Tag: metro
(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.
Westward Ho!
Come this time next week, I’ll be preparing for a flight to Los Angeles on my yearly sojourn out of the Humidity of Tampa Bay and into smog (and drier, cooler temperatures) of LA.
Yet I’m curious about a few things — and would love some input…
For example, for those of you who have been to LA before (or perhaps live there), where would you suggest someone go for a good breakfast downtown? I’m more of a pancake person than eggs person, and I have heard and seen more offerings of omlets and egg specials than of a good stack’o’jacks. Sure, I could order room service at the hotel, but I’d rather get out of the building.
Number two, where would you go? My options are limited as I am depending on Metro to get around (no car) so while I can get to Hollywood, Long Beach, Pasadena and some points in between, getting out to Santa Monica or Beverly Hills is a bit more difficult.
And here is a complication that may or not be remedied through comments: I don’t own a laptop, right? I do own a Blackberry and can be kept abreast about problems with work or things that need to be done. If I DID need to get on a PC – where should I go? (Bonaventure business center?)
Tarpon Springs and the Suburban-blight of WalMart Supercenters
Wal-Mart is trying to add the 44th (or is it more?) store to the Tampa Bay Metro Area by sticking one of their Supercenters on the bank of the Anaclote river in Tarpon Springs.
While Mary Jo Malone wrote an incredible piece on the subject a some time back on the fact Tampa Bay has too many Wal-Marts as is, I had to send Tarpon Springs my own piece on why Wal-Mart is not a good thing for the city.
I am very upset at the shortsightedness of those in power with the City of Tarpon Springs with their collective reasoning behind blessing Wal-Mart. Though the city has not approved of the new Super Wal-Mart being built on the banks of the Anclote river, it seems just a formality even with the public outcry against it.
One of the “major” issues that the Mayor and others have had with Wal-Mart is the sale of natural sponges at the proposed location – which seems to be an attempt to save downtown Tarpon Springs and the tourist trade. It also seems foolhardy seeing that you can go to most any Wal Mart location and see they do not sell natural sponges.
What Wal-Mart also sells is the death of small businesses. What this Wal-Mart will also sell is the slow death of Downtown Tarpon Springs. Has the city of Tarpon Springs paid absolutely no attention to the history of this area? Look at Clearwater alone – they struggle greatly because they have sold off land on US 19 to as many retail giants as possible, and now they are hit with a lackluster downtown area and are desperate to draw the people back. There is money for investment, sure, but the key component to downtown Clearwater is Scientology now, not residents..
Tarpon Springs, by the logic shown, is greatly concerned that the tourist trade will be unharmed by this addition to the city limits. What about the rest of Downtown? What about the small business owners who can’t compete with the monopoly-like tactics of Wal-Mart, which tends to profit even when losing money on sales? Is expanding the cities tax structure for one store so important that it kills off the rest of the cities tax structure by forcing the smaller competition to close their stores?
This isn’t even getting into the negative environmental impact of the store on the banks of the river, the ecological damage that this store will undoubtedly do and the increase of sprawl that we don’t need in North Pinellas / Southern Pasco county.
If the city of Tarpon Springs needs additional tax revenue — raise taxes. If the city of Tarpon Springs wants to be for Corporations and By Corporations like the rest of America under the current State government and Federal Government, by all means — vote in Wal Mart and watch the central district of Tarpon Springs fall away with time. The Sponge Docks will remain but everything else will pass.
Not the best… But still, it tries to convey a point.
Anyone who wants to speak out for or against Wal-Mart being built in Tarpon Springs shoueld email the city clerk and good luck conveying your point.
Powered Out
In what is going to be my lst entry for at least a few hours, I wanted to report Progress ENergy will be shutting down their transmission lines and power stations at Noon today in preperation for Charley…. It’s a means of keeping their employees safe and la-de-da
It’s a hum dinger of an inconvience for the rest of us but this entire storm is a humdinger of an inconvience for the Tampa Bay Metro Region. 600 thousand+ evacuees from Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties alone? Good god damn, that’s a quarter of Tampa Bay’s population.
The full brunt of the storm is still expected to hit Tampa / St. Petersburg at around 8 PM EDT….
Good luck to those who are also riding out the storm and god bless. Until we meet again, kiddies, this is John signing off for the duration….
'Texted' Out
Damn you Metrocall / Weblink Wireless!!!
I start a conversation with my friend Michelle around 5 PM on Friday through my text messenger. “Hey Hey” with Michelle’s standard “Howdy” response.
Well, after that Howdy from my AFI loving friend, I couldn’t send nor receive messages from anyone on a cellphone all weekend long (still the case at 11 PM Sunday). I was able to receive email like normal, I was able to get messages from the Internet, I was even able to set up getting messages from my scarcely used AOL account on the pager but I couldn’t do text messaging with Cellphone users. Bummer to be left out of touch with friends like that. It made me want to replace my pager with something like the Sidekick… Oh well. 🙁
Monorail or sky gondola??
The city of Clearwater has plans on being a vital part of Pinellas County’s (flawed) Monorail plan that is on the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s drawing board. The monorail would run into downtown and then across Clearwater Harbor and arrive at Clearwater Beach as an alternate mode of transportation.
Overkill. Over costly and not a sure fire way to bring in tourists or re-vitalize downtown.
I came across a thread on Skyskraperpage that talked about Sky Gondola’s that will connect Detroit with Windsor, Ontario and I thought that it was a perfect mode of transit for a link between Clearwater and Clearwater Beach. Why? First off, it would be a surefire tourist attraction among those who are out-of-state visitors along with drawing the curious from in and around the Bay area. Secondly, it is a much less costly mode of transit than a monorail between the two land masses.
