Experienced Jacksonville Movers – 904-642-6900

Zoos across the nation are howling and chirping about the recent news that TripAdvisor has released its list of the Top 25 Zoos in the United States. When it comes to moving, there is no better place to take your youngest children other than the local zoo. The local zoo is not only a place where they can view exotic animals, but they can learn and let their minds take a break from the fact that they are moving. In fact, after a long relocation to a new city or state, chances are that the entire family would enjoy a relaxing trip to the zoo. If you are moving to Jacksonville, Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens made the top 25 list, making it one of the very best zoos in the United States!

TripAdvisor’s 2015 Travelers’ Choice list is comprised of the quantity and quality of reviews and ratings from users who visit zoos in the nation and leave their evaluation of their experience based on their personal visit. Over the past year, TripAdvisor has been gathering reviews and ratings from users in order to create their 2015 list.

Jacksonville Zoo & Gardens also ranked at the third “top thing to do in Jacksonville,” and local Jacksonville movers would have to agree. With more than 2,000 rare and exotic animals and 1,000 species of plants, Jacksonville has one of the most diverse zoos. After you finish moving to Jacksonville, take a trip to the zoo Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the weekends.

Ranking just below the zoo on TripAdvisor for things to do in the city is the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens and Catty Shack Ranch Wildlife Sanctuary.

A major climate change feat was taken on by President Obama the beginning of this month – resulting in cutting down carbon pollution from power plants across the United States. The passing of a set of environmental regulations that would force heavy changes on coal-reliant utility plants across the U.S. was both cheered and ridiculed. Of course, those cheering were environmentalists, and those doing the ridicule were those who are linked to the power industry.

Jacksonville moving companies were glad to hear that The Clean Power Plan will reduce carbon emissions by 32% and will hit the city of Jacksonville at JEA. JEA is the 8^th largest community-owned electric utility plant and provider of water and sewer utilities in North Florida. JEA serves over 400,000 residents and will be facing pressure from the carbon-reduction goals, since the plant is heavily reliant on coal-fire power. Jacksonville movers hope that The Clean Power Plan will force the city to leave a smaller carbon footprint, drawing more residents in and allowing JEA to see the benefits from an increase in residents as well.

Despite the pressure, environmentally aware JEA is not lashing back. Their response was rather hopeful, “The (Clean Power Plan) is a complex rule, and as yet we do not know the full financial impact, the real challenge is to bring our community and state together to understand the rule so that we can attain a reasonable balance between the environmental benefits we all want and our ability to manage the cost impacts — as a utility, a community and as individual customers — in a reasonable and appropriate way.”

The JEA also mentioned that they have already started to review the plan, which is over 1,000 pages long, and that they will review, discuss, and interpret how the plan will impact the state of Florida. If you are moving to Jacksonville, you can expect to see a change in the cost of your utilities as JEA implements The Clean Power Plan.

If there is one thing that anyone who is moving to Jacksonville is sure to know, it’s that Florida temperatures can be brutally hot. There is nothing worse than when your AC breaks in the middle of the night, and no one is available to fix it – until now!

One of the first pieces of moving advice that a professional Jacksonville mover will give you is to make sure that your AC is on and working on your move-in day. This means calling ahead of time to make sure that the AC is turned on and that your new home is already cool before your family and moving company shows up.

In the event that your AC decides to call it quits at an inconvenient time, local AC contractors in Jacksonville, such as Coastal Heating & Cooling, provide 24/7/365 HVAC services.

Jacksonville moving company All My Sons Moving & Storage wants you and your family to have the most comfortable moving experience possible, and that means having a reliable AC system on moving day. After all of your boxes and furniture are packed up onto an All My Sons moving truck, be sure to call to have your AC and electricity turned on. If there are any issues with your HVAC system, Coastal Heating & Cooling can make it to your new residence no matter what time it is in order to fix the AC for your family and your Jacksonville movers.

Last month, Florida Trend magazine, in conjunction with Best Companies Group, released its seventh annual list of the top places to work in the state of Florida. This year, nine companies out of the list of 100 were located in Jacksonville. Factors that Florida Trend take into consideration when ranking the companies, are leadership, corporate culture, role satisfaction, work environment, pay, benefits, and overall engagement.

