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Another August, another hurricane. There are a few things you can always expect with a hurricane coming to town.

1: Tony Mainolfi (WESH) will start fear mongering.
2: All sorts of people will give you preparation advice and dire warnings.
3: Lazy bastards who didn't get their supplies before the fear mongering will clog the roads, stores, and gas stations.
4: The local officials in the Keys will tell the tourists to get out (so they can make room for the hard core hurricane party folks).
5: Lots of people will lose power.
6: Lots of people will charge too much for something after it's over (ice, tree clearing, etc.)
7: We'll get warned about the next "disturbance in the tropics" before we've finished talking about this one.
8: It's a day without work, but still a suck-ass day.
9: The local lead news story will change to hurricane news.

Those of you who don't have water, ice and Pop-Tarts at your house already have been very annoying to me today. I have my act together, why don't you? You know this is going to happen at some point, so why the late rush to get batteries, water, and whatever else with the crowd of other morons? Buy this stuff in the Spring so you don't have to worry about it later.

The down side is that Sunday is my regular grocery day, so I've been caught up with the rest of you goobers while I try to get my regular fix of green grapes and turkey sandwich stuff. Remember your Boy Scout days (or show me your Girl Scout pictures): Be Prepared...then get out of my way. I'm looking for some grapes.

Hawaiian Tropic Bikini Contest - 127, originally uploaded by wbeem.

I just read that 25-year-old Orlando woman, Samantha Harris, will be in the July Playboy issue as part of a 6-page article about the Cyber Girls.

Personally, I think she deserves to be the Playmate of the Month. Maybe it'll happen in time.

I grabbed this shot during the 2007 Hawaiian Tropic Swimsuit Contest.

The news is playing about an event that happened last year. Orlando Police Officer Fernando Trinidad pushed a woman down the stairs at a downtown club. As a result, he lost 8 hours of vacation pay. Seriously, that's all that happened to the dude. Eight hours is one day of vacation. Poor guy. He's still on the streets, badge in one hand and gun in the other.

Not only did Officer Trinidad push a woman down the stairs, but then he arrested her on a trumped up felony charge. He lied to make it seem like he was the victim, she spit on him, yada yada yada. Fortunately, the thing got caught on the club's security camera where he was hired for an off-duty job. If you haven't seen it already, here's a clip from WKMG news showing what happened.

So why didn't he get more punishment? According to a statement by Orlando Police Chief Val Demings (who was then Deputy Chief, I'm told), it's because his civil rights were violated. The police union filed a grievance to protect the officer because he wasn't informed about the charges that launched the investigation.

This smells like the blue code of silence to me. Yet another law enforcement officer abuses his authority and someone on the inside helps him cover it up. We wouldn't be hearing about it now if the video hadn't come up. The victim is suing the cop and now there is a criminal investigation. The state may actually do what Orlando Police failed to do - cost this officer his job by invalidating his certification.

I was all set to write a scathing rant against this cop and the Orlando Police Department, but what good would it do? This is just another case of a cop out of control. Watch the video again. Notice how casually he shoves her down the stairs and walks past her like nothing happened. Equally bad is his partner. He's complicit with the crime by not taking action or speaking up about the bogus charges. This woman wanted to be a teacher. I bet her application looks real good with a felony arrest on it. What was her crime? Under what circumstances does a cop push someone from behind down a flight of stairs?

There's no point in ranting, though. Cops are as corrupt as ever. All of the hope and excitement around Val Demings becoming the first black woman to be Chief of Police in Orlando is over. She's just as bad as the rest of them. Now, on the evening news, she admits that the punishment was insufficient. However, her hands are tied because they can't punish him again. Remember, they took away 8 hours of vacation time. We wouldn't want to be unfair to a bully with a badge, would we? After all, he's got a union behind him.

This is police brutality on video. The police and the union both tried to squash it. Next time you see a cop, will you trust him? If you call the police and Officer Trinidad shows up, would you want him in your house? I damn sure wouldn't.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in my house and heard some engines racing outside. It happens, 46-A isn't that far away and sometimes you hear a car or motorcycle decide to rev it up on a straight-away. However, this engine sound didn't go away. I sounded like someone was racing around my neighborhood. Once I ventured outside, I found the truth surprised me.

There, in the middle of the road at dusk, was my next-door neighbor racing his small child in go-karts on the street. For the life of me, I was dumb-founded by the incredible stupidity of it. No lights. No helmet or protective clothing. Low to the ground. Racing in poor light. There was a grown man putting his kid at risk just for a little "fun." All it would've taken was for someone to pull out of a driveway or turn a corner. Splat. They may have never even seen the go-kart or had any reason to expect one to be scooting around the road. Fortunately, they called it a night before anything went wrong.

