The Mutt Report

My wife Susan and I are collaborating on a new blog about dogs called The Mutt Report. The new venue will be entertaining and informative. There's a page for you to post your recommendations for dog products, places, and services; a page to post events and classes; and a themed photo page to post your pooch's picture. This week we introduce ourselves and later in the week, we'll explain what you can expect on the blog. We'd like it to be an interactive space where readers gather and share. We hope to build enough of an audience to justify regular columns by experts. So, please stop by and visit TheMuttReport.com

Lutz Places to Eat - Breakfast

Now that we have been here for a while, we have settled into some favorite places to eat.

For breakfast you have to eat at the Breakfast Nook. This is one of the best breakfast places I have eaten at for a very long time. Good food and reasonable prices with a nice atmosphere. For those who smoke there is outdoor seating. One thing I like to do with restaurants is to see if they make good sausage gravy with biscuits and Breakfast Nook makes it great. Located in the Tropical Village Plaza on Hwy 41,between County Line Road and Hwy 54. 1532 Land O Lakes Blvd Lutz, FL 33549 Phone: 813-948-4041.

Neighborhood Relations Neighborhood listing

The Hillsborough County Neighborhood Relations office has a nice list of the neighborhood associations and special dependent districts in unincorporated Hillsborough County. What does not make sense about the list is that there are no listings for the websites for any of the associations.

Golden In Need Of Home

This good natured golden retriever needs a new home. Two children in his loving family are allergic to him. For more info, see Florida Rescued Dogs blog.

Dibbs Delays

Well, to no surprise, the County Commission bowed down to Stephen Dibbs on Thursday (see below.)

By the way, Dibbs contributed to the election campaigns of Hagan, Norman and White. He also contributed to Sharpe's campaign, however Sharpe clearly is more interested in the people's concerns rather than the developers.

According to Mike Salinero of the Trib:
"But commissioners allowed a last-minute continuance of another bid to breach the county's growth boundary, a move that angered 50 or more citizen activists who traveled from far-flung areas of the county to oppose the development on Lutz-Lake Fern Road near the Suncoast Parkway.

Both developments require first changing the county's growth plan to extend water and sewer lines into areas normally reserved for rural development.

Developer Stephen Dibbs, who was not at the meeting, sent a letter this week to the commission asking for a delay on his proposal for a 36.6-acre development on Lutz-Lake Fern Road and Suncoast Parkway.

Dibbs wants to increase the density on his property tenfold, from one house per 5 acres to two houses per acre, and build a shopping center.

The continuance was the second granted by the commissioners this month after dozens of residents turned out to fight growth plan amendments that would push high-density development into rural areas.

"They're making a mockery of this process," said Kelly Cornelius, who then turned to the audience and asked, "Who else is tired of these continuations?" The crowd answered with a roar.

Dibbs also withdrew a proposed plan amendment that would have removed 305 acres from the Keystone-Odessa Community Planning area. The land includes the 36 acres he wants to develop. The community plan restricts development to one house per five acres.

Commissioner Rose Ferlita, who didn't arrive at the meeting until after the vote to give Dibbs the continuance, asked chairman Ken Hagan to hold the vote again so she could record her disapproval.

The vote was held again, with Ferlita and Mark Sharpe voting no.

"I think this has been done before, and it ... beats down our citizens," Ferlita said.

On Feb. 7, the commission continued another proposed amendment to extend the urban service area to allow a mixed-use development with 174 homes near Gunn Highway and Van Dyke road."

Disabled Parking at the Breakfast Nook

New Blog About Florida's Rescued Dogs

There's a new blog for dog lovers called Florida Rescued Dogs. Its purpose is to provide a venue to further conversation, supply helpful articles and links, and support rescue dog owners and groups. This week, Lutz Dog Park was featured. One of the commentors provided a very thoughtful review of Hillsborough County dogparks, including the Lutz Park.

Windemere Special Dependent District

The Windemere Special Dependent District now has a webpage. http://windemeredistrict.googlepages.com/

The Windemere Special Dependent District (SDD) is a special district created by the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners in 1986 to maintain the common areas in the Windemere subdivision. $50.00 is collected as a line item on the property taxes by the Hillsborough County Tax Collector and distributed to the district every year.

The Windemere SDD mows the common areas around both ponds and at the entrance, maintains the wall and sign at the entrance, and pays for the water and power for the entrance area. Street lights are assessed separately on the tax bill. The Windemere SDD is not a homeowners association and does not handle issues regarding Code Enforcement or Deed Restrictions.

The Board of the Trustees for district is composed of 7 residents of Windemere who are elected to the positions.

All I want for Christmas . . ..

