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Head to downtown Buffalo for Polar Bites, the annual fundraiser for the Buffalo Zoo. The event will take place Thursday, February 16^th from 6 to 9 p.m., upstairs at the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center on Franklin St. The event showcases some of the area’s top restaurants, wineries and breweries while helping out the Zoo.

Among the area vendors lending a hand to help out the Zoo are Bravo Cucina Italiana, Long Trail Brewing, Pizza Plant, Lebro’s, Johnson Estate Winery, Global Group and Rich Products Catering. These vendors will be competing for awards including best beer, best entree, best booth decor, best of show and rookie of the year. The event also features silent and basket auctions.

Tickets for Polar Bites are $35 in advance and $45 at the door; this is a 21-and-over event. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.buffalozoo.org.

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Think Buffalo closes up shop during the winter? Not even close. There’s plenty going on throughout the area, including downtown. One such happening is the Buffalo Winter Brewfest, taking place Saturday, February 4^th at the Connecticut Street Armory, 184 Connecticut St. in Buffalo. The event features two tasting sessions as well as a Mardi Gras celebration. Proceeds from the Brewfest will benefit Messinger Woods, dedicated to funding the state’s first state-of-the-art hospital for medically treating sick, injured and orphaned wildlife.

The Brewfest will feature craft beers from New York State and throughout the country; all attendees will receive a complimentary glass for tastings. A complete list of breweries participating in the Brewfest will be available on the website listed above on January 30^th. There will also be music from LeeRon Zydeco and the Hot Tomales.

There are two sessions to choose from: 1 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. Tickets for the event are $35 in advance (at Wegmans or the event website, www.buffalowinterbrewfest.com) and $45 at the door; designated driver tickets will be available at the door for just $10 and includes free soda and water.

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One of Buffalo’s top cultural draws is the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, located at 1285 Elmwood Ave. in Buffalo. A world-renowned center for modern and contemporary art, the Gallery is host to a rich collection of post-war American and European art – abstract art, pop art and items from the 1970s through today – as well as pieces from trends including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, cubism, surrealism and constructivism.

The Gallery’s governing body, the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, was founded in 1862, making it one of the oldest public arts organizations in the United States. The original gallery, a gift from area philanthropist John Albright, was intended to be used as the Fine Arts Pavilion for the Pan-American Exhibition in 1901; the building wasn’t completed until 1905. Designed by Buffalo architect E.B. Green, it was known as the Albright Art Gallery until 1962. An addition was needed, and made possible by donations from the Knox family, who went on to become the first owners of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team; the gallery was renamed the Albright-Knox Art Gallery following the dedication.

The G. Robert Strauss Jr. Memorial Library is the Gallery’s research and study center; it supports research and education by collecting, preserving and making resources available to members, students, academics and community members by request. The Gallery also offers classes and workshops for everyone, from toddlers to adults.

For more information on the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, visit www.albrightknox.org.

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Buffalo isn’t exactly a hotbed of auto racing, but there are some local tracks – Dunn Tire Raceway Park (formerly Lancaster Speedway), Holland Speedway and Ransomville Speedway all draw crowds on weekends during the summer. Not too far away from Buffalo, in Rome, New York (east of Syracuse – about three hours and 30 minutes from Buffalo), two of the greatest NASCAR drivers to ever get behind the wheels of race cars made their home, and one of them is going into the NASCAR Hall of Fame this weekend.

Rome, New York’s Richie Evans and Jerry Cook accounted for every NASCAR Modified division national title from 1971 to 1985, tallying more than 800 wins between them. The Modified division, the oldest NASCAR division on the books, isn’t a household name like the Sprint Cup Series, but regionally – northeast and southeast in particular – it is quite popular. These days, not a lot of money – if any at all – can be made in the Modified division, but in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was possible to make a living, as these two drivers did – they drove three to four races each week, sometimes twice in one day, but they loved the sport and the competition.

Evans earned nine of those titles in that time span, including eight in a row from 1978 to 1985 – an accomplishment listed on his International Motorsports Hall of Fame page as “one of the supreme accomplishments in motorsports.” It is estimated that he took the checkered flag more than 475 times in his career, including 10 at Martinsville Speedway, three at Pocono Raceway and two at Daytona International Speedway. He may have had the opportunity to move up to the big leagues of NASCAR, but he was having too much fun as the ambassador of the Modifieds.

