The Special General Election will be held February 23, 2010. Learn more here.

Your candidate choices [...]]]> For those of you who live in Florida District 58 (like me) don’t forget that there is a special election Tuesday, January 26 to replace Representative Michael Scionti. Here’s a .pdf map of the district. This is the primary election.

The Special General Election will be held February 23, 2010. Learn more here.

Your candidate choices can be found here.

Cruz, Janet R. (DEM)
Kemp, Patricia “Pat” (DEM)
Sanchez, Gilberto “Gil” (DEM)

Chamberlin, Hunter (REP)
Rojas-Quinones, Jackie (REP)

Vazquez, Jose (WRI)

…the new spot will be called The Refinery [...]]]> Brian Ries at CL’s Daily Loaf reports that a new restaurant is coming to Seminole Heights. Michelle and Greg Baker of the Trib’s Culinary Sherpas and owners of Cook & Company will soon sign the papers to buy a spot in Seminole Heights to open The Refinery.

…the new spot will be called The Refinery and will feature a large selection of small plates — “bigger than most tapas,” according to Michelle — and a few entrees, like basil-miso battered tofu and bison country-fried steak. “The lunch menu will be seasonal and brunch will be a collection of dishes from our favorite restaurants across the country,” says Michelle.

The dinner menu will change almost nightly, partly due to The Refinery’s focus on sourcing local ingredients as much as possible. The Bakers plan to have hydroponic farm Urban Oasis grow a lot of their produce, and hope to work with local foods guru John Matthews of Sarasota’s Suncoast Food Alliance. “The menus will tell you where your food is coming from,” says Michelle. “We’re hoping to start a trend. We know a lot of chefs will come in and we want them going back to their owners and saying ‘we can do this, too.’”

Congratulations, guys! I can’t wait for you to open.

***

Chris Ingram at Irreverent View files an ethics complaint against Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin White.

“Background: Commissioner White was involved in a sexual harassment case in 2009. A civil court jury found Mr. White guilty of sexual harassment and awarded a large sum of money to the victim. Hillsborough County was a co-defendant with Mr. White.

“On January 21, 2010, Mr. White’s peers on the County Commission voted to sue Mr. White to recover the extensive legal fees the county has expended in defending him for his shameful and reckless acts which he has failed to own up to.

“When this matter was brought to a vote before the Hillsborough County Commission, Mr. White voted against the motion for the county to sue him to recover the aforementioned costs. This is a clear violation of Florida Statutes prohibiting elected officials from voting on matters before them which would cost or benefit them financially.

“Action requested: investigation and appropriate fines, penalties, and removal from office for Mr. White’s blatant disregard for Florida law and the voters and taxpayers of Hillsborough County.”

Ingram writes – “Good government is a non-partisan issue; where is the Democrat’s outrage?”

***

Not really a blog, but a handy site, Florida-Friendly Landscaping offers a lot of great advice on how to make your yard more Florida-friendly.

***

Sinfonian ended Blast Off! earlier this year. I actually wrote a long post about it, but it’s still in the draft queue. Here’s Sinf explaining his decision to end one of the funniest progressive blogs in Florida after 5+ years. So long Blast Off!, and thanks for all the laughs and liberal camaraderie. I hope you return soon.

***

Alan Snel, Tampa’s best bike blogger, is asked to give an invocation at a recent city council meeting and offers the following -

“May we find inspiration in anything we deem holy so that we who attend this legislative forum can make our city a better place to live and a safer place to walk or ride a bicycle. May we embrace the diversity of our city and respect our differences so that when we congregate here as one in the spirit of the Jeffersonian sense of town hall, we work sacredly and bind our efforts to represent the interests of all Tampa citizens. Let’s have a glorious government meeting in the spirit of making our city a place we can be proud to call home.”

