If you’re a Tampa Bay area resident, you might want to partake in Creative Loafing’s annual “Best of the Bay” awards before voting ends on Wednesday. It gives you the opportunity to vote on best restaurants, best clubs, best TV personalities… worst politicians, favorite players for the three Major League sports teams in town…

Not sure when the results will show up… But take some time and mark a ballot with your personal faves from around the area.

One of the hot topics around the Tampa Bay metro region right now is the Tampa Bay Rays proposed stadium in St. Petersburg, Florida. I’m not going to bother getting into the arguments but after reading a few knee-jerk reactions and misinformation about the plans… Well, I felt it was important that people actually familiarize themselves with why the Dome was built in St. Petersburg in the first place.

I read Stadium for Rent by local author Bob Andelman during high school and it showed the battle — political and logistical – to get Major League Baseball in town.

It’s out of print but there are copies for sale out there, also the entire thing is available at the above link. It’s very much worth a read for both pro and anti-stadium people. I oppose the stadium for economic issues (the timing sucks, Stu) as well as logistical reasons, but it’s important to be armed with the facts instead of making up hearsay or misconstruing what is really going on.

I plan on buying a used copy of Stadium For Rent for quick reference in the future. I’ve held it in high regard long enough….

So it’s almost nine PM here in Pinellas County and for the day, the Pinellas County official rain gauge has registered over 2.5 inches of rain, and well over 14 for the year.

That’s a sharp contrast to last year where we had only 10 and a half inches of rain going into July.

I’ve been struggling to figure out what is the name of the Typeface being employed by the Tampa Bay Lightning in their (alleged) new logo layout:

In all honesty, the closest typeface I can find to font being employed in the logo is the Star Jedi typeface — yeah, that’s the Star Wars font for all those who don’t want to click on the link. I’ve been searching a few font sites but I’m not even sure where to begin looking regarding this typeface. Some people complain how “Cartoony” the font is, some people complain how “comic book” the font is… Yet it looks like a variant of Ariel or some other standard typeface and not cartooni-ish or whimsical in the least bit (that’s coming from someone who has actually seen what font creators think “comic” or “cartoon” fonts look like).

Any leads to the appropriate type face are appreciated.

I haven’t written much about my health the last few years on der Stonegauge… Mostly because Stonegauge is syndicated on the ever-so-excellent Tampa Blab where some of my blog colleagues (who know me better from my endeavor at Boltsmag or my participation at Sticks of Fire) can get wind of this stuff and start fussing and worrying about me. So can my critics as well with anything personal I write about on here. I’ve had private stuff published on this domain before and had it come back to hurt me. But that’s what happens when you blog, ain’t it?

I’m getting away from the fact that I said I haven’t talked about my health much at all on here lately. For the uninitiated, I suffer from a rare genetic disease commonly referred to as NF2. It’s a nasty little gem of a disease that doesn’t get much attention (besides an odd mention on House M.D. every-so-often). It causes benign tumors to grow mostly on nerves in the body. One of said tumors were the reason I began to lose my hearing as a teen and was rendered deaf 10 years ago last December.

It also gives me the supernatural abilities like super-intelligence, telekenisis and empathy along with…

Wait a minute, that was a John Travolta movie. Never mind.

Seriously… The last time I really brought up (bitched, moaned, vented, etc) my health was the summer and fall of 2003 when I hit a couple of hard patches and was frustrated, scared and just flat out torn up (to put it lightly). Blogging things publicly helped me get my frustrations and worries out in the open… or at least out of my head for the moment until the next panic hit.

It’s 4 years later and I’ve got problems again. Problems in my head this time that get the doctors attention. Now, from the smart-ass perspective, you’d quickly quip “Yeah, anyone who (inserts a thought, political idea, interest, etc) would be classified as having problems in the head!” but it’s a little more serious than that. About 5 centimeters worth of serious. Between-my-ears, behind-my-eyes serious.

I’ve been operated on twice up there before. Both times I had the operations in question out west with one of the top doctors in the world. This time around, I’m sticking in Tampa Bay and trusting a doctor who’s been heralded to me as one of the best in the world. He’s got books and awards and all that jazz. He’ll have some of my old friends along with him to make sure my ABI doesn’t get fudged up and what not.

Still, there are risks and even if they aren’t substantial — what they are is a worst case scenarios. So I worry about that, even though it’s almost like thinking about worst-case stuff when you go out and do day to day things.
“The worst case scenario while driving to the Supermarket to pick up milk is that an out of control mack truck with a drunk at the wheel, plows into my car and explodes…. Oh, and I don’t die instantly on impact!”

Rosy, cheery stuff like that.

So part of my mind (ha — the cause of all my problems) keeps wanting me to be responsible and at least report this upcoming operation, make arrangements for the “just in case”, “worst case scenario” type things. Every other part of me wants the status quo to remain — though that status quo is a deteriorating personal conditions where the changes in my health are more or less subtle until I get to a tipping point and things really get messed up and my life hangs in the balance.