If you are moving to Jacksonville, there is no better time to do so! Check out Florida Trend’s list of best occupations to hold in the city of Jacksonville.

Best Large Companies in Jacksonville (in order):

• Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront
• CTI Resource Management Services, Inc.

Best Mid-Size Companies in Jacksonville:

• iVenture Solutions, Inc.
• First Florida Credit Union

Best Small Companies in Jacksonville:

• MatrixOneSource
• Ennis, Pellum & Associates
• iMethods
• Horizon Innovations
• Jimerson & Cobb, P.A.

If you are moving to Florida and own a business, Jacksonville movers want you to know that as long as you have 15 employees or more, your company can also participate in the survey for Florida Trend and Best Companies Group. Companies with 250 or more employees would be ranked among the “large companies” group, companies with 50-249 employees would be considered midsized, and those with fewer than 50 employees would fall into the “small companies” category.

Earlier this month, the state of Florida passed laws that make 64-ounce growlers legal for distribution. As a result, breweries around town already have their jugs to go!

Distilleries can expect sales to increase in lieu of the new law, since customers can now take home half-gallon jugs of draft beer.

Florida has been one of three states that did not allow half-gallon growlers and limited them to quarts and gallons. As of the first week of July, the law was overturned and local breweries were already armed with cases of new glass growlers to be filled. If you are moving to Jacksonville and love draft and craft beers and local breweries, grab a 64-ounce glass growler and bring it to a local brewery to get filled!

Growler fillings at Intuition Ale Works will cost $10-$20.

Growler fillings at Bold City will cost $7.50-$10.

According to local beer sellers, one thing that the law will help to alleviate is the embarrassment that they face when people come from out of town looking to fill their growler with a local brew, and they have to tell them “no.”

Jacksonville moving companies also want new residents to know that a new local brewery opened last year, called St. Augustine Distillery. The new distillery features two brands: Florida Cane Vodka and New World Gin. With the new law, visitors will be able to take home two bottles of each.

Moving means transferring all of your utilities over to your new home. If you are moving to Jacksonville, or any other city in Florida, Comcast is most likely the company you would switch to. Comcast is the service that most Florida residents have, which comes as no surprise seeing as how they have the largest amount of revenue and provide the largest amount of service out of any cable company.

Jacksonville movers are proud to announce that Comcast has released its South Florida pricing plans for Gigabit Pro. Gigabit Pro is a premium service that Comcast is offering, but at a high price. With Internet speed increasing by 50 percent and reaching speeds of up to 2 gigabits per second, early adopters are running to be the first in line for the service.

If you are moving to Jacksonville and are interested in Gigabit Pro, it will cost you a pretty penny of $159 per month with a three-year contract. A two-year contract will cost you $299.95 per month. As if that was not expensive enough, you will also have to pay an activation fee of $500, which could be waived with special promotions where applicable, but there are installation fees as well.

Comcast spokeswoman Mindy Kramer explained that the pricing comes from the fact that a specially trained technician would have to be sent to the home to survey and then install the professional-grade equipment. Kramer said, “This product is for the most advanced digital households and consumers who want the fastest Internet connection available in the marketplace.”

For more information on Gigabit Pro you can visit xfinity.com/multi-gig.

If you are moving to Jacksonville, beware that a new law could pass that would make it illegal to back your car into any private, residential driveway. Sounds ridiculous right? Although the city government is allowed to make restrictions regarding motor vehicles, many are arguing that the restrictions need to be sensible, and Jacksonville moving companies agree.

Lawmakers in Jacksonville are pushing for legislation that tip-toes on the line of reasonable and downright controlling.

According to Autoblog, Jacksonville lawmakers have proposed making parking backwards in driveways illegal for the purpose of city inspectors not being able to easily view your tags from the street. Since the city already has a law that makes it illegal for residents to keep non-operational cars and trucks on their private property, the new law is another facet of the already existing one.

A way around the new proposed law: have a tag on the front of your car.

So what if you are moving to Jacksonville and are a car enthusiast who does not drive all of their cars, and has them parked in the driveway rather than a large garage? Unfortunately, you would most likely have to find somewhere else to store them if Jacksonville lawmakers have their way.

