My wife’s words surprised me.
Made me chuckle, too.
“Honey,” Sherri said the other night. “I don’t know what to get you for Valentine’s Day.”
Don’t worry about it, I told her. Just having you in my life is the only gift I really want.
Or something mushy like that.
She rolled her eyes.
Then I started thinking about what she said.
Am I being set up?
Hmmm.
That was the educated opinion of several male colleagues who have been married much longer than yours truly.
Our first anniversary is a couple of months off.
To celebrate the milestone, we were considering a week in Maui — until we found out we’d have to take out another mortgage to pay for it.
Or hit the Lotto, finally.
Loading up on more original Hawaiian shirts will have to wait.
St. Augustine, here we come.
Anyway, what to do about Valentine’s Day?
Read more Sunday in Mannix About Manatee.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
A familiar fullback returns to Bradenton
Derek Bishop is back in Bradenton. The ex-MHS Hurricane/BHS Bruin fullback-and-linebacker just graduated from Liberty University, Lynchburg,. Va., where he lettered four years at fullback for the Flames.
Oh, no! Loria Fair, a longtime bartender at Ace’s, has hit the Big 4-0! Cheers from folks Mary and Bill Gleason.
Remember Tommy Durante’s benefit concert 5 p.m. Saturday at Oneco United Methodist Church, 2112 53rd Ave. E. The LRHS grad and FSU senior will study music this summer at Russia’s Moscow State University.
Read more Friday in Vin's People.
Oh, no! Loria Fair, a longtime bartender at Ace’s, has hit the Big 4-0! Cheers from folks Mary and Bill Gleason.
Remember Tommy Durante’s benefit concert 5 p.m. Saturday at Oneco United Methodist Church, 2112 53rd Ave. E. The LRHS grad and FSU senior will study music this summer at Russia’s Moscow State University.
Read more Friday in Vin's People.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Rays' skipper other man in Sherri's life
My wife came home Wednesday night with a picture of her with another man.
Sherri's smile went from ear to ear.
"Does he have his hand on your shoulder?" I asked, mock seriously.
That Joe Maddon, you've got to keep an eye on him.
The Tampa Bay Rays manager was the guest speaker at a business function hosted by HomeBanc, my wife's employer, and from the sound of it, he was worth every penny.
Sherri found him to be very personable, accomodating and down to earth.
No surprise there.
Hear he knows a little about baseball, too.
Maddon also autographed a pair of Rays ballcaps for my wife.
One for her parents, Sue and Jim. The other for her sister, Chris.
The pictures were for us.
Hmmm.
You never smile like that when you're in a picture with me, I kidded her.
"You become a big league manager and maybe I will," Sherri said.
I can't win.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Pop diva would've bombed at McKechnie Field
Erika Quartuccio has little in common with Christina Aguilera.
She's 18, a Bayshore High School senior and works at Publix.
Samantha Rankin has little in common with Christina Aguilera.
She's a 12-year-old at King Middle School.
Chris Eisenberg has little in common with Christina Aguilera.
He's a 13-year-old at Brookside Middle in Sarasota.
The three teenagers have something nice in common with each other, though, something the pop diva wishes she had last weekend.
They were able to sings our national anthem flawlessly and reverently in their unique way at McKechnie Field during Saturday's auditions for spring training games and the Florida State League.
Which is way more than can be said about Aguilera, who forgot the words at the Super Bowl and ended up shrieking her way through a national embarrassment before 100 million TV viewers.
McKechnie isn't comparable to Cowboy Stadium, of course, yet it presented its own challenges.
The empty 6,000-seat ballpark has quirky acoustics and echoes that can throw off a singer.
Steve Ramsey, 30, admired the younger singers ability to overcome those factors. He's sung the Star-Spangled Banner the past two seasons and auditioned again Saturday.
"It can be an intimidating venue," Ramsey said. "It's not like singing in the shower."
Forty sang at the auditions. One drew a momentary blank, but started over and finished strong.
That's more than can be said about Christina Aguilera.
She'd have never made the cut at McKechnie Field.
She's 18, a Bayshore High School senior and works at Publix.
Samantha Rankin has little in common with Christina Aguilera.
