Plant City FL Here We Come?!

[Dan Gould]

Sue and I are under contract!

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/7143-S-County-Line-Rd_Plant-City_FL_33567_M50151-54433?cid=eml-SAF-property_detail

 

A lot of ducks have to get in a row but it's a pretty exciting/high stress time at Casa Gould.

Best part of this is that the house is way nicer than where we are (and where the neighborhood is worse than it was when we bought 12 years ago) and that I am not changing jobs, I'll actually continue with my current position and work from home.  So no 50 mile round trip commute, and no 5:15 alarm setting. And, one of my closest friends lives about 45 minutes away so spending time with him won't be a once or twice a year proposition.

 

[Scott Dolan]

Lived there for almost two years before we moved to Missouri. Pretty laid back town, but you're on the I-4 corridor which pretty much opens up a ton of possibilities. Ybor City is just twenty minutes down the road, Tampa another fifteen minutes from there. The other way you've got the Walt Disney World resort about a half hour away, then the Orlando metro area, and even Daytona Beach isn't that far away. 

Edited November 20, 2015 by Scott Dolan

[Chuck Nessa]

Hope the ducks line up. Looks like you will have room for a few hundred of 'em.

[Dan Gould]

Thanks - there won't be room for as many horses as ducks, but that's the whole reason behind the move - having my wife's horses (two with a third due in the spring) on site rather than paying for room and board.

[GA Russell]

Bon voyage Dan!  Your new home looks lovely.

[sidewinder]

No problem with space for CDs and LPs. Congrats !

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Looks blooming fantastic!

All the very best Dan.

MG

[marcello]

All the best Dan! When are you moving? I'll be down in Delray the first week of February.

[JSngry]

On 11/20/2015, 7:59:23, Chuck Nessa said:

Hope the ducks line up.

And that you can shoot them for dinner!

We lived in Tampa , for about 18 months, (4942 Dewey Rose Court, to be exact, drop by when you're in town and ask for a tour) and I swear to god, there was a gang of ducks running a shakedown racket out of one of the neighborhood wetlands areas. Every Saturday morning they'd come through the neighborhood waddling in formation, literally going from house to house endlessly quacking and standing there until somebody came up and fed them something. I thought this was cute the first few times it happened, but then I realized that these motherfuckers weren't cuties, they were freakin' web-footed hoodlums. So the next time they came around, I did not come out to greet them. They stood there for a good 10 minutes or so until the leader gave the signal, at which time they all shit on my driveway, and then moved on to the next house. Oh yes they did. It was a planned and coordinated driveway duckshit, and it was not as easy to clean up as you might suspect.

The week after that, here they come again, and this time I came out to meet them with a broom. They got all thuggy at first but then I started swinging the broom and yelling some kind of random blood call at them. They quacked louder at first, so I swung and yelled even harder, stared taking aim at the leader, and pretty soon they flew off. There was still duck shit to clean up, but the message got over, as they did not again return.

So yeah, we all love ducks and all that, but they are, I believe, thuggish by nature, and it always is a true enjoyment when I get to eat one.

Horses? Hey, horses are among the most noble of all creatures. I have no desire to kill ANY horse, much less eat one. But a duck? Fuck a duck, dude, fuck a duck.

Good luck and congratulations on the move!

[catesta]

Congrats to you Dan. It looks like a very nice place. Do yourself a favor and get a goat or two.

[sidewinder]

And maybe some geese as guard-dogs ! 

[Scott Dolan]

Hey, Jim. Were they Muscovy ducks? Those things are a serious pain in the ass. A non-native, and sometimes aggressive, species. They drop pools of shit everywhere they go. 

There have been eradication efforts there in the past. I personally don't care about them being there, but Florida has become a cesspool of invasive and dangerous species of flora and fauna. Burmese pythons in the Glades, Australian Pines along the barrier islands, iguana's on Boca Grande, Muscovy ducks pretty much up and down the Gulf coast...

If you get down to the southern part of the coast where I used to live, it's nothing to see a flock of parrots/lovebirds/parakeets because of people releasing them into the wild. One day when I was on the deck of my father's house on Boca Grande I heard the familiar chirp of the Peach-faced Lovebird. Looked up and saw around 15 to 20 of them congregated on a power line. 

And there was an iguana that used to shit on his doorstep every night. 

Edited November 23, 2015 by Scott Dolan

[JSngry]

I couldn't tell you Muscovy duck from Muscadine wine, but your description more than fits!

The thing about Tampa that tripped me out, the short time we lived there anyway, was the abundance of golf courses, and the lack of expressways. Seemed like almost every subdivision had their own golf course, and that there was no expressways anywhere, everything had lights at every intersection. What looked on the map to be a 15-20 drive routinely became 45 minutes to an hour. Nuts!

That was 1990, though.

[Homefromtheforest]

In Vancouver, BC a place like that would cost easily 2-4 million!

Location, location...

[Scott Dolan]

In Missouri a place like that would cost, maybe, $200K. Maybe a little less.

Yet another one of the upsides of moving here. 

[Dan Gould]

On ten acres of land?  What does a 1900 sq foot property cost on a 2 acre subdivision?

[sidewinder]

19 hours ago, Homefromtheforest said:

In Vancouver, BC a place like that would cost easily 2-4 million!

That place is nuts ! 

[Scott Dolan]

5 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

On ten acres of land?  What does a 1900 sq foot property cost on a 2 acre subdivision?

