TampaBLAB

So Tempocrew has been saying lately that I should have spent more time during these playoffs to talk about the team that I have been cheering for (since the Canucks have been knocked out), which was the Penguins.

That was the original plan, but then things like work, other hockey games, and the sun making its delightful appearance for the summer in Vancouver, got in the way. The Pensblog and Puck Huffers have been both doing an epic job already covering their team.

But as we are 5 hours away from puck drop, I'm getting excited for the SCF rematch...I'm glad that Bettman moved up the start date to today, otherwise I'd be sitting here writing about how lame it is to have no hockey for a week. I'm sick of Wings fans complaining that they got jobbed by the NHL starting the SCF so quickly not giving their players time to rest/heal from injury, whatever, get over it. I don't know why I have this dislike for the Wings and their fans....I just do. Their complaints do not make them more likeable.

As for Hossa...he made the right choice in signing with the Wings. From a completely unbaised view, you would have to say that he signed with a team that would give him the best chance at winning at the time, which was the Wings. The Penguins also may not have made it to the finals if they signed him and tied up all their money. If the Pens win, I can't wait to read about what tPB and the PH will write about him. And more importantly, where will he sign next year? Does he still chase after a cup, or go for the money?

I think the Penguins have a great shot at winning this year. On paper, they looked better last year. But watching them play this year, with both Crosby and Malkin clicking along...they just give me that feeling that this could be the year. Either way this should be a good series...providing the teams finish Sunday night at 1-1 a piece...

I am a Mom. I have superpowers. One of them is being able to hear all things at all times of the day, even when I am sleeping. This began during pregnancy when I was awoken in the middle of the night by a baby who thought that doing somersaults in my uterus was a normal activity. After that, my body began being tuned into any movement or sound that emanated from a mile radius.

I began to hear our cat stretching, our neighbor closing his door, a car driving down the street and when our baby came along, her yawning. I am a built in watch dog, the protector of our domain. While my husband snores away the Space Shuttle takes off and leaves behind a sonic boom, a police car with sirens blasting stops on our street. I shake him, try to wake him, but he just rolls over.

I worry about when my husband is home alone. I’ve told him that we need to purchase a wireless security system so we can be truly safe.

The Bronze Package from Protect America is free, has a talking control panel, includes 7 entry points and 1 motion detector, it has a battery backup and costs $34.95 per month for monitoring. When you call 1-877-470-2751 you’ll get 2 keychain remotes free with your order. I guess that’s better than relying on a Mom with superhuman hearing.

Here’s a list of government gadgets available for your blog or webpage.

“These government gadgets (or widgets) are online applications built by one website that can be displayed on another website. You can embed these gadgets in personalized home pages, blogs, and other sites. Once you’ve added the widget, there’s no technical maintenance—the original source of the information will update the content.”

The list is a little thin right now, but with the explosion of government blogs, I expect we’ll be seeing more gadgets made available.

As I sat watching Peanut at her 4th grade Award Ceremony, I could not stop my “mind speak” - don’t grow up - as it kept repeating over and over. There she was with her classmates and friends, laughing, looking so confident and dashing up to the stage when her name was called, no time to stop for a photo for Mom. When did she get so mature?

What is it about me that I want time to stand still? When she was an infant and so needy waking me up in the middle of the night and I was so weary, yet when I cuddled her and nursed her, I thought this is the best time of my life. Don’t let it end.

Those first babbles and smiles, when I knew that she was trying to communicate to me, it made me so happy that I cried tears of joy - please let her stay just like this. When she said her first words, some that only I could understand, I wished for her to stay just that cute. As much as I wanted her to be able to speak so everyone could understand her and so that she could let the world know about her dreams, I was selfish.

When she clung to me in tears, wetting my shirt, causing the teacher to have to pry her off of me and me to cry too, I thought this is how she is showing me that she loves me. She knows that I am the best Mom. I should just keep her home and let her stay with me forever. But that teacher took her away and she stayed that day and for two more years.

