Here's a quick picture I took of the Hampton Inn and Suites being built on 27 across from Eagle Ridge Mall. I didn't realize that area needed a major motel, I guess so!

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Well, it appears that a Quizno's is going to be put into the new shopping center "Towne Center" adjacent to Cypress Gardens. I have nothing against Quizno's (except for one small case of food poisoning that pretty much guarantees my avoidance), but do we really need 3 different locations withing 5 miles? There is another one 2 miles down Cypress Gardens Blvd across from State Farm and yet another in the Eagle Ridge plaza just south of Home Depot on 27. Is there really that much demand for the "Q"? Is the volume at the other CGB location just too much to handle?

How about a Panera or a First Watch? Is that too much to ask?

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Nobody was able to guess last week's photo, so perhaps this week will be easier. Where in Polk County? You know the drill.

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An enterprising individual has posted some old Publix Training videos on YouTube. The series, How to Deal with Old People was made in the 80's and is posted in parts. The first segment is the story told from the elderly point of view, the second part trains new hires on how to appreciate the elderly:

What's frightening to me is that the woman in the video is played by Phyllis Gilbert my 9th grade English teacher from Denison Middle School....those are memories I don't want to relive.

Also make sure you listen to the Publix radio commercial playing in the first part. In part two, check out the old-style Publix uniforms.

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Now, I'm not one to stay up late for a midnight release of anything, movie, video game, Harry Potter book, etc. But, I know there are a lot of you out there! What looks like one of the biggest video game releases ever, Halo 3 is set to be released tonight at 12:01 A.M. Here are the GameStop/EB Games locations in Polk that will be opening at midnight tonight:

Berkeley Square S/C (863) 968-1235 2122 W Highway 92, Suite 2 Auburndale
Eagle Ridge Mall (863) 676-0607 757 Eagle Ridge Dr., Space 322 Lake Wales
Lakeland Square S/ctr (863) 858-3997 3800 Us Highway 98 N, Space 784 Lakeland
Shoppes Of Lakeland (863) 858-4843 4153 Us Highway 98 N Lakeland
Winter Haven Corners (863) 298-8481 749 3rd St. SW Winter Haven

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Last week USF Football got its first ever AP ranking of 23. With this week's win over North Carolina, they have moved up to #18! This coming Friday, the 28th, will be against USF's highest ranked opponent yet, number 5 West Virginia, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. If you can find tickets, come out and support some Polk County stars like Benjamin Williams (RB) from Lake Wales and quarterback Matt Grothe from Lake Gibson!

www.gousfbulls.com

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It seems like so far away, but this time last year we were right in the middle of election season for county commission. On Sept 18, 2006 I attended the Tiger Bay debate in Bartow, FL. It was there that Randy Wilkinson, Robert Connors, Jean Read and Bruce Parker squared off.

What else happened in September of 2006?

- Randy had his DUI/non-DUI in Lakeland
- Cypress Gardens Filed Chapter 11

I also asked, "How Divided is Polk County?" That post seems somewhat timely given the recent battles of the CSX project. Take a look at this quote:

In politics and local issues, folks in Lakeland just don't care/worry about what happens politically or growth-wise in Winter Haven and vice versa. In the mean time, nobody seems to pay too much attention to the Four Corners area, which just happens to be the fastest growing part of the county.

People care now :-)

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Just a quick reminder that the auction of Cypress Gardens will be held tomorrow in Valdosta, GA. I assume that the Ledger might send somebody up there to cover the proceedings.

Sunday's Valdosta paper had an editorial concerning the sale of the two parks (CG & Wild Adventures):

In two days, Wild Adventures in Valdosta and its sister park, Cypress Gardens in Florida, will be auctioned. The parks will be sold individually to different companies, bringing a premature end to what could have been the beginning of an entertainment dynasty.....

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If you didn't know there is an organization called the Four Corners Area Council that is working to help plan for growth of....you guessed it,the Four Corners region. Here is the web site for the organization.

The Four Corners Area Council is an organization under the umbrella of the Kissimmee/Osceola County Chamber of Commerce.

Mission Statement:
The Four Corners Area Council will be the voice to raise awareness to the needs of the fast growing community surrounding the intersection of Lake, Orange, Osceola and Polk Counties, otherwise known as the Four Corners. The Council will bring a sense of community, definition and consciousness to the issues faced by Four Corners residents, businesses and visitors.

