How hot is the retail real estate market in Lakeland? Uh, pretty hot. According to the Tampa Bay Business Journal a Lakeland strip mall was just purchased for $417 per square foot, a record for Tampa Bay area.

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During our period of radio silence, one of our readers jokingly asked us to list our 10 favorite songs. Since we're a user-driven site :-) we'll go ahead and post it. These are in no particular order:

Kitchens of Distinction - Drive That Fast
Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down Again
DJ Sasha - Xpander
The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
Erasure - Supernature
Pet Shop Boys - Two Divided By Zero
Nitzer Ebb - Shame
Meat Beat Manifesto - Now
Janes Addiction - Jane Says

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I'm in Atlanta this week so updates have been sparse, and will continue to be till the weekend.

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Highway 92 will be fully closed in both the east and west bound traffic lanes at the railroad crossing adjacent to the Fish Hatchery intersection for CSX construction work. This crossing is located approximately one mile east of Combee Road between Lakeland and Auburndale. Closure will begin on Friday, March 31st at 6:00 pm and will remain closed until Monday, April 3rd at 5:00 am. CSX will be rebuilding the track at that location.

Ouch, looks like everybody will be heading to K-ville this weekend!

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PEER FL pointed to this a while ago, but I checked it out for the first time today. Associated Industries of Florida (a lobbying group) is running a 'blog' about the 2006 legislative session. The content is very inside-baseball and would appeal to the die-hard political junkie. I'll refer to it as a journal rather than a blog though since there is no way for a reader to comment directly and engage in a conversation.

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Bob O'Malley was in Tallahassee last week for the Central Florida Legislative Fly-In. Here's his report on the presentations from the four gubernatorial candidates.

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Over at the EMERGE Lakeland blog Kristin reminds us that the Supervisor of Elections is always looking for help during election season. Remember these are paid positions!

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Today's Ledger has an article about a proposed bill to remove e-mail addresses from public records. According to the story the issue:

The bill's sponsor, Sen. Gwen Margolis, D-Aventura, said residents of the tony town of Palmetto Bay in her district receive e-mail newsletters from the local government. She was concerned that businesses interested in distributing unsolicited e-mails and spam could obtain the e-mail addresses from the town.

On the surface this sounds more like a technical/process issue than a public records issue. There are ways to send e-mail distributions without exposing the e-mail address of every recipient. Unfortunately many people don't do this. They cram all the addresses in the To: field or the CC: field. When you receive the e-mail you see all those other e-mail addresses.

This reminds me of when Randy Wilkinson started sending his famous e-mail newsletters a few years ago. Randy would just send a message to everybody in his Outlook contact list. One side benefit, if you could call it that, was that we learned who all of Randy's contacts were.

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It's bizarre how these things work out. Last night I heard a rumor that Bahama Breeze was thinking of opening a location in Polk County. Less than 16 hours later I read this in the Orlando Sentinel.

Andrew Madsen, Darden's chief operating officer, said in a Wednesday conference call there are no plans to expand the 32-restaurant chain next fiscal year.

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This evening I stumbled across newszap.com a web site that features local content from smaller communities around the country, one of which is Frostproof.

One recent story, FMSHS Yearbook Jeopardized, discusses the problems that Frostproof Middle Senior High School is having producing their yearbook this year. From the article:

For the first time in the FHS school history, the yearbook may not make budget. Although the all-student staff has produced the pages, books and advertising space have not been purchased.

To produce the Frostproof Middle Senior High School, the yearbook staff must raise a minimum of $22,000 in advertising and book sales, with $18,000 as the initial deposit to begin production. At this point, the yearbook staff needs $7000 to pay the remainder of the deposit, and a grand total of $11,000 to pay for the entire book.

Yearbook ads aren't that expensive, so contact the high school and buy one.

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You might be familiar with PGTV or Lakeland's public access television but did you know that there is another 'show' based in Lakeland? Well not really, but Panini Talk is a quick 'show' that two Lakeland girls recorded to discuss issues related to burnt panini sandwiches at a certain restaurant in Lakeland.

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The annual Sun 'N Fun Fly-In will be held from April 4-10, 2006 in Lakeland, FL. You can check their site for a full convention schedule. One of the highlights of this year's event is the first-ever civilian airshow appearance of a US Air Force F-22A Raptor. The next generation fighter will arrive on April 6th and take part in air shows on the 8th and 9th.

