The Orlando Sentinel has an update that the CSX/State of Florida deal for commuter rail is done:

With one day to spare before losing out on about $180 million in federal funding, CSX and the state of Florida on Thursday finally reached a deal that will turn over 61 miles of tracks from DeLand to Orlando to Poinciana for the region's first commuter rail system.

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Back in October of 2004 when the intelligent design debate was first heating up Wired Magazine wrote a feature article looking at the issues. The article is long, but it's a good read and still relevant three years later.

One of the main points of the article is the ID proponents look for debate and discussion since this creates an equal standing on the issue, but that's the issue.

"I'm not a PhD in biology," says board member Michael Cochran. "But when I have X number of PhD experts telling me this, and X number telling me the opposite, the answer is probably somewhere between the two."

An exasperated Krauss claims that a truly representative debate would have had 10,000 pro-evolution scientists against two Discovery executives. "What these people want is for there to be a debate," says Krauss. "People in the audience say, Hey, these people sound reasonable. They argue, 'People have different opinions, we should present those opinions in school.' That is nonsense. Some people have opinions that the Holocaust never happened, but we don't teach that in history."

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Its that time of the season again! When all the mad rush for deals and bargains is over, its nice to go on a relaxing drive and look at all the Christmas lights in the area. Sunday night, my wife, son and I packed in the car and went looking for lights. Even though it is still early in the season, we found some well decorated houses, but were left wanting more. From that, an idea was spawned.

I'm starting a custom Google map of the Polk County area Christmas lights. You can visit the map here. I've opened it for collaborators, so anyone can add points, lines, areas, etc. If you need any help getting started, post a comment or shoot me an email and I'll be glad to help.

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Yesterday evening I went to Bok Tower to get some photos in the fading light. Here are a few sample shots:

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Ted Hoffman over at the Polk County News Blog has a great 'column' on the intelligent design debate. He even gets in a mention of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Wikipedia). Ted specifically calls out Kay Fields, Tim Harris, Margaret Lofton and Hazel Sellers on their stance regarding ID.

For their bold vision in saying they reject a proposed science curriculum that teaches evolution as a unifying and broadly accepted theory, and instead advocating one that gives intelligent design equal weight in textbooks, classrooms and hungry young minds, I nominate Fields-Harris-Lofton-Sellers for Science Educators Of The Year.

The year 1633, to be precise.

Surely people as profoundly knowledgeable as Fields-Harris-Lofton-Sellers can tell you that 1633 was the year Galileo went on trial for heresy. Had Fie-Har-Lof-Sel been on the heresy panel, they’d have voted to censure and excommunicate Galileo for his shocking support of heliocentrism—the mad idea that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around.

For For their bold vision in saying they reject a proposed science curriculum that teaches evolution as a unifying and broadly accepted theory, and instead advocating one that gives intelligent design equal weight in textbooks, classrooms and hungry young minds, I nominate Fields-Harris-Lofton-Sellers for Science Educators Of The Year.

The year 1633, to be precise.

Surely people as profoundly knowledgeable as Fields-Harris-Lofton-Sellers can tell you that 1633 was the year Galileo went on trial for heresy. Had Fie-Har-Lof-Sel been on the heresy panel, they’d have voted to censure and excommunicate Galileo for his shocking support of heliocentrism—the mad idea that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around.

For Kay Fields, Tim Harris, Margaret Lofton and Hazel Sellers I have two questions:

1. How old is the Earth?
2. When did 'man' first roam the earth?

Granted both of these questions have answers based on scientific evidence, but that's not what's important, remember we need to teach 'alternative' theories as well :-)

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Two quick follow-ups to the FIOS item I posted the other day.

1. Lonnie Brown from The Ledger wrote a column about FIOS on November 18th.
2. Tech/Geek Blogger Paul Stamatiou recently wrote a review of FIOS from a friends house.