Amen

“The Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) was created through a recent amendment of the Farmer-to-Consumer Direct Marketing Act of 1976. The grants, authorized by the FMPP, are targeted to help improve and expand domestic farmers markets, roadside stands, community-supported agriculture [...]]]> Eat local advocates might be interested in applying for a grant to help promote farmers’ markets.

“The Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) was created through a recent amendment of the Farmer-to-Consumer Direct Marketing Act of 1976. The grants, authorized by the FMPP, are targeted to help improve and expand domestic farmers markets, roadside stands, community-supported agriculture programs, agri-tourism activities, and other direct producer-to-consumer market opportunities. Approximately $5 million is allocated for FMPP for Fiscal Years 2009 and 2010 and $10 million for Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012. The maximum amount awarded for any one proposal cannot exceed $100,000. Entities eligible to apply include agricultural cooperatives, producer networks, producer associations, local governments, nonprofit corporations, public benefit corporations, economic development corporations, regional farmers market authorities and Tribal governments.”

If you want to advertise on some Florida blogs, FMC provides a quick, one-stop-shopping sort of place so you don’t have to deal with each blog proprietor individually.

If you want to try to generate [...]]]> The Florida Media Co-op is a grassroots (or entrepreneurial if you prefer) effort to coordinate advertising on local blogs around Florida.

If you want to advertise on some Florida blogs, FMC provides a quick, one-stop-shopping sort of place so you don’t have to deal with each blog proprietor individually.

If you want to try to generate some money from your blogging, but Google ads isn’t generating enough income, and you are not inclined to spend your free time tracking down advertisers, consider giving FMC some space on your page. If you’re going to advertise anyway you might as well promote local businesses.

More blogs create more page views which creates more interest from bigger advertisers.

Those participating so far are -

Sticks of Fire (Tommy as SoF is also the head honcho at FMC), TampaBLAB, GNATV, Ridiculously inconsistent trickle of consciousness, Tommy in Seminole Heights, Plant City Today, and Re/Creating Tampa.

Joining up is relatively quick, painless, and straightforward.

You can buy ad space here.

And, go here to start the process for getting ads placed on your site.

“A Group of like minded individuals who support local family owned and operated restaurants and farmers. Say no to the chain and hello to real food again. Think Global and eat local.”

On account of my fascination with Adam Lambert, I did something very uncharacteristic for me: I attended the American Idol concert last night at the St. Pete Times Forum.

My good friends JG and [...]]]> (JBisMe is an occasional guest contributor to Re/Creating Tampa. Here she recounts her recent visit to see the American Idol stars in concert.)

On account of my fascination with Adam Lambert, I did something very uncharacteristic for me: I attended the American Idol concert last night at the St. Pete Times Forum.

My good friends JG and KS accompanied me.  It actually didn’t take as much arm-twisting as I feared it would – and for that I am grateful.  Look, I’m an almost-40-year-old woman who is clearly going through some sort of midlife crisis, and I don’t need people giving me guff about my love for Adam Lambert.  JG and KS support me in my lunacy, and that’s exactly what I need.  (Another friend, JV, tells me that I’m behaving like a 12-year-old, to which I reply, “I never acted this immature when I was 12!”)

As the day of the concert approached, I got nervous thinking about what to wear.  In another uncharacteristic move, I told JG and KS that I wanted us to wear dresses.  I’m not sure why – maybe I wanted to counteract my childish excitement with a grown-up appearance, as if that would somehow make me seem less lame.  So the three of us got dressed up, and we actually looked pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.  JG picked me up at 5pm and we headed down to the stadium to park the car.  It was already pretty crowded in and around the stadium (the show started at 7pm), which made me excited and happy, like a giddy little tween!  We parked at the stadium and then walked over to Channelside to eat at Thai Thani, where we had two-for-one drinks with our dinners.  I drank something called a Godzilla – it was green and melon-flavored.  JG had Mai Thais.

