Howdy!

[Peggy]

I just joined a few minutes ago. I run a successful forum on phpBB, but I am saving to purchase my first vB license, a slow process... it's been very, very hard to put the $ together, being a newly divorced, mom of 2.

I look forward to getting to know everyone and soaking up all the info/knowledge I can about vB!

[Noppid]

Welcome to the forum. Nice to meet ya!

Save and buy outright if you plan on sticking with your forum. Using google adsense, even on a slow site, with some simple self promotion in backlinks can generate enough to pay your website bills without a alot of effort. Something to consider.

[Peggy]

Welcome to the forum. Nice to meet ya!

Save and buy outright if you plan on sticking with your forum. Using google adsense, even on a slow site, with some simple self promotion in backlinks can generate enough to pay your website bills without a alot of effort. Something to consider.

Thank you, nice to meet you too. :wave: Oh I'm saving and gonna buy, no doubt of that. My webhost is very good and pretty inexpensive, so that's not about to break me. Getting that $160 is wicked! But I'm getting there....... ;)

Your sigline says something about installing vB... what is the charge? Y'know what, never mind. I need to look through this site, I'm sure I'll find it. Thanks again!

[AnthonyCea]

Welcome to VBW, we are glad to have you!

I am from Ohio too, but live in Florida now!

Where is East Ohio :confused:

[Peggy]

Welcome to VBW, we are glad to have you!

I am from Ohio too, but live in Florida now!

Where is East Ohio :confused:

LOL... I'm from Florida and live in E. Ohio! Imagine that. Where in Florida?
I'm in Boardman, south of Youngstown. Thank you for the welcome :D

[AnthonyCea]

Yeah I used to cruise through Youngstown back in 1978 or so when all the steel mills were first shut down, talk about depression, that is why the mafia took over the entire county over there!

Panama City Beach area, the land of concrete high rise condos on the white sand beaches that have ruined the entire area and the once wonderful beaches!

Greed has ruined Florida, they should have 1 mile building restrictions in place, 1 mile from the coastline, that should be the new law, but the bankers and developers have bought off all the lawmakers!

We have homes falling into the ocean in Santa Rosa Beach, the rich buy dump trucks filled with sand to try to fight it, selling sand down here is the way to make a fortune in a hurry!


:eek: :eek: :o

[Peggy]

Yeah I used to cruise through Youngstown back in 1978 or so when all the steel mills were first shut down, talk about depression, that is why the mafia took over the entire county over there!

Panama City Beach area, the land of concrete high rise condos on the white sand beaches that have ruined the entire area and the once wonderful beaches!

Greed has ruined Florida, they should have 1 mile building restrictions in place, 1 mile from the coastline, that should be the new law, but the bankers and developers have bought off all the lawmakers!

We have homes falling into the ocean in Santa Rosa Beach, the rich buy dump trucks filled with sand to try to fight it, selling sand down here is the way to make a fortune in a hurry!

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArti cle&c=MGArticle&cid=1128768717119&path=!localnews&s=1037645509099

:eek: :eek: :o

yup yup and yup I agree on all points. Florida isn't beautiful anymore... but people are still leaving the north (and all other points of the country) to move to that one poor state, while us natives get driven out. Such is life... I like Ohio better anyway :D

[AnthonyCea]

Well that link I posted did not work, so I cut and pasted the story below to illustrate the point I was making!

This was published in: www.journalnow.com

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SANTA ROSA ISLAND, Fla.

He fired guns from the turret of warplanes, flew CIA missions in dangerous places and never yielded to fear. Yet Gene Hudkins is retreating from the path of hurricanes, and who can blame him?

Ten years ago, Hurricane Opal wrecked the bottom floor of the splendid retirement house he had just finished here with his own hands, so he rebuilt. Hurricane Ivan did the same last year, so he went back to work.

When Dennis did likewise in July - even before he finished fixing up from Ivan - Hudkins decided to sell out and move inland.

"I think it's time for me to find someplace ... a retired person can sit and enjoy without fear," he said, taking a rest from ripping down spoiled siding.

Many Americans feel spooked by hurricanes like never before, but - a bit paradoxically - probably not enough to follow Hudkins. The nation is hardly backing off its coasts. Its fearlessness - some say foolishness - will invite many more wrecked towns and lives, at great cost to individuals and to the nation.

"Hurricanes by themselves aren't disasters. It's what people build in front of them that are disasters," said John Maiolo, a sociologist at East Carolina University who has researched the social effect of hurricanes.

Americans have just endured back-to-back the two most destructive hurricane seasons in history. Insured losses topped $54 billion this season, almost doubling last year's record, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

Seven of history's 10 most damaging hurricanes whirled ashore since August 2004, peaking in the $40 billion-plus, record-setting Katrina that drowned New Orleans. Though this hurricane season officially ended Nov. 30, many forecasters predict an intensified cycle for years more. People are nervous, and maybe they should be.

Nonetheless, coastal construction is still booming in most places, and buyers are snapping up property at the usual fast-rising premiums, according to business groups. Even in the bull's-eyes of recent storms, local and national leaders pledge almost unwaveringly to rebuild.

"They'll build more and bigger," said Orrin Pilkey, a coastal geologist at Duke University.

Who's to blame? Most everyone.

