Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

It’s Grand Opening Weekend for Salutes American Meat Market, the new restaurant / bar at 4802 Gunn Highway (former location of Goodfellas). A military-themed joint, Salutes is decorated with flags representing the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, and Coast Guard branches, and pledges community involvement:

Salutes will also be part of the community in donations to non profit organizations. Their [sic] will be two standard non profit organizations receiving the funds and weekly “specials” for other non profit organizations. This donation mechanism is very transparent to all parties involved.

The menu features items like “Surrender Soup” (their version of French Onion), “Congressional Soup” (chicken noodle), “The Clinton Split” (a banana split), and the “Atomic Bomb” chili bowl.

This sounds fantastic, but you might want to check their list of “unwelcome elements” before heading up Gunn (or down Gunn, depending on where you live). Salutes, according to their radio spots, will refuse service to:

liberals, communists, fascists, and other enemies…

Photos of the “Enemy of the Week” appear as targets in the men’s room urinals. (This week, your national enemies are Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.)

I applaud any new business in our area, but is it really smart to openly exclude so many possible patrons? Only in Florida, I guess.

21, of Miami

assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.; killed Nov. 10 by enemy action in Anbar province, Iraq.

“R.J.” — as the younger Jimenez was known — loved playing war games as a youngster and became an avid deer hunter during his upbringing in West Virginia. The family later moved to South Florida.

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Not from the Times…

On Wednesday, the St. Pete Times had a scoop piece suggesting that Tampa Bay Devil Ray Elijah Dukes threatened his wife.  Sports stars almost never get in trouble, so the big story ran on the front page.

But if you went to the Devil Rays ballgame Wednesday, you couldn’t buy that newspaper there.  That irritated Times reader Aaron Peter, who was told by TBT/Times distribution that a decision was made to not stock that edition of the Times at the ballpark.

“Not so!” says circulation manager Craig Holley.  They only meant to make fewer papers available.  However, signals got crossed, and ALL the Trop papers were held back by accident.

That’s right - a communications company had a breakdown in communications.

I don’t know about this.  It’s convenient to say “mistakes were made.”  The paper is too damn cozy with the ball team.

For years, it’s been rumored that Bob drives thru the local Mickey D’s and pays for his coffee with all pennies. What’s he gonna do without a job?

From TBO: After 30 Years At WFLA, Hite To Leave Anchor Desk.

I suppose this just gives him more time to hang out in Apollo Beach establishments, bragging about his boat, watering his grass on the wrong day, and practicing general surliness.

Or so we’ve been told. I doubt he does any of these things.

Oh wait.  Maybe that’s the wrong Bob Hite.  Here you can find out about Bob Hite (news anchor).   Woops.  Someone oughtta give him a wiki.   Here you go -  Bob Hite:

Bob has won seven Emmy awards for cinematography, videography, writing and editing, the “News Story of the Year” award, the Directors award and has been recognized as the foremost environmental reporter in the state by the Florida Coastal Management Conference. In fact, during his 28 years as a reporter in the Bay area, his environmental reporting has had an impact in excess of 20 billion dollars.

He is the guy most local TV watchers have turned to over the last couple decades to get their news, too.

Congratulations, Bob! And we hope you enjoy your retirement.

22, of Jacksonville, Fla.

assigned to 3rd Marine Division Detachment, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii; killed Nov. 10 by hostile fire in Fallujah, Iraq.

Woods, 22, was a star football player at Ed White High School in Jacksonville. He joined the Navy soon after graduation in 2000… “He was a joy,” Woods’ mother, Carolyn, tears streaming down her cheeks, told WTLV-TV. “They took my child, but I’m proud.”

Julian Woods website

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This is the first of what I hope to be many posts on your local parks. Being the father of three young children I often end up at one of the many parks in the area. If you have kids or like to get out and enjoy the outdoors as much as I do, I hope you find these useful.

The park I go to on a regular basis is Henry and Ola Park located in the Old Seminole Heights neighborhood of Tampa. This park is run by the City of Tampa, and as far as I can tell is named after the streets where it is located (no, I couldn’t find out who the streets are named after either).

One of the things I enjoy is that this place is popular with local citizens, and busy on a regular basis.  Henry and Ola hosts youth soccer on Saturday mornings, with adult soccer pickup games throughout the week. The main soccer field has been re-sodded in the past few years and is well maintained, so I can definitely see the attraction there. The city maintains the softball field and basketball courts, and are always well-lit.

The children’s area includes a playground with swings, a climbing wall and the new style jungle gym, but it would be much nicer with mulch or ground up tires in place of regular old Florida sand.

The city added new in-ground garbage cans to replace the aluminum ones that were constantly getting abused. In saying that, trash seems to still be a problem as it is not always put it into the cans. Whether in a park or on the streets, we encourage you to hold on to your garbage and drop it where it belongs.

