More Tampa Bay Metro Rail stuff

I've added a Dale Mabery/Sarasota line going north-south through the entire area and an northeast/southwest Nebraska/Kennedy/Riverview line.

New bus stop

So I'm trying a new bus route. The first stop is in front of the nazarene church around the corner from my house. While I'm waiting for the bus an older man walks up to me and asks me if I'd like 'something to read on the bus.' I politely say 'no thank you.' I was spiritually abused by the nazarene church for twenty years. I think that's more than enough.

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Adding Clearwater/Largo

Today we are adding Clearwater/Largo routes, a North Beach Route and a "b-line" route that goes from brandon directly to Indian Rocks Beach.

HCC

At this point, the only way to deal with the hillsborough county commission is simply to replace them.

May God Rest Their Souls

Andrew Sullivan has mentioned in his blog that these men were hung for being gay. The picture is from an Iranian News Website. I, of course can't read the website's arabic, but if it's true, May God bring their souls to peace.... Them and every other person murdered in the name of religion. God knows who you are and loves you and I know he has carried you in his arms to a place of rest and peace.

I grieve for you and the lives you might have led. I grieve your creative voice, the books you could have written, and the loves you could have shared.

it's not the gun but the hand that holds it

Here's what happens when you don't have guns. It seems to be a strong argument that gun-control is largely ineffective against homicide.

He thinks my tractor's sexy

so if you're at a gay cowboy party and they're playing a lot of shaniah and this cute guy is dancing in front of you, is it rude to stuff a dollar bill in his jeans? Just asking.

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20/400

So the eye doctor says my eyes are 20/400 uncorrected. That's like 20 short of getting a dog.

A plan for Tampa Bay Metro Transit: Part 2

The next Steps would be to add connections to Commuter Centers in Tampa and a North-South for Pinellas as well as tying Downtown St. Pete Directly to the airport Via West Shore Shopping District and the McMullen-Booth Corridor.

The "New Tampa" line would also connect USF and Busch Gardens Theme Parks to the grid as well as Ybor. The Brandon/Valrivo line would add stops for the brandon town center. The McMullen Booth line would connect Ruth Eckerd Hall and the residential oldsmar to the dog track on 4th street and the 4th street business district. The Pinellas Central line would connect the 19 North district to Pinellas Park and St. Pete's Central Avenue.

A East Shore/West Shore line would connect MLK in St. Pete to the west Shore Residential in South Tampa and the West Shore Business District.

Have you ever seen the rain?

Someone told me long ago
There's a calm before the storm
I know it's been coming for some time

After paying $675 to the state of florida for past due parking, toll, and speeding tickets, I was cleared to get my drivers license reinstated. The actual drivers license issuing authority is next door to the county clerk of the court near tyrone mall in west st. Pete. I walk next door to the dmv and they issue me a ticked that reads d551. I then hear a mechanical voice announce "now serving d503 at booth number 4" .... Sigh... Welcome to the DMV.

The guy sitting at the front desk asks me how I'll be paying... Credit card, I answer. "We take mastercard & discover." Wait... No visa? "No visa!" Fucking hell. So I walk a block to BA and get $200... Just in case.

I get back to the waiting room and they're serving d509... Fuck. Let's get food. 2 tacos and a quesidilla later they're still only serving d521. So I sit down and take my medicine like a man. I got myself into this. It's nobody's fault but mine. I 'm playing solitaire on my blackberry and listening to this 50-something lady bitch into a cell phone how she's going to sue the state DOT in Tallahassee because she wasn't in the car when ANY of it happened. I silently promise myself I'll never be that guy.

After what can only be the equivilant time that it took early men to discover fire once he cralled out of the primorial ooze, the Orwellian voice informes me that d551 is now being served at counter 3. I walk up to counter 3 and we begin the ass-rape that typifies any dealing with the government.

" There's a $200 license reinstatement fee when the applicant is uninsured."

Of course there is. "Yes sir."

I am the submissive slave in this S & M dioramma.