Another part of why I like this idea is because you can really obtain a better termination point for the Gondola because the station would not have to take up a lot of land (I think?). I would think that a terminal close to the main strip of the beach (and much closer than the termination point / terminus of the Monorail system) and the main drag would be a possibility. Depositing people in the heart of the area would be outstanding instead of letting people get lost trying to find attractions.
Of course, the biggest positive of this idea is getting people out of cars and onto their feet. Pedestrians are much more manageable than cars and a ton of traffic. Plus, if you are going to the beach to begin with, don’t you want to get out in the sun?
It’s an interesting concept and a viable one at that…. The question is, will Clearwater even consider looking into this (I wrote the City Counsel and Mayor a letter with regards to this)? My guess is no, but you never know….
Poetic Meanings — just found out
You know, I was just going through something or other on the web and I came across a little factoid that just hit me a certain way that made me laugh and think at the same time about a poem I wrote a few years ago (song Poem) and how true the lyric is, in a sad way…
The song-poem was Java Jungle which I wrote at Palm Harbor’s “Java Jungle” coffee shop years ago when I was still very much a lyricist and poet. The song is just rambling verse that makes sense to me and probably me alone in some of it’s meanings but has a little niftiness to itself… if you can find the rhyme scheme and what could have been the beat or what the music could have turned into with the song…
At any rate, I’m going to post the lyrics now – then I will tell you more about that “ironic and funny” little meaning I didn’t intend that I just found out about…
Sally-man say:
“Who led the way,
“Across the Great Red Sea?”
Way back,
The long way back,
Back home
Tell Mom and Dad
That I’m going mad
Sitting here on the porch
Deep toking’ a dead roach
Fabulon
And Mickey and Brand,
Across the great land
Living at the center of life
Metropolitan life
Ju-Ju-Ju-Ju-Juniper chaos,
Had a little seance
To find her kindred soul
(Only she’d be so bold)
Cold hard wind, yeah
It’s stained with sin, yeah
Only known as the doldrums
The silence hums
Play on
Easter day
Saint Jude’s Parade
Lennon Lad,
Lennon Lad,
Lennon Lad
The kingdom’s your to have
Silence abounds
© 1997 John P. Fontana
So what’s the big deal? Well, I could break down the meaning of each stanza and verse to you but some of it is boring and some of it – as I already alluded to — should make sense only to me (Mickey and Brand across the great land, for instance, is a reference to friends of mine who used to come down to be with family here in Florida, I would see them every summer).
The lyric that I found funny is one of the closing lines… I talk about Easter Day and St. Jude’s Parade and then make a reference to “Lennon Lad”. This is all talking about Julian Lennon. “Jude” being direct reference to “Hey, Jude” which was written by Paul McCartney for Julian during the time John Lennon was divorcing Cynthia Lennon.
The entire line was actually supposed to be reference to St. Crispian’s Day, I believe I had seen Renaissance Man not very long before I had written this poem and I was very fond of Shakespeare at the time after a year of his works being passed on to me through Ms. Ciccone at East Lake High School.
Well, St. Jude got worked in there and the reference to Julian was made — “The kingdom’s yours to have” and silence abounds… That’s saying that Julian could have easily followed John Lennon’s footsteps and gone to the top of Rock and Roll but failed to do so… Of course, Julian is still involved with music and still battles demons involved with his father and his childhood… That being said, there are reason the kingdom was never entirely inherited by him or by Sean Ono Lennon for that matter.
The ironic – funny twist that I keep making reference to is St. Jude. I didn’t know who St., Jude was nor did I ever think to find out… I just threw the name out there for the rhyme and for the reference (Jude, Jules, Julian) and only recently (reading another Rick Reilly article) found out who St. Jude is:
The Patron Saint of Lost causes.
So, Lennon Lad, the kingdom may be yours to have but from what the Java Jungle tells you, it’s a lost cause trying to inherit it…
Nothing to see here, please disperse
The Dodger Boy is back again with yet another epic tale of sausages having their way with your intestines….
Yes, it’s another journal entry. Feel free to move on to the new web page that actually provides content besides my daily life…..
……
What? You’re still here? Shame on you! :smile
So I have a full work week in front of me — which is sort of cool and sort of bothersome… Bothersome because Bill quit Target in a hissy fit and I feel like I am getting —
Getting ahead of myself with negative thoughts. BAD BAD BAD. I want to have this job and I need this job and I need something to do every day instead of sitting at home on my ass in front of the computer, waiting for Bill to tell me another story about his niece Jillian and her life sus-far, or about his dog Bradley becoming Ernie-the-Hound-dog’s bitch….
Then again, I could also write. I started working on a story again that I started pre-9-11…. 9-10-01 to be exact. I had plans to finish it the next day but you know how that went…
I also had thoughts about a cool concept business that I do not have the capital to start up. I like the concept that I pieced together but I don’t know if it would work or not. Basically it’s a charter van that drives between downtown Tampa and a fixed location (locations? plural?) in Pinellas County. It can be used to commute to downtown Tampa or as a way to get to St. Pete Times Forum and other venues nearby. I figure it can be hired out by retirement homes and local associations (or schools?) to shuttle people around to fixed areas too….
At a flat cost compared to a Cab, though.
Meanwhile, I want to make note that Tampa/St. Pete is the second worst metro region for Pedestrians in the US of A…. How many times have I found this out to be the truth in person? :sad