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Author/Consultant/Marketing-Guru Seth Godin has a new book coming out at the end of the year called Meatball Sundae. You may know Seth from his books like Purple Cow and All Marketers Are Liars. What does this have to do with Polk County? Two things:

1. I'm mentioned in the book :-)
2. My mention is related to the Katherine Harris comment spam issue I dug up last year.

Two friends that received galley copies of the book shared the news with me, for the rest of us, we'll need to wait till the book is released on Dec 27th.

As a refresher, I along with a number of other bloggers were receiving comment spam related to Katherine's run for Senate. The strange thing was all the comments were coming from India.

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Some areas of Polk County have some seriously out-of-date Google satellite images (ala Google Maps and Google Earth). Here's an example:

Recognize this shot? It's Cypress Gardens before it was rebuilt by Kent Buescher way back in 2005.

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Polk County Sports Marketing has begun work on their new cycling guide/map and they need your help. How? If you're an avid cyclist they want to know your favorite rides/routes.

Here's a note from Kris Keprios at PCTSM:

Do you have a favorite ride in Polk County? Do you know the safest places (and not so safe places) to ride? If you do, share it with the visitors and Polk County citizens that will be viewing this guide. You can submit your route or suggestions by email to Kris Keprios at kris@centralfloridasports.com. PCTSM is accepting the route directions as turn-by-turn, or if you have a map highlighting the route, that is even better. The Polk County Cycling Guide is one of the most requested guides that PCTSM produces, as Polk County is a favorite among visitors to Florida who cycle.

I'll be sending in a few, how about you?

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With all of the excitement my three-year-old son had of putting up Christmas decorations , we decided to take him up to the "Festival of Trees" at the Orange Dome. The Festival of Trees was hosted by the Florida Citrus Festival and Polk County Fair along with its Festival of Trees Partner, Ridge Art Association. We really enjoyed all the professionally decorated trees, which unfortunately left ours feeling sub-par. My son's favorite area was the "Crafts and Cookies" where he got to decorate a cookie and make some art.

Take a look at my photo album here if you missed it.

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I had planned to post this question a few weeks ago, but Adam sort-of beat me to it. He received notice that his neighborhood had been wired for FIOS. What is FIOS? It's Verizon's Fiber-to-the-home solution, as in super-high-speed internet access.

I've been on DSL since day one from Verizon and it's getting slow. My Sprint EVDO wireless card is often faster than my DSL at home. FIOS will hopefully give me a nice boost of speed, but I don't know anybody locally that has it.

Are there any areas in Polk County wired and using FIOS yet? If you have it, what has your experience been like?

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Cat and Lorrie are planning a Polk County blogger meet-up this Tuesday night (Nov 27th) in Lakeland at Black 'n Brew. I'm in Lakeland that morning and might hang around the rest of the day to catch this meet-up.

See you there?

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I've been in New York, now Atlanta on somewhat of a vacation, mixed with work. I hope to resume posting next week.

A highlight of the trip to NYC was giving a speech/presentation at the boardroom of the New York Stock Exchange.

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Yes, lots of discussion about rail the past few months, but there is another partner with rail......telecommunications firms, aka telcos. Most of the major fiber-optic build-out over the past decade has occurred along rail lines. The main reason is that rail has established right-of-way all over the country, so burying fiber is easy. The telco only has to deal with one source, the rail line, opposed to numerous agencies, locations, etc.

Just look for those orange and white poles, chances are there is fiber below. And more than likely, those orange poles are next to a rail line. The one pictured above is in Auburndale on the main CSX line.

As we've learned via the CSX debate, Polk County is a crucial location in the rail network. The same goes with fiber. If you've even been around Auburndale you might notice a medium-sized building next to the rail lines. It used to have MCI branding on it, but that's been removed. That building is a major connection point for fiber (telco) for the state. Going back some time ago when MCI was the internet backbone, that building was a big deal.

