Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

The Tampa Bay Derby Darlins are at it again.

Having captured the inaugural Florida State Championship in February, the Switchblade Sisters, Vicegrip Vixens and Cigar City Mafia have begun their regular season schedule for the 2008-09 season.

I’ve talked about my love for the roller derby and the Darlins before, but it bears repeating that the game we’re talking about now is a modern, totally unrehearsed, all female reboot of the old classic and not just a campy rehash of silly, staged WWE style antics with pre-determined outcomes. ESPN has even offered a stamp of legitimacy with a feature story they ran a couple of weeks ago.

I attended a scrimmage last week and skater Gore Mae (you know, I’m not sure that’s her real name, but it’s not like I’ve never had a girl I was talking to at a skating rink give me an alias) taught me how serious these women are about the roller derby. For starters, new skaters participate in a mandatory eight week training camp before they’re allowed to skate in a bout. Also, there are minimum performance standards that must be met before they’re allowed to participate in competition. Wow, what sport wouldn’t benefit from adopting that concept? And as mentioned previously, these are actual competitions with scores tallied and results tabulated. There is plenty of style but no style points. The games count and they’re playing to win.

For fans, it’s great because there’s plenty of fast-paced action, the skaters are accessible (how many times have you been invited to hang out post game at The Hub with members of the Rays, Lightning or Buccaneers?) and tickets are affordable ($12 or less). plus, don’t let the risque flourishes scare you, it really is family friendly entertainment. What more can you want?

The Tampa Bay Derby Darlins next bout is Saturday, June 7th at Skateplex, 5311 East Busch Boulevard in Temple Terrace. Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Go to the Tampa Bay Derby Darlins website for more info, including a complete schedule of upcoming bouts and other events.

Cross posted at Ridiculously inconsistent trickle of consciousness

I am the captain of a team participating in the Relay For Life of Temple Terrace®, which takes place at Greco Middle School on April 18th and 19th this year. Relay For Life®, the American Cancer Society’s signature event, is a fun-filled overnight experience designed to bring together those who have been touched by cancer. At Relay, people from within the community gather to celebrate survivors, remember those lost to cancer, and to fight back against this disease. Relay participants help raise money and awareness to support the American Cancer Society in its lifesaving mission to eliminate cancer as a major health issue.

We’re calling ourselves ‘Team Daddy-O Alley Katz’ and our theme is retro bowling.

I know, right? Someone actually appointed me to a position of leadership and responsibility, which is about as likely an occurrence as seeing the Hamburglar profiled on America’s Most Wanted.

Well, actually, it’s not like I’m completely unqualified. I am sincerely committed to the cause, which is raising money to find a cure for cancer and eliminating it once and for all. I don’t want to just defeat cancer, I want to defeat it and humiliate it in the process. I want to pull down cancer’s pants and make crude, derisive comments about its genitalia. I want to give cancer a swirly in front of all the other diseases. I want to date cancer’s mom just so I can steal all her money, call her crude names and tell her to go make me sandwiches. So obviously my heart is in the right place.

I’ve taken to my role as team captain and have done my best to motivate my team. I assured them of my sincerity and dedication by telling them that I had already gone so far as to have written “CAPTAIN” on the waistband of all my underwear… in Sharpie.

But working with volunteers is a challenge at times. It’s hard to make demands of busy people who are doing stuff for you in their spare time. I have to remind myself to be patient and encouraging when things aren’t moving quite as quickly as I’d like. And actually, our team is doing pretty well so far. But it takes effort to come up with ways to keep everyone interested and enthusiastic without being completely obnoxious about it.

I have little doubt that many of them will no longer want to speak to me when it’s all over. I’m basing that on the fact I have no doubt that I’ve already been so obnoxious that some of them don’t even want to speak to me right now.

Relay For Life® isn’t really a competition per se, but teams do challenge each other to do a good job as a matter of pride and in the interest of pushing each other to raise as much money as possible. When it’s over, the American Cancer Society recognizes the best teams’ efforts with trophies and prizes. So screw what I said before; it’s totally a competition.

