Category: Personal
The life and times of John Fontana — personal blog posts about things John is dealing with / going through / thinking of / experiencing.
"Hey! Where'd it go?!"
Certain posts are disappearing for a time. Those posts / pages will return in the near future.
A word’s worth is subjective
Last night I started mucking around with a challenge that I had not partaken in for quite some time. Not a challenge, per se, but an investment in my thoughts and creativity that I have dedicated elsewhere for a while.
I wrote a poem. Actually, two poems, but that’s besides the point. The last poem I had written was back in March or April. Before that? January. And before that? I can’t recall.
And yet, getting through the words, stringing things together and painting a picture of thought and emotion… well, I had doubts… Doubts that I’d done the job, doubts that I veiled things enough to not seem obvious, doubts that I had crafted a narrative that made sense in constructing a scene and building a message.
Doubts that I could get a reaction from anyone I shared this with.
A gun-shy poet. That’ll never work.
What it’s worth is purely subjective, as the poem itself will say. That applies to more than just writing, but people and things.
The journey of the write
When was the last time you sent a letter to someone? I don’t mean a card, I don’t mean paying a bill, I mean a letter. Taking yoru time to write out something — or even print it out — and sticking it in an envelope and sending it out?
I’ve been sending out letters, from time to time, for ages. Usually typed up, which does dampen the personality of the correspondence… But there’s something about a letter in the mail that exceeds electronic correspondence – even if Email, instant messages, social network communication, and even a telephone call are more instantly gratifying.
You take the time, you take the effort, you take the energy to convey what you are thinking – maybe it’s business, maybe it’s personal… Heck, maybe it’s intimate (think about it, guys and girls). It’s something we forget when we greedily rip open a letter and read it’s contents… Â Unless the letter itself is long and winding.
But here’s another piece to think about with a letter: The actual journey. Â Did you ever take the time to think about what your correspondence goes through, where it travels, on it’s way to its destination?
I’ve had envelopes sitting on my desk from time to time in the last few days and months… Â They’ve looked rather monotonous with an address label and return address label stuck on them, the only distinguishing characteristic on them being a number I scrawled on the back of each. Â I’ve had them all ready to go, and then it’s hit me: just what is in store for these things as they travel? Â They weren’t just being sent locally or nationally, but overseas…
A little envelope, a folded and glued piece of paper, containing other pieces of paper, Â due to travel some 5,000 miles or more. Â How many lives touch it? Â How many people see it? Â What does it experience on it’s journey? Â And just what does the recipient think or feel when it arrives? Â How do they react?
This doesn’t tell the whole story of what I am thinking, but it does give some more of an idea what a letter in the mail goes through at sort facilities:
Waiting for Her Word
It’s been months since I posted anything on my personal blog here. Where am I? Is this sitei site dead?
I’m busy more often than not, and no – the Stonegauge is not dead. Â Just dormant. Â When I have been writing lately, it’s been personal and it’s been in the mail (didn’t I once say that it’s great getting letters in the mail?)… Â That or I am doing hockey stuff.
This off-season has afforded me more time for myself (which has been a good and bad thing). Â I’ve found escape in writing, an ability to immerse myself in a thought or idea, or a feeling and a story. Â It’s like a release, as it used to be when I would write a real good poem that conveyed something creatively.
Oh, I’m still doing poetry too. Â Just not much of it, thanks. Â That’s what this post is – a poem. Â Something I wrote a few months ago for an absent face.
Delude
My name is John, and I have a problem.
(this is where you greet me, “Hi, John!”)
For the longest time, I’ve been a dreamer. In a good way, and in a bad way. I like to construct grand things, I like to believe in the best… Or a mountain that you can climb. I sometimes put people on pedestals in this fashion. Placing them atop a pedestal of desire and want.
There are two potential problems with this:
- You can get what you want and learn it’s not exactly as you dreamed it would be
- You can learn, in the chase, that what you’re after doesn’t want to associated with you
Concerning item #2, I’m not talking about someone being direct and telling you that they’re not interested. I’m saying you learn the hard way that they’re just not that into you.
That’s only the start of my problem.
You see, I delude myself. I start trying to see someone in the best of lights regardless of what the truth is. I want things to work, or to progress… And I keep offering the benefit of the doubt in the ignorance of silence. I construct all sorts of excuses, and sympathize with situations… But in the end, I’m no closer than no where than I was before. The same place I was at the beginning.
The place where things will ultimately end.
I said in 2008 just what I learned when I was hurt int he past, and you know what? I’ve learned nothing. I’ve learned nothing because I fell into the same situation all over again… Or at least I allowed myself to get close to doing such. Again.
I’m a shitless dreamer. Â I realize this. Â And it hurts. Â Without the dream, things feel flat, emotionally. Â With the dream? Â Things never happen to begin with, because I’m too busy wondering and constructing. Â And being stepped on, taken advantage of, or made to feel like I’m 2nd, 3rd, 4th class or less.
The one good thing about junk comments….
Whatever WordPress did to upgrade recently, and whatever hole that was opened up so Akismet could be exploited, it’s done the one positive thing for me:
It’s forced me to make more regular trips to this site to keep an eye on things.
Staying where you are
“A man needs to know his limitations.”
I think I have found mine. I was offered a job I wanted but I did not want to lose focus on what I am most proud of.
I also knew that my physical limitations kept me from truly fulfilling the role.
Maybe in time I’ll have another opportunity, but right now I’m disappointed with myself… But I know and can admit my own limits. maybe that is a plus?
Sports journalism that hasn’t quite been “honest…and unmerciful”
For a very long time I’ve had problems with reading local newspaper reports about the local teams. It’d usually be Marc Topkin that’s rubbed me the wrong way — assuming tthe Atlanta Braves were Tampa Bay’s team in the early 1990’s, reporting personal favoritisms as fact with Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays (which seldom goes on today ) and is often proved wrong. This has nothing to do with Topkin as a person, it had everything to do with how an “inside” story was being presented, or from the angle in which the facts were aligned up (that Atlanta Braves angle, which I mentioned).