Not entirely sure, Dan. 

What I can tell you is that the place we rented when we first moved here was 3,000 sq ft on 10 acres, and he was selling that for $225k. 

Our current home is on a cul-de-sac at the end of town with nothing but Missouri farm land behind us. 2700 sq ft and we paid $135k. That same place in Plant City would easily cost twice that. 

You also have to keep in mind that owning property in mid Missouri is a huge difference from owning property on the I-4 corridor in central Florida. 

10 acres in Florida is almost unheard of these days. Let alone on the biggest entertainment pipeline in the state! 

Edited November 24, 2015 by Scott Dolan

[Brad]

Congratulations Dan.  Looks like a great place.  I can't even begin to tell you what a place like that would cost in the northeast. A 2 acre lot here in NW New Jersey is probably $500 to $600 K. 

[Dan Gould]

Not to mention the taxes!

[Scott Dolan]

The taxes in Florida aren't the best either. Even with homestead exemption we paid nearly twice in property taxes for our home in Plant City than we've ever paid here. 

And that was on a home valued at $35k less than our current home, and there is no homestead exemption in Missouri. 

[Dan Gould]

The deed is done cuz the Deed is signed.  Plant City here we come!!!

[ejp626]

Congrats.

[MomsMobley]

20 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

The deed is done cuz the Deed is signed.  Plant City here we come!!!

I'm a Pinellas Cty partisan myself but know Hillsborough well too so welcome Cuzz. You know the lay of the musical land yet? Sound Exchange in Brandon will be closest record store and though I wouldn't discourage you from going there, the larger Tampa location (Nebraska just south of Bearrs) is usually much deeper in jazz and blues, the Pinellas Park location falls between 'em. For baseball, only thing I like about the Yankees is the stadium's proximity to various renowned Tampa smut locales (really + there's a healthy local swingers scene if that's an interest) but the Phillies, in Clearwater, and Blue Jays, in Dunedin, are both enjoyable, at least on that level; the former easier access (Courtney Campbell Causeway turns right into Drew), nicer stadium, good running / biking trail adjacent, the latter funkier and close to hep downtown Dunedin, some estimable food and some very good breweries (if that's an interest). Downtown Tampa I don't fux with much though there's a very good Old Tampa Book Company there, St Petersburg has lotsa cool stuff shore to shore. (Hillsborough being less densely populated wins on open parkland, Pinellas beats it for the bayous and beaches.) I've never knowingly run into the Arbors Records folks in Clearwater-- the city is by turns a very interesting and very VERY strange place due to "Sea Org")-- but it's good to know they're around.

Books / records you'll also want to hit Mojo in Tampa (strong books & vinyl, some but mostly weak CDs); Microgroove in Tampa (nearly all used vinyl); Planet Retro in St Pete (same).

Brief intro Tampa blues history--

http://www.tdblues.com/2009/12/historical-blues-tampa-florida/

(And alas, historic racism of Florida, and Tampa, can't be overstated and veers into story highways / expressways mentioned by JSngry above.)

Best local legend, hillbilly / blues variety-- he can tell you much about Tampa blues too-- Birmingham-born lifetime Tampanian Ronny Elliott

 

 

***

I think this dude became famous later?

 

Greatest (white) Tampa rocker, Benny Joy

 

 

[Dan Gould]

58 minutes ago, MomsMobley said:

I'm a Pinellas Cty partisan myself but know Hillsborough well too so welcome Cuzz. You know the lay of the musical land yet? Sound Exchange in Brandon will be closest record store and though I wouldn't discourage you from going there, the larger Tampa location (Nebraska just south of Bearrs) is usually much deeper in jazz and blues, the Pinellas Park location falls between 'em. For baseball, only thing I like about the Yankees is the stadium's proximity to various renowned Tampa smut locales (really + there's a healthy local swingers scene if that's an interest) but the Phillies, in Clearwater, and Blue Jays, in Dunedin, are both enjoyable, at least on that level; the former easier access (Courtney Campbell Causeway turns right into Drew), nicer stadium, good running / biking trail adjacent, the latter funkier and close to hep downtown Dunedin, some estimable food and some very good breweries (if that's an interest). Downtown Tampa I don't fux with much though there's a very good Old Tampa Book Company there, St Petersburg has lotsa cool stuff shore to shore. (Hillsborough being less densely populated wins on open parkland, Pinellas beats it for the bayous and beaches.) I've never knowingly run into the Arbors Records folks in Clearwater-- the city is by turns a very interesting and very VERY strange place due to "Sea Org")-- but it's good to know they're around.

Books / records you'll also want to hit Mojo in Tampa (strong books & vinyl, some but mostly weak CDs); Microgroove in Tampa (nearly all used vinyl); Planet Retro in St Pete (same).

 

Thanks for the welcome Moms and thanks especially for the lay of the land, music-wise.  I only knew about Vinyl Fever which I've visited a couple of times when seeing friends but I understood had closed down a year or more ago. So  I had no idea what other options existed.

As far as baseball goes not going anywhere near Yankee land but as long as the Rays stay in St Pete, my beloved Red Sox visit 9 games a year and that's much better than the rare Red Sox appearance in south Florida.  I hate the monstrosity the Rays play in but when you get down to it, in the middle of a Tampa summer it's sure as hell a more comfortable place to watch a game than Marlins park.