. The insanely loud atmosphere was tough to deal with. It made it impossible to have a conversation without screaming while the person you're talking to leans in, aiming their one ear at you while tilting their head. We were there on a Friday night though, and maybe stopping in for lunch or during the week would have manageable noise levels. The burritos were tasty, but I don't necessarily know if they would be something I would seek out. We live in the city of Buffalo, a city with an unbelievable amount of food options. I'm not going to tell you that Cantina Loco is bad, because its not. But its not excellent, its average. If you're in the area and looking for great Mexican food, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a hip restaurant with plenty of nightlife, this may be your place.

Ready for a fresh year!

2012-01-27T11:44:00.001-05:00

I haven't had a chance to blog much as of late. Things have been insanely busy around here, wrapping up taxes, getting orders processed, and starting new projects around the house. I will be documenting the new projects so that you can see what we are doing, weather we mess it up royally or we are successful, I'll be posting it. There has to be a few laughs in there somewhere!
For my local readers, I will be getting back to restaurant reviews again and tonight we are going to the new "Cantina Loco" , a new restaurant here in the city of Buffalo. It been hyped a lot prior to its opening, so I'm interested to see if it lives up to it. I'll have some stuff on that experience sometime this weekend.

What was I saying about a winterless winter?

2012-01-13T12:35:00.000-05:00

Last night it was raining and after we went to bed the wind started to blow furiously. Our house is old and when the wind gets really strong, it feels like our house is going to blow down. Everything creaks, the windows make rattling sounds, and combined with the sounds from outside, it was tough to sleep. When I awoke this morning, it was snowing and blowing pretty hard. I stepped out onto the porch on my way to the backyard to let the dog do his business. I noticed the blowing snow, the covered cars, the drifts, our shiny new stainless grill......wait a second...where is the grill cover I bought? It must have blown away like a giant parachute. I walked up and down the street this morning in pajamas hoping to find it and praying that I didn't have to spend 30 bucks on another one. No luck. Defeated, I walked into the backyard with the dog and there it was! Lesson learned. Grill cover needs to be bungee'd down. Remember two days ago when I wrote about a winterless winter?

Finally! Tong Po!

2012-01-12T20:40:00.000-05:00

Today we added the newest addition to our action shirt collection. The legendary, ruthless, Tong Po from Van Damme's famous film, "Kickboxer". I've been for the new year to do this design now that we have our flash dryer and we can do white inks. The design is quite simple:

The script under Tong Po is Thai for "Muay Thai".

This might be my favorite shirt so far. We shall see if it's a hit. This has been added to our etsy store and our eBay store. It will be in our official website in a few days.

A winterless winter.

2012-01-11T11:17:00.001-05:00

This winter has been sort of a bummer for me. I love the snow. The majority of the people that i know find my viewpoint obnoxious because I work from home and don't actually have to drive in it, braving the elements like most people. With all of that being true, I still love the snow. It's January 11th and its sunny and gorgeous out, cold, but pleasant. Last night, for the first time this winter, I was glad it was nice out. We acquired a new grill from my parents for the holiday, and I was able to fire it up yesterday for the first time. Besides making pizza's, grilling is my favorite thing. I pour myself a Firestone Walker IPA, bundle up, and stand outside like a man grilling meat...and it was fantastic and peaceful. We just cooked a few boneless chicken breasts, but they turned out great. As we close in on mid January, I think I'm OK with no more winter, its late enough where if it arrives it will be somewhat annoying. Who am I kidding, we live in Buffalo. We will get hit with something nasty before the winter is finished, I'd bet on it.

Brutal Buffalo Winters

Slowly starting rehab again...

2012-01-09T20:01:00.000-05:00

We took a break starting late November on all house rehab. It was getting to be a little much but now Nicole and I are starting to get the itch again. We slowly started working in the living room. Nicole got the idea to turn the bay window area in the living room into a little bistro area. Hanging from the ceiling in that area was this disgusting glass light that needed to go immediately. She found the perfect light on etsy:

(This isn't a picture from inside our house, it's from sellers etsy store)

We then wanted to get a pedestal table for underneath it. It seemed like everywhere we looked they were between $150.00 ( for a mediocre one) and up to $500.00+ (for better quality ones). We tried looking on craigslist but had no luck. Finally on Sunday we found one for $60.00 but at the last minute the lady called us and said that her husband had sold it without telling her. Lame. So we were back to square one. We found one at the local AMVETS (thrift store) for only $45.00 and it was super heavy duty. Old furniture is the best if you can restore it because everything was made so well back then. We took the table home and sanded it down. Nicole is in the process of painting it and I should have some pictures later on in the week.
Having the light purchased and the table only left us with one more thing to get. Chairs. Nicole found 2 chairs on Target's website. I think they will look pretty awesome once everything is in place.

These are supposed to be delivered by the end of the week. Fingers crossed!

Bring on the New Year!

2011-12-28T14:13:00.000-05:00

We hope everyone had a great Holiday this year. We are eager to get started on some new designs for next year including, finally, black shirt designs!
This Holiday was a busy one. In case you are not familiar with the two most famous babies on baby products, there is:


The "Gerber" Baby

And..


The "Super Sweet Shirt Co." Baby, Jacob Lee Green.

This year was pretty fun because our Nephew Jake was able to understand the joy of opening presents. It was really funny to watch because I'm not sure if he actually understood that inside of each present, is a new toy or something for him. To him, each present was a new and exciting opportunity to tear off wrapping paper. Who cares whats in it?!

I went home for Christmas eve and Christmas day to be with my parents and my sister who was home from California. I was able to see a lot of family that I hadn't seen in a while which was really nice. Our Christmas morning has been the same since we were kids, the only difference is that instead of being a little kid wearing goofy pajamas and getting up really early to open gifts, my sister and I are in our early 30's waking up early in goofy pajamas to open gifts. It's pretty awesome.

My sister getting more amazing pajamas for next Christmas morning.

Step-dad Henry with a new ornament to make the tree more manly.

All of the animals flock to my mother making it impossible to move or open gifts.

Christmas dinner with some cousins, aunts, and uncles.

Cousin Andy and his lady.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-22T15:46:00.000-05:00

This year has gone by super fast. Happy Holidays to everyone and a huge thanks to everyone that purchased shirts this year for gifts! Next year will be an even better year as we have big plans and a whole bunch of new ideas for shirt styles!!

Niagara Market

2011-12-11T12:00:00.001-05:00

Saturday evening we went down to the Niagara Market. This was the first year of the event which lasts 30 days. It was described as being a "European Market" so we were interested in seeing something like this, especially because it might be something for Super Sweet Shirts to think about doing in the future. If you have never been to Niagara Falls, the American side is an armpit. Its terrible. Its nothing but a gigantic casino, and nothing else. This market was a good idea to get people to come visit the area in the winter. It didn't end up being as big as I thought it was going to be, but for being the first year, it has the potential to be something really cool. Each vendor has its own little wooden hut that you could go into and shop from. Bigger vendors had larger huts that were like big heated tents. We talked the the owner of Sample Restaurant for a few minutes while getting some hot cider and he said that the turnout had been great this season and that he would totally do it again next year. Something to think about for us next year or the following year.

Our First Tree!

2011-12-10T22:04:00.000-05:00

I'm a week late posting these but the shirt orders have been pretty intense and I haven't had much time for anything. I was all excited this year to go buy a saw, venture out into the woods like Clark Griswold, and get myself a tree. Unfortunately its December and there's no snow. This winter sucks. I was not in the mood to go get a tree in gorgeous sunny weather. Nicole and I decided to just go down to Home Depot and get a tree. I will never get a fake tree, it needed to at least be real. This was my first time picking out a tree by myself. I had done some reading in my last issue of "This Old House" and it had an article about bringing home your tree hassle free. I was definitely prepared for this. People are so picky when they are looking for their tree. They pull them out one and spin them around to make sure they are all perfect. I just grabbed one that was all tied up. I had no ideas what it was going to look like. It's a tree. Charlie Brown didn't care, why should I. Here are some pictures below of our first tree. Now we are going to have to gradually collect ornaments that have meaning.

Nicole getting the tree stand ready.

My mom got us these little gems!

My Harry Potter Ornament.

I'm back!

2011-11-29T12:35:00.001-05:00

Things have been crazy heading into the Thanksgiving weekend. With orders coming in and family visiting, it was impossible to stay current on here. The holiday has come and gone, so I now have a little time to ramble. I have some pics from the family gathering we had here the day before Thanksgiving. It was our first little party we've had since owning the house and it turned out great.

Our dog Ric (left) loves hanging out with my parents dog.

I made two pizzas for the gathering, a Buffalo Chicken pizza and a Mediterranean Pizza.

This is the Mediterranean pizza. I had to remove the tomatoes to get it onto the stone because it was too heavy and I was short on corn meal.

Once I had it on the stone, I was able to complete the toppings.

The Buffalo Chicken pizza was my favorite. Fresh crumbly blue, cooked chicken, and fresh mixed wing sauce, this is always a favorite.

Ric and I both decided to wear Holiday sweaters, only he wasn't excited...

I posted this even though its blurry just so you can see my new Holiday sweater.

Be Safe!

2011-11-23T10:59:00.001-05:00

The Super Sweet Shirt Co. Would like to wish everyone a safe Holiday! Don't forget about Friday's Black Friday Sale for free shipping on all items domestic! This is only at our eBay store and our Etsy store! "Like" us on Facebook for coupon codes and details!

Now onto Thanksgiving!

2011-11-21T20:03:00.000-05:00

We have busted our asses since buying the house with a set of goals that we wanted completed by winter. We would like to thank my Mom, my Stepfather Henry, and my Dad Bob for helping us accomplish everything, it would have been a lot harder to do without their help. New kitchen windows, glass block windows in the basement, roof replacement on the room off the kitchen, and redoing the dining room including a complete tear out off the bay window with new drywall. We are exhausted, but one half of the first floor is totally complete. Here are some pictures of the dining room:

Here is a really old picture from when we tore out the kitchen. You can see what the dining room used to look like.

Here is the finished product.

Nicole found an old chandelier at the thrift store that she fixed up with some paint and some TLC.

Now its time to take a break, at least until the new year!

Busy Busy!