This is an example of how the media sometimes gets things lumped on it for setting the narrative. Stories that are carried, stories that are ignored, angles that are looked at and the “factual” narrative. I’m not going to even try to take on the general perception of the media and news reporting, by doing it I open myself up to the same criticism after all.
The point of this story isn’t about that at all anyway. It’s another thing I am noticing that hinders traditional media reports as well as gives a narrative that fans start following, the message that they start following. Â It’s their personal relationship with who they are writing about. Read More
Better Know a Blogger: Raw Charge’s John Fontana
A 2010 interview that this long-time hockey blogger did with SB Nation founder Tyler Bleszinski. Click the post title to be magically whisked away to SB Nation and the interview article.
Coming not quite soon (final)
About 14 months ago, Albertson’s at Boot Ranch Plaza closed shop. Just before it happened, I lamented in nostalgia about that happening. Having had worked there in the past and what not.
But one thing that was not said was the fact I was excited about the upcoming change of the store from one brand to another. I was thrilled that the retail location at 400 East Lake road was going to get the traffic that the site had long deserved.
That’s part of the reason I began chronicling the renovation at the location. Because what was a caterpillar would be a butterfly soon enough.  So twice I’ve posted about the cocoon that was the dormant retail space in Boot Ranch. What I failed to do was actually announce when work crews started to show up at the address in May. What I failed to address 0 with pictures and what not – was when the fences were put up, when the stucco facade was stripped and repainted over the summer.
Publix should be rising from the ashes of Albertsons the second week of December. A year after I observed the in-waiting voidness of the location. Painted, with untold renovations having happened inside and trees actually planted in the parking lot (which has long, long needed some shade trees), the building’s transformation is all but complete.  It looks splendid and I’m eager to check things out.
That was then, this is Sound
A Spectra-22 speech processor is a bulky piece of hardware, that’s all I can describe it as after eight years of toting one around.
For those who are unaware (and the general web-cosmos out there), I’m deaf. Stone deaf. I lost my hearing by way of genetic disorder requiring surgery at the age of 18. I was implanted with a version of Cochlear’s Nucleus-22 processor (known as the ABI) but didn’t go through with having it “turned on” (so to speak) until October of 2001.
…and if I knew how well I would hear with this implanted device, I would have gone through with it much sooner.
The thing is, with the implanted device, you have had to wear body-worn equipment to make it work. Stuff on your person. And for eight years, I’ve been wearing what essentially is a obsolete piece of equipment. The Spectra-22 was originally state-of-the-art in about 1989 – give or take a few years. While the entire concept of a late-deaf person hearing again is fantastic, technology sometimes does limit as much as it enables. Like in my case. Read More
The Unpublished Works
Everyone likes seeing their name in print.
Well, unless of course it’s trash tabloid-ism or an arrest warrant… But I’m not talking just-printed-on-paper but I mean a by-line of one sort or another. I can say that from experience as I’ve gotten that kick — seeing “John Fontana” linked to letters-to-the-editor, or being sourced/interviewed by USA Today, being quoted in The Hockey News, The New York Times Slap Shot blog and la-de-da.
But I can also say that wasn’t where I intended to go with writing when I started out as a kid. My intention wasn’t to be a face-in-the-crowd (though no matter what you write or publish, you are another face in the crowd of literature) in the newspaper. Not another source for magazines and what not. Not a weblogger. I planned on doing things creatively and having my own book. Or books — plural. Take your pick.
But that never happened. See, when i was a teen I got away from story writing so much and was writing poetry most of the time… a habit that’s followed me into adulthood. Lyrical verse more-so than deep observations and perspectives.. Well, yeah they are perspectives but they are my perspectives. Sometimes just pop, sometimes inspired by events or people or feelings in my life.
Over the years, I’ve had some of them available to the masses through the web… Certainly you can find a couple of them on this site and probably elsewhere on the web… But they’ve never really been published in the sense of print. Never published in the sense of being out there for any traditional form of mass consumption. I haven’t bothered to take the time with sending out poems to magazines who have niches all of their own (and aren’t available unless you pay for a subscription or pay for a copy — while you’re not getting paid for your contribution).
I ought to put together a manuscript and do something with it. But I’m hesistant.
Catherine Durkin Robinson, local blogger and Creative Loafing contributor, has written two book manuscripts. Her first one is being published, chapter-by-chapter, on a blogspot site. The other, a more recent work based on her life as a teacher in Hillsborough County, is being sent around to literary agents in hopes someone will pick up the work and mass-market it. Sadly, that has not been the case and the rejections have been comical at best.
Their loss. I’ve read the book and it’s not only a good read, it’s provocative and controversial enough to be read widely by those fearing school-district scandals.
I also have another friend, in the Pacific Northwest this time, who went out and self-published her first novel. The book, Steel Goddesses, is currently available on Amazon.com for purchase. It takes a lot of courage to go out on a limb like that and self-publish any work… But it sort of cuts out the middle-man of having to appease literary agents who tell you what a proper market for your writing is-or-isn’t and tells you to change your work to fit that niche. At least that’s what I’ve seen with rejections served up to Catherine.
So the idea I am kicking around is actually putting together a manuscript of poetry I’ve written over the past decade and self-publishing it. I realize that poetry is not exactly a hot seller and not going to lead me to riches… It’d cost me more to publish than the commissions I’d get in the long run from doing it… But it does what I have long sought to do — take the writings jammed in Mead notebooks that I’ve carried around since High School and take some of those verses and show them to the masses. Will people connect? I have doubts. Will strangers read what I’ve written? Even more doubts… But it’s mine, and it’d be out there. My claim. My piece of literature.
My book.
It’s a thought, at least.
Trouble, and In Our Road
On the road of life, it seems like every time you hit a clear patch — something falls off the car.
Every time your car gets room to run, not as many obstacles, and the engine at least sounds like it’s starting to purr…. Well, a lug nut is coming loose and the entire engine block is about to come apart in a grand mess.