Another young boy wasn't so luck this weekend. William Pfifer crashed an ATV into a house and was in critical condition yesterday. He wasn't riding in the street, nor was he wearing a helmet.

The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission reported that in 2001 97 percent of children under the age of 16 who were hurt by ATVs were on machines larger than recommended.

The top ten contributing factors in an ATV accident are:

1. Inexperience.
2. No helmet.
3. Children riding full-sized ATVs.
4. Carrying passengers.
5. No supervision.
6. Riding on public roads.
7. Use of alcohol.
8. High rate of speed.
9. Doing stunts/showing off.
10. Unseen obstacles.

I'm not necessarily opposed to kids learning how to operate a motor vehicle at a young age, but you just don't turn them loose and hope for the best. It wouldn't hurt to set a good example. How can you expect your child to exercise good judgment if you're racing a go-kart in the street at dusk right there with him? If you want to share some go-kart racing with your child, visit one of the local attractions like Fun World on Hwy 17-92 (part of Flea World).

Effective July 1, 208, anyone under age 16 operating an off-highway vehicle must have in his or her possession a certificate evidencing the satisfactory completion of an approved off-highway vehicle safety course in this state or another jurisdiction. If you don't know where to find training, ask your dealer. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation sponsors Dirt Bike schools for children as young as six years old. While you're registering your child, sign yourself up for a course, too.

Honda has a safety slogan with a bit of truth in it:

Daytona Beach has a problem. Spring Break is in full swing now, but the folks in Daytona want to preserve their reputation as a family-friendly destination. The recent arrival of the Girls Gone Wild party bus flies smack in the face of that reputation.

Honestly, what the hell is wrong with the folks in charge of Daytona's government? The city is a tourist town, but it's targeting the people who are least likely to spend money - families. We're in a recession. Family budgets are tighter than a coon's ass. The only reason they're going to Daytona outside of special events is because they're cheap. This is not a way to build a healthy economy.

Learn from Las Vegas, Daytona. Cater to the sinners. Let the Spring Breakers party their asses off. Show some skin and make the place seem like FUN for a change, rather than the place where old & fat people go to bake in the sun and then eat breakfast at the IHOP.

When Daytona was getting its Spring Break party on with MTV in the 80's, Las Vegas experimented with family-friendly marketing. Guess what? It doesn't work. Families are worried about bills to pay. Families are boring and dull. They don't make for a vibe that attracts more tourists.

On the other hand, people on vacation love a party. Those college kids here on Spring Break come a lot closer to being the attractive person you put on a brochure than some of the people staying in your hotels. Attractive people partying in your town will bring more people, more money, and a better economy.

So loosen up, Daytona. Let people have a beer on the beach. Open up your nudie bars the way God intended. Try to realize that it's better to have tourists clogging your roads than to have empty hotel beds that don't bring in any revenue for local businesses. You're a tourist destination. Start acting like one.

I remember Spring Break in the 80's. Lots of skin. Lots of hot pink bikinis. Lots of alcohol. Lots of sex. Lots of loud music. Basically, it was a party/ That's pretty much all you need for Spring Break at the beach. At least, that's what I thought.

However, Daytona decided that was too much and wanted to crack down on all those rowdy kids. They pour out the kids beer on the beach, setup a temporary jail, and control the hell out of the Spring Breakers.

Except, things are wilder now than ever before. Two of the reports from WESH News spring to mind. A security guard hired for a hotel raped an 18 year old girl and then tossed her off a 6th floor balcony. She hit the second floor and survived and the rapist was arrested. Then there's the story of three kids from Illinois & Ohio. It seemed they detonated a 1/4 stick of dynamite on their patio the other night and blew the windows out of a couple of rooms.

Maybe the drinking and screwing around weren't so bad after all. At least then people weren't getting thrown over balconies (though some fell on their own) and they weren't blowing shit up.

Are the Las Vegas hotels getting so full of themselves that they're collectively killing the goose who lays the golden egg? It's possible. Hotel rates for popular conferences like the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) are astronomical. Hotel rates have risen 365 percent in the last two years, according to this story by Richard N. Velotta with In Business Las Vegas. Perhaps most telling is this excerpt from the article:

Executives with the Consumer Electronics Association, the owner of the show, approached the LVCVA earlier this year for a meeting with resort executives to try to persuade them to keep prices in check.

