November 2006 Archives

I truly hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving. My turkey escaped in Lake Eola, so I ended up having dinner at Hooters. As my server informed me, they're open 365 days a year, with exceptions only for hurricanes or other dangerous weather conditions. To be honest, it was pretty dull in there. Most people rightly have plans with their family. Hooters was there for those few of us who had no other options today.

However, don't worry about me. My family celebrates a day late, since my brother is a musician who was working today. I'll have the traditional meal on Friday while other brave souls venture forth into the shopping arenas. Some are already camping out in tents waiting for morning to arrive, like those folks I saw in front of my local Best Buy on my way back from Hooters.

Black Friday will show us many strange things, but the one I may wake up to see is breakfast at Hooters. Like everything else there, I'm sure it'll be fried.

My birthday is this month, which means it's time to pay the state again for the privilege of driving. Since I have two vehicles, I get to pay twice as much. Happy birthday.

My tax collector is actually pretty good about sending a renewal notice with plenty of time to receive the tag renewal by mail. Unfortunately, I'm not as good about responding in plenty of time. Fortunately, I can try the tax collector's web site to renew online.

"Try" is the operational word here. The Seminole tax web site puts you through a couple of unnecessary links, and then forwards you to the State web site.

One of the first things I notice is this warning:

Note: Microsoft Internet Explorer V6.0 (IE6) users must have applied the latest updates to successfully use this website. To validate which version of IE you are using click on Help, About Internet Explorer from your browser menu. To update your browser select Tools, Windows Update from the browser menu or visit Microsoft at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx.

I'm on a Mac using Safari, so this warning doesn't apply to me. I just have to choose whether I want to proceed in English (the official Florida state language) or Spanish. I want to be official, so I click the button for English.

The next page is the government's version of suggestive selling. Instead of asking, "Do you want fries with that?", I'm offered an opportunity to order renewals for my driver's license, duplicate copies, or just an official ID card. I need none of these things, so I click the Continue button. That's when I'm greeted with this note:

We are sorry, we are having difficulty processing your request at this time. Please try again later or perform your renewal at a driver license office. You are about to begin a transaction involving personal or private information over the Internet. We have the following security in place. It is unlawful to knowingly provide false information. Do you wish to continue?

Here's a thought. If I'm trying to do this online, do you really think that I want to visit an office and stand in line with the smelly people while missing work to renew my auto tag? I'll pay extra to avoid that experience, as I've been there before.

There are buttons for Yes or No. Pressing the Yes button simply reloads the same page. Pressing the No button returns you to the page linked above the displays the warning for IE users. Progress, albeit in a circular manner.

Unfortunately, this page has displayed problems for days now. I decided to try the Contact Us link at the bottom of the page. That leads to a choice for problems about motor vehicle questions or driver's license questions. Let's click for motor vehicles and see what happens.

As you may expect from a page titled Contact Us, it doesn't provide any contact information. Instead, it shows a drop-down box. This is an online version of voice-mail hell. I select the entry for Internet Renewal/Problems. Once again, there's no contact information. Instead, I get a FAQ page. It appears to me that the State of Florida doesn't want to receive contact from its taxpaying citizens.

Either I or the State of Florida has a problem. I've e-mailed my county tax collector for assistance, but I'm not sure that I expect it. Instead, I've dropped my return in the U.S. Mail. It's slow, but reliable.

Yesterday, I drove home on the 408 bridge across Lake Jessup. The water was calm, and that makes for good gator viewing. I've been told this lake's alligator population is second in Florida only to the Everglades. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. No matter, this lake is still chock full of reminders from the dinosaur age.

Sure enough, I could see the tell-tale signs of life. The head bobbed high enough for its nose and eyes to remain above water. The rest of the gator remained submerged, much like the bulk of an iceberg stays out of site. I started counting as I drove across the bridge.

One...two...three... In the short trip, I got up to eight gators just on the right side of my path close to the bridge. I know there were more out there, either too far for me to see or on the other side of the bridge.

There's a move afoot to remove the alligator from protected animal status. Once endangered, it's now becoming a nuisance. Earlier this year, a freak month of attacks on humans claimed three lives. Now the legislators want to give citizens the right to kill a gator that becomes a nuisance on their own property. Local gator trappers believe that's a mistake. People who aren't familiar with these beasts may not always win in a contest between the two.

The threat to alligators is no longer man. Now we know they're losing in battles to pythons in the Everglades. I wonder how long before more lakefront homeowners start losing pets to pythons instead of alligators?

My money is still on the gators. Florida is Gatorland.

Earlier this week, Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary sent this message to the media.