The point is — One thing goes right, something goes wrong.
west central Florida Segway sales
I’m one of the only local bloggers who have any reference to the Segway and dealings of the Segway in Tampa Bay… Of course my last post on the subject was pretty negative toward the dealer. It was also published a long time ago.
So — that being said, for those looking for Segway scooters, their are two dealerships outside of the Tampa/St. Pete market, but relatively close by in West-Central Florida for you to check out if you are shopping for a Segway:
Chrysler of Sarasota
6826 S. Tamiami Trail
941-922-1521 (no web site)Segway of Central Florida
Office 352-383-9900
Both of these dealers were provided to me by Tampa Bay Segs – which is a tour operation based in St. Petersburg. Across the bay, if you’re interested in seeing Tampa from up close, check out Magic Carpet Glide.
The Epic nature of Clarketplace
My buddy Clark has taken the time and the effort in recent weeks to offer some very worthwhile items on Craig’s List. So worthwhile, in fact, the advertisements border on EPIC in nature! It’s a steal! Get it while you can! (and it’s humor! Yay humor!)
It’s amazing! It’s spectacular, and it’s leaving me in stitches with every week’s new offering. Check Clarketplace and see absurdity at it’s finest!
Watering Restrictions for Unincorporated Pinellas County
I forwarded the below email out on Thursday evening to my friends in Pinellas County)
For years, I’ve believed a generalization with lawn watering, and for years I and others have acted without much thought to watering rules and restrictions. It’s always been a very ambiguous thing that was believed (and seldom republished in community newspapers): You can water on X and Y day, it applies for all odd-numbered houses on the block and all the even-numbered houses can water on days A and B).
But as of late, as the drought locally has raged on, I’ve been seeing neighbors apply the above ambiguous rules to different days with thanks to word-of-mouth watering rules. Everyone seems to think they are supposed to water on a certain day, and it applies for everyone on their side of the street… Though that day varies depending on opinion or neighbor gossip.  Or there are no hour-restrictions to watering – run the sprinklers as you please.
That’s NOT the case.
Please visit the Pinellas County Utilities page and familiarize yourself with the rules that apply for you and your yard. This was the first time I’ve ever gone to this web page and actually seen the rules in place… Chances are, that might be the case for you as well.
Reconnecting
A little more than three years ago, I wrote a quick post about friends from my childhood in New York and Sylvain Avenue Elementary School. I invoked a few names in said post without thinking anyone would… well, you know, come across the dang thing. It’s just one web page, one blog post, out of millions and billions of web pages on the interweb, right?
OK, I’m lying. I knew that there was a high chance someone would come across the post, but the question remained if they would, and who it would be, and how they’d react.
Flash forward to a Saturday night in the autumn of 2007 and an email, sent through this site, from one of my long lost friends who I referenced. A year of conversation with them later and the posting of my 4th-grade-class-picture later led me to get back in touch with quite a few people. I don’t want to reference them by full name here as I am guilty enough of name-dropping in the past in order to get facts straight… But I’ve gotten back in touch with long lost friends who I had known since Kindergarden, I’ve gotten back in touch with shorter-term friends who I had known from 3rd grade on…
It’s almost scary about the amount of re-connecting that’s transpired through Facebook for me. It’s also heartwarming to know I was not flat-out forgotten by people after I left New York.
In the “Raw”
Being a hockey blogger for five years, I lament the fact I am ceasing publication of new posts at Boltsmag. I plan to keep it (thank you very much, Spammers, for your interest in preying off my property) but right now my concern is elsewhere…
Raw-ly so.
Ladies and gentlemen, can I please draw your attention to the newest blog entry to the SB Nation community: Raw Charge.
Coming not quite soon (ongoing)
A couple of months ago I brought up the lack-of-movement in renovating the super market space at Shoppes at Boot Ranch that formerly housed Albertsons. Blame it on the economic downturn or perhaps on the fact Publix has to convert a total of 49 locations, but the Shoppes at Boot Ranch remain untouched more than six months after the final closing of that location.
Yeah, the mess on the windows still remain, along with laminates that display hours of operation for Albertsons and the OPEN signs bold and in white. The store is a void, though. 
It was Saturday (March 14) when I stopped by and another sign of the dormancy of the plaza was the parking lights being on the fritz. That’s one minor, yet significant thing Publix would not play around with: lighting in the parking lot.
No interior work was going on, Albertsons signs in the Deli and Bakery area faccade were still up. I could go on with details but the fact is the building is untouched, sans for the “Coming Soon” sign in one of the enterance ways. Last time I was at the store, the sign had fallen down. It was back up.
At the same time, I didn’t notice until this very post, that there had been some chairs brought out and a table, minor things moved around. This isn’t significant and you can only guess the why for each but it was something… even if the store changes at current are a whole lot of nothing.
For those of you as curious about this as me, Publix keeps a very small list of stores and their opening dates. There is no information on Boot Ranch on that link… There’s also nothing suggesting right now that the store would be converted into a Greenwise location instead of a standard Publix store… But then again, with so many standard stores in close proximity (Coral Landings, Seabreeze Plaza, East Lake Woodlands – which will likely close regardless, Brooker Creek, Riviera Plaza) Publix must have at least flirted with the idea.
changes on the way
Looks like something is about to change for one of my web sites. Can’t give out details cuz that might ruin it. We’ll see how it goes…
Lets just say Hockey will have a new address soon.
What to do, what to do (Epilogue)
I only had to see the dimensions of the Blackberry Curve 8900 to know it was my new Smartphone.
For a couple of months (here, here, here and here) I’d been debating switching cellphone companies instead of upgrading my phone with T-Mobile, but for one reason or another I just couldn’t bring myself to switch (usually money had to do with it, other times it had to do with anal retentiveness from AT&T).
8700g (left) and 8900 (right)
But like the introduction to this post states, I was sold on the Curve the moment I saw the dimensions. it mirrored what I already had with my Blackberry 8700 — actually it was smaller by millimeters and lighter by loads and my 8700. Yeah the OS is something that old time BB users have to get used to, as does the trackball-versus-track wheel stuff. But it’s a smaller leap than switching carriers and equipment standards all together.