"Yes, sir. I like paying $200. Please give me more pain, sir."

This fee; that charge.... A roadsign test.... An eye test. And then we can issue.

"Yes, sir. I love tests, please give me more."

"If you're Paying by credit card, BTW, there's a 2% charge for all credit card transactions. And we don't take visa. "

Of course there is. "Thenk you sir, I would never dream of trying to use visa. Those people suck. Fuck visa."

Road sign test, I only miss one.... PS, why isn't a "school zone" sign a picture of a tried teacher doing violence to children? Oh, well.

"Sir, can u put you head to this rest and push until the light comes on? Read me the 5th line.

"A... Z... P.... Q... Fuck, I can't fucking see."

I was unable to get a driver's license because I failed my eye exam. How big of a double dog looser am i?... wait! don't answer that. And so the shame spiral begins anew. Apple martinis, anyone?

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Under the Bay

A few have written to me asking about going underneath the bay and whether or not a tunnel can be constructed underneath the bay.

Tampa Bay is a bit of a misnomer. It's not a bay at all... it's an tidal estuary because it mixes the fresh water from 4 rivers with the salty water from the sea in an area that is actually deeper than the body of water into which it flows. It's similar in many ways to the Hudson River, with the exception that New York already has public transit... and some of the best in the world :-)

Tampa Bay is, at its deepest point, only 45 feet deep. A tunnel dug 80+ feet underground would have more than enough clearance to go under the bay without disturbing the estuary.

The love below

If last year taught us anything it was that we are not invulnerable to hurricanes. That reason alone necessitates putting all or most of any mass transit system below ground if onlt to protect the investment from potential damage due to storms. Not to mention the noise factor. Who hasn't seen or experienced the noise of a big city compounded by the screeching of an elevated train? We don't want that here. Although, because of underground conditions in the beach areas it may be necessary to do some sort of elevation in those areas only. But for the vast majority of the subway system in Tampa Bay, it will be necessary to dig tunnels.

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Thoughts on a subway for Tampa Bay

When contemplating installing mass transit in an already existing metro area it is useful to study driving patterns but not always helpful to try to replicate them. What mass transit does better than anything else is offer an alternative to privitized transportation in densly populated and densly commercial areas.

Pinellas county is the most densly populated county in the state (miami/dade is second). So what are the most densly commercial areas in pinellas? The downtowns... Clearwater and St Pete. I believe for any mass transit to work it has to approach the metro area as a single market and so I would also include in that the downtown tampa area and because its "on the way", the tampa airport.

So the first subway that would need to be built would link the three downtowns to the beaches and also include the airport and raymond james stadium and internatioal plaza mall.

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Pinellas County: Not a Girl; Net Yet a Woman...

So last year sometime I got a speeding ticket (or three, I can't be certain of the number... who can remember these things). I put it in the area of my car roughly labeled "things I gotta deal with sometime in the near future" and promptly forgot it. Come December of that year on my birthday my 6-year driver's license expired as did my automobile registration. In the process of re-upping my driver's license i discovered that I would now need $700 to renew my license. My insurer required another $250 to re-issue my policy for the new year and the auto registration could not be re-issued until both my license and insurance were renewed. This came near christmas. At that point I made the decision to forgo re-registration and take my chances until after the first of the year. At which time I promptly forgot about it. About every 6 weeks i'd be like... "I really need to get that taken care of" but never made any real effort to get the tasks completed because we're talking about basically shelling out $1000 for the privilege of driving a car I was already driving.

Those of you who have noticed or suspected the presence of an oncoming train would be absolutely correct. That train came in the person of one Officer Dwayne Wazinsky, one of St. Petersburg's finest who, while I was piloting said car downtown on sunday, pulled me over to inform me my tags were more than six months out of date. And then was also quick to point out the delinquency of my driver's license.

I am very lucky i was not taken to jail and my car impounded.

Why are all the cops that pull me over EXTREMELY hot? or is it that i'm attracted to men who represent authority figures?