Planning for growth in that area is a bit of a misnomer, it should probably be 'mopping-up after growth'.

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Yes the Sun 'n Fun Fly-In is great with all kinds of amazing aircraft and some awesome flying demonstrations, but something tells me we'll never see a commercial airliner to a low-pass fly-over like this Airbus A310 did at a Portugal airshow:

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Each week Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly pens an interesting/witty article. This week's column features Lakeland's famous baseball impostor, Bill Henry (or maybe's he's not Lakeland's...if you catch my drift).

Reilly's column mentions Lakeland of course as well as the Ledger and Florida Southern College.

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Over the past couple of weeks, more and more underground marker flags and spray painted lines have been showing up along Dundee Road. In the section between 10th and 14th street, hundreds of orange, yellow and blue flags have been placed. Its not just along Dundee Road either, they extend back to Lake Otis Drive. Does anyone have any idea what's going on? Is this the famed Dundee Road widening project I've heard about since 1995? Someone please give me some insight!

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The Sun-Sentinel has an article about the new Publix Greenwise store that is scheduled to open next Thursday in South Florida.

Publix GreenWise Market, Lakeland-based Publix Super Markets' first health, natural and organic store, will debut next Thursday offering shoppers gourmet prepared foods with curbside pickup service and thousands of grocery items that aren't sold in traditional Publix supermarkets.

You've seen the Greenwise sections in your local Publix, but this is a whole 39,000 sq/ft store dedicated to that concept.

Why the specialization? It's called competition. The Sun-Sentinel article mentions Whole Foods, but there are also stores like Fresh Market and Trader Joe's to contend with in other markets.

GreenWise Market will compete with Whole Foods Market and others who sell higher-margin natural and organic foods. With a concentration of more than 100 prepared-meal options — ranging from pizza to churrasco steak — the grocery store also aims to give patrons an alternative to upscale restaurant dining at similar prices.

The Sun-Sentinel has published a photo gallery and a video of the new store. For a comparison, here are some photos I took in a Whole Foods store.

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I'm happy to say that we have a new blogger joining the staff here at Empirical Polk, and by staff I mean me. Adam Weeks posted his first entry yesterday dealing with the Amoeba threat in Central Florida. You can read a bit more about Adam over here. He plans on contributing from time to time, so give him a warm welcome.

I have one other person that will soon be posting (ahem, you know who you are). I'm always open to having other folks come on board. If you're interesting in blogging here, just e-mail me and let me know what you'd be interested in writing about and provide a sample post or two.

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DayJet has announced an event on Oct 4 in Lakeland to officially launch their air taxi service. Well known blogger Jon Udell recently talked to the CEO of DayJet about the operations/logistics of their company. There is also a podcast of their talk.

In this interview, Ed describes how he worked through a false start, realized that on-demand air travel would require a platform, decided that Eclipse Aviation’s line of precision-engineered, mass-produceable, and affordable jets would be the platform’s equivalent to the personal computer, and then conceived and created its network operating system and software service infrastructure.

There were two major research and development challenges. First, how do you find an optimal routing solution when there’s no fixed schedule and when every new reservation ripples through the entire network?

What's interesting in the comments of Jon's post is that two people talk about rail as an alternative to travel for distances under 500 miles. I don't care it it's rail or air taxi, I'd love to have an easy solution to get from this area to Tallahassee or Jacksonville. In each of those two cases, driving is a huge pain and saps a bunch of time. Too bad that commuter rail thing won't extend to Polk County :-)

As for DayJet, I know I'll be taking a few trips via their service. Once I do I'll post review of the experience.

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Here is this week's Where in Polk County? Where was this picture taken?

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As if you didn't have enough to be weary about swimming in our lakes, alligators, drunk boaters, water moccasins, now we have an unseen danger, amoebas (or is it amoebae? my apologies to my Latin teacher). Since June, three small children have died from amoebic encephalitis, a rare brain infection caused by amoeba that breed in water over 82 degrees. All of these deaths have occurred in our sister county, Orange County.

Many recreational boaters and swimmers have been steering clear of the lakes in fear of these amoeba. With the chances of catching the disease being lower than being struck by lightning, is it really necessary to completely restrict all water activities? I know Orange County has put up warning signs around their lakes (link), but has Polk County done anything? Have you seen anything proactive in any of our 522 local lakes? Has this done anything to keep you away from our lakes? Post your responses in the comments.