One of his favorite tracks, Martinsville, became the site of great tragedy in 1985, as Evans was killed in a practice crash there in October, having already wrapped up the title the previous week.

Evans will be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Friday, January 20^th in a ceremony in Charlotte, North Carolina. He will be the first inductee not associated with NASCAR’s elite Cup Series. For more information on Evans’ career, check out this feature from Yahoo! Sports, written by yours truly.

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Right now, it’s somewhat strange here in Buffalo – mid-40-degree temperatures, no snow on the ground in the northtowns and Lake Erie is far from frozen. That could pose a threat to one of the events scheduled for the weekend of February 8th through 12th in downtown Buffalo – read more about the events in this article from yours truly, the Buffalo Events Examiner.

• Plenty of mid-February excitement in downtown Buffalo

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We’re not only getting ready for a new month – it’s almost a new year! To start off the new year right, here are a few upcoming events

to check out in and around the Buffalo area, courtesy of yours truly, the Buffalo Events Examiner.

• M&T First Friday, Zooper Saturday and Wine About Winter
• Bargain Bash, Niagara Icewine Festival and the Nickel City Cluster Dog Show
• 24^th annual WNY RV Show, CSI: The Experience and the Buffalo Soup Fest

Every Sunday I post events for the upcoming week on the Buffalo Events Examiner page – check it out when you’re looking for something to do!

Courtesy buffalowing.com

Ready to start filling up your 2012 calendar with fun things to do? Here are a few important dates to write down now.

• February 10^th through 12^th – Labatt Blue Buffalo Pond Hockey Tournament at Erie Basin Marina
• February 11^th and 12^th – Buffalo Winterfest and Powder Keg Festival at Statler City and Niagara Square
• February 25^th – National Lacrosse League All-Star Game at the First Niagara Center in downtown Buffalo
• March 22^nd through 25^th – Plantasia at the Hamburg Fairgrounds Event Center and Expo Hall
• March 26^th through April 1^st – Spring Local Restaurant Week throughout the area
• June 21^st through July 15^th and July 26^th through August 19^th – Shakespeare at Delaware Park (Richard III and A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
• June 22^nd through July 29^th – National Garden Festival throughout the area
• July 7^th and 8^th – Taste of Buffalo in Niagara Square and along Delaware Ave.
• July 9^th through 11^th – Triple-A Baseball All-Star Game at Coca Cola Field in downtown Buffalo
• July 15^th through 22^nd – Canal Fest of the Tonawandas
• August 8^th through 19^th – Erie County Fair at the Hamburg Fairgrounds
• September 1^st and 2^nd – National Buffalo Wing Festival at Coca Cola Field in downtown Buffalo

This is just a sampling of the fun to be had in the Buffalo area in 2012 – stay tuned for more ideas!

Buffalo Bills – our hapless National Football League team plays in Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park. After the “glory years” (when we made four straight Super Bowls and lost them all) the team has to buy a ticket to the playoffs – to see the other teams that beat us.

Buffalo Sabres – you either love our National Hockey League team or you hate them – and that usually happens in the span of a few hours, say from puck drop to the final horn. New owner Terry Pegula is trying to make Buffalo “Hockey Heaven” – the new locker room at the First Niagara Center may be heaven for the players, but it’s not helping the fans any.

Buffalo Bandits – if you haven’t been to a Buffalo Bandits game at the First Niagara Center…WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN FOR THE PAST 20 YEARS????? Bandits games are fun, full of action, and loaded with scoring…kind of everything you wish for from the previous two teams.

Buffalo Bisons – the boys of summer in downtown Buffalo’s Coca Cola Field tend to have better luck than their big-league Major League Baseball parent team – since that’s the Mets, it doesn’t necessarily mean a winning record, but hey, it’s summer and it’s the ballpark!

Other teams to check out:

• WNY Flash
• UB Bulls
• Niagara University Purple Eagles
• Buffalo State Bengals
• St. Bonaventure Bonnies
• Buffalo Jr. Sabres

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Are the kids already looking for something to do? Here are a few ‘staycation’ ideas in the Buffalo area from my Buffalo Travel Examiner page:

• The Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum, the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens and the Buffalo Museum of Science programs this week.
• The Buffalo Zoo