Gator Country

Just when you think you have spotted them.... they lead you to believe otherwise.

Think the arrival of Fall weather in Gainesville signals a clear one?  Mother nature says instead.... here are some nice high 80 degree temps for you to enjoy. 

Maybe it could be our beloved Cubs making it to the playoffs for two years in a row and a sure run to THE series.  A Cubbie Transition! 

Nope..... Dodgers sweep three in the Divisionals.  Ouch.

How about attendance at several Gator Sporting events?!! 

Well actually… I am embarrassed to say that with the brief exception of a football gameday walk-around, the TV is as close as either Angie or I have come to being at a Gator Sporting event this year..... so far.  It could just as easily be the day after our last 2008 Gator Baseball game from that perspective.

So how can we run with this transition theme to signal the start of a new blog and the official end of the old one?

What can we use to signify the timing for a new transition?

How about a university house which we were living in for a little more than six months getting wiped off the ground in the last 48 hours.

There we go!  There’s no going back on something like that.

Set your wayback machine to Easter Sunday of 2008.  Angie was snug in the bed while I, having trouble sleeping because of a late session at the track near the basketball complex, was watching a little late TV in the other room.  It’s a little before 3am in the evening/morning and you’re about to bear witness to a rather striking (no wordplay intended) event.

Our location… a house owned by the university and managed by the department I work for.  If you have spent a little time driving around some of Gainesville’s back roads near campus, you may have come across this house and not really thought much of it.

The trigger event?  A driver… running from the police because of a suspended license… fails to negotiate a hard right turn at an unusually arranged four-way intersection.  Thanks to some very lucky and not-so-lucky vehicular gymnastics the car and the driver and two passengers end up parked in the bedroom with my wife. 

Harley Dog and I survive because we are not in the bed ... the bed where a car is now parked. 

Angie survives because she is on the other side of the bed ... the bed where a car is now parked. 

Flash forward to this week and now there’s nothing left.... of the house.  I’m not talking about us… we’re still here.  That’s fairly obvious I should think.

However, after several behind-the-scenes “elaborations,” UF Building 923 (CARPORT, SW 9TH RD) and UF Building 830 (RESIDENCE, SW 9TH RD - (RES1)) are no more.  Gone.  Star Trek fans might want to insert a Borg reference here.  There’s no crater… but otherwise… both structures are fairly effectively eliminated just like those cybernetic guys used to do when they wanted to bother Captain Picard and Janeway.

For a while longer, you can see where they WERE on the UF Campus map. 

Go HERE and type in either ‘923’ or ‘830’ in the search box and you ... are ... there.  Well… from a map perspective anyway. HERE are some before and after pictures of the location along with a picture of the car in the bedroom.  Really.

It should be interesting to see what becomes of this space and that intersection as a whole.  We’ve heard some whispers about what might be… but nothing definite or “talkable” yet.  The train stopped running by that house decades ago… and now the buildings are gone as well.  They were there for over 50 years. 

So that’s a pretty significant transition.

Our new blog is a bit of transition as well. 

Not really in the style of car v. house… thankfully.  But more of “old becomes new.” Or something old has the chance to become something new.

Something like that.

There is probably a “timing” connection to be made as well.  However, I already tried writing that angle and I didn’t like the way it turned out.  Very forced and very cliche.

We could invoke Petty-- “It’s a great big world out there...”

A little too poetic… and not really fitting of the situation.

Maybe the moment for whatever we are doing just stands on its own.... no special reason or analysis needed.

All right then.... let’s just get to it.

Welcome back!

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