Florida Roll call

[ido]

I'm not terribly familiar with Orlando, but I'm learning since I have to drive their twice a month for work travel.

 

[birdofthunder]

That's good! I do hope you're not getting too lost! I still do if I'm in an unfamiliar part of town, but I guess that's true of anywhere.

 

[ido]

I usually map my trips first - and I'm going to buy the GPS maps software to load on my laptop.

Although, I have driven in circles looking for someplace more than once! LOL

 

[PattyOfurniture]

I'm not terribly familiar with Orlando, but I'm learning since I have to drive their twice a month for work travel.

Not that anyone asked...lol.
I'm Born and Raised in Miami,visited the Kissimmee area for (you guessed it) a trip to Disney when i was like 15.I loved the area.went back in my 20's for a concert and didnt reconize that Town.now had a buddy i grew up with just come back from there and said it was huge and not so great
Us Natives from down here always talk about central and North Fl in Mythologically wonderful ways,is all lost?

 

[PattyOfurniture]

I'm nearby in Inverness.

Sold my "summer home" in NJ this year so now I'm a full time Floridian. I LOVE FLORIDA!

Welcome to the Greatest State in the Union(no joke)
my Father retired from Miami to Inverness 1 yr ago and i haven't had the time off work to visit yet.He says its Heaven but all he ever talks about is a Buffet restaurant called Golden-coral and his new riding mower (i'm not kidding) Viva! stereotypes.....lol

 

[ido]

Not that anyone asked...lol.
I'm Born and Raised in Miami,visited the Kissimmee area for (you guessed it) a trip to Disney when i was like 15.I loved the area.went back in my 20's for a concert and didnt reconize that Town.now had a buddy i grew up with just come back from there and said it was huge and not so great
Us Natives from down here always talk about central and North Fl in Mythologically wonderful ways,is all lost?

Hmmm...maybe it's perspective?? I moved from the West Palm Beach area to Central FL along the coastline in March of last year and I love it here!

It's much slower paced, friendlier, and "old FL" here than WPB. I was getting pretty tired of the rat race down there. People are too aggressive for me on the roads, so I had reached a point where I pretty much avoided I-95 at all costs.

Here, our rush hour traffic is equivelant to mid-day traffic in Palm Beach Co.

I love the small town feel of where I live with Orlando only about an hour away. I haven't had much experience with Orlando/Tampa area other than day trips for work.

 

[PattyOfurniture]

okay you Native gal,check this out....
I'm so old that i remember WPB was like this killer redneck nothingness.you had the Kennedys on the Coast runnin around like wild injuns out East and Lion Country Safari way out West and like not much in between....lol
(my Doctor said Mylanta....grimaces)

 

[birdofthunder]

lol I got to see some pixs the other day of 434 when it was still a dirt road!! Wow!! My stepdad remembers it that way too, and I can recall more "wildness" than we've got now around Orlando, though I'm enjoying where my mom is whenever I get there 'cause I'm just too "close" to Otown to enjoy the driving around town anymore....

 

[Live4HimAndLoveOthers]

I was born and raised in Miami, but now live in Ocala. I love it here SO much better than Miami. Still, Ocala is growing in leaps and bounds, and its very different than what it was 15 years ago, I'm told.

Nevertheless, it is far more peaceful here than in Miami. I'd rather drive 45 minutes here than 10 minutes in Miami.