Karen Chupka, senior vice president of events and conferences for the association, said several exhibitors have had to reduce the number of delegates they can send to the show because companies can no longer afford to send as many people as in the past.

"It's crazy," Chupka said. "The rates have become astronomical. Some of the resorts are requiring a food and beverage guarantee on top of the hotel rooms and that has gone up by 365 percent in the past two years. Las Vegas is no longer the cost-effective destination it once was."

Chicago and Orlando were mentioned in the article as two possible alternatives to Las Vegas, since there are few choices that have capacity for the 140,000 visitors that CES draws. Considering the timing of the event during the first week of January, Chicago would be a bleak alternative. One good snowstorm could ruin the entire event for everyone. With Orlando's temperatures traditionally around 72 degrees at this time of year, my guess is that we'd be the odds-on favorite for a potential relocation if the show stays within the USA.

One event that tagged on to CES and has grown with it is the AVN Adult Entertainment
Expo. My guess is that Orlando's family-friendly image wouldn't go well with a porn expo. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to attend and take some pictures, but it's just not going to happen here. Orlando's power players don't want that crowd nestling up to the kids going to Disney World, and the porn folks don't want to fly across the country to a town that just doesn't have the nightlife facilities to accommodate them. If CES moves to Orlando, look for the AVN Adult Expo to stay in Las Vegas. It's a short trip from the LA area where many of them reside and Vegas embraces the Sin City nature of overused and scantily clad women roving through its hotels.

CES in Orlando would be a great way to start the new year. Unfortunately, I don't see any signs that the folks in Orlando recognize the potential opportunity, much less their efforts to steal the show away from Las Vegas.

I originally posted article this on the Orlando Sentinel's Sanford Community blog:

Fear and ignorance. If you don't understand something, it must be evil and sinister. Fear and ignorance. What better place to teach this system than in Seminole County Schools?

The problem was clear. Kids only have a limited amount of time to go through the lunch line and eat before they get back to class. The line sometimes takes too long as kids fiddle around punching in their PIN number to draw payment access for lunch. Sometimes a kid forgets his PIN, so the line slows down. The intended solution was to use a fingerprint scanning device. No memory required, just bring your finger.

It would be a perfect solution, if not for the fear and ignorance of the parents of these kids. To many minds, fingerprints have a negative stigma because they've been used so long by law enforcement to identify criminals. They also fear the theft of their child's identity by use of these systems. Their fears wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so ignorant of the way biometric systems actually worked.

Law enforcement agencies have used fingerprints to successfully identify people for more than a century. Let's face it, police wouldn't still use fingerprints if they weren't more than reasonably accurate at identifying an individual. Law enforcement isn't the only use of fingerprinting, but it's prominent enough that people still feel a stigma when asked to submit their fingerprints.

Biometric systems like the fingerprint readers use in schools, or at Walt Disney World, don't keep an image of a subject's fingerprints on record. There's no way for someone to steal your fingerprint from the system and use it elsewhere to impersonate you. Instead, the biometric systems only store a pattern known as minutiae - the specific points on a fingerprint where the lines diverge or converge. When fingerprint scanners look at your fingerprint, it's only searching to see if those points on your fingerprint match an existing record. No other fingerprint will match the same set of minutiae, and you cannot use minutiae to build an image of a fingerprint.

While the parent's fear of identity theft from a collection of minutiae are unfounded. Their fear is from ignorance. That's where our Seminole County Schools truly failed. In order to implement this system, the school system should have educated the parents to alleviate their fear. Now the parents may rightly feel distrustful of a school system that didn't communicate details about a sensitive topic. As a result, the lunch lines will still move slower than necessary. Equipment and systems procured by the school system for fingerprint scanners will probably sit unused as a minor monument to tax dollar waste, all because of a failure to alleviate fear and ignorance.

Orlando Magic fans are up in arms at the start of the NBA season this year. Why? Due to a string of actions, they can't watch 35 Magic games on the local cable provider - Bright House Networks. Local fans with Dish Network & DirecTV subscriptions aren't affected, so they're gloating - at least on game days when it doesn't rain.

Here's how it all unfolded. The Orlando Magic sold the rights to televise their games. Unfortunately for fans, those rights did not include any stipulation that the games would get aired locally. FSN Florida bought the rights to the Magic games. About a week or so ago, FSN made a deal with Dish and DirectTV to broadcast Orlando Magic games.

Bright House already carries Sun Sports, which has rights to broadcast 40 Magic games that will air on the cable provider's networks. Bright House would like to add FSN for its Sports Tier, which would add to the cost for subscribers. FSN doesn't want to be part of a tier, it wants to be in the overall channel line-up available to all Bright House subscribers. Bright House claims, correctly, that doing so would raise the cost of service.

