Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

110 years ago…

December 29, 1896 – The Tampa Morning Tribune reports that the Three Friends, a filibustering ship which had just left Tampa with arms, ammunition and soldiers bound for Cuba, fired on and sank a Spanish Navy patrol boat off the coast of Cuba. The Jacksonville-based boat’s activities were illegal and jeopardized U. S. neutrality in the war of independence between Cuba and Spain. The U. S. eventually abandoned its neutral position and fought Spain in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines during the 1898 Spanish – American War.

Courtesy of the Tampa Bay History Center.

I have a pair of tickets to see the Montreal Canadiens take on the Tampa Bay Lightning at the St. Pete Times Forum on Saturday evening. I’m gonna give them away to you good people. We have come up with a tampa trivia question - the correct answer will get you a chance to win.

Name the first mayor of the City of Tampa.

All those that answer the question correctly will be thrown into a hat, and one winner will be chosen and get a pair of tickets to the game. Since the game is tomorrow night, you only have until 5pm to get your answer in. Go to the contest answer page, and give us the right answer!

Today was one of those days…

I was in the park today and saw a boy, maybe 8-ish, wearing a shirt that read “Lick, Suck, FCUK.”

He was walking with his parents.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with that?

***

I have a weird affection for disposable camaras. I know they’re wasteful and I should just get a digital. But I dig the anticipation of waiting the hour for pics to develop, holding them in my hands as I flip through the stack. This $4.99 (on sale) item, when filled with pictures of my dearest family and friends, becomes priceless. Still, last week I managed to forget one at La Casa Dolce where I was having coffee with the girls.

Luckily the nice baristas found it and kept it safe for me…and gave me a nice little package for Christmas.  A very little package. (But it was the thought that counts?)

I honestly can’t say how little it was. Target has a policy against developing explicit pictures. So I didn’t get the surprise shot in my set of prints, however, the index sheet that shows all the thumbnails showed me a side of my barista that I didn’t necessarily want to see (NSFW, although it is very tiny). But thanks for sharing dude.

It’s always scary meeting online friends. A year or so ago, I remember being mildly surprised that Tommy and Brett were not the types who lived in their parents’ basements. Not really, anyway.

Of course, the rest of the Sticks crew made me realize that the Internet appeals to more than the just the people who send anonymous hate mail. And a few of you have made the meeting process even more than extremely enjoyable. Still. The idea is sometimes frightening.

I’m not alone. Others have expressed the same trepidation with me.

• “Are you normal?”
• “Is your hair really that big?”
• “Own all your own teeth?”

No worries, folks. I know how to clean up, make eye contact and laugh appropriately at all the right moments. I’m a godd*mn delight.

And so it was that Husband and I went out last night with another transplanted Tampa-to-Colorado couple: Chase Squires and his lovely wife Saralee.

I used to read Chase’s work regularly in The St. Petersburg Times. So sad when he left the bay area last year. Yet he somehow caught wind of my site and realized we were both moving to the same state. An online best buddy was born. It’s about time we made each other’s acquaintance in person.

We had a fun double date. Chase showed off Denver with all the pride of someone who’s been here for years instead of months. He and Saralee had better luck selling their home back in Z-hills and offered up several ideas, imploring us to “get out of Florida once and for all.”

While Chase bought round after round, and even our dinner, we talked about everything: trail running, politics, vasectomies, plastic surgery, tattoos, and tennis. My head is so much bigger than his - but he was polite enough not to notice.

This is the beginning of a wacky, western friendship.

*Cross-posted to Out in Left Field.

105 years ago…

December 28, 1901 – The City of Tampa loses a lawsuit brought by Almira Pierce for the injury she sustained while walking on a plank sidewalk in Hyde Park. The city’s sidewalks were in such deplorable condition that the Tampa Morning Tribune called the verdict a lucky one for the city in that the small settlement of $25 ($554 in today’s dollars) could have been much higher. Ms. Pierce, one of many individuals in litigation with the city over the same issue, had originally asked for $10,000 ($222,000 today).

Courtesy of the Tampa Bay History Center.

You may recall that at the beginning of 2006, the Tampa Bay History Center daily note was dropped by the Tribune.  Rodney Kite-Powell and Travis Puterbaugh had already written three months of entries for “on this day in Tampa Bay history,” when the local paper went in a different direction.  We here in the sticks were happy to publish those items, and began on January 27 with an entry about the Jose Gaspar catching fire.

