Nov
9
Only in FLA: Time to get Grandpa glasses, Duval county school workers a brain
Filed Under Jacksonville, Only in FLA | 1 Comment
Grandpa Picks Up Wrong Kid From School
My in-laws pick the kids up from various functions all the time. I can’t imagine this ever happening. Is this guy blond, or just so out of touch with his grandchildren that he doesn’t even know them?
Please Mom, get him to an eye doctor, then introduce him to his grandchildren.
But, the workers that released the wrong kid! The school district said they’re going to be disciplined. I hope that discipline involves firing and reporting them to the authorities for child endangerment. They were lucky the grandfather was “normal” and not some sex predator. LUCKY!
Oct
26
Why you don’t win the Florida Lottery
Filed Under Gambling | Leave a Comment
You didn’t play the right numbers.
What did you expect, some convoluted conspiracy theory about how Jeb Bush and the ghost of Lawton Chiles got together with a bunch of other He-coons to take pre-dawn walks and figure out a way to screw YOU?
Anyway…
Did you know that the Florida Lottery publishes a frequency chart for winning numbers?
Me neither.
According to the chart, as of today the six most frequently chosen numbers in Lotto are:
28 - 30 - 15 - 18 - 38 - … and then we run into a problem. 27 and 28 are tied. So you’ll have to play two tickets this week, until one of those two numbers makes a move.
Remember, though, it’s all for the kids.
Aug
17
My idea of a perfect Caribbean vacation
Filed Under Interesting | 1 Comment
I’ve always wanted to go to the Caribbean on vacation. Hey, Florida’s great, but sometimes I need a change of scenery. Every time I’ve mentioned it to anyone, they always start with “Hey, there’s this cruise ship…”, to which I jam my fingers in my ears and spin around singing “la la la la la la…”.
Cruise ships and yours truly don’t mix. Traveling on someone else’s timetable, cramped quarters, and the ever-present Norwalk virus are not my ideas of how to spend time relaxing on Caribbean vacations.
A nice quick flight, a beachside hotel or resort, and fruity-umbrella drinks at a tiki bar - THAT’S living!
My parents visited St. Kitts a few years back, when my father was doing business down there. English-speaking, mandatory education through the 12th grade, and a higher literacy rate than the US made it attractive. Each visit, they stayed in high-end resorts for the same price as you’d pay for a Motel 6 outside of the gates at Disney World.
Poking around On The Beach, I found place that hit me juuuussssst right: The Flamboyant Hotel on Granada. Open-air dining and a beachside cabana take care of the basic needs, and complimentary kayaks and pedal boats for when I feel the need to stretch my muscles a bit. Oh, and the ocean, can’t forget about that, right?
Aug
12
Car donations
Filed Under Interesting | Leave a Comment
Several weeks ago, I wrote about my experience donating a car to charity, in relation to a post about donating a boat to charity. tonight, I want to highlight an organization that donates vehicles.
You could do what I did and scour the web and the yellow pages for an organization that is willing, worthy and qualified from a tax deductible standpoint to accept your donation of a car. Or, you could go through an organization like Car Angel ministries to Donate Your Car In Los Angeles.
When donating a car, you’ll need to check Publication 78 to find charities that qualify to be used to take advantage of the car to donate for tax rebates. You’ll also need to know how the charity intends to use the vehicle in order to know what you can deduct. For instance, if the charity sells the vehicle, your deduction is limited to the price for which the charity is able to sell the vehicle. But, you can deduct the fair market value if the charity uses the vehicle for a program or donates the vehicle to a needy person in order to help that person.
Substantial documentation is also required by the IRS. Therefore, it helps to work with an organization like Car Angel ministries, which takes the donation and disposes of it swiftly, then posts the sales results online where the donor can print a 1098 compatible donation receipt at tax time.
While this post is targeted for Los Angeles Car Donations, you should know that nationwide pick-up of your car donation is available. You can also choose from an extensive list of charities to fund with your donation: from across America. You decide the project you wish to fund with your donation: Health, Education, Welfare, Religious Studies, Homeless, or Prison Reform. Among the projects funded by Car Angel Ministries is Free DVDs for Kids, which produces a five-episode series of animated videos that are being distributed to preschools, Sunday schools, and libraries free of charge.
So, here’s a chance to do something good, and an organization that will make it easy for you. Check it out.
Aug
7
Fear the Reaper, Baby!
Filed Under Interesting | 1 Comment
The original Halloween movie holds a place near and dear to my heart. Or, to be precise, the paperback novel spawned by the movie holds that place.
Why?
I was sitting in 9th grade study hall when the book was passed to me, earmarked somewhere around page 36 or so. It was the first time I realized novels had graphic sex scenes. The only reason I can give for such a late realization is my repressed catholic school education. So, of course, I made sure I saw the movie when it came out on Beta.
Shut up. Those Beta players were $800.