So it comes down to whether a few Magic fans are willing to pay more to watch those games at home on a Sports Tier, or whether Bright House will raise the subscriber cost to ALL of its customers in order to carry the Orlando Magic games. After all, you know Bright House isn't going to take the hit on that expense without passing it along one way or another.

Personally, I don't care one bit about watching sports. Maybe it'd be different if I attended a college and had some vested interest in the game. Otherwise, what's the point? It's entertainment, nothing more. There's no way I'd want to pay a higher cable cost so Oprah fans could watch additional content, and I think the same thing about the Magic fans. If you want it, pay for it. Here's another idea. Buy a ticket and go watch the game in person. I'm not totally convinced that concept didn't enter the minds of the Orlando Magic administration when they sold the rights without a guarantee to have games air locally, but that's just my own speculation.

Now the town is full of sports fans whining that they can't watch their games at home on TV. Some will abandon Bright House and buy a satellite service. Others will end up going out to Hooters or Ale House to drown their complaints in pitchers of beer while yelling at the TV set. That's all fine with me. Just don't raise my cost in order to provide for these folks.

Pretty soon, they're going to be glad to get out of the house and have a beer, anyway. The writers strike is about to end the soap opera shows, so there are going to be some cranky housewives pretty soon.

I'm constantly amazed of our society's fear of women's breasts. Unless you're a beautiful model suntanning in South Beach, a woman just doesn't get any respect for her breasts being exposed in public. In keeping with the notion that bare breasts are bad, Universal Studios Orlando humiliated one of its guests, Cheryl Cruz, when she whipped the puppies out to nurse her baby.

Cruz is Canadian. It appears our neighbors to the north really don't have a problem if a mother decides to breastfeed her baby. Not so at Universal Studios Orlando, though. After Cruz refused to cover up at a park employee's request, she was surrounded by security guards ready to escort her off property. Never mind the fact that it is legal for a woman to breastfeed publicly in Florida.

What exactly is so horrible about a mother feeding her child? Pretty much every one of us nursed a nipple as babies. It's nothing sexual, it's just life. Lighten up, people. Stop being boobs.

Mike Thomas had an interesting column in the Orlando Sentinel. Kids playing in sports have it relatively easy compared to the time that he (and I) grew up. When our generation played, it was the best of the bunch who took the field. Those of us who didn't measure up stayed on the bench. Today, everyone plays whether they're good or not. Everyone gets a trophy at the end of the year.

What a crock.

How does this prepare our children for reality? I think people need incentive to try. If they get a reward regardless of effort (not talent) applied, then it's kind of meaningless. Accomplishment feels good if you worked for it, not if someone gave it to you just for showing up.

In my first year of Little League at 8 years old, I sucked. Parents would groan when I came up to bat because they knew I'd strike out. I sucked right up to my last time at bat in the last game, when I nailed a grounder to left field for a triple and knocked in the winning runs at the bottom of the ninth. That felt great. However, I wasn't put on the post-season All-Star team because, quite frankly, I sucked for most of the year.

Next year, I was the power hitter for our team. Parents who groaned the year before started cheering when I walked up to bat. I even made the All-Star team after that year.

To me, that's America. You earn your opportunities because there isn't a prize for everyone. Who would've ever thought that Communists would now beat us at instilling this sense of competition?

Homeless, originally uploaded by Doug Lloyd.

Larry Dale and his minions from the Orlando Sanford International Airport continue to destroy eagle nests, thereby creating a new species of American Homeless Eagles.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a permit to the airport to kill nuisance birds, though Eagles are excluded and are not being killed.

However, the nest destruction has another by-product - orphaned eaglets. Audubon Society workers took the eaglets to the Birds of Prey center, and will try to find other eagle nests to act as foster homes.

Meanwhile, the evicted adult eagles wander the streets like drug addicts kicked out of a crack house scheduled for demolition. Congratulations to Larry Dale and the Orlando Sanford International Airport for re-defining our national emblem for the modern age.

Consider this a warning from one home-owner to another. If you hire a contractor or service to do some improvement around your property, resist the urge to give them the final payment until everything is absolutely complete and you've inspected to your satisfaction. The only incentive contractors have to do any work is to get that paycheck. Once they have it, don't count on seeing them again for any warranty repair.

I posted a while back about some home repairs I was doing, including tree trimming and putting up a new fence. In both cases, I made the mistake of giving final payment when they were almost finished. The tree trimmer left before clearing out some remaining branches. More disappointing was the fence contractor - Florida Custom Fence.