She's a 12-year-old at King Middle School.
Chris Eisenberg has little in common with Christina Aguilera.
He's a 13-year-old at Brookside Middle in Sarasota.
The three teenagers have something nice in common with each other, though, something the pop diva wishes she had last weekend.
They were able to sings our national anthem flawlessly and reverently in their unique way at McKechnie Field during Saturday's auditions for spring training games and the Florida State League.
Which is way more than can be said about Aguilera, who forgot the words at the Super Bowl and ended up shrieking her way through a national embarrassment before 100 million TV viewers.
McKechnie isn't comparable to Cowboy Stadium, of course, yet it presented its own challenges.
The empty 6,000-seat ballpark has quirky acoustics and echoes that can throw off a singer.
Steve Ramsey, 30, admired the younger singers ability to overcome those factors. He's sung the Star-Spangled Banner the past two seasons and auditioned again Saturday.
"It can be an intimidating venue," Ramsey said. "It's not like singing in the shower."
Forty sang at the auditions. One drew a momentary blank, but started over and finished strong.
That's more than can be said about Christina Aguilera.
She'd have never made the cut at McKechnie Field.
Friday, February 4, 2011
DDA strategy raises hopes, questions
It’s been awhile since Dewey Eason has hosted Southern Vittles Night at daughter Donna’s restaurant, Ezra Cafe, featuring his mother Eula’s treasured recipe for chicken and dumplings with all the fixin's.
June or July might be time for an encore.
That’s when Ezra is expected to re-open at its new location at the SunTrust building in downtown Bradenton, thanks to a $250,000 incentive package from the city’s Downtown Development Authority that was approved Thursday.
It’d be a celebration, if you will.
Good for Ezra, which has cultivated a following over the years at 5629 Manatee Ave. W., being able to do the deal with the DDA.
If such an incentive package is unprecedented, so be it.
It’s a function of the DDA to prime the pump and bring more business downtown.
They’ve got momentum there.
Two more bars are on the way.
Now another restaurant, a classy family business that should be an asset for downtown, albeit at a first-floor location that has seen its share of turnover the 13 years I’ve been here.
Begrudge them? Not me.
Neither do some of their future neighbors around the corner on Old Main Street.
Not that they don’t have questions about the deal.
A lot of questions.
Read more Sunday in Mannix About Manatee.
June or July might be time for an encore.
That’s when Ezra is expected to re-open at its new location at the SunTrust building in downtown Bradenton, thanks to a $250,000 incentive package from the city’s Downtown Development Authority that was approved Thursday.
It’d be a celebration, if you will.
Good for Ezra, which has cultivated a following over the years at 5629 Manatee Ave. W., being able to do the deal with the DDA.
If such an incentive package is unprecedented, so be it.
It’s a function of the DDA to prime the pump and bring more business downtown.
They’ve got momentum there.
Two more bars are on the way.
Now another restaurant, a classy family business that should be an asset for downtown, albeit at a first-floor location that has seen its share of turnover the 13 years I’ve been here.
Begrudge them? Not me.
Neither do some of their future neighbors around the corner on Old Main Street.
Not that they don’t have questions about the deal.
A lot of questions.
Read more Sunday in Mannix About Manatee.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Mine are one lucky pair of glasses
Some folks are always misplacing their reading glasses.
Like me.
Some folks are prone to losing their reading glasses, period.
Not me.
I've been lucky. Real lucky.
When Manatee played Tampa Plant for the Class 5A state championship in Orlando in December 2009, I inadvertently left them on the chartered bus --- a bus I wasn't taking home after the game. When I was done writing, I was going to catch a ride with a colleague.
But I had to be able to read my laptop screen to write.
I thought I was up the creek, until Margi Nanney, the school district spokeswoman, loaned me an extra pair of reading glasses. Superintendent Tim McGonegal kindly offered me his extra pair, too.
Saved!
I thought my glasses were as good as gone --- until a friend, who managed to talk his way into the Citrus
Bowl pressbox, showed up with my glasses in his hand at halftime.
I was so happy I gave the guy a hug and a kiss.
Fast forward to Thursday morning's Take Stock in Children prayer breakfast at Bradenton Auditorium.