2011-11-16T20:15:00.000-05:00

Christmas orders are starting to come in. Don't forget to get your orders in as soon as possible to ensure that it arrives on time! This is my favorite time of year, not just because we get busy, but because I love the holidays, cookies, snow, tacky lights, gifts, and booze. I also love special Holiday clothes....like this:

I bought this. It hasn't arrived yet....but I keep checking!

I'm pretty much going to look amazing wearing this. I will be sure to post a picture as soon as I get it!

A few quick notes...

2011-11-10T20:28:00.000-05:00

I posted the new Poe shirt for ladies in all three shops. This shirt caught the attention of many people at the Rochester show and overall, got a good response.

Also this weekend, Nicole and I will attempt to prime the dining room once I finish sanding it tomorrow. I'll be so relieved when its done.

Dieting...

2011-11-08T19:18:00.000-05:00

Nicole and I started dieting. I hate dieting. I love food, but I'm about 10 pounds overweight. We decided to try SparkPeople.com. It's a free dieting site that has pretty cool Apps for recipes and calorie counting. I'm on day 2 and it hasn't really been all that bad. I went running yesterday which was sort of brutal but I made it out alive. If I can get back down below 200 I'll be happy and celebrate with huge bag of candy.

This will be my reward if I reach under 200 pounds. The prize at the end of the rainbow.

Great weekend! Fantastic Show!

2011-11-06T22:00:00.001-05:00

This weekend was the Mayday Underground Arts and Crafts Show. We did this show last year and this year it was just as good, if not better! I love getting to see the faces of people that look at our stuff. Being an online business, you never get that experience. It's also a great way to test new items to see if they are worth carrying. The moss green woman's Poe shirt caught a lot of eyes and eventually sold. I will have a picture of it this week because I ordered more and decided to carry it. I took the Poe design that I already had and added a twist. I love the way it turned out.
During the show Nicole and I met another vendor at the show who was interested in how I screened the onesies. He was a screen printer also but was at the show selling handmade fairy doors. They were these amazing handmade doors that go in garden's, etc. Very cool and very original. We eventually started talking about our experiences as screen printers and I mentioned how I was in need of a flash dryer. For those of you that don't know what this is, it's an expensive piece of equipment that makes drying/curing inks on shirts a breeze. He mentioned he had one that he had fixed up, that he wasn't using. He bought it broken from a guy for dirt cheap and fixed it, but has since gotten a new one. I could have sold nothing at this show and could have been happy. We got a flash dryer from this guy and it works great! Christmas will be so much easier to deal with this year. Its been almost two days and I'm STILL totally excited about acquiring this tool! Thanks Again Chris!

Bringing some unreleased stuff to the Mayday Underground Show.

2011-11-04T18:02:00.001-04:00

The Mayday Underground show is tomorrow, all day. I've decided to bring some trial products to the show to see what reactions they get before I sell them in my shops.

This Saturday!

2011-11-03T12:35:00.000-04:00

This Saturday is the Mayday Underground show in Rochester. We love doing this show and highly recommend that if you are in the Rochester area, come on down! Even if our shirts are just too cool for you, there are really great vendors at this show offering really great options for unique holiday gifts.

We Guessed Wrong.

2011-11-01T12:35:00.000-04:00

Last night was the first Halloween for us living in the new house. We had no idea what to expect, in fact if I had to guess, I would have guessed that there were going to be few trick or treaters. We had gotten three bags of candy and 45 minutes later I was out the door scurrying to get more. We couldn't believe it. The first Wilson Farms was out of candy, so I tried another that was about a mile away. Luckily there were bags of candy left at inflated prices. I figured three more bags should work and they did. Barely.
I realized one thing after this experience. I pretty much hate Halloween. The occasional little kid walking with their parents in a ridiculous costume sometimes made it all seem worth it, but not quite. I wonder if this is what it was like when I was little? Then I wonder how annoying it was for people when I reached that awkward age and was still trick or treating. I know that I was annoyed when the occasional 15 year old, 18 year old, and 40 year old (?) stopped by for a treat. Did I miss something? That's right, a 40 year old women (she could have been mid 30's) actually came to our house with her plastic bag asking for candy...and you have no choice really. I mean, you do...and then you risk becoming a target for later issues. The lack of costumes was also pretty amazing. It's not worth it. Halloween is pretty terrible.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T12:40:00.000-04:00

Ric hates Halloween and horror movies. Ever since he watched "The Ring" he fears VCR tapes.

Happy Halloween! I'm pretty excited as this is the first Halloween in our new house. We have no idea what to expect for Trick or Treaters in terms of how many we will see. This is a tough Holiday for me because I love candy, and I have been candy-free for over a month now. This year we tried to go the route of picking up candy that I don't actually like. We picked up "Dots", "Toostie Pops", and "Marvel Comic Dips" (basically fun-dip). There will still be and urge for me to eat these things, I'm not going to lie. But I'll stay strong. Its sort of like the equivalent of a smoker that has run out of cigarettes, and has no money to buy them, so he/she picks through the ash tray for some gross nub to suck out whatever nicotine that remains...but not as gross.
Over the weekend we managed to get our sun room (now declared a reading room) about 90% finished. I totally love the room so far. Its relaxing. Last night I spent the last two hours hanging out in there under a blanket, with a glass of wine, reading. I know that for some reason that description makes me sound like a woman, but try to look at it like I'm a man that enjoys wine, that was reading and was cold. The room is great. We have some things left that we still want to do in there like building a bookshelf, and some decorating tasks, but its pretty close to being finished.

We moved the rug from the guest room into this room. We now need a new rug for the guest room.

This table needs trinkets.

We found this 50's couch a the thrift store for 50 bucks. It was in amazing shape.

Nicole is going to sand down the wood and re-stain it darker. This couch is awesome.

Tomorrow I will have a full report on the outcome of the Trick or Treaters!

I am hung.

2011-10-26T21:16:00.000-04:00

The drywall is all hung in the dining room. Two days off of work and two full days working in the dining room. All the drywall is up and is partially taped. We are moving pretty fast on this room. Today after work I started pulling the wallpaper off the wall on the upper portion. I thought this would be a nightmare but I was totally wrong. Most of it came off in huge portions and the spots that were stubborn, I used a curtain steamer that Nicole had. It worked like a charm, even though sometimes it would spit boiling water on my hand causing me to cuss violently. Luckily I didn't have to use it all that much. Saturday, Nicole is going over to her mom's house to do some pumpkin related activities with her little nephew and I am going to get another full days work in there, taping and mudding, only this time (because it is Saturday) I will be consuming beer while doing it thus bringing a smile to my face.

Some of the seams aren't lined up at the moment because of old house shifting, but with some trimming and mud tricks, I'll get it looking like the bomb.com.

Not much I can say about this one. Looks good to me!

Tonight Nicole came home with a fall decoration that is amazing. An Anise Wreath. I love Anise. I keep sniffing it. I want to lick it. I love Anise. The Wreath was pretty expensive the first time we noticed it at Target. She found it on clearance for a fraction of the price. Now we own it and this weekend we will hang it up.

The Sun Room Redux.

2011-10-25T10:00:00.001-04:00

Originally the sun room was the first room we re-did. We painted the room, restored the old windows to try and get another year out of them, and made it a living space that we could occupy during the heavy remodel period. Eventually when our contractor finished up in the kitchen, we realized that the sun room was just too small to be the main room to watch TV in. It couldn't hold more than two people. I was unable to have friends over for football and even worse, I was unable to have friends over for wrestling pay per views. That was unacceptable. We moved the TV and sofa into the big living room leaving the sun room empty and once again, unfinished. This of course drove me nuts. During the week I primed the ceiling and then painted it the same off white, (almost beige) as the ceiling in the kitchen. It was starting to look like something again.

There was an old, unattractive, ceiling fan in the room that we took down. It was ugly brass with old fashioned, cheap looking glass globes. It was just plain ugly. Cool looking fans were proving to be difficult to find but with a little Nicole magic, she had this fakakta fan looking totally awesome. She painted the fan "Carbon Mist" which was a super dark gray. We then went to Lowes and bought 3 new globes for lights. This ended up looking brand new.


This is the original fan style that we had in the sun room. This fan in the picture is the fan in our living-room but its the same style.

That same day, I had gone to the store to get some liquid nails. We have been keeping an eye on those electric stoves that give heat and display a fake fire. They are pretty awesome and the store that I was at had some pretty good deals on them. When I got home, I told Nicole about them and we drove back to look at them. They have all sorts to choose from, some built into bookshelves, some with elaborate wood mantels, and then a simple metal model that looked like an old wood stove. Nicole liked that one. I totally didn't think that would be the model that she liked but it was, and we bought it. We are now one item away from completing this room. A sofa. This room is going to become a reading room, or a quiet place to go do some laptop work. I can't wait to get it done. I want there to be two rooms for people to go sit and mingle in for the cocktail party at the end of November that we are having for our families and close friends.

So it begins again.

2011-10-24T10:00:00.001-04:00

The break from house work has ended and Saturday my dad came down to help tear apart the dining room. Like every other project in this house, a simple idea turned into a huge pain in the ass. I needed help on the bay window. The plaster was crumbling and there were random sections of drywall that were heavily damaged. Another masterpiece created by the previous owners. We figured that if we were going to work on this project, we might as well do it right. We decided to tear everything down and insulate the entire wall. Of course when we started, we pulled down a section that had endured generations of water damage that was ignored. This section was rough, and there was serious rot. We pulled out some of the heavily rotted stuff and put in some 2x4's so that we would have something to drill the drywall into. Plaster is awful and removing it is even worse. The dust and filth that spreads all over the house is brutal. It was clear that we were not going to finish this project that day, but I wanted to at least get help doing the upper portion of the bay window. I figured that if we could at least get that done, I could do the rest (or as much as possible) on Monday and Tuesday, because I took time off from work.

This was the area with heavy water damage and rot. Surprise!!!

I have to admit, I was not in the mood for a project like this after a super busy week, but with an upcoming cocktail party that we are hosting, time is running short and we have to get this place as close to normal as we can before hand.

I am fatigued.