When I first contacted Jay York, president of the Florida Custom Fence, he impressed me with his professionalism. Then again, so did another company with a better rate. When I called Jay back to tell him that he came in second, he worked hard to get the bid. He matched the other company's rate and was able to start sooner. I liked his attitude and gave him the job.

Most of the work seemed pretty solid. They didn't bring in pre-fab segments, they built the fence board by board. It looked pretty solid, though there were a couple of errors (including a sprinkler head that was now on the wrong side of the fence.

However, they really screwed up the gate. I gave clear instructions that I wanted the gate to open into the fenced area, and I wanted to lock it from that side. The previous fence worked that way. However, this seemed to confuse the fence builders a bit. They ended up putting the hinges on a different side, and it had a hard time closing flush to the fence. They also had a problem installing the latch, and there was no way to lock it because the latch was up against a 4x4 post. When I called about it, they came out a couple days later with a circular saw and cut a notch into the post.

A few weeks later, the wood on the gate started warping and it certainly wasn't flush. The top leans back and the bottom extends forward from the rest of the fence by several inches - enough for my smallest dog to wiggle out. That sort of defeats the purpose of spending a few thousand dollars on a new fence.

When I called back, there was a new voice on the phone. Someone named Hunter took over the customer service. Ok, it took several calls before Hunter managed to come out to inspect the fence. Several calls and a couple of weeks, and at least one missed appointment. When he finally arrived, Hunter was friendly enough. He agreed the fence wasn't up to their standards and they needed to fix it.

That was the last I ever saw or heard from Hunter.

I called Hunter several more times, another week or so passed. Finally, I e-mailed Jay York. A few days later, he e-mailed back to agree that the problem was covered under warranty. Someone would be out within a week to fix it.

That was a two weeks ago, and it was the last I've heard from Jay York, president of Florida Custom Fence. The professional attitude I admired so much when he was trying to earn my business was completely gone now.

There's no profit in warranty work. It's an expense that a small business just doesn't want to make. For all I know, the time it takes to do it right for the second time may eliminate whatever profit margin he made from me. I already gave him a concession by allowing him to bill me for a check instead of using my AMEX card so he could save the percentage he'd have to pay to the card company.

Now I'm getting ready to search for another set of contractors. One to do some drywall repair and paint inside the house, and another to fix the gate that Florida Custom Fence botched.

Learn from my mistakes. That final payment is your final leverage.

Yesterday, I received a letter from the State of Florida. Essentially, it said that I'm an idiot. I inferred that message because it was a notice that my auto insurance lapsed, and I was at risk to have my license suspended.

I seem to do a better job of reading my e-mail than my USPS mail, so I instructed my insurance company to send my notices to e-mail. In doing so, I made two mistakes.

1: I was worried about SPAM, so I used a web-based e-mail address that I rarely check, rather than my preferred e-mail account.

2: I didn't imagine that the company would use a different domain than their web domain to send my e-mail notices. The payment notices went directly into my SPAM filter.

Hence, I'm an idiot. Fortunately, I was able to quickly pay my bills and get the issue resolved. My license was never suspended, so I wasn't unwittingly driving around without a license.

However, I'm a bit peeved about something. In addition to my SUV, I also have a motorcycle insured by a different provider. That insurance was never in jeopardy. So why does my license risk suspension if my four-wheeled vehicle loses insurance, but not if my two-wheeled vehicle loses insurance (I've been stupid before)?

Even if I lost my insurance on the car, I could still legally drive the motorcycle - except for that license revocation issue. It doesn't seem to make sense to me. If anything, it seems like an anti-motorcycle bias.

Of course, the truth is probably much simpler. Never assume malice when simple incompetence is often the answer.

It turns out that it's because I have a responsibility to keep insurance on a vehicle with a valid tag. My two insurance companies don't know about each other. So if I lose insurance on one of them, the state obliges the insurance company to provide notice. Since I haven't notified the state that I no longer plan to license that vehicle, it hits me with a warning to suspend. Had I failed to take care of this before an actual suspension, the cost to reinstate my license would range between $150 - $500. Ouch.

So, the moral here is to make sure you're not so afraid of SPAM that your notices don't get to you.

Millions of people come to Central Florida on vacation every year. Some of them wish they could live here to visit theme parks all the time. I imagine some people even move here to fulfill that fantasy lifestyle.

