Arson and Cigarettes

Red lights flashing, betraying the dark of night.
Lucky Strikes laid upon the ground, things to come.
Eyes in the alley, searching, seeking, knowing.

Air full of nicotine, flesh, pain.
Retribution smiled, things to come.
Footsteps near, evil arrived.

For I am the the one of Arson and Cigarettes, I have no fear.
You have taught me well, I have no fear.
I bring you death, pain and tears.

For I am the one of Arson and Cigarettes, I am your fear.

Bluefield West Virginia, Flickr, Photo Thieves

So a few years ago I bought a piece of property in Bluefield West Virginia and the following spring I went up to visit the property and roam around West Virginia. While in Bluefield I took many pictures of the town and some of the pictures I took were of the Hotel Matz and the Colonial Theater. Yesterday I received a comment on one of the pictures and they told me the Hotel Matz had collapsed and it had also destroyed the front of the Colonial Theater. A bummer because they had been left to rot for way too many years. Anyhow I decided too see if I could find any pictures of the collapse on Flickr. Although there were none at the time I did discover something else. I found that some fuckhead with the Flickr name, randygilpin, has stolen some of my pictures and pictures of one of my Flickr contacts. This douche had two pages of pictures in his stream all of Bluefield and all of them stolen. Nice work sheet stain. Both of us have contacted Flickr and your stream will be taken down. What the fuck makes you think you can do this? Now let your Mom out of your bed so she can make your breakfast asshole.

House Cleaning

Wow, the Bucs sure did some house cleaning yesterday getting rid of some major players. Derrick Brooks and Warrick Dunn were big surprises. After all that Derrick has done for this team over the years they could have treated him a little better than by just releasing him. But it is about money so I guess it is to be expected. It will be a vastly different team next year for sure.

fadingamerica.com

It is up and running in its infancy. Still need to figure out a few things but at least it is running.

Let me know what you think and give me tips. This is what I hope to be the beginning of some type of career in photography. Now I really need to go out and get some shots on a regular basis.

http://www.fadingamerica.com/

Its time

Well it is finally time to start to riding my bike every day and lose some weight. If I do not lose some weight and lower my cholesterol then I have to go on meds. I have three months to lose 20 pounds or so. I guess I will ride in the morning before I do anything else. Hopefully I can get it done. I do not have any desire to go on cholesterol medicine at all.

Once the time changes I can take the bike of the trainer and start riding after work. I would like to have most of the weight lose before the heat gets to be unbearable.

Artist of the Day---Johnny Cash

Killer version of this Soundgarden song. This opened Johnny to a whole new group of music fans.

Harvest Time

Gotta love this time of year in Florida. The weather is just about perfect and it is fresh strawberry time. Went out this morning and picked up a half flat for $7.00. That will last a little bit. Fresh strawberries with cereal for breakfast. Some with milk for a snack. Can't ask for much more than fresh strawberries, well fresh from the field blueberries I would take first. However I think you get the point. I also picked up a bunch of collard greens. Think I will cook them up and throw in some pieces of bacon or some other pork product and I will have a nice little meal there.

Off to see Johnny Lang at the Clearwater Seafood and Blues Fest.

Mortgage Bailout.....err Stimulus

Well the real estate mess now gets their bailout, stimulus or whatever you want to call it. I hope that the deserving homes owners actually get help. I suspect that when the plan goes into action and the gov't starts looking at the numbers they will find a great deal of home owners who do not qualify for the new bailout. There are way too many who never ever should have received a loan. I also think that there a great number of people who expect this will somehow stimulate the whole real estate market and values will rise again like they have in the recent past. Homes prices should reflect the income of the people residing in that area and that is one thing that has not happened. We also need builders to stop building. They have overbuilt so much that we have a huge surplus of residences and we do not need more building. If they slow down building that will help values rise and the demand increases. In the Tampa market there are no shortages of homes, condos and such. There are still way too many that are priced way too high and those are going to sit for a long time.

Richard Florida

Here is an interesting article on the economic crisis. I suggest one takes the time to read this.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/meltdown-geography

Richard Florida has always had some interesting ideas that I have found very interesting.
He does not look at things the same way most economists do, I'll guarantee that much.

I see the Tampa area as an area that will ultimately suffer for some time. They built and built homes for many years that were very expensive for the Florida market and I always wondered where all these people were coming from to buy these homes and where were these people working. Well the jobs and salaries were never here and now we are beginning to see the big decline. The economy here was built on the back of the home building explosion and there were no "real jobs" to support the continued growth. The real jobs I am talking about are tech jobs and things of that nature, not retail jobs that pay nothing but are needed to support an ever growing population. I may be wrong but I do not think so.

A few days away

I am off the Daytona for a few days to catch a llttle racing a stay with some very good friends. Basically they are like family. It will be fun and is much needed.

If the world goes crazy I will jump on their computer and get things fixed. Otherwise it is up to therest of you to keep things right.

