the future is so bold

Technology has moved us forward in so many ways these past few years: The hybrid car, the Hubble space telescope, and the iPhone are all examples.
Now, we’ve reached a zenith. I just don’t know if the world can get any better, because we’ve created the perfect invention.

I’m talking about BACON SALT.

Great Scott, man! Bacon-flavored salt. It also appears to be calorie-free and vegetarian-friendly. What an item this is.

charge!

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office has put a lot of effort lately into giving the department a new look. Probably the biggest change is in the department’s patrol division, where the brown Ford Crown Victorias are being phased out and replaced with Dodge Chargers.
I had the pleasure yesterday of riding in the back of one (hey now, I was on assignment. I didn’t get arrested, I swear) with Major Carlton Lyles and Lieutenant David Prevatte.
The most interesting thing about the cars (to me, anyway): They run on what’s called a V8 displacement engine, meaning that when you’re driving real slow-like, it only uses four cylinders. Drive a little faster, six cylinders. If you need to let ‘er rip on the highway, all eight cylinders.
Obviously, this saves gas. At like $9 per gallon, that can add up to a lot of taxpayer money.
Right now, the department only has one of the vehicles, but seven more are on the way. And at some point in the not-too-distant future, I’m told they’ll be purchasing even more.
I’ll be writing about this in the Herald sometime next week, and you’ll be able to see the results of all the math I’m going to do to tell you how much you’re saving on these new vehicles, but for now I thought I’d give my readers (all two of you) a look at the cars. This isn’t one of them, exactly, but it’s a police-equipped Dodge Charger, so it’ll have to be good enough:

Get your vote on (in a few months anyway)

Elections are always fun for me (regardless of the fact that working at a newspaper has turned Election Day from something I watched with a kind of detached interest into possibly the most stressful night of the year) whether we’re talking president of the United States or, I don’t know, student council or something.
So I’ve enjoyed writing the last couple weeks’ worth of articles about who is filing for seats on municipal boards here in Sanford and also in Broadway.
I’ve talked to some good people so far and I expect to talk to at least a few more before the filing deadline hits on July 20.
After that, election talk will probably taper off a bit until November so now is a good time to be paying attention if you’re into that sort of thing. And I shouldn’t have to tell you that you should be, if for no other reason than, well, these are the people that’ll be figuring out what your tax bill is going to look like in a few months.
It’s never too early to start listening to what these people are saying about why you ought to vote for them.

All Star fever.

My boy Dan Haren of the Oakland Athletics is starting tonight’s MLB All Star game and you couldn’t make me miss it if you, well. I don’t know, you just won’t be able to make me miss it.
I’ve loved Oakland baseball since I was a tike living in Fremont, California in the 1980s. You could get on the BART train in be at the Coliseum in 20 minutes. In ‘88 an ‘89 I couldn’t begin to tell you how many weeks I spent bugging my mom to take to me games, because watching the Bash Brothers and Dave Stewart and Dennis Eckersley and Rickey Henderson on TV just wasn’t good enough.
Well, fast forward 18 years (geez) and I’m nearly salivating over the chance to see on TV not even my whole team, but just one of the players. Yeah, Haren is the only representative from Oakland playing for the AL team, but he’s a good one.
It might be the only time this year I’ll actually get to see him play, since ESPN doesn’t see fit to actually show baseball games between teams other than the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox (seriously, I have a theory that you could call ESPN’s head office to complain about this and they’d go “there are other baseball teams?” before hanging up and putting on some ridiculous NFL preview smack dab in the middle of July. But anyway.) and the schedule on their web site shows that Oakland games will not be televised even once this year by ESPN.
Unless of course, they make the playoffs. Not looking too good.
So, I get to enjoy an inning or two of baseball tonight. Finally!
I promise I’ll start blogging soon about things that matter. I’m just getting started on this thing.