Jacksonville

I awoke this morning to 40 mph winds from an outer band of Tropical Storm Ophelia, which Jeff Masters of Weather Underground expects to become stronger: TD 16 gathered enough strength last night to be given a name -- Ophelia. Ophelia will be a name we will hear a lot of over the coming week. She is going to cause plenty of trouble, and will be moving slowly enough that we'll still be talking about her a week from now. ... With so much time over warm water, and the shear likely to decrease once ... (read more)

2005/09/07

The Road Trip blog in St. Augustine reports that several gas stations in the area ran out of fuel this weekend: ... both gas stations in my neighborhood were out of fuel today. One (a Chevron affiliate) was completely out and another (a BP outlet) was out of regular. In fact, half the gas stations between here and Jacksonville on US 1 were dry Saturday night. I haven't seen this myself, paying around $3 per gallon when I fueled up on Thursday. The Florida Times-Union reports current prices in ... (read more)

2005/09/05

Turn Your AM Dial to the Left

I'm putting together a talk radio station lineup, in case I win the lottery and can bring liberal radio to Jacksonville. North Florida could use the variety -- I live within listening range of three stations that carry Rush Limbaugh live. I can only assume that the right wingers in this area are concerned that one or two stations might lose their towers to a hurricane or nuclear attack, so they've build some redundancies into the system. My rules: All hosts have to air live, should run in their ... (read more)

2005/08/11

Unsolved Disappearances at Sea

The story about disappearing cruise ship passengers has been picked up by MSNBC. This may be a statistically improbable thing to care about, since 10 million people cruise each year and around 12 have gone overboard during voyages in five years. However, each incident affects thousands of people, because the ships turn back to participate in searches, and some may involve foul play rather than suicide or accident. There also can't be many more grim tragedies to endure than a loved one who ... (read more)

2005/06/10

Cruise Passengers Lost at Sea

My wife M.C. Moewe, a reporter for the Jacksonville Business Journal, has been chasing an elusive story over the oceans of the world for several months: Cruise ship passengers who vanish while their vessels are at sea. At least 12 passengers have gone overboard or disappeared since 2000, including five on Carnival Cruise Lines ships within the past 12 months. Some are suicides, others accidents, and at least one incident suggests the possibility of foul play. One was lost coming into ... (read more)

2005/06/06

It's a Gay World After All

My family visited Disney World this weekend, the last before our yearly passes are blocked for the summer. Riding to the Magic Kingdom, I saw a young man wearing a T-shirt tight enough to reveal that Disney keeps the monorails pretty cold. The shirt read "I only hang with pretties." Entering the park, we were greeted by an unusually large number of people in red shirts, mostly clustered in groups of the same gender. We had unsuspectingly visited during Gay Days 2005. This week, many an ... (read more)

2005/06/06

Jacksonville blogger Joe Dougherty made Howard Kurtz's column this week with his reaction to the Senate filibuster deal: ... starting today, I will now do everything in my power to see that John McCain's chances at the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 are non-existent. In fact, I'd like to help out if there's anyway we can get another Republican to run against him for his Senate seat. This man is not a Republican or a conservative. He is a curse on the party and the movement and he ... (read more)

2005/05/27

I've Been Owned

I live in a neighborhood governed by a community association, which means I pay several hundred dollars a year for the privilege of being ordered by strangers to drag my trash cans into the garage. Like any government, the association has found it much easier to expand its authority than to occasionally unclench, review the rules, and get rid of the more nettlesome ones. In some ways, it's kind of entertaining, like having a busybody in-law who can't repress the desire to micromanage your life. ... (read more)

2005/05/16

My Needs are Modest

Newsweek gives me special recognition for missing out on the booming multimillion-dollar market in Internet domains: When a Florida man, in anticipation of the naming of the new pope, registered the Web site BenedictXVI.com, the Vatican was in luck. Rogers Cadenhead, who has since used the site to publicize a nonprofit organization and plans to transfer control to the Vatican, could have been an investor looking to get in on a booming business: the domain market. Indeed, owners of similar sites ... (read more)

2005/05/11

Virgin Mary of the Viaduct

I received an e-mail from someone affiliated with the Virgin Mary viaduct, the Chicago highway underpass that has a life-size water stain resembling the mother of God. They wanted advice on setting up a web site. I'm a firm believer in the idea that all religious iconography that develops naturally upon either surfaces or food should have its own site. This is exactly the kind of thing for which the Internet was invented. Because of the visual nature of the underpass and the community that has ... (read more)

2005/04/26

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