[gal://2003/05_may/niagra_falls_05152003/dandelions_2.jpg][gal://2003/05_may/cnn_paul_war_on_terror_05182003.jpg]\nI spent a good part of the past few weeks traveling around NY once again. [http://www.paulzugnoni.com|Paul Zugnoni] visited me in NY for a bit, so we went to see Niagra Falls, and then later took in NYC. On the way to visiting Niagra Falls, we checked out a rather neat [http://gallery.donarmstrong.com/2003/05_may/niagra_falls_05152003/collapsed_building|dilapidated building] that had totally collapsed some time in the past. It's construction is rather odd, built totally out of [http://gallery.donarmstrong.com/2003/05_may/niagra_falls_05152003/collapsed_building/collapsed_building_wall.jpg|orientated stones]. Unfortunatly, it seems that rebar was at a premium when it was built, or the pitch of the roof wasn't steep enough to support the snow one year. While we were there, I shot the dandelions to the left.\n\nThat weekend, we flew to NYC on [http://www.jetblue.com|Jet Blue], landing in JFK. Nicely, the NYC subway has a free shuttle from the terminals to the nearest subway, and it's a straight shot from the A line into downtown NYC. We ended up staying at [http://www.hotel31.com|Hotel 31], which is a really inexpensive european style hotel, that was once a SRO, aka wellfare hotel. [For the uninitiated, that means really small rooms with a bath down the hall. But since we weren't there to spend time in a room, who cares?]\n\n\n[gal://2003/05_may/art_o_mat_product_05262003.jpg][gal://2003/05_may/mark_grant_05142003/mark_grant_2_05142003.jpg]While we were in NYC I got to check out the New Contemporary while Paul was off looking at the statue of liberty and the empire state building. They had a few neat exhibits, which will end up in my image gallery eventually, and an [http://www.artomat.org/|art-o-mat.] What's an art-o-mat? It's a retired cigarette vending machine that has been converted to vend art (compatible with pack dimensions, of course.) I ended up deciding to pick up a bit of art myself, and buy into the concept. (Just found out that there actually is an art-o-mat in Rochester, at the [http://www.rochestercontemporary.org/|Rochester Contemporary]\n\nAnyway, back in Rochester, I also got to check out Mark Grant who was at the Bug Jar about a week ago, playing an incredible deep house set that really got the crowd moving. I ended up blowing out my left shoe sometime during the night while dancing... that doesn't happen every day.