Hooray (sort of)! Here it is, direct from the NASA website:

“Atlantis’ first and prime landing opportunity begins with a de-orbit burn at 5:14 a.m., to start the descent to Florida. A second opportunity is available, beginning with a de-orbit burn at 6:51 a.m. leading to a landing at 7:57 a.m. in Florida.”

Hear that, everybody? I don’t know which way it’s coming home–over land, or over water–but THAT should wake you up for work. Sonic booms are so much better than alarm clocks…

A friend of mine brought up an interesting point tonight. We were driving past that new salon Privé, outside the Mall at Millenia, and we both agreed that it had better be good. (Has anybody been there yet?) I don’t know why I’ve never noticed this before…but why are there so few salons in the west/south part of Orlando? Is everyone else having this problem, too? If you’re a stylist who’s looking to open a new place…OVER HERE!! OVER HERE, PLEASE!

(Sorry to bore you non-salon-goers, especially the guys, but so many of us have been looking in vain and something needed to be said!)

There’s no disputing how blogging has revolutionized the web and how we use it. It has evolved from being a basic online diary to a way to interact with the world — or at least anyone else who has a computer. In recent years, blogging has also started invading corporate websites, as a way to provide a more personal face to the customers and facilitate interaction.

This weekend, BlogOrlando will be held at Rollins College. What is BlogOrlando? It is an event that hopes to bring together bloggers to discuss issues of interest in the world of blogging. Though it does have a slant towards blogging in the corporate world, there are panels that I think will be of interest to anyone who blogs. Sure, you might not be interested in media blogs or how to use blogs for PR purposes, but who amongst us bloggers couldn’t use more information on legal issues in blogging or the latest tools to shape your blog into what you want it to be?

BlogOrlando bills itself as an “unconference” which relates to the fact that though this is set up like a conference, there are no attendance fees, no strict dress code and things will be presented in a more relaxed format. That’s right, the event is free to attend, if you just want to participate in Friday’s panels. It’s the social gatherings (dinners on Thursday and Friday, as well as theme park days on Saturday and Sunday) that will cost — but those are completely optional.

For more information on BlogOrlando, which runs Sept. 22-24, can be found at www.blogorlando.com. If you want to attend, registration is still open. If you want to use Rollins’ free wifi, you’ll also need to register your laptop MAC address with the organizers (info for