Brother's Brick reminds me that LEGO turns 50 today! I don't recall when I received my first LEGO set, but I think it's safe to assume that I've been playing with them for over 25 years. Thanks for the memories!

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Why is it that I can't drive by the Citrus Festival without feeling dirty? Never been a big fan....perhaps it's the carny's.

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I had jury duty yesterday and was part of the initial 13 jurors selected for this case. It was eventually narrowed to 7, I did not make the cut.

I understand the 'civic duty' related to jury duty but it was hard to fathom sitting on a jury in a case involving the death of a baby.

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Posting here has been light for a while...I'm just too busy with work. What to do? I thought about shutting the site down, or perhaps just going on hiatus for a while. Need to decide what I want to do.

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Of course the tragic crash on I-4 yesterday is the big news in all the local papers. However, it's interesting to note the difference in the 'lead' story for the two papers, The Ledger and the Orlando Sentinel.

The Ledger's main headline is 4 Dead, 38 Injured in Massive Pileup and the story focuses on the wreck and the rescue operations. There are interviews with crash survivors and rescue personnel. Only at the end is there a short discussion about the conditions that lead to the poor visibility.

The Orlando Sentinel's main headline is Warning Signs Began Nearly 20 Hours Before Polk Crash and the story focuses on who could possibly be at fault for the accident. Should FHP have closed the road? etc. The story features segments like this:

Before sunset Tuesday, National Weather Service meteorologists issued a fog alert based on a scale of one through 10. Experts consider seven or higher to be risky for drivers. The forecast for north Polk County was a 10.

A few hours later, the state Division of Forestry told the Florida Highway Patrol to expect dangerous conditions because of a particularly stubborn and smoky wildfire at I-4 and County Road 557....

...The warning was not a routine call. Only once or twice a year do forestry officials, who rely on sophisticated computer models, tell FHP to be on guard for a smoked-in highway.

In all, those and other warnings of horrendous visibility caused by smoke, fog or both were unmistakable. Yet as it turned out, FHP troopers would find little to be concerned about, and the state Department of Transportation installed just one warning sign in each direction

The Ledger does have a sidebar story about the role the smoke played in the accident, but it's not the main, above the fold story. Perhaps because the Ledger is more 'local' to the story they're still focusing on the immediate/human aspect of the story, while the Sentinel is moving beyond the initial story.

I expect in the coming days the Ledger's focus will shift from the events of the accident to the events that caused the accident. It's a natural progression of the story and the details will emerge as the investigation continues.

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting that two major papers would have those different angles on the story one-day out.

Update: The Orlando Sentinel has posted two items looking and the varying coverage:

- How we and other media covered the pileup
- A look at the front pages across Florida

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This past Saturday, my wife, son and I went to the Lakeland Center to see the Ringling Brothers Circus. My 3-year-old son had a blast and we had a good time watching him. Here are some photos from the event:

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Somebody has created a set of Publix-themed discussion sites over at PublixForum.com. There is a forum and a blog. The WHOIS on the domain does not reveal any details, but the about page on the blog has this:

The Unofficial Publix Blog is exactly what it sounds like: a blog (mostly) about Publix run by some random part-timer who makes exactly $7.75 an hour bagging groceries and is putting himself through college. Said part-timer isn’t much of a writer, unfortunately, and would be glad to have experienced bloggers help him out.

While I'm all for blogger rights, it might not be long before Publix tries to shut this down since it uses Publix in the domain name. Any trademark attorney will tell you that you need to protect your mark, under any circumstance.

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