ayup, sounds like a plan to me.

nope, cant go:cheesy:

just kiddin ya

I'm allowed to go unless Strutt or the Mrs say otherwise!! :raspberry:

YOOUUU are not the boss of MEEEEE :cheesy:

:|:|:|:|:|

:|:|:|:|:|:|

Don't see why not...the more people Katie has to take her down the slides, the happier she'll be :)
:| :doh:

Morning fellow Floridians,

Haven't been on a lot the last few days because I am moving into my cave. Spent 4 hours stuck here yesterday while Brighthouse re-wired from the pole to the house. But at least now I have all new cable, so there should be no problems, right?

Next we had to dodge a few showers because my truck does not have a topper. That said, we only managed two loads of moving yesterday. Slept at the new place last night, and it was so good waking up to zero stress! I am a happy man. :)

Jesse

Good Evening Everyone,

Mrs. Strutt, sounds like you and your family had a blast. I went there over 20 years ago, and we got my mom on the Congo ride. Little did we know, but she is deathly afraid of water but went on it anyways.

Tranzman, glad you like your new cave. Moving is for the birds and so is Brighthouse. I pay $48 a month for the high speed internet, and sometimes I get booted.

Today was my oldest niece's birthday party and we all had fun. Since her and her brother came down six weeks ago, I have gained four sunburns and several hundred miles on my odometer driving to pick them up and taking them places. I am glad they came down to visit, but I am not to thrilled about the sunburn on my shoulders. But, it made the kids happy and that is all that matters.

Have a good night and see you all in the morning,

Zimmy

NOM in Tampa August 8
 

I'm sure everyone has heard about National Organization for Marriage's (NOM) "Summer for Marriage" bus tour. They're going to 17 cities this summer to fund-raise for their political campaign against equal marriage. So far, they've been outnumbered by LGBT & friends anti-protestors. The anti-protests have been silent in nature, which I think is a good strategy, lest we be accused of trying to deprive anti-gay religious groups of their First Amendment rights.

NOM will be in Tampa on Sunday, August 8, 2010 from 2:00pm - 3:00pm, if anyone is interested in taking part in a silent protest.

Here's a link to an LGBT site that is keeping up with the tour and posting info and pics: http://prop8trialtracker.com/2010/07...e-in-new-york/. A note of interest: NOM is underreporting the number of anti-protestors and are not showing anti-protestors in their photos.

P.S. NOM is a front for the Mormon Church. They donated $2 million alone to try to get Maine's equal marriage law repealed.

Strutts- I haven't been to Busch Gardens since I was a child. Back then it was mostly a Botanical Garden without all of the rides and stuff...Yeah I know, I just dated myself. lol Glad you all had a good time. :)

Zimmy- Personally I have never had a problem with Brighthouse. Hoping I don't either, because Verizon Fios is much more costly IMO. How's that sunburn?

Durrrr- Yeah moving sucks bigtime! But thankfully I have my sis and nephew to lend me a hand and keep me entertained as well. :) I was happy to read that you and your nephew went tool shopping rather than grill shopping. lol That could have proved dangerous.

The rest of the pack- Wishing you all a safe and happy weekend. :)

We are heading to the beach after this wonderful coffee is gone, for an afternoon of relaxation :)

Dear Strutt family,

Glad you all had a great vacation and also glad your all back!!!

Good Aftenoon Tranzman,

Luckily it is mainly on my shoulders, so applying Aloe and lotion to it is easy. I am thinking of heading up to Publix here in a bit, one of the girly mags I was reading, recommended Aloe Vera Body Butter by a holistic company. I am thinking that might work better than applying Aloe and then body lotion. At this point, I am hoping anything will work....

I had quite a few problems with Brighthouse when I had my apartment in Orlando, if you had more than one laptop using the internet at once, their modem would crash. I am not having any problems so far here at my house and I am hoping that it doesn't change.

When I moved to Seattle, I had gone through everything I owned and donated quite a bit of it, threw half of it away, and gave the rest away to friends. So when I moved back home from Seattle and moved to Palm Coast, the move was easy. I had two car loads of stuff.