2011-10-23T14:05:00.000-04:00

This whole week and weekend has been non-stop and I am beat. I could not keep up with updates but I kept taking pictures so I can catch up on here.
On Thursday we went to the Museum Night that they were doing here in Buffalo for preservation week. For $25.00 a ticket, you could get access to all of the Museums, plus a rare sneak peak of the first floor of the Richardson Complex. This building used to be an old mental hospital. Its architecturally stunning and extremely eerie. It is also closed to the public normally because it is slowly being restored. They promoted a free trolley that was running so that people wouldn't have to drive to them with one of the stops right down the street from our house. It seemed like a great idea. The weather was pretty terrible. Cold, high winds and rain are a terrible combination. We roughed it and walked down to the stop with some friends of ours. The trolley was supposed to pick us up at 6:30pm. When we arrived, the sign at the stop said 7:00pm. Already slightly annoyed, we went for some coffee and killed some time, returning at seven. We then stood in the rain and wind for a half hour, and there was still no trolley. Now extremely annoyed, we walked back to our house to get the car totally soaked. By the time we arrived, there were like two hours left to enjoy all of the museums. I just wanted to get into a warm bed at this point. All I really wanted to see was the Richardson Complex. The art museum I have seen before. Like most museums, the paintings were impressive while the "modern art" was pure shit. Modern art is ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is people explaining modern art to other people. I could rant for days on this topic but I won't. The trolley service was supposed to transfer people between museums also, but the rate at which it was coming to pick people up was awful. We decided to walk to the Richardson Complex.

Our friends Molly and Pat came along with us to enjoy the nice weather.


Nicole and I standing in line at the Richardson Complex. They could only allow 150 people in at a time due to the fact that it is still not completely safe to be in.

The woodwork in this building was incredible. Everything was larger than life.

The doors where all like 12 feet tall, solid wood.

This was inside one of the rooms in the ward.

Getting to see the inside of this building almost made the trip worth it. But not quite. The trolley fiasco was obnoxious especially combined with the terrible weather. When we got home I passed right out.

New design just in time for the Holidays!

2011-10-21T10:36:00.000-04:00

The finished product coming soon one the screen is made..stay tuned!

Totally Amazing Fashion for the Holidays

2011-10-18T12:35:00.000-04:00

I know, I know. Why would I promote other clothing when I have my own shirts to sell? These things can't be ignored. Some of them are simply breathtaking. I have a respect for clothing design and fashion. I'm not talking about Marc Jacobs. I'm talking about something that is truly cutting edge. I'm talking about something daring. I'm talking about these:

The Captain America Hoodie at thinkgeek.com is stunning. I don't believe I've seen something this fantastic before. Actually no, I can think of one other thing that's on par with being as amazing as this...


Another hoodie because its that time of year. This Superman hoodie is more my style although not as cool of an idea as the Captain America hoodie. I love the art on the hood, although I don't love it as much as this...

Yellow Rat Bastard out of NYC has some great shirts, although can be a bit pricey. I'm a fan of this old school Action Comics Superman shirt. A lot of comic book shirts are tacky and loud but this shirt is pretty awesome.

Long weekend...

2011-10-17T11:53:00.000-04:00

This weekend was pretty exhausting. Nicole and I went to Rochester for a show that we had never done before. You live and learn with these things. This show wasn't promoted very well, and there was heavy rain with strong winds. It was not a good turnout but it was still fun to be out with people and getting feedback. I'm excited for the Mayday Underground show. This will be our second time doing this show, and it was fantastic last year.
I just put in an order for new supplies. Sitting at the show over the weekend gave me an opportunity to brainstorm. I am going to be doing a Straightedge baby onesie. It is such a stupid concept that I got really excited. Hopefully I will have them in time for the November 5th show! I will keep you posted on the status of the Straightedge Baby Onesie!

Victor PTSA Arts & Craft Show

2011-10-11T12:45:00.001-04:00

This weekend is the first of our two shows heading into the holiday season. This Saturday from 9am-4pm, Super Sweet Shirts will be selling onesies and T-shirts at the Victor PTSA Arts an Craft show. We will have a wide variety on hand including some of our more popular designs. Get there early because we have limited stock. If we run out of an item that you want, you will be able to order there and get free shipping. Don't miss it!

Victor PTSA Arts and Crafts Show

100 High Street

Victor, NY

Lemonheads Coming to Buffalo!

2011-10-10T12:45:00.001-04:00

The memory for me is still clear as day. 8th grade was the year I sort of found out what I was going to be, at least from 8th grade through high school. I sort of went from a complete awkward disaster to still being awkward but with actual friends. Looking back on it, I was sort of taken in as an intern with our school's group of delinquent skateboarders during a time when that sort of thing wasn't quite as accepted as it is today. It was a great time and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Music played a big part in growing up for me and I remember heading to the mall with my newly made friend Taylor to pick up some new release cassette tapes. I had picked up Nirvana, "Incesticide" and The Lemonheads, "It's a Shame About Ray". I was familiar with Nirvana at the time, but The Lemonheads were a band I was not familiar with. To this day I still listen to that album, and for 18 years I have listened to everything this band has put out, and every ounce of solo work Evan Dando has released. The one thing missing is that I had never once been able to see them live. On January 14th. 2012 they will be playing here in Buffalo, NY for a special show to perform "It's a Shame About Ray" and it is going to rule. Don't miss it!

Vera Pizzeria is Magnificent.

2011-10-02T21:03:00.000-04:00

Over the summer, Nicole and I went with my family to San Francisco to visit my sister. My favorite place that we visited while vacationing there was called The Alembic Bar. What made this place special was that they made top notch old school cocktails, and they did them correctly. You didn't have some "Joe Schmoe" bartender with average skills behind the bar, you had a true professional. One of my favorite drinks is a Sazerac, a drink that up until now was impossible to get here in the city of Buffalo. I say "up until now" because that has finally changed. "Vera Pizzeria" has brought old school cocktails and impressive pizza to the Elmwood Avenue area.
We arrived to the restaurant at about 7:30. It was a full house, but nothing so uncomfortable that we couldn't wait. We were given a wait time of about 20 minutes. That was no problem for me because I was focused on getting to that bar. The cocktail list was impressive offering a wide variety of drinks and a variety of different whiskey. I didn't see the Sazerac and was starting to get bummed out, but we decided to ask just for the hell of it. The bartender (who all wear vests and sport mustaches) confidently said he made them and was almost excited to do so. He had all of the essential ingredients including the Sazerac Rye Whiskey and the Peychaud's Bitters. He made a generous sized cocktail (almost doubled the size of the Sazerac I had in San Francisco) with one big ice cube in the glass. It was perfection, and all while giving me the history of the drink. I couldn't have been more happy.


Earning my trust before making the Sazerac with a few key ingredients. P.s. I tipped more than one dollar, contrary to what that stray bill on the bar makes it seem like.

Splendid.

We were seated a bit earlier than the estimated time and pleasantly, we had great seat by the window. While we waited, instead of the standard bread basket being placed on our table, we were happily surprised with a bowl of Greek olives.

The Sazerac makes another appearance. Clearly I'm obsessed.

The selection of pizza was fantastic. With all of the pizza competition in the area, you really have to be one step ahead and offer something truly special. Vera Pizzeria did just that. It was difficult to choose, so Nicole, our friend Kristina, and I each ordered a different pizza so that we could try them all. Nicole ordered the Porchetta Pizza which was red wine braised pork shoulder, oil cured olives, fresh herbs, and Fontina cheese. This pizza was superb. The pork was cooked perfectly, so incredibly tender and juicy. I was jealous of her dish.

Porchetta

Kristina ordered the House Made Sausage Pizza which was a San Marzano Tomato Sauce with house made Italian sausage, Fennel, and shaved Parmesan. It was fresh, very tasty, and slowly grew increasingly spicy with every bite.

House Made Sausage

I ordered the Fig Jam and Prosciutto pizza which consisted of Bosc Pears, Arugula, Truffle Oil, Fig Jam and Prosciutto. It was the perfect blend of flavors ending with the sweet, but not overly so, flavors of the Fig Jam. It was different and exciting.

Fig Jam and Prosciutto

This was exactly was Buffalo was missing and now we have it. Top notch pizza, classic cocktails made by professionals, and a great atmosphere - "Vera Pizzeria" is a class act. Bravo.

Restaurant Review: Sonoma Grille

2011-10-01T12:52:00.000-04:00

Thursday night Nicole and I met with some friends for some dinner. We usually pick the places to go so this time we had them pick. They chose "Sonoma Grille" on Main St. out in Snyder, NY outside of the city. I'll be honest, I'm a snob when it comes to food. I really wasn't looking forward to eating here at all. From their completely awful website that makes it look like their target crowd is 80+ years old, to mediocre reviews on Urbanspoon, there was nothing that really appealed to me about this place.
Nicole and I arrived before our friends. We figured it was going to be the type of atmosphere where jeans and a t-shirt would have looked a little out of place, and it was. This place was definitely not for younger people, or at least it didn't seem that way. It had an "old" feeling to it, and I don't mean "old" as in historical, "old" like elderly. There was a smoking area outside which was sort of gross and out of touch with society, mainly because it's near the main entrance which I thought was illegal, but apparently not. The inside of the place smelled like the sort of perfume that I last smelled inside of a church. I wanted to turn and run, but I thought to myself, "This could make for a fun review."

We were seated and minutes after, our friends had arrived. My friend Pat clearly had no idea what type of place it was as he strolled in wearing his green army coat, scruffy face, "Maui" t-shirt, and fedora. It was amusing and he clearly realized that he selected the wrong outfit. The restaurant staff was a little...bizarre. Pat and I both made reference to the fact that our server reminded us of someone from the "Adams family." It bordered on uncomfortable at times, but at least he was attentive and our water glasses were never empty.
The menu was pretty ordinary with a few "different" items that saved it from being completely drab. Nicole and I decided to just order two smaller things and share. We started off with the "Ahi Tuna Salad" which was a piece of tuna seared rare over micro greens with mango and avocado salsa, with a spicy soy dressing. After everything I said about this place so far, this almost completely made it worth it. This dish was almost top notch. The fish was delicious, cooked to perfection on the outside, rare as can be on the inside, and accompanied with the greens and fruit, this made for a refreshing experience. We both loved this and I was impressed.

Ahi Tuna Salad

Our second small dish arrived and it was just a simple Grilled White Pizza with roasted garlic, artichokes and sun dried tomato. It was a simple dish that did was it was supposed to do. It wasn't mind blowing and it wasn't mediocre, it was exactly what it said it was.