As she grew, each milestone caused me to look back and then look ahead. The looking ahead scares me. I am supposed to want her to succeed, to mature, to grow up to be the wonderful woman I see growing before my eyes. I am a selfish mother.

Good morning from SheiKra from Busch Gardens and . . .


and the Temple Terrace golf course

new blog from a guy who posts on lbo-talk: left-wing wacko. while announcing his new blog, he pointed out some blogs he discovered which are written by radical feminist anarchist mormons, some of whom read Das Capital! http://ldsanarchy.wordpress.com/ http://theradicalmormon.wordpress.com/ *faints*

It's the last weekend of May, which means the NBA and NHL are wrapping up, and baseball is getting in full swing.

The sixth game of the Orlando-Cleveland series could be the best game in the playoffs thus far. Cleveland, despite a 66-16 regular season, could be a game away from an earlier than expected vacation.  To stay alive, they have to do what they haven't done all year...beat Orlando in Orlando.  If they pull it off, it's essentially a one-game playoff Monday night.

Do any of you cringe when you see Joey Crawford work an NBA game?  This guy has to be the worst ref/official/umpire in all of professional sports.  Friends of mine keep wondering what blackmail he has on NBA execs to keep his job.  He worked the Laker/Nugget game last night, and if the Cavs-Magic series needs a seventh game, I'm hoping Mr. Crawford isn't on the floor.

Rachel Alexandra, the filly wonder horse that beat all the boys at the Preakness, will not be running at Belmont a week from today.  I'm hoping Calvin Borel gets a ride at the race.  We haven't had a horse win a Triple Crown since 1978, but it'd be nice if a jockey rode winners in all three races.  We have the "Tiger Slam" in golf, why not a "Borel Crown" in horse racing?

The 2009 World Series Of Poker is underway in real time in Las Vegas...although you won't start seeing it on TV until ESPN starts airing it in late July.  The best place, in my humble opinion, to follow the developments is over at Paul McGuire's blog, Tao Of Poker.  If I ever make it big on the felt, this guy's getting my first interview.

OK folks...off to do the weekend thing.

photo credit: roadsidepictures

Post from: Lakeland Local

Originally Published as Postcard from the 50s

This is the time of year when there are a lot of snook hanging around at the Beach, and they are relatively easy to catch... of course, that also means that they are out of season and you have to release them.


Here's a 26 incher I caught this morning.

I wish I had gotten up earlier, but I didn't set my alarm. I didn't get to the beach until 6:30, and then I only fished for about an hour. By then it was light, and people were starting to show up at the beach for the day, which means no more fishing. ...

Did you ever think about how important eating is to living? Unless you haven't eaten for a while, probably not. Did you ever think about how meeting certain people in your life is important to living? Unless you haven't met...

Growing up I remember vividly sitting on my grandfather’s lap while my grandparents and aunt watched the CBS evening news with Walter Cronkite. It did not seem to matter what world crisis Walter Cronkite was reporting on, his closing line “And that’s the way it is” seemed to unite him with his audience in dealing with the day’s trials and tribulations. Whether he was reporting a news story like Watergate, the Kennedy assassination or the Vietnam War, my family hung on his words. There was an integrity about his reporting that gave the impression that though the news may be bad, we were in this together!

Last Saturday my column was written around my impressions around defeatist media and faith community messages. And last Sunday I had the honor of having veteran columnist and reporter Billy Townsend explore my thoughts and column on the subject. Once an investigative reporter for the Tampa Tribune and now writer for Lakeland Local and Metro I-4 News, Billy is the type of journalist who dissects incongruities both in society and every day life. Billy’s scrutiny of the CSX Project both in Tampa and Lakeland has quite possibly saved Florida tax payers a billion dollars.

Billy is a reporter who knows how important truth telling and integrity is in the lives our community and the world. In Billy’s criticism of my article he posed the argument that ” it’s a reporter’s obligation to pursue facts that reflect important national and moral truths accurately - even if they are dark. Honesty can lead to atonement. ” Ultimately, I believe that Billy is asking me if, in my criticism of the media and main stream religion, I desire religion and media to be less realistic and truthful.