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If you spend some time traveling around the country to 'small' towns you'll eventually see another Kress building like the one in downtown Lakeland. For a quick refresher, Explorations V is housed in the Kress Buildng on Munn Park. Kress was a large chain of five & dime store

I am in Mobile, AL today for business and walked by a Kress Building in their downtown. The first picture below is the name-plate of Lakeland's Kress Building, below is the one in Alabama.

Doing a quick Flickr search of 'Kress' you'll find a number of photographs of old Kress buildings all around the country. Here's one in Kansas, here's another in Texas.

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When I picked up my mail on Saturday I had to do a double-take. At first I thought either the Tampa Bay or Orlando Business Journals were printing a Polk County edition. It turns out that it's the Lakeland Ledger. The debut issue of the Polk County Business Journal should be in your mailboxes now. Business mailboxes that is.

It's a monthly publication unlike Tampa and Orlando which are weekly. According the the article today, it will be mailed to 7,000 businesses. I wonder if they'll ever start inserting it in the Monday paper like Orlando does with their Monday business feature???

I read through the first issue while having lunch at Mama Dilo's on Saturday. It's your standard business content, with ads of course :-).

As of this post, the web site: http://www.polkcountybusinessjournal.com/ was not working. Probably just a DNS thing.

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We're coming up on Armand Nardi's first anniversary as publisher of the News Chief. At least I think we're close. I noted his appointment back on October 3, 2006. I first met Armand at an FPRA event on October 18th of that year.

In honor of his 1st anniversary I wanted to interview Armand about his year and what's to come.

I sent him three e-mails over the past week and a half including the questions (below).

1. Your one-year anniversary at the News Chief is approaching, what is the exact date?

2. What have been some of the highlights on the job this past year?

3. After a year in Winter Haven, what are your thoughts about the community?

4. What's the one community project you've become involved with that you find the most rewarding?

5. Speaking of community, how do you view the relationship between the News Chief and the community? How has/will this change in the future with more news moving online?

6. Obviously Winter Haven is the primary market (and home) of the News Chief, but what about other East Polk cities like Lake Wales and Haines City. What's the relationship like there?

7. With respect to the online world of news, Morris Publishing/Morris Digital have developed a number of products for the online world. Many of these are featured on sites like the Jacksonville Times-Union and the Savannah Morning News. The News Chief has used the 'Spotted' product, any plans to adopt any additional community/citizen-journalism tools?

8. On this blog I've been somewhat critical of the News Chief, specifically the lack of reporting on the CSX project. The majority of the research and reporting is being conducted by The Ledger and the Tampa Tribune. Considering the impact this project has on Winter Haven, why hasn't the News Chief put more of a focus on the pros/cons of the project?

9. Like many other newspapers across Florida, the News Chief has diversified their offerings with additional print products like Active Senior, Her Voice, etc. What percentage of resources/revenue do these products use/produce compared to the daily news product?

10. Anything exciting planned for the next year? (That you can talk about)

Yesterday I finally heard back from him. He thanked me for the opportunity, but declined to answer any questions.

It's always a bit ironic when members of the media decline to answer questions.

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I received a new t-shirt in the mail today. Do you know what it means? Leave a comment if you do. Chuck, you're not eligible :-)

Update: Barry guessed it. It's a Creative Commons t-shirt. What is Creative Commons? It's a new form of copyright. Here is their FAQ.

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I discovered a new Polk County blog today: What's Happening in Polk County. It's authored by Pam Childers and Dee Dee Chiavuzzi. Their first post states:

Welcome to the first Polk County Info blog! Pam and I started this blog to post info on things we knew were happening in our area. Some may be old subjects, some new! Feel free to tell us what you'd like to discuss!

So far there are three posts and one comment. The most recent post talks about their experiences in the Polk Citizen's Academy program:

There was a little bit of everyone in our class. Some people work at the county, some are retired citizens, others are interested in politcal offices at city and county levels.

We met at the Polk Outpost 27, which is up near I-4, on the left side, coming from the south. It's our new visitors center and pretty cool. From the outside it reminds me of a Bass Pro Shop. Everyone should stop by when heading that way. I was impressed.

I will say that I was unimpressed with Tom Patton, with I believe, Economic Developement & Growth. Even when it was not on the agenda, and not a topic of discussion, decided to bring up CSX and it's potential. Then point out Pam and me, not once, not twice, but three times and tell everyone we were from Sundance and how we opposed it and so on. I was shocked. I guess, when I'm ready for a fight, my guard is up, but not in a classroom, lecture setting.

