The Blog of Jason “Jayce” Olshefsky

After the parade, Ali and I got lunch at Mac’s Philly Steaks (76 South Main St., Canandaigua). It’s a decent place and — with my only slightly trained taste — felt that their cheese-steak sandwiches were quite authentic. It was definitely a good start before we headed out to Stony Brook State Park (10820 State Route 36, Dansville) to go camping.

The first thing we noted was there were several signs declaring that no alcohol was permitted in the park. This was not mentioned earlier and we intended on having a *ahem* good time, so our cooler was filled with quite a bit of beer and wine coolers. As such, we said nothing and quietly circumvented the rule by using cups and keeping it inside the tent. It was only because the park was minimally staffed that we — and some significant percentage of other campers (10% to 75% would be my guess) — were able to imbibe.

I imagine the rule was created to allow rangers to eject “rowdy” campers. However, it’s really just a way to circumvent the inherent unfairness of a subjectively applied rule like “no alcohol abuse”. The personal prejudices of a park ranger would directly come into play — perhaps as innocent as permitting attractive young women to “keep it quiet” or as sinister as searching the camps of black people for illegal contraband.

I end up stuck at a crossroads about it all. On the one hand, I think it’s important to allow a certain subjective leeway in interpreting the law — after all, it’s part of the checks and balances devised in the Constitution. But on the other hand, I want law itself to be, well, law — such that it defines the boundaries of permissible behavior.

As it stands now, it appears that determining which laws are “Law” and which are “suggestions” is a collectively agreed-upon and largely arbitrary process — molesting children?: no way; talking on your cell phone while driving?: only if you won’t get caught. It goes back to what I said before: laws are entirely voluntary. Personal behavior is not defined by law, but it often correlates because laws — in my opinion — should codify only universally unacceptable behaviors. A tall order indeed — and in all likelihood, too tall to actually accomplish.

All I’m saying is that laws should either be all absolute or all suggestions but not an arbitrary mix.

Anyway … where was I. Oh yeah, camping.

So Ali and I got set up pretty well and spent the first day kind of lounging around. Well, that’s what we did most of the rest of the time too. We did go on a hike around the rim of the gorge … a long, tiring hike indeed.

We also swam in the man-made, stream-fed pool. It was a clever dam structure in the gorge to offer a swimming area that included a kiddie section and another section that went as deep as 8 feet. It was very cold — around 60°F. I had been in the water already so I was prepared but Ali was quite shocked by it. I found that I could get used to it, though. It was also quite nice that, despite the silt in the water, there was no chlorine so it left you feeling nice and fresh.

We also spent a lot of time exploring the gorge — another illegal activity that a large contingent of park visitors freely violated [thank goodness for funding cuts so there were no rangers to kick us out!]. I particularly liked the larger waterfalls, one of which included a deep section you could jump into from a short rock ledge, and another had a blast of cool water that you could let pound on your back like a friggin’ 200 gallon-per-minute massage. The stream varied in width and flow-rate, depending on whether it had cut through depths of the slate bed. Some of the deeper troughs had enough flow and were smooth enough that you could use them like a water slide. The rough patches in the slate bottoms were enough to rub holes in my 20-year-old swimsuit, though.

We left the campground once to get ice cream at The Stony Brook Farm Market (10895 State Route 36, Dansville) — a nice excursion in the middle of the weekend. Ali had accidentally booked through Monday so we got to stay late on Sunday. The place cleared out right at 11 a.m. — check-out time — leaving us with just a half-dozen other camps in sight; much different from the fully-booked state over the weekend. We got back in the afternoon on Sunday and tried getting back into the swing of things with limited success.

Our friends Scott and Don from Wick-edly Sent (94 S. Main St., Canandaigua) invited Ali and me to bring our custom bikes to ride in the Canandaigua Independence Day Parade. We were part of The Canandaigua Merchants Association’s entry in the parade — their theme was “Go Green!” with five of us on bikes. The other three bikes were custom cruisers loaned from RV & E Bike and Skate (168 South Main St., Canandaigua). A couple people on foot handed out brochures. Two of the little girls carried the sign tethered between them, and the other two handed out penny candy to the crowd.

