When the Superbowl comes to Tampa, there are always a ton of exciting events going on all around the Bay area. It’s festive, invigorating even. The last time we hosted the Superbowl, I regretted not spending more time down in Ybor City and in around the hot parties and all of the hot spots where celebrities were spotted night after night.

However, that was a few years back. I’m past my partying days and more concerned with finding fun family activities to do with my daughter this weekend. I have had it in my head all week to go over to Apollo Beach tomorrow. Another cold snap hit town and that means another good time to go over to the Manatee Viewing Center.

I mentioned my plan to one of my friends last night and she asked to come along. The more, the merrier. I mentioned the plans to another friend this afternoon and she reminded me that the traffic in Tampa is horrific right now. This weekend is just going to be insane with the additional people in town for the game and the parties. An awful lot of out-of-towers are clogging up the roads in rental cars. It’s not pretty.

Unfortunately, the quickest route to Apollo Beach is across the causeway and through Tampa. Apollo Beach is just a little south of Tampa. And while it is just across the Bay from me as the “crow flies”, I’m no bird and need to use a bridge. Someone suggested heading south, taking the Skyway and coming back up the other side of the Bay. Yikes, I hate taking the Skyway – it sways!

So, right now I am in flux. I need to call the friend going with us and see if she has any input. The thing is, she rarely does.

It pains me to think of missing this opportunity. The next time I have my daughter for a weekend is two weeks away and I cannot know now if it will be chilly enough to attract the manatees.

*sigh*

All I hear on the local news is Super Bowl this and Super Bowl that. Tampa has been taken over by Super Bowl fever. The fans are swarming, both teams have been in town since yesterday, and you can almost feel the vibration of excitement in the air. I’m not so sure it’s actual football mania as much as having the spotlight on our region.

Anyway, the Superbowl means time to get out your best game day recipes. For me, it means Emerson Lanes Hot Dog Sauce. Emerson Lanes is a bowling alley where my dad bowled on a league for years and years. They have, hands down, the best hot dog sauce I have ever tasted. Thankfully, they are not secretive about the recipe and hand it out if you request it.

Emerson Lanes Hotdog Sauce
This recipe makes enough to feed an entire bowling team!

5 pounds ground beef
1 onion
5 teaspoons chili powder
5 teaspoons dry Italian seasoning
5 teaspoons salt
5 teaspoons red pepper
5 teaspoons garlic salt
2 1/2 teaspoons oregano
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 can (#6) tomato paste
2 1/2 cans (46 ounces) tomato juice

Bring all ingredients to a boil. Lower heat and simmer two to three hours until thick.

Add 1/4 pound cooked pinto beans or kidney beans ground or mashed near the end of the cooking time.

NOTE: I add cumin to taste and think it turns out best this way.

Florida is an absolute wealth of things to do. Of course, if you are vacationing there you are probably thinking more along the lines of week-long excursions and major attractions. Living here, though, is all about the amazing day-trips we have at our fingertips all year ‘round.

The new exhibit at the Orlando Science Center is Grossology. It premiers January 31, 2009

Grossology is actually a phenomenon that started with the book by Sylvia Branzei called Grossology: The Science of Really Gross Things! We use it in the school, because the kids absolutely love it. It’s engaging, interesting, hilarious, and genuinely informative. That book led to several others in the Grossology series.

Now, you can experience Grossology hands-on with Grossology: The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body at the Orlando Science Center. This is actually the second Grossology exhibit at the Center. Adults and children alike were delighted with Animal Grossology in 2006.Other area attractions might have spinning teacups and pirate rides, but where else can you go down a 30-foot long slide that travels through a 3-D model of the digestive system? How cool is that?

Grossology Exhibit – Orlando Science Center
The Center is open Sunday – Tuesday: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and
Thursday – Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. You can order your tickets online, or call 888.OSC.4FUN for more information.

The last time the Superbowl was in town one of our local “rag” papers devoted an entire issue to Tampa’s sex industry. They had articles on where to do to find a hooker, how to avoid getting arrested while doing so, lists of all the strip bars, lingerie modeling shops, sleazy massage parlors, and the like.

Unfortunately, Tampa Bay’s adult industry thrives during mass events like the Superbowl. I say unfortunately for a couple of reasons.

First, it sickens me to think of the type of person who leaves their family to attend the Superbowl and then also partakes of hookers and lap dancers. It’s bad enough that men cheat on their wives and girlfriends, but to take the kind of risks using a se worker offers and to spend money on sex in a time when so many families are feeling a financial squeeze is just pathetic.