Aside from that, the evening was a success. We met lots of nice folks and learned a bunch. I think all Polk residents could learn and appreciate the Citizen's Academy.

Here's a screenshot of the blog:

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The big news is that Fred Thompson is visiting Lakeland this weekend. Great exposure for Lakeland and Polk County correct? Not so fast.

As the article states, I think some local folks hoped Fred would be doing something, err...more positive in the area.

It's not the big sit-down dinner and speech at the Yacht Club that local Republican Party planners had hoped for, but the former U.S. senator from Tennessee and now presidential candidate, Fred Thompson, will be in Lakeland at 11 a.m. Saturday to speak to those attending a gun show at The Lakeland Center.

I imagine that the national media will be covering Fred's Florida tour. What will be shown about Lakeland in the national spotlight? A gun show.

Why is it that each time our area makes the national news it's always 'interesting'. Hopefully Fred's handlers will keep him from nude-alligator wrestling.

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In my real job, one of the most interesting folks out there is Hugh McLeod. He's a cartoonist, but not your standard funny-pages kind of guy. I've been reading Hugh's blog for years and just wanted to pass along the link to my local readers.

Recently Hugh created a list 'on cartooning'. It's a mashup of a number of thoughts, but it provides a good introduction to Hugh and what he does.

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A reader of EP sent me an e-mail pointing out something interesting. With the new Ledger design, the photos of the columnists are front and center on the primary category pages. Here are the news columnists.

Notice anything similar about them (other than the facial hair)? How about the sports columnists shown below?

At least Lisa offers a bit of a break from the ordinary.

Heading over to the Life section, here are the columnists. Hmmm.

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I often get into a routine for lunch and really don't have a problem eating at the same restaurant a few days in the same week. Here are my usual hangouts:

Winter Haven

- Mama Dilos Deli: I've been going to Mama Dilos for almost a decade and I usually get the same thing each time. As an added bonus there is a sandwich on the menu named after me.

- Cafe Latte: This little coffee and sandwich shop in Orchid Springs is always good. It's small, but cozy. They change the menu almost daily so there is always something good.

Lakeland

- Mitchell's Coffee Shop: It's always a toss-up when I'm in the downtown area. At Mitchell's I get the veggie burger and a side of macaroni and cheese. Plus Mitch has free wifi

- Black & Brew: The other coffee shop in downtown Lakeland also has some great food. I order the veggie panini. Like Mitchell's they also have free wifi.

- Moe's: I'm a sucker for Moe's and as I've often lamented on this blog, there is no Moe's in Winter Haven (yet).

The only other one I'd add would be Peeble's BBQ in Auburndale, but they are only open seasonally and even then only Thursday-Saturday.

How about you, where are you a regular?

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After a long break (since May) we're back with Where in Polk County? This week is a somewhat timely entry. Where was this photo taken? If you know, leave a comment.

I think we're going to change this segment to 'Stump Bob' rather than 'Where in Polk?' Yes, it is Peebles BBQ in Auburndale.

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Tom & Nancy are taking a trip 'Down the Coast' and blogging along the way. This past Sunday they posted an entry about their trip to Bok Sanctuary:

We always try to find interesting and lesser known "gems" along the way. As luck would have it, we hit the jackpot! A bit South of Winter Haven is a little place called Lake Wales. Just to its north, on a forgotten road, is a pretty-well signed place called "Historic Bok Sanctuary". What a jewel!

They post some photos and a recap of their visit.

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John Frost writes The Disney Blog and knows a thing or two about theme parks. John and I hung out at Cypress Gardens a month or two ago. During our walk around the park he talked about a number of issues he saw with the park. In a recent post about the sale of Cypress Gardens, John talks about what the new owners should do to improve the park.

1) Figure out how to add a separate parking lot and entrance for the Water Park.

2) Food & Dining. Currently Cypress Gardens uses food like a club to hit guests over the head with. You aren't allowed to bring in outside food or drink (which is fine), but then they do things like not providing kids meals or reasonably priced food.

3) Employee training. The heart of Cypress Gardens right now is its employees.

4) A slight reconfiguration of the park. Hire a theme park architect company to come in and redo the whole area from the ticket booths all the way through to the old parking garage area.

5) Dark rides. There are no dark rides in the whole park. If you're going to spend any money on new attractions, a couple dark rides would be the first place to look

6) Theme. Identify a theme and stick with it.