Rosy, cheery stuff like that.

I don’t want to face the idea of things — out of my control — go bad and yet with responsibilities to friends and loved ones, how can I not?

So there has been rain in the Tampa Bay area the last few days, yay rain…

…Whoopty friggin’ do.

Anyone in Pinellas County that wants to think we’re in the clear with drought conditions need only look at the official Pinellas county rain gauge on their web site. It feels sick and cruel that the tally through today (July 2nd) is 10.59 inches of rain for the year.

2007 is half way finished and we’re only about one fifth of the way to the average rainfall total (Clearwater, Florida’s average yearly rainfall total is 49 inches according to Florida Living Network. The St. Pete Chamber of Commerce lists the city of St. Petersburg’s annual rainfall total at 48+ Inches).

We haven’t hit the Fourth of July yet, nor the peak of the hurricane season (two sub-tropical storms and only a bit of rain from both) and I’m fearing how our water outlook will come November.

So for 3 years I have been toiling (off and on) away at Boltsmag. It’s got a reputation as the Lightning Weblog, it’s renown around the hockey blogosphere…

And as of a few days ago it’s linked to on Sports Illustrated’s Tampa Bay Lightning team profile page. How is that for a birthday gift?

What web hosts have servers in Tampa Bay?

No, I’m not talking about Tampa Bay web design and hosting companies who re-sell server space that is located in Maryland, Washington DC, Atlanta, Los Angeles and the like… I mean a web hosting company with tangible server assets here in Tampa Bay (that I can prove that be true by running a tracert on domain names that on said local servers).

I’m curious because I’ve searched in the past for local companies with web hosting packages, and I’ve only found resellers — design companies that sell parts of their server space that they own with third parties.

Late during the summer I made some trips to local thrift stores… Mostly because I was looking to see what was there that I could obtain on the cheap. I was shocked to find a Pittsburgh Penguins old road jersey on the racks for all of $8.25. This was after I had sold (last year) a poor Tampa Bay Lightning jersey on Ebay for $25.

I held onto that Penguins jersey until now – the Holiday season and the middle of Hockey season so I could re-sell it. I’m waiting to see the outcome of this little auction.

(x-posted over at the Sticks)

Last year, I purchased a couple domain names – TampaBayRail.com and TampaBayRail.net. I intended to launch a web site on mass-transit and address the Tampa Bay area as one region. Not a separate-but-equal take that local government has had in the past on transit solutions. But those plans were soon forgotten as other issues worked into my life (including hand surgery, political campaigns and walking the dog).

Now, for those of you aware of what the local blogosphere has to offer, you already know David Pinero has Tampa Rail.org up and running. Pinero’s site is a great civic orientated pro-rail web site. The plan in my noggin’ with my own blog/site were just to ride the “rail” names but talk about all transit issues in general. But all of this is really beside the point, so let’s move on.

Basically, time goes by, the seasons change, the Gators were champs and John Grahame sucks. A few weeks ago I got notification from my domain registration company that both domain names were soon going to expire. I could renew the domain names for however-many-years I’d like or I could simply let them disappear into the digital tumbleweeds of the interweb. They’d likely be snatched up by a spammer or domain-name broker with no interest in Tampa, Tampa Bay, transit in Tampa Bay or rail in the region.

The whole thought reminded me of what happened to the previous official website that the city of Tampa and Hillsborough County operated regarding a rail system. A few years back (2002), those governments held the rights to TampaRail.com (check the wayback machine). For some reason, the powers that be (City of Tampa? Hillsborough County?) let that domain name expire around 2003. The name was quickly snatched up and exploited by a Russian domain name broker. The web site and url shifted to BlueHeronMedia.com, then ended up drifting into oblivion before being removed from their servers. Tampa’s official rail website was as dead as the pro-rail movement in the region. But the movement is now stirring again.

This past summer, we were all witness to the grand spectacle of the Hillsborough Expressway Authority trying to launch a new sprawlway through the region. Along with Mayor Pam Iorio (and the Tampa Bay Partnership and Tampa International Airport) renewing a push for a regional rail system through the Tampa Bay area. Emphasis on the Tampa Bay regionalism of their presented interest.

So, what’s a guy to do? I have control of TampaBayRail.com and .net. I could sell them and possibly recoup some of the costs of the domain names — eventually. Instead, I decided to do some good. I offered both domains to the City of Tampa. You entrepreneurs may see this as a waste of money on my part, but just consider it a good deed.

Suffice to say, the city was receptive of the idea, so both names are now controlled by Mayor Pam. I don’t expect you to see a regional rail website any time soon, but there is the possibility for a united Tampa Bay rail effort on the web — with TampaBayRail.com potentially it’s base location on the web.