KS called when we were just finishing dinner, so we walked back to the stadium to meet her.  Because KS was getting dropped off on the sidewalk outside the stadium, I walked down to the sidewalk to watch for her while JG ran back to drop something off at her car.  As I approached the sidewalk, I noticed the Jesus people.  There were a few of them scattered around the four corners of the intersection.  I didn’t want to get too close, but I could make out the words on some of the signs they held.  I didn’t see anything explicitly homophobic, just a lot of stuff about Jesus and sin and that sort of thing.  One person was handing out little fliers, and I was curious to see what they said, but not brave enough to go take one myself.  I knew that if I saw anything mean about faggotry or Adam, it would make me so sad that I might start to cry.  So I just watched from a distance, and then KS arrived and it was time for us to go into the concert.

Everyone seemed to be in a really good mood.  The people who searched our bags, the people who took our tickets, the bartenders…  Oh yes, let me tell you about the bartenders.  As we walked to our seats (which were in the absolute farthest away, highest level, nosebleed section), we noticed a bar.  It hadn’t occurred to me before that we might be able to purchase alcohol to drink during the concert!  We could!  We did!  It was great!  Overpriced, crappy beer, but so very appreciated (by me).  The bartender was very sweet and a little bit flirty, and he made a point of mentioning that he was similar in age to us.  I had this moment of almost asking him “Do you think it’s weird, that people our age are here at this show, and we obviously don’t have any children with us?”  But I didn’t ask because I was playing a don’t-give-a-damn role, and part of the façade required acting like my behavior was perfectly normal.

So at this point, I was feeling very glad that we had dressed up.  I’m still not sure why that was so important to me, but it just made things feel more fun, somehow.  And now I get to the part where I started to notice the people around me.  There were tons and tons of early teen-aged kids, of course, and lots of families – like, mom and dad and two kids who looked about 10 and 8, etc.  I thought that was kind of cute, the idea of a family going to a concert together.  I don’t think I’ve ever gone to a rock concert with my whole family.  But the people who really grabbed my attention were the older ones – gaggles of middle-aged women (much like our own little threesome), elderly couples, octogenarians all by themselves.  This was not what I was expecting.  I couldn’t help but wonder what would inspire, say, a 60-year-old couple, conspicuously lacking in children, to attend the American Idol concert.  I don’t want to assume that everyone’s motives (i.e., the motive to be in the same room as Adam Lambert, if only for a brief time) were the same as mine, so I won’t.  But I’ll always wonder if Adam love was responsible for bringing many of us atypical patrons out last night…

Now for the show.  This is the difficult part.  How to describe it?  I think all I can do is offer a series of impressions; forgive me if this next part is jumbled and confusing.

Act 1

It was, in many ways, much better than I feared it would be.  I thought everyone did a solidly good job.  There were a lot of songs that just aren’t my type of song – stuff that’s just too darned cheesy, or not very interesting, or drags on for way too long.  Honestly, I couldn’t tell you the names or original artists of most of the songs that were performed last night.  There were moments where it got a tiny bit boring, but one thing that I appreciated was that they constantly showed moving images on a big screen behind the singers.  So, if a song was boring, you could focus on the moving lights and the patterns and the (occasional) animation that played on the screen.  It was the perfect combination of auditory and visual stimulation, geared toward a short-attention-span, ADHD audience.  And another thing that I appreciated was that everyone sang songs that really worked for them.  So even if I thought a song was bad or boring, the singing itself was pretty consistently good.  Nothing too “pitchy, dawg.”  The outfits, however, were mostly really bad.  Just bad. (Well, they ranged from “meh” to “stunningly unflattering,” and everything in between.)  The only outfits I couldn’t complain about were Matt’s and Adam’s.  And because I can’t say anything nice, I won’t say anything at all about anyone else’s clothes.

After Anoop’s first song, along with raucous cheering, we heard what sounded like loud “BOOOS” echoing from all sides of the auditorium.  It was, at first, both alarming and upsetting, until JG realized that they were yelling “A-NOOP,” not “BOO.”