Not me. I was born here before anyone uttered the words "theme park" consecutively in a sentence. Don't misunderstand, I love my home. I don't want to live anywhere else. Sometimes I wonder how this little piece of land would've developed without Walt Disney World and other theme parks. Perhaps we'd have a few more schmaltzy places like Gatorland, Weeki Wachee Springs, or MarineLand. People came here before we had a famous mouse connection.

Still, I don't really have a desire to visit those places for my annual Christmas trip. I tried it once, a couple of years ago. I checked into Disney's Wilderness Lodge and spent a couple of days at EPCOT and Disney-MGM Studios. The Wilderness Lodge has a spectacular main entrance, and then boring rooms. It was also quite overpriced at $347 per night. The parks were also quite a snore. The problem with theme parks is that you don't do anything. You don't participate. Instead, you sit and watch while things happen in front of you. It's much like television, except that sometimes your chair moves through scenes. In any case, you're still locked into place and not permitted to take any flash photographs.

So this Floridian looks forward to the Christmas season as a chance to flee from his home surroundings as others flock towards theme parks, or the homes of their loved ones. My company wisely shuts down between Christmas and New Year's Day with paid time off for its employees. I also save another week of vacation to combine, and then I'm ready to enjoy a little me time.

My typical Christmas trip is to Las Vegas. The rates are low, most people are going elsewhere, and it used to be a rather empty time in that town. That's all fine for me, as I don't particularly care for crowds. However, Las Vegas is changing. The folks who run businesses in that town don't want to have a dead month. Therefore, they look for ways to attract other markets that aren't celebrating a Christian holiday. That means major concerts for Asian and/or Arab markets. This year, Caesars Palace hosted a Korean pop star named Rain. Not my thing, but the strategy is working. Las Vegas had many Asian visitors last year and this year.

However, I've done Las Vegas a number of times. Traveling on my own, it's actually not that exciting. I don't gamble much and other party adventures in town are much more fun in the company of friends. So I decided to split my time between Las Vegas and Zion National Park. I also decided that I wanted to use this trip to practice my hobby - photography. I flew into Las Vegas to spend a day and night at the Mirage, and then drove up to Zion National Park in Springdale, UT the next day.

Zion provided a few things that you don't normally find in Orlando. Canyons, mountains, and snow. Real snow. I'm from Florida. My idea of snow is the reception I get when my cable TV service goes out. I spent my days hiking across freshly fallen snow. Since I didn't grow up around this stuff, I was completely surprised by the crunching sound it makes underneath my boots. I was also surprised how annoying it can be while still falling. However, it didn't seem to slow the feeding habits of the park regulars.

It did manage to keep me from hiking some of the trails, though. I'm still suffering from a leg injury that has me limping everywhere. Combined with carrying some expensive camera gear and already having slipped on some snow to fall on my butt, I decided to err on the side of caution and avoid going up & down the snow-covered trails to some of the beautiful locations that require a couple miles of hiking. Signs like this helped me come to my cautious decision:

After three days and nights of hiking, snow, and mediocre food (Springdale, UT is not a culinary destination), I headed back to Las Vegas for three nights at the Hard Rock Hotel.

I love the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. Unlike the Orlando Hard Rock Hotel, this one isn't a corporate venture in partnership with Lowe's Hotels. It's not centered around a theme park. It's not even on the Las Vegas Strip. Instead, it's a small place with a great vibe, friendly staff, comfortable rooms, and it's easy to get around. Compare this with the Mirage. Everything at the Mirage makes you feel like a widget on an assembly line. You travel through twisting casino paths to get from your room to anywhere else. You stand in line awaiting your turn at feeding locations. Strange people stop in front of you for no discernible reason. The Hard Rock has a casino in the center of a round walkway, so you can easily bypass it. The distance from the front door to the elevator is a fourth of the distance as in the Mirage, and I could say the same about the distance from exiting the elevator going to my room. There were no lines to get breakfast at Mr. Lucky's, or dinner at AJ's Steakhouse or Pink Taco. More importantly, the service was genuine. At the Mirage, people spoke like the voices on call-center phones - as if they were reciting pre-programmed platitudes. At Hard Rock, you saw real smiles and people were genuinely nice. It was a personal touch that pleased me.

I managed to get a few shots that I liked while in Las Vegas:

The last image makes me think. Why don't we have this kind of icon in Orlando? Las Vegas and Orlando both compete almost evenly for tourist and convention dollars. However, I think Las Vegas always comes out a little more on top. Why? Because it has spectacular dining, shopping, resorts, and entertainment. To be fair, Orlando has some decent dining, most of the same shops, some outstanding resorts and...well, we certainly don't compete on entertainment. We have the same tired Cirque du Soleil show playing all the time and the promise of Blue Man Group coming to Universal Studios. Even our resorts seem to fall short of the mark established by the high end resorts in Las Vegas.

