Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

From July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008, the Tampa Bay area lost over 23,000 jobs. As a percentage, the Bay area’s job losses are second-worst nationally:

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater lost 1.8 percent of its jobs over the year ending in June

That’s second worst for major metros (population of 1,000,000+). Smaller areas such as Fort Myers (down 5.1 percent), Naples (down 4.2 percent) and Bradenton-Sarasota (down 3.6 percent) had bigger percentage losses.

Texas cities Houston, Dallas, and Austin all had job gains.

Check out the US Dept. of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report for June.

Mayor Pam Iorio says that Tampa needs to get started on rail transit now, and not wait for TBARTA to get it going.

TBARTA wishes she would just give ‘em time to analyze the entire region.

The Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners will have to decide if they want to ask for extra sales tax as soon as the 2010 election.

Besides the (very) loud music, here’s your introduction to Criss Angel > The Official Website:

Don’t miss the first LIVE episode in MINDFREAK history as Criss attempts to escape from an imploding building! Watch it LIVE on Wednesday, July 30 at 10 PM EST / 7 PM PST on A&E, or watch it LIVE here on www.CrissAngel.com!

It’s always fun to watch a building implode!  The whole “escaping death” part is just a bonus.  We find out more in the news section:

… From within a 9-story former hotel outside of Clearwater, Florida, Criss will attempt to escape a building that is loaded with explosives and set to detonate.

Clearwater!?!?  Now famous for Scientology AND Death Defying Stunts!?!?

Anyway, Angel has 3 and a half minutes to get out of handcuffs attached to a balcony railing, through three or four locked doors, and up 3 flights to the roof, where a helicopter will whisk him off to safety.

Cool.

Even cooler is the building that will host the stunt, the old Spyglass Resort Motel.  You know this place - it’s 10-story building with 100 foot mural of the hot air balloon on it.  Clearwater artist Roger Bansemer painted that mural back in 1978 (Tampa Bay’s 10 has the story of the mural). 

This place became quite the dump over the past few years, but the rooms were cheap!  That, along with many of the balconies facing the beach, the Spyglass became the perfect place for partying spring breakers.

Not everyone is impressed with Angel’s plans to escape getting blowed up.  Steve Otto says the stunt is “pretty lame.”  Ernest Hooper agrees, challenging Criss Angel to attempt to find a parking spot at Clearwater Beach in 3½ minutes on a Saturday.  Eric Snider simply says Angel is repugnant, pretentious, and unimpressive.

Good grief, ya’ll.  The dude is giving Clearwater Beach some free marketing national coverage, and BLOWING UP A BUILDING!! 

Actually, Advanced Explosives Demolition is blowing up the building, and Applied Science International created a video simulation of the implosion.

Those of you interested can watch Mindfreak on A&E tonight at 10pm, or see the webcast beginning at 9pam on AETV.com, watch it live at CrissAngel.com, or watch it live from Clearwater Beach - they will have giant screens there, too.

You gonna watch/go to this?

The tough economy is getting to everyone.  We are all trying to keep costs to a minimum, and come up with money-saving ideas.  Of course, as goes your economy, so goes the entire economy, including non-profits.  For instance, you did not buy enough Girl Scout Cookies last season:

While your support and enthusiasm drives us to provide outstanding service to girls, we’ve been notified that we’ll receive approximately $45,000 less than we budgeted from our United Ways, and our cookie program came in approximately $300,000 under budget. We also know the mileage reimbursement rate will increase again shortly and we can expect that other expenses will follow. We must now identify tangible ways to reduce expenses to make up for the known shortfalls.

After careful consideration and a cost-savings analysis, Girl Scouts of West Central Florida will be closing the service center and branch offices one day a week resulting in most full-time staff moving to a four-day work week.

A four day work week!!!?  From the Girl Scouts!!?!!??

“Thank God it’s Thursday!!”  … just doesn’t sound right.  But it is…

CEO Jody Johnston says the organization expects to save about $200 each day the office is closed, and employees will save about 20% on fuel costs by driving one less day per week. 

It’s not perfect, of course.  Many workers have had to alter their families’ schedules for the switch.  Parents had to make arrangements for their kids’ summer programs, and come August, school routines will be different, too.  Still, the Girl Scouts are working with each employee individually to make sure these types of concerns are addressed.

Along with the logistics of such a change, staffers are not yet used to getting up so early, and find themselves a bit tired by the end of the day.  They expect that it is simply a matter of getting used to it. 