When I was in Miami, I lived in an apt. that was a quadraplex in the midst of a residential neighborhood. When I first moved there, the house across the street had Cadillacs pulling in and out all night long, because of selling drugs. A couple of the dads on the block were in jail. Once or twice at night, I heard gunshots just blocks away, and at least one of those times it was a shoot-out with the police. A kid on my block bought an ice cream cone from the ice cream truck with a $100 bill, and when the ice cream man asked him where he got that $100 bill from, he told the truck driver that his dad had stacks of them in the living room. There were about 10 or more chickens that lived across the street, that would wander in front of my apartment daily, and when I walked from my front door to my car, I had to step carefully because the entire asphalt path was lined with chicken poop. There were also a few roosters, and many times I was awakened at 4 am, 2 am, etc., by the crowing of a rooster that was just outside my jaulousie windows, a few feet from my bed (with the wall between us, of course). One time I saw my neighbor across the street drunk, swinging a rooster above his head, chanting something in Spanish---he was a priest or something in the Santería religion. My American neighbor (the only other white Anglo on the block, and maybe for several blocks or more, besides me) who also lived in the quadraplex, would get up early every morning and clean off the decapitated chickens and other animals (like goats, etc.) left on the railroad tracks (the tracks were only about 40 yards from my apt., so I had to get used to the train going by and blowing its whistle). The animals were decapitated by Santería practitioners, and they would put them on the RR tracks, hoping that people would be ignorant enough to actually believe that those animals got run over by the train. One night, they had a Santería party of some sort, and about a hundred or so cars were parked in yards all around the block and more, with every person wearing white. There were voodoo drums playing loudly (you could hear them from blocks away) until the early AM hours. These are only a few of the many things I'm glad to be away from.

 

[PattyOfurniture]

I was born and raised in Miami, but now live in Ocala. I love it here SO much better than Miami. Still, Ocala is growing in leaps and bounds, and its very different than what it was 15 years ago, I'm told.

Nevertheless, it is far more peaceful here than in Miami. I'd rather drive 45 minutes here than 10 minutes in Miami.

When I was in Miami, I lived in an apt. that was a quadraplex in the midst of a residential neighborhood. When I first moved there, the house across the street had Cadillacs pulling in and out all night long, because of selling drugs. A couple of the dads on the block were in jail. Once or twice at night, I heard gunshots just blocks away, and at least one of those times it was a shoot-out with the police. A kid on my block bought an ice cream cone from the ice cream truck with a $100 bill, and when the ice cream man asked him where he got that $100 bill from, he told the truck driver that his dad had stacks of them in the living room. There were about 10 or more chickens that lived across the street, that would wander in front of my apartment daily, and when I walked from my front door to my car, I had to step carefully because the entire asphalt path was lined with chicken poop. There were also a few roosters, and many times I was awakened at 4 am, 2 am, etc., by the crowing of a rooster that was just outside my jaulousie windows, a few feet from my bed (with the wall between us, of course). One time I saw my neighbor across the street drunk, swinging a rooster above his head, chanting something in Spanish---he was a priest or something in the Santería religion. My American neighbor (the only other white Anglo on the block, and maybe for several blocks or more, besides me) who also lived in the quadraplex, would get up early every morning and clean off the decapitated chickens and other animals (like goats, etc.) left on the railroad tracks (the tracks were only about 40 yards from my apt., so I had to get used to the train going by and blowing its whistle). The animals were decapitated by Santería practitioners, and they would put them on the RR tracks, hoping that people would be ignorant enough to actually believe that those animals got run over by the train. One night, they had a Santería party of some sort, and about a hundred or so cars were parked in yards all around the block and more, with every person wearing white. There were voodoo drums playing loudly (you could hear them from blocks away) until the early AM hours. These are only a few of the many things I'm glad to be away from.

Listen Fella,don't judge my Lifestyle and I wont judge yours!!

 

[PattyOfurniture]

looool,listen Dude I'm actually from the Kendall area.i was Born in Baptist Hospital,and lived no more than like 5-6 miles from there most of my life.and i was the only WASP for many miles im sure.everything you typed i've seen more than a few times myself,so i was reading it going "okay,yeah okay i know and okay well of course"....lol but it just hit me.what in the heck must that look like to someone thats not from down here i wonder?
and if anyone reads that post and thinks Hes making any of that up or even stretchin' the truth a bit ...he isnt trust me on this

GBU

 

[birdofthunder]

Nah, that's stuff I've hit some time or another around here (read born Orlando, lived around it most of my life), and alot of it due just to where I went to school, or whatever! I thought it was "normal" until I lived elsewhere, and someone commented that I didn't seem too upset about the gunshots or whatever else was going on.....lol I'm sure we could all swap stories of things like got posted, but what for? I'd rather remember walking around a "forest" behind where I lived for 7 years, that was great for dirt biking too....