Grilled White Pizza

Patrick ordered a chicken pot pie, which looked like a giant round hot pocket. He said that he liked it. His wife, Molly, ordered a pork dish. I'm pretty sure it was a pork tenderloin. She said that it was good also, but I wasn't impressed by its appearance.

Pot Pie

Pork Tenderloin

The meal ended with our friends getting a Pumpkin Spice Creme Brulee which Molly loved and Pat barely touched. Nicole ordered just a coffee and me, a light Sambuca.
So I admit, I was harsh in my opinions of this place in the beginning. In reality, we will probably never eat there again, not because of the food, but mainly because it's nowhere near where we live really and we are spoiled by the high quality, inventive restaurants located in our neighborhood. The atmosphere is not for me and its definitely not a place to bring a date unless she is 75. Seeing past all of these elements, the food was decent which made it a pleasant experience.

Restaurant Review: Black Rock Kitchen & Bar

2011-09-27T12:45:00.002-04:00

    Great food is something that the city of Buffalo is known for. We have the biggest food festival in the U.S. and an unbelievable amount of great restaurants to choose from. It seems like every month there are new places opening up each putting their own spin on creating something different. The bar has been set high for quality. The slowly rebounding Black Rock area has had their first injection of something fresh and cool, that being the "Black Rock Kitchen & Bar". The reviews have been pretty good so we figured we would give it a try.
    The inside of the restaurant is artsy and hip as I expected. We arrived around 6pm and the place was just about full already for dinner. We pulled into the lot across the street where they had a sign for parking however, a man standing in the rain with an umbrella was directing people out of the lot saying that the bar next door was calling and towing cars. It wasn't too much of an inconvenience though, I was able to locate a spot down the street. The crowd was insanely diverse. Old people, young people, middle aged people-there was definitely a universal interest in this place. It was very dark so it was difficult to get any decent pictures. The menu was very different. There were a lot of things that I had never seen before like "Roasted Marrow Bones" and "Fois Gras French Toast".
   We sat down and ordered our drinks. I went with the Southern Tier Pumking, which is the best pumpkin beer that I have ever tasted. Nicole ordered a glass of wine.

For an appetizer, we went with "Fried Mushroom Goat Cheese Wonton" served with a truffle mayo. We didn't have to wait long for anything we ordered. This appetizer was cooked to perfection in terms of the level of crispy from the deep dry. Unfortunately it lacked any flavor. I could barely taste any goat cheese or mushroom (two ingredients that should have definite flavor). Nicole didn't mind them but to me it was like I was just eating the shell of a wonton and dipping it in mayo. I was not impressed at all.

$9.00

For entrees, I ordered the Duck Leg BLT and Nicole ordered the Roasted Pork Enchiladas. My sandwich looked impressive and I was pretty excited to eat it. The fries were a little soggy and pathetic, almost looking like they came from the bottom of an Arby's curly fries container. The sandwich was satisfactory, but barely. The duck was a little dry and didn't taste like much of anything. I honestly could have just ordered a regular BLT and would have tasted the same. This definitely looked better than it tasted.

Nicole's enchiladas were probably the best out of all the food we ordered. They didn't look like much but they were indeed the best of the bunch. The pork was cooked nicely and the Poblano sauce it was dressed in was tasty, but again, nothing special especially for $12.00.

The Black Rock Kitchen & Bar was sadly overrated and overpriced. In a city full of great food, I would not recommend this based on my first visit. The amount of good reviews the place has received will probably make me give it another chance, but I can definitely state that our visit disappointing.

Back on the Wagon

2011-09-25T15:45:00.000-04:00

I have an addiction that is harder to kick than anything. I smoked for like 10 years and was able to kick that habit without any issues. Smoking was easy to quit. I didn't need a patch, an electric cigarette, or pictures of gross organs to help me quit. I just did. My constant battle has been with this:

I am a full blown addict to candy. Its terrible. I would have some sort of candy every day. If I went to get gas for my car, I would get candy. If I went to the post office, I would get candy. This is about to stop. It won't be easy, but enough is enough. This is day #2 off candy. Its going to be a long road ahead.

Beer Review: Southern Tier Harvest Ale

2011-09-24T04:00:00.000-04:00

It's that time of year when breweries release their Autumn beers. I decided to go ahead and try the Southern Tier Harvest Ale. This brewery is hit or miss with me. Some things they do well, other things they don't. The Southern Tier Harvest Ale fails at being a decent Autumn beer. The appearance of this beer is deceiving. The beer pours nicely with a nice Auburn color and creates a nice head that lasts. The problem I had with this beer is that it lacks flavor. I found that the level of carbonation was good but there was no balance. With very little aroma, I think that the reason this beer falls short is because it is simply too light.

Rating: 4/10
ABV: 6.70

The Guest Room

2011-09-23T15:05:00.000-04:00

Our guest room is just about finished. We are just waiting to put the bamboo in for the floor. This room was in bad shape when we first moved in. There was drywall that looked like it was cut by a blind man, cracks in the wall, terrible molding with missing pieces, and outlets in the wall that were too close to the floor and not secured to anything. It was pretty amazing. Nicole and I wrecked shop in this room, tearing off all the gross molding, painting, patching, etc. We wanted this to be a great room for family/friends to stay if they came to visit. Here is how it looks so far (try to ignore the bad hardwood, that will be fixed soon):

This was molding that Nicole and I created using two types of wood. A lot of the molding we saw at Home Depot was ugly and very expensive. This was an inexpensive way to get the effect we were going for.

We replaced the cheesy wall lights that were in this room with a classier model. I had to install little switches on these due to the fact that there was no wall switch in the room for them.

This is a rug that Nicole picked out on Overstock. The colors go well in the room but it ended up being smaller than we wanted it to be. It will work in there for now.

This lamp and night stand where treasures found at our local thrift store. The night stand was in rough shape but Nicole restoration skills, this looks brand new. The light worked perfectly and with a new shade from Target, it looks fantastic.

Brand new sheets and comforter set along with repainting the headboard a dark bronze brought this old bed to life.

Huge weekend!

2011-09-19T12:05:00.000-04:00

This weekend was huge. Friday our contractor finished the work, The kitchen and the bathroom are now finished. It feels like Nicole and I had a roommate move out. All of the tools, the chaos, the filth, is gone. The house is finally all ours and we love it. Saturday my dad came down and helped hang some drywall. It was the second time he has come to visit me in buffalo in like 9 years, but it went fine and wasn't awkward at all. It probably helped that we had work to do together in the house which created less awkward moments, but when it was done it seemed like he wanted to help out with more so I think we may see more than 1 visit a decade from now on. I learned a lot about drywall which is good because I am awful at it.

Getting ready to hang the Bill's Screen TV

Hanging some drywall. There's a few more pictures but they were not very flattering. With our new kitchen being in, its time to eat healthy. Also, whats my butt doing here?

Saturday night I went to pick up something from the jewelry store and then came home to propose to Nicole. Alright, it wasn't that random. Nicole and I have been talking about it for a while and have been looking at rings. She doesn't ever wear jewelry so looking for a ring was challenging. Nothing about anything we do is traditional, but that's how we are, and I love it. We picked out rings together Friday because we ended up finding one that she really liked. She also said I would still have to ask her and that she wasn't going to wear it until I did. So Saturday night I went to pick up the rings. For weeks I had been thinking about it. You always see dudes doing extreme things to propose, often involving public displays which Nicole and I find to be obnoxious. I wanted to create a t-shirt with us on it, and in Italian would say: "Mi vuoi sposare." I designed the shirt when she wasn't home and planned on mailing it to her in an anonymous package. Unfortunately, the image of us looked like it was part of a Rorschach test. So she would end of receiving a shirt with something written in a foreign language on it, and weird random ink blots trying to resemble an image. All of this coming from an anonymous sender. That wouldn't be too creepy would it? So i decided not to. So Saturday night I left to go pick up the rings. I stopped over to her mom's house to get permission which turned into a much expected awkward moment, but hilarious in hindsight. I walked into the house, and said "Hello." Her mother walked over to the door while Nicole's sister Amanda came down stairs with little Jake (her son/Nicole's nephew) and sat on the landing, staring at me. So there I stand, with the two dogs running around screaming and barking, with Amanda, Jake and her mom staring at me wondering why I have arrived at 7:30pm by myself. I didn't want to ask her mom to speak in private, because that would have made it even more odd, so I just looked her in the eyes and asked her for her permission to marry her daughter. She looked at me with a completely emotionless expression, and said, "No." We then just stood there looking at each other for a few moments and finally that emotionless face turned into a genuine smile and she told me that her and Nicole's dad both give me their blessing. Amanda and Jake said that they liked having me around. So with the blessing from the new additions of my family, I left to go pick up the rings!
Once I had the rings in my hands, and saw how great they came out, I couldn't wait. I have been in love with her for a long time, and every day I love her more. We never fight, and we love spending time with each other. Never have I felt so connected to a person like I feel with her. I drove home rehearsing the lines that I wanted to say to her in Italian, trying to get it just right so that I didn't sound unnatural. That was going to be impossible, so I had to just make sure I could say it the best I could.
I pulled up to the house, took a deep breath, and walked through the front door. Nicole was in her pajamas on the couch with a big towel in her hair watching TV. I walked over to her and got down on one knee, only i was behind the couch and it didn't register to her what I was doing. I, of course, was too nervous to understand that she couldn't see me on one knee and had no idea what I was doing. She was watching "Date Night" and awful movie with Steve Carell and the volume was up higher than usual making it difficult to speak in a normal voice. We looked at each other oddly for a moment when I said, "Can you turn the volume down, I'm trying to talk to you.". She turned down the volume on the TV while laughing at me, still not really registering what it was I was trying to do. I just looked totally weird crouching down behind the couch with a look of confusion on my face. I said to her, "Ti amo sempre. Mi vuoi sposare?". What she said right after that moment was sort of a blur because I think I was overloading mentally. I believe she smiled and said, "ohh...thanks". I realized that I had to follow up in English, so I said, "That means, will you marry me?". She said "yes" and then let me know that she sort of understood "Ti amo sempre" (I love you always), but had no idea what else I had said. I put the ring on her finger and followed the happiest moment of my life to date with a kiss and phone calls to our family. My mom was incoherent because she was crying so hard.

The animals are really excited.

