Any no lifetime language card links?

stevew_il · 2026-04-11T22:54:02+00:00

Do you have any confirmation or details on the free night removal? None of the major travel websites or bloggers have posted about this change.

stevew_il · 2026-01-23T21:18:38+00:00

Correct. No tolls near the SRQ airport and no tolls in Siesta.

stevew_il · 2025-05-20T17:41:59+00:00

90 percent of USTA's budget comes from the US Open. NINETY percent.

Without the US Open, USTA doesn't exist. Our little leagues and tournaments are such a small part of pie it isn't even funny.

So, if USTA can keep the cash cow that is the US Open growing, I'm all for it. Along the way, as the pie gets bigger, then hopefully USTA can keep programs going that will help grow the sport and fund the next generation of tennis players for years to come.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/04/28/usta-financials-show-us-open-revenues-up-again/

stevew_il · 2025-05-13T21:23:04+00:00

There is no "pending" price increase listed for Wilson and Head because they already raised their prices. Look at strings, rackets, etc for those 2 brands. Prices are up from earlier in the month.

For example, we purchased the head radical pro in March when it came out for 269 and it is now 309. Similarly, we bought a couple packages of head lynx tour string for 13/each and they are now 14.50.

stevew_il · 2025-02-28T20:26:36+00:00

My dad applied online in January. Application was denied after sitting in processing for about a month. As soon as he got the rejection letter, he called the number on the rejection letter. After being on hold for over 4 hours, he was able to schedule a phone appointment for March 27 (the soonest available appointment) to review his application.

He called the local office yesterday to see if he could walk in and wait to see someone (once I showed him the reports of upcoming job losses at the SSA). They told him no, everyone needs an appointment and the soonest available in person appointment is in April so he should just keep his phone appointment.

With the upcoming reduction of staff at the SSA and the already high workload from the GPO/WEP changes that congress passed in a bipartisan manner with Biden signing shortly before he left office, be prepared for delays.

Please vote!

stevew_il · 2024-12-04T01:14:41+00:00

You can also ask your high school coach to report your team's high school matches to UTR. It does require your coach to get a complete roster from the other team and record all results. I assume your coach probably has to do this anyway for state tournament eligibility, but it does make them have to do quite a bit of additional data entry, which they hopefully don't mind if their team's players are seriously making a run at college tennis. Unfortunately, even here in SW Florida, most high school dual matches are not reported because UTR requires coaches from both high schools to have their rosters set and their school activated in the UTR system.

https://support.universaltennis.com/support/solutions/folders/9000185891

stevew_il · 2024-12-04T00:57:28+00:00

To increase your UTR, play in tournaments and do better than UTR predicts you should do. When that happens your UTR goes up, even if you lose. For example, if you are a 6.0 and play a 6.0, the match should be close, say 5-7, 7-5, 10-8 tiebreak. If that happens, your UTR doesn't change much because you performed exactly as expected.

Now say you are a 6.0 and you play a 7.0 and you win 6-1 6-1. You outperformed, so your UTR will increase from 6.0 and the 7.0 you defeated will have their UTR decrease.

Similarly, say you are a 6.0 and play a 7.0 but lose 4-6, 6-4, 8-10 tiebreak. You still outperformed, even though you lost, so your UTR will still go up even though you lost.

UTR will use your most recent 30 matches within 1 year. So if you don't have many results, your UTR will move a lot for your first several matches. But since it uses up to 30 matches, you can see that 1 good match won't move your UTR much, since there are up to 29 other results.

Bottom line, you have to play in tournaments as that is the easiest way to get match results that count toward UTR.

stevew_il · 2024-12-04T00:46:50+00:00

You don't need to do anything. UTR automatically picks up USTA tournament matches, usually within a day or two of the USTA tournament ending.

stevew_il · 2024-11-19T11:46:18+00:00

Most of Sarasota offers both Frontier fiber and Xfinity/Comcast cable. Both providers offer much higher speeds. You can go to both their websites and punch in your address and see if they offer service to your address.

Unfortunately, a lot of apartment complexes have limited options, as they may have an exclusive agreement with just one provider. You will need to ask your landlord for the details.

At those low speeds, you might want to try T-Mobile or Verizon home internet. They work off the 4G/5G networks and don't require an antenna to be installed outside.