During the first week of August, Outcome Equality will be holding a three-day Just Culture Certification Course, which will be hosted by the University of Florida – Florida Health. The Jacksonville Just Culture Certification Course will equip attendees with the necessary tools and techniques for building aptitude and conviction in Just Culture. Knowledge of Just Culture will provide better working conditions and minimize combative events in the workplace.

Outcome Equality CEO and Father of Just Culture, David Marx, explains that, “People are recognizing that the issue of justice isn’t simple. There is some complexity to it. There are multiple types of duties that we human beings have – whether it’s to produce outcomes, whether it’s to avoid harm or whether it’s to follow sort of ‘how-to’ procedural rules. And we take all of the notions of Justice and we boil them down into a…class that we call the Just Culture Certification Course.”

Jacksonville movers are excited to see how the course will help the Jacksonville workforce and how widespread Just Culture can be. At a registration cost of $3,200 per person, the course may not be affordable for numerous attendees. If all business owners cannot afford to attend the Just Culture Course, how beneficial will it be for the city?

On the plus side, moving companies in Jacksonville agree with the message of Just Culture’s attempt to provide knowledge and justice, as well as move towards a positive cultural shift and societal outcomes. If you are moving to Jacksonville and are looking for more information on the Jacksonville Just Culture Certification Course and a more elaborated mission plan for the course, you can visit the article on Globe News Wire or www.justculture.org

The Outings Project has officially made its way to the Jacksonville community.

The project, explained as “a global participative project, initiated by Julien de Casabianca, a French visual artist and filmmaker. Anyone in their own town can go to their museums, take pictures of portraits with their phones and set them free,” has officially introduced itself to Jacksonville and local art fanatics as well as art professionals who have recently moved to Jacksonville – are excited to be showcased.

This past Saturday, a small group of art fanatics involved with the project, put up six prints of figures found in paintings in the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens’ permanent collection on walls in downtown Jacksonville. By doing this, the project added another city to the list of those involved with the Outings Project, moving initiatives farther than they predicted would occur right now.

Another artist, Dolf James, who has been involved with other public art projects and was the driving force behind the creation of the CoRK Arts District in Riverside, has recently been made aware of the Outings Project and suggested it to Hope McMath, director of the Cummer, as a great project to take part in.

And it’s a great thing that James thought to mention it, as McMath stated that, “we have had an interest since our 50^th anniversary in 2011, in putting our images outside the museum and onto the streets.” Previously, those at the museum had thought that pulling off something like this would be too time and cost consuming.

According to James, “the response has been just fantastic,” and as a result, they plan to add more copies of the museum’s artwork to the walls of downtown Jacksonville this weekend. If you are moving to Jacksonville and you are an artist, an art teacher, or even just an art fanatic – be sure to check out the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens and other Jacksonville art galleries that now allow the Outings Project or photo sharing of the art that is displayed.

This past weekend, a Summer Food Program geared towards giving free healthy lunches to children younger than 18 in the Jacksonville area was launched at Philip Randolph Heritage Park.

In fact, Joey Heymann, executive director of the Jacksonville Children’s Commission, went to the Jacksonville City Hall in an effort to request $500,000 in funding for the commission’s summer camp program, which has recently faced budget cuts by the city.

At the park, the program not only gave over 300 Jacksonville youth free meals, it also allowed them the opportunity to explore the one of the city’s firetrucks, dance to music from a DJ, and meet Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback David Garrard. This is not the first time the organization has had an event like this. In fact, this is the 21^st year they have been helping give healthy lunches to youth in Jacksonville, and this past weekend marks over 438,000 meals served.

This year notably distinguishes itself from previous years. Instead of food only being available at one location, this year multiple venues have offered up their shop as a place where kids can find meals this summer while school is out. Specifically, over 200 Jacksonville churches, apartment complexes, libraries, schools and day-care centers will have food available until August 7^th.

The Summer Food Service program comes in the wake of a huge population of kids not being able to receive their normal free breakfasts and lunches at school due to summer break.

According to Rev. Lee Harris, chairman of the commission’s board, “when school is out, that’s when a lot of children go hungry.”

This year, your local Jacksonville movers are happy to see that so many local children are receiving free meals. If you are new to the Jacksonville area and your child was receiving free meals at school and still needs meal assistance during the summer, check out the Jacksonville Children’s Commission website.