I have talked to you all before about the diet I have been forced to undertake to try and bring my cholesterol numbers down out of the stratosphere.
I don’t know how the diet is working in regard to the cholesterol numbers, but one side effect is that I did lose about 27 pounds in two months. I like that.
As the economy slowly begins to improve, finally making headway against the downward pressure of the worst recession in decades, it will almost inevitably follow that development pressure on the Keys will begin again.
And that pressure will run headlong into the current project to establish a hurricane evacuation clearance time for the island chain that meets the state mandate of 24 hours for the permanent resident population.
Gentlemen, and ladies, in case you live on another planet, or never had a Mother, let me remind you that Sunday is that second-most dreaded of holidays.
The first most dreaded of holidays is Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day is the one holiday that us guys can’t forget without paying for it for the rest of the year until we, perhaps, redeem ourselves the following year.
Mother’s Day is the holiday where both sexes can run afoul of the forget-me-at-your-peril lady in our lives.
And just because the lady in your life may not be your Mother, she’s probably Mother to someone or something, like children, or dogs, or cats, or fish, or the neighborhood.
And she expects to be remembered for that effort.
The range of Mother’s Day gifts never ceases to amaze me.
Now that the state has finally come through with at least some of the long-promised money to help us finish the wastewater systems state officials mandated we produce in the first place, a new exodus of long-time Keysians may have been averted.
At least until the next crisis begins slamming already heavily burdened wallets.
This year’s hurricane forecast is out. We are told there will be below average activity in the Atlantic basin this year, and that the strike probability along the Florida coast is hovering somewhere near 40 percent.
And each year when the hurricane outlook is released, some dimwit friend of mine from up north will call and ask the “over-asked” question–”Don’t you worry about getting blown off that little island in a storm?”
The state of Florida, which at one time in recent history mandated that Monroe County find an easy method to reduce hurricane evacuation clearance times from the Keys in the face of major (Category 3 and above), has now decided that worst-case scenario planning might actually be prudent.
And that change in philosophy may have a major impact on the future of residential building in the Florida Keys.
And just when I thought it was safe to cruise through the shopping center parking lot again, I am reminded that it doesn’t have to be an out-of-town car or driver to make all of our lives miserable.
For several years, the shopping center parking lot here on Big Pine had one single space that was close to the entrance door and not a handicapped only space. I watched many a dance of Detroit iron trying to figure out a way to get to that spot. Then, about eight months ago they made that single space a handicapped space and the daily potential metal twisting ballet was over.
With Presidential races now lasting two years or more, it seems as though we’ve been in election season already for a long, long time.
But overlooked in the circus-clown atmosphere of the Republican Presidential primary thus far is that there will be important votes facing us on the local ballot this year.
On the heels of announcements from the local lodging association that this has been one of the best seasons in history for lodging income, comes a little tidbit from the central south portion of the United States.
I get phone calls from all over the country. People come here to visit, get interested in a certain area or certain subject, and sometimes periodically call in to our office to get updates.
And then we get calls from all over the country with people dropping little tidbits of information on us, asking for directions, asking for phone numbers, and even a few seeking people they have lost track of over the years.
I didn’t say all the calls made sense.
The time draws closer when Monroe County officials will have to make a very important decision whether to ensure resident safety or safeguard economic dollars.
County officials and state officials have been working for more than a year to put the basic tenets in place to run the next generation hurricane evacuation clearance time model for Monroe County.
The new model will be based on new population numbers derived from the 2010 census. Since Monroe County is one of the few counties in Florida that lost population in that census, it would seem to follow that our already established evacuation clearance time should drop on its own.
That time is within minutes of the state-mandated 24 hour deadline to be able to clear all the permanent residents out of the Keys in the face of a major storm.
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