Also, it is just flat out sad that of all the things Tampa is “famous” for, one of them happens to be our sex industry. The city of Tampa alone has 30 licensed adult dance clubs, adult theaters, live model studios and adult bookstores. It’s pretty much the highest rate per capita nationwide. And, that’s just the city of Tampa.

I suppose one clue to the leniency of our laws might be that no matter where you go in the Tampa Bay area, you can find bars with nude dancers in strip malls right next to family restaurants. There are adult bookstores on the main highways, sitting next to car dealers and office supply stores. There is an all-nude “gentlemen’s club” with a parking lot that bumps right up next to the grocery store around the corner. The zoning here is insane.

Clubs like the Mons Venus are planning on getting as much out of the Superbowl as possible. The cover charge will possible go up to $60, from the typical $20. One dancer there said she made $6,000 in four days during Tampa’s 2001 Superbowl game.

In reality, lap dancing is now illegal in Tampa. This was a huge headline story a few years back. Nude dancers are supposed to remain at least 6 feet away from customers at all times. However, most dancers and most club owners laugh in the face of that law.

Escort services are gearing up for the Superbowl as well. One service is even offering a 10% discount to Super Bowl customers. At $250 an hour or $1,800 for an overnight – I suppose 10% helps. Of course, it could also save someone a lot of money if they would just learn some social skills and find a real girlfriend. You cave to really wonder about the mentality of the customer one escort service owner referenced who is coming into town and hiring an escort for a 7-day stint. Lonely much?

One shining light in the midst of all this filth? Undercover operations have been in full swing for a while now in preparation for the Superbowl. Informants are allegedly in place at pretty much every adult entertainment establishment in the area. So a note of caution to all of you people of questionable morality coming into town, leave enough cash for your bail.

A lot of the conversations I have with the other teachers at the high school are about college plans for the kids. I suppose that coming from a home where it was always just assumed that I would go straight from high school to college; it feels odd to me how many kids I interact with now are not planning to go to college. In fact, when I think back to the people I went to high school with, most were college bound. Those who were not were almost always involved in a vocational program during high school.

Our kids here in the district do have access to various vo-tech programs. However, so many of them are just drudging through high school, doing just enough to pass from one grade to the next. If you have the pleasure of having the time to sit down with them and talk about the plans they have for after college, so very many of them have just not given it much thought. They are very focused on graduating their plan ends there. Well, ends might be the wrong word. What I mean is that the days after graduation are just a grey fog of generalization right now.

Yes, there are those who have already been accepted to colleges or are at least interested in thinking about their college plans. There are many who are looking at a career in the military. There are others who have vague plans about attending a vocational program after high school.

I personally do not think our kids have enough access to technical and vocational school programs during high school. Yes, the opportunities are absolutely there after high school, but so many of them could get a head start if they were involved in one of the programs within the district that they could be working on right now. And, since it would be part of the public school system, it would not cost them anything to get that head start.

I was looking over an online technical and vocational school guide and it gave me a lot of hope for so may of the kids I teach. Many of the careers I saw kids writing about for their senior research papers are careers they can have access to via technical programs, rather than a traditional 4-year college. And while I am a fan personally of a traditional college degree, I see so much merit in technical programs that move directly to prepare individuals to work in a specific career area. I’d like to see more of my students take advantage on the training and preparation they offer.

This is the time of year for manatee viewing in Florida. Of course, you can always go to places like Homosassa Spring Park to see manatees that have been injured in the wild and live there all year long, but for the most part the best time to see manatees is when the waters get cold and the gentle mammals move to find warmer water.

I was just talking the other day with one of the biology teachers about a fieldtrip she wants to take to Apollo Beach and today I saw an article in the paper about the same spot. With all of the cold weather we have been getting in Florida, the manatees are gathering more than ever in places like Tampa Electric Co.’s Manatee Viewing Center in Apollo Beach.

There are reports of as many as 50 manatees gathering in the warmer waters of the Big Bend Power Station this week. The viewing center is located at the west end of Big Bend Road in Apollo Beach, which is on the east side of the Tampa Bay, south of Tampa and pretty much parallel with St. Petersburg.

We also generally have a family of manatees that come to the lagoon in Tarpon Springs each winter. I have not been up there yet this year to see if they have come to visit again. I’ve also spotted them while standing on the pier of the Safety Harbor Spa in Safety Harbor, FL. Those would be easier drives for me, but the situation in Apollo Breach has the benefit of pretty much ensuring that you will see of the many manatees that are there to enjoy the warm waters generated by the power plant.

So, we never did see snow in Florida the other night, but it was sure cold enough. Those of you up north probably think I’m grousing for nothing. I know you’ve seen colder weather by far, but when you get used to the weather in Florida, a morning when its 35 degrees will really throw you for a loop.