Some are still getting used to the idea of NOT working on Friday.  Chief Marketing Officer Kristin Whitaker says she found herself thinking about work, and has even been checking email from home those days.

But she also notes that a three-day weekend is nice, and that she finally has the time for personal business, such as making those doctor appointments she has been putting off.  The commute is more pleasant now, too.  “Traffic is better since we aren’t on the road for rush hour.”

It seems there is not much of a down side, and the two managers I talked to are quite optimistic.

Interesting that of all the places that you would think of testing this, the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida (GSWCF) just don’t come to mind.  Yet they are the ones moving setting the pace.  Pretty cool.

Oh, and all of this doesn’t mean you can get away without buying Girl Scout Cookies in January, either.

After the jump, find a list of other organizations discussing the option, and the email Q&A with GSWCF CEO Jody Johnston.

(keep reading…)

I took off from work to spend a couple days with the soon-to-be 3rd grader.  Having exhausted my patience with crafts, games, Barbie, and SpongeBob on day one, I thought we should get out of the house for a second day of fun.

I didn’t have a spare hundred bucks laying around for a theme park, so I figured I’d try to keep the nearly-eight-year-old happy without spending a bunch of dough.

Not only did we have a good time, but I got out of it without spending much at all.  In fact, after breakfast, I didn’t spend a thing.

We started out at Dunkin’ Donuts.  Yep - the Rays won the night before, and When the Rays Win, You Win!  So we each enjoyed a free donut for breakfast with all the old folks!  With my coffee and her milk (and, ok, another donut for each of us), we got out of there for about $5. 

Next we went to the library.  There is a lake and a park adjacent, so we took our time walking around a bit.  We looked for frogs on the lily pads (none), butterflies near the flowers (a handful), and dragonflies everywhere else (a bunch).  We successfully avoided all fire ant mounds.

Once inside, she immediately found the library’s toys for smaller ones, and the little girl had fun with them for quite a while.  She then walked the entire juvenile section - over a dozen aisles! -  looking for a good book or three.  I convinced her to put Junie B. Jones (First Grader) back on the shelf and keep the Goosebumps story, The Girl Who Cried Monster.  She also grabbed a big Narnia book.

Then we went off to the mall!  Not to buy anything, but to play in the kids’ play area.  She towered over the other kids, and had fun getting chased around.  I found out later that there is a 42 inch limit to that play area. Luckily, no one kicked us out.  But I was getting hungry, and we left anyway.

We went home, where I taught her how to make a double-decker peanut butter sandwich.  She thought a triple-decker would be a good idea, but seeing as how I am the daddy, I had to put my foot down.

But just because we were home doesn’t mean that we were done for the day.  On to the pool!

The City of Tampa has a dozen parks with pools, and they are all free to use. We went to the Spicola Family Pool at DeSoto Park (we love DeSoto Park!) and spent the afternoon there in the Palmetto Beach neighborhood.

Like the pool at Sulphur Springs, Spicola has lap lanes, two waterslides, and a giant waterspouting mushroom-looking thing that kids love. They even have a shade tent where a daddy can comfortably read his own library book!

On the way home, we stopped at the McKay Bay Nature Park, part of the Great Florida Birding Trail.  It was fun for about 20 minutes.  We saw unusual birds and big spiders on bigger spider webs.  In our one bad decision, we picked a random trail that wound through the brush.  Although we didn’t get bit, we were chased right back into the car by a cloud of mosquitos!

The kid will tell you she had a great day (although she was not much impressed by the mosquito attack)!  Daddy had a great day, too, watching his daughter be a kid.

It wasn’t difficult, either. Just go and use the amenities that are available to you!

For Free!

Your Weekly Rays Update

Overall: 61-43
Last Week: Oak (2-1), @ KC (2-2)
This Week: @ TOR, DET

While it was nice winning the A’s series, the Royals series left a sour taste in the Rays mouth. The Royals are one of the worst teams in the AL and the Rays should have, at the very least, been able to take 3 games from Kansas City. Instead we have Joe Maddon ripping into his team for a lack of hustle and a split series with a sub-.500 team.

Tampa Bay…61—43 __ .587
Boston………….61—45 __ .575
New York……..58—46 __ .558
Toronto……….53—52 __ .505
Baltimore…….49—55 __ .471

Since I don’t want to be a complete Deputy Downer on the local baseball collective, I should mention the Rays still lead the division and it appears Carl Crawford may have broken out of his slump. Still, the eternal pessimist in me wonders if the Rays can keep up their winning pace from the first half of the season? Or will the 162 game schedule get the best of a young team that is experiencing a winning record for the first time? Personally, I still think the Rays finish second in the division but win the Wild Card.

