shoutfactory YouTube Channel video: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sing "American Girl" (LIVE) on ABC-TV's "Fridays" on June 6, 1980. Uploaded August 1, 2013. http://youtu.be/b2nbHpF7-qk
Personally, I always thought that the camera-work done on this ABC-TV show when musical acts performed was better than over at NBC's Saturday Night Live.
I was just recently back from my freshman year at Indiana University in Bloomington when this particular program first aired, three years after the song had come out on Tom Petty's first album.
The night it aired I'd gone out earlier to theold Rum Runner Bay Bar & Restaurantthat I used to visit with friends who were also going to college out-of-state when I was back from IU for Christmas Break or the summer in the early 1980's.
It was located on the water off of Biscayne Blvd. and N.E. 172nd Street in North Miami Beach -back before Aventura existed, and far too far south to be called "Turnberry"- to meet with some friends I hadn't seen since my visit home at Christmas, since they had a different week for spring break, when I'd driven down to Fort Lauderdale from Bloomingtonwith some friends and would spend all day and most of the night at the excellent Yankee Trader Hotel or at the beach across the street, but would then go home to NMB most nights to crash.
(Loved, loved, loved the Yankee Trader Hotel pool scene!!!
That was like the "W" Hotel concept before there was a "W" concept, or the pool scene on the NBC-TV series "Vegas," but for college kids, and NOT a compete rip-off price-wise.
Every friendly and good-looking coed from a school my friends and I had never heard of, except perhaps from a couple of sentences from Street & Smith's College Football Preview issue, made a beeline from where ever they were for that pool up top with the great view of the beach: Eastern Kentucky University,Central Connecticut State University...
We couldn't believe our luck at being in a place that seemed like we'd literally dreamed it up on the drive down.
As one friend who was a Journalism major at IU remarked about the army of friendly and good-looking college girls in that pre-Internet era, before we could make the hotel Social Media Gold by tweeting about it, "What they lack in fanfare, they make up for in Quality and Friendliness." Yes.)
This was back before the State of Florida changed the drinking age from 18 to 21 -which meant that I could legally drink in my last semester of high school if I was so inclined- we'd meet there and a handful of other places in North Dade and South Broward where we'd all exaggerate how great everything was going for us back at school, especially relationship-wise.
The very big advantage that Rum Runner Bay had was its great central location -and on the water- very attractive wait staff and even better-looking customers, AND, beers from around the world.
Plus the likelihood that at least one or two people we knew from North Miami Beach High School would show up.
It was a very, very sociable place!
Now THAT was a relaxing place!
Wish we had something close to that on the water now in Hallandale Beach.
At some point, according to what Curbed Miami wrote a few months ago, that site of so much fun for me and my friends is going to be a condominium complex called Marina Palms Yacht Club & Residences, and as these things go, it actually looks attractive to me, or at least not hideous or unattractive like so many condos down here that I could name that screw-up or ruin perfectly good locations.
A Boredpanda.com poll of Europeans asked, "Which European country has the most attractive citizens?"
As the above map on the tweet above shows, Sweden won in a landslide, with almost four times as many votes as second-place France, with Spain third and Norway fourth. Yes, seeing is believing! But trust me, Norway is a very, very competitive fourth! Even the armed female Customs officers at Oslo Airport Gardermoen are very, very attractive, which at 6:45 a.m., in the middle of January, after a LONG overnight flight from Newark, was not something I was expecting. But adapt I did! I really like the Oslo Airport, too, since it's very clean and tidy, and if you didn't know any better, you would think it opened last year.
Remember, too, as I've written about here previously, four months from now,low-fare carrier NorwegianAirlines starts non-stop flights from Fort Lauderdale to Oslo on November 30th. With flights to Stockholm and Copenhagen days later.
No more need for pointless flights first to Newark, Chicago, Detroit or Dulles just to fly to Scandinavia.
