New Jax Witty: April 2021

Monday, April 26

Jax Local Ad of the Week: Jamie's Tree Service

Remember to support local businesses, not that anyone hires a national chain to cut down trees, but you get the point.

This week's ad seems pretty normal at first: a manly man up in a tree, holding part of the tree he's been cutting down, giving a thumbs up. He seems to be safely harnessed to the tree and adorned with proper attire to be cutting trees. I'd seen the ad several times before I noticed that it's all wrong.

Friday, April 23

Where Should Our Tunnels Go, Jacksonville? Part 1 - St. Johns Town Center

I was reading that parts of South Florida are getting excited about Elon Musk's Boring Company and its promises of being able to build cheap tunnels. While I'm not sure I totally buy into the dream, I also wasn't sure about electric cars or sending millionaires to tour outer space, so perhaps Musk will come through and build tunnels on the cheap. Or else he'll promise that and then jack up the prices like the Tesla Roof fiasco. But let's just assume the Boring Company can build cheap tunnels. Where should ours be in Jacksonville?

St. Johns Town Center

As the recipient of New Jax Witty's Worst Design Award, the St. Johns Town Center could use some help, maybe using tunnels. St. Johns Bluff stupidly ends into Town Center Parkway, which stupidly ends into Gate Parkway, which stupidly meanders all around the Southside. In planning classes I took, the technical term is "clusterf***." And tunnels probably won't fix it because it was just so poorly designed. But why not try, right?

Here's one idea: tunnel St. Johns Bluff into the Dick's Sporting Goods parking lot where it can meet up with Big Island Drive (where it stupidly meanders N/S after starting E/W). Now you have 25% of the traffic diverting right into the heart of the Town Center. Then, tunnel under the JTB and come up where the FBI building is at (big surprise) Gate Parkway. Instead of everyone playing around on Town Center Parkway and Gate Parkway, they just drive underground to get to Nordstrom and Dillard's and whatnot. That's the yellow tunnel in the image above.

If you really want the whole thing to make sense, you then build a road (call it St. Johns Bluff, perhaps) straight down from the tunnel along the high power lines until it hits Baymeadows. Wait, hit reverse for a second. Am I suggesting a North/South road should travel from the St. Johns River all the way down to Baymeadows (maybe even the 295) uninterrupted? Sacrilege! It should dead end or curve into oblivion, based on general rules for Jax right now. But really, building straight roads that go through to other straight roads actually works sometimes. Or all of the time. A double-tunnel could do what planners of the Town Center decided not to do (make sense).

The next phase of tunneling, since the first one worked so well, would be dedicated exit (from the Town Center) tunnels, maybe along that same area near the Uptown Funk Apartments (which probably would get torn down for the greater good). Direct exits to the 295/9B and the JTB, tunneled under the interchange. So instead of being stuck in traffic for 30 minutes to get to the on ramp after stuffing yourself at Maggiano's, you just hop on over to the JTB East tunnel and head to your beachfront home in Ponte Vedra. Those are the pink and orange tunnels.

Another option is to tunnel from the St. Johns Town Center over to the new neighborhood that is stupidly planned to dead end Kernan (south of the JTB) rather than have it go through to (you guessed it) Gate Parkway where it becomes Baymeadows. I'm not lying, Gate Parkway goes East-Westish until it crosses the 295 and then hits Baymeadows which has turned from a solid East-West road into a solid North-South road for no other reason than to make me angry. Anyhow, if Kernan is not linked to Gatemeadows, someone seriously needs to go to jail. And when I say linked, I mean Kernan continues north-south along the edge of all civilization (yes, all the way to Hwy 1) and Gate comes east to meet it, not that Kernan just meanders over to Gate. Does anyone out there understand the purpose of roads?

Sorry about the rant. We're talking tunnels here. Back to tunnels to fix bad road decisions. Maybe a tunnel from Town Center Parkway where it ends into Gate Parkway over to Southside Boulevard. That's the blue tunnel in the photo.

Just some ideas, folks, but not bad ideas if tunneling does end up being cheaper than building new roads. I'd prefer tunnels with conveyor belts and built-in carwashes. That way, no one breaks down and gets stuck, and your car gets washed. But I bet Elon Musk hasn't even thought of the tunnel carwash yet.

As an added bonus, let's look at the way the Town Center should have been designed when it comes to (major) roads. The image includes several new main roads that connect to one another, and then there would also be other roads that connect to those roads, kind of like an old downtown, which I'm pretty sure was the idea behind a town center, right? Go ahead and call all four of the East-West roads Gate Parkway if you want. They all would have connected Kernan to St. Johns Bluff to Southside, just like Beach does and Baymeadows should. I know someone out there made this exact design when the Town Center was being considered, but curves and dead-ends somehow won the day.

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Friday, April 16

Should I Drive for Lyft in Jacksonville? Uber?

I know you're not looking for a job until all your unemployment runs out, but just in case you want a gig once that happens, give Lyft a month. $1500 is a good guarantee from Lyft because many of the rides will be crappy $3.19 rides from McDonald's to a seedy apartment complex. So if you focus on crappy, short rides, you'll make maybe $500 or $750 for your first 100 rides. Signing up with the link gives you maybe double your normal pay for your first month, as long as most rides are short.