At some point during their sets, most of the Idols made a point about thanking “all of you out there who voted for us.”  Each time someone said that, I felt a little guilty, having never once cast a vote for any of them.  I realize that this sets me apart from many other Adam fans, but I just couldn’t get into that whole voting-for-a-television-show thing, no matter how hard I tried.

JG made what I thought was a hilarious observation: She said she couldn’t enjoy the performers as much without Simon there, critiquing them.  She craved Simon’s validation.  Personally, I was glad that Simon wasn’t there, as that would have made things drag on even longer, and I just wanted to see Adam, and it still seemed like forever until he was scheduled to appear.

Intermission

The Idols performed in the reverse of the order of their exclusion (ejection?) from the show.  After the first six performers, there was a 20-minute intermission during which they played many, many Ford Fusion commercials.  Trying to overcome our sudden, collective urge to run out and lease a Ford Fusion, JG, KS, and I entertained ourselves by playing the game of “which Idol would you most want to have sex with,” but we expanded the category of “Idol” to include the judges (Randy, Paula, Simon, and Kara) as well.  I won’t share JG’s and KS’s choices with you, because it’s private, but I’ll tell you my choice.  Well, first, let me preface this with a disclaimer: I am very happily married, and would never consider having sex with any of the American Idols or American Idol judges.  But, having said that, the rules of the game require that you pick someone.  I chose Matt.  Does that surprise you?  My love for Adam is purely platonic, the most perfect form of love.  And Matt is…a fine-seeming fellow, and more importantly, inoffensive.  So there you have it.  Ford Fusion, anyone?

Act 2

After the intermission, the first person to perform was Allison.  I like her, she’s good.  Then came Danny, but I couldn’t really even pay attention to him because I was too excited about Adam.  So, then it was Adam time.  And this is the part that gets really kind of weird for me, because I felt very, very calm and not at all frantic or tweaked out or like vomiting.  I guess I wasn’t expecting to feel so very calm and normal while watching him perform.  I mean, I screamed really loudly and all (I screamed pretty loudly all night, actually), and it was a lot of fun, but it wasn’t nearly as emotional as I thought it would be.  And that’s actually a relief for me, because I was afraid I would act like those girls in that famous picture of the Beatles’ fans, all screaming and crying and clutching my face and wringing my hands…  But nah, none of that.

Adam started with Whole Lotta Love, which is awesome, and I liked it how he changed the word “woman” at the end to “baby.”  Then he did Mad World, which was good to see in person, but I’ve seen it soooo many times by now and I was really excited to see stuff I hadn’t seen before.  Then he sang Starlight, and this was my favorite performance of his all night.  I liked it because his voice was very soft and feminine during the song, much sweeter and quieter than he typically was on American Idol.  In fact, in retrospect, his voice never really seemed as big in the stadium as it did when I watched him on TV.  I don’t know if that’s because of the screaming crowds, the size of the room, the acoustics, my distance from him, or something else, but that was just one of the impressions I got.  I also liked that he took off his jacket and was wearing a sleeveless shirt, because he has very lovely arms but he doesn’t really show them very often.  His final song was the David Bowie medley, which was good but I still liked Starlight the best.  One funny thing about the David Bowie medley was that he sang the first song, Life on Mars, in a fake British accent.  I had read that he did that at a prior show, but I thought maybe it was a one-time thing.  It was very cheekily adorable, and he does a mean Bowie impersonation.  And then Fame was good, but KS and I agreed that Let’s Dance was just a little off somehow, though it had everything to do with the arrangement and nothing to do with Adam’s voice.

Oh yeah, and he danced a lot during his set, which was fun to watch.  JG noted that he danced a lot sexier during the concert than he ever did on American Idol.  He did lots of hip thrusting moves, and things where he kind of snaked his torso all around.  He also used his arms a lot, in a very fluid way.  Sigh.  I would so love to go clubbing with him.  I really like watching him dance because he doesn’t really adhere to any particular style that I can discern – he just seems like he makes up these wacky, wiggly moves, and he’s very long-limbed and liquid.  Some of his moves even border on the goofy, but that just makes him all the more adorable.  He always looks like he’s having a great time – very fabulous and confident.