APRIL 20, 2013
Scandinavian Delight! Starting November 30th, fly nonstop cheaply between Ft Lauderdale and Oslo or Copenhagen on Norwegian.com, and starting December 1st, fly from FLL to Stockholm Arlanda; @Oslo, @norway, @stockholm, @sweden, @copenhagen, @denmark
Tourism game-changer for South Florida travelers & Fort Lauderdale-area businesses -but only if they're smart and start planning now. Ruminations on the upcoming Norwegian.com flights b/w Ft. Lauderdale and Oslo, Stockholm & Copenhagen, and the need for Broward's hospitality industry to take full-advantage of the opportunity; @Oslo, @norway, @stockholm, @sweden, @copenhagen, @denmark
Tri-Rail Coastal Link, partner56239248 YouTube Channel: Tri-Rail Coastal Link, Uploaded April 28, 2013. http://youtu.be/fFZR6ljK3og And as if I didn't have enough to say about South Florida transit issues and the way taxpayers and customers are often taken for granted or treated in either a patronizing or condecending fashion by transit agencies or transit groups, it seems that Tri-Rail is guilty of engaging in historical revisionism, too, as caught byeagle-eyed writer Sean McCaughan, above and below below to devastating effect. Congrats to him for seeing the situation for exactly what it is and not being duped as they intended. http://miami.curbed.com/ Tri-Rail Coastal Link Video Rewrites Miami's History, Gives Richard Florida All The Credit by Sean McCaughan Thursday, May 2, 2013, http://miami.curbed.com/archives/2013/05/02/trirail-coastal-link-video-rewrites-miamis-history-gives-richard-florida-all-the-credit.php
Below is a copy of an email I wrote and sent last Tuesday about the continuing communication and outreach problems afflicting some transit agencies and transit-oriented groups in the State of Florida, far too many of whom, it has been my misfortune to see over the years, have an often over-inflated image of their own role and influence in the larger scheme of public affairs. Some even seem to live in their own world, where they set their own rules. That's a fantasy world, of course, but sometimes, well-intentioned outsiders, like reporters or bloggers, are reluctant to pop their balloon and ruin the illusion they've created of being important. A world where they're rarely if ever held to account by the public at large, and more specifically, by local taxpayers or residents affected by various transit plans and schemes.
Me, I'm not afraid of popping other people's illusions, so this blog post today should be read for exactly what it is -me bursting some bubbles.
That fantasy public policy world I've just described is what many of us who are paying attention think of as the bad side of South Florida policy, where some self-interested types with connections or degrees or letters after their names, often think their access to the public teat is unlimited, and can never be turned off. This allows them, or so they think, to act with varying degrees of patronizing indifference and condescension towards the public and customers. (Think The Beacon Council and MDX, for instance!)
As it applies to the world of public transit and planning and design, they're under the mistaken impression that people who generally are pro-transit, especially those in favor of long-range trains or short-range commuter trains, like me, will just pretend they don't see displays of incompetency, stupidity and arrogance when it's right smack in front of them.
Well, not me.
The email was sent to Broward County Commissioners Sue Gunzburger, Barbara Sharief, Chip LaMarca, Tim Ryan, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, with a cc to Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) Secretary Ananth Prasad in Tallahassee.
It was also sent as a bcc to well over a hundred interested parties located between here and U.S. DOT HQ in Washington, D.C., with multiple stops in Tallahassee, Orlando and Broward County, and, necessarily, included other South Florida mayors, city commissioners and city mangers, as well as to certain selected reporters, foundations, non-profits, transportation websites and bloggers.
Naturally, that list started with the great folks over at Transit Miami. http://www.transitmiami.com/ As much as I'd relish the opportunity to ask the folks at All Aboard Floridaface-to-face at this afternoon's 4:30 p.m. meeting in Miami -with my video camera rolling- how they square intentionally ignoring Broward County 's residents with an honest effort to engage in outreach to the South Florida public, there's zero chance I will be attending it, since going into downtown Miami late in the afternoon is truly a fool's errand. More so if you are starting from Broward County, even if, like me, you're just north of Aventura. Besides, did you see where the geniuses involved have scheduled the meeting? 1600 N.W. 3rd Avenue, as show below in Google Maps.
What a great location for a transportation meeting!
Yes, in keeping with what apparently is the genius brains at work over at All Aboard Florida.
they've consciously chosen to NOT locate the meeting close to the FEC tracks they plan on using in the future,or, anywhere near where the most-likely customers of the service will be coming from, but rather in the Overtown/Culmer neighborhoodof Miami.
Awesome!
For those of you who are reading this far from these shores, or, even those of you reading it closer-at-hand but not hip to that address, it's NOT exactly the safest place in Miami at the time when the meeting will be wrapping up at night.
Congrats for all the bad planning and bad outreach, folks!