Anyway, after the cops drove away, I took my car home, where it continues to sit, gathering dust in it's space behind my house.

So now I've gotta use the better part of 2 paychecks to rectify the transportation situation, not to mention the fact that the car, itself, needs brakes and to have the master cylinder re-worked ($500).

So sunday night, i'm depressed, sitting among empty bottles of Skyy® Vodka and DeKruyper's® Sour Apple Pucker from the numerous apple martini's i've consumed on this my most current downward spiral of shame and self-loathing, and I'm trying to foment a plan to get to work monday morning.... knowing i'd have to take the bus but desperately searching for options and realizing that there are none.

During and after college, I took the bus everywhere around Nashville. When I got to town, my dad gave me two things. $200 and a bus schedule. His suggestion was to find a job on the bus route either downtown or somewhere there on Mufreesboro Road. I took the bus for the next 4 years of my life until I bought a motorcycle and afterwards bought a car.Taking the bus at 35 years old can only feel like a step backwards.

So I checked online for the Bus Schedules for Pinellas County only to discover that it would take me over 2 hours to go 15 miles on the bus from my house to work. This would mean I would need to leave the house at 7 in order to be at work by 9.

I know what you're thinking. IT'S YOUR OWN FUCKING FAULT!!! DUMBASS, Pay your fines and registration fees.. But here's my point with that. There are other people who are NOT in my situation. I've been riding the bus beside them every day. They are low wage earners. Many disabled. Many have recently immigrated (legally or illegally) to the united states and all they want to do is get to work and earn enough money to survive another day. Why should it take THEM 2 hours to get to work?

Pinellas County started out as two cities: St. Petersburg and Clearwater. Then all these smaller towns (22 of them to be exact) began to dot the space between the bigger cities. And now there are very few areas of the county where undeveloped land is currently available. The county is, in point of fact, a single metropolis with close to a million people in it, not 24 separate municipalities with unincorporated space between them.. The PSTA board of directors are appointed by these "tiny towns" to ensure the people of those towns are served by the transit authority's budget so each area makes it's bid to get as many routes as possible in their area of town to take back to the citizens of that town that they are protecting their interests, as does every factor of "tiny town" government. They take the tax base of that "town" and set up a "city government" under the argument that that area needs it's problems and needs addressed. The fact of the matter is, very few people both live and work in the same part of Pinellas. If you live in St. Pete, often you work in Clearwater or Tampa. If you live in Tampa, Often you work in St. Pete or Clearwater. God forbid you live in St. Pete and work in Tarpon Springs or vice versa, because if you do, you MUST have a car and you will still spend 2-3 hours of your day getting to and from work, because, as with everything else in Pinellas, transportation needs are dealt with city-to-city instead of taking the tax base, giving it to the county and allowing them to build an interstate to deal with the county's transportation needs. Pinellas Park, Kenneth City and Indian Rocks beach would have its needs best addressed by a single set of commissioners that govern the entire county who can address the two biggest problems of transportation and crime (in that order) on a county-basis.

Pinellas County, put on the pink halter top, dive into the large martini glass filled with soapy water and sing suggestively along with Britney ... "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman." In each great metropolis there comes a time when the area ceases to think of itself as a "small town" (OR 24 SMALL TOWNS as the case may be) and begins to think in terms of a city. The time has come for Pinellas' cherry to be popped and for her to become a woman. We need to give birth to a single city. I'm not saying we need to marry Kevin Federline, god forbid, but we do need to begin addressing the problems we face as a single city and not as a collection of tiny towns each with their own vested interest in keeping resources away from the other.

Maybe, by then we can develop a public transportation routes that don't take 2 hours to go 15 miles or even... SAY NO, a subway?.

London calling

The brits never cease to amaze me. After an attack that would have completely paralyzed an american city the brits are like.."Well, no use carrying on... Let's have a drink." The pubs in london are packed. Americans are such drama queens.