Perhaps this year we will see more visitors uploading photos to Flickr or blogging about their experiences at the second largest fly-in. I plan on visiting one day and will upload all the photos I take.

There will be wifi access at the convention but unfortunately they'll be charging for it.

Anybody else planning on going?

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If you never saw/heard anything about The Big Bang, it's an independent film set in Lakeland that was written and directed by Philip Cruz and James Hyde, both graduates of Lakeland High School. The film won an award at the 2003 Tambay Film Festival. Just recently though the trailer was uploaded to YouTube. The trailer does contain some violence and adult situations, but what independent film doesn't?

Check it out and see if you can identify all the Lakeland locations.

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Are you a fan of the packaging for the private label products that Publix sells? You know the crisp, clean designs that now adorn everything from corn to plastic wrap? Well Kathy talks about the new tortilla chip packaging and Melanie follows-up with her thoughts on Publix:

I also noticed Publix new package design this past Christmas when I was vacationing in Florida. I distinctly remember that when my family and I reached the isle with aluminum foil, the Publix brand packaging jumped out at me. It was extremely simple and clean with a white background but it was also eye-catching and clever. The picture on the front of the rectangular box was of an aluminum foil swan. Another package had an elephant on the front also constructed out of aluminum foil. This packaging was so different that it immediately caught my attention. After seeing this package I noticed that most of the other packages in the store also had white backgrounds and clever designs. From what I have read and observed Publix seems to have a large following of brand loyal customers. Personally, whenever I visit Florida, I will not hesitate to go out of my way to shop at Publix grocery stores.

I had 'heard' about the new tortilla chip design a few weeks ago, but haven't seen it in the stores yet. I snapped this picture of the salt packaging the other day.

What are your favorite Publix package designs?

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Once again covering all bases with that headline :-)

Over at I4Jamming Robert has some thoughts on the on-again/off-again relationship between the Cleveland Indians and the City of Winter Haven. Some other items on the subject:

- Naples Daily News story on the Indians moving to Cape Coral
- Beacon Journal article on new homes for the Indians

There is an obvious economic impact from the team being here, but I think far too many residents don't know or care about that. Even with the economic benefit, it doesn't look good when the players complain about the area.

Of course we can get some information right from the source:

What is their situation in Winter Haven?
-- David B., Tucson via Cleveland

You know that old Crosby, Still and Nash song, "Love the One You're With"? It's kind of like that, David.

The Indians aren't thrilled to be at the Chain of Lakes complex, in its current state, and the city doesn't really want them taking up valuable property that is prime for development.

But for now, the two sides are stuck with each other, and it's conceivable they could be together for 17 more years.

Here's why. In 1994, the Indians signed a 10-year commitment to have Spring Training in Winter Haven that lasted through 2003. The contract included four, five-year extensions, and it's up to the Indians to exercise them.

The club is in the first of those five-year extensions now. If they use all of them, they could be in Winter Haven through 2023.

Your comrades in Arizona have tried to woo the Indians, but the state wants a pair of teams to share a complex, not just one. So the Indians would need a partner to move there.

Here in Florida, other cities, most notably Cape Coral and Apopka, have expressed interest in having the Indians, but money, of course, is an issue. In the wake of all the hurricanes to hit here, the state doesn't have the funding to build the Tribe a new ballpark for Grapefruit League games.

What might end up happening is a renovation to the current facilities in Winter Haven and a long-term stay. Because, hey, "If you can't be with the one you love," well, you know the rest.

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I read this story about the city of Eagle Lake looking to install public wifi and the first question that comes to my mind is why? From the article:

Commissioner John Shamp proposed both ideas. He suggested at the Community Redevelopment Agency meeting that city staff check the prices and availability of Wi-Fi in Eagle Lake.

"A lot of cities are using that to pull in, not only residential, but business people," he said. "That is a big advantage."

They reference Lakeland, Winter Haven and St. Cloud as cities that have installed wifi. There are a few caveats though. First, Winter Haven doesn't have city-wide wifi or even downtown wifi, it's only at the Winter Haven Public Library. Second, Lakeland and St. Cloud actually have a downtown with established restaurants and other public areas that lend themselves to wifi, Eagle Lake does not. Then of course Orlando recently turned off their downtown wifi for lack of use.