To which I need to reply, “By no means!” Billy was absolutely correct in his analysis that ” it’s a reporter’s obligation to pursue facts that reflect important national and moral truths accurately - even if they are dark.” Without question– truth telling, journalist integrity, preaching and faith grounded in hard truthful words, can lead us as a community, and as a nation, to atonement.

However the word –atonement–comes from the Jewish tradition, it depicts the process one goes through in seeking forgiveness and pardoning for their transgressions against ones self, neighbor and allmighty God. Media and religious atonement is more complex than offering up truthful reports or sermons. Atonement, much like –integrity–is about uniting and reconciling one’s self, community and God.

Its was not enough for Mary Mapes to break the news of the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, and the torture of prisoners in Iraq five years ago. It was the unity of the media and the county together that took Mary Mapes’ news team finding about Abu Ghraib and started a ethical discussion over U.S. entitlement as well as war criminal treatment as a whole. The gospel of John might say “it is truth that will set you free”, but it is through integrity and atonement that mankind decides what to do with the freedom and truth they are offered. Watergate was not a scandal that brought down the White House because of the truth shared by reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. It became a dishonorable disgrace when the American public took action and said –enough is enough to Nixon.

Last weeks column, Defeatist Faith, was dwelt with moments. However there are holistic, consistent, visionary media and religious truth tellers throughout our world, even some as close as our own back yard, Lakeland. Writers such as Tich Ni Hon, Mia Angelou, speakers such as Tony Compello, Reverend Bishop Tuto. There are theological rebels pushing both media and religion in the areas of social change and justice. The Methodist de-frocking of Greg Dell for presiding over union services for a same-sex couples; Mother Teresa confronting the Catholic Church over issues of AIDS in Africa; the Dalai Lama standing over a free Tibet and Martin Luther Kings Letter from the Birmingham Jail are only naming a few. The Letter from the Birmingham Jail got so much media attention that it caused President Robert F. Kennedy to say “”If not us, who. If not now, when?”

We are very fortunate that we, in the Bible belt, are in the midst of the clanging symbols of fear, retribution and sin which fill countless sermon space when communities are going through hard times. Lakeland does have religious, social minded ministers which lead the way in their denominations and faith communities. David Colingwoth and his ministry at Wesley Mission with the Parker Street youth and neighborhood. Tim Rice at Trinity Presbyterian is a social voice and continence. Dr. Mike Loudon at First Presbyterian brings together an impeccable historical vision for the integration of a social gospel. These Lakeland leaders and so many lay and ordained like them, seek to give our community integrity by not only sharing – hard truths–but uniting and equipping their church with messages of hope and action. These messages equip our community to atonement for our individual and communal transgression towards their neighbor, self and God.

I believe that we as a society need media’s in-depth journalism, commentary as well as socially minded ministries. The kind of messages that call out injustices, shining a light on the inequalities in our government, communities and world. Just like World War II reporters had to depict and call on the America’s social conscience with regard to Nazi death camps, our media today has the responsibility to not only share the news of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib but also speak life into the genocide in Haiti, HIV/AIDS in Africa, even the apartheid in South Africa. Shining lights on inequalities in our own back yard like the Jena 6, human trafficking and immigration issues.

I do often feel like a great deal of our media is about sensationalism and fear. We as a people of faith need to demand that our religious community’s churches, mosques and temples utilize their Sabbath messages to build unity. More about action and less about fear, more about new life, atonement, and less time immobilizing their communities with blame, brokenness and death. Quality religion, like quality reporting, should shake our homeostasis. But it should also not leave its listeners powerless and directionless. We need messages that call society out of its shell and closer to equality of man and a social gospel. When Walter Cronkite said, “And that’s the way it is” he spoke with the type of integrity that– still depicted truth and call out injustices– but also sought to unite him, his message and his listening audience. Media and religion must seek to share truths that not only inform people but also call them into action, change and atonement.