Seen on Hanna Avenue

Windemere Subdivision

Windemere Subdivision now has a website http://windemerelutz.googlepages.com and a restricted email Google group http://groups.google.com/group/windemere-subdivision-lutz. If you live in Windemere, join the email group.

Postcards From Lutz - Lutz Depot 2

Postcards From Lutz - Lutz Depot

Images From Walker Road - Part 2

My, you have big eyes!



Guardian Tweety.


Every gate has to have a painting on it.


Fixer Upper

Images From Walker Road - part 1

Walker Road is off Sunset, between Hanna and Livingston.




Totem Mail


The Lutz mascots - Sandhill Cranes


Home of Easy Rider?

How Do You Know You Are In Lutz? - Ballons

Saturday morning hot air ballons swooshing over your house.

How Do you Know You Are In Lutz?

Hay in the back of a car. (Seen at the parking lot of the Lutz Post office.)

What were they thinking?

Our Lutz house has wall to wall carpet in the the bedrooms and the living room part of our greatroom. The rest is tile. We don't like wall to wall carpet and decided to have the carpet removed and laminate flooring out down. today our installer began his work, first removing the old carpet. To our surprise, the surface underneath the carpet was not concrete, but more of the tile. The photo below shows the dining room part of the great at the bottom and the living room at the top. Dividing the room is the carpet strip.


When I saw this, my first thought was "Why?". Why did someone glue and nail carpet tack strips and glue padding onto tile floor? What were they thinking? Rugs would have been cheaper, simpler and easier. Sometimes I just donb't understand.

Now we face a decision. Rip up the tile and replace that part of the room with laminate or leave it and fix the damage.

Hooper's Souless Suburbia

Ernest Hooper has an interesting column on Friday titled: "Souless Suburbia"

"Soulless.

Time and again, the word is used to characterize life in suburbia, and I can only ask one question: Why the hate?"

"My life and my community - and it is a community - isn't defined by old-fashioned houses, kitschy clothing shops or sidewalk cafes. Sure, most every house in my neighborhood is beige, and my home's design has been repeated at least 150 times in the area

"My advice: Judge me not by the color of my home, but by the colorful personalities of my neighbors."

"The appeal of suburbia is built on simple pleasures and a slower life"

It will be interesting to see if life in Lutz is the same as he describes Seffner. I suspect that it sometimes takes longer in suburbia to find the colorful personalities that it does in the City. In the City these personalities jump in your face. Partly I think it is the design of the houses in suburbia, with garages and backyard patios. You spend more time out front in the City and thus it is easier to meet people.

I have seen glimses of colorful possiblities as we have driven into Windemere for the past weeks. There is a neighbor who had a bar in his garage, that occasionally people group around. There are people eating a meal in their garage. There is a neighbor who always have his garage open and is doing something there everytime I drive by and who has waved at me many of the times.

Dryer Issues

Yesterday, we brought the washer and dryer over to the house from the storage unit. I go to plug in the dryer and discover that the outlet was a 3 prong outlet and the cord from the dryer had a 4 prong outlet.

When I first bought this dryer 7 years ago, it had a 3 prong cord. However, I had the electrical service in my 1922 Seminole Heights bungalow upgraded and our electrician had put in a new more modern outlet, which required 4 prongs. So off to Home Depot I went and bought the 4 prong cord, and I replaced the 3 prong cord. Not to difficult to do. I held onto the 3 prong cord for years before finally garage saleing it, maybe a few months ago as we prepared for the move to Lutz.

So now it turns out I should not have garage saled it.

Ooh well, this time I went to Lowes and got a 3 prong cord and rewired the darn thing.

So I have a 4 prong cord sitting in my workshop. Since we do not plan to move from our new Lutz house, this one will go in the first garage sale we hold.

We've Moved To Lutz

On March 1st, we moved to Lutz. We live in a nice house in Windemere Subdivision. Quiet neighborhood. We have been so busy moving in that we have not had a chance to meet many people except for our next door neighbor, E.

The first thing we had to figure out was where do we eat? Thursday night I ran up to the Sunset Shopping Center and got menus from the Subways, the Chinese Restaurant and Beff O'Brady's. The Pizza place was out of menus. We decided to try the Chicken Salad at Beef O' Brady's. Carry Out. Not bad. Love that melted cheese and mushrooms.

Today we ate breakfast at Richard's Cafe, just south of the Sunet PLaza. Nice little place. They have the largest cups of coffee I ever drank. This seems to be the place where everyone knows everyones name.

Dinner tonight was Beef O' Brady's carry out Chicken Salad and their Potato Soup. The soup is best eaten there when it is the hottest. This is a popular place, filled with families.