Summer is turning into fall quickly these days. Soon it will be Hallowe’en and then the holidays and then the winter. But for now the days are mainly sunny and pleasant, although they’ve already gotten much shorter. Still another month or two left in biking season.
Last week I had a bit of a scare with my car, trouble with the transmission. It’s an older car, from the year 2011 and with almost 140,000 miles on it. So I was wondering if it would be worth it if I had to do an expensive transmission repair, or better to just replace it, and so I started doing some research on a replacement vehicle. I’m looking for another three-row SUV and something that’s good in the winter and the snow. As look would have it, my day job these days is adding a car brands dataframe to Consumer Reports’ conversational chatbot product, AskCR and improving its knowledge about cars overall. I’m up to final testing, so I spent the bulk of my time last week asking questions about the kinds of cars I’m interested in. The tool is actually quite good and I learned alot. I’ve pretty much narrowed it down to the Audi Q7, the Subaru Ascent, or the Volvo XC90, with a few other dark horse candidates in the running. But then luckily it turned out my transmission trouble was just a leaky hose that was easily replaced. So now I’m hoping to get another two or three years out of the car with no more major repairs, and I’ll revisit the question of replacing it next time it needs tires.
Jeannie and I just got back from a road trip up to Buffalo, putting another thousand miles on said car. The motivating excuse was to attend the wedding of our friend Scott’s daughter Madeleine and her new husband Christian. While we were there we spent some time helping out my parents, getting my bike worked on, visiting with Lizzy and doing some sightseeing.
I had mentioned in a past post that my mum had lost her driver’s license last winter after getting in accident and subsequently having to take a mandatory road test on account of being old. She had been feeling rather down and anxious about the whole thing for some time. But she persevered and re-applied for her permit, signed up to take and driving lesson and then re-take her road test. This time she passed, on the day we were coming up. This was a huge load lifted off of everyone’s mind and soul. Her attitude immediately improved and in just a few days she’s most of the way back to her usual confident self again. She’ll be able to get around and get things done for the foreseeable future, which is huge. While we were there we also helped them get a new computer and a replacement television, and did a bunch of random tasks around the house. My dad gave us a basketful of peppers from his garden.
We drove up Friday night after work and arrived pretty late. But Saturday we had the whole day there. In the afternoon Jeannie and I went up to the Albright-Knox art gallery, now called the AKG Gallery after the completion of a new wing named after its benefactor Mr. K. I haven’t been there in many years and although it’s a world-class art museum, I had forgotten what a great modern collection they have. (I spent alot of time there in collage when I was an art and design student.) The new wing is an impressive piece of architecture and gives them alot more space. Currently its upper floors house alot of newer stuff plus some stuff moved from the Knox hall. The lower floors were closed for the setup of an upcoming exhibit that’s opening in another week or two. Meanwhile, the Knox building has been reinvented with a semi-enclosed atrium, a really nice casual space. I should mention my favorite painting there is called The Marvelous Sauce, which lent its name to a local band around the time I was living there and trying to be a musician. After the art gallery we took a walk around Delaware Park and ended up at the old casino, which is now a restaurant called the Terrace, where we enjoyed some drinks on a really nice veranda overlooking the lake. There were wedding parties all around the the gallery and park taking pictures. Saturday night we took Lizzy and Josh out to dinner downtown.
We had brought our bikes up with us, and Sunday Jeannie and I went for a bike ride. We had heard there was a new rail trail in Orchard Park, but only a mile or so of it had a surface good for biking. The rest was rather stony and rough going, so we ended up zigzagging around the streets of the local subdivisions and country roads. Lizzy came over for lunch at my parents house, and after that we were off to the wedding. It was very nice, and the bride was beautiful and the groom seemed like a swell guy, and there was dancing and food and speeches and toasts and old friends, all in all a very good time.
Monday Jeannie and I both worked; we had brought our computers up with us. For me Monday is my day of wall-to-wall meetings. I did manage to drop of my bike at Bert’s Bikes, right across the street from where they’re building the Bills stadium, for its 90-day tune up and some other adjustments. I’ve gone about 900 mile since I got that bike back in April. I had them put new tires on them which are more standard light-duty off road tires than the ones it came with. The original tires were kind of a radical hybrid design. They had offroadish knobs and nubs along the side, with a strip of basically no tread right down the middle, which was supposed to help with smooth rolling on paved roads. Unfortunately the strip became worn smooth and was prone to slipping on gravel, water or light trail conditions. Hopefully the new tires are better balanced overall for the kind of terrain I ride on.
Monday night we went to trivia with Lizzy and Josh and their friends Nora and Will, who are getting married in less than two weeks down here on Long Island.
Tuesday we worked again, and I took my bike out for a good long ride at lunchtime, and everything seems good. We drove home Tuesday evening. Jeannie took her 4pm meeting in the car so we could get a jump on the trip.
In other news, Spacecats has a gig coming up on October, and more in the offing, and we’re starting to plan the recording of our second album, which ought to happen sometime this winter. So stay tuned for future announcements.