The buzz saw is spinning, just not all day long. At Shell Lumber in Miami, the whiff in the air isn’t just the sawdust; it’s also about business starting to regain some traction. Shell is a construction supply depot, selling anything and everything you would need to build a home, remodel a kitchen or just turn an old house into a modernized marvel.

Back in ’05 and ’06, when new homes and condo towers were being built all up and down south Florida, this place would have a line of pickup trucks waiting for the store to open every morning at 5:30 a.m. That’s not the case these days, but owner Adam Haase says, optimistically, perhaps the swing of the economic pendulum is heading back up towards good times again.

In the past week, he’s hired 3 new employees to work the floor, helping customers who are coming in to buy the supplies for new projects and new contracts. Sales are happening, he says, just not the high-end sales, like the expensive Brazilian lumber for Amozonesque backyard decks.

“People are opening their wallets, but they’re not emptying their wallets,” he says. But the more business he gets at Shell Lumber, he says that’s a direct link to what’s happening in the construction economy at large. This, on a day when Florida’s Labor Department just announced that the Sunshine State’s unemployment level has now hit 11%, the highest since 1975.

This is Phil Keating on the scene in Tampa, Florida today for the highly anticipated “face the media” news conference with New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, the highest paid player in Major League Baseball history.  More than 200 representatives from the media showed up at George Steinbrenner Field, where the Yankees hold spring training, which is now underway.  A-Rod, a three-time American League MVP and A.L. leader in home-runs during the three seasons he was at the Texas Rangers, ’01, ’02, ’03.  As it turns out, these were years that he was juicing.  Sports Illustrated broke the story earlier this month that in 2003, he’d tested positive for testosterone and Primobolan, both currently banned by the league but not specifically at that time.

A-Rod confessed he and his cousin injected the steroids about two times a month, for 6 months during those three years.  He blames it in curiosity, immaturity and a desire to have more energy, under the pressure of having signed a 250-million dollar contract with the Rangers.

He says he’s sorry and that he will now participate in doing a nationwide anti-steroids campaign.  During his opening statement, he got to the very end where he said “and to my teammates…,” and as he looked over to the teammates gathered there in support, A-Rod clearly became almost overwhelmed and on the verge of tears.  He bit his lip.  He sat back.  He breathed.  He looked at the packed tent.  And, 37 absolutely silent seconds later, he leaned back up to the mic and said “….thank you.”

The day here, opening for Spring Training, absolutely gorgeous.  Cloudless skies, 74 degrees.  I think I am a little bit sunburned.  Life is good when you work out of the Miami Bureau!!