Team Obama

Ok team Obama is seems like it might be a good time to step back and review your plans on rescuing the economy. From my view point it seems that your plans for the credit crisis have been meet with an underwhelming response to say the least. It may have been better to say nothing until you had a concrete plan to reveal to the public. We need solid ideas not generalities.

The stimulus plan appears to be in chaos really. I suspect most people really do not seem to be favor of it because it has not been explained fully or to our satisfaction.

I am here if you need some help in getting this fixed.

Give me the money

Ok here is the real plan. Give each taxpaying citizen a real piece of the stimulus. Give us a check for $5000.00 or if you do not want us to save the money give some type of credit card that is good for 6 months. That way we have money and I guarantee that a stimulus of that dollar amount will have real benefits.

Two of the things in the stimulus bill are a $15,000.00 tax credit if you buy a home and an incentive to buy a new car. Are you f**ck**g kidding me? No I suppose not. We are not going to buy homes or new cars unless we feel our jobs are secure and I bet a large number of Americans do not feel secure about there jobs. The other thing I keep hearing is the insane notion that we need to start to buy homes so local gov'ts can begin to get new tax dollars to run their locality the right way. The problem with this as soon as sales begin to make an advance of any kind the banks, mortgage brokers, real estate agents and speculators are going to swoop in screw things up again. To fix the situation with current homeowners the gov't needs to force banks to negotiate with the homeowner and come up with a plan that works for both. If the bank does not work in good faith then they go the arbitration. If banks fail to do this they lose all money they have in the pipeline and must pay back money given earlier on in 90 days. If they fail here the gov't takes the bank over and puts it up for sale.

Do you or have you trusted a bank in the last twenty years?

I bet the real estate market will bottom out and the rebound will go through the roof and 5 years from now the real estate market will be in the same situation if we do not keep the screws tight on that whole market.

Weeping Memories

Memories shrouded in a hazy fog

Open wounds casting glances, mouth agape, frozen in time

Powerful years now relegated to the fields

Courage now bound, rusted springs

Staring out as revival passes by

Looking back at directions unknown

Falling victim, progress surges seemingly blind

Open your eyes, I am here.

Typical American Failure

So we were supposed to have our television signals switch over to digital broadcasting on February 17th. Now this has been delayed until June. The real reason in my opinion is because we are inept and lazy as a people. The decision to do this was passed in 2005 and people still are not ready to make the change. Well I am sorry but we should not have made to decision to delay. Where do these people live that they are not aware of this. Some have delayed doing anything because they are constant procrastinators, while some people just never would be aware no matter what. So now the leaders in Washington pass a bill saying the switchover is in June yet they have provided no money to the bill for people to get more coupons. All you need to do is hire more staff to answer all the mail coming into the coupon center, have a printer produce the coupons at a faster rate than is currently being done and get the things out to the public. Face the fact the some people will never be ready until they turn their television on and have no signal. That will be a powerful motivator for those who screw around and wait until the last minute.

WTF

All these people are so freaked out the Michael Phelps smoked pot. Big friggin deal. Its pot, not crack or heroin, just a little old natural weed. Get over it. He lost the Rosetta Stoned endorsement deal because of it, just plain stupid. Now the police in that county are investigating and my bring charges, a big waste of time and money. And for the dirtbag who took the picture and sold it to the newspaper, well your time is coming buddy. You are a slimebag.

What the hell is it with all these politicians not paying taxes. Nice example you set for the rest of us. Maybe we should audit all the congressman and senators and see what we can dig up. Does not seem too hard. And how do the three from Obama's cabinet choices get off with no trouble from the IRS. The other thing is how wealthy are Geithner and Daschle. Daschle paid close to $140,000 in taxes and fines while Geithner paid close to $35,000. Do any of you have that kind of money just sitting around?

Ruby C. Williams

Recently I took a little roadtrip on a Sunday morning out to Bealsville, Florida just east of Tampa to a little roadside stand that I had passed many many times over the years. I was always fascinated by the place because of the large number of signs and art that were displayed on the property. It was early in the morning and the stand was not open so I pulled over took a couple shots and headed home with plans on going back to see it all when the stand was open. I had found out through some research that the stand was owned and operated by Ruby C. Williams a renowned southern folk artist, also known by many as outsider art. So yesterday I decided to take a ride out and see Ruby and her art. When I arrived Ruby was standing near the road waving to everyone as they drove by. She was hoping to get people to stop in and purchase some produce. She has strawberries, collard greens, mustard greens and turnips right now. All fresh from her garden except the strawberries which are grown up the road from her stand. I pulled in and Ruby came up, shook my hand and we commenced to talking. I was there for an hour and a half. We talked about her art, she showed me a number of her pieces, told me some stories about being in a Smithsonian art show. We talked about a bunch of things, just let the conversation go wherever it wanted. I asked her if I could take some pictures of the artwork and signs outside. I told her I would like do a small photo book of the stand and I would give her a few copies and she said that was fine with her. So this is now my project. I am going to come up with a book of her produce stand and artwork and see what will become of this.

If you get a chance stop by and talk with Ruby. She is one of the kindest and nicest people you will meet. Your day will be better for it. I guarantee.