As we prepare for Buffalo Homecoming 2008 (nee Buffalo Old Home Week), I thought it would be interesting to perform a completely unscientific and anecdotal research project. Each year, I endeavor with my cohorts to celebrate Buffalo. In years past, I think we spent too much time accentuating what Buffalo was and what we hope it can be in the future. This year, it’s a celebration about what Buffalo is today.

Our event lineup will be a bit different and there will be a lot of details coming out in the next few weeks regarding organizational changes, sponsorships, registration, and a host of other issues.

Today, I want to ask you a question that someone posed to me when they discovered my involvement with Buffalo Homecoming, “Why did you leave Buffalo and why did you come back?”

I’ll get to my answers in a bit, but there are some other questions as part of this “research project” as well.

• If you left, why did you leave?

• Are you planning to move home or have you already taken the plunge? If so, why?

• Did you move away and close the book on a future in Buffalo? If so, why?

• If you are here and thinking of leaving, why?

• If you are thinking of leaving, what has to change for you to consider staying?

• If you never lived here before, why did you move here?

On to my Buffalo Story…
I left Buffalo in 1996 after college to make my own future. I joined the US Air Force and wandered the nation and the world. I wanted to live beyond the horizon of my youth and explore new experiences. I never really considered coming home, it was just a place to reference as where I was born.

After a decade of working and living around the country, we settled in Chicago and prepared to make it our permanent place of residence. After two years in Chicago, I was presented with an opportunity to transfer home. Why? Because my company couldn’t find anyone to do what I do locally and they knew I about the only guy in the company who would consider a move to Buffalo. We weighed our options, figured it was a unique opportunity and thought we would leave after a year or two if things didn’t work out.

In the ensuing three years, my love affair with Buffalo has been a cruel mistress. Filled with hope and excitement about pending change, getting involved with organizations that were making a difference in the community, discovering that the pace of progress would be incredibly slow, and finding myself troubled by the lack of career options in a shrinking city. It’s been a roller coaster ride and I often wonder if I made the right decision to move home. On the flip side, we bought our first home, grew closer to our families, had a child, and met dozens of people who I know will be friends for life. We’ve also grown despondent about the economic future of our hometown and often wonder if we’re “settling” by staying here. It’s conflicting and I think the schizophrenic nature of this blog over these three years has detailed that journey…

So, I stay in Buffalo because I am hopeful. It is a hope that is grounded in reality with a healthy dose of pessimism about those who would promise to deliver solutions to our troubled region. I am disdainful of those who believe we can simply wish our problems away or that the renaissance is upon us. After all, we’re a couple hundred miles drive from a renaissance and our car is burning oil and the engine is making a loud knocking sound…

I stay in Buffalo because I want my children to understand the context of their family and learn about their roots. I believe that children need proximity to their extended family and be grounded in an understanding that where you are from is a significant part of the person you become. I want to show them where I grew up and learn about life as I knew it. To see the humble beginnings of the Clan Geek and to learn many of the lessons that living in a town like this can teach.

I stay in Buffalo because I have a good job. If that job ever goes away, all of that which I described in the previous paragraphs will have to be pushed aside. See, there just isn’t a big market for senior level information system architects in this town and when openings do develop, well, the salaries are below market value and not sustainable for me. So, I’d have to scurry back to Chicago or Boston to make a living or start my own company in Buffalo which would require too much personal risk when one is supporting a young family.

So, I am a tenuous believer in Buffalo and stay while completely ignoring my potential for career growth. Am I crazy? Probably. But for some reason, this city is a part of who I am and it’s where I belong right now. I took the risk to move home and the rewards have so far outweighed the costs.

I’d love to hear your personal Buffalo story…

That’s right, Mrs. Geek and I were not satisfied with only one child, we’re upping the ante and going for two. Being environmentally friendly parents, this should complete our collection of children as we try to stay carbon neutral on contributing people to the planet…

Baby Geek 2:  Electric Boogaloo premieres August 23rd.

Baby Geek is a little unsure as to what this means for his role as King of the Castle and primary sipper of Dad’s beer.

BuffaloGeek and WNYMedia, re-populating Buffalo, one baby at a time.

I’ve been swamped with work, family, and company management stuff as of late so the blogging has taken a backseat. I’ve been wanting to write about a lot of topics as of late, but time is always an issue for me. So, another random thoughts column peppered with links to stuff I found interesting and I’ll be back to writing in a couple of days.

• If you’re not watching “The Wire” on HBO, why not? The similarities between the depiction of Baltimore’s gritty reality and that of Buffalo are striking. The writing is phenomenal, the characters flawlessly developed and complex, and the subject matter crucial for any urban denizen. If you need to catch up on the first four seasons, watch this and then get to steppin’ on watching this season’s episodes. You can also read a fantastic interview with the show’s creator, David Simon at The Atlantic.

