It’s been fun doing this, but it’s time to move on. I’m not a person who goes out a lot or pays much attention to events in the area so that right there limits the amount of content I can produce for this blog. Metblogs in other cities are also collaborative efforts between many writers, and Miami has only had me since I signed up with no sign of any one else being sought or volunteering either; that takes away from what the Metblog idea’s supposed to be. Lastly, I just have other personal projects to pay attention to, so priorities had to be established.

Thanks to Metblog for the opportunity. Thanks to South Florida Daily Blog for promoting this blog (probably the biggest source of readers). And thanks to everyone who dropped by to read my (irregular) ramblings here.

If you’d like to keep checking out what I’m up to, you can find me on Twitter as @Highmoon, at Highmoon’s Ponderings (my personal blog) and Slow Bike Miami (my bicycling blog).

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I’m trading this

For this

What, you thought I’d put a pic of neon-drenched Ocean Dr? I live next to Flamingo Park, and that’s more the South Beach I’m interested in, the quiet village that lies almost inexplicably between Alton and Washington, where I can bike everywhere and little is more than 8 blocks away, 10 at most.

North Beach is the forgotten and neglected child of Miami Beach and frankly I’m glad to be out of there. I wish luck to Commissioner Jerry Libbin in continuing to represent North Beach’s interest. Me, seven years were enough. I’m ready for a change.

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A new gimmicky list released by Travel & Leisure ranks America’s Favorite Cities, including Miami. The verdict? Miami has the #1 spot in Attractive People. That’s our best score, our top draw, we have beautiful people. Of course, we also scored #29 in Intelligence, making it our worse feature.

Basically, according to the T&L poll, we have a city full of beautiful and vapid people.

And before anyone whines, remember this is the image we ourselves put out to the world. Need I remind folks of Bravo’s very short-lived “Miami Social?”

To be a bit fair, the poll says “Miami,” which means that it really includes all of the Greater Miami area, including Miami Beach, Coral Gables, and who knows what other Miami-Dade micro-city as well.

Is this something to be proud of, really?

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Guy fishing from the North Bay Village/Miami Beach drawbridge.

In general I’m a very laissez faire kind of person; do your thing as long as it’s not illegal and it doesn’t bother other people. When it breaks those two qualifiers, I tend to get grouchy. Like now.

I travel the JFK/79 St Causeway between Miami Beach, North Bay Village and Miami daily, both on car and on bike. On every bridge along this route there is a sign that clearly, in plain English, states NO FISHING FROM BRIDGE. There is no way to misunderstand that message. And yet, daily, at all hours of the day, there are people on each of the bridges, with rods or lines or nets, that apparently have a card that grants them an exception from this mandate.

I honestly don’t care that they fish (I personally would think twice before eating anything that came out of the waters around these islands, considering the amount of pollution clearly visible in the water, but hey, knock yourself out), but come on, it’s clearly stated on the sign that you can’t do it from here! Plain and simple, you and all your equipment are in the way of pedestrian/stroller/bicycle/skateboard/rollerskate/etc traffic. It’s just the same as if you were doing it from one of the lanes on the road. Of course, there’s also the issue of fishing lines and flying nets squarely in the waterways, and while most of these bridges have clearly marked channels for boats to go through, there are tons of idiots that have an exception card for that as well and cross under the bridges wherever they choose to.

This one has several rods cast and smiled for the camera.

What bothers me is that I have never, in 7 years of living in this area, have seen any cop do anything about it. I mean, there’s a bridge right across from the North Bay Village Police Station and people fish right in front of them with impunity. Nothing. I don’t know that this is a ticketable offense, but at least get them moving from there.

I’ll lay a bit of blame on the cities as well; find these guys a place with public access to the water so they can go and fish there. We live near the water, fishing is just a reality of our way of life, so just embrace it and make it safer for all. Miami Beach just recently opened a small park in Normandy Isle, at the south end of Trouville Esplanade, with access to the bay for the walking public, a fantastic move on their part. Why not do something similar for fishing? The City of Miami should rehabilitate the wooden pier at the south end of Pelican Harbor Park which was partially destroyed during a recent hurricane. North Bay Village should also find a couple of spots to grant public access to the water (how about one of the two empty lots next to the Western Inn?), both for fishing and for the general public.

I’d love to say that I expect some improvement here, but I tend to take the cynical route and not expect anything. Still, I’d love to see the cops enforce the No Fishing From Bridge rule and for the cities to find ways to channel this activity to proper areas.

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That is a bonafide Autumn sky right there! In Miami, where every season is just a variation of Summer, any glimpse of an actual difference is greatly welcomed, especially by me as Autumn is my favorite season and I just don’t get to experience it practically at all.

The Sun Sentinel reported on the “cold” front, during which temps will go down to — get ready — 88 degrees in Miami! *sigh*

Oh well, at least the sky looked beautiful during my bike commute this morning, and I always appreciate that.

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Bike Miami Days Team: Working hard to bring Bike Miami Days back on Sunday, October 4th. That’s just around the corner… will you help us get the word out?

Cool! There’s been rides all summer, but we weren’t sure when the whole-day events would be back. Shortly thereafter, however, a blog post comes through the RSS feed from the Bike Miami Blog, being echoed almost immediately as a comment on the status update above (fourth comment down):

UPDATE: Friends, we apologize for the over-excitement. Bike Miami Days is seeking sponsors to cover the extensive costs associated with keeping this event FREE, FAMILY-FRIENDLY and FUN, all of which requires a great deal of services and financial support that we do not yet have. If you or your business would be able to sponsor the Set Up, Clean Up, Sound, Public Service Aides and Police or any other part of Bike Miami Days, please contact the Coordinator here. Thank you.