A whole other issue is the opposition that cities have been receiving from local telcos who don't want a free service to take away customers from their established hi-speed services.

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Long-time politico Bruce Parker (R) threw his hat in the ring for the Polk County Commission District 4 seat yesterday. He'll be running against current commissioner Paul Senft (R) and Jean Reed (D).

I've got mixed feelings on this one. Some might say that Bruce has had his chance and that he's partly to blame for the fiscal issues that we're dealing with now. However, Bruce was often the one bringing up the need to tax increases to cover the cost of growth. Unfortunately the other commissioners rarely ever wanted to do anything about it.

Senft has upset many of the party faithful with his support of the recent tax increases, I wonder how Bruce would have voted?

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Over the past few days there have been a number of sculptures appearing in central park. They're part of the Sixth Annual Florida Outdoor Sculpture Competition. Most of the sculptures mysteriously appear, but one is being built right before our eyes.

Christopher Fennell is building a large wave from discarded wood. Chris has been hard at work the past few days and I've been checking in every so often. Using a chainsaw in a downtown area usually draws a crowd.

Checking out his web site you'll see some cool structures that he's created with a variety of objects from wood to bicycles. In a quick audio-capture I asked Chris what he was doing and where the material came from. You can listen to the MP3 here.

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I've updated my photoset of the Winter Haven outdoor sculptures. There are now a total of 35 pictures in the set representing eight of the ten sculptures. The final two have yet to be installed. One of which is the 'mosquito'.

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Bank of America announced that they are going to close 82 in-store locations at Florida Publix stores over the next two years. This might make room for SunTrust who already has locations within Georgia Publix locations.

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Looks like user registration is finally required to read stories on TheLedger.com. The initial announcement about this came a while ago. Users were encouraged to register voluntarily and told that the switch would be coming shortly.

Tonight while browsing the site I was asked to login or register to read a story.

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As stated on Hannity & Colmes tonight Katherine Harris says she is continuing her campaign for U.S. Senate. Katherine talked about continuing on to honor the legacy of her father, the late George Harris, Jr. She stated that she'll be using $10 million of her own money to re-energize her campaign.

I guess her staff now knows that she's in Washington, D.C.

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The University of South Florida has announced that Dr. Marshall Goodman will be the new vice president and campus executive officer for USF Lakeland. From the press release:

Goodman, 49, comes to USF Lakeland from San Jose State University, where he has served as provost and vice president for academic affairs. He currently serves SJSU as special assistant to the president and professor of political science.

Genshaft’s announcement concludes an extensive national search, much of which was conducted by an advisory committee composed of USF faculty, staff and community members.

“Dr. Goodman is considered ‘a rising star’ in higher education, and as USF continues its climb toward the top 50 public research universities in the U.S., his leadership on the Lakeland campus is a perfect fit,” she said. “He brings energy and vision and very specific experience with the technology and public sectors that will play a crucial role in the growth of USF Lakeland and the USF System as a whole.”

Here is a headshot of Dr. Goodman from the San Jose State University web site.

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As of 2:30 today more than 500 acres of brush have burned in Polk County in two separate fires. From the Orlando Sentinel:

The largest fire, which has burned an estimated 400 acres, began about 9:30 a.m. off County Road 630 near the southern city of Fort Meade, on property owned by a phosphate mining company, said Polk County spokeswoman Heather Duckworth.

The second brush fire began about 10:30 a.m. off Helena Road near Winter Haven, said county spokeswoman Katy Hitchcock. That fire has burned about 175 acres. There are two residential subdivisions about 100 yards away from the fire, and firefighters made a plow-line to protect those homes. Residents of those homes have not been evacuated, she said.

The Ledger is also following the story.

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Just covering both bases with that headline.....Update 9:40 p.m. She is.

The 'big announcement' is supposed to come tonight from Bartow native Katherine Harris on Hannity and Colmes. There are plenty of articles on the subject, but I think this quote from the Orlando Sentinel says it all:

Tuesday, Harris' campaign spokeswoman claimed she didn't know whether the candidate was in Washington, D.C., or Florida.

"I don't know," said Morgan Dobbs. "I really don't know. I'd have to ask the scheduler."

If your campaign spokesperson doesn't know your whereabouts then things are really wrong.