I am tired off party politics. I am tired of the bickering and not getting anything accomplished for the American people.

In Washington, we refuse to address the emerging violent crime problems, pretending one does not exist.

In Florida, our violent crime issues have fallen on deaf ears. Our juvenile crime rate is skyrocketing and we don’t want to address the problems.

In Orange County we don’t address public safety needs as they relate to growth and increasing tourism.

Maybe it’s time for Republicans and Democrats to put people first and not their party agenda.

I find this interesting. Kevin decided to leave the party during the week after mid-term elections changed the balance of power in Congress to Democratic control. When Republicans were in power, Kevin was a Republican. He sits in an elected office as a member of the same party of those who were in power. Why is he venting this frustration now? Did Kevin Beary have a difficult time getting help from Washington politicians?

A day before the Sheriff's announcement, a member of his SWAT team violated department policy by leaving high-powered automatic weapons in the passenger compartment of his SUV. A couple of teenagers stole the weapons. Fortunately, they recovered the weapons today. Unfortunately, they recovered them after a drive-by shooting. Someone got the tag number and that lead deputies to the arrest.

I originally wondered if Sheriff Beary made his announcement about leaving the Republican party as a diversion form the news about the stolen weapons. Although this is a decision that most likely would've been going through his mind for a while, the timing seemed about right to change the news headlines (which it did).

The part that I don't truly understand is how denouncing his political party is going to change anything. What does Washington politics have to do with decisions made by state and municipal politicians? Growth and tourism are local issues, not national concerns. Although the rest of the country may have traded-in its politicians, the picture in Central Florida is pretty much remaining in the status quo.

Ultimately, Kevin Beary is a politician and well versed in self-promotion. His approach is generally blunt and, to my mind, unprofessional. One cannot deny his ability to manipulate people and get his way. The fun part is trying to figure out what he wants with this latest stunt.

It seems to be an election night tradition. No matter which party gains power, you can rest assured that one of them will have a child or relative who gets stinking drunk and arrested.

Charles William Nelson, son of Florida Senator Bill Nelson, apparently reeked of alcohol, started a fight with police, and ended up getting his face planted on the ground and feeling the love eminating from a can of official police pepper spray for two or three seconds.

I actually feel a bit sorry for Senator Nelson.  He's done a good job for Florida and he doesn't deserve any taint on his image for the actions of his 30 year-old son.

It's election night and Central Florida had one big mother of a storm this evening. The news reporters talked about it affecting the vote. I can see how it affects turnout. Who wants to stand in line while there are tornado warnings in your area. However, I'm not clear how they determined the weather would swing the vote one way or another.

Are we to believe that Democrats may win because Republicans wouldn't vote in a thunderstorm, or vice-versa? It may be possible. Does one party tend to vote earlier and another wait until the last couple of hours? I'm a Republican, and I voted early last Friday. I suppose we'll have to wait and see how things shake out.

It's no surprise that the Associated Press already declared Bill Nelson the winner for the Senate race. If the Republican party couldn't support it's own candidate, Katherine Harris, why should anyone else support her?

The Republicans are otherwise doing well so far. Charlie Crist is ahead of Jim Davis (no, not the creator of Garfield) for governor, and Ric Keller is ahead of Charlie Stuart for Congress.

The office elections are shaking out as I thought so far. The issues are more important on my mind, though. According to the election results posted right now on the Orlando Sentinel, all of the ammendments appear to be heading in the YES direction. That just tells me there's no end to the ignorance of Florida voters.

I guess I'll see the final story when I wake up tomorrow morning.

I couldn't believe it when I read the Orlando Sentinel online this morning, but Gatorland is pretty much gutted from fire early this morning.

Although I haven't been to this place in years, it's kind of an icon around here. You enter this place by walking inside the gaping jaws of a gator. This morning, those blinding white teeth are charred and black. The roof caved in, and it was bad enough that the firefighters had to retreat and continue the fight outside. We don't know the fate of the animals at the place yet, but the news article estimates that the few inside the building are gone.

This place built the big gator jaw entrance in 1963. It's the kind of place where I went during Kindergarten and elementary school. For a kid, it was kind of cool to ride the train around the park and see tons of gators in the water below. They also had a plethora of snakes, but I could do without those.

At my last job, one of my co-workers was a former gator wrestler from Gatorland. He had some photos of him doing his act there. There's no way in hell I'd pull a gator by its tail, but I guess he knew what he was doing. His hands were still attached on his arms.

It's good to know that Gatorland plans to rebuild. It'll be interesting to see how it's going to look next. Just saw long as they have gaping gator jaws at the entrance.