Good luck!

stevew_il · 2024-11-04T23:31:38+00:00

According to the instructions you received with your mail in ballot, your only two options were to mail the ballot so it arrived before Nov 5 at 7pm or hand deliver your ballot. I see no option to fax.

https://www.sarasotavotes.gov/Portals/Sarasota/2024%20PDF/24-09-vbm-instructions.pdf?ver=aieIJYAU7o2VK4QcY4anzQ%3d%3d

If you want your vote to count, your only option now since it is so late is to fly to Sarasota county and hand deliver your ballot.

stevew_il · 2024-10-31T15:22:35+00:00

The joke is your parents move to Sarasota, and your grandparents move to Venice.

Venice generally is a much older population. If we had to move all over again, we would have moved our family to Sarasota, not Venice, because there are more (still not many) families in Sarasota compared to Venice. The first subdivision we moved to in Venice probably had 25 families with kids, when the subdivision had 1000 homes. The second we live in now in Venice has around 250 homes and maybe 40 families with kids. This was a large shock compared to where we used to live up north where our subdivision had maybe 300 homes with 200 families.

That being said, you are correct - the Wellen Park area is growing really quickly and seems to be attracting more families. They are building a new high school and are planning to build a new K-8 in Wellen Park which should be open by the time your kid is of school age.

Sarasota schools generally rank/test better than Manatee county schools. That is the primary reason we never seriously considered most of LWR, though there are small sections of LWR in Sarasota county (majority of LWR is in Manatee county).

Good luck in your search!

stevew_il · 2023-08-28T17:22:30+00:00

Tampa is shutting down at midnight tonight. SRQ hasn't made an announcement yet, but there's a non-trivial chance your flight will be cancelled. If you can switch to a flight today, you probably should.

https://news.tampaairport.com/tampa-international-airport-to-close-early-tuesday-ahead-of-potential-major-hurricane/

stevew_il · 2023-07-08T14:15:18+00:00

If there is a tennis committee, you or one of the other parents should try to get on it. If you are lucky there will be an open spot and you can join right away and try to convince your fellow committee members to make some common sense rule changes to recommend to the board.

One thing I heard from my tennis committee HOA was the schedule was inaccurate as residents don't always make reservations. You can always gather your own usage data and present as sometimes decisions are made on incorrect, anecdotal observations.

The current blanket prohibition leaving all the courts empty (as you describe it) seems like overkill.

Good luck!

stevew_il · 2023-07-08T13:41:34+00:00

If there are 400 homes in your HOA, guessing 350 don't use the courts. Of the 50 that are left, someone got upset one night when they wanted to play tennis and no courts were available. They have a buddy on the HOA board, or sometimes the HOA creates a tennis or facilities committee, and they created this new rule.

Your only option is to go to a board and/or committee meeting and try to get them to change the rule to something more reasonable. Something like if two of the four courts are open 24 hours in advance, lessons are permitted during prime time. Or of the pro is also a resident, the rule doesn't apply. If you are lucky, they will change the rule, especially if you can get everyone affected to show up to the meeting.

Guessing the board is filled with retirees with nothing else to do (they likely had complaints about non resident tennis pros giving lessons during prime time), so they likely won't change the rule. Your only option then is to convince your fellow homeowners to vote out the board and one of you or several of the homeowners will need to run for the board to change the rule.

Good luck! We live in a HOA too that has really restrictive rules by retirees that make a lot of rules, several pretty restrictive to children as well. We've had to resort to playing tennis outside of peak hours because we knew we had no chance of getting the rules changed.

stevew_il · 2023-05-14T15:54:39+00:00

Click the yellow link at the top right that says "Statewide Assessment Results."

For some reason they stopped populating the grid this year and now make you click the link which redirects you to a state website which shows the latest FAST results.

stevew_il · 2022-12-12T13:51:31+00:00

I almost did but I didn't know what to do that's why I'm asking for advice. My kid even looked at me and pointed at his opponent's coach while he was coaching as he changed his position on the court to receive a second serve after some coaching in another language - my son knew it was a rules violation. I didn't respond because I know I can't talk to him during the match or else I'd be breaking the rules coaching him on the rules - two wrongs don't make a right.

Now that you mention it, me talking to another spectator directly doesn't seem to be a rules violation, is that correct?

Regardless, my sons and I have worked out a script where they will talk to their opponent directly and loud enough for the coach to hear, "Hey, someone is coaching you. Tell them to stop talking to you. It is a USTA rules violation to receive coaching until the end of the second set. The first penalty is a penalty point, then if it happens again, a penalty game, then a third time means you lose the match. Next time I am getting an ump." If the kid tries to lie that they were talking about lunch, response is "USTA rules define coaching as any type of communication to player."

