It Doesn’t Matter Where I Live

I live in a suburb of Orlando that has a population of 41,562.  Orlando has a population of 302,968 and it ranks 4th in Florida coming in behind Tampa which has 380,476, Miami which has 440,807 and Jacksonville which has 937,690.  Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville all have NFL teams being the Buccaneers, Dolphins and Jaguars and only one other state has 3 NFL teams is California.  New York State could be thought of as having 3 NFL teams with the Giants, the Jets and the Buffalo Bills, but the Giants and the Jets play in New Jersey.  Orlando has the NBA team the Orlando Magic, but I don’t follow basketball.  My town is 25 miles west of Orlando and without out any traffic, I can get there in about a half hour.  Orlando does have a major airport and the Disney World resort is just 15 miles south of Orlando.  Orlando has its own ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX affiliate television stations with WKMG-TV News 6 being CBS, WESH (channel 2) is NBC, WOFL 35 is FOX and WFTV (channel 9) is ABC.  Our cable company is arguing with channel 9 right now over fees, so at the moment we don’t get that station.

I can basically get anything I want out here in the suburb that I live in and it has dining, hotels, lakes, parks and golf.  I live very close to the Performing Arts Center, but I have never gone there.  I thought about going when they had the Fab Four a Beatles tribute band there and they do have a lot of exciting upcoming shows.  On February 17, 2023 there is EVIL WOMAN – The American ELO presents “The Electric Light Orchestra Experience, which sounds like fun.  On March 10, the show is called The Righteous Brothers, which will be Bill Medley with Bucky Heard.  On April 1 it is music of the Carpenters.  On May 6, Kashmir will be there, the nation’s number one Led Zeppelin tribute show.  They also have a lot of comedians and other acts.  The Presidents Hall of Fame is a wax museum dedicated to the country’s presidents and that is just north of the town that I live in, however I have not been there either.  The Citrus Tower is right next to this museum and you can go to the top and get a great view of the surrounding area, but I didn’t do that yet either.  If you have children, you could take them to Sky Zone Trampoline Park, or Champions Splash Park which are both in my town, but since I don’t have any kids, I have never gone to either place.  Lakeridge Winery and Vineyards is just a few miles north of me and they have tastings, but I don’t drink wine.  The also have food festivals with live music and I have not gone to any of those yet.

I guess it really wouldn’t matter where I live, because I don’t really do anything, but blog and I could do that from anyplace whether it is an urban community, a suburb, an exurban community, or a rural area, as long as I have the internet.  I do like where I live as it is a 55+ gated community and I feel very safe there.  There is some crime in my town, but my community has guards that check all the incoming visitors, so we don’t have any major crimes here.  Sure, some people will speed driving faster than the limit, but I feel that most of the people here are safe, as I have never seen a car accident before.  When I was the Newsletter editor for my community there was some talk about shaming those drivers that were exceeding the speed limit by posting their names in the newsletter, but that never happened.  Some of the rules here are ridiculous, like when my car was leaking oil, they wrote me a letter and said they did not want leaky cars in the neighborhood and I felt they were acting like Nazis, but I got rid of that car because it also had other problems.  I call them the Driveway Police and these people get on these committees and they just like to boss everyone around.  You need to fill out applications and get approvals for anything that you want to do to the outside of your house here, which sucks the big one.

Written for Fandango’s Provocative Question #200 which asks, “Which of these four types of communities do you currently live in? Are you happy there? If so, why? If not, why not, and which type of community would you prefer to live in?”