The Blog of Jason “Jayce” Olshefsky

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.

As the wisest of you all know, today is a special holiday because it’s my Ali’s birthday. [And in case you're wondering, she turned (2006 age)+1.] So we started things off with blueberry pancakes in the morning. And then she got some cake at work. And then we went to Paola’s Burrito Place (1921 South Ave., formerly Big Dog’s Hots) for dinner at her preference. Then she opened her gifts but we didn’t have any of the pumpkin pie I made because we were stuffed from dinner. Finishing things off we went out to Solera Wine Bar (647 South Ave.) and had some wine, meeting up with a group of friends from all different places in her life. In all, she had a great day.

Ali and I got the wagon hitched up and headed to Country Pines Christmas Tree Farm (2481 Huber Rd., Fairport), right around the corner from her parents’ house. We picked out a nice tree for her new house and new library and new front window. We got it set up that afternoon and Ali pretty much did all the trimming so it’s just like she wanted.

Ali and I had a late dinner at Jeremiah’s Tavern (1104 Monroe Ave.) This time the selections were good (remember that Jeremiah’s changes the menu to be a bit fancier on Fridays) but the meal wasn’t as great as in the past. First, there was rosemary on everything. Ali doesn’t like rosemary but I do — up to a point. Ali had the chicken Marsala which wasn’t all that much of a Marsala sauce. My “country pork chops” with mushrooms were good but a little tough. Everything had rosemary on it. Fortunately for Ali, simply picking out the pieces of rosemary corrected the meal, and our server was really nice when she mentioned it to him (i.e. more to ask that they add “lots of rosemary” to the menu so people know). He insisted that we take a piece of bananas foster cheesecake home.

After she got home from a long day of work, Ali and I headed to Solera Wine Bar (647 South Ave.) We got a glass of (naturally) great wine and ran into our friend Rich who’s been out of the country for a month but who arrived back in Rochester earlier that day. We talked with him and his friends and generally had a really good time. Another of our friends from a different circle showed up: she’s moving out of town as well with her husband and things are just getting wrapped up for them. She was out on the town trying to avoid being bored stupid at her parents’ house in the suburbs.

I headed out to Boulder Coffee Co. (100 Alexander St.) to check out the show. I was looking to finally see The Varnish Cooks but they weren’t playing — instead, the show started with City Harvest Black which is a guy in a white mask with horns doing noise-based loops and haunting voices. I liked it but it’s not the kind of music that has a huge following. Next was Horseback who do rich, thick atmospheric instrumental followed by Mike Tamburo who started out with a hammer dulcimer — I think — and had a light, airy, atmospheric presence.

Ali and I went to Gusto (277 Alexander St.) for dinner. I had the special: a pumpkin ravioli with spinach and Gorgonzola sauce. It was just the right size and tasted spectacular. Ali had the ravioli lasagna which was also great.

We had to get going by 9 to pick up Ali’s kid sister who was at a concert at The Bethel Christian Fellowship (321 East Ave.). I guess this Mark Schultz guy is quite a popular Christian singer and pianist. We were there a little early and the show hadn’t let out yet but they have a cafe so we got a coffee and hung out. The tables are triangular and I noted the “trinity tables”. Ali remarked that they must have a good marketing department.

Ali’s sister and her friend were among the first two to get out. They got in line to meet the guy and to get autographs. A few minutes later and it seemed the whole auditorium let out and got in line too. I guess I’m the only one who heard that idolatry was some kind of sin.

Ali and I went to The Little (240 East Ave.) for The Emerging Filmmakers Series. I got confirmation that The High Falls Film Festival is taking over The Rochester/High Falls International Film Festival, “Movies on a Shoestring”, giving the amalgam festival a suitably clumsy title and changing from the November dates of High Falls to the May dates of the Shoestring festival. I’m concerned that the short films will get sidelined just as they are at High Falls even though I gather that this would have been Shoestring’s 50th year. It would be nice if High Falls at least kept the short film screenings donations-only in the spirit of Shoestring.

Anyway, the short films tonight were quite good. It’s too bad the Little puts so little effort into promoting the shows … there were barely 10 people in attendance.

A couple documentaries stood out this month. First, The Sacred Food by Jack Pettibone Riccobono was a well-done documentary about (quoting from the flyer) “the Ojibwe tribe in Northern Minnesota and the wild rice, manoomin, that they consider a sacred gift from the Creator and are trying to keep wild”. It was interesting to see the response of tradition to modern issues like genetic modification. Scorza Bros by M. P. Mann was a fascinating documentary about a man who works in East Rochester as a taxidermist — for the last 60-some years — and how he accepts but can’t quite reconcile that he’s unwilling to kill an animal on his own.

Among the narratives, You Can Run by Jason J. Cross was a good (althought — at times — it was poorly acted, filmed, directed, and audio-recorded) albeit a heavy-handed film about alcoholism and the dangers in ignoring your heart about it.

The show concluded with “Three Short Stories” by Sean Mullin. In the first, The 14th Morning, a soldier tries to reconcile an error in judgment on the battlefield. Next was Man is a Bridge where “a National Guard Captain spends his days guarding Manhattan’s 59th Street Bridge from terrorist attacks and his nights performing stand-up comedy.” It was a powerful look at a man who could easily be superficially dismissed by everyone he knows, but our god’s-eye view gives us the full picture. Finally, Sadiq is about a couple American soldiers trying to transport a detainee, but one of them is trying to be fight his need to care and the other is fighting his frustration. In the end, tensions build to a head and the one soldiers tries to get the prisoner to confess to his crime — but neither understand the other’s language.

All three were particularly excellent films. They were gritty, lifelike, and empathetic. Ali said that she was once again glad she came.