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today is the day

Today is the day. I feel it. I feel that we can live up to the potential of our greater selves. We can be the people we always wanted to be. We can become something better than we currently are. I truly believe that the best of america's days are yet to come and for that I thank God.

war is shit; shit is war

I go into the back yard a few days back and there's an elderly woman who is not the homeowner next door in the back yard. I'm assuming it's the homeowner's mother, but The homeowner walks out of her house and I give a friendly wave... she walks over.

She begins to complain about the dogs in the back yard. She claims that we don't pick up the dog shit often enough and that it keeps her and her mother from sitting in the back yard. She points to the older lady in the chair and says that she doesn't like the smell and she's sorry she has to say anything.

I'm like... this is my back yard... I'm not going to be dictated as to what I can and can't do in my own back yard.... especially by a bed ridden older lady... I appreciate the fact that she comes outside to "warm up" because she has no blood, but it's not my problem she doesn't like it. She doesn't like anything... she's old.

I basically ignored her and walked off. I came out the next day and she had put moth balls all up and down her fence line... I guess the scent of old people is preferable to dog shit... ok, whatever.

So I'm out there this morning and she makes a big production of walking outside, taking her box of moth balls and dumping them on the ground. ... of course you realize... this means war.

Pride (in the name of love)

if you haven't heard about Rhonda-gate, then you haven't been reading the news in Tampa Bay over the last 2 weeks.

On several occasions she has mentioned "black history month is different" because of slavery.

I believe, however ...and correct me if i'm wrong here... black history month has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with slavery... Black history month is about honoring the contribution of a minority to the continued betterment of the whole and slavery is just the first act in that story..In the same way, Pride, honors the contribution of a minority of citizens to the betterment of the whole. It seems Mrs. Storms doesn't think Earnest Hemingway and Truman Capote have contributed to the american experience.

Slavery is the first act of the black story in america, but she made it sound like it was some sort of payback... white people locked black people up and considered them animals... therefore they get a "history month".... intellectual rubbish and somewhat insulting.

Her action was a knee-jerk reaction to being presented with the idea that gays and lesbians are part of the mainstream of society. She doesn't like that fact and doesn't want hillsborough county to recognize it.... and here's the kicker... I think she really believes what she's doing is right.

It pains my heart when well-meaning people put their efforts into COMPLETELY pointless exercises that they truely believe advance their cause. It cheapens them and to quote a better writer than myself:

Apparently it never quite dawned on anyone at the library that when you have something called Gay and Lesbian Pride Month designed to advance greater understanding and tolerance of homosexuals, it sorta defeats the whole purpose of the exercise by treating a benign library display on the subject as if it represented a recruitment campaign for the Boy George Fan Club.

by Daniel Ruth

<sigh>... will christians ever come to the point when they're secure enough in their christianity to allow people to serve God from their own conscience? I guess that's too much to hope for.

In the name of love...
one more in the name of love

by U2

I lost a client

Two weeks ago I lost a client. The project had experienced delay after delay and the client and I were unfocused and undisciplined. I knew in my soul the relatioship was coming to a sudden end and felt powerless to stop it. The site just needed more time and attention than I could give it.

Needless to say I felt like a failure... And to a certain extent I was. Not to a certain extent... I did it.

What else is there to say or do other than try to accomplish something to get rid of that feeling.

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Ca-ching

I have this fantasy of going to a fabulous city I've never been to like london or something and opening a southern-style barbeque and calling it BIG TEXAS BAR-B-Q... Using the almost universal recognition of texas' association with all things big and the recipes of my youth and that I learned while living in nashville. Selling american culture around the globe has become easier even as selling american politics has become more difficult. I think it could work.

Anyway, it's my fantasy to one day open a restaurant. To create the menu myself and develop the concept start to finish the way my fellow pinellas countians the Hooters 6 did in the eighties and to develop it into a national brand.

Its funny how tampabay has spawned 3 or 4 different restaurant fortunes... Hooters, the Outback, Carrabbas, Bennigans, hops... I think I can do it and I think I can do it from here. The question is, will I?

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