For one, most people in Florida don’t really own clothing appropriate for very cold weather. I saw kids at school yesterday who showed up in t-shirts and shorts, because they assumed the day would warm up into the 70, like it generally does this time of year. Those poor kids were miserable when we ended up sitting outside on the bleachers for over an hour while the police swept the school after the bomb threat that was made over the weekend. I think I felt the worst for the girl I saw who was wearing a skirt and sandals.

My wardrobe isn’t much better. I realized this morning I only have three pairs of long pants to wear to work. The rest of my pants are Capri length.

We’ve got a hard freeze warning over a good portion of the state for tonight. I live along the west coast, so my immediate area is a small region that will probably only see frost. Our strawberry farmers over near Dover are on full alert, though. A hard freeze is never good for our berry crop.

The tourists I saw over at the beach on Sunday were shocked at the weather. People come to Florida all year for vacations, but in the winter they are especially looking forward to a warm paradise that will allow them to escape the cold at home. We surely aren’t enjoying beach weather right now! If you’re going to enjoy water sports here this week, bring a wetsuit.

Could be.

Tomorrow we actually have a snow advisory or something along those lines. It could come as far south in Florida as Pinellas County. I know I have seen snow in Gainesville before, but never here near Tampa. I am a few miles from the Gulf of Mexico and if I see this happen I will have seen it all.

Of course, there is the little matter of a bomb threat for tomorrow at the high school, too. Yikes, huh?

…and some men, too.

Working at the high school has made me remember why I liked being around academics so much. I’m not saying that my life has been devoid of contact with intellectual people these last several years, but the contact has indeed been scant. Even when I was working at the publishing house and then running the art division for a manufacturing company back before I decided to quit working out side the home to be with my family, I still found myself surrounded by people who were not as enthralled with the concept of ongoing education as me.

Those of you out there that teach at the university level may turn up your noses at the idea that a high school is filled with the intellectual and the very highly educated, and that’s really a shame. While I expected to meet a lot of people who were certainly at least qualified to teach when I started at the high school, I had no idea how many of them would have advanced degrees and be so self motivated when it comes to ongoing education. There is a TRUE love for learning happening at my place of employment, folks.

My headline referenced woman, brainy women to be exact. It is not as though this is a high school comprised only of female educators, but as is the case with most any public school – most of the teachers are women. I work with many of the men, too. One has more advanced degrees than I can count on my fingers. However, it is still the women I witness striving harder to obtain new information every step of the way.

I love being surrounded by brainy women. I used to think that I worked better with men in the workplace. Now I am just looking back at my former jobs and realizing I got along better with the more intellectual people in my offices, and they were generally men. What I see now is that when it comes to those who are learned, academia is the field that appreciated and rewards smart women more than possibly any other field. This is the field where you rarely have to wonder if you lost out on a job you were more qualified for just because the other candidate was a man.

Today was the first day of finals exams for the first semester at the high school. What a crazy day. I am not sure how I feel about the District allowing students in all grades exempt exams. I understand seniors with good grades and attendance being able to do so, but I think it is a reward you need to earn and giving it to just seniors would make it so much more special. Of course, it’s not my call.

We had a staff meeting and they served pizza and brownies. Pizza and Brownies! Are you kidding me? *sigh* I love pizza and brownies, very much so. But, you will all be happy to hear that I was VERY good. I sat and socialized and did not touch a single bite. I snacked on pumpkin seeds throughout the day, so my hunger was in check. I just had to hold back on the sheer desire to eat such yummy food. It’s getting easier as time goes by, and I have to remind myself that in the first month of my diet I lost 17 pounds. Not bad, huh?

After the 2008 gas price fiasco, we started off 2009 right. Gas prices here in my part of Florida hovered right around $1.50 a gallon. The, last week they shot up 20 cents everywhere. I tried to look at the going price per barrel to gain some insight into WHY the prices went up, but I could not locate any information that made sense. I grudgingly filled up my tank and wondered what might happen next week.

AAA Auto Club South keeps tabs on gas prices in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee and says the cost per gallon of regular gasoline did indeed rise about 20 cents all around our region this past week.

Here’s the part that might make you angry. Those gas prices went up, but the closing cost for a barrel of oil actually went DOWN last week, to $5.51 less than the prior week. Oil closed on Friday at $40.83 a barrel – down about $9 from, earlier in the week.

AAA is saying that the lower oil prices might finally have an effect on gas prices this coming week.

