Vlad Mazek

I try to get out of the office every Friday and become as unavailable as I can. It helps me step out of the daily grind, evaluate where the week went, what to do next week and prioritize things more strategically (than by urgency/response that is dictated by the clients). A while ago I started calling this DFWVF where D, W, V, F stands for Don’t, With, Vlad, Friday. You can probably guess what the other F stands for.

This Friday I went through a few local roads in Lake and Marion counties, US 27, which is supposedly the most scenic Florida road and US46 which cuts across all the major lakes in Lake County. Here is what I found.

From Ocala. You can usually find the best thought-through business plans attached to a gas station; Its kind of like admitting entreprenurial defeat: “I know my idea sucks, but lots of people buy gas and I’m just hoping for inertia (or they are too stupid and walk into the wrong door)”

So whats interesting about this photo? Well, the store is called “Asia Foods, and gifts, Italian Grocery.”

I figured I better take a second picture because nobody will believe me. The Italian Grocery subtitle has an Italian flag as the background so its hard to read, but they indeed sell Asian food inside.

How does that make sense? I am not sure. I guess they give you a meatball with your lo mein?

Not to fear though, there are plenty of dumb good ol’ American ideas too. This establishment is titled Bob’s Zippy Market, from Leesburg, FL. Note the Coca Cola sign, likely from the 1970’s.

One of my running jokes about people that live north of Orlando is “Located 20 miles north of orlando, stuck 50 years in the past.” This is apparently a local chain and they also have a liquor store brand.

And just in case the Meatball LoMein and 30 year old coke don’t float your boat, how about some Gator meat? Yep, if you can hit it, we can grill it! We’ll even make a souvenir out of it.

I don’t know why but this made me smile. I pulled up to a pickup truck on OBT for J&J Handyman Services Inc.

Their slogan, without the slightest bit of arrogance and pretension: “Perfection… at its best”

How humble of them.