John expands on each one of these points in his post, check it out.

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Billy Townsend and Lindsay Peterson have an extensive story/report concerning the CSX project. While the CSX deal has been quite the topic in the Polk County area, their report looks more from a statewide level.

Polk County has always touted themselves as being the 'center of it all' from a tourism and business development perspective, it's certainly the case in this massive commuter-rail/freight project. The report is a good overview of the years of dealings between the DOT and private railroads in developing a plan for Florida's passenger and freight rail traffic.

With more focus coming to the project, another sleeping giant may awake, Tampa.

The likely loser is the Tampa Bay area, particularly Lakeland.

Under the state's new plan, commuter rail isn't likely to come to Tampa for decades - if ever - because of CSX's plans for unlimited freight increases in the area. That freight traffic will be routed through downtown Lakeland, where local officials fear years of expensive redevelopment efforts will be ruined.

The Lakeland area has a strong ally in Tampa.

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The Ledger has a report today about the new residential spaces in downtown Winter Haven. The News Chief reported on this back in April of 2006. At the time I wrote about my experiences living in downtown Winter Haven. It's probably worth a look again.

For many years there were only a few places to actually live downtown, and I lived in both of them for a while in my younger days (1998-2000). Like the article mentions one big attractor is restaurants. In my time downtown there was nothing to do past 6 p.m. All the restaurant (and I mean single, restaurant) were only open at lunch.

Here's the full post.

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With the recent news of the impending sale of Cypress Gardens, obviously our focus in Polk County has been local. We need to remember though that Cypress Gardens is not the only park impacted by the bankruptcy proceedings. Kent Buescher's other (and first) park is Wild Adventures in Valdosta, GA.

The September 25th sale also made front page news at the Valdosta Daily Times. While their article offers few additional details, it does have more quotes from Buescher:

“There are still many options for the company. I can’t tell you for certain what’s going to happen, but I expect to have new financial backers. I would like to still be involved in the company, but all is to be determined.

“My job is to take care of our guests,” he said. “We are managing through the process, and are looking forward to the day that both of these parks emerge from these clouds, which will happen in early October, one way or another. Both parks have an extremely bright future.”

Hopefully our local media (and residents) will look to the Valdosta media for additional information.

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The Winter Haven Chamber blog has broken the news that Cypress Gardens will be sold at the end of this month. From the post:

On Sept. 25, Cypress Gardens and Wild Adventures theme parks will be sold to satisfy requirements under the 2006 Chapter 11 filing by Adventures Parks Group, LLC.

The Chamber has been in direct communication with park owners for several months. In a conversation today, Kent Buescher, CEO of Adventure Parks Group stated there is no chance either park will close. He added there would be no changes in employees and new events and programming would be forthcoming.

Of course the big question is, who are the new owners going to be? I'm sure the chamber will let us know soon. It's a bid process as part of the bankruptcy. Bob continues to update the original post with new information.

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I've got my new favorite travel t-shirt. Yesterday, Mitch from Mitchell's Coffee in Lakeland gave me one of his logo t's in orange. Right now it's in Dallas, it will be in Arkansas later today. I have trips to Alabama, Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Indianapolis in the next few months.

Will I wear it everywhere? Perhaps. When you travel a bunch you realize that clothing is all about comfort. I usually stick with Ex Officio gear from Andy Thornal in Winter Haven, but t-shirts work as well. This shirt will be well-traveled.

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This isn't really Polk County news, but it's about one of my favorite stores, IKEA. Maybe one day we'll have an IKEA. However, it's not likely since there will soon be locations in Orlando and Tampa. Anyway, IKEA has announced that their Orlando location will be opening on Nov 14th. Sweet!

That photo above is their Atlanta location. You can check out some of my IKEA photo galleries here and here.

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I stopped by the new Winter Haven Area Transit station today to snap a few construction photos. Things have moved along quickly with the construction process. While it is a county project, Joy Townsend at the City of Winter Haven thought the opening was might be scheduled for Nov 8th. I'm waiting on confirmation of that from the county, so far nobody has e-mailed me back.

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I decided to head down to the Supervisor of Elections office in Bartow to catch the live-election results. Years ago this used to be a major-all-night affair. Now-a-days with the ballot boxes dialing-in shortly after the polls close it's a quick event.