So the entire process of getting engaged was not how I imagined, but a lot more memorable because of it, and I'd have it no other way. We don't plan on having a huge wedding, just immediate family and a few close friends and some dinner. Nicole and I don't like big productions, and would prefer to spend money on other things, like our planned trip to Italy in June.

I will have more entries this week on a regular basis. With the work in the house being completed, I'll have more time to do some entries. Lots of things to talk about! Go Bills!!

Another Show!

2011-09-13T08:26:00.000-04:00

We have been booked for the November 5 Mayday Underground show in Rochester, NY at the Main Street Armory. This will be our second year doing this show and it is definitely worth going to. This year will feature over 90 vendors with some of the most unique things you will ever see. This is a great holiday shopping event. The first 50 people through the door get swag bags with samples of things from many of the vendors. I have posted some pictures below of some of the applicants for this years show and an idea of some of the things you can see here:


Click for a more detailed view.

We will be bringing many of the favorites from last year plus more!

and much more! More information on the show as we get closer.

Restaurant Review: Cole's Restaurant

2011-09-12T11:27:00.000-04:00

Buffalo has really started to gain a reputation for having great beer. It is becoming common to see more and more restaurants carrying excellent beer, continuously changing kegs as they are kicked, and exchanging them for other excellent beers. Its something that I love about this city. This weekend Nicole and I went to Cole's for dinner. This wasn't the first time we have eaten there, but I hadn't done a review on it yet for my blog. So Saturday we decided to head down for some dinner. One thing Cole's has been consistent with is carrying amazing beer. The owner of Cole's also owns the Blue Monk and keeps the beer selection different at both places. While the Blue Monk is mostly Belgian Beers (which are not my thing), Cole's carry's more of a variety, and for me, a decent selection of different IPA.

Even more great choices in bottles.

Lost Coast Indica IPA from California for me and the North Coast Bro Thelonious for Nicole.

We arrived at around 6:30 pm on a Saturday night. It was busy but we still didn't have to wait for a table or anything. The dining room is split in half, one side has an open front that goes out onto the Elmwood strip, while the other side is super dark and pub-like. The hostess tried sitting us in the dark section but we had to insist on sitting on the other side or else I wouldn't have been able to take any pictures. It was not a problem at all, and in minutes we were sitting in the other section. They had done some remodeling since the last time we had eaten there. One thing we noticed were the bizarre lights along the wall of creepy monkeys reading books (or maybe they were supposed to be menus?).


A little disturbing...

For an appetizer we had ordered chicken, jalapeno, and cream cheese Wonton in some sort of sweet chili sauce. The concept of this dish was pretty awesome, but it fell short on substance and in the end, you were left with a fried shell that was overcooked and too crispy, with little filling.

For dinner I had ordered a Black and Blue burger. I'm not sure why I ordered this. I was in the mood for a burger, but every time I actually eat a burger, I don't enjoy it much. Don't get me wrong, this burger was good. The burger itself was super thick, almost to the point where I couldn't fit it in my mouth (insert "Thats what she said" joke). It was cooked to the temperature that I had requested and the fries were perfect also.

Nicole was in the mood for a Reuben and that is what she ordered. Her Reuben looked pretty awesome and I have to admit, I was jealous. I should have ordered that also. You can't beat a good Reuben. She was happy with her selection.

Another decent visit to Cole's with some good quick food and beer. If you are new to the area and are reading this, I suggest a visit. For new students that have just moved to the area going to Buffalo State, its right down the street from school on Elmwood. Here are a few other pictures of the interior.

Salute!

Excited for the Weekend!

2011-09-08T21:15:00.000-04:00

I can't wait for this week to be over. I have a boat load of stuff to do this weekend and hardly any room to breathe, but I like it.....I think...so far. Our contractor thinks he will be finished with everything by the end of next week. The new counter is set to go in around Wednesday and I'll be able too cook again and share my pizza recipes.
Saturday, Nicole and I need to spend the day making sure that we don't have pealing paint on any of our windows, so it will be an entire day of doing that. There can't be pealing paint when the inspector comes. We just want to be able to cook again like normal people and have a bathroom sink again!
Sunday is going to be awesome. I am a Bills fan. I'm not a Bills fan that cries about how bad we are and puts them down all the time. Every season is a new shot in my eyes and this season is no different. I like what they have done with the defense and the QB that I pushed for to be the starter from the beginning is starting. Sunday will be a day of football and food and I cannot wait.

I'll have a new restaurant review this weekend. We want to go out to eat tomorrow so I should have something new to share. Once this house stuff ends, I should be able to get back to the normal posting on here, beers, food, and shirts!

Xmas Appearances

2011-09-06T22:08:00.000-04:00

The first of our Christmas shows has been booked. We are going to try book a few shows this year instead of one to try and get our name out a bit more. Our first stop will be in Rochester, NY at the Victor PTSA Arts and Crafts Show, Saturday October 15.

Victor PTSA Arts and Crafts Show

953 High Street, Victor, NY

Super Sweet Shirt Co. will be at Space #5 in the hallway.

I should know by the end of the week about a show in November also.

Holiday Weekend!

2011-08-31T22:07:00.000-04:00

Oh man I can't wait to kick back this weekend. Things have been super busy around here. The bathroom is over 75% done and the kitchen is like 90% done. Hopefully when this is over we can take a few weeks to breathe a bit. I have spent much of the week organizing and setting up the studio for the Christmas rush, and if all goes well, I will be in Rochester, NY twice before Christmas for some shows we were asked to do. We have more products to offer than last year so it will be exciting to bring them to sell. I will have dates and locations for these events, once they are totally booked.
This weekend we are headed to Star Lake where my family has a cottage on the water. This is my first time being able to get up there this year so it should be nice even though the weather isn't supposed to be all that great. It will be great just to take a break from all this stuff going on in the house. This is what our bathroom looks like:

Some Security Improvements

2011-08-28T20:25:00.000-04:00

With some recent encounters with crime in the neighborhood, Nicole and I found it necessary to re-evaluate some of our home improvement priorities and to make sure that our home is secure. Our neighbors had their home broken into while they were home and that sort of freaked us out. We realized how easy it would have been for it to have been our house also and needed to change that. We had a number of windows that didn't lock and some other security risks to handle. The first thing I wanted to do was to light up the property. We have been involved with our block club and some of the points that I had stressed involved light. Some of the areas on our street are just too dark. We installed a super bright motion sensor light on the house in the dark alley that leads to our backyard.

The windows in our kitchen were just awful. The locks didn't work, the glass was cracked in spots, and any idiot could have broken into the kitchen. We decided to call Pace Window and Door, the same company we had gotten our front door from. We were so impressed with how everything went with our front door that we wanted the same experience for our kitchen window install. Sure we could have low quality windows from Window World, but we wanted to do it right the first time. If you are thinking of getting windows or doors, check out their website to find out about their top notch windows and installation.

Pace Window and Door
81 Benbro Dr.
Suite 100
Cheektowaga, NY 14225
(716) 681-5858 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting (716) 681-5858 Office
(716) 683-5290 Fax

Let This Be a Message to Your Family.....

2011-08-22T10:42:00.000-04:00

To the Silverfish Family,

This morning while using the bathroom I encountered a baby silverfish scurrying up the wall, trying to not be noticed. Using my incredible senses and wildcat reflexes, I caught him in my peripheral vision. In one smooth motion, I grabbed the hand soap bottle and swung it as if I were swinging the mighty hammer of Thor, crushing him...to death. With my hand shaking from adrenaline rush of the kill, I removed the bottle of soap revealing the remaining stain of what was once a member of your family. You are not allowed here. If I see you again.....justice will be served.

You have been warned,
Aaron

Restaurant Review: Victor's Bar and Grille

2011-08-21T21:11:00.000-04:00

Friday was payday and I wanted Italian food. This construction thing in our house is driving us both mad. We just want to start cooking again! All we are waiting on is the granite counter top to arrive, and because we are waiting on that, the contractor started working on the bathroom. Now even our bathroom is limited. We are going crazy. I wanted the both of us to get out of the house and to enjoy some good food. We decided to look north on Hertel Avenue where there is a plethora of Italian Restaurants to choose from. We decided to go with "Victor's Bar and Grill." Neither of us had ever been there so I figured I'd try it and write a review.

Victor's provided an odd yet comfortable atmosphere. It seemed to have been split down the middle with a little sports bar section on one side, and a sit-down, family dinner section on the other side. The chairs were super comfortable. They looked like outdated kitchen chairs from 1989 with big thick cushions. The menu was loaded with delicious options. We ordered two glasses of Chianti and started off with an appetizer. We went with the Diavlo Bread, which was on the specials menu. It was garlic bread topped with gorgonzola, mozzarella, spinach, and hot peppers served with marinara.


There were six here, but we had eaten a few before I remembered that I was supposed to take pictures...

There is not one negative thing that I could say about this appetizer. The instant it arrived to the table, the smells that were emitting from this dish were fantastic. So fantastic that I forgot to take pictures at first. Nicole and I had both agreed the there was so much flavor in this bread, that the marinara was not really needed. This was a great start to a much needed Italian fest. For our main entrees, Nicole ordered the "Meg's Kickin' Chicken" which was supposed to be one of their signature dishes. It consisted of a fresh chicken breast pounded out and folded around a stuffed banana pepper served with a linguini pesto cream sauce. I had ordered Baked Braciole. Both meals came with a salad. When the salads arrived they looked so sorry that we almost started to worry about our meals. Just plain iceberg lettuce, two slices of cucumber a piece, and one chopped cherry tomato. Thankfully, when the main entrees arrived, they both looked fantastic.

Baked Braciole


Meg's Kickin Chicken

My dish was pretty good. The steak was a little tough but the sauce made up for it. Its hard to find a good red sauce especially when you come from an Italian family that made great red sauce (Hint: it will never be better than my mother's). In fact, 90% of the time we go out for Italian, I almost never order anything with red sauce because its usually terrible or too sweet. This sauce was decent. Nicole's dish was good also. The chicken was really tender and perfectly cooked. After a taste of her dish, my only complaint was that it was a little bland, but still good. It was perfectly cooked, it just could have used a little more flavor, especially for something referred to as "kickin' chicken," but Nicole enjoyed it. Victor's served as a good quick decision Italian Restaurant. The service was above average and we were able to sit down immediately. It is not a place that I would ever mention for great Italian food, but it is definitely a solid restaurant that you can rely on very a good meal. I would go back to and try something else without a doubt. If I had to rate it on a scale of 1-10, I would give this place a 7.5. It's totally worth checking out if you are in the Hertel area, would like some solid Italian food, and you don't want to break the bank paying for dinner.