Yes, hard as it is to believe, it appears that the folks behind this All Aboard Florida scheme seem not to have even considered the real possibility that prospective customers or taxpayers like you or me can support the overall goal, but NOT like or support going forward with it with the particular group of managers attached to it now, since they sure don't seem very smart or savvy in trying to get their OWN message out to people who would actually be supporters or customers in the future. It's called knowing your universe. (It's like the 'Florida Marlins' screwed-up marketing/outreach for so many years while they were playing at Dolphins Stadium near the Broward and Miami-Dade county line, where, despite well over 60% of their season ticket holders living in Broward and Palm Beach counties because of the ease of the drive to the stadium via the next-door Florida Turnpike, the Marlins refused to show common sense and place a store or even small kiosks at nearby destination shopping malls like Aventura Mall or Pembroke Lakes Mall, where actual baseball fans and families go to shop. No, instead, showing their customary arrogance and bad judgment, they had their one-and-only store located in Little Havana. Really. Yes, the continuing myth of the Little Havana baseball fan dies hard. But the reality was that those fans would listen to the games on the radio (in Spanish) and buy a Marlins ball cap every 5-6 years, but would only actually go to a game every few years. Look how well that worked! Thud. Good luck Marlins getting casual baseball fans who live in or north of Fort Lauderdale to head down to Little Havana with their kids on a Tuesday school night when the Padres and Rockies come to town!) It's just like how beleaguered fans of the Dolphins or the Marlins can root for the players but NOT like or support their owners, and, frankly, rather hope that Stephen Ross and Jeffrey Loria meet their demise sooner rather than later, so that fans don't have to continue to be so conflicted with their emotions towards the teams.
Clearly if ignoring Broward residents on purpose is part of the All Aboard Florida playbook, it's NOT a Silver Linings Playbook, but rather one of a dog chasing its tail, over-and-over. A public policy story that some of us have seen played-out in South Florida for well over forty years already, with all the disastrous and logical results we see around us today as proof. By the way, as of today, May 6th, 24 days since I sent that email to Joseph Giulietti, the head of SFRTA/Tri-Rail, about prospects for a Tri-Rail Coastal commuter station in Hallandale Beach, I still have NOT heard from him or his staff. Too late! My patience with him and their indifference to taxpayers has officially expired. -----
April 30, 2013
1:30 p.m.
Do any of you have any idea why there isn't a single scheduled All Aboard Florida scoping meeting being held in Broward County, esp. In FTL, the only currently-announced prospective station in the entire county?
Prior to starting this email to you today. I checked their website and went through their archives, http://www.allaboardflorida.com/to see if there'd already been a public meeting in Broward somewhere that I somehow missed out on hearing about.
I don't know, maybe something that took place while I was in Sweden back in mid-January, and ignoring everything locally right before my trip?
No, nothing's already been held in Broward-and there's nothing scheduled
for Broward in the near-future, either.
If you know the answer to this question or have a good guess, please let me know...
I'll be sure to mention this lack of common sense to anyone I know whom I run into at the Broward MPO'sCommitment 2040 meeting at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center on Thursday
This screw-up with All Aboard Florida ignoring Broward County residents is just the latest in a series of completely inexplicable decisions involving transit in South Florida that make it hard for a longtime pro-transit advocate like myself to have much faith in either the "system" or the people who are supposed to be running and managing transit and transit-related issues in
South Florida, as well as public outreach.
They always find a way to let you down.
Over two weeks ago, for the second time, I contacted SFRTA/Tri-Rail to get them to say definitively, one way or the other, whether their current plans for utilizing the FEC tracks foresee a train station in Hallandale Beach or not, since their current plans on their website for a Coastal line state that Hallandale Beach will NOT have a station.
But we all know that there can always be closely-held but public information that they have which they have not yet chosen to place on their public website, which is why my email to them needed to be sent -to get the truth.
As you can see at the bottom of this email, I contacted SFRTAExecutive Director Joseph Giulietti on April 12th to get his input, since he'd surely know better than anyone what was what.
And again, I'd already contacted them back in late January with this same basic questions, and never heard anything, which is how and why I specifically wrote to Mr. Giulietti earlier this month.
The response after 18 days: nothing from him, nothing from his staff -just lots and lots of NOTHING.
Like I said earlier, "They always find a way to let you down."
For now, just color me underwhelmed at the self-evident oversights that characterize South Florida transit, where, with the current cast of characters in place making policy decisions that affect lots of people and cities in this region, it's hard not to notice that taxpayers and customers almost always come in last.
DBS, Nine-year Hallandale Beach resident
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This ad appeared in last Wednesday's Miami Herald.
I've got some news to share with you here about the election for the vacant City Commission seats-to-be in Hallandale Beach and Ft. Laudedale come November.
First, the qualifying period in Hallandale Beach will be December 3rd-5th.