So what's the point? Well when people talk about closing down rail lines or converting them over to other uses, there is a hidden lobby out there that will fight that....the telcos. Just food for thought.

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If you're an aviation geek, you may want to head over to Orlando International Airport today since the Airbus A380 is scheduled to land around 4pm. Chris Gent from the Orlando Sentinel's Conway blog has all the details on the short visit.

Of course you could wait till Wednesday and make the 'international' trip to Orlando to celebrate the opening of Ikea and then go see the A380.

Photo from Airbus

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Remember the movie Coming to America with Eddie Murphy? In the movie Eddi'e character worked at McDowell's a blatant rip-off of McDonald's. The similarities are even part of the storyline:

Cleo McDowell: "Look...me and the McDonald's people got this little misunderstanding. See, they're McDonald's...I'm McDowell's. They got the Golden Arches, mine is the Golden Arcs. They got the Big Mac, I got the Big Mick. We both got two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, but their buns have sesame seeds. My buns have no seeds. "

In Winter Haven near Jan Phyl Village there is a former Hardee's location, now called Georgee's. It seems they took the location and the two ee's on the end of the name.

Each time I drive by it I always think of McDowell's and wonder if the owners of Georgee's have ever been contacted by attorneys from Hardee's? I guess in their defense, they have the chezburger and not the cheeseburger.

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Diane Allen at The Ledger recently blogged about the battle between Brighthouse and the City of Lakeland regarding utility pole fees. She references a fact sheet from the city in her post. Kevin Cook from the City of Lakeland recently sent out the sheet, here it is in full:

Bright House Networks is in the process of notifying customers that they will charge a monthly fee of $1.47 to cover the entire pole attachment fee imposed upon their Lakeland operations. This effort by Bright House Networks is based on the ordinance that was passed by the Lakeland City Commission on September 17, 2007 that established pole attachment fees. There are some inaccuracies that must be addressed regarding this direct mail piece.

Before the Pole Attachment Ordinance, Bright House Networks paid an annual attachment fee of $20.28 per pole. The newly established
ordinance stipulates an annual fee of $20.70 per pole. This is an increase of about 2% as opposed to the 200% figure quoted in the Bright House direct mail piece.

One reason the pole attachment ordinance was created was so that all service providers using Lakeland Electric utility poles would be treated equally - so there is no discrepancy between cable or phone service providers.

After the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Federal Communications Commission established methods for setting reasonable rental rates for poles. Although exempt from FCC orders, many municipalities including Lakeland Electric used the FCC telecom attachment rules as beginning guidelines.

There was a contract that expired about seven years ago and since that time the City has tried to reach a new contract for pole attachments.
During this seven year period Lakeland Electric turned to the American Public Power Association's (APPA) industry recognized pole attachment agreement and formula to establish pole attachment fees.

The APPA formula takes into account such factors as safety standards set by the National Electrical Safety Code, permits required for new attachments, engineering compliance, dispute resolution, attachment modifications and related cost recovery.

Also during this time a pole audit was conducted and it was discovered that Bright House Networks had not reported nor paid for 9,210 poles that they had attached to. This represented 22% of the Lakeland Electric poles used by Bright House Networks. Bright House is currently attached to a total of 40,942 poles.

Failure by all parties to renew a pole attachment agreement resulted in the City of Lakeland adopting an ordinance on September 17, 2007 that establishes the current $20.70/pole annual fee. Before the ordinance was put in place, Bright House Networks could and would attach to poles without notifying Lakeland Electric.

The current pole attachment rate set forth in the ordinance is based on the APPA formula and the rate is consistent with what other Florida municipal electric utilities are charging. A few examples include:

- Clay County $23.09/pole
- Gainesville Regional Utilities $21.38 - 34.59/pole
- Lakeland Electric $20.70/pole
- New Smyrna Beach $24.10/pole
- Orlando Utility Commission $17.85/attachment*
- Peace River Electric Cooperative $29.34/pole
- Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative $21.65/pole

*Some utilities use the definition "attachment" as a lead to a pole being attached to multiple times by any singe company and the fee quoted being per attachment.