 

[ContentInHim]

I've ran into lots of people who are selling from there & coming here. Is it weather, family?

Actually my family, such as it is, is up there. Brother in VA, stepdaughter in MA, good friends in NJ. But I love the weather in FL - even in the stinky summer. And I have great neighbors, friends, congregation, etc. It's all here!

 

[ContentInHim]

Ha ha ha - International has the parks and shopping and tourist restaurants. Orange Ave has local shopping and restaurants!

I like Orlando but don't get there unless there's a concert or meeting or some such! Haven't even been to the giant malls!

 

[ContentInHim]

Welcome to the Greatest State in the Union(no joke)
my Father retired from Miami to Inverness 1 yr ago and i haven't had the time off work to visit yet.He says its Heaven but all he ever talks about is a Buffet restaurant called Golden-coral and his new riding mower (i'm not kidding) Viva! stereotypes.....lol

Well, that just tells me that he's not tried all the fine dining Inverness has to offer - like the hospital cafeteria where a SHARE (oldster) member can eat for like $3.

Golden Corral is pretty good but they're all over the east coast, I think. There was one when I lived in Manassas VA though it wasn't a buffet then. AND their rotisserie chicken is really really good!

We moved to Inverness in 1995 from Coleman, south of Wildwood around the Turnpike and 301. Property was way too expensive in Sumter county and we liked the looks of Citrus Co. BUT Citrus has doubled in population in the past 7 years or so and now we've got the same problems the other counties do. In fact, when I turn left out of my street onto the neighborhood main drag I have actually been surprised that there's traffic headed at me - I have to look now!

Seriously, I pretty much love it here. Not much choice in restaurants except mom and pop but some of them are good. Shopping's not great but Tampa, Ocala and Orlando are close. Still pretty quiet and low cost of living and MANATEES!

 

[ContentInHim]

Listen Fella,don't judge my Lifestyle and I wont judge yours!!

ROFLOL! So you partied with the Kennedys?

 

[Live4HimAndLoveOthers]

I'm just glad I don't have to hear the cashier announce my change in Spanish at the grocery store anymore, or have to ask for change at the laundromat in Spanish, or tell them in Spanish that one of the washers is broken, or have people in the grocery store ask me questions in Spanish, or tell me jokes in Spanish (so that I laugh and pretend like I understood what they said) or have 99.9% of my neighbors only speak Spanish, so that its very difficult to understand anything they tell me, because I barely speak any Spanish (I got tired of saying, "Solo habla un poco de Espanol" to everyone). Even my last girlfriend in Miami spoke almost no English. I'm also tired of getting turned down for jobs because I don't speak Spanish. I'm also glad that I don't have to put up with children who behave like monsters because their culture doesn't believe in disciplining them until they get several years older. And up here, people don't wave at you to "come here" with their fingers pointing downward.

All I have to worry about up here is black widow and brown widow spiders all around my house.

 

[ContentInHim]

LOL, gotta have a pest control service for sure!

I found a big hairy monster spider in my car the other day. Now I need to find a spider bomb which is safe to breath!

 

[ido]

In less than a week's time, I've had a corn snake and a grass snake each try to take up residency in my garage.

As for spiders...I get the wolf spiders in my house occasionally. Double

 

[ContentInHim]

Those wolf spiders are something, aren't they? I hate it when they re-arrange my furniture while I'm sleeping and I trip over a chair in the dark.

I bought a spider bomb today and will detonate it in the car this afternoon.

One year we got back to FL in November and there was a HUGE snake skin on the floor of our FL room. I have no idea how he got in. Fortunately I never ever saw him or I'd be moving to Ireland!