Now, I’ve never been in a parade, but it sure was a lot of fun. There were several thousand people lined up along Main Street and we waved to them, smiled, said hello, and otherwise had a great time.

So I stopped by Solera Wine Bar (647 South Ave.) and was talking with the owner, John Fanning. He gave rave reviews of this place called Abeline Bar and Lounge (153 Liberty Pole Wy., formerly Tara) — noting that it had very little traffic but could be a trendy hang-out. He had talked with Abeline’s owner and commented that the location didn’t get much traffic; the reply was something to the effect of “well, it’s here and people will figure that out”.

Anyway, I headed over and ran into a friend and shot some pool. The Park Avenue Band was playing until late so — unlike what John said — the place was pretty packed. The beer selection is quite good: bottles only, except for one beer on tap. I can imagine that it would definitely be a neat place to hand out on an off-night. When there’s a band, it’s a bit … umm … intimate.

I was only at Tara once and that was years ago, but I think the layout is pretty much the same. I think the lights are brighter at Abeline and the men in the posters generally have shirts on.

Ali and I went on the weekly Cruiser’s Ride this week. We’ve gone in the past but this is the first time I got to blog about it. Anyway, it’s a group of bicyclists that starts from Dogtown Hots (691 Monroe Ave.) — they used to start at Monty’s Krown (875 Monroe Ave.) but everyone kept getting dinner at Dogtown first. We got rolling around 8:30 or so and meandered through the city streets all over the place, covering some 9 miles or so all around (I measured as best as I could remember on a map). I finally got to see The Legal Wall — although I guess it’s now the “somewhat legal wall” … perhaps someone in the group wasn’t confident of the concept or that something changed. In case you don’t know, the principle is that the owners of buildings in this area permit and welcome artists to apply graffiti. Some of it is fantastic. Pardon me if I don’t specify exactly where it is because the cops have been on a rampage shutting good things down of this ilk.

The ride “officially” terminates at Lux Lounge (666 South Ave.) although this time, they wouldn’t permit us to bring our bikes to the back yard as they had in the past. Ali and I both had custom-built bikes [by me, in case you’re wondering] and she didn’t want to leave them locked up in front so we went to Solera Wine Bar (647 South Ave.) with John and had a glass of wine so we could sit by them and keep an eye on them.

I just thought I’d briefly mention that I went to RIT (One Lomb Memorial Dr., campus map) to see Ali run in The JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge this year. She planned on just walking the whole thing but she and some of her coworkers ended up running for a couple miles of it. The food her company catered was really excellent — and they were thoughtful enough to include beer and wine.

Ali and I went to Make and Take Gourmet (1475 E. Henrietta Road) to make a few do-it-yourself take-home-and-cook meals. I had set up an event with the MEETinROCHESTER and 5 of them came as well. We had a great time — a few people brought some wine so we had a ball drinking and cooking. I made the “Inside-out Bacon Cheeseburgers with Green Onion Mayo” and Ali made the “Sautéed Chicken in Dijon-Cream Sauce”. When I was all done, I had 3 burgers with cheese and bacon inside in a foil pan along with a green onion mayonnaise in a zip-lock bag. The really amazing thing was that it only took 10 minutes to prepare the whole thing — it’s so easy when someone else has prepared all the ingredients.

Afterward we were naturally hungry so we ended up going out to The Tap and Mallet (381 Gregory St.) for what actually turned out to be a rather light dinner. I had their “Sliders” which are mini-burgers: one beef, one bean, and one spicy chicken — all excellent.

Ali and I went to the Ontario County Real Property Tax Foreclosure Land Auction at The Ontario County Safety Training Facility (2914 County Road 48, Canandaigua) hosted by The Reynolds Auction Company. We were not planning to buy anything, we just to see how things get run.

We considered Lot #4 as we looked at it last week. It’s located just south of where Routes 32 and 64 meet in Bristol. According to Google’s new terrain maps, the property is located about a half-mile east of the valley and 320 feet higher into the surrounding hills with the first 1000 feet of road at a 20% grade. Ali’s poor Saturn SL-2 barely made it up (and the transmission’s “2″ setting didn’t even come close to helping on the way down).