More to the point, we focus on family friendly vacations while Las Vegas focuses on adult entertainment. Gambling is certainly an enticement to Las Vegas, but I don't think we're suffering because of our lack of gambling. I think we're suffering because the parents in those families have little to do after the kids get tuckered out in theme parks. I think we're missing on a market of adults who want to vacation without the kids. I think Orlando needs to have showgirls, or some equivalent, and develop more theatre and entertainment options than the local megaplex cinema. I think we need more dining options where the patrons aren't asked, "Would you like fries with that?"

In short, Orlando needs to grow up. It's fun to be a kid again, but not every day. Sometimes, you want to enjoy being an adult and go back to work with a sly grin on your face. That's not Orlando.

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.

I was all set to write a post tonight declaring this the happiest time of the year. That's because today is the beginning (officially) of Daytona Biketoberfest. Along with Bike Week, this is something I enjoy every year. I also bitch about the crowds, but that's ok. It's a time when bikers outnumber the other vehicles in the area. To me, that's happiness.

Of course, someone had to go and screw all of that up for me. A 17 year old kid at University High School used his pocketknife to kill a 15 year old kid. Somewhere, there's a family that never gets to see their boy come home from school today. How does a parent deal with that?

I watched Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary give a press conference on the evening news. He was visibly, and rightfully, frustrated and angry. The murder weapon was a pocketknife. Sheriff Beary railed against the right for students to carry a pocketknife on a school campus. It's something he mentioned that he has a lobbyist working in Tallahassee to prohibit. When asked for something that parents can take away from this event, the sheriff said, "Don't let your kids bring knives to school."

That caught my attention. Orange County School Superintendent Ron Blocker stated clearly that there is a zero-tolerance policy for any weapons on campus. If found or used, the student gets expelled.

Here's where I get into a problem. I was raised to believe that a gentleman always carries a pocketknife. I'm not talking about a big blade, but something lie a pen knife. I was also raised and properly taught to use the blade properly. A pocket knife isn't a weapon, it's a tool.

The issue here is the killer's intentions. Reporters mentioned he spent time underneath a school bus trying to change his clothes - I assume this was part of a pre-meditated get-away plan. If that's so, a ban on pocketknives would make no difference. He could've brought a screwdriver and planted that into the back of the victim's neck instead of the pocket knife.

Will this end up being another witchhunt against existing rights? Will we start viewing useful tools as deadly weapons?

I can accept that the school system has the right to decide if pocketknives aren't allowed on campus. I simply hope they do so thoughtfully. The students who obey safety rules and proper usage of any tool get hurt. Those who plan violence will still find some way to hurt - or kill - others around them.

Update: It was a fight over a girl. The murderer confessed to the Sheriff's office. He went to school planning to attack the victim. Knives are against the rules of the school. It didn't matter, did it?

I think Orlando is having a clash with itself. Do we live in a big metropolitan city, or a backwater town. There are clues in both directions.

The local news is rife with examples of bribes and pay-offs to silence a local big-mouth. Among the list of people trying to shut the mouth of Doug Guetzloe:

• Orlando Magic


• Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed


• Gaylord Palms


• Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority

Who knows how many more organizations paid to silence this raving idiot? He's built himself a nice income just from being a pain in their ass. Every day, the Orlando Sentinel lists another organization that admits to paying Guetzloe. Some admit it's hush money, others deny it. Honestly, what other reason is there to pay this guy?

Based upon numbers in various Orlando Sentinel articles, Guetzloe earned $927,250 in hush money within the last ten years, and most of it seems to be within the last five years.

How can I become a pain in someone's ass?

So Orlando is all grown up now. We have corruption and hush money. We have a sky-rocketing murder rate. What demonstrates a city's growth more than bribes and murder?

On the other hand, we have examples of backwater stupidity. It's 2006, and people are still burning crosses in someone's yard. Why? Don't you people know have any better ways to express yourselves? Also, just what are you trying to express? A burning cross isn't an insult to the victims who found it in their yard. Instead, it's a monument to the stupidity of the people who burned the cross. That's why you'll get arrested.

If you're going to live in Central Florida, the thunderstorm capital of America, you need to know how to drive in the rain. We had a pretty good soaker today at the usual time, which is whenever I'm driving home from work.