I was just talking to one of the other teachers at my school Friday about the odds of Tim Tebow staying for one more year to play football at the University of Florida. We were speculating about whether or not he would accept his placement in the draft this season or wait it out another year. We were also excitedly wondering what the Gators might look like next year if decided to stay.

Today Tebow announced he will indeed stay at UF for his senior season! UF is already a force to be reckoned with when it comes to so many of their sprits teams and now this just about seals in the reality that next year’s Gators football will be astounding.

All of Florida rejoices!

It’s funny that I would look at current headlines and see a peanut butter recall due to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened people in 42 states since September. OK, not Ha Ha Funny, but the kind of funny that makes you grimace uncomfortably.

I was just with one of my students last week as he sat in his Nutrition and Wellness class learning about food borne illnesses. The kids were mostly shocked to hear that you can get salmonella poisoning from tainted peanut butter. They were actually surprised at quite a lot of information contained in that particular lecture.

And so here we are, looking at yet another food recall involving peanut butter. This time it seems to be centered in Ohio and King Nut Companies has recalled two brands of peanut butter after finding that an open jar tested positive for salmonella bacteria: King Nut and Parnell’s Pride with lot codes that begin with the number 8.

Although distributed by King Nut Companies, the product is actually manufactured by Peanut Corporation of America in Lynchburg, Va. The two brands in question are not sold in grocery stores, but rather used in institutional settings, including nursing homes, schools and colleges.

Keep in mind that the tainted contained was discovered in the kitchen of a nursing facility and very well could have been cross contaminated by another food source. That is something all of us should think about more often in our own kitchens.

Just about two years ago we had that big national peanut butter recall. ConAgra recalled all Peter Pan brand peanut butter (which included Wal-Mart’s “Great Value” brand), which caused at least 625 salmonella cases in 47 states.

So, just how does peanut butter become tainted with salmonella? While we know that poor hand washing, poultry, meat, and eggs are the most common source of the bacteria, fruits and vegetables can sometimes be infected if they come into contact with livestock fecal matter. Keep in mind that the FDA does not regulate the safety of produce. In the past, salmonella outbreaks in peanut butter have been most likely due to post-processing contamination with fecal matter.

Salmonella in peanut butter is actually very rare. You face a greater risk, in reality, from aflatoxin, a potent carcinogen. This toxin is produced by a mold that grows on peanuts while they are in the ground. The USDA allows peanuts to be certified and sold as aflatoxin-free as long as they contain less than 25ppb, or below 20ppb in peanut butter.

My daughter is a Daisy Girl Scout this year. Back when I was her age, we did have Daisy scouts. I had to wait and start scouting when I was a Brownie. These little girls are pretty lucky to have an early start at such an amazing organization.

Anyway, this is the first year Daisy Girl Scouts are allowed to sell Girl Scout Cookies and my daughter and I could not be more thrilled! I think seeing one of my daughter’s friends selling cookies with her troops mate in front of a Blockbuster last year is what got Gigi hooked on the idea of scouting.

When I was selling cookies, I think they were $1.25 a box. Now they are $3.50 a box, but we all have to remember this is a non-profit organization and the cookies raise funds for this very noble institution. I can hardly think of a single person who would pass up a box of Girl Scout Cookies.

Anyway, if any of my local friends who read this blog are up for some cookies, give us a call. We’ll hook you up

I’m not much of a scrapbooker in the modern sense. I have little regard for taking a whole page in a scrapbook for just one or two pictures, just so I can add fancy embellishments, lace, buttons, fabric, and whatnot. I agree that it looks nice, but I stick more to digital scrapbooking if I want to make a clever layout.

When it comes to a tangible scrapbook, I prefer the old fashioned way of doing things. Traditionally, scrapbooks would hold everything you could paste or tape into them to remind you of your life. You would put ticket stubs, newspaper articles, postcards, photos, letters, award ribbons, dried flowers, coins, pebbles or anything else you could affix to the pages. The scrapbook might not be a work of art, but it would be a solid memento of your days.

When my daughter was born, I started a scrapbook, but I only made it through about her 10th month. I did a sort of hybrid traditional-modern style, placing four photos to a page and then adding paper embellishments here and there. I did not make full layouts. And, that reminds me that I might need to put finishing her baby books on my list of projects for this summer.

Anyway, now that my daughter started Daisy Girl Scouts, I thought it would be nice to buy her a scrapbook to use for her scouting mementos. I plan on just teaching her the traditional style of scrapbooking, but as she gets older I will also make her aware of the more modern way of doing things. That way, she can decide on her own how she wants to proceed. For now I am just showing her how to paste in her crafts and photos and trinkets she gets at meetings.