Baffled, I sent an email to the aforementioned coordinator, Kathryn Moore and after a short phone call she gave me the bad news: there’s just no money for a Bike Miami Days.

The October date was to be covered via private sponsorship, but the company in question seems to have pulled out, leaving the event still missing the close to $25,000 needed to hold the 6-hour event. This money, for the most part, pays for the City of Miami police officers present at the event, as well as other costs associated with closing a huge chunk of Downtown Miami.

The City of Miami just released also it’s proposed budget for the 2010 Fiscal Year, and try as I might, I cannot find any mention of Bike Miami in the future tense; it is mentioned a handful of times as part of the past year’s accomplishments, but nothing’s there about future iterations of the event. Add to this the fact that Bike Miami has been the brainchild of the Mayor Diaz administration, and that his term comes to an end in November, and it is easy to see how this community event could fall prey to the shifting political winds in Miami.

Plainly, this sucks. Here we are, just a couple of days ago celebrating the first victory of Miami 21, and now the event that is meant to foster the bikeable lifestyle Miami 21 seeks to facilitate is in danger of not happening. After coming from the dumps in the rankings of Bicycling Magazine’s Most Bikeable Cities two years ago to where they actually declare Miami a BikeTown less than a month ago, could it be that we’re headed for another nosedive?

Any private company/non-government organization/individual donor wants to sponsor part or all of Bike Miami Days, please come forward, please speak up.

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The plan now needs to face a barrage of amendments and scrutiny from various groups as it embarks on its way to change from a 500-page document into a blueprint for new urbanism and sustainable city living. It then has another date with the City Commission for a second reading at a date yet to be determined.

I was bracing for the worst, jaded as I am by politics, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the plan passed. I WANT to see Miami 21 be put into effect; we won’t go far into our future with things as they are right now. It’s proven that the current zoning code doesn’t work, so let’s give this one a try and who knows, maybe we will have done the right thing for us and those that come after.

To the rest of Miami-Dade, I hope you’re watching closely, cause we, the residents, will be expecting proactivity from you as well in the near future.

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Residents of the City of Miami that support Miami 21 are urged to attend the public hearing at City Hall, starting at 10 AM. This is a case of “the more, the merrier,” and Mayor Manny Diaz wants you there, as he has made known via the Miami 21 Facebook group and other media.

Miami 21 presents a new zoning code known as form-based code which seeks a more organic separation of zones and encourages mixed-use spaces. It would be a great simplification on my part to give a layman’s interpretation of Miami 21 as a plan that seeks to create spaces that are people friendly and encourage walkability/human-powered transportation use instead of the blocky urban sprawl Miami (in general, not just the city) has tons of, and yet I would not be that far off the mark.

Miami 21 also represents a precedent for all of South Florida, arguably the most populated area of our state, as we move into the future; it is a plan to which other cities can look as they work on new urban designs for our congested living spaces. I know I would love to see Miami Beach follow a similar route to what Miami is doing on the other side of the causeway, for example.

Support Miami 21 tomorrow at City Hall, and if you’re not a City of Miami resident, spread the word about Miami 21 and its innovations towards a more livable city to everyone you know. Who knows which city will be the next to be inspired to follow suit.

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The first and biggest is COMMENTS! Registration is no longer required to post a comment on any post. Of course if you already have an account you can still login to ensure your comments are attributed to you, but those who don’t can now post a comment without any long term commitment. Also, on the right you can see some of the recent comments so you’ll always know what the active discussions are. This was the most requested thing we’ve heard from people since our last redesign and we’re excited to see where it leads.

The next change is also something that was heavily requested, and that is a change to the ADS on the sites. You’ll immediately notice fewer of them, but what might not be as obvious is those smaller square ones to the right are specific to this city only and are being sold for a flat rate for a period of time rather than a confusing CPM/traffic/network model. Depending on the city, these range from $7-$175 for a full week. If you purchase one, during that time your ad will be the only one in that spot and will show on every page. We set these up both to make it easier for smaller local businesses to get their ads on our site, and also to help us bring in ads that relate better to our local audiences. Also, keeping these sites online is expensive and every little bit helps.

There are a bunch of other things we changed but we’ll leave those to you to investigate and take advantage of. Hope you like it, and we look forward to seeing you in the comments!!

Love,
The folks at MBHQ

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The Miami Beach castle boasted iron gates, gargoyles, turrets, towers, parapets, a draw bridge and a 65,000 gallon salt water moat filled with sand sharks. It also had fantastical sculptures inside, like a dragon by a small pool. Not that I knew all this before today. The castle was, sadly, abandoned when the previous owner up and died from an overdose (The Herald has the whole sordid story) and was left to languish in very expensive solitude.

This castle was not far from my house, and whether it was driving to get out of the Beach, or (especially) riding my bike, I would take a moment, whenever I could, to stop by and marvel at this utterly bizarre gem and wish I could go inside. This place should not have been left unused; this place should have been rented out for events, films, videos. This amazing strangeness should have been an attraction in Miami Beach. Frankly, this place should have been the site for many roleplaying game conventions. Can you think of anything more fitting than playing Dungeons & Dragons here?

I am utterly bummed by this loss. In a city with more than its fair share of expensive and massive monuments to ridiculosity, the dark-stoned, gargoyle-guarded castle of Miami Beach stood uniquely apart. Maybe I only speak for myself, but it shall be missed.

See photos of the house and fire at Herald.com.

Also see these photos from the real estate listing at NelsonGonzalez.com. I can’t help but think this listing will soon be taken down.

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