I guess my overall impression was that it perfectly met my expectations – it neither exceeded, nor fell short of, my hopes for what it would be like.  And that’s good, because I’m often disappointed by things.  But it also didn’t blow me away, and that’s probably good too, because had it been a mind-altering experience, it might have sent me even deeper into this infatuation/obsession/crazy train ride/whatever-you-want-to-call-it purely platonic love affair with Adam Lambert.  It was very gratifying and deeply satisfying without sending me into a teeny-bopper tizzy, for which I am thankful.

Kris was good, too.  He wore extremely tight trousers, which I really wasn’t expecting.  I liked his rendition of Hey Jude the best of all of his songs, but it might just be because I love that song and don’t really know the other songs he sang.  But to be honest, by the time Kris came on, I was kind of…spent.  My brain was too tired to pay enough attention to form detailed memories, just happy impressionistic snapshots.

The After Party

There were a couple of cheesy group songs at the end, and then JG and KS and I beat it the hell out of there as quickly as we could.  Rather than sit in traffic for hours trying to get out of the parking lot, however, we went across the street to a bar and met some friends, RM and T, who had not been at the concert.  We sat outside and drank some yummy vodka drinks, and I needed a refill at one point and so I wandered back inside to the bar.  And this is where one of my favoritest things of the whole night happened.  As I walked up to the bar, I noticed a late-middle-aged woman, flanked on both sides by younger women who might have been her daughters, sitting there on a barstool and reading her American Idols concert playbill/book (they were selling them at the show, but I didn’t buy one).  In yet another very uncharacteristic move for me, I walked up to her, leaned in over her shoulder, and asked “Did you have fun at the concert?”  She turned to me and said something like “Oh yes, I thought it was very good.”  “Me too,” I replied.  She seemed kind of like a quiet, shy person, not very excitable.  She had her book open to a page that showed a picture of all 10 Idols, dressed in white and posed for a group shot.  She brushed her fingers across the picture, and then rested her fingertips over the image of Adam at the far left.  She said “I like all of them, but he’s the main reason that we came.”  And I was like “Me too!  I don’t even really watch American Idol, but when I first saw him, I was like ‘I love him!’”  At this, the woman turned toward me some more and said “You’re just like me – I don’t really watch the show either, but I wanted to see Adam.”

So then we chatted for a few minutes about Adam, the concert, how we thought they all chose good songs, how we agreed that the outfits were pretty sucky for the most part.  I couldn’t believe how similar our impressions of the show were – me and this 50-something-year-old stranger in a bar.  At one point, she looked kind of sadly down at the picture of Adam in the playbill and said “We think that there are two reasons why he didn’t win: He wears make-up and he’s gay.”  This made me feel like my heart would break with all of these emotions that I can’t even really sort out…  Like sadness at the way life is, and affection for this woman who seemed as sad as I was, and gratitude for her, that she had the guts to bring this topic up.  Not that I really wanted to have a long discussion about homophobia with a total stranger, but she obviously felt strongly about the issue, and so do I, and it was just good to be able to air our thoughts about it.  I’m sure I wasn’t the most coherent at this point, on account of all of the drinking I did all night, but I began rambling anyway.  I remember saying something like “I definitely think that’s possible, that people didn’t vote for him for those reasons, but if you think about it, he made it really far in the competition, so maybe the homophobia wasn’t as bad as it could have been.”  At this, the young woman to my friend’s left started nodding vigorously, which made me feel relieved because it suggested that what I was saying made some sense, or at least that they didn’t think I was disrespecting Adam by making light of a serious issue.  And then I said “And for all of the people who dislike him because of those things, there are people who love those things about him and who wouldn’t change a single thing about him.”  My friend nodded at this, but she still looked sad.  I wished I could cheer her up, and I tried to, by rambling on about what a great career Adam will have, and how he has all of these fans who will go to see every show he ever does, and so on and so forth.  I promised that I would go to every concert he ever put on (ah, drunken promises), and my friend said “Me too.”  And then, luckily, JG came up behind us and asked “Are you talking about Adam?” and I laughed a lot and got my drink and we headed back out to the table.  Before leaving, I squeezed the woman’s arm and said “It was so good to meet you,” and I really, really meant it.  Me, the misanthrope, making friends with strangers at a bar!