• This is how you build a new sports stadium. The “build a new stadium downtown” crowd needs to take a look at what modern stadium construction looks like in the year 2008. It isn’t a small footprint like The Ralph anymore, it’s a massive mixed use development with tons of parking. Urban stadiums can be built, but they require more space than local proponents assume in their off-the-cuff remarks.

• If you could create a slogan that sums up the last 40 years of Buffalo History and what you presume the next 40 years will bring, what would it be? I used “The City of Broken Dreams and Irresponsible Hope” in a conversation last week and it has been jangling around my noggin ever since. Since I am so pleased with myself for coming up with it, I thought I’d see what others think of it and perhaps solicit some new ones.

• If we started selling WNYMedia t-shirts, would you buy one? They’d come with pithy sayings and/or local iconography as well as our logo. After all, providing a website of this size ain’t cheap. We needs some money!

• After reading this Phil Fairbanks fluff piece on Lynn Marinelli, I almost regretted voting against her in the past two elections. Then, I came to my senses and realized I had done the right thing. However, the most striking part of the story came in the form of a Len Lenihan quote about bipartisanship in the Erie County Legislature:

“To me, it’s the same old, same old,” said Lenihan, who suggested Marinelli’s alliance with Collins is akin to “crossing a picket line.”

Wow. Lynn did what was politically necessary to retain her leadership position, but she has always been willing to work with members of the Republican caucus. This old machine style attitude of “us v. them” is exactly what discourages progress in this county.

• I just can’t get down with any of these Presidential candidates. On the Dem side; Hillary’s constant parsing and race baiting has me nauseous, Obama’s economic plans are a bit sketchy for my liking, and Edwards is a used car salesman. On the Republican side, McCain is looking for a century long commitment in Iraq, Giuliani can’t discuss dinner plans without working in a 9/11 reference, Huckabee is too creepy christianist for me, Ron Paul is…well…Ron Paul, Fred Thompson seems like a Texas Sheriff, and Mitt Romnobot3000 is completely uninspiring. What to do? I liked Biden and Richardson, but they’re out.

• Urban Denizen reminds us as to the limits and realities of preservation and Ethan over at Beer-O-Vision has a scientific analysis of the reasons why wine snobs suck.

• The flippant nature which Dreamhost uses to deal with massive technical problems drives me insane. We’re going to find ourselves a new webhosting company, but that will result in a day or two of downtime while the DNS records in the Internet tubes are changed. I will not host with Online Media since they repeatedly insult us, so I’m wondering if there is another local service which anyone prefers. If you have a preferred national partner that offers dedicated web and MySQL hosting, let me know that as well.

• Anyone have leads on work-from-home jobs that aren’t pyramid schemes or indentured servitude? I know someone who, due to health reasons, is looking for a work-from-home position of a clerical or bookkeeping nature. It seems as if every opportunity is some “Make Millions On Ebay” type scam or repackaging someone’s Ebay scam. Any help is appreciated.

• If you haven’t picked up the latest issue of Block Club Magazine, do so. The design, as always, is top notch. The content lacks pretension and focuses on “regional” hyperlocal matters. A great read and good for the community. Two thumbs up

Even bloggers need a day off…

Today and tomorrow will be filled with Christmas tidings around Casa di Geek. Thus, I will most likely not be updating until Wednesday. In the meantime, enjoy some photos of Christmas cheer from our family to yours. Have a wonderful Christmas!

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It’s been a decidedly slow news week around these parts as it would appear the politicians have taken some time off from their typical daily displays of incompetence to share a bit of the Yule Log and a nip of egg nog.

So, why don’t I do the same? I know my family likes to celebrate the holiday season perusing our collection of Soviet Christmas Cards and sharing a some of the ol’ fascist fruitcake. How about you? What are some of your family traditions? What did you have on your Christmas list this year? What are you getting for that special concerned citizen on your list?

It is one of the most common refrains at the end of every year during the Erie County budget process.

“Fully fund the Buffalo Convention and Visitor’s Bureau with their full share of the bed tax”

Since I don’t like to hear a problem restated over and over again without the proposition of a creative solution, I’m going to offer one…because that’s how I roll.

Why should the CVB be funded out of a tax that is collected by Erie County? The revenue stream sources from the hotels themselves and the County simply acts as a pass through, while taking a piece of the revenue as a vig.

Why not abolish the bed tax altogether?

Poking around the CVB’s website, I came across a series of videos that were recently completed which help tell the story of Buffalo-Niagara. By the way, if you want people to actually watch these videos, shorten up the vignettes and post them on sites around the web, not just on your own.  The only people who will find these videos will be people who were looking for them in the first place, viral marketing 101.   I digress…

At the end of the videos, the message “funding provided by the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo” appears. This got me to thinking…clearly, there are other funding sources available that can be utilized to market the region. Reading through the Buffalo CVB 2006 Annual Business Review and their Form 990, the CVB accepted money from all the large foundations in Buffalo.