After that, I made sure to catch the Friday the 13th movie - the original, and still the best. Here’s what I learned from Halloween and Friday the 13th:
1. If you go looking for trouble, trouble will find you. Get out of the house.
2. If you’re going to have sex with a promiscuous teenager, always check the closet for killers.
So, here we are 30 years later, and Rob Zombie has a new adaption of Halloween the movie. Thought Rob Zombie was “just” a musician? Au contraire mon frer, he’s also an experienced director with a fascination with the horror genre. Do I want to see a straight remake of Halloween/ Not particularly. But, reports are that Rob Zombie has not done a remake so much as a “re-imagining”. Intriguing…
Also intriguing is the soundtrack for Halloween the movie. When I saw Love Hurts by Nazareth, I grinned; when I saw Only Women Bleed by Alice Cooper, I giggled; when I saw Don’t Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult, I laughed pretty hard. What can I say, sometimes I have a sick sense of humor.
So, the movie opens at the end of the month, and the trailer is available on YouTube, embedded below. It’s pretty intense, so if you’re prone to nightmares, you might want to pass. If not, check it out!
Aug
1
Doing a favor, and an experiment
Filed Under Brooksville, Florida Business | 3 Comments
My mother owns a gift shop in Brooksville and I just want to help her search engine rankings with this post. She’s the only retailer authorized to sell Vera Bradley in Brooksville, and I believe one of two authorized to sell Vera Bradley in Hernando County. The name of the shop is The Paper Porch.
Feel free to give out some link love, maybe you’ll get some link karma! If not, build a bridge and move along… 
Note: This was NOT a sponsored post! Unless you count 9 months of uterus-living, 18 yrs of food and shelter, and a college education a prepayment on this post. 
May
14
From the files of too-stupid-to-know-better
Filed Under Florida Education, Florida Government | Leave a Comment
Forgive them - they too young and dumb to realize that once you add a “fee”, it defies the laws of physics that state that something that goes up must come down. Fees never come down, and volunteering to pay them damns the students that follow to pay escalations caused by an ever-increasing portfolio of “green projects”. After all, if I were a University president, every building in the planning stage would be classified as “green” and I’d rape that fund for every penny and hit those environmentally-aware-but-financially-stupid kids for every penny I could squeeze out of them. Or their parents.
Florida university students push for ‘green’ fees
Orlando Business Journal - 9:00 AM EDT Monday, May 14, 2007Students from the University of Central Florida, New College, Florida Atlantic University, University of Florida are working to kick-start a funding source to apply environmentally friendly practices on campuses. and the
The first phase of the plan is to incorporate a proposed 50- to 75-cent “green fee” into tuition to finance projects that would campus energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The proposals are asking for a campus sustainability committee made up of students, faculty and staff to oversee those funds.
UCF’s green fee campaign is expected to be voted on by students during the student government elections in the fall. It follows the national campaign Campus Climate Challenge, under which similar proposals have been made at southeastern colleges, such as the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and the University of Tennessee.
“Campuses use a large portion of the nations energy from non-renewable resources like coal which contribute to global warming pollution,” says Stephen Mortellaro, UCF student senator and green fee campaign coordinator, in a prepared statement. “We’ve got to do something and the [green] fee seems like a great first step.”
UF’s Gators for Sustainable Campus group recently passed a student vote with 78 percent approval. The issue is awaiting review by the board of trustees this summer.
May
9
I just want to know - was this on the FCAT?
I’m just saying…
Guinness confirms Florida pupils broke reading record
The Associated PressTALLAHASSEE, Fla. - It’s official, 186,054 Florida middle school pupils are world record readers.
Guinness World Records confirmed Tuesday that they set a new record for “Most People Reading Aloud Simultaneously in Multiple Locations” on Sept. 28. They read in unison an excerpt from “Peter and the Starcatchers,” a book by Ridley Pearson and Miami-based humor columnist Dave Barry.
The previous record had been set by 155,528 students in the United Kingdom who read William Wordsworth’s poem “Daffodils” on March 19, 2004.
“Breaking this particular world record earns our students a place in history and reminds them that reading is an essential part of bringing dreams to life,” Acting Education Commissioner Jeanine Blomberg said in a statement…
This story can be found on Jacksonville.com
Apr
30
I swear, sometimes I think lawyers could screw up an orgy!
Filed Under Florida Government, St. Augustine | Leave a Comment
As a marketing professional, I can tell you that when someone wants to use your brand for something like an elementary school, that’s a good thing.
But, leave it to the lawyers to screw up a good thing:
World Golf Village, a registered trademark, will no longer be included in the name of the St. Johns County School District’s newest elementary school.
The school board chose the name after polled community members gave the highest number of votes to the name “World Golf Village Elementary,” which was previously known as new elementary school K.
Lawyers from the World Golf Village Foundation notified the district that the name is a registered trademark. The district could have kept the name under some stipulations.
For example, they would have to ensure that the school was always referred to as World Golf Village Elementary, and never an abbreviation of WGV or just World Golf.
Original Article: District drops WGV name
(Gotta love the attempt at editorial irony in that headline!)