Victor's Bar and Grille
1503 Hertel Ave
Buffalo, NY 14216

716-931-9876

New T-shirt!

2011-08-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

The Midnight Society T-shirt for fans of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" is up. I was going to wait a few days before making it, but once I get something designed, I have to make it immediately. I can't wait. I was initially going to do it on a baby onesie first but decided against it for now. Its been a while since I've posted a new shirt design, so I wanted to get one up for the adults first. I have also decided to offer this shirt in both guy's and girl's sizes.

Ladies style shirt. Size chart is on our website and in our eBay/Etsy Stores

I will have this in a onesie sometime in the next week or two. Stay tuned, we have some more great shirts coming out!

A Thanks to All

2011-08-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

If you have been reading my blog regularly then you would know that about a week ago we had adopted a dog and in 3 days, had to bring her back. I just wanted to thank everyone that helped post her on their Facebook pages to get the word out. This week she was finally adopted. This is not an experience I will forget, it had really done a number on me mentally. The Buffalo SPCA had posted on their Facebook page that she had found a great home, and I couldn't be happier because she deserves it. Thanks again readers, friends, and family!

Are You Afraid of The Dark?

2011-08-18T15:21:00.000-04:00

Hello, Hello! I have a new design coming out this week. Nicole requested an "Are You Afraid of The Dark" themed t-shirt. After hearing feedback from others also, there were plenty that agreed. Although I had never watched the show, I gathered some feedback from Nicole and we came up with a pretty cool shirt! Take a look below at the prototype:

I plan on also releasing this on a baby onesie! Stay tuned!

House Update

2011-08-14T13:41:00.000-04:00

Last week we I had taken a few days off to help Al in the kitchen. We were going to get the floor finished. This was my first experience putting in a hardwood floor (actually bamboo) and this was Al's first time dealing with bamboo instead of hardwood. Bamboo can be deceiving because you can get it pretty cheap by the case but the adhesive that is used to put it down is super expensive. With me helping Al, I could lay down the glue and he could cut and lay down the boards. Once we got passed some of the more complicated cuts, we had a system down that was proving to be quick and efficient.

On a more serious note:

A Great Dog for Anyone That Wants One.

2011-08-08T20:35:00.000-04:00

This weekend had its highs and lows. I haven't been on in a while because things have been so busy. For a while Nicole and I had wanted to adopt a dog. We would check the SPCA website every day to look and see the dogs, waiting to see that one face that would make us immediately come to it's rescue. We had found her. She was part Boerboel and part Pit. She just had babies and was a mother ready to be adopted.

Wilma

Nicole and I went and picked up Wilma. We brought my Jack Russel Ric with us so that they could meet. The two seemed to get along nicely at the shelter, so we paid our $130.00 and brought her home. Wilma was very appreciative of her new home and loved the both of us. She loved to go for walks and eat treats. She also loved to cuddle. The thing that wasn't working was that she loved to play with Ric. With Ric being 20 pounds and Wilma at 60, the playing wasn't very successful. Every session would involve Ric being trampled on accident. She never meant to hurt him but she would almost every time. After 2 days of trying to figure this out, we had to make a very difficult decision. Do we keep Wilma here and risk Ric getting hurt? Does Wilma live here only to constantly hear us telling her not to play because we have insufficient means for her to be happy? Or do we do the right thing and bring her back so that she has a chance to be an only dog for someone looking for a best friend. This dog was fantastic and we couldn't keep her. Monday morning the decision was made to bring her back. I had her two days and my heart was broken. I put the leash back on her and brought her to the car. She sat in the back seat laying down with her head resting on the seat cushion, almost as if she knew where she was going. I was trying not to tear up but I was failing miserably. What was only a few mile drive to the spca, seemed like forever. I pulled into the parking lot, trying to get myself together. I looked like my mom after a really sad, intense, episode of Guiding Light. Wilma willingly left the back seat and walked with me to the entrance. Once the door was open, she cowered and tried to pull in the opposite direction. This was brutal. I pushed her in gently by her fanny while trying not to cry and look totally ridiculous. I told the women at the desk that Wilma was fantastic but that she couldn't co-exist with my dog Ric. I told her that Wilma loved to be in her crate at night time, that she feared cats and never attacked them. She was good on a leash, listened to commands (for the most part), and went outside to go to the bathroom. The only issue was my other dog. They were very understanding and after some paper work, I left the SPCA in tears like a pussy and headed home. I love animals, and this one was tough, but it was the right decision. I post this entry for the hopes that if anyone is looking for a great dog, the go visit Wilma at:

SPCA SERVING ERIE COUNTY

205 Ensminger Road
Tonawanda, NY 14150
(716) 875-7360 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (716) 875-7360

Her link is here: http://www.yourspca.org/page.aspx?pid=423

Bistro Europa is Top Notch

2011-07-31T13:53:00.000-04:00

This weekend was Nicole's birthday. My parents came down and took us out to Bambino Bar and Kitchen. It was fantastic as usual, but this review is about our Saturday night. I had made us reservations to Bistro Europa on Elmwood Avenue. This was a restaurant that always made us hate the fact that we were vegetarians. Its unique, cozy, European look and their constantly changing menu and specials, always sparked our curiosity. We could never go before because everything on the menu involves some sort of meet or seafood. No longer being vegetarians, we were eager to try this place out.
We arrived like 15 minutes early. The inside was artsy and dimly lit. From the sidewalk outside, its almost impossible to see inside and I was not expecting it to look the way that it did when we got in.

There was a couple that had reservations a few minutes before us and they were in front of us. They told the women at the bar that they had reservations and the women at the bar said that she was able to seat them immediately. The people then said that they "wanted to see the menu first". So the women handed the couple menus, and then said that she could seat us immediately also. She said that we could choose whatever table we would like. So of course we choose the best table in the place, in the corner by the window. The couple looking at the menu got angry that we chose their table and left. To that couple who made reservations and then left:

"If you make reservations for a restaurant, please have an idea of what the menu usually consists of before you decide to waste their time. Otherwise while you are wasting everybody's time deciding if you want to eat there, Nicole and I will steal your table."

"Yes, that was us that stole your table."

With that being said, we sat down and ordered a round of beers. The beer selection was all really great craft bottles. I started off with The Stone Levitation and Nicole had a Hefeweizen.

For an appetizer we ordered the cabbage and pork pierogi. For our entrees, Nicole had ordered the Sea Bass and I had ordered the Steak Frites. The pierogi arrived in less than 10 minutes. They were very large and looked amazing. 3 pierogi on a bed of sour cream all seasoned and they looked delicious. Each pierogi was filled generously with extremely tender shredded pork and cabbage. These were simply amazing.

Pork and Cabbage Pierogi

They menu states that they serve pierogi, but they do not commit to a specific kind. The menu at this place changes daily so you never know what your options will be. Wishing we had placed a double order, we finished our pierogi. Our entrees came out next. My steak appeared before me cooked to perfection (medium rare), sliced nicely neighboring a generous portion of home made fries and a tasty looking side salad.

Steak Frites

Nicole's sea bass was really impressive. She is new to the whole fish thing so her reaction to different species is unpredictable. She was blown away, every piece of fish and vegetable on her plate melted in her mouth. She is allergic to shellfish and the original menu item was dressed in a lobster sauce. The chef was also the owner so he was able to prepare a special sauce for her of his choosing. If we had to guess it was some sort of orange wine sauce, I could be way off in that assumption but it was awesome. As she approached the last bite of food on her plate, she just sat there looking at it and said, "I don't want this fish to be gone."

Sea Bass

Nothing about this dining experience was bad. Everything from the service to the food was nothing short of amazing. This was easily one of the best restaurants we have been to in Buffalo.

Bistro Europa

(716) 884-1100

484 Elmwood Ave
Buffalo, NY 14222
www.europabuffalo.com

2 new onesies!

2011-07-27T13:32:00.000-04:00

I've been able to get the Super Sweet Shirt co. studio into a working condition with the bare necessities to get the ball rolling again. Slowly I will be making it more the way that I want as I get more time, but I needed to get things set up so that I could keep up with the orders and make new designs. I have created two new onesies that I wanted to shamelessly plug on the blog today, both are totally awesome. I have had many requests from France and Australia to do a Van Damme onesie. I already do a Van Damme t-shirt but haven't had a baby onesie until now. The onesie features Van Damme in fighting pose from "Kickboxer" as Nack Suk Cao (The White Warrior).

The second new onesie is something Nicole had come up with. I was always a fan of the "Big Wheel". It was always something that would make a kids imagination run wild. I remember riding mine around driveways like it was the open road. Nicole had come up with the idea of "Heck's Angels". I totally fell in love with the idea and designed the little logo.

Both of these designs are available in the eBay and Etsy stores, along with our website at http://www.supersweetshirts.com .

WOO! I'm back. I'm trying!

2011-07-26T20:52:00.000-04:00

Its been a hectic couple of days! Every day seems to be more busy than the next. Sounds exciting right? Sort of. I'm burning out. The shirt orders have been crazy, the overtime at my other job is non-stop, and the work around the house is never ending. Last weekend, Nicole and I decided to scrap any house work and keep our schedule as laid back as possible so that we could take a day and do what pleases us most. Shopping. Yeah, yeah, I know. Not a very manly activity right? Whatever. I love shopping, I love clothes, and I fully blame my mother. I was her shopping companion all of the years growing up. Hours of shopping for clothes, shoes, etc. I was raised to enjoy this activity, find sales, combine coupons, and search for bargains. We spent all Saturday having a shopping therapy day and it was just what we needed. We took the portion of our checks that we would normally spend on the house, and we bought some much needed clothes for ourselves. I managed to get myself a nice button down and a sweater for winter that is totally awesome. One thing in particular that I saw at Urban Outfitters, was so awesome, so incredibly stupid, and hideous, I had to share it here. I present to you this work of art (I should have purchased this):

Kelly Kapowski

Anyways, now onto the house (I can't think about my poor decision not to buy this). The kitchen is exploding with life and Al is really making progress. We ran into a few roadblocks that I was able to overcome. First off, the pendent lights we ordered had recessed light adapters on them. It wasn't too big of an issue because I was able to just splice off the adapter and hard wire it into the ceiling. I love how these lights turned out.