Bright House is currently attached to 40,942 Lakeland Electric poles. The new fee established by the ordinance ($20.70/pole) ensures an annual payment of $847,499.40. The prior pole fee equated to an annual payment of $830,303.76. This is a difference of $17,195.64 yet Bright House is going to charge customers $1.47 per month. If Bright House Networks had to build out their own infrastructure it would cost them about $15 million in the poles alone. This does not include installation or maintenance.

Bright House Networks attaches to utility poles in all of their territories and they pay pole attachment fees to the entities that own
those poles. Is Bright House Networks going to correspondingly reduce their cable rates to Lakeland area subscribers as part of their new itemized billing initiative? With the cable network backing out pole attachment fees from their cable rates as a separate line item, Lakeland subscribers should see base cable rates reduced by at least $1 per month.

According to Back Channel Media Research, Bright House Networks has 60,150 subscribers on the Polk County, Lakeland system. In the direct mail piece being circulated to their customers Bright House outlines a monthly fee of $1.47 to cover the entire pole attachment fee imposed upon their Lakeland operations. Based on the number of subscribers supplied from Back Channel Media Research, this means they will collect $88,420.50 per month or $1,061,046 annually from their current Lakeland subscribers. This is a windfall of $213,546.60 over their current pole attachment fee.

The direct mail piece also implies that the City of Lakeland imposed and collects Communications Services Tax. Bright House Networks mentions that this tax is itemized on customer's bills and paid to the City. In fact, this tax is imposed by the State of Florida. In 2001, a law
established the Communications Services Tax as a way to restructure taxes on telecommunications, cable, direct-to-home satellite, and
related services. The law replaced and consolidated several different state and local taxes with a single tax and it is collected by the Florida Department of Revenue. The Florida Department of Revenue disperses the money to municipalities based on the revenues collected to
compensate for the use of right of ways.

Disclosure: Brighthouse Networks (nationally) is a client of my firm, Hyku, LLC.

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Whenever one looks at downtown Lake Wales, the 11-story Grand Hotel is sure to stand out. While Bok Tower has definitely taken the status of "Lake Wales Icon", the Grand Hotel falls in at a close second. The hotel, built in 1927, has been returned back to the city of Lake Wales after exchanging hands multiple times. Over the years, I've heard of many different plans for the hotel: a retirement facility, upscale condominiums, even demolition, none of which have come to fruition. According to the The Ledger, the city is planning on actively searching for someone to renovate it. The former owner's plans of converting the hotel to a retirement facility had fallen through, and had raked up over $700,000 in code enforcement fines.

I'd like to see some condominiums go in and help revitalize downtown Lake Wales, similar to the efforts of downtown Winter Haven.

What's your opinion on the Grand Hotel? Should we just tear it down and start over?

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Billy Townsend has announced that he's going to move off the CSX story. Why? It's because of a possible conflict of interest issue. I don't have an issue with it, but others might.

Anyway it's a sad day since the only 'real' media covering the story is The Ledger (don't get me started on the News Chief). Tom Palmer submits things from time-to-time on the print side of things, but his blog is where all his CSX action is at. However as Chuck recently pointed out, Tom can turn into Mr. Snarky McSnarksalot on his blog.

The only other major source of CSX coverage is Chuck Welch at Lakeland Local, a blog, imagine that :-)

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For a while I had an ongoing battle with Cypress Gardens/Wild Adventures over spam....as in they kept spamming me with e-mail even after I asked to be removed a number of times. The problem was eventually fixed....until now.

It looks like the new owners of Wild Adventures have decided to ignore our un-subscription requests. I received this e-mail below.

Sure, as a former Cypress Gardens passholder I am really interested in a concert taking place at a park in Valdosta, GA. (hopefully the sarcasm is self-evident)

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