The property was listed with an assessed value of $27,500. In an information session last week that I attended, someone asked about that particular property’s assessment, commenting that they own land nearby and they thought the assessment was wrong — I assumed they meant “too high”. With that in mind, I was a little worried that it would actually sell for something approaching what we could afford — a couple thousand dollars, perhaps — because we didn’t even bother to register.

Well this one was particularly unusual. Ali knew the County Treasurer Gary Baxter from her days working in Canandaigua and when we chatted with him earlier, he menionted that there seemed to be a lot of people interested in this particular lot. Well I had no idea — I guessed they’d attempt to start bidding around $9,000 (then they work down until they get a bid) and it would sell for something like $12,000. Ali was worried it would sell for much less — after all, we looked at it and it’s hard to get to (i.e. 4-wheel-drive-access only) and the A-frame structure was in need of a fair amount of repairs, but it would indeed be a nice secluded spot to get away to on occasion. In the end it went for $37,500 — percentage-wise the largest amount over the assessed value of any of the properties we stayed to see. I sure hope those people like it.

We stayed through 14 of the properties and noted that the later you stay, the more people leave so in the future, I’d consider bidding on one of the later properties on the list. After that we had a nice dinner at Eric’s Office Restaurant (2574 Macedon Rd., Canandaigua). We hadn’t been there in a while and it was a bit late; food preparation time was a bit slow for us personally but the quality was quite good. I thought the French Onion soup wasn’t as good as we’d had at Hogan’s Hideaway (197 Park Ave.) but Ali liked it more. We split both our meals in half so she had half my portabello sandwich and I, half her cheeseburger. Both were great. Amusingly enough, the auctioneer John T. Reynolds and one of the women he was working with (I forgot her name and don’t know their personal relationship) happened to get dinner there too.

I met with the 15 or so people from MEETinROCHESTER at Regional Computer Recycling and Recovery (RCR&R) (7318 Victor-Mendon Rd., Victor) for the tour of the recycling facilities. We met with Director of Client Services Charlie McKernan who showed us around. He says their shop holds itself to high standards of recycling and environmental responsibility. They also have a fancy internal tracking system that can track parts from their source systems right to where they get recycled. The facility itself was a tech-nerd playground — a warehouse full of vintage computer systems. I was dismayed to see them go, but I do understand that for industrial applications, they are terribly inefficient. At least they are getting selected for resale and/or disposed of in a good way.

Thankfully for all of us drooling at the piles of neat stuff, they do sell working systems out of Rochester Computer Recycling Store (395 Central Ave.) and through their Electronics Café eBay Store. They accept computerized consumer electronics — mostly computers, but things like DVD players and TV’s as well but not hairdryers or bread-makers — from individuals to corporations. They even do secure data destruction.

It’s remarkable that such a cool place exists right here in town.

Ali and I headed to Cooper’s Lake Campground (205 Currie Rd., Slippery Rock, PA) to go to FrostBurn this weekend. It actually started yesterday but the early population was mostly from around Pittsburgh or from places farther away … or, I guess, mostly just not us and a few other stragglers. In all there were about 120 people who showed up so it was just the right size to get a chance to say hi to everyone.

The event was excellent. Although not an official Burning Man regional event, it was run by people who had gone to Burning Man and generally held the same vibe. Well, the part of the vibe that I personally liked: the part where it a group of people who got things done and worked together and wanted to have a good time. It was also winter camping (and Cooper’s Lake had winterized their facilities so there weren’t showers or bathrooms — just port-a-potties) so the element of “physical difficulty” was also present — something that’s difficult to achieve when you can see a major highway and your cell phone has “full-bars” all the time.

We stayed until Monday and met lots of nice people. We got to see the iconic snowman-man burn, had hot chocolate at Camp Total Fucking Armageddon, had hot buttered rum in the sauna-like steam shed, participated in the Naked Mr. Rogers Sing-A-Long, and otherwise dance, dance, danced until the morning sun.

It’s actually the first time I wanted something like a “decompression” — a time to recollect with friends and otherwise relax before jumping back into the daily grind. I came back and had to catch up on work but I really wanted to just chill out for a couple days — and the friction between the two ideologies wreaked havoc with my state-of-mind.

