Meeting was a great success in getting the message across.

Jeb opened us up very nicely getting straight to the core points and issues at hand--great job! He basically summarized the entire scope in under 3 minutes, and then claimed he wasn't good at public speaking. Hah! Jeb was so convincing, he got the panel to keep him at the front an additional 10 minutes to discuss the details. :yippee:

Jim explained the intent and origins of the laws and how they were changed by way of misinterpretation recently, and declared there should be a difference in verbiage distinguishing between commercial industry and recreational fishermen. So thorough and delivered with precision! Special thanks to Jim for all his efforts and hard work in getting this put together and submitted in writing to the committee. :headbang:

Bob kept us entertained and the whole audience and panel was cracking up at his humor and ability to deliver the concern from the eyes of the recreational fisherman and the perspective of tourists. I loved his colorful and detailed speech so much, in fact, it made me completely forget what I was supposed to say when they immediately called me next to follow such a great public spokesman. :bow:

I haven't spoken at a public function of this style in years, and was severely out of practice--work kept me so busy as well, I didn't get much time to prepare. After stumbling around for the first minute, I finally remembered what I wanted to talk about. I pointed out that putting cleaning stations on the land was not a good idea, as it will attract animals and pests of all kinds, and would be very unattractive for one of our Gulf's most desired tourist attractions--the State Park Pier. My company actually manages random forms of environmental services, and sanitation of dumpsters is one of those avenues. We have had employees harmed by animals when opening waste containers. I told them we don't want stray cats, dogs, insects, racoons and "hyenas" jumping out of the cans! Of course, hyenas was an inside joke within my company--simply pointing out that you never know what will be lurking in the container guarding the discarded smelly fish waste. After the room finished laughing about the hyenas, I mentioned a simple solution would be getting industrialized grinders capable of breaking the carcasses down into chunks and then liquifying it to return the organic materials back to their origins--the Gulf.

My wife Emily came also, but the roster for speakers had filled; so she managed to get a lot accomplished during the recesses and speaking with certain individuals one on one.

With Jim's verbiage ideas and with a proper grinder (on the pier at the cleaning station), we could eliminate all of the issues at hand.

The assistant commissioner personally caught me afterward and wants to be given a price on a 2-stage grinder which could be installed at the pier. I will be working on this endeavor in coming weeks.

Meanwhile, we also spoke with Blankenship after the meeting, and he is aware of the issues and said his boys in blue will excerise field discretion when handling this sensitive matter.

I asked Dr Shipp about the deformed Bluefish. He said it was a deformed Bluefish. :boohoo: As suspected.

Asked FnG to enforce rules in other State Park areas for prevent people from feeding the Herons, Pelicans, etc., and to prevent googans from throwing cast nets near structures, jetties, rocks, etc. I have a feeling some DO NOT *.* signs will be going up soon--including the OB pass.

By the way, inside joke being one of our employees having a Work Comp claim against our company for $280K for placing waste in a receptical and was bit on the hand by an escaped hyena in the zoo where she was contractually employed. One of the deer hunters later joked and asked if a season for hunting hyena was going to be discussed. :wall: Brought the house down. Gonna have to change my name to Hyena Guy, lol.

All in all, we got their attention, and I believe they "got the point." They seemed really eager to find a solution and were friendly about the whole thing--all things considered.

Now it is a matter of working out solutions and being patient.

Last thing we need is for us to be pushed into a corner and take this matter to the press with the assistance and support of businesses, tourists, lobbyists, rental agencies and condo owners all along the Gulf. I'm not going to use both hands to win the arm wrestling match--instead, I am going get my allegorical bulldozer driver to run over the opposing arms and hold them in place while every supporter pours their buckets of symbolic cement. :mrt:

We will fight; we will WIN!

Unlike the NE Patriots... :'(