After I was done interviewing people, I kept putting the glasses down while I shook hands and talked with friends and then picked up the glasses again.
I eventually walked back to the library where I'd parked, used the bathroom, came back out and drove to work.
Without the glasses.
I drove back to the auditorium and retraced my steps. No dice.
Checked the library parking lot. No dice there, either.
I figured those glasses were history.
Giving it one more shot, I went inside the library and asked the folks at the checkout desk whether any glasses had been turned in during the last half-hour.
Yes, a woman said.
What were they in? she asked.
A brown case, I said.
Got them right here, she said, taking then out of a drawer.
Yesss!
I thanked her and the library staff profusely and left, a lucky guy, indeed.
My glasses, too.
Like me.
Some folks are prone to losing their reading glasses, period.
Not me.
I've been lucky. Real lucky.
When Manatee played Tampa Plant for the Class 5A state championship in Orlando in December 2009, I inadvertently left them on the chartered bus --- a bus I wasn't taking home after the game. When I was done writing, I was going to catch a ride with a colleague.
But I had to be able to read my laptop screen to write.
I thought I was up the creek, until Margi Nanney, the school district spokeswoman, loaned me an extra pair of reading glasses. Superintendent Tim McGonegal kindly offered me his extra pair, too.
Saved!
I thought my glasses were as good as gone --- until a friend, who managed to talk his way into the Citrus
Bowl pressbox, showed up with my glasses in his hand at halftime.
I was so happy I gave the guy a hug and a kiss.
Fast forward to Thursday morning's Take Stock in Children prayer breakfast at Bradenton Auditorium.
After I was done interviewing people, I kept putting the glasses down while I shook hands and talked with friends and then picked up the glasses again.
I eventually walked back to the library where I'd parked, used the bathroom, came back out and drove to work.
Without the glasses.
I drove back to the auditorium and retraced my steps. No dice.
Checked the library parking lot. No dice there, either.
I figured those glasses were history.
Giving it one more shot, I went inside the library and asked the folks at the checkout desk whether any glasses had been turned in during the last half-hour.
Yes, a woman said.
What were they in? she asked.
A brown case, I said.
Got them right here, she said, taking then out of a drawer.
Yesss!
I thanked her and the library staff profusely and left, a lucky guy, indeed.
My glasses, too.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Weather we left behind for Florida!
Heard a radio personality complain Wednesday about our cool weather.
Say, what?
The woman sounded serious, too.
Is it possible she hadn't been paying attention to what's being called a "once in a lifetime" snowstorm sweeping across scores of states from the far midwest and bound for the northeast?
Or seen headlines like the one in Wednesday morning's Bradenton Herald:
WINTER STORM BLASTS U.S.
Between lethal cold in Colorado to blinding snow in Oklahoma, Illinois and Ohio, freezing rain and blizzard conditions, it sounds almost apocalyptic.
That Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow on this Groundhog Day, meaning spring will come early, is small comfort.
It gives you pause to see the rest of the country going through winter's version of what we might go through during hurricane season.
Reminds me of what a former colleague -- a refugee from the north like me -- liked to say about having to endure the heat and humidity of Florida summers:
"It's our penance for not having to shovel snow up north in winter."
But this?
We'll put up with a cold snap anytime.
Say, what?
The woman sounded serious, too.
Is it possible she hadn't been paying attention to what's being called a "once in a lifetime" snowstorm sweeping across scores of states from the far midwest and bound for the northeast?
Or seen headlines like the one in Wednesday morning's Bradenton Herald:
WINTER STORM BLASTS U.S.
Between lethal cold in Colorado to blinding snow in Oklahoma, Illinois and Ohio, freezing rain and blizzard conditions, it sounds almost apocalyptic.
That Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow on this Groundhog Day, meaning spring will come early, is small comfort.
It gives you pause to see the rest of the country going through winter's version of what we might go through during hurricane season.
Reminds me of what a former colleague -- a refugee from the north like me -- liked to say about having to endure the heat and humidity of Florida summers:
"It's our penance for not having to shovel snow up north in winter."
But this?
We'll put up with a cold snap anytime.
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