Monday, October 30

Local Haunts - A New Jaxperience

I was stuck with a weekend lineup that did not interest me, so I tuned into Local Haunts, mostly because of the cheesiest intro ever. It's a local Jax version of Ghost Hunters or the like. Steve Christian and Pamela Theresa are the stars of this show, and it's something. Steve is the tech guy and Pamela Theresa is the medium, meaning she can communicate with spirits without gear. The rest of the crew fits well into the stereotype of what a paranormal investigation team might resemble. What I mean is they seem legit in some way, like they LARP hard on non-investigation weekends. Or work as zombie or UFO-abductee extras in local college films.

Tuesday, October 24

Cell Towers That Look Like Giant Trees Look Like Cell Towers Dressed Up As Giant Trees

cell tower that looks like a tree

When I got off the #10 bus the other day, I looked up over some apartments and saw what looked a little like an artificial Christmas tree trying to cover a cell tower. I'd never seen this before. Generally, cell towers look like cell towers. This one looked like a cell tower, too, but like it was wearing a disguise. A bad disguise, really. It's not blending in with the other trees because it's three times taller. And it looks like it's mostly dead. Then there's the giant nest on top. I suppose it might be aesthetically pleasing from a mile away, but for the people who live right next door, this doesn't really do the trick.

Monday, October 23

Time to Find Out: What Are People From Jacksonville Called?

I've been making assumptions about the name of people from Jacksonville, but I have yet to look it up. In fact, I will wait until I offer my best guesses before I actually look for the real answer. I know I am now a Floridian (which means I need to drive around shirtless more often), but I'm still trying to figure out my city and county name for myself.

Saturday, October 21

Is It Legal To Shoot My BB Gun In My Back Yard In Jacksonville?

I took my son to a Cub Scouts New Cub Shooting Sports event because he was a new Cub Scout to the area. I'll post more about that in another article, and maybe I'll save you some heartache. The experience got me to wondering if I could set up a target in my back yard rather than waiting for an hour and fifteen minutes to shoot five arrows and a few BBs. However, even after doing some research, I'm still not sure whether or not BB guns are legal in JAX.

Thursday, October 19

What's With The Fog Lights, Jacksonville?

I wrote a decent article last year about why you don't need to drive around with fog lights on all the time. But that was back in Kansas/Missouri, where I estimated around 10% usage of fog lights for no reason. I estimate upwards of 20% of Jacksonvilleans use fog lights all the time, at least over here in Arlington. In fact, my estimates tend to be 20-30%, based on the scientific method of counting cars when I drive down the street.

Wednesday, October 18

Action News JAX Busy Mom Ad Should Bother Us

Arielle Nixon
I'm all for good-looking moms who want to take care of themselves. That's not my issue with the Action News JAX ad. The problem is that the ad depicts an alternate reality that is not obtainable by most of us. Let's take a look at the ad storyboard and break it down for analysis.

Monday, October 16

Fall Family Fun: Amazing Grace Crop Maze Review

If you live in Arlington, the options for fall festivities on anything resembling a farm seem to be limited to an hour's drive. That's not a huge deal, but since we figured this might be our last year convincing the kids they want to participate in some of the activities, we wanted to make it one of the more interactive attractions. That left it between Amazing Grace and Conner's A-Maize-Ing Acres. The main reason we chose Amazing Grace was the slightly lower price, teacher discount, and the fact that we were a little uncomfortable with the Redneck Olympics at Conner's. Overall, it was a decent (and pricey) outing that was a little less than expected.

Saturday, October 14

Historical Places - Mosquito County, Florida

I love it when people are literal in naming of places. Obvious names, like Steep Canyon, are more fun than British aristocratic names, like any number of Jamestowns. Even modern desires to somehow connect with ye olde England leads to stupid modern subdivision and cookie-cutter home names like The Kensington.

Monday, October 9

Brooklyn Cyclones Fitted Cap in Blue With White and Red Logo

Sorry, I don't have this hat available for you to purchase. That's what I was trying to do in order to play with the Bold City Cyclones of the Jacksonville MABL/MSBL. But it's not as easy as you might think to find some other city's obscure minor league team when you can barely find your own city's obscure minor league team gear at any stores.

X102.9 is Jacksonville's Alternative, Kinda -- And Now It's 106.5

I have to admit I listen to X102.9 in Jacksonville. The station goes out of its way to claim to be alternative. I like that. I listened to true alternative stations in Milwaukee and Kansas City, so I was hoping for a little more of that. X102.9 is kinda like those stations, but not quite. I knew this for sure when one of my son's fellow fourth-graders said this when we gave him a ride: "102nine; I love that station."