That's the canvassing board and some election officials shortly before 7pm this evening in Bartow, FL

Here are the FINAL results:

City Commission: Seat 1
38.6% - Robert "Bob" Jardine
61.4% - James "JP" Powell

City Commission: Seat 2
68.33% - Nathaniel Birdsong
31.67% - Macy Butler

City Commission: Seat 3
74.81% - Jeff Potter
25.19% - Don Drefke

6 of 6 of Precincts Reporting Plus Absentees

I guess you need a nickname to run for Seat 1.

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Back in May of this year I discovered the new Y Lakeland initiative started by the Lakeland Economic Development Council. The site has grown since then and they recently added a blog to the mix, located at: blog.ylakeland.com.

The first post is credited to 'admin' but I assume it's Cat:

During the creation of ylakeland.com I realized that a blogging component was crucial to the new website. I am not an expert, never have blogged before, and don’t claim to have a vast knowledge of Lakeland. I do know that 8 out of 10 young professionals all say the biggest misconception in Lakeland is that there is nothing to do. This blog is focused on niches in Lakeland that I think college students and young professionals would be interested in. Of course it is presented from my bias. Let me know if you have any thoughts…I am always open to ideas, comments, suggestions, and questions.

We'll see how the conversation develops.

The only question I have is how Y Lakeland interacts/compliments (or replaces) EMERGE Lakeland?

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City elections are being held in Winter Haven today. City Commission seats 1, 2 and 3 are up for grabs. If you're a resident, go out there and vote.

I'm in one of those limbo positions. I live right outside the city limits, so I can't vote, but my life is impacted by the decisions made by the city commission.

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Q. How long has the renovation of the Ritz Theatre in Winter Haven been going on?
A. As long as I can remember.

Q. When will it ever be finished?
A. Your guess is as good as mine.

In the Winter Haven area, schools have been built, malls demolished, rebuilt and born again, but the Ritz renovation has sputtered along. According to the 'history' page at the Ritz site the building was officially bought by the Ritz Theatre 100 group in 1997.

I won't even begin the comparisons to Lakeland, but I think it's safe to say that if the Ritz was in Lakeland it would have been done a number of years ago.

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Back in April of this year I asked, "Where is the News Chief in the CSX Deal?" I just wanted to know why "Winter Haven's" local newspaper was doing next to nothing in the way of reporting on the CSX deal. It's now almost five months later and the question still stands?

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Today's News Chief has a story about the new 'Garden Days' promotion at Cypress Gardens. At first read it looks cool, park admission has been lowered to $19.95 for select days in September. But then you read on:

During "Garden Days," the rides and Splash Island Water Park will not be available, with the exception of one of the park's most notable rides, Sunshine Sky Adventure.

That's like Disney saying, sure come on by, but don't expect to get on any of the rides. Speaking of that, they just sunk all that money into the Starliner (not to mention the promotion) and you can't ride it on the weekdays.

I guess focusing on the reduced cost is one way to look at things, here are a few others that aren't so good:

1. Attendance is so low during the weekdays it doesn't make sense to staff a full crew.

2. They can't afford to pay their part-time staff to work during the weekdays. Perhaps the show performers are on salary so they get paid whether they work or not...so might as well make them put on a show.

Workforce has always been an issue for the park. My family went yesterday, a Sunday, and there are still a number of rides that aren't staffed at all.

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Back in June I noted that Polk County School Board member Tim Harris had created a blog. Tim hasn't been blogging much (three total posts), but he does have a new one up. It's concerning Hooter's sponsorship of the Lakeland High School football program.

I certainly agree with his view that the brand image that Hooters has created and continues to market is not what a school district needs to allow to be promoted on its campuses nor at its events.

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The much needed rain this evening has brought something else to Winter Haven, power outages. The power has been out at our house for almost an hour and a half. Friends near Lake Hamilton also don't have power.

Hopefully TECO is working on things.

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Barry has posted that a new web site design is coming to TheLedger.com this Tuesday (barring any major issues). He shared a preview with me last week. It's a big change that will put much more content on the home page and handle breaking news much better.

The big question is, what will readers think?

Recently major sites like CNN.com, USAToday.com and OrlandoSentinel.com have all updated their designs. While they all offer a much better experience for the reader, most initial comments from folks were not that positive. People just don't like change.

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On Friday I had lunch with Billy Townsend. Once of the topics of conversation was CSX of course. Billy's been working on a rather comprehensive CSX piece that was supposed to run today (Sunday). Billy updates us this morning that the USF student story has pushed this back.

Now we'll have to wait another week :-(

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