Al Gritzmacher’s Blogosphere

Yesterday, I was listening to our local radio stations’ call-in talk show. The main topic seemed to be the latest lawsuit trying to block the Wal-Mart Supercenter proposed for the Lockport Mall location.

A lot of the people seemed to want to know who exactly was behind the Lockport Smart Growth, or as Scott Leffler, the show host referred to as “Citizens for No Growth.” There was speculation that there was ties to both the owners of the local Tops store and Lockport Developer David Ulrich. No one seems to know at all who are ‘members’ of the group, but the idea to “follow the money” seemed to be the idea. But it might be hard to do.

What if Wal-Mart itself, were a secret contributor to the Smart Growth group? I’m not saying it is, but my evil side wonders. It wouldn’t be hard to funnel some money their way through some intermediary. Wal-Mart seems to be benefitting from their efforts as much as Smart Growth thinks they are hurting them. Continue Reading…

Many of you that know me, know I am a Ham Radio operator. You probably remember me being very active in it and doing lots of weird things that probably made little sense to you, but were very interesting to me. You’ve seen big antennas at my home and lots of radio equipment. You think I do this stuff all the time.

Well, truth be told, I haven’t done much with it lately. It’s still there to be done, in fact there are new challenges in Ham Radio that I haven’t even scratched the surface of. But it’s taken a back seat to other things, other hobbies, for the past few years.

I do enjoy one thing every year and try to, once a year, take advantage of an event in Amateur Radio I’ve always enjoyed: Field Day. This year (and last) I went to Webster NY and joined with a bunch of friends in a county park where we set up and operated radio equipment for 24 hours in the exercise called Field Day. Continue Reading…

The return of the Lockport Molson Canal Concert Series is about a month away and the promoters released the schedule and lineup of entertainers on Wednesday.

As usual, there is a lot of fuss about the headliners, and has brought in a bunch of top-name acts that will undoubtedly have the square behind Ulrich City Center packed again. You’ve probably already heard the names and most of them were no surprise; they were almost all leaked/announced on the individual bands websites and show schedules.

But, unlike most of the local free summer concert series, they have also released the local or regional performers who will be opening for the headline acts. I think this is great as it gives the fans of the local bands some notice, give the bands themselves time to promote their appearance and in the end, brings even more people to the shows. Since the openers play first, this means more people get there early and probably stay longer which translates to more business for the vendors and surrounding businesses. It’s such a no-brainer, that I don’t understand why venues like Artpark and Thursday at the Square don’t put more emphasis on this.

So, let’s look at a few of the local bands: Continue Reading…