PO Problems: Dishwasher Disconnect

Dishwasher never hooked up

If you have a previous owner, then you have problems. Here's one of ours: the dishwasher disconnect.

Our inspector ran the dishwasher. I told him we wanted to make sure it was working, since the last house we'd bought and had inspected was lacking electricity to the kitchen. That was odd, but this house was newer and in a fancier neighborhood, so we did not expect anything odd at all when it came to the dishwasher.

Friday, October 6

Are There Any Rare Books at The Jacksonville Public Library?

I was doing research on local history, and I figured maybe the library would have some books for me. I was kind of right, maybe. I found a rare books page https://www.jaxpubliclibrary.org/rare-books-manuscripts . It seems to list a few books, but only a few. And all the links are dead. No pdf versions of the books or image galleries.

Tuesday, October 3

The Sketchy History of Fort Caroline

I took the tour of Fort Caroline with my kids' school. It was an interesting tour, but I wondered a bit at some of the history being taught, so I researched it on my own. Basically, it's a time of sketchy history, and probably the best accounts are buried in France or Spain, but I figured I'd weigh in on some what I learned.

Sandalwood Teacher Web Pages Make Me Wonder If That's The Place For My Kids

When I was teaching, I had possibly the best Language Arts (English) high school teacher website ever created: menofalls.com. It's gone now, but here's another one I created simultaneously for our department https://sites.google.com/site/brianjaegerenglish/ and another one I created so that I could use the computers the school district was implementing: https://sites.google.com/site/brianjaegerteachingpage/welcome 

Sunday, October 1

Did Jacksonville Never Have Ice Hockey Before?

I saw this ad that I clicked on that was about the Jacksonville Icemen. The website seemed to be mostly about the legacy beginning, leading me to believe this is the initial year of the team.

This assumption was confirmed after some searching, though the city did have a hockey team named the Lizard Kings for about five years. After reading a bit about the history of the ECHL, I have to wonder a bit about this whole minor league hockey thing.

Contact Brian

Name

Email *

Message *

Pennies From Heaven AKA Welfare for Writers

The reason why we have ads on this site is because that's one way writers make money online. Your presence on this site right now might make a penny for our family. Clicking on an ad might get us closer to $.50. Buying something online as a result of clicking on a link can make us a few dollars. We will not get rich from this money, but every penny helps out. Every like or share or re-post or follow. Please, make a donation to our family by clicking.

JAX Weather

Labels

Jacksonville jax money Florida crime housing activities vehicles economic development school home news transportation planning police Duval website design kids politics traffic research TV neighbor reviews sports taxes parks statistics East Arlington writing history environment St. Johns roads travel water employment fun men previous owner rankings Arlington weather women beach review business church jaguars pollution dating fashion football guns hurricane library race tourism fatalities health care zoning baseball music JEA Mayport restaurant summer animals games military unf Lyft St. Augustine education flooding pets spanish AC Halloween farms film french hockey noise ocean po radio Duval County Fletcher high school armada cats christmas controversy debate decision fall fort caroline style superhero 2021 AAA Roadside Assistance Advice Blowhard Cambridge AICE County Sheriffs Duval County Public Schools Easter FDOT FL Google Gyros Haretna Hilton Honors James jaeger Kernan Boulevard Lutheran Milano's Ocala Pressers SEO St. Johns County Starbucks T-shirts Tim Tebow VW acting ad of the week addiction again all balls arts asked avoid behavior belief best bi-polar boo celebration chances chump colleges column common comparison consequences councilmembers credit card cuisine difficult to use don't work doors driving games entertainment experience expression faith finding food frustration future gambling gaming gas station grass hack handles high school exchange homes housing market humor illegal traffic stops impact importance improve indians informed infrastructure insightful issue. killing language last chance light boat parade lights local dating scene lottery love made mascot meaning mental health merchandise mistakes mood swings no U-turn sign no brains notebooks opening opinion origins ownership party paying for hotels personal opinion pet ownership pitbull play players pooper popular pound sand program protect real estate reason reform religion request revenue rewards program rights road trip save school identity school pride school spirit service simple sketchy slang someone state struggle support system take down taste teachers thank you timucuan traffic laws traffic stop universities unpredictability usage vehicle pet peeves welcome workplace