Post from: Lakeland Local

Originally Published as Religion in the City - Integrity of the Word

This article is sponsored by Tampa Fence. June 1 is, of course, the official start of the hurricane season (not that Tropical Depression 1 seems to have noticed).  Forecasters are predicting an...

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Happy Birthday, Leslie! (My niece who is my same age. Sometimes we felt like two peas in a pod growing up, especially when my mother and my sister (her mother) dressed us like twins. Then, there were our kindergarten teachers who walked us to the middle of the hallway from classrooms at opposite ends so we could "say hello". Duh?!)

BookExpo America 2009 is underway in NYC! This is more of a tradeshow for booksellers and publishing industry types than a than a conference for readers or writers, but there's something for everyone. If you're in the vicinity, stop by the Jacob Javitts Center.

Ever heard of this one? SoCNoC It's pronounced "Sock-Nock", the Southern Cross Novel Challenge, hosted by a writers group out of New Zealand, the Kiwi Writers. This month's write 1k words per day didn't go so well. Too many distractions -- birthdays, school end-of-year events, weekends away, holidays... Know of anything significant going on in June? Other than an end of the month trip, I don't, so I think I have a better shot at remaining focused with this one. I'm going to use it to try to practice writing tight, consistent feedback I got from my contest judges. Do I need a challenge to write? No, but it helps. Gives me a target to shoot for, with some degree of accountability to others.

Is this such a thing as one too many posts on publishing royalties? Nahhh, not if by the time you actually get a royalty check, you'll be a pro in understanding why you got what you got. Here's one more.

Literary agent Nathan Bransford blogged about taking a chance on a young agent.

And another tidbit that comes from Mr. Bransford, author Cynthia posts "Cynsational News & Giveaways, a weekly roundup of publishing news and book giveaways.

Agent Chip MacGregor (doesn't that make him sound like some sort of spy?) gets to the nitty-gritty in plain English (as he always does) on the Google Book Settlement.

Romance University? A blog about all things writing romance. This one still seems to be getting underway, but it looks like it will be fun and informative.

Peace & Blessings,
Patricia
Tampa Bay Writing Examiner

Stay focused. Be deliberate. Believe.

My friends and partners in crime Idoia and Andi both tossed me this One Lovely Blog award. (I'm not sure what the merit of a teacup full of roses is. Personally, I'd offer you a shot of Patron, sea salt, and a freshly cut lime.)

But I want to share the love because I'm constantly discovering new blogs. My reader is getting frightening.

The rules:

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.

2) Pass the award to other blogs that you’ve newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

My newly discovered Lovely Blogs.

• Colleen- The Mess Potential is Exponential is a brand new blog. After witnessing this community rallying around Heather and Mike Spohr, Colleen was moved to start participating. While her family has been supportive, she already caught some flak (Dooce'd, if you will) from friends and associates. I've known Colleen since I was 21, though we only recently reconnected. She is fierce, giving, emotional, and awesome.

• Nic- My Bottles Up is a blog I discovered through Twitter. I think. Nic has a huge personality and a big heart. She's had some tough times and doesn't bitch about them. She recently got her blog all prettied up and I love it. Nic makes me laugh and I'm beside myself with excitement to meet her in a couple of weeks when she visits the Sunshine State.

• Mommy Mae- I am Mommy Mae isn't a newly discovered blog. But I want you to newly discover her. Dude, she sings. As in, on videos. On her blog. And it's beautiful. When she sang for Maddie, I wept and wept. Her kids have awesome names, and she makes quilts. Enough said.

• Brittany - Am completely embarrassed to admit that I only recently discovered Barefoot Foodie. Why? Because I should have been reading her FOREVER. I love her humor. I feel like we could sit around and talk for days. Which makes me a stalker, I think. Hi Brittany! I sort of want to make out with your brain.