Rather than a lobbying effort centered on realizing a full share of the bed tax, why not argue to abolish the bed tax and move to a community funded marketing model?

The CVB is a 501c6 non-profit corporation and thus donations to the organization are not tax deductible. So, as a quasi Chamber of Commerce, they can move to a membership model that draws dues directly from the hoteliers and local arts institutions as the official marketing agency for the region. Require as part of membership that the hotels set aside the same percentage as they do today in taxes and give them directly to the CVB. Of course, the hoteliers will require transparent accounting and performance based budgeting to ensure their money is being spent properly. Something the County Legislature claims the CVB does not do currently.

Once the funding stream is in place, the CVB can continue to work with local partners to market the region. The percentage of revenue that will come into CVB coffers will be directly proportionate to the amount of revenue they are able to bring into the region as a result of their marketing efforts.

The CVB can enlist membership and support from local marketing companies like Crowley Webb, Eric Mower, and Stand Advertising to put together comprehensive plans for the region. They could also solicit small business membership and partner with BNE/BNP for funding from the business community. If we can get everyone pulling in the same direction, perhaps we’ll stop going in circles.

They can utilize local web/media talent from our universities to create viral marketing campaigns that create a people powered picture of Buffalo. Why use the county as a passthrough when a much more efficient model is available for implementation?

How will we pay for maintenance and operations of the Convention Center that currently comes from bed tax revenue? That’s the fly in my solution ointment. Erie County would have to move it into the general fund or work out a cooperative funding arrangement with the CVB wherein the County comes to the CVB for funding. See how I flipped it? Let’s talk about it.

Think differently.

This past Sunday, it was an East Side vs. West Side football game in the snow at Buffalo ReUse HQ on Northampton Street.

Upon arrival, players were decorated with war paint by the lovely Caesandra from Buffalo ReUse.

Once we were painted up, the teams were set up and we went into gridiron battle. In an effort to not get anyone killed nor look like sissies playing two handed touch, we chose to play “wrap up” football. A “wrap up” tackle supposedly halts the forward progress of the individual driving towards the end zone. In practice, it looked a lot more like this:

Yes, that is Michael Gainer of BuffaloReUse putting me on my ass as I broke free for what was supposed to be a highlight reel “rumblin’ bumblin’ stumblin’” touchdown run.

It was a great time and it was a unique way for various groups working to make a Better Buffalo to have some laughs, share some chili, and have a blast. PUSH Buffalo, Habitat for Humanity, and Urban Roots were all represented on the field as was Buffalo ReUse and WNYMedia.

If you’re looking to join in the Buffalo ReUse experience and volunteer, they are always looking for a few good men and women. They can use help in every area of the organization, from office work to hands on construction work. If you’re interested in signing up to join the most fun loving group of volunteers in Buffalo, hit them up on their volunteer homepage.

In a cruel twist, Keebler has mucked with what is one of my favorite holiday traditions…the eating by the dozens of Jingles cookies by Salerno.

Keebler bought out the regional cookie maker a few years back and absorbed all of their excellent recipes, including the beloved anise flavored Jingle.   After a few years, they sold off Salerno and kept only one brand…Jingles.  Oddly enough, they did not actually keep the traditional recipe, just the brand name.  It would appear that Keebler was more interested in the brand than the actual product.

Thus, when I asked Mrs. Geek to pick up a box of Jingles for the house, I was presented with what amounts to a mockery of a holiday tradition.  The Keebler version of Jingles is a weak interpretation of the slightly soft and chewy traditional Jingle cookie with the excessive amount of red and green sprinkles and the overdose of anise.  For all the talk about a “War on Christmas“, I think Messrs. O’Reilly and Gibson need to turn their Conservative Christmas Army on the cookie industry and fight for the right of chubby guys in Buffalo to eat a proper Jingle cookie.

Seriously, who can enjoy such a cheap knockoff of a classic holiday tradition?  If Santa knew, he’s undoubtedly be pissed.

WNYMedia.net was a proud sponsor of the first ever Broadway Market Christmas Food Fair along with BSC Group, CityView Properties, and David Tiftickjian & Sons.

This weekend marks the start of a new tradition at The Broadway Market as the new Board of Directors looks to establish the market as a year round destination. The Christmas Fair featured independent vendors as well as tried and true market favorites like Melanie’s Sweets and Malczewski Poultry. Santa Claus was on hand to visit with the children, the Community Music School provided music and the sounds of The Snowbelters Barber Shop Quartet filled the air.

It was refreshing to see so many people at the market this weekend and the vendors were exceptionally pleased with the turnout. A great weekend for the market!