Thursday, April 15

I Earned Wisconsin's Version of Bright Futures: Here's My View of Florida's System and The Fight to Keep it Bright

A quarter-century ago, I was ranked 2nd in my class and 95th percentile in the ACT, so I earned Wisconsin's version of Florida's Bright Futures award. Since Florida is considering changing how Bright Futures is distributed, I thought I'd weigh in based on my own experiences.

Tuesday, April 13

Using Walgreens For Covid Vaccine Semi-Fail

I was recently deemed eligible For a Covid-19 vaccine. Gateway Mall was a good site when my wife went, but I decided I'd save some time driving and choose a local Walgreens. Kind of a mistake, though I am vaccinated.

JAXEX Craig: Loud Sunday in East Arlington Probably New Norm

I know some folks from Holly Oaks contacted me about the noise from JAXEX Craig Airport a while back they had video of planes continuously circling, reminiscent of something I'd see months later over my own neighborhood. Maybe complaints from Holly Oaks moved some of the routes. Maybe airport traffic means everyone in East Arlington must suffer.

Jax Local Ad of the Week: Those Krazy Kids

First off, support local businesses, whether they use kids, animals, or inanimate objects in advertising.

Let's take a look at some of the local ads that use kids, who obviously say the darndest things. We'll look at five local Jacksonville ads that use kids as part of their pitches in order to see if it's effective as it is cute.

The first ad uses a slightly older kid than the rest, and we'll assume it's a daughter (heir) to the Air to Air company. She suggests, "Let's give away a $350 WIFI Thermostat with every Carrier 15 Seer Replacement Heat Pump." Even if this kid was raised in a household of HVAC folk, it's very unlikely she'd make this statement. Most kids would be like, "Buy a new Carrier system from my dad so he can get me a PS5." Maybe, if it's a really altruistic kid, she'd say, "Buy a new Carrier so that our company can donate food to homeless people or something." The latest ad for Air to Air features a teenage girl (not sure if it's the same girl), and she also suggests the same giveaway. Whereas I can almost buy that a little kid wants to give stuff away to customers, I'd think a teenager would be like, "Just buy a Carrier from my dad already so I can get a Jeep Wrangler for my Sweet Sixteen. Or don't. Whatever."

The next ad for Southern Home Additions features Erich, who says, "Don't wait til I take over...CALL NOW!" He's dressed in a tuxedo and seemingly dancing, perhaps at a family wedding. While he looks like he might be saying, "A cha cha, I love Kool Aid!" it's entirely possible that he was just told at the wedding that he would one day take over the family construction business, perhaps because his aunt just married some guy from a rival construction company. Still, I can't imagine he'd have the foresight to suggest people should invest in home additions now rather than in twenty years when he's the boss. He'd probably really say something like, "I love trucks and mac n cheese and puppies!" when asked what he wants to tell potential customers. And, honestly, who doesn't love those things?

The next ad from Elite AC features another cute kid who is looking shyly away from the camera and saying, "Kids like Clean Air, Trust us!" This is an interesting statement, coming from a kid. First off, kids are very self-centered, and it's unlikely this child would say that all kids like clean air if he's really talking about himself. Also, most kids don't use the royal we in a sentence or consider themselves to be part of the company. So a kid, when prodded to do so, MIGHT say, "I like clean air; trust me!" You notice how I also don't capitalize random words and use a semi-colon properly? If this wasn't a speech bubble that's quite obviously coming from a kid, I'd say it was the disembodied voice of the owner of Elite AC saying it, with "us" representing the employees of the company. If you really want to go out there, you could say that the eyes rolled to the side are more creepy and the possessed child is speaking as Legion, but most people wouldn't trust a child who's in need of an exorcism.

Precision Carpet features a little boy and a pit bull, two of the most destructive entities known to suburbia. The boy has a smudge of dirt on his face and maybe in his hair while wearing overalls (reminiscent of Dennis the Menace). He's not really saying anything or even doing anything, but I suppose he will make a mess, given the chance. However, the irony in this photo is that neither the boy nor the dog are on carpet. The vans are. I have not yet seen a carpeted garage or driveway in Jacksonville, but I guess Precision Carpet will clean em if you got em.

Side note: I did see a carpeted driveway while walking through Winnipeg (of all places), and I have seen some ratty carpet in enclosed patios here in Jacksonville, though I'm not really sure carpet cleaners can handle engine oil or grease from a grill.

Credible AC uses a baby with his/her family to sell UV light filtering and duct cleaning. While neither will actually protect anyone from Covid, my wife definitely made me get the ducts cleaned in our house when our first baby was born, so I get it: the billion-year-old dust just sitting in your ducts is better off aging in a vacuum or a landfill in Georgia. Guys, just humor your wives and get the ducts cleaned the one time you have a firstborn.

There is one other detail that might need some explaining: the extremely appealing model-parents both sport thick and dark hair, while the cute baby seems to be totally blonde or completely bald. I'm sure the kid will look like dad eventually, but that's one father who might be doing the math of his deployment and when his wife scheduled the construction work, carpet cleaning, and AC installation. I'm kidding. The real question is why the dad's dressed like a lumberjack when the family lives in Florida and has a working HVAC system.