TRADE DEADLINE
The trade deadline is this Thursday and for the first time ever the Rays are buyers. Outs Per Swing has the best recap of trade rumors but it appears the Rays are unwilling to part with top prospects; David Price, Wade Davis and Jeremy Hellickson. Which is the smart move as the Rays were originally designed to start winning next year, and it would be foolish to trade away their best pitching prospect (i.e. Price) for a one year rental.

ROCCO’S RETURN
A month ago I was convinced we would never see Rocco Baldelli playing in the majors again but most signs point to me being wrong. Rocco has been playing well in AA Montgomery and could be the right handed bat everyone says the Rays need. Assuming Price and Baldelli were called up late in the season the Rays may not need to trade for anyone.

According to a new report released by the Corporation for National and Community Service, 60.8 million Americans volunteered in their communities in 2007.  That represents an average of 26.2 percent of Americans age 16 and older.

The study also reported the percentages of individual states as well as metro areas, and those findings are highlighted on the Volunteering in America website.

The number of volunteers from the State of Florida is below the national average, and ranks only third from the bottom of the list:

• Volunteer Rate Ranking: 49th within the 50 states and Washington D.C.
• Average Volunteer Rate: 20.0%
• Volunteer Hours Ranking: 45th within the 50 states and Washington D.C.
• Average Volunteer Hours per Resident: 29.3 hours

Most of those (32.4%) volunteer with religious organizations.

Floridian cities make up the bottom of the metro rankings too:

• #50 - Miami - 14.5% volunteered.
• #46 - Orlando - 19.7% volunteered.
• #45 - Jacksonville - 20.7% volunteered.
• #40 - Tampa - 24.8% volunteered.

Sure, Tampa Bay ranks higher than the rest of the state, and is above average for Florida, but we can certainly do better.

Here are the numbers for the Tampa, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) (Major cities included in this MSA include Tampa, FL; St. Petersburg, FL; and Clearwater, FL):

• Volunteer Rate Ranking: 40th within the 50 large cities
• Average Volunteer Rate: 24.8%
• Volunteer Hours Ranking: 29th within the 50 large cities
• Average Volunteer Hours per Resident: 34.8 hours

So what about you?  Do you donate your time to any worthy causes?  Fill out the poll, and tell us about some worthy causes in the comments:

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It’s hard to write a post about Choxotica, a new chocolate store on Dale Mabry and Ehrlich, without it turning into a love letter. The small store sells exotic chocolate bars from all over the world and offers a small cafe setting to enjoy the above mentioned bars with chocolate drinks so strong they should carry a warning.

I’m not too proud to mention my chocolate addiction. Out of all the addictions to have, chocolate’s one of the most tame. I’ve been known to hide Mounds bars in my office at work and buy a Hershey’s bar on the way home. But, these are mass produced chocolates diluted with wax and milk. The chocolate offered at Choxotica is pure chocolate art.

The truth is, Choxotica isn’t for the casual chocolate consumer. At $5 or more for drinks and bars, it’s a store made for real chocoholics. The kind who look at percentages and prefer their chocolate imported from obscure countries with hard to pronounce names. Sure, there are white (blasphemy) and milk chocolate bars on sale next to the rest. But, the real draw is the store’s selection of real, dark chocolates from all over the world.

Have you ever wondered what chocolate would taste like with curry and coconut? They have a bar for you. (In fact, it’s my favorite and always out of stock.)

Has the organic craze hit you yet? You can buy an organic stone ground bar in a plain brown wrapper. There are chocolates with pepper, chocolates with ginger, chocolates with nuts. Basically anything you can imagine dipped in chocolate is offered, even in the drinks, which are created by melting chocolate in a saucepan and pouring fresh milk or filtered water over the hot liquid bliss.

Curry and coconut doesn’t translate as well in their iced drink, but hazelnut and coconut is a winner when added to iced chocolate milk. And, their Mud Shake tastes just like an ice cream bar. They even offer a Wasabi Ginger hot chocolate for the brave of heart.

They also offer an email list with coupons they send out for special promotions, which makes the price a little easier to bear.

In short, Choxotica is an oasis for chocolate lovers who are tired of the fare offered in drugstores and supermarkets. But, if you don’t get the urge to bite into a few ounces of a high quality, bittersweet confection every once in a while, Choxotica isn’t for you.