Parking can be a problem when there is an event, but folks can use an overflow area for really busy times. The picnic tables could use an upgrade and it would nice if the playground included an area for toddlers.

Henry & Ola Park earns a C+

Westfield Brandon (formerly known as Brandon TownCenter) is the most dangerous mall in Tampa Bay according to the TBBJ.

On the cover story of today’s Tampa Bay Business Journal, reporter Michael Hinman took a look at safety and security records of thirteen local malls (Paid TBBJ Print Subscribers ONLY).

Hinman compared the number of instances of robbery, shoplifting, vehicle burglary, grand theft auto and violent crimes (based on calls only), divided it by the number of square feet of the mall, and then multiplied it by 10,000 so that we could get instances per 10,000 square feet. With this methodology, the smaller malls have a disadvantage.

According to the list, University Square Mall consistently ranks among the highest with “violent” crimes.

The safest mall per square foot is the Seminole Mall in Seminole. International Plaza comes in second safest.

I’ve been watching and paying close attention to the Skypoint Condo construction at 777 Ashley Drive in downtown Tampa since they broke ground in June of 2005. They have already begun with the closings, and the first inhabitants of the building are due to start arriving early in June.

With the construction crew finalizing details in and around the tower, I’ve noticed a curious development.

Like I said, I’ve been following Skypoint closely since 2005. Usually by way of conversation on Skyscraper City or web cams provided by TECO (now defunct) and Ox Blue. With the Ox Blue cam specifically, anyone can view the progress on Skypoint from July 2005 through today.

What I found curious is that the Skypoint-resident-only pool on the ninth eighth floor has been filled three times within the last month. I don’t need to remind you that Tampa and much of Florida are in severe drought conditions. And I am pretty sure you can imagine how many thousands of gallons it takes to fill a pool.

Check it for yourself — go to the Ox Blue flash webcam, and jump to May 1 (use the calendar on the left hand side that pops up) - they filled the pool in mid-April. It stays full until May 5 - it was drained sometime before then. Then check on May 7 - the pool is full again, but then four feet or so are drained once again before May 17. The third filling took place just this Monday (May 20) and it is still full as of May 23.

Almost three fill-ups for a large pool that no one has even yet used, in a building where no one yet lives. I wonder if the city of Tampa even considers that a violation. They want you to tell on your neighbors about using too much water, but perhaps they should take a look inside their own neighborhood.

The tattletale Water Use Violation Hotline is (813) 274-8036. See the original story at Stonegauge.

I got Stand Back’s EP in the mail a few weeks ago and have been listening to it on a pretty regular basis since it showed up. Local to Saint Petersburg, Stand Back is Joel Tatangelo (guitar/vocals), Joey Canfield (drums) and Thomas Stevenson (bass). They play what I would call a guitar-oriented version of rocking barroom blues, music meant for dancing and drinking.

Recorded in one afternoon in Pinellas Park’s Zen Studios, I was surprised to find that all 6 tracks on the EP were originals. I had heard somewhere that the band was only 6 months old, but I found the songs to be much more mature than that. When I spotted this show on their myspace page a few weeks ago, I marked it on my calendar, since I have always wanted to go to Dave’s and I really wanna see these boys live. IMO, blues riffs are the best riffs for late night drinking, so if they come off as good in person as they do on the EP, I expect to become a regular at their St. Pete shows. You can check out the mp3’s below and more tracks on the Stand Back myspace site, and I’ll bet by the end you’ll be dancing in your seat.

Playing with Stand Back is a band called Nervous Turkey. Honestly, I had never heard of them until a myspace bulletin started circulating this week about one of their guitars being stolen. The material on their myspace page has left me intrigued to say the least, especially the track Too Late For Romance. They kind of remind me of Chicken Legs Weaver, but more groove oriented. Check out the Nervous Turkey myspace site and see for yourself.

Rounding out the bill is a band called Blind Buddy Moody. I have never heard of him and can’t really find anything about him on the internet, outside of a mention on a Bluegrass site, but lord knows there ain’t nothing wrong with Bluegrass.

All in all it looks like it could be a nice little night of filthy-nasty-dirty-blues and rock with a little funk thrown in for the ladies. So, to quote Stand Back, “Let’s raise a glass and shake our asses”.

I hope to see a few of y’all out.

Who: Stand Back with Nervous Turkey & Blind Buddy Moody
Where: Dave’s Aqua Lounge (10820 Gandy Blvd. St. Petersburg, FL 33702)
When: Saturday night @ 9:30
Cost: $6.00

mp3s:
Stand Back - King Snake Crawl
Stand Back - I Hope You Freeze

crossposted to ninebullets.net