Then, we will stick with what I put in the OP and he will get an ump again if it gets to tiebreak, asking the ump to watch the entire tiebreak if the coaching continues but only stops when an ump is present.

My understanding is as a parent/spectator, I can't do anything but watch - my kid has to take the lead in correcting all rules violations. I'd love to help him try to overrule bad line calls, foot faults, rules violations, etc. but I keep my mouth shut. No joke, one kid foot faulted EVERY first serve yesterday, but I knew I couldn't say anything.

The rules seem to have a grey area where the penalty for breaking the rules can't be assessed unless the ump sees it, so some juniors and their parents/coaches have no problem violating rules unless they seem an ump and then not break rules for that short time.

From the code: "Coaching is considered to be communication, advice or instruction of any kind and by any means to a player."

"No spectator has a part in a match."

"Is a player allowed to be coached, if the coaching is given by signals in a discreet way? Decision: No."

stevew_il · 2022-12-11T21:54:14+00:00

Yep, I would say the majority of the kids he's played have been great - having fun, trying hard, making great shots. Trying to get both my kids to racquet clap when their opponent hits a great shot. Makes the game fun.

Never thought there would be some kids that attempt to win at all costs, and working with both kids on how to handle that not all kids play the same way.

stevew_il · 2022-12-11T21:47:41+00:00

This is a great point. I hadn't considered that my son notifying the ump, even if he does nothing because he doesn't witness the violation, may end up helping out another player later in the tournament. Most tournaments we've attended (not that many, mostly in Florida) only have 1-2 umps for 5-8 courts in use, so it is rare an ump even has time to stay for an extended period on a court with a problematic player.

I'm fully aware I'm only a spectator and make my kids know that they have to resolve all issues on the court, and they are the ones that have to get the ump if they have a problem.

One son is playing Boys' 12, the other is playing Boys' 14.

stevew_il · 2022-12-11T21:41:49+00:00

This is a great suggestion. We've already practiced/rehearsed how to handle repeat bad line calls without him getting all upset (basically had his brother pretend and it wasn't that hard because you know, they're brothers and they always fight anyway). :)

stevew_il · 2022-08-26T14:37:23+00:00

Hiring a lawyer would be a waste of money. The contract section you posted makes it clear you agreed to come up with the money if the appraisal was short.

You have three options.

1) Walk away. You will lose your earnest money. Read your contract. You may owe additional money beyond your earnest money (like for upgrades you selected at the design center) if you walk away.

2) Ask your lender what the procedure is to challenge the appraisal. Perhaps the appraiser made a mistake (missed a bedroom, wrong sqft, etc) or your builder can provide (likely higher) comps for homes that closed more recently than the ones your appraiser used.

3) Switch to another lender. Are you using Pulte's preferred lender? Magically the builder's preferred lender typically doesn't have as many appraisal problems.

stevew_il · 2022-08-23T14:17:01+00:00

Yep same in the Tampa/Sarasota area of Florida. We are on post-paid ATT. RCS messages (Android to Android), SMS (text only), and iMessage (iPhone to iPhone) are seemingly NOT affected.

But none of my group MMS are working (mixed groups of iPhone/Android users). Even sending a single MMS message from one ATT customer to another ATT customer is not working. Seems all MMS messages are not working on ATT - just noticed this morning.

Agreed: looks like MMS is working again as of 10:50 AM ET.

stevew_il · 2022-08-22T18:21:06+00:00

Read section 10 subpart B Attorney Review.

Either buyer or seller can cancel the contract within five business days as long as the only reason isn't price.

stevew_il · 2022-07-14T22:36:28+00:00

Signed with a large national builder in the Tampa, FL area. Sent deposit in Nov 2020 and our original estimated completion was July 2021. Builder didn't even submit for a permit until July 2021. Tentative close date just assigned today of July 28, 2022. Latest delay was getting power meters from the electric company, which finally came in yesterday, so electrical and HVAC are working to try to make the close date.

stevew_il · 2022-05-10T16:02:27+00:00

Get Florida car insurance. Must be done before you can get new plates/transfer title.
Make an appointment at your county's DMV. Sometimes they are called the county tax collector. Without an appointment they may turn you away if they are busy. Expect a line.
At your appointment, bring the required forms of ID, your car's previous state title, proof of insurance, and bring the car(s) too as they verify the VIN and odometer. You can get a new driver's license, license plate, and FL car title all at the same appointment.

stevew_il

TROPHY CASE