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While checking out the various candidate web sites in the Florida Governor's race I noticed something interesting. A few of them have put their competitor's names in the keyword meta-data. Now years ago keyword meta-data used to actually do something, but for the most part it's completely ignored by the major search engines. Still it's funny to see the candidates stooping to this level. Especially when other people have filed lawsuits over this issue.

For example, looking at the code of Tom Gallagher's site he lists: Charlie Crist, Rod Smith in the keywords. I guess Tom doesn't think Jim Davis is a real threat. However, Jim feels differently. Looking at Jim Davis' site he lists: Rod Smith, Charlie Crist and Tom Gallagher. So are Charlie Crist and Rod Smith stand-up guys since they doesn't pull any keyword shenanigans.

Below are some screen captures of the web HTML source. You can click on them to see the full-size screen-grab.

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It was interesting to see the feedback my post about Black & Brew Coffee House received, most of if came via a MySpace post asking people to share their thoughts. After a speech I gave in Lakeland today I spent the rest of the afternoon at B&B. Service was great and I had a chance to talk to Chris, one of the owners. He might be adding wifi soon :-) They're having a grand opening this Thursday night so stop by.

What's great about blogs is that others can share their thoughts and opinions. Some people disagreed with my comments on B&B and were able to post their thoughts. In the end it creates a rather balanced view.

Imagine though if The Ledger on any paper had written a less-than-positive review of a restaurant, what would loyal fans of that establishment do to let others know that the review was a bit off? Sure you can write a letter to the editor but they won't print 20 of them. The ability to comment on reviews and editorials is slowly appearing on newspaper web sites, perhaps soon at the Ledger.

Also while I was at B&B I chatted with a few new friends. One of them has some more photos of B&B in his Flickr account.

If you like the interior graphics at the store thank Jeremy at LazCreative, he did them.

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I took some photos of the first two sculptures that have gone up in downtown Winter Haven as part of the Annual Florida Sculpture Competition.

You can view the complete photoset on Flickr.

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You know you've reached some level of status when a splog (spam blog) is created in your honor. Two recent recipients of this dubious honor:

Katherine Harris

Lakeland Ledger

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The first of 10 sculptures from the Annual Florida Sculpture Competition is being erected in Winter Haven today. Typically a Lakeland-based event, this year the sculpture competition is placing 10 works of art in the Winter Haven area. This morning the first piece was being placed in the small park between the Winter Haven Library and the old 505 on the Park building. As more of them go up I'll get some photos.

Previous post on this subject.

Update: I've posted some photos of the first two sculptures.

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Have you visited the Polk Museum of Art's Pop Art exhibit and wanted more? Well the Tampa Museum of Art will feature an exhibition of Keith Haring's artwork from March 18 - June 11, 2006. The innovative display will recreate the interior of the Pop Shop, the famous New York City store the sold/displayed Keith Haring's artwork.

The Pop Shop closed in August of 2005, but the interior was dismantled for the purpose of recreating it for exhibitions such as this one.

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Where are some of the worst cell phone dead spots in Polk County? As a Cingular customer I always end up driving through two dead spots:

1. The intersection of Central Ave. and Lake Elbert in Winter Haven. Perhaps it's a combination of the dense foliage/buildings and the low lying altitude, but this spot has existed for well over a decade.

2. US 27 North of I-4. Various spots along this rolling portion of US 27 always leave me with no signal. For the longest time I expected it since there was little or no development in the area. However, with the explosion of development there should be better coverage.

Coverage mostly varies by carrier, but more and more the major carriers are sharing tower space. Obviously this helps keep costs down and allows the carriers to provide greater coverage. But sharing the same towers would also create the same dead spots for each carrier.

I usually look to the Polk County Sheriff's office to see what carrier they are using since they probably have the greatest demand for excellent coverage throughout the county. Currently they are using Verizon.

Who are you using as a cell phone provider (Cingular, Verzion, Sprint/Nextel, Alltel) and what dead spots do you constantly notice?

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On Tuesday of this week I stopped by Black & Brew Coffee House to check them out. I arrived at the 205 E. Main St location overlooking Munn Park around 2:30. It was after the lunch rush and normally a slow time for coffee shops, however there were a few customers inside.