The back splash on both sides of the kitchen is now finished. Al finished the other wall today and installed the rest of the remaining cabinets that we had to get shipped because the originals that we ordered were cracked. Now all of the cabinets and the back splash are up, along with the microwave. Next up is the floor and ordering the granite. We cannot wait to get the appliances moved in.

Busy Busy! Quick Update!

2011-07-21T07:43:00.000-04:00

I had taken 2 half days and a full day off this week to get some work done in the new house. This would also allow me to work with Al (our contractor) to learn some things. The heat wave hasn't made things very easy on us but we were determined to make some good progress. We got all of the cabinets put together on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday we put them up. We love the way they look in the kitchen. When they were on display in the store, we were sort of on the fence about them.

Taste of Buffalo Pictures

2011-07-14T14:51:00.000-04:00

I was supposed to get this up yesterday but things have been crazy with shirts! I wanted to post some pictures from the Taste of Buffalo. I'm pretty sure that this was the biggest one yet in terms of vendors, in fact this year was supposed to have made it the biggest food event in the US. It was pretty awesome. I was excited to go this year as a non vegetarian especially. It's best to know ahead of time, or to at least get an idea, as to what you want to try there, otherwise you can wander aimlessly in large crowds looking for what you want. I wanted to try the Lobster Mac & Cheese from Parings Wine Bar, Pierogi from Polish Villa, and wine slushies which are the best when its hot out. Nicole wanted to try the Pierogi and wine slushies also, but also wanted to try the Stuffed Hot Pepper Roll from Molinaro's Ristorante & NY Pizzeria. We got to taste all of these things and they were delicious. I had two Lobster Macs and Nicole's Pepper Roll was the best tasting thing out of everything. If you haven't attended this event before, you should definitely try to get there next year, especially if you love food!

Also, an update on the home renovation. The kitchen is coming along nicely. Al just finished dry walling the room minus a few small things left. This weekend we will be able to paint the kitchen before the cabinets go up. I took some time off next week so that I could help Al with some things. We cant wait to have storage again!

Da Vinci's Machines

2011-07-12T14:59:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend, Nicole and I went to go see the da Vinci exhibit at the Buffalo Science Museum. This was something we wanted to check out in New York City last year when it came but didn't get a chance to. Having lived here for almost 10 years, I had never been to the Science Museum before here in Buffalo, so this was going to be a fresh experience for me.
When we arrived, we thought it was closed. The main entrance was completely closed off and the only reason we knew it was open was from the cars on the side of the building in front of another entrance that was barely noticeable. When we got inside, Nicole asked the people at the front desk why it was closed off. Apparently were portions of it falling apart and it was rendered unsafe for people to use. There was no mention that it was being repaired and no signs of any work being done on it. Hopefully there is a plan in place to get it fixed soon because it is a beautiful entrance and a waste to have to use the side door. It's probably also effecting business because it really does look closed.


" I think they are closed..."

The exhibit was pretty cool to see. I wasn't aware that we were able to work all of the machines that were displayed. Some of the bigger machines had locks on them which meant that the museum worker had to show you how to use it and watch you to make sure it was done correctly. I took some pictures of some of the most interesting machines.

This was a crane that he created. he didn't invent the crane itself but he invented the plans to have the crane swivel 360 degrees at the base. Also he invented the locking mechanism on the gear that was responsible for raising and lowering the crane.

This is the locking mechanism. Pretty cool because its something I've seen on a bunch of modern devices even today.

I don't remember what this does, but when you pulled the lever the big wheel would turn.

Dropping the hammer.

The da Vinci Machine Gun.

Nicole in the first ever designed battle tank.

This is the first ever designed battle tank. It was pretty awesome. They opened it up and allowed us to go inside. The tank took 4 people to move it and they had to coordinate almost like multiple people paddling a boat.

This exhibit has been all over the world and I would definitely try to see it if you can. There were way more machines that I haven't featured here. Some of his designs that he created during his quest for flight were really out there, but awesome. Check back in tomorrow and I should have some stuff from the Taste of Buffalo!

Fish Friday And an Event or Two.

2011-07-11T09:54:00.000-04:00

This weekend was packed full of good things. I wasn't able to get much house work done, but then again, that was the goal this weekend. We have been doing a ton of work around here, so this weekend we wanted to take a break, or at least cut down ( I caved in and did a little work).
Friday I met some old friends out for a fish fry. There are a lot of places that make fish frys in Buffalo, but none of them can even come close to making a fish fry better than Papa Jake's on Elmwood. They make a fish fry that is so far better than any other place I've been to, that it would be a waste of time and money to consider any other option. It's that good. I hadn't been there in over 3 years, so I was eager to see if theirs was still the best. We arrived at around 6:30pm and were fortunate enough to be able to sit down immediately as a table was open in the back. We could have waited to sit in their outside seating area if we really wanted to, but we were pretty hungry and decided against it. One thing I noticed when we walked in was that they increased the quality and the amount of beers they have on tap. I think I counted over 25. I was distracted when trying to count the taps when becoming overwhelmed by excitement from the sight of Ithaca's "Hop Stash" IPA. The "Hop Stash" is easily my favorite beer of the summer if I don't consider any of the beer I had in San Francisco. Ithaca brewed this beer in limited distribution to pay tribute to this year's Phish tour. This is the perfect summer IPA, hands down. I ordered a pint and a fish fry. They did an upgrade on the fish fry since I had last been there. This time, the fish fry came with a crab mac salad that was out of this world. It was the perfect companion. As a whole the fish fry comes with a piece of rye bread, crab mac salad (I think you have a choice of another salad, but I was so excited when they mention the crab mac, that I didn't hear the other option), cole slaw, and Papa Jakes fresh cut french fries.

Three pints of Hop Stash later, and a full stomach, I was more than satisfied and I can't wait to get another fish fry on an future Friday. If you like a good fish fry, and you haven't been to Papa Jake's, you are missing out.
Saturday we went to the Echo Art Fair at the Central Terminal, one of the most beautiful old buildings in Buffalo. They hold events there to help fund its ongoing restoration. There was a decent turn out and the artists where very diverse from photography and paintings, to sculptures and modern art. There were some artists doing live paintings which is always interesting. And at every art show, there was always one artist that stands out either it be good or bad. In this case it was the bad. There was an artist that did paintings of computer desktops. Oh no I'm serious. A beautiful painting of an excel sheet here, a deep and thoughtful painting of solitaire there, this stuff was ridiculous but really funny to look at. I was actually approached by the artist while looking at them, and thankfully he didn't seem to take himself all that seriously. At least I don't think....

We were able to catch a quick lunch inside the art fair courtesy of Potts Deli. They are a Polish deli on South Ogden St. in Buffalo. They were cooking up some fresh pierogi that we smelled as soon as we walked in. Nicole and I are like basset hounds when it comes to sniffing out pierogi. Delicious.

This weekend we also went to the Taste of Buffalo and the da Vinci exhibit at the science museum. I have pictures and some thoughts on those two things that you can read here throughout the week! Thanks for reading and thanks for making Super Sweet Shirts #7 on the top 35 Urban Spoon Buffalo Blogs!

4th of July on the water and some festival notes!

2011-07-06T11:17:00.000-04:00

The Buffalo waterfront has really stepped it up. We had gone down to the waterfront near the HSBC arena on the 3rd of July to check it out. In the past, it was a ghost town. There were no people to be seen, no activity at all. This summer it is totally different. There was tons of activity and people enjoying their Sunday afternoon by the water. It was really awesome. When we went down on the 4th, it was crazy. I took some pictures. The progress and development of the waterfront is definitely coming along nicely.

The fireworks display was pretty amazing. I didn't get any pictures of them because pictures of fireworks are never impressive unless taken by a real photographer. I think the most annoying thing that happened during the fireworks display would be the excessive amounts of country music blasting as the fireworks went off. At one point I had looked to my left to see a family of really overweight trashy people, smoking tons of cigarettes, and getting into the terrible songs playing. The song "Proud to be an American" might be one of the most embarrassing songs ever written and definitely does not make me proud. For about 10 minutes, it was mind blowing and it actually felt like I was in some backwoods town in the South. Luckily they only played like 4 country songs. Yeah I know, some people like country music, but it is still embarrassing. All in all, it was a fun 4th in Buffalo.
This upcoming weekend and the weekend after are super busy. Nicole and I are volunteering at the Echo Art Fair at the Central Terminal this Saturday. Sunday is the Taste of Buffalo which, this year, is the biggest food festival in the United States. I will be eating food and taking pictures! The following weekend is the Italian Festival. This festival isn't all that pretty to look at, but the food is amazing! I will have pictures of that also.

An old place we just discovered.

2011-07-02T21:43:00.000-04:00

The Elmwood Village is riddled with pizza places, some really good, some awful. A few days ago, after doing some house work, we were exhausted, hungry, and looking to save some money while still adjusting to our new homeowner/ridiculous amount of home repairs budget. Then I remembered Casa-di-Pizza. I had always been a fan, but it just a few blocks outside our normal "walking zone" so we unfortunately forget about it a lot. But, we shouldn't forget about it! Its a great place to order a pizza or just get a slice. The best part is attached to the takeout portion of this place is a sit down restaurant and bar that I had never really eaten at, but always checked out when I was getting my to go orders. It was the perfect place to go looking the way we did after our physical labor. Its not exactly a classy place but its not a complete hole in the wall either. It's very just very relaxed, come as you are sort of place, and that's pretty much what we needed.

We sat ourselves and the waitress promptly came over to take our drink order. Imagine our happy surprise when we discovered this:

Oh yes, you're reading that right. $5.50 Martinis. Martinis and pizza? That's ok by us! Nicole ordered a Mint Chocolate, and while I was narrowing down my choices, I happened to look at the back of the drink menu to discover a $5.95 Margarita. Casa-di-Pizza was quickly on its way to becoming our favorite new place.

Another great part about the restaurant is that the menu is gigantic. Everything from pizza and calzones, to steaks, pasta, and subs. It is totally awesome for quick food. For an appetizer we ordered mozzarella sticks. They were more the size of hot dogs than your standard mozzarella sticks and covered in a seasoned breadcrumb mix. They were super tasty.

