Everything north of the Florida state line is “up north” to me.

So, I’ll be missing and not missing a bunch of things. Of course, friends and family top that list, Florida bloggers included. The coolest thing is meeting truly talented people with a lot of the same interests, like sweet asses and nice racks.

Anyway, here’s a list of some other things I’m going to miss about Florida:

• Disney and the Orlando theme parks are a $300 day trip rather than a $2,000 vacation.
• Watching the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico from Pine Island.
• The coolest town on the east coast, St. Augustine.
• The coolest island in Florida, Amelia Island.

Here’s a list of things I won’t miss:

• South Florida. Really people, y’all should quit calling yourselves Floridians. ‘cept for Key West, the awesomest place I’ve ever been. You guys are ok.
• Planning and zoning commissions more interested in maximizing property tax revenues today rather than smart planning for things like water, roads, and schools.
• A governor with orange skin. WTF?
• All of the canadians down for winter vacations. Effin’ canadians. They’ll drive 2000 miles just to get a decent steak.

So yeah, I’ve got mixed feelings.

Police: Fla. driver’s beer was buckled up, infant was not

See, told you I don’t have the energy.

From the homepage of blessherwithsight.com:

Rylee Lovett is a beautiful, happy six year old girl living in Saint Augustine, Florida with a rare congenital condition known as Optic Nerve Hypoplasia (ONH). This rare condition, of unknown causes has left her with less than ten percent of her optic nerve. Her endocrine system was also affected, leaving her with a daily regimen of medication and injections. Since diagnosis at four months of age doctors have said that nothing can be done. She would be blind with no hope of recovery.

Until recently there was no hope of Rylee growing up to see the world in the way everyone else does. Recently, doctors in China began using the blood discarded after the birth of a child to restore sight in children like Rylee. This innovative transplant of stem cells, collected through the umbilical cord of afterbirth, has given other ONH children the ability to see. It has even given one little girl the ability to recognize her mother’s face when previously she could not even see light.

Please help to bless Rylee this holiday season with this same gift of sight. She wants to see her favorite television show DragonTales, to take gymnastics with her little sister, and above all to see the faces of her loved ones. Please help us meet our goal of $60,000 and send Rylee to China to give her the chance to see. With your help this beautiful child can be lucky enough to get the priceless gift of sight this holiday season.

Please head over to the site to buy your raffle tickets through paypal, or to just make a donation.

Cross-posted at myfirstcoast.net

This is the best time of year in St. Augustine. The weather is beautiful and the city does a great job of decorating with Night of Lights. There are also activities every single weekend, and one of the cool things to do is the St. Augustine Artwalk.

On the first Friday and Saturday every month, over 20 participating galleries offer tours that start at 5 p.m. There are complementary shuttles in the form of St. Augustine Sightseeing Trains and Old Town Trolley Tours if you’d like to ride between stops on the Artwalk. Galleries have exhibits that include local artists, including painting, photography, and music.

The schedule for the next few months is as follows:

Dec. 7th and 8th
Jan. 4th and 5th
Feb. 1st and 2nd
March 7th and 8th

The First Friday Weekend Art Walk is another great reason to visit the city of St. Augustine. The weather this time of year is fantastic, the shops are stocked, the bed-and-breakfast inns are decorated for the holidays, and the romance levels are high. It’s no surprise that it was the weekend before Christmas that I proposed to my wife in St. Augustine.

Ok, maybe you unmarried guys might want to keep your girlfriends away…

Investigators said 32-year-old Charles Tucker Jr. was using the cat door early Saturday morning as a way to get back into his girlfriend’s St. Augustine home after the woman kicked him out.

Deputies said several hours after his girlfriend told him to leave she found him stuck in the cat door.

From Yahoo News and News4Jax

While you ought to feel bad if you find that story funny, here’s something you don’t need to feel bad about – Yahoo’ contextual sensing ad technology delivering the worst possible ad at the worst possible time:

Of course, you may need me to blow that up a little. Click on the picture, hope this works:

Anyway, the last Saturday night in each month is now Uptown Saturday Night, an event put on in St. Augustine that features street music, antiques shopping, book signing, art galleries, and exhibits in a party-like atmosphere along San Marco Avenue. Each of the participating shops features an open house with refreshments. Free parking is provided at the Mission of Nombre de Dios, one of my favorite spots for peaceful relaxing (don’t worry, the parking lot is away from the peaceful relaxing!).

According to their schedule, Uptown Saturday Night is scheduled out through 2008, so mark the last Saturday of each month on your calendar and plan to attend from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. The next event is November 24th, and you know you’ll be looking to get out of the house in the middle of the long Thanksgiving weekend (with or without those pesky visitors from up north… or maybe you’re one of those pesky visitors – sorry!). St. Augustine has tons of interesting and unique restaurants and places to get adult beverages, so this will make a for a great night out.

Technorati Tags: st. augustine, uptown saturday night

We arrived around 6:30 pm on Saturday night and had the benefit of chamber-of-commerce weather – gorgeous, breezy, no humidity, still shorts-weather, but not hot at all. There was a $2 charge for adults, kids were free. There was an area for the kids to play, just a couple arm-breakers (inflatable jump rooms), and some table games. This was the only part of the place that was a bit overpriced – $5 for 6 tickets, and it cost 3 tickets to go into an arm-breaker. $2.50 per is a bit pricey, in my opinion.

There were a number of tents with artwork and crafts of the quality you would normally see at art festivals in these parts, with most being fairly reasonably priced. The vendors were definitely exhausted by the evening, with most content to sit in chairs in the back of their tent and let us window-shop.

The food was definitely the highlight, though! I enjoyed a great gyro, and immediately regretted not springing $12 for the platter of entree foods. Yum! While we ate, a band played greek music and the people attending danced traditional greek dances. The atmosphere was great, everyone was having a good time, and we even ran into people we knew so we had company to enjoy while we ate.

We missed the performances late in the evening due to a tired child, but stopped at the dessert booth on the way out to grab some baklava, my wife’s favorite greek dessert. She tells me it was wonderful.

A while back the local government passed an ordinance to get rid of sidewalk vendors and performance artists. Local businesses hated them, because they competed for tourist dollars and tourist eyeballs, and created clogs of people on St. George Street, a foot-traffic only stretch of shops in historic buildings.

I can understand their point: They’re paying big bucks to own or lease space for their store selling paintings and pictures, while some guy can sit down on the sidewalk outside of their door and set up an easel and start whipping out paintings for the locals. Hardly seems fair, except that it IS a public thoroughfare.

I always enjoyed that stuff. I never spent any money because I never saw anything I had to have, but I did drop a buck in a guitar case from time to time. I was also approached by panhandlers, but I just say “no” and they walk away, no hassle. No big deal.

But, it feels like the place is changing. The sidewalk artists are gone, the musicians are gone, and all we’re left with is shopping and restaurants. Hardly unique. The city pays people to dress in period costume and provide information to tourists, but issued a citation to a one-legged man dressed as a pirate that was charging $2 for a picture.

Really? Was he holding them down, forcing them to take pictures of him, then grabbing $2 from their wallets? Why can’t the tourists decide if they want to pay $2 for a picture?

RV For Sale

These are the same folks selling one million-dollar home in St. Augustine to move to another million-dollar home in St. Augustine, so if you need a million-dollar home in St. Augustine, well, you should have an abundance of links to click-through…

St. Augustine Million Dollar Home