Have a good day,

Zimmy

Hello fellow Florida peeps!!! Seems everybody had good weekends even if it involved functional chores like moving!!! The summer is leaving us quickly and I am a sad dancing lamb. My week is filled with work so it looks like Tuesday/Wednesday may be my only day we play.

I love the beaches, fresh water springs, the everglades, swimming with manatees, exploring natural caves, college football and all the tasty treats cooked up in a cast iron skillet!!! :) The many local varieties of those delicious crustaceans we call shrimp. I am preferential to Mayport shrimp and then the Florida Keys Pink shrimps they run a close second and are very Yummy!!! My local seafood supplier is saved in my phone. Anyone ever had fresh water bream?? Not only are they fun to catch on the cane pole with a balled up piece of sandwich bread but they are easy to clean and grill. The skin peels right off exposing the whitest, flakiest of meat. I love this state and feel very sad/angry when I encounter hate and ignorance.

I was driving Ms to the farmers market yesterday and we came upon a truck with 9 bumper stickers scattered across the back window. As I was reading them I started having tiny explosions in my head and could already feel the hurt my Ms was enduring from her experience of this displayed hate. Here is what we read.

I'll keep my money, my freedom and my guns and you can keep the "CHANGE"

"If this shit offends you, you need a history lesson." It had a confederate flag in the middle.

"It's a southern thang Yankees will never understand" Another big flag.

Another was a conferderate flag that says "HERITAGE not hate."

Another confederate flag that says "You think this flag represents hate and slavery? YOU ARE WRONG!"

The rest said the same thing "History not Hate" with a flag on it.


I am a white 4th generation Floridian. What I have never been able to love is our history. Just this particular state alone was created first from attempting genocide and wiped out almost all the Native Americans. Then we used the Native Americans, African Americans and Latino coummunity to build it and make it what it is today. My parents and family tried very hard to socialize me with racist, bigoted, and discriminatory behaviors. When I come across these kinds of situations my knee jerk emotional reaction is anger and shame, then a need to engage in some way that may benefit the fight against racism. In the moment sometimes for me it is really hard to evaluate what that fight looks like. My parents have that shit ingrained in them and they may never change. With them I have to call em out all the time. Sometimes so much so that it ruins whatever family event that is going on at the time and I am ok with that!! I have created the loss of some friendships by calling people out time and time again. Some friendships had been lifelong, some not so much, some straight friends, and some queer friends. I have found that it doesn't matter who I call out or how I call em out it is never received well when calling out another human on their racism.

From one fellow Floridian to another I would like to talk about how you all handle racist, bigoted, and discriminatory situations when they come up. I would love to hear what everyone has to say on this topic no matter if your roots to Florida are new or old. We all seem to love this state and what it has to offer us nature and entertainment wise, so I thought we could have a discussion about the unprogressive nature of this state and how it effects us on a daily basis. What we can do to change it and make our state a southern state that has pride based on a whole different moral compass??

Great topic, weatherboi. Red-neckery and good ol' boys are alive and well in Florida, that's for sure. If a bigoted behavior occurs in my presence, I speak up and so does my wife. She was appalled (and still is) by the sheer number of bigoted bumper stickers and billboards when she first started coming to Florida. Are we the only state with multiple anti-choice billboards lining both sides of an interstate???? It's really embarrassing. Offensive bumper stickers got really bad during the Amendment 2 issue in 2008, when Florida added its THIRD anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution. We organized a protest downtown and experienced cat-calls, drivers angrily revving their engines and laying rubber, but we also got a lot of honks of support. Some people even parked their cars and joined us. Soon also wore a t-shirt around town that said, "When Do I Get to Vote on Your Marriage?" She got quite a few dirty looks and a clerk at Publix felt the need to try to confront her on the 'sanctity' of marriage.

Soon and I have a plan for offensive bumper stickers. We just ordered a batch of rainbow stickers with the words EQUAL RIGHTS on them. And, I'll say no more about that...

Red-neckery and good ol' boys are alive and well in Florida. Unless it would place one in danger, I feel it's important to speak up and do what you can - whether it's in your own circle with family and friends, in the workplace, or out in public.

Looking forward to hearing others' thoughts on this, too.