There’s a team in our Relay that’s been at it for years and they win a majority of the awards every year. I’ve decided that I hate them. In my mind, I’ve decided to consider them smug know-it-alls who act like they invented cancer just so they could raise funds to eradicate it and make me feel inadequate in the process as a bonus. Now, you don’t have to tell me what a terrible person I am for feeling this way. I’m already fully aware that resenting a group of people for effectively raising funds to combat a horrible disease is about as reprehensible an act as you can think of. I’m ok with it though, because I want to win trophies and prizes.

Besides, it’s not that I don’t want them to raise a lot of money; I just want my team to raise more than they do. So as I was sitting around thinking of new ways to try to motivate my team, it occurred to me that I should use this totally unjustified and irrational hatred to my advantage and pass it along to the people on my team. I wonder why I haven’t thought of it before; exploiting people’s healthy desire to see their like-minded peers re-cast as hostile opponents is not only completely natural human instinct, but repeatedly proven to be a highly successful tactic! Hmm, I’m beginning to understand why I was selected to be captain…

Anyway, if you’d like to learn more about Relay For Life and contribute to our team’s efforts, I’ve put yet another link to the site right here.

(Cross posted at Ridiculously inconsistent trickle of consciousness)

One of the many things I left behind when I moved out of Tampa city limits and into Temple Terrace (distance moved - 6 miles) was Mayor Pam Iorio’s pet project, the Tampa Riverwalk (turn down the sound if you don’t want Pam to talk to you).

Of course urban renewal is not an easy thing to outrun. Temple Terrace has its own slowly-developing revitalization project, in which developers have offered countless proposals for residents to live that sweet, sweet life.

If your patience for the Riverwalk to move into the tangible phase has grown thin - or for those in opposition, patience for an official abandoning of the project - it’s time to pull up a chair.

This from the City of Temple Terrace’s site:

The original town plan for Temple Terrace, created in 1922, was a model of town planning in its day. Between 1923 and 1925 during the land boom, streets were paved, storm sewers installed, and a well was drilled to tap spring water…

The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression caused the City to fall upon hard times. The plan that developers originally had for Temple Terrace was never fully realized.

84 years and counting.

According to the Master Plan, talk of a Riverwalk has been around since the 1970s. So despite all that talk about 2010, don’t expect any real progress until the middle of the century.

By then most Tampans will be old enough to move to Temple Terrace (sorry, it’s just too easy). Don’t despair - how often can you get a zoning hearing and fresh tomatoes in one stop?

We have a feature here called Ask a Tampan wherein you - the reader - ask one of us (usually Tommy) - a Tampan - a question. We’ve been known to answer them from time to time.

I’d like to turn the tables a bit, only I’m having trouble coming up with a title for this likely one-time event.

For the last two years I’ve been a New Tampan. Though I’ve made efforts to love my neighborhood, it’s hard to look past the lack of neighborliness and Bruce B. Downs, the four-lane, eternally congested elephant in the room that is New Tampa.

Fortunately thanks in large part to the generosity of my in-laws, the wife and I will soon be moving away from South Wesley Chapel. We’ll be living in Temple Terrace, which makes my wife and I…

What does that make us? Contrary to any conclusions you may now be making, it does not make us eighty. Actually I’ll be the fourth person from my 1998 high school graduating class of 40 people to have moved to this “city for living” in the last year. There goes the neighborhood.

But back to the task at hand - the first installment of Ask a Temple Terrace Resident: what are you? There’s got to be a way to make that title a little less awkward.

Temple Terracite isn’t terribly flattering. Temple Terracist is far worse. We could play on initials and call you Teeters.

Either way I’ll soon be one of you, so I’d like an answer soon. If any non-T.T. residents have any suggestions, please comment. But be nice - after all, Tampan isn’t exactly flattering either.