And with deals going on from T-Mobile regarding trade ins and installment plans… well, it spreads the hurt out and makes it a little more tolerable.
I’ll try to post more about the device in the near future but then again? It’s a smartphone, it’s inanimate… It’s not like it will grow a cape and leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Will it?
bringing out the worst in me
It’s funny how some thigns come to you and inspire you to write or at least get the thoughts out someplace or another. In my case, it’s here on the Blog where the world can read, dissect, and make fun of whatever is bugging me.
In this case, it’s thoughts of the malignancies from this summer. Nothing new or fresh happened: the closest thing to news would be the fact I got a Christmas card from said malignance after the holiday. I didn’t even open it — because of the anger it brings out in me.
That’s the whole point of this post: It’s not healthy to brood about something that went wrong or something that happened in the past. It’s not healthy to sit on it and bubble over with thoughts that are just negative toward what happened. Negative and brooding.
A half hearted attempt in a card to thaw the ice didn’t exactly play well with me – not after five months of nothing. Nor would showing up in one form or another now and trying to play friendly. Thawing the ice isn’t going to happen when I have gotten to sit on the malignancies seven months.
But that’s not even supposed to be the point of this post. The stubbornness on display? The fact I am still angry after all this time? That’s the point — it’s bringing out the worst in me. Good friendships or other relationships are supposed to help you highlight your best thoughts and actions. The best of your character.
Chalk this up as another thing I’ve learned.
QFG VI: So I want to be a Hero (Again)
I got introduced to one of Sierra On-line’s greatest text-based adventures soon after it came out. It was a game called “Hero’s Quest: So you want to be a Hero”. This came out in the age of RGB and EGA graphics. But like the other “Quest” games of Sierra’s late 80’s and early 90’s offerings — it drew you in. It made you think. It forced you to solve puzzles in creative and entertaining ways in order to move forward in the game.
“Hero’s Quest” was forced to be renamed “Quest for Glory” due to a copyright-trademarking thingiemabob by way of Milton Bradley which had just released it’s own boardgame “Hero Quest” and had a concept for a video game (that I never saw released, by the way). Whatever the case, the series remained entertaining, challenging, goofy and fun during the 1990’s.
It’s been 10 years since Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire was released. I’ve already stated my opinion on that one and can say that it becomes more tolerable as you go (but still a sharp contrast to the previous four games from the series). That’s not the point of this post. The point really is: When, if ever, will we get to start adventuring again?
And how?
Read More
A month late
As a follow up to this post, I submit to you the current temperature from the Pinellas County weather station:
42 degrees, 47 the high...
Why couldn’t I have had this a month ago? Bah, humbug.
My Quest for Glory
I’ve been re-playing the old Quest for Glory games from Sierra Online the last few days. The redesigned Trial by Fire from AGD Interactive, Wages of War and Shadows of Darkness. So I’m really re-living my love for the game.
Re-living it so much that I took the Famous Adventurers Corespondence School’s Admissions test:
My name is Forge of Armongaar and I am a Paladin.
What kind of Hero Are You?
The odd thing was that with my love for the game, I wanted to finisht eh series and re-play the fifth and final game of the series: Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire.
After I installed it and played for a few minutes, I couldn’t believe how much I hated it.
The three previous games I had played (I skipped the original game, but the design I am about to talk about holds true for that game as well) were graphical/art driven adventures. Dragon Fire, however, is a bridge game for Role Playing Games in general. Everything is developed in computer-animated 3-D… Not the quality you would see if you were playing a MMORPG now, but a very early version of such interfaces.
I just wasn’t satisfied with the product, which I had played before, this time around. Not after playing the other adventures back-to-back-to-back. I expected the cartoonish 2-D fun and instead I got early 3-D boxiness that just didn’t fit in the overall scheme.
**shrug**
Soda Popping
Financial bubbles have burst all throughout the financial industry. The two that come to mind first and foremost when I think of financial bubbles bursting are the tech bubble of the 1990’s (when IT and the World Wide Web were all the rage for scheming and dreaming on Wall Street) and the housing bubble, which is part of why we’re in this current financial mess that we’re in.
But has anyone noticed the Soft Drink bubble?
It seems like just 2 years ago, you could get two 12 packs of Coca-Cola products or Pepsi Cola products for five dollars (at least on sale). Now? At times, a single 12 pack of Coke or Pepsi alone could cost five dollars. Give or take.
Beverage Spectrum reported in April 2008 that the culprit was the rising cost of corn:
Millers derive high fructose corn syrup, the number two ingredient for most soft drinks, and ethanol, the number two ingredient for gasoline, from the same yellow kernels. The cost of those kernels jumped in the last few months after congressional efforts for energy independence collided with the fallout from a volatile stock market.
Beverage manufacturers have seen those costs passed on to them. Food Business News reported in early April that HFCS cost an average of 18.65 cents per pound, up from an average of 15.7 cents at the same time last year. That’s a 19 percent increase that’s causing financial pain for beverage companies. And that pain will likely travel down the supply chain into the cooler case.
But with the falling prices of gasoline (and the decreasing amount of driving by Americans) there is no fall in soft drink prices… Or Corn futures for that matter.
Another quirk is… well, no one is talking about it. Costs were up all over last summer, but how they’ve failed to fall back down is bothersome. What ever happened to the old addage “fast nickel as to a slow dime” when it comes to selling a product? It creates demand, it stimulates production and it stimulates the rest of the economy – laborers, producers, consumers, etc.
For the record, you can get cheaper packages of Pepsi — though you will only get eight cans as to 12. But Marketwatch’s Matt O’Hern pointed out the glaringly obvious last October:
Pepsi claims higher prices for energy and food combined to raise expenses by 11%/ They’re betting the 8-pack will appear as a better value to consumers. Who does Pepsi think they’re fooling?