The election in both cities will be held on Tuesday January 15th.
The election in Ft. Lauderdale will be for the remainder of the term of Charlotte Rodstrom's seat, as she's now running for the Broward County Commission to replace her husband, John Rodstrom, and in Hallandale Beach, the election will be for the remaining two years of the four-year term of Keith London, who is now running for mayor against ten-year incumbent Joy Cooper.
Not that you asked, but as of now, I don't anticipate running for that city commission seat myself in January if Keith London is elected Mayor, but things could always change over the next five months.
Should Broward school money go to Performing Arts Center renovations?
Michael Mayo
October 12, 2011 5:53 PM
Those are some pretty fancy renovations on the drawing board for the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, including a courtyard café with retractable awnings and something called the Premier Level, where swells can sip cocktails while overlooking the stage.
Is it appropriate for the Broward School Board to contribute $6 million toward the $44 million project?
That's the thorny question facing School Board members. After massive teacher layoffs and cuts to music and arts programs in public schools, the performing arts center is hitting up the school district for a hefty contribution.
Funds are also slated to come from private donors ($20 million-$25 million), Broward County ($12 million), the city of Fort Lauderdale ($4.5 million) and the Downtown Development Authority ($1 million).
The school funding could be a tough sell.
"I value the arts, and I value our partnership with the Broward Center, but we don't have money for ourselves — do we really have the money to be giving it away outside?" School Board member Laurie Rich Levinson told me Wednesday.
Two other School Board members I spoke to, Nora Rupert and newcomer Katie Leach, seemed more amenable to the funding request, but it should make for some interesting debate in the coming months.
"I hope we can come up with these dollars, but I don't know if we can," said Leach, who serves as the school district's appointee to the Broward Center's governing board.
I'm a big supporter of the arts and a big fan of the Broward Center, which has changed the downtown Fort Lauderdale landscape for the better since it opened 20 years ago. But when I first heard about the school funding component for the renovations, my reaction was a strong, "Hell no."
Wrong time, wrong message, wrong everything.
That said, I'm OK with the other three public prongs for the project. It's appropriate for the county, city and DDA to pitch in.
Besides new bars and cafes, the renovations will pay for lighting and sound improvements, upgrades to the smaller Amaturo Theater and a new $8 million education center for students and school programs.
The education center alone makes it a worthwhile investment for the school district, says Broward Center CEO Kelley Shanley.
Shanley tried to convince me the school dollars will be well spent, since the district gets more bang for its buck by combining money with other entities.
The school district was a partner in the arts center's construction 20 years ago, and the school system sends 125,000 kids to the center annually for events and performances. Some are tied to the curriculum, like anti-bullying programs being held this week.
The Broward school money would come from the capital budget, which can only be used for infrastructure and equipment, not teacher salaries or supplies.
Still, as Levinson notes, "The capital budget is running a deficit, and we've got dilapidated buildings and need to update our own technology."
My advice to the Broward Center: Shake those private money trees a little harder. If there's a way to do this without school funds, a lot of teachers and parents will shout, "Bravo!"
Above, a photo I snapped of the red-light camera Warning sign on the north-side of west-bound Hallandale Beach Blvd. at NE 9th Terrace in Hallandale Beach, February 27th, 2011, a bit past sundown. The only reason you see it is because I'm standing on the curb, using my flash.
Below this three-hour old blog post from the Sun-Sentinel'sScott Wymanis a link from the Google Alert on Hallandale Beach I received yesterday to the most recent gullible newspaper that Mayor Cooper was able to peddle her self-servingFlorida League of Cities red-light camera talking points to.
By the way, the red-light camera WARNING sign on west-bound Hallandale Beach Blvd. -two blocks east of 1-95- is STILL almostcompletely hidden to passing traffic, hidden as it is behind the two trees it was placed between. The sign that also ISN'T near a street light.
I was there again last night, and it was as ridiculous as ever. But then they already knew the sign was hard to see even before it went operational on March 1st. On this issue in HB, as with so many, self-evident facts don't really seem to matter much, do they?
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South Florida Sun-Sentinel Broward Politics blog Fort Lauderdale accident data cast cloud over reliance on red-light cameras By Scott Wyman April 5, 2011 07:13 PM
The use of cameras to catch red-light runners may not be as effective at improving traffic safety as expected, according to an early review of accident data by the city.
The Fort Lauderdale Police Department told city commissioners Tuesday that accidents increased in the last four months at two of the six intersections with cameras, compared to the same time a year ago. Collisions declined at three and remain the same at the sixth.