Oh, you know you all love it when I go on a rant. It just flows so nicely … so buckle up ’cause here goes:

Today I met up with Ali’s dad at her house. She had bought a new tub and surround but it wouldn’t fit up the stairs. It’s a complicated 3-D geometry problem to determine just how big something is that can fit up the stairs. There’s a staircase corner above the stairs (for the stairs to the attic), and the shortest distance from the upper corner to the opposite-side line of the stairs is 60 inches — so the tallest thing that fits is 60 inches. Well, if it’s flat. If it’s a rectangular extrusion, then you lose some easily calculable length on the staircase-side, and some other, not-so-easily-calculable length on the upper corner. I know there’s a way to know for sure, but let me finish the thought that if you are intrigued, beware of nerd sniping.

Anyway, the short version of the story is that the tub surround wouldn’t fit. So we went back to the big-box hardware store that-shall-remain-nameless and looked to see if they had one that had a 4-piece surround. That way, each segment would only be 3-feet wide or so and easily fit. No such luck, except for crappy adhesive ones — which would probably fit up the stairs anyway even if they were three pieces. So we’re looking at a different one and it’s 6 inches shorter than the first one. So I ask Ali’s dad, “do you think 6 inches would be enough?” He’s not sure but it was so close last time that he figured it’ll work. We pick up the tub and surround — which is both more expensive and more heavier — schlep it back to Ali’s house, take it out of the box, and find that the big part of the surround won’t fit up the stairs. It needs to be an inch shorter.

Fuck.

We go back to the store and return it then stop at the other nameless big-box hardware store. The guy there almost got choked to death by me when he asked, “are you sure it wouldn’t fit?” Apparently I needed food badly. Coffee, too. And I didn’t need someone giving me a nice Southern insult which, translated to Brooklynese is, “what, are you fuckin’ stoopid?” — clearly a chokeable offense.

By the time we get back — empty handed — it’s closing in on noon. I want to get to The Rochester Public Market (280 Union St. N.) before it’s too late so I decline a surely commiseration-filled burger lunch. Then to start off, a new friend of mine isn’t home who lives right by the market. Then I realize I lost my mitten somewhere — and, if you don’t recall, on one of the coldest days of the year so far. So I get my apples and go to O’Bagelo’s (165 State St.) It’s strangely quiet and I discover the door’s locked with nobody apparently inside. I don’t know what’s going on but I figure I’d get something at Open Face (651 South Ave., right by the corner of Hickory) instead.

Finally a reprieve. The chicken dumpling soup was excellent. The brie and pear sandwich was excellent. The toasted Havarti was excellent. The coffee was excellent. Whew.

So then I headed out to an estate sale on Baird Road. I had actually stopped there yesterday, but they said everything’s half-off on the second day. I picked up some neat stuff — an old Craftsman belt-drive table saw, a CB, metal thread taps, and a Smith-Corona manual typewriter which works and is also quite attractive.

The trouble was that it was a tinkerer (like myself) who had died (not like myself yet) and the family hired Hidden Treasures to handle the sale. Well, they don’t know when something just isn’t worth anything, so they wouldn’t take a couple bucks for the electric boat-trolling motor that wouldn’t work at all, insisting that the $40 base-price necessitated a better offer. I liked the 12V cooler (old-school refrigeration, not those Peltier-based ones you get these days) but I was glad to have left it behind. Well, except that I’m sure it ended up in the garbage. I’m also sad that I didn’t bite on the floor-model drill-press because its cast-iron-ness would make it too heavy to move around and I don’t have the space for it right now — of course, at only $50, it would have been an absolute steal and worth every penny five times over.

Oh, and later that night — at Ali’s birthday dinner at her parents’ house — I did get my mitten back. It was in her dad’s truck.

But then my bad luck continues from there. The snowstorm had started and I tried leaving early from Ali’s dinner to see if I couldn’t make it to “The Bunker” to see the show there. Unfortunately, I took my time getting out of there, and then it took longer than I thought, so by the time I got to the secret location downtown, nobody was at the door to let me in. They had said the show started at 10 p.m. and since it was in a secure warehouse building, you had to be there between 9:15 and 9:45 when they had somebody hanging out by the door to let people in. Crap.