Americans covet their coastal lifestyle, from the rocky beaches of the Northeast to the palm-lined strands of the South to the sandy bluffs of the West. A lopsided 53 percent inhabit the 25 percent of U.S. land that is coastal, under the definition of the U.S. Census Bureau. In hurricane alley, 98 percent of Floridians live in billowing coastal counties.

Unbowed by hurricanes and earthquakes, the U.S. coastal population has escalated by two-thirds since 1960, mirroring growth of the whole country, census data shows.

Poor people are stuck in some flood-prone flats, but they are exceptions. Property prices usually rise with proximity to the shore. The average value of a coastal home has climbed to $308,845, almost 50 percent more than inland, according to Dataquick Information Systems.

Tourists swarm to pricey coastal resorts, where they pay hundreds of dollars daily to soak up sun and wriggle their toes in sand.

The powers-that-be nearly always welcome such development, which boosts their resources and influence. More customers patronize local businesses; more taxpayers fatten revenue streams of local and state government. Influential developers get richer.

Why would homebuyers fork over disproportionate coastal prices in such risky places? Sound foolhardy? Not with a helping hand from the federal government, largely in the form of flood insurance. The program has exploded 16-fold since 1978 to cover more than $800 billion worth of assets.

It backs policies that would often be unaffordable or unavailable from private insurers making a cold assessment of risks.

Claims from this past season will surpass $23 billion, program spokesman Eugene Kinerney indicated. That's more than the total payouts in the system's 36-year history. Program leaders expect to borrow much of that from the U.S. Treasury - that is to say, the taxpayers. It is unclear when - or even if - they could repay it all.

"The federal government has been subsidizing rebuilding over and over and over again in these areas that get hit back hurricanes, and it's just crazy," said Rob Young, at Western Carolina University, who surveys damage after hurricanes.

The American ethic of private-property rights also stands Godzilla-like behind almost any development or redevelopment scheme, even in places bound to be wrecked and wrecked again.

"We believe in property rights," said Buck Lee, the general manager of Santa Rosa Island's Pensacola Beach. "You got a piece of property and it's residential? You can build on it."

Over the past two hurricane seasons, a quarter of the single-family houses on Pensacola Beach were destroyed, local officials said. Church, school and commercial property was ravaged.

Less than four months after Hurricane Dennis, fresh construction rises everywhere in this resort community between the silent shells of disemboweled houses and swimming pools buried like dried-up oases under tons of sand.

The thwack of hammers and whir of drills resonates across deep valleys of timber, concrete, mattresses and other detritus of uprooted lives. Hotels that were left intact by past storms have rooms filled with hurricane refugees from New Orleans.

The usual wild market in beach property has temporarily slumped, local real estate agents say. Reconstruction has yet to take off: building permits took an 18 percent nosedive over the first nine months of this year, compared with last year, around Pensacola, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

"On Sunday, you can go out and sit in the middle of the road, and nobody's going to run you over," said property broker Nicole Wirth at Navarre Beach, another Santa Rosa Island resort.

Asking prices reflect unshakable confidence in a comeback. A 100-by-100-foot empty sand pit on a three-block-wide sliver of island is yours for just under $800,000. On that very street, 60 percent of the homes were ruined over the past two summers.

Tales of such devastation - especially the chaos wreaked by Katrina - have seemingly pushed hurricane anxiety to a peak in recent months around much of the country, planners and real estate agents say.

[Peggy]

wow... my whole heart goes out to those people...

[Andromeda]

ahhh.. I love your avatar.. and sig... merry christmas and welcome aboard!

[Peggy]

ahhh.. I love your avatar.. and sig... merry christmas and welcome aboard!

thank you, thank you and merry christmas! :D

[SEO Jeff]

Welcome,

Interesting story. I can tell you why people love the south vs. north - BECAUSE THEY HATE WINTER. I hate it so much myself but with this recent battle of storms my home would be here (Michigan) for beach front and for warm weather San Diego.

[Peggy]

thank you Jeff. truthfully, I'm a native Floridian... I've only been in Ohio since this past March, but I'm loving it and highly doubt I'd want to move back to Florida, tho I couldn't if I did want to, long story.

Hope you have a Merry Christmas!

[SEO Jeff]

Yeah I am not winter friendly. I'd move since I don't really have anything going on but the funds are just not there to move to San Diego but hope Google can give me that cash hehe. And another thing that I hate about Michigan is jobs and this cloudy weather.

I was in Flordia a few years ago in the theme parks and it was an amazing experince coming from snow to ohooo warm weather.

[Joeychgo]

I gave up on Florida years ago. Vegas is much nicer for me <G>

[AnthonyCea]

Florida is like any other place, it is great if you have money, I could be happy in Cleveland with a **** load of cash! :)

[Brandon Sheley]

I thought I posted here already, but I'll do it again, or maybe I was dreaming..lol

anyways Welcome to VBW :)
I was checking out your site, it's very nice and I think you've done a great job with it. I think you'll love vb once your about to convert everything over and get rid of the bug's.
Best of luck to you, and again, nice job with your forum.

[Peggy]

I thought I posted here already, but I'll do it again, or maybe I was dreaming..lol

anyways Welcome to VBW :)
I was checking out your site, it's very nice and I think you've done a great job with it. I think you'll love vb once your about to convert everything over and get rid of the bug's.
Best of luck to you, and again, nice job with your forum.

Thank you very much Loco. I appreciate the encouragement and compliment :D