John Bartus: Blog

While we’re on the subject of diving, there are a few critical updates some of our visitors may not yet have heard. Perhaps the most critical update involves the dangerous, scary, venomous, and certainly non-native lionfish. (Cue horror music and bloodcurdling scream.)

Life in the Fabulous Florida Keys – it can certainly foster an island mentality among its residents. Sometimes that’s a bad thing, like when idiot regimes and dictators in faraway places like Iran and North Korea threaten the rest of the world with their abject (but heavily armed) stupidity while we sip cocktails carefree by the shore (wait – maybe that’s not a bad thing). There is, however, a lot that happens off the islands that, while seemingly full of sound and fury, signifies nothing. And that’s where we’re going today!

Life in the Fabulous Florida Keys – there are certain things we take for granted here that just aren’t available anywhere else on the planet. So as we continue to enjoy the sun and fun of summertime surrounded by our pristine and unaffected-by-the-oil-spill-waters (Hear that, BP, NOAA, and the American Media?!?), let’s all pause a minute or two and reflect on why we came here, either as a visitor or a resident (or somewhere in between)...

Remember albums? Those classic discs that contained the newest collections of songs from your favorite artists… you’d grab a bottle of wine and sit for a while to experience the work in its entirety (something that is totally lost on the MP3 generation). Well, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have delivered us a real album, classic andtimeless, and its name is Mojo.

A recent news article concerning wastewater funding has really left me in a not-so-warm-and-fuzzy state of mind. Not that any article on the topic is a real feel-good piece, mind you – it’s just that I’m really left wondering what our Congresswoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), is thinking.