The interior is very nicely designed with a combination of wood floors, exposed brick and dark 'coffee-themed' colors. Seating is a mixture of bistro style tables and chairs along with a relaxed area featuring a leather couch and leather chairs (think living room). Covering one wall is a large B&B logo that looks cool with the overhead lighting illuminating it. The other wall will soon have a large mural-style photograph of Munn Park.

I ordered a caramel macchiato from the counter, but it took a bit for the order to register with the staff who at times seemed more interested in talking amongst themselves than worrying about the customer. I ordered the drink for 'here' but it still came in a to-go cup.

After getting my drink I sat down to work. Unfortunately they don't provide any wifi internet access, so I don't see making B&B a regular stop in my travels. There are pros and cons for coffee shops to offer wifi, but with every store owner I have talked to, the pros outweigh the cons.

The coffee and atmosphere were great, next time I'll have to try out lunch. The only major drawback was the lack of wifi. Hopefully this is something they will address in the near future.

Has anybody else visited Black & Brew? What are your thoughts?

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In an earlier post I asked when Cypress Gardens was going to sue the family of the child that 'fell' off the Triple Hurricane. If you remember the investigation proved that the ride restraint system had not failed, but that the boy had stood up as part of a dare.

It turns out the family is still going to file suit against the park. I think this is one of those instances where they hope to get a quick settlement before ever going to trial.

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This afternoon was Jim Davis' live chat, in fact it was Jim's first ever Internet chat...that's kinda scary. I joined in late but it wasn't anything earth shattering. I e-mailed the campaign blogger Matt Thornton to see if they would be posting a full transcript of the chat plus any stats, i.e. how many users, total questions asked, total questions answered, etc.

When asked about gay adoption in Florida Jim said:

Towards the end Jim talked about his desire to meet as many people in the state as he could, but Florida is such a large state that it's a challenge. He said that internet chats help with this. I have another idea for Jim, blogging :-) He's tried it once.

The question I asked was not answered. I wanted to know Jim's thoughts on local telcos lobbying against municipalities that want to set-up free, local wifi networks. Bob wanted to know if Jim supported Jeb's position on high-speed rail.

Jim, you're welcome to comment here.

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Hyper-connected Florida blogger Bob O'Malley picked up the new Orlando Sentinel Political Blog - Political Pulse. While not a Polk specific blog, it does cover statewide politics which does impact those of us in Poke County.

Disclosure: The Orlando Sentinel and Tribune Media are my clients.

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Your local 'blogger ace' (who writes these headlines) got a mention in the News Chief today. The story/plug/press-release-reprint is for a speech that I am giving next week in Lakeland, FL. I'll be speaking to a joint meeting of the Imperial Polk Advertising Federation and the Florida Public Relations Association at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, March 14. The event is being held at the Lakeland Center.

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From the protecting the citrus industry department: It's always fun to see the lengths that SunnyD will go to in pretending to be some sort of orange juice. For the longest time they actually took up shelf space in the cooler, even though it does not need to be refrigerated (that should be a warning there). Removed from the cooler they now do things like appear in crates next to the orange juice.

Remember: SunnyD is not juice and it doesn't contain any oranges :-)

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While on a recent trip to Palo Alto I got to meet with Keith Teare of edgeio, a new free online classified system. In the world of online classifieds many traditional papers are losing ads (read: revenue) from sites like craigslist or even eBay. Simply put edgeio wants to be everywhere that craigslist is not. As of now they don't have much (if any) presence in Florida but they only launched a month ago.

I think what will draw some users to edgeio are the tools they provide. One of them is a widget that allows you to easily ad your listings to your website or blog. In the case of local blogs such as EP or Sticks of Fire we could include a feed of all local listings. Furthermore just about any sort/search can be subscribed to via RSS. We'll see what becomes of it.

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Florida gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis will have a live-chat at 2:30 pm on Monday, March 6th. If I have the time I plan to participate and will post a follow-up.

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The Ledger has been slowly experimenting with blogs over the past few weeks. The first one was during the Grammy's and now they're rolling out an Oscar blog for tonight's show. The platform doesn't support comments, but it's a start.

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The article in this morning's Ledger about the new CFDC web sites failed to mention that they were all designed by Clark/Nikdel/Powell, a local Polk County firm.

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Updates to EP will be sparse in the next few days. I'm heading to Palo Alto for New Communications Forum over the next few days. See you in a few.

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