The common wisdom is that you should slow down when it starts raining. The roads are slick, so you need more time to brake and react. Unfortunately, some people take this wisdom to the extreme, thereby committing stupidity. If you're driving too slow for traffic, then traffic bunches up behind you. Instead of increasing reaction time, you've actually decreased the reaction time of the person behind you.

I drove home behind a few of these extremists tonight, and it seems like the slowest ones were in the left lane. Congratulations! That really makes my day. Not only are you driving 35 mph in a 65 mph speed limit zone, but you're also keeping sane folks from passing you.

Driving too fast in a heavy downpour causes different problems. For example, the white pickup I saw speeding along the 408 today managed to cause the rest of us to slow down. That's because he lost traction on a gentle curve. He had a nice hydroplane going as his pickup truck managed to plow into a tall streetlight post and knock it over. At least he didn't knock the pole over onto other traffic, and he didn't seem injured from his unique brand of stupidity. Some poor county worker now has to come out and fix the damage. I doubt the traffic ticket he receives will cover the cost of replacing that streetlight, so expect to take a hit on your tax dollars if you live in Orange county.

Rain. It's just another opportunity to demonstrate the ill effects of extremism.

In Florida, you get used to seeing water everywhere. We have beaches on three sides, and the inland is nearly flooded with lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams. Despite all of that, we're technically in a drought. The nice weather folks on TV still talk about being 8 inches low on rainfall every month. I try to remember that during our thunderstorms every afternoon.

Even though we're starting to get our afternoon thunderstorms, people still like to water their lawns. Actually, it's not so much people as organizations. Every day, every night, you see sprinklers running. Technically, the St. Johns River Water Management District only allows you to water your lawn two days a week. They even have an advertising campaign to remind us, It Takes Two.

So what did I see today that's like most every day? Sprinklers running during a downpour. We're getting drenched from the sky, but automatic sprinklers keep running. Not only do the sprinklers run, they often miss the grass. When I went to SunTrust today in Heathrow, the sprinkler was aimed at the parking lot instead of the grass.

Of course, there's another problem with this picture. It's stupid to water in the rain, but what if the system is on a timer? A schedule doesn't know when it's going to rain, so the timer just turns the sprinklers on and off - right? Well, it's not supposed to work that way. Florida law requires rain sensor devices on automatic lawn sprinkler systems.

Florida Statutes, Part VI, Chapter 373.62: Water Conservation; automatic sprinkler systems. -- Any person who purchases and installs an automatic lawn sprinkler system after May 1, 1991, shall install, and must maintain and operate, a rain sensor device or switch that will override the irrigation cycle of the sprinkler system when adequate rainfall has occurred.

This particular SunTrust was just built last year. So why the hell doesn't it use a rain sensor? It's not just SunTrust, though. I saw the same thing in the City of Lake Mary and the Heathrow International Business Park. Why the hell can't they obey the same rules as the rest of us?

Something really stupid is happening in Central Florida lately. Brash, young idiots are playing chicken with cops. The idiots operating vehicles aim at a cop standing by on the street, rev the engine, and (I'm guessing) hope he'll jump out of the way so they can escape getting pulled over.

There's a flaw in their theory. The idiots are hitting the cops before they have a chance to get out of the way. Deputy Callin was murdered by a fool who didn't want to get pulled over, so the fool revved his engine and ran straight into the deputy.

Then Lake Mary Officer Chris Dye escaped death while trying to pull over a speeding motorcycle, and the fool on the bike accelerated, hit him, and then raced off. According to the Orlando Sentinel article:

"He made clear eye contact with me," said Dye, who had minor injuries. "He was shaking his head as if he was disappointed, not that he wasn't going to stop."

Fortunately, an anonymous tip lead to the arrest of Joshua Michael Wiggins, 26. This fool lives a couple of miles away from me. They're getting too close for comfort.

Now, we have this report about another fool on a motorcycle hitting another cop. Officer Robert Baxter is ok, but could have just as easily been seriously injured or killed from the impact of a fast moving vehicle. I believe I heard on WESH today that police apprehended Jose Gabriel Miranda, 19, for this latest attack.

I'm not anti-motorcycle. I've been riding since I was 12 and have no plans to stop. No, I'm anti-idiot. Putting someone else's life at risk just because you want to avoid a ticket is just stupid. It appears that Jose Gabriel Miranda may have had more at stake, as he reportedly used a firearm in the theft of the motorcycle he used to attack officer Baxter.

Who is breeding these selfish idiots? When you get arrested, tried, and convicted of trying to run over a police officer, I think the penalty should include castration. People like these fools are just too dangerous to let them breed more little idiots.