The 8-pack might be easier to carry around, but that’s where the “value” ends for me. I’m used to paying about $3.50 to $4.50 for a 12-pack, $10 for three 12-packs during specials. I just paid $3.50 for the new 8-pack at Publix, which shows that Pepsi is out of touch with the average shopper.
Even his cited numbers that he is used to are high, as they’ve become a recent feature of the increase to soda (pop, softdrinks, whatever you want to call it). But that’s a bit besides the point, the fact is that the “fast nickel to a slow dime” is being applied here — with less value for the “lower” cost.
So when is this Corn-inspired Soft Drink bubble going to burst? And how painful will the fall-out be for that?
Eighty-One. Bah, Humbug.
The high for December 24th
81 degrees in Pinellas County, Florida on Christmas Eve. There are millions of Americans that have endured the cold of the late fall and the first few days of Winter with sub-freezing temperatures, snow, ice, and all the weather that marks the season (and the problems they cause).
I get eighty-one degrees… And I’m not in the seasonal mood one bit because of it.
I don’t mean to play the Grinch, or make those up north jealous and play out like I’m ungrateful for having temperate weather as we pass the winter solstice… But I don’t get into the seasonal spirit any more seeing green trees around me (where trees won’t finish shedding leaves until February/March and grow them right back again). In fact it makes Christmas displays feel like Las Vegas light shows instead of the true time of the holiday that I know. It’s easier to tell the season by looking at store displays than with the weather outside.
In Florida you get two seasons: Spring and Summer. Oh, it gets chilly once in a while but every Spring has it’s cold days. And while some may want to defend the fact that it’s winter right now, even in Florida, I must ask how many places consider winter a growing season? In the northern hemisphere, I mean…
Eighty-one degrees… On Christmas eve. I’m sitting here with the grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence mentality. 20 years ago I was jealous of my father being in Florida while we froze our buns off in New York. Right now, I’d rather endure the seasonal shift to cold — because not only would it ring in the time of year better, but it’d make me more appreciative of the warmth of summer. It’s hard to do that when your average temperature is 90 degrees with a sixty percent humidity for most of the year.
Maybe the new year will afford me the chance to escape Tampa Bay. I’d take it, but I don’t think that’s in the cards.
So this is what it's like running the local blogroll…
Almost a year ago, Tommy over at Sticks of Fire and Brett Glisson worked out a deal where Tommy… well, he bought / took over Brett’s brainchild TampaBLAB. For the uninformed, uninititated or the plain flat out uncurious (helloooo Bush family!) the TampaBLAB is an aggregator / blog reader. It shares new posts from blogs in the greater Tampa Bay metropolitan area.
It sounds really complex but really, it’s not.  It’s simply like this: You have a blog, most (if not all) blogs provide feeds — ways to syndicate or share their content with other web sites. If you’re a blogger living in the Tampa Bay area and you wanna’ share your blog with the rest of the Tampa Bay blogosphere, you submit it to TampaBLAB and lo and behold — every new post you write gets published at the BLAB (not in it’s entirety, mind you, just a lead in).
Of course, someone has to be in charge of the BLAB (acronym for Bay Local Area Bloggers). Tommy didn’t have the time to update the theme and add newly submitted blogs, nor maintain the main blog page on the BLAB. That’s where I’ve come in… Running the day to day and keeping an eye on things… Dropping defunct blogs that haven’t updated in a long while… Adding newly submitted sites. Occasionally posting on the BLAB Blog and fixing technical SNAFU’s that show up from time to time.
…Well, more often than not with thanks to the number of upgrades WordPress has gone through in the last few months and compatibility issues that arise because of it. But that’s techno-jargon you could do without.
So it’s been good so far, a little slow. Know someone who blogs in Tampa Bay and wants more readers? Suggest they submit their site to the BLAB. Brand spanking new blogs with no posts need not apply, though… Sorry. Blogs come and go so quickly that we can’t accept the newest of new kids on the blogging block.
Also, I’m trying to figure out if I should make the Skyway theme that’s employed at the BLAB available to the general WordPress-blogging public for download. It’s cute but not cutting edge, you know?
A Day in the Life at the Tampa Tribune
Copy Editor: “RUMORS OF OUR DEMISE HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED“; bold faced and centered across the front page. Print it.
Janet Coats: What are you doing?
CE: Refuting the rumors that are going around that the newspaper will be ceasing publication in the coming weeks. It’s really heinous stuff and we have to re-assure readership with…
JC: You can’t print that headline.
CE: Well, no, I guess we can’t now that I look at it. It’s kind of long… We could, well, you know, find another phrase to use…
JC: No, you can’t print a headline like that — in bold — at all. Ink isn’t on sale this quarter and stockholders are upset as is that Mother Corporate‘s share price is down. You need to pare down that statement to the bare bones.
CE: Well, all right, we’ll —
JC: Look, “exaggerated” is too big a word to stick in there. No one who still reads a print edition of a newspaper will understand it… That’s got to go.
CE: Oka–
JC: And then pare down the most common words you are using: of, our, have… They have no relevance in this age of buzz words. Change the typed out version of the word “are” to “R”… See, it’s looking fine. Now nix the -ly on greatly and we can save all of another penny on ink! This will so please everyone back in Richmond!
CE: But —
JC: Just LOOK! It’s a bold statement in itself without actually being bold! It’s hip and now! Print it! Ship it!
CE: “Rumors r great”?
JC: Don’t QUESTION it, just DO it. We’re in the Internet age! By now the Times has already posted three stories on their blogs and out on the rest of the Internet, there are thousands of new, fresh stories! How can we be with-it with you lolly gagging in your old ways?! HOP TO!
—
Life. Printed Inanely.
Coming not quite soon
Riviera Plaza Publix opened at the corner of Alderman Road and US 19 before the Holiday season came out in full force. Sunset Point and Belcher Road Publix in Clearwater opened on the same day. The latter of the two stores was a former Jewel Osco location, that later became an Albertsons.
