Sorry. This is about the longest drought in posts since we launched USRT here at Western New York Media 18 months ago. But things have been very crazy in my life of late, leaving little time except to compartmentalize a daily “to do” list of things I am in involved in. 

•  To begin with, I own a pest control company, and August is typically my busiest time of year. Except this year. Monsoon season has put a crimp in business, but things have picked up of late and I am on the fly daily.
• I’m up to my eyeballs in Democratic politics this summer season, helping out where I can in races outside of Cheektowaga. And in my home town, we’ve got an all around scrum going for committee seats, of all things, and I am fighting not only to keep my seat, but protect my friends and supporters. It is a time and labor intensive project, which hopefully will yield positive results on Primary Day.
• Speaking of committee races, things have gotten so slimy - court cases and lawsuits over frikkin’ races. Idiots getting up at our last committee meeting and making wild charges of corruption. These macadamias are having a party next Tuesday, calling themselves “The Real Democrats of Cheektowaga”. Sadly, I have lost lifelong friendships over this nonsense. 
• While I’m embroiled in Cheektowaga stuff,  my friend and colleague Matt Pearl is out in Denver covering the convention.Count me as envious! 
• I am working as a part time staffer for the Democratic Majority at the Erie County Legislature. It is an awesome gig and one I enjoy greatly. This past week we revived an old tradition of an annual staff picnic and I was put in charge of putting it all together. It was a lot of work and stress, but the event was a huge success, we had over 80 people show up, including County Executive Chris Collins and his posse. My boss, Chairman Lynn Marinelli, was beaming from ear to ear. When she’s happy, I’m happy.
• Pete and I did a bit of USRT schedule tweaking. It is so hard to plan college football outings, because teams don’t announce start times in many cases until a couple weeks before the game. But we cobbled together an awesome doubleheader on Saturday, September 13. Two great SEC venues - Neyland Stadium and the Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville at 12:30PM, then onto Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington and the Kentucky Wildcats for the 7PM nightcap.
• We got lots of props on our story on Offermann Stadium (see post below), including a nice email from Bisons GM Mike Buczkowski. Former groundskeeper and now Erie County Parks Commissioner Jim Hornung was all over me at the picnic saying how much he liked the piece. And oh yeah, we got a call from Frank Offermann III thanking us for the article and inviting us to visit with him to see his photos and memorabilia. We’re going to be all over that one as soon as things settle down and we get the time.
• The Bisons close out their season this week, and (drumroll please) we roll out our annual clunker Pat Listach Award and Jimmy Hamilton Award in this week’s Artvoice. we know you will be making a special trip to your local laundromat or Jim’s Steakout to get your copy early.
• Pete’s a Bills season ticket holder now, and we picked out the games we’re going to - Oakland in September and the NY Jets in early November. Oh yeah, we’re also doing the Bills in Toronto.
• Speaking of Bills in Toronto, we did a quick roadie to Rogers Centre this past Sunday (thanks for the tickets Matty K!). They actually have a special “Bills in Toronto” team store in the area on the track side near the hotel.
• I am totally bummed that Mark Byrnes is bummed about Buffalo’s future. All Things Buffalo is one of the cool sites here at WNY Media. And Mark is one of the coolest guys around. If we show him some love maybe we can get him back on track!

For the record, Pete has been working record overtime of late, so his schedule has been strained as well.

Hockey season is almost upon us, and we’ll again be doing Puck Stop for Artvoice, as well as game reporting on their web site and some stuff here at WNY Media. That’s about it for now in the Life O’ Kulyk. We’ll be ramping up USRT again real soon! 

RSS 2.0 Respond Trackback