How does Nicole's martini keep sneaking into my pictures?

For the main entree, we decided to pass on the pizza (which we have had before from here and know its fresh, delicious and flavorful) and I ordered the black and blue steak sandwich. I promise I did take a picture of it but for some reason its not on my camera anymore. Nicole's entree was still on there however. She ordered the French Dip. She wasn't a fan of it only because she has realized that she just doesn't enjoy red meat. So after realizing her opinion wouldn't be fair, I decided I had to do my food duty and take a couple of bites of hers. I'm happy to report that her distaste was simply due to her aversion to red meat, and the sandwich was in fact delicious. The Au Jus that came with hers was great, made from their real roast beef (no Arby's-like "meat" here) and was not salty like so many are. My sandwich was really great too. I asked for medium rare, and as the waitress explained to me, she'd tell the cook "rare" so it would come out medium rare. And she was right, it was cooked to perfection.

The French Dip Sandwich

Casa-di-pizza makes amazing bar food, and hey, who doesn't want martinis and delicious pizza (really, try the chicken finger pizza, its incredible). I'm personally looking forward to hockey season, I think we just found our new favorite hang out.

Buffalo FC and some weekend notes

2011-06-30T09:21:00.000-04:00

Last night Nicole and I went to see the Buffalo FC take on The Bedlington Terriers from the UK. The game took place at the historic All-High Stadium in Buffalo. When Nicole told me she had bought tickets for this, I was pretty excited. Since the last world cup I have become a pretty big soccer fan and I was excited to see something like this take place. The Buffalo FC has been active in trying to create a soccer scene here. With the Bedlington Terriers coming here to play, there was a significant amount of press for the game and it actually drew almost 4000 people which was pretty impressive. The crowd was pretty alive too which made the game more fun to watch. During the opening ceremonies we were graced with the presence of Mayor Brown, Chris Collins, and Superintendent James Williams. All three of them were booed by everyone there which was hilarious. Bedlington had just crushed Niagara Falls the night before so I was anticipating a crushing defeat. The result was the total opposite. Buffalo handed it to Bedlington 5-1 in what, at times, resembled the Harlem Globetrotters vs The Washington Generals. I was pretty impressed with the skill level of the Buffalo Team. The Bedlington team could have been exhausted from travel and playing the night before, plus they appeared significantly older, but regardless Buffalo really gave it to them. Here are a few pictures:

Nicole is really into soccer...

On a different note, when we moved from our old apartment, we left the box spring for our bed. It was a box spring that was there at the apartment initially that the previous occupants had left. They had gotten it into the apartment through the bay window. This was a huge pain that we did not want to reenact. We noticed these platform beds that were becoming more popular on Ikea's website. Every place we looked online was really expensive and the more we looked at these things, the more we thought we could just make one. Check back this weekend to see if we were successful!

Full Weekend of House Work

2011-06-26T21:51:00.000-04:00

This weekend was super busy. Friday night we set a goal for what we wanted to accomplish this weekend and we made sure that we actually did it. Our main goal was to tackle a few more of the old windows and paint the sun room. Like I had mentioned a few posts ago, the sun room consists of 7 large, old wooden windows. Instead of immediately spending what would probably be over a grand for that one room alone, we are going to repair and fix up the windows that are in there which will buy us a little time and make them look a lot nicer. I ordered some new glass and grabbed some more window glaze. Nicole picked up the painting supplies and we were ready to work all weekend.
Saturday afternoon when we got back from Home Depot, we received a call from our friend Patrick. He was bored and looking to help out so we told him to come down, we sure could use the help. I started pulling windows out while Nicole started priming the room. She wanted to prime it because of the old water stains that were present. The paint we decided on was a light blue/gray. It was a color that was going to go really well with the old mahogany. Here are some "before" pictures:

After Pat and I repaired the old windows, we joined Nicole and helped paint the room. With three people doing it, it took hardly anytime at all. Here are some "after" pictures.

The room looks pretty awesome now. We also took down the terrible Gothic light that was hanging from the ceiling and replaced it with a basic ceiling fan. I installed a dimmer so that we didn't have to have intense lighting while watching TV.
The weekend flew by, but we got everything done that we set out to do. Next weekend will be a new set of goals to accomplish! Today I got to relax, as we went to Nicole's mother's house where I got to sit down for a few hours and watch the Red Bulls game. It was soccer Sunday for me and I loved every minute of it.

Raining in the Sun Room.

2011-06-23T12:21:00.000-04:00

When we bought the house, we were aware of the leak in the drain of the tub. We noticed it leaking into the basement from upstairs. What we didn't know was that it was eventually going to start leaking into the sun room shortly after we bought the house. What was going to be held off a few weeks now needed immediate attention.

I sent this picture to Al and in a few days, once the renovation check cleared, he started work to see what the problem was. Nicole and I had to go 3 days without showering and smelled like a couple of hippies, we couldn't wait to shower!
Al started in the bathroom, tearing apart the area of the tub to be able to see the pipes. We couldn't see the leak which meant it was in the floor. This didn't sound good. He ventured into the sun room and cut out a small section of the ceiling where the leak was happening. There sitting in the ceiling was a big drain pipe that was completely broken. The owner of the house tried doing a terrible rig job on the pipe that was clearly meant as a temporary cover-up so that he could sell the house. Super annoying but easier to permanently fix than to do what he tried doing. He made an attempt to clog the break in the pipe with some foreign substance. Fail.


Never a dull moment.

Al was able to repair the pipe and Nicole and I were able to shower. It's the little things you take for granted.
This weekend we plan on continuing work in the sun room. We are going to be doing a lot painting and window repair. This will be time consuming and it will make it less tempting for us to go out to eat and waste money. We spent a lot of money the past two weeks so this weekend we are taking it easy. I plan on replacing another window pain and Nicole is going to do some priming so that we can paint the room. Taking this house one room at a time is the only way to do this without losing focus and going mad. Seeing as the sun room is the room we will spend the most time in, it made sense to make this our first priority. Here are a few "before" pictures.

This has got to go...

More pictures to come as we make progress!

Huge Etsy and Ebay onesie sale!

2011-06-22T10:20:00.000-04:00

Check out our eBay and Etsy stores (links are to the right). All short sleeve, white onesies are on sale for $8.00 on Etsy and $9.00 on eBay! Also, if you buy more than one item, any item, you will only pay 2.00 shipping! Don't miss out on this deal!

Finally moved in!

2011-06-20T06:11:00.000-04:00

I haven't had much time to blog or even breathe for that matter. This weekend we put together some support of friends, and my parents came down so that we could move everything into the new house. My legs feel like jello but we are finally moved in. There are a few roadblocks that we need to deal with but nothing all that major. We need to survive one more week without a refrigerator because out appliances got delayed and now they can't deliver them for 5 more days. My parents made an attempt to bring the extra dryer over from their house down two flights of stairs. It was just too hard to move it so Nicole are going to get a new washer and dryer next week hopefully. In the meantime we will have to visit the laundry mat. I'll be posting some pictures tomorrow of the new landscaping in the front along with the progress of the sun room.

Kitchen Remodel Phase 2: Knocking Out the Wall

2011-06-14T21:28:00.000-04:00

So the kitchen is fully gutted and today Al and I knocked out the wall dividing the kitchen and the dining room. We will be putting up a new half wall, leaving a cut out and showing off a little counter space in the kitchen.

The inside of the kitchen wall. Prepare to meet your doom.

The breakthrough begins

Al has no mercy.

Almost through!

One thing we discovered is that when we tore out the wall the chimney was revealed. The way it sat there between the cut out wall and the doorway gave Al an idea. What if we keep the exposed chimney in that spot? I loved it, we are looking to modernize the house, but we want to keep the old charm the house had that we fell in love with when we first walked in. Juxtaposing the original brick fireplace in the house against the old original wood work, surrounded by new drywall and our (soon to be) new bamboo floors will hopefully give us that balance.

Completely opened up between the kitchen and dining room

Keep in mind the chimney will go right up to the ceiling, there's still some plaster left to take down. The chimney will just need to get cleaned off a little with a wire brush and it should look awesome when its all done.

One of the best parts about tearing down walls in old homes is that you never know what you will find. When we took out the ceiling in the kitchen, there were baseball cards galore from the mid 80's up there (no, nothing valuable). Today we found a 103 year old Buffalo newspaper. The paper was disintegrating and crumbling to pieces but I managed to get a few good shots of it.

Sun Room Repairs

2011-06-12T20:43:00.000-04:00

Something that I didn't know was that if you have old wooden windows that need repair, your local family run hardware store will cut you new glass and even repair the windows. Our sun room has 7 windows that all need attention. They all have either cracked or broken glass along with pealing paint. With new windows costing roughly $200.00 a piece, we needed to fix these windows up so that we could replace them gradually. I measured the glass that I needed for the windows and then picked them up from the hardware store down the street. Lets go in and see what we did!

"Ooh Coool"


This is no good.

I removed both sashes from the frame by carefully taking off the molding around the window. That was how these sashes were being held in place. I then laid them on the floor and sanded them down.

The second piece pictured above was rough. All of the wood holding together the little panes was rotted out. I decided I was going to get rid of that wood and replace it with just one big window pane, like the other portion. With some hand tools, I carefully removed the rotted wood.

After I got all of the old wood out, I sanded both sashes down the best that I could. Nicole and I applied two coats each on each sash with some white, exterior semi-gloss paint.

Once the paint dried, we placed the new glass into each sash carefully, and then inserted several push points around the glass to secure it in place. I say carefully because my first attempt was a failure in that I held the glass wrong and it snapped, resulting in a dash back to the hardware store 15 minutes before they closed. Total waste, but you live and learn. The push points can be bought at your local hardware store for a few dollars. When the glass was in place, we took our caulk gun and went around the glass with some window glaze to seal the deal!

Push points will secure the window in place.

The window glaze takes about 2 hours to dry. After that, you can carefully put your new windows back up! Our first home project was a success. We also replaced the cheap light on the porch with something a little bigger and better suited to the size of the house.

And yes, we bought that special "bug away" yellow light bulb. Thanks, Billy the Exterminator. Ridiculous. Amazing, yet ridiculous.