If you weren’t able to attend this weekend’s festivities, be sure to make your reservations for Sandy Starks’ “Savor The Flavor” Wigilia Edition on December 8th and 15th. She’ll be sharing the making of a traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner. Wigilia foods, including mushroom soup, pierogi, seafood and the traditional Christmas wafers (oplatek). Fr. Anzelm Chalupka, Pastor of Corpus Christi Church, will join Ms. Starks in explaining the Christmas Eve meal and will bless the Christmas wafers.

This special Savor the Flavor presentation is expected to sell out quickly. For further information or to make a reservation, call Your Buffalo Tours at 716.839.5150 or order tickets online at Brown Paper Tickets.

Our good buddy over at Beer-O-Vision, Ethan Cox, takes a few minutes to show you how to properly pour God’s nectar of summertime, Hefeweizen.

Click through to read more and see the video…

Buffalo, NY - Did you miss out on the yearly Taste of Buffalo festival? If so, WNYMedia.net was out in force “at the Taste” to capture photo and video…as well as a few samples!

A list of the winners:

• People’s Choice: Lafayette Tap Room — BBQ pulled pork sandwich
• Chairman’s Choice: Carmine’s Restaurant, Clarence — Crabcake stuffed shrimp
• New York Award: Caribbean Experience — Jerk chicken sandwich
• Lou Billittier Memorial Rookie of the Year Award: Garris Bar-B-Que — Catfish nuggets
• Best Seafood: Ms. Goodies — JunkYard Dog fish sandwich
• Best Vegetarian Food: Donnie’s Smokehouse — Southern cabbage and rice
• Best Dessert: Sweet Tooth — Double fudge torte
• Children’s Choice: Panaro’s — Mini cannoli
• Best Wine: Warm Lake Estates, Cambria
• Best Overall Food: Eddie Ryan’s, Lancaster — Pot roast melt sandwich
• Best Meat Item: Mobay’s Caribbean Cuisine — Jerk chicken with BBQ sauce in rice and beans
• Carol Ann Roe Memorial Best Decorated Booth Award: Clarence Center Coffee Company & Cafe
• Pat Sardina/Abby Stalker Memorial Award: Village Desserts, Williamsville — Summer delight cupcake

• Independent Health Healthy Choice Options: First place, Niagara Cafe — Arroz con pollo guisado (stewed chicken with rice); second place, Orazio’s, Clarence — Fusilli Jerry pasta primavera; third place: Suzz Cafe, City of Tonawanda — Cucumber cilantro salad.

Also, we are establishing a formal relationship with TheBuffaloTube.com as a partner distributor of WNYMedia.net video. We’d like to give our new friends as much publicity as we can as they start a local version of global internet video provider, YouTube.

After all, why give exclusive content to Brightcove or YouTube when we can support a local company?

Most consider this the official start of the Western New York Summer. Cookouts, people opening up their pools for the year, putting the boat in the water, parties galore.
Usually for us it’s the yard work, the gardens, lots of around the house stuff, nothing different this year.
Son of Dub is probably going to stop by for the chain saw if he goes down to the property in Alma. Our little storage trailer cushioned the fall of a large tree. Going to make a little firewood I guess.
I hope to get in a little fishing, and maybe a trip to the drive in.

Monday I will be celebrating 30 years of wedded bliss with my beloved.

What are your plans?
pd

Written by Pauldub

82 and sunny today. If you can take off work, do so. If not, go outside at lunch. Enjoy the sunshine. As for me, I am going to leave early for work, and take my sweet time driving through Buckhorn park.

Buffalo summer is starting.

Written by Pauldub

Kinda busy past couple of days, although not as bad as Geek (See cool Twitter box on side bar).

I promise to post something uninformed, foolish, or the long shot - not bad- this evening.

I know you’ve all been waiting…

Written by Pauldub

Remember when the Buffalo Control Board laid the wage freeze on the city? Tough times indeed. Contract terms set aside, angry workers, lawsuits galore. Now the Mayor states that the city has reached the point fiscally where the wage freeze on city wokers should be lifted.And it looks like the Chairman, Brian Lipke, agrees. I’m not saying it’s time to strike up the band yet, but it looks encouraging.

And if you got the big guy looking favorably on the idea:

In a written statement today, Spitzer said he supports Brown’s call for lifting the wage freeze and believes the control board will “in short order” determine if conditions warrant such a move.

Even though there would be no retroactive pay for money lost in the past 3 years, just getting the freeze lifted should help out. I think this puts it in the right perspective:

The president of one of the city’s largest unions praised Brown’s efforts. Michael F. Drennen, who represents about 450 white-collar employees, said his members have been working without raises for nearly four years.

“It has devastated morale, without a doubt,” said Drennen. “Lifting [the wage freeze] would be huge for morale.”

Now there is still the ongoing negotiations with the Police, but I think this will no doubt help the process move a bit better. I’m optimistic, and I’m seeing some light here.