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and so it is with the history center’s daily items of note.  But it is not the last you will see of history here in the Sticks.  Travis and Rodney have agreed to let us know of any new interesting information they dig up.  Plus we’ll have the inside scoop about their new building.  And Sticks of Fire has been invited to participate in the 2007 Florida History Fair.  You can see that history will remain part of the diet here.

Of course, we will finish out the year with entries, and we still have the first 26 days of January that were never published in 2006, so we’ll use those for the beginning of 2007.  We look forward to new exciting stuff from your friends at the history center.

Thanks a bunch, Travis! 

Having been in Tampa for about 6 months now, I’ve had my fair share of cuban sandwiches, I’ve fattened up at Alessi Bakery and I’m still in love with the ubiquitous palm trees. I am not, however, over the poor driving/total and utter lack of urban planning present in this beautiful city by the bay.

I learned how to drive in Belgium, arguably one of the most dangerous countries in which to drive in the western world. An Italian friend of mine told me that the driving in Brussels was worse than the driving in Rome. That is wow kind of bad. Italians are known for driving the wrong way down the sidewalk of a one way street, I’ve seen it done.

Being a DC kid myself, I have seen aggressive driving at it’s worst, and having lived in North Carolina I have seen oblivious driving at it’s most entertaining (along with a large amount of abandoned cars). But so far, Tampa takes the cake.

It’s not any one thing that makes the driving so dismal here. The traffic is much worse in most other major cities, the views here are fantastic, the roads aren’t in that poor a shape and the drivers are not too dangerous. What makes it bad here is the sublime intersection of every mediocre Tampa driving hallmark. Here is a list. See if you have noticed any of the following:

1. There are almost never any left hand turn signals on roads with only two lanes. This causes many a tourist and Tampan to swerve violently, often without signalling, in order to harrowingly make it through the light. Have the misfortune of getting caught behind the turning car? You’re out of luck. Only one car gets through. It’s like the Highlander of driving. Unless of course you are a regular, because lights don’t mean squat in Tampa. So I guess you could just keep on keepin’ on. Which brings me to…
2. Why do we even have lights in Tampa? Green is always full bore. Yellow is an invitation to speed. Red? Kind of like yellow, but with more urgency and a sense of righteousness. In my life, I have never seen so many cars squeeze through a red light, going so far as to block oncoming traffic with impunity. Which brings me to…
3. The Police. Great (the band)! Local Police… eh. So I hear they like lapdances. They definitely give out oh-so-vital parking tickets in Soho and Ybor at 3am. Heck, they even pulled over my wife for having expired tags (thanks for mailing… nothing. I guess notification is for VIP’s or something. Maybe I voted wrong). On the other hand, maybe a few speeding tickets for people going 60mph in residential zones, tickets for running reds and some DUI checkpoints might actually ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING. I realize that these guys have some real crime to combat, but what’s more easily preventable than traffic related deaths? Even one or two cameras, anything…
4. More turning lane madness. What’s with not marking a turning lane? We get a 10 year old faded arrow with ‘Turn Only’ painted about 5 feet before the turn. What about posting a sign at the start of the block so people know to move over, instead of forcing them to stall traffic and potentially cause wrecks?

It totally blows my mind that such a great city has managed to plan itself into a nightmare. Or not plan. I’m guessing that’s the problem. I’ve heard great things about the Mayor, and the place seems to be booming, but come on. What with the failed Ybor re-development moneypit and the lack of any public transportation, there are some seriously embarassing problems facing this town.

There’s no room for road expansion, because developers already own the land or have already built condos. Rail is almost impossible because the land is already bought, or too expensive. The roads we have are barely maintained, and a veritable freak out hell ride because no one follows any discernible rules of the road.

I’ve heard all of the excuses - tourists, new residents from out of town, etc. What about just enforcing the law? Is it a money problem? Is it a function of too much sunlight? People everywhere have driving horror stories, and I don’t think we’re in nightmare territory yet, but something has got to happen.

What gives with driving in Tampa?

Three St. Pete blogs recently started. The first two are for neighborhoods in South St. Pete. Check out New Southside and Bartlett Park.

Last, and certainly not least, Gina Vivinetto is back with an EARFUL OF COOL.