Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

The nice folks over at Civic Strategies are jumping on the bandwagon of deciding if weblogs are important or not. They don’t take a stance on it, but just in case, they are trying to put together a list of urban-life related weblogs (calling them urblogs). They even go so far as to try to define them: “Urban blogs are those that are focused on a metro area, provide interesting commentary about local politics, culture or urban life and aren’t so ideological that they’re painful to read. So how much ideology is too much? Hey, it’s our list, so we get to decide.”

So far on their short list, they have named six different blogs, including the one you are reading right now. Re-reading their definition above, it kinda sums up what I’m trying to accomplish with this site. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep it up. At any rate, I was very flattered by their kind words for this page: “Most bloggers tell you too much about themselves. But the person who writes Tampa’s “Sticks of Fire” urblog offers only an odd detail or two about himself (he likes rock music, Cirque du Soleil and the annual strawberry festival in nearby Plant City). What this shy blogger offers, though, is a witty review of news in the Tampa Bay area at http://www.sticksoffire.blogspot.com/. (So what does the name, Sticks of Fire, refer to? Beats us.)”

By the way, Tampa is an old Calusa Indian word meaning “Sticks of Fire.” It is a reference to all the lightning we get here (the storms, not the hockey team).