Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Sticks of Fire got it’s 1000th visitor Wednesday afternoon 2004may05 at 5:07pm. This RoadRunner visitor spent a mere 2 minutes, 30 seconds here, using yahoo search to find the unstoppable girlie~dervish, and found her quickly, I presume.

The 100th visitor way back in March, spent over 20 minutes here at about 1 in the morning, perhaps drifting in and out of sleep.

Being a beach bum would be kinda cool. Although, Wifey probably wouldn’t go for that. Neither would the kids, I guess. That’s too bad, since apparently St. Pete is running out of them (scroll all the way down to the bottom). If you go to the original article from Tom Zucco over at the Times, you’ll see that the high-price condos are taking over, and there are very few “cheap” places to live, unless you sleep under your beach bum friend’s house, or you are paid by the Republicans to revive the Arizona GOP. But still, being a beach bum would be kinda cool.

Terri’s Law determined to be unconstitutional. Pinellas Circuit Court Judge W. Douglas Baird’s ruling voided the law pushed by Jeb! and passed last October. Enough already. Shit, it has been way too much for way too long. This matter should have been settled almost 14 years ago, with this development: June 18, 1990 - Court appoints Michael Schiavo as guardian; Terri Schiavo’s parents do not object.
Let this woman die with dignity, like she wanted.

Recent ranking news
The Good:
According to Child Magazine, Lowry Park Zoo is the #1 Best Zoo for children in the country, beating the San Diego Zoo. How about that! That’s great recognition for our local zoo. The same magazine says Tampa is the 23rd best city for families.
The Bad:
Each state’s average IQ (and how they voted in 2000). Florida ties for 25th highest average IQ (that’s also tied for 23rd lowest IQ). Thanks to Florida Politics.
The Ugly:
Tampa is the 9th most dangerous metro area.
Florida is the 44th safest state, up from 47th last year.
Florida is the 41st healthiest state, up from 44th in 2003.
Florida is the 37th most livable state, up from 39th last year.
Thanks to DebWire for the links to the above four.
The Critical I notes that Tampa is not doing too well (62 of 100 and last of the large metro areas) in the “Most WiFi HotSpots” category. Perhaps if TIA would get some wireless hotspots, they could reclaim their top ranking.

¡Póngase’T se Olvida! Esta noche nosotros celebramos la victoria de los mexicanos sobre el ejército francés en La Batalla De Puebla en 1862 en Johnny G’s. Habrá los precios especiales para la cerveza fría y alimento bueno. También, habrá entretenimiento vivo de la mejor clase. El JGLB ( La Banda de Johnny G.Lyon) juega de acerca de 8:30 de la tarde hasta que las vacas vengan en casa. Jen de la isla loca puede estar allí, así como su anfitrión humilde de los palos del fuego. Llegue a allí temprano, así que usted no perderá el mundo’s el fiesta más grande.

Media Alert received today from the St. Pete Times Forum:

Who: TAMPA BAY SALUTES JOHN LYNCH #47

When: Wednesday, May 5 ~ 5:30pm – 7:30pm

Where: West Plaza at the St. Pete Times Forum
Tampa, FL

What: The entire community of Tampa Bay is invited to help some of John Lynch’s closest friends celebrate his community leadership and tenure as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer at a SURPRISE concert party on Wednesday, May 5th on the West plaza outside of Shots at the St. Pete Times Forum. This event is free to the public and presented Able Body Labor and produced by Daphne Boyd. Beer, wine and food concessions will be sold.

This is indeed a surprise and his family is securing a media blackout around John Lynch. However, we need to get the word out! John believes he has a meeting with PR at the St. Pete Times Forum at 6:15pm. He will be driven by his wife Linda and arrive at 6:10pm. He will discover that a band is playing and there seems to be a lot of people wearing his #47 jersey. The Nashville Stars Band and Warren Brothers will give him a few minutes to decompress and tell him to come through the crowd to the stage. Security and Linda will escort John Lynch to the stage. John will be shocked as the surprise continues when the MC tells the first mystery guest to go to the microphone backstage and “sign in please”. Each mystery guest will sign in to the backstage microphone and tell their favorite John Lynch story. After John guesses who they are, they will come on stage and remain on stage until all the mystery guests have signed in, including through the ending when the Mayor’s Office proclaims May 5th to be John Lynch Day and presents the key to the city.

Scheduled to appear are Gen. Tommy Franks, Brad Johnson, Mike Alstott, Derrick Brooks, Ronde Barber, Joe Jurevicius, Shelton Quarrels, John Howell, Monsignor Higgins, Dick Greco, Pam Iorio’s Office, Brian Kelly and many more.

Media: There will be no interviews of participants before or during the event. A private media conference with John Lynch will be held immediately following the event in Shots Conference room. All interested media that would like to attend and review, photograph and/ or videotape this event should contact Karen Cohn in advance. Please e-mail, fax or phone in your request. Follow-up with the event contact person is strongly suggested. Once coverage of the event or interview request is approved, free parking will be made available in our media lot.

It was 100 years ago today, when the pirates first invaded Tampa. In May 1904 Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, composed of Tampa’s business and civic leaders, sailed up the Hillsborough River galloped on horseback to “invade” Tampa for the first time. The following year the pirate invasion was coupled with the State Fair, both of which are now big-time fun annual events attracting nearly a million people to Tampa each February.

This week’s no-brainers gleaned from the news: (1) When branches and tree limbs are clogging up your wood chipper, don’t force them down by jumping in. (2) When speaking to kids about gun safety, you should be careful with the gun. Although it seems to me this may actually help to reinforce the concept.

I got one. Sort of. I think I cheated. Actually I kinda stole it. But then I paid for it. Double, because I felt bad. And I was drunk.
You see, Wifey and I decided a small weekend getaway was in order, so off we went to Orlando. Saturday morning I knew we had to get outta town, so we drove to O-town, with the intention of going to Sea World on Sunday (we didn’t make it). We went to the Quality Inn on I-Drive, got a room, and just went walking/shopping for the rest of the day. Saturday night, we went to Adobe Gilas at Pointe*Orlando for some live local music. Never the Hero was playing, and doing a hell of a job for all of the tourists there. That’s when I saw it. While sitting at the bar between the Brits and Canadians that left Jen The Bartender no tips, someone walked up, ordered drinks and left the $1.50 change sitting on the bar. I saw that both quarters were very shiny. I was (half-?) drunk, so I picked up one of the quarters. While Wifey was telling me to put it down – someone would think I was stealing JTB’s tips – I saw it was a Florida Quarter! I told Wifey “Hey!! It’s a Florida Quarter!!” She rolled her eyes and told me to put it down. I tried to show it to her, but she began looking in her purse to replace the quarter I “stole.” While digging through her change, she pulls out a substitute quarter – and it too was a Florida. “Hey!!” I said even more excitedly “Where’d you get that?” “Oh…” she said, “I don’t know – I didn’t even know I had it.” I got even more interested, and deduced that she must have gotten it here in Orlando, maybe one of our stops to get a soda, or - where did we stop for lunch? At that point she told me that maybe I had had enough to drink for the night. Anyway, I kept Jen The Bartender’s Florida Quarter (which came from her cash drawer, anyway). I kept Wifey’s Florida Quarter. I left JTB’s other shiny quarter (it too was a Florida), and added two regular boring uninteresting quarters in it’s place.