I fell in love with Florida somewhere between Tampa International Airport’s main terminal and the Alamo Rent A Car.
At that time — about eight years ago — the walk to Alamo was maybe only 50 steps, but it was all I needed.
A warm breeze caressed my face as I opened the door and stepped out into golden sunshine. I goggled at the lush greenery — palm trees, ferns, and tall tropical plants with impossibly huge, plasticky leaves. The cries of exotic birds echoed in my ears.
That week was a religious experience for me. I was in a whole new world. If you think the walk to the Rent A Car impressed me, you can imagine my reaction the first time I stood barefoot on a white-powder sand beach gazing out over the Gulf of Mexico.
I decided that one day, Florida would be my home. My wife didn’t argue. Paradise is not a particularly hard sell, and anyway, her parents both lived there already.
Fast-forward to today. My wife’s job is now fully remote, which gives us the freedom to live and work anywhere we please. And given that the rest of the country is going 100% batshit crazy, Florida is looking better to us than ever.
We no longer see the state as just a sunny, tropical paradise, but as a sort of “freedom firewall” against the nightmarish lunacy that is quickly overtaking the world.
Maybe I’ll speak more on that later. Right now, I want to tell you what this move means for The Cranky Creative blog.
A brief intermission
Simply put, I’m taking a short break.
As you can imagine, moving cross-country is kind of a big deal. My wife and I have spent the past several weeks scrambling to declutter and pack up the house. And on top of that, for some reason, after a slow first quarter, all of my clients have suddenly bombed me with work.
But we’re making progress. We’ll be on the road in a few weeks and hopefully settled in by mid-June. I’ll probably have a good deal of work to catch up on, and then ol’ Cranky will be back in July.
In the meantime . . .
Thanks for being here. With your help, posts like “Let’s talk about diversity in advertising” and “Yes, the Gillette Venus Pubic Hair and Skin razor ad goes (down) there” have been big hits. I suppose it’s no coincidence that these posts speak directly to the culture war that is now raging in America — part of the insanity I mentioned earlier.
Give those posts a read if you haven’t already. (Or just check out the most recent reader comments, many of which are quite thoughtful.) And if you’d like to suggest an idea for a future Cranky blog post — an ad to review, or a marketing topic to cover — by all means, feel free. Send an email to Rob@TheCrankyCreative.com. Or drop a note to say hi.
Enjoy the start of summer and I’ll be back before you know it!
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Bon Voyage Rob! We’ll miss you up here in Dairyland. Take good care!
Thank you, Chris! It’s been a pleasure, my friend. You and I will definitely stay in touch.
Have fun in the SUN ! I’ll be stuck here in Oregon……”The CLOUDY State” Your friend, Gary
Thanks, Gary! Hope some sunshine comes your way and in the meantime, don’t let those Liberty Mutual commercials get you down!