Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

FlaBlog reports a failing grade for Florida education. Among the 50 states, Florida ranks 45th in academic achievement.

The St. Pete Times says it all: Enough Already

I want to say hello to recent visitors here that have kindly included Sticks of Fire on their blogrolls: Charles 2 of THE FULCRUM, Eric of Classical Values, and OceanGuy: Somewhere on A1A.

Also, please join me in welcoming more Tampa area writers to the Sticks of Fire blogroll: LittleJoe, Dizzy Scorpio, ur @ tiny little dots, Gonzonia, College Confidential, DaveDorm, Duh!, East Coast JAP, Bloggerfest, Tampa Blogs, My little corner of the world, Sharp as a Marble, Orange Haired Boy, CamelBlog, Worst Blog Ever, and Online Morgan. And Tampa Blogs has the latest blogaround. Go check out all of these great sites.

As you locals know, a bunch of bloggers got together last week. I was unable to make it that night, although I would have liked to gone. Hopefully there will be future meetups that I can actually attend. Check out Tampa Bay BloggerFest for the latest. Partly due to this community-wide push, I’ve found a few new Tampa area blogs:

Finally there is someone who is following the Buccaneers in a blog format. This looks pretty sparse as of yet, so we’ll have to see if it lasts: Tampa Bay Buccaneers Blog.

Another new blogger promises to give you the scoop on the local Renaissance Festival: We’re not carnies - we wear tights!

Check this new blog out of Tarpon Springs: InfoSponge.

And finally, there’s Win Florida – if you couldn’t guess, it’s a political blog.

This should be entertaining. Tomorrow morning in Hyde Park, men, women and children will be donning high heels and parading through Olde Hyde Park Village to raise money for the Pediatric Cancer Foundation and the Children’s Dream Fund during the High Heel Hike.

The Tampa Project recently asked: Should Tampa even go after bioscience companies? Well, it has already begun: Intezyne Technologies LLC (no website), a biotech company out of Boston has decided to open an office here at the Tampa Bay Technology Incubator at USF’s Research Park. Hopefully this is just the first of many non-call center companies that will bring innovation and high-paying jobs here to Tampa.

Other SoF posts on The Tampa Project
Part I That’s what I like about you
Part II You’ll go down in history
Part II Long and winding road
Part III the Leader of the pack
Part IV economic development

October is almost here, and you know what that means. Boobies. And more boobies. And even more boobies. Confused? October is the time to show what you are made of and time to give for a good cause. But in the case of Tampa blogger Robyn’s annual blogger Boobie-Thon, you get back more than what you give. This is how it works: female (and male) bloggers nationwide submit photos of their boobies (in various states of dress and undress). Robyn (with help from others) will post the pictures on the Boobie-Thon blog. Visitors to the Boobie-Thon blog (only there to read the posts, I’m sure) will be encouraged to give financial tax-deductable contributions to The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Those that donate over a certain amount (TBD) will be given the password to the completely nude hootage. Lisa has more details (and is much less juvenile). The Boobie-Thon begins October 1 and ends October 20 10. If you want to submit a photo, you can do that now. Beginning October 1, Sticks of Fire will have a link to the Boobie-Thon blog at the top of the sidebar, and I plan to update you on the status of the submissions and donations throughout the campaign. Girls (and guys) send your pictures now.
9/23 4:30pm: Edited to change ending date to October 10

The Florida Politics website you know and love has been compromised. According to FP (a commenter in Mark Lane’s FlaBlog) he is not sure exactly what happened, but is trying to get to the bottom of it, and wants you to know that he hasn’t just disappeared:

I wanted to let you know that I have no intention of abandoning the Florida Politics site, and will resume as soon as I can figure out what happened. I regret that some of the folks who regularly visit the site will assume I have stopped blogging.

Here’s a link to what’s there now. As soon as Florida Politics is back to normal, I’ll let you know.

An estimated 50.5 percent of Tampa Bay businesses are owned by women. The St. Pete/Tampa/Clearwater area ranks 9th in this category nationwide.

A couple months ago, Jenna Edwards, aka Miss Winter Park earned the right to represent all of us as Miss Florida. Well, the Miss America pageant is now finished, and our own Jenna placed first in night one of the preliminary swimsuit competition (picture above). Check out the other preliminary winners. Hooray for Jenna, and congratulations to Miss Alabama Deidre Downs, this year’s winner.