When I got outside, I somehow got into a heated discussion with RM about whether Adam’s coming out was strategic and manipulative, or genuine and sincere, and whether or not Adam has ever acted (inappropriately) like he’s a spokesperson for the gay community (RM thought yes, I thought no).  I’m not sure I followed all of RM’s logic, nor did I fully understand his position, but I had to respect his views because, well, let’s face it: There are many ways to interpret the complicated and multi-layered “coming out” fandango that Adam and the American “news” media danced together.  And I know that my own interpretations of Adam’s behavior are probably biased by my undying love for him.  Plus, I was drunk, and RM talks really fast, and that particular combination of variables leaves me willing to cave in most arguments.  But even though we disagreed, it was still fun to have that discussion, but maybe more fun for me than for RM, because in the end, he claimed that I owed him $20 for making him waste that much of his life (approximately 15 minutes) talking about American Idol.  And then it was time for JG, KS, and I to head back to the car and call it a night.

Walking to the car, we passed by a small cluster of people who were waiting at the rear of the stadium, near the entrance to a lot where several large trucks were parked.  JG asked them what was going on, and a man explained that they were hoping to catch the Idols on their way back to the tour buses.  JG wondered whether we should stay, but KS and I didn’t want to.  Again, I’m probably not the *best* Adam fan alive, because I don’t want an autograph, or a picture of me with him, and I’m not particularly interested in watching him walk across a parking lot to get onto a bus.  At that point, I felt like I had gotten as much out of the night as I was going to.  We left.

So I got to dress up, and have my concert with my friends, and hear Adam sing, and watch him dance in that crazy way he dances, and make friends with a stranger, and have some fun discussions, and drink my ass off, and stay out late, and…it was kind of a perfect night with my American Idol.

“TAMPA – Hillsborough residents who don’t like the way county government spends their tax dollars will soon have a way to question commissioners’ budget decisions directly.

“Upcoming budget meetings will be the first “virtual town hall” events, during which residents can comment or ask questions via e-mails [...]]]> Via Stogie, this article from the Trib’s Tampa Bay Online.

“TAMPA – Hillsborough residents who don’t like the way county government spends their tax dollars will soon have a way to question commissioners’ budget decisions directly.

“Upcoming budget meetings will be the first “virtual town hall” events, during which residents can comment or ask questions via e-mails or by phone.”

Here are some Hillsborough County RSS feeds.

This is great, and I don’t mean to dump on the almost certainly beleaguered webmaster, but this site could use a substantial re-design to make it more 2.0 friendly. I want lots of government news flowing over my Twitter and Facebook feeds (as well as my RSS feeds, and stable URLs to link to). I also want lots of video available without having to load a plugin.

Here’s a look at state-wide races Robert Pickering posted a few days ago. And, here’s a post for seats along the I-4 corridor.

“Hillsborough County schools are expected to receive a $19.1 million grant through the legislation. Manatee County schools are slated to receive about $4 million, and Pinellas County schools nearly $11.5 million.”

“Schools can [...]]]> The Tampa Bay Business Journal reports that nearly $20 million from the recent “green schools act” will be directed toward schools in Hillsborough County.

“Hillsborough County schools are expected to receive a $19.1 million grant through the legislation. Manatee County schools are slated to receive about $4 million, and Pinellas County schools nearly $11.5 million.”

“Schools can use the money to make classrooms more energy efficient and to update science labs, libraries and technical education facilities.”