Day of atonement

Lesson 101 on building and maintaining and building and maintaining — and building and maintaining — a successful blog? A blog that has relevance and holds the interest of its loyal, longtime, and new, potentially regular readers? (more…)

Welcome, Sarasota’s New Police Chief

Sarasota has a new Chief of Police and I couldn’t be happier. I’m so glad the powers that be came to their senses and hired Mikel Hollaway, who has been serving as Interim Chief since May.

Mikel Hollaway (photo courtesy of City of Sarasota website)

Hell in a straight jacket

I don’t believe in hell — except the ones we humans make on earth — but if I did, I’d say Terry Jones is going straight there … in a straight jacket. Whether he’s canceled his lunatic plan to burn the Koran or not, the guy’s deranged and the only thing that scares me more than him is that I believe there others like him across our country … just quietly, for now, brooding and breeding.

Sarasota’s Economic Development — Playing Poker with Taxpayers Dollars

I just read a fascinating article in the September issue of BIZ941 Magazine. The piece is by Johannes Werner — titled Incentive Poker: Sarasota’s aggressive game of creating jobs is hurting neighboring counties.

Here’s an outtake:

It seems we’ve swung from one extreme to the other — from bullying a small manufacturer to shower it with tax rebates and cash. (more…)

Doug Holders says stay-at-home moms aren’t part of “workforce” … oh, no he dit’nt!

I already didn’t like Doug Holder — current State Representative District 70 — too much for his stance, voting, and wishy-washy statements on oil drilling off the coast of Florida, but now I like the guy even less. Holder is a holdover from the Mad Men era — apparently, the guy doesn’t have a clue the 60s are over.

During yesterday’s Sarasota Tiger Bay meeting, Holder had this to say about his challenger in the race for District 70 — Nancy Feehan:

“My opponent hasn’t been in the work force for 25 years.”

Oh, no, he dit’nt! (more…)

In Sarasota Local Matters Matter

Are you all aware of a local community radio show called Local Matters? It runs on Thursday evenings from 6-7 pm, WSLR 96.5 LPFM, with live broadcasting on the Internet, as well. (more…)

MC … Sarasota Smoothie Queen

If you read my July Cappuccino Chez MC column, you might recall that I’m slowly transitioning from outsourcing my meals to insourcing them. Meaning — yup, that’s right, I’ve got to feed myself at home!

My desire to transition is based on a lot of ideals — I don’t want to waste my time in always running out someplace in search of sustenance; I want to save money; I want to reduce my impact on my Earth by reducing my reliance on packaging and my use of fossil fuels expended in the going-after of things like early-morning coffee or mid-day smoothies; and I want to have more control over what ingredients are actually going into my body.

While my efforts might seem tortoise-like, my energy is increasing to rabbit-like levels. (more…)

Encore! Encore! MC Coolidge to speak to Encore of Sarasota, Inc.

Encore of Sarasota, Inc., has kindly booked me for my first fall season speaking event on Thursday, September 9th. I’ll be talking about facing aging with guts, gratitude, and grace …. yikes … guess I better figure out how to do all of that since usually, I just facing aging with a Grinch-like grumpiness. (more…)

Love between the raindrops

If you have no idea who you are anymore, try to recall a time when you did. When you knew who you were undeniably. When you moved with a sureness that came from presenting yourself in the truest way — whether people liked you or not, whether someone hired you or not, whether you could avoid an argument or not.

The you you were when belly-laughing was something that happened often. When seeing someone you cared about made you feel excited rather than obligated. When just being outside in the sun or in a coffee shop reading left you with the undeniable buzz of being alive.

A time when you thought and felt, hell, you knew, the whole world was at your feet. Your whole life was in front of you, figuratively or literally. (more…)

Me, myself, and I

A while back I posted a blog about Word of Mouth — and in it, I was coming down hard on the service — the manners of the wait staff mostly, and then I followed that up with a blog called Heads Up, where I came down hard again on people whose dining manners left some to be desired.

Well, all I can say is that my readers are MUCH more polite than I (sheesh I hope that’s the right use of I!). Because several of them wrote to me OFF the blog — to my email address — to point out my own very poor grammar when I wrote “the server greeted my guest and I.”

Yikes! (more…)