I happened to check that store out last week while in the area and, while I thought they wasted a ton of space and hadn’t put everything together in the best way possible (which is what one would expect from Publix), I thought it was nice. It was nostalgic in fact, because of how much it resembled the Tampa Road/East Lake Road Albertsons location to a T.
This made me curious to see how things were progressing at Boot Ranch and the conversion between Albertsons and Publix.
What I was left wondering was, what conversion?
The ghost of the old sign for Albertsons as still prominent when I looked at the retail space from a distance… The parking lot directly in front of the store was void, of course. All the retail shoppers focused on CVS or Target in the northern part of Shoppes At Boot Ranch. To the south, it was also busy with people coming and going from Blockbuster Video, Subway or the other boutique restaurants in the plaza.
The missing signage was my focus, though. Missing signage and lack of changes to the storefront. I walked in for a closer look.
While the promise was there that Publix would be taking over 400 East Lake Road… But from the looks of things, no one had messed with the building for quite a while besides putting up the sign behind the glass. The glass doorways at the right and center entrances were strewn with cobwebs and the disgusting things that got caught in them. Plenty of Albertson’s laminates were still covering the doors and windows… Including the bold white-faced “OPEN” sign that contradicted the truth: this location hadn’t been open in months and wouldn’t be for some time to come.
I wondered from the start if Publix was simply going to renovate the location or perhaps tear down the front and interior of the building and start from scratch? Of course, there is also the negotiations with the owner of the Shoppes at Boot Ranch plaza if they wanted to make even simple changes to the structure (read: a paint job) or even reconfiguring the parking lot for better traffic flow. All that could be a drag on things…
Oh, and there is that little issue with the economy, right?
But peering into the windows and seeing the proverbial ghost of a supermarket, I wonder what is the deal? No painting had taken place, no demolition. No obvious signs of re-wiring or electrical work. The store simply sits in silence as the world bustles on around it.
Yeah, it might be strange to take a keen interest like this in a forthcoming supermarket, but color me curious. I wanna’ know what’s next.
About JohnnyFonts.com
Johnny Fonts is the continued web presence and weblog of life-long online personality, sports fan/writer, and Tampa Bay-area blogger John Fontana (a 1997 graduate of East Lake High School).
Lemme stop with the third-party writing and say it directly. I’ve been online since the ear;u days of dial-up and the Prodigy network. JohnnyFonts.com is built upon my time as a blogger, which started officially in the summer of 2002. Unofficially, I began what I didn’t know was blogging in 2000 on a Tripod web page.
- I’m more well known for my involvement in coverage of the Tampa Bay Lightning as the Bay area’s original Tampa Bay Lightning blogger. I started in February 2004 (the season in which the Lightning would win its first Stanley Cup championship) and later founded Raw Charge on the SB Nation network. I’ve also spent plenty of time on baseball and had a web site pushing for the end of the designated hitter rule, how about that!</p>
<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p>I also have the rare disease Neurofibromatosis Type 2. This disease has too often affected me physically in life. An unknown fact: It was while I recovered from back surgery (an operation necessitated due to the disease) that influenced me to start hockey blogging, Sadly, NF2 has ended my involvement in sports coverage by way of low-vision.</p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>
<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p>Plus it’s made typing a bitch (grumble, grumble). New, fresh blog pposts on this site are less common</p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>
<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p>I ramble, I rant. I can be funny and I can be an outright asshole (anxiety can influence that). I can be naive and ignorant in a man-boy way (my experience with the Beatles shows this) and I can be creative. In simplicity: I’m a writwe. The archives of this blog and elsewhere onoine show thAt.</p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>
<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p>Much of what you can find on this blog is pop – movies, music, ‘net stuff – and other times it’s personal. It’s also gone political, Will it piss you off or please you, I don’t know. Ir’s the avenue of my self-expression…and typos. Lot’s of typos.</p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>
<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p>I spend much of my time now researching and editing TunedQuest, a list of radio stations accepting music submissions. I got uibto that gavut in the summer of 2019. Why? Read about that here.</p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>
.
As for the nickname Johnny Fonts: it’s been clung to since 2010. It comes from a minor anecdote on social media. John had helped his friend Catherine Robinson’s novel writing by editing drafts of Learning Curves. In one status post on Facebook, her husband, Marc, simply barked the name “Johnny Fonts!” in an enthusiastic-yet-bizare show of thanks toward Fontana. It came out of nowhere and… and… well, why not go with it?
For those interested in guest post advertisements: I do not accept guest post.This is a private blog, not a commercial company. Please do not request information about guest posts.
Buying American
Several times a year, I get on a “buy American” tear — or at least I want to do it but I find it very difficult to accomplish such things. While I can go into any of the major retailers and buy foreign made goods… Finding ones stamped with “Made in the USA” seems to be a difficult task. 
For example, I’m currently looking for shoes to replace my “No Sweat” Chuck-Taylor-esque sneakers. Knowing the chips are down here in America with the economy — and knowing Nike, Reebok and the other major brands make their shoes in Asia — I’m scanning around for American made sneakers.
And what I’m finding is making me more frustrated than I already am.
Do a search on “American Made Sneakers” on Google and what is the first site that comes up? An old article highlighting the lack of such things as American sneakers.
You come across sites like AllUSAClothing and of course, some of the styles aren’t that great, but they are out there for you, and the interface is a sight better than BuyAmerican.com or other online companies taking the “Buy American” banner and running with it.
Most of the sites trying to rally Americans to buy products manufactured here at home are out of date, or so bare-bones it’s a turnoff. US Stuff is a great example. Maybe I’m so used to blogging and seeing dates over posted items to get a sense of continuity… Or the Internet standard of newest-posts-first, oldest-posts-last. US Stuff just jams it all in there and you’re lucky if any of the information is less than five years old. You don’t know how often things are updated – or if they are updated at all. And yet this is the most comprehensive list of shoemakers in the United States. It’s troubling to try to decipher everything as some of the latter information contradict the earlier info.
After some searching that US Stuff page, I did find New Balance’s “Made in America” store… But I was looking for simple and stylish sneakers — not running shoes and top-o-the-line sneakers.
How about televisions? My Sharp 26″ television doesn’t have a remote and the sound/channel control buttons no longer work right. I could use a new TV. Of course, none of the big name electronics manufacturers build in America. Most of the major electronics manufacturers of current never did… So what can I find on the subject? For starters, a 2002 article on the very fact TV’s aren’t built in America (or are hard to find). US Stuff cites several of the major players assembling their TV’s in the US (but then again, how can you trust data when you don’t know how current it is and can’t tell if the site has been updated in a while?).
But Leanblog.org — Yay! A blog post of a rather young age! — points out as of August of this year that Olevia builds their TV’s in California. Much like Dell Computers, Olevia has their parts shipped in from other places around the globe, but the sets are put together and shipped out from within the US.
Trying to find products from US Manufacturers shouldn’t be this tough, or this confusing. I don’t expect special sections of Wal-Mart or Target to be for American made goods or something like that… I just don’t expect everyone to only have the option of buying general goods stamped with “Made in China” on it, or all shirts and textiles being products of third world countries.
Consider re-investing your cash in American made products this holiday season… Well, if you can find an outlet to do as such. I welcome comments from people who want to suggest places to purchase US made textiles and durable goods, electronics and such. Also, I’d be happy to hear of name brands that are made-in-the-USA.
- CLOTHING
- All USA Clothing
- All American Clothing (added 12-02-08)
- FURNITURE
- VetMade Industries (Added 02-19-2009)
- Sneakers
- New Balance Made in the USA sneakers (added April 4th, 2009)
if he could do it, why couldn't GM?
All this talk of a Detroit bailout has had me angry. Not angry at the idea taxpayers would have to keep Detroit afloat (this is, after all, an opportunity to force Detroit to be more ambitious with CAFE standards and other such things) but it reflects so much on how poorly General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have operated over the years.
They’ve craved the status-quo and have shunned, if not feared, the idea of innovation in the production and design of their vehicles. Oh, the fabled “Big Three” have evolved over time but they haven’t broken any new ground. They haven’t taken an ambitious chance. What they have done is simply offer more of the same in different wrappers. Big cars turned into station wagons, station wagons turned into vans and mini vans, vans turned into Sport Utility Vehicles.
When it looked like automakers would be forced to adhere to tough air regulation rules in California? They fought it with lawyers. Oh, General Motors went ahead and actually made an electric car in case they lost their case but after they won? Not only did they shelve the things, they had all existing models destroyed. Perish the thought they would try something different when they didn’t have to.
But big cars don’t need to be fuel inefficient. Ask Jonathan Goodwin.
Over the last few weeks, that article on the “Motorhead Messiah” kept coming back to my mind. I originally saw it in 2007 before gas prices topped 4 dollars a gallon in some places. Goodwin has taken Hummer’s and made them flex-fuel (biodiesel, diesel, etc), more fuel efficient and with more power than they originally had. All with standard parts from General Motors. And he’s been doing that for years. He’s been working with Neil Young to convert Young’s 1959 Lincoln Continental into an electric-natural gas hybrid.
Oh, General Motors finally caught on… But they did it real late at that.
In reality, Goodwin’s work has begun to influence some of Detroit’s top auto designers, but through curious and circuitous routes. In 2005, Tom Holm, the founder of EcoTrek, a nonprofit that promotes the use of alternative fuels, heard about Goodwin through the Hummer-junkie grapevine and hired him. When Holm showed GM the vehicles Goodwin converted, the company was duly impressed. Internally, Hummer executives had long been looking for a way to blunt criticism of the H2’s gas-guzzling tendencies and saw Goodwin’s vehicles as an object lesson in what was possible. So GM decided to flip the switch: It announced the same year that, beginning in 2008, it would convert its gasoline Hummers to run on ethanol; by 2010, it said, Hummers would be biodiesel-compatible.
I went into absolute hysterics when I read that paragraph. Hysterics because GM was not only introduced to this years ago, but also because they were going to wait years to implement things… That 2008 target? Gone, because the Hummer brand is for sale and the production all but ceased.
You look at Apple Computers and the ambition they have shown the last decade with the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone — three items that have revolutionized computing and consumer electronics… And then you look at the Big Three US automakers and note that there is no innovation and ambition in their development and design of vehicles.
There is the status-quo, the tried-and-true… and that’s why all three are suffering billion dollar loses fiscal quarter after fiscal quarter.
GM, Chrysler and Ford need ambition and innovation again. They need someone like Goodwin (outside the box, outside the bubble) in charge of engineering, and someone of the same quality in charge of the companies themselves, to get back into the swing of things.
You can’t bank on things staying the same, and for the Big Three? Their downfall was expecting just the opposite – for things to stay the same, perpetually.
Ye Gods! (Take Two)
I continue to believe Roland Deschain (aka Stephen King’s Gunslinger) would go into convulsions if he saw the Burj Dubai:
Somewhere over 700 meters (2,100 feet for metric ignorant Americans) in height. It will be over 800 (from rumors and hersay) when completed.
(k)needful things
I guess my most eventful day in Los Angeles in October was my last day in the city. It was not out of enjoyment, but out of “this would only happen to me — lets see how I handle the challenge.”
Yeah, Johnny got himself into a bit of a predicament in La Cuidad de Angeles. Again.
One of the stories I bestowed upon readers of Stonegauge was my venture to the T-Mobile store at Hollywood and Western. What I didn’t happen to mention is what caught up with me upon leaving the store.
Walking is something people take for granted, and knowing I haven’t done all that much of it prior to the trip (though I was in much better shape than a year earlier) I sort of set myself up for my body reacting in an adverse way after the umpteenth mile was registered on the old pedometer.
As I left the store that Friday afternoon, my mind was on lunch and trying to decide where I would go to at the 7th and Fig plaza once I got back downtown… I was leaning towards California Pizza Kitchen and maybe having a cocktail with lunch while blending in with the business crowd. I reveled in mixing in the the business people and seeming like I was just part of the normal financial district workfor–
Ow.
I didn’t trip. I didn’t stumble. I did not fall. I didn’t knock into anything. I did not get hit by anything or anyone. There was no pop. There was no snap.
Ow.
Every step I took started to result in a knife-like pain near my knee. My mind wanted to be on other things but…
Ow.
I was hungry, I thought it would be a good choice to get lunch and rest and figure out my next move after I had sat down for a few minutes and put some nutrition in my belly. I crossed Hollywood Boulevard with a limp while leaning on my cane and headed towards the Metro station.
The escalators down to the station were halted and I looked around for the elevator down to the station to no avail. Walking, climbing stairs, generally further stressing the knee with every step I took while scouting for that damned elevator.
I soon gave up and climbed the concrete stairs down to the station, and hopped on a train back toward Downtown… Of course, the train was packed and I had to stand the entire time.
Ow. Ow. Ow.
…and upon arriving at 7th Street Metro Station, I learned a tactical lesson that I need to heed from that moment on. My mind was on lunch, my mind was on my knee, my mind was on the pain… My mind was not, however, on the fact that there are two platforms at the Julian Dixon Transit Center. Taking the wrong escalator will lead you to an exit point on Hope Street — several blocks away from where you intended to be at the 7th and Fig exit point.
“I think that cancels lunch,” I said with a huff in the empty Blue Line section of the station. I couldn’t make up my mind several times what to do — retrace my steps and correct any mistake I may have made or just leave and deal with what is in front of me — and must have walked another quarter mile inside the station while trying to make up my mind.
Ow. Ow. Ow. Stupid. Ow. Ow.
Back at the hotel — after a few hundred Ow’s from my elongated walk — I tried my best to sit still but couldn’t quite relax. I grabbed lunch in the Galleria and tried to figure out how bad things were. I knew it was likely just a strain but I still had plenty of walking to do before I’d be back in Tampa. Sometime later in the afternoon I asked the concierge desk where the nearest pharmacy was — and after explaining my situation, they pointed me across Flower street to the Uptown Drugs and Gifts shop. They didn’t say WHERE across the street… just across the street.
Now, if I had more free time, I would have loved to have gotten lost and walked around downtown and explored things. On a bum knee? Walking and walking up several stories of steps from Flower street to teh base of the Library Tower, back down to the intersection of Fifth and Flower… Well, it was a lost and found experience that I could have done without.
A lost world — rest in peace, Michael Crichton
I started reading the works of Michael Crichton in late middle school and freshman year of High School. I read his stuff voraciously and found myself falling ever so joyfully into his worlds of tension and tech.
While I enjoyed the book version of the movie that had pulled me into Crichton’s world (Jurassic Park), it wasn’t my favorite book of his (though I found it wonderful when I did get around to reading it). Sphere, Congo, Eaters of the Dead (now known as “The 13th Warrior”) all entranced me. Disclosure, The Andromeda Strain… They both kept my mind tripping and the pages turning.
Of course, when I finally saw some of these movies on the big screen, I cringed. I scowled. I changed the channel. But when I read them, I fell into the works and was safe in a womb of fiction.
I think the only book that I couldn’t stand from Crichton was “The Great Train Robbery” — and at this point I cannot recollect the reason why I hated it so much. Might have to pick it up again sometime soon.
I heard the news that Michael had passed and was absolutely shocked. He was a talent, and he will be missed.
The last book I read and reviewed of his was Prey, you can check that out here.
G1, gee whiz
So I got to the local T-Mobile store today at Countryside Mall. First time I had actually found the location of the store inside the mall (it kept moving). And what do you know? Launch day for the G1! Who would have thunk it.
While I didn’t toy around as much as I would have liked to with the HTC G1 as I would have liked (and they had 3 dummy models and one working model), there was one problem with the device that kept me on the fence with the phone: the keyboard.
Folks, those keys are not raised in any way – they seem flush with the rest of the device. While the bottom of the phone has been remarked as a hindrance to typing, it’s the keys themselves that seem to be a problem. I am basing this off scant use, of course, but also by comparison to the Blackberry 8700g’s keyboard. While having a large display on the G1 is superawsomecool and all that other stuff, that keyboard is a pain in the ass to type on.
Of course, in comparison, I didn’t like how ultra-compact the Blackberry Curve 8330 has turned out to be in person. It feels smaller — not just thinner — than my 8700 and squeezes the keys together even tighter.
I dunno folks. I dunno. I told the sales person, and I am honest about this, that i probably would have bought the G1 today (and learned to live with that keyboard) if I wasn’t curious about the new Curve / Javelin that is due out from T-mobile before Christmas.
We’ll see
"Are you eyeballin' me, son?!"
One fo the tough things I have to do when handling graphic design is trying to eyeball graphics out to see how aligned the graphics are — or how pleasing to my eye things look in their final arrangement. It can drive me crazy.
That being said, I got a kick out of this Eyeballing game. It’s basic geometry and a lot of alignment spotting. Though my average is quite high, it was better than I figured it to be.
What to do, what to do…? (ongoing)
All right, I don’t usually post polls here on der Stonegauge but I’m putting a poll up and inviting everyone in for discussion (yay discussion!):
So, as my previous entries on this PDA future discussion have told, my contract with T-mobile expired. I’m really interested in upgrading my Blackberry 8700g, I’m on a data-only plan due to hearing problems and (this hasn’t been stated here) T-Mobile is sadly the optimum cell provider for me because their data only plan comes with no additional costs (unless I make calls) compared with AT&T or Verizon (both cell networks require you purchase separate plans for text/sms messages, AT&T requires you to jump through hoops in order to enjoy data only iPhone use, Verizon is extra costly, AT&T has unclear policies and usage charges for non-national data)
So chime in, people, about hosts, but this poll is about phones. I’ve narrowed it down to upgrading to 3 models (all of which I can attain from T-mobile, but I invite other suggestions):
The HTC G1
The Blackberry Curve
The Blackberry Javelin/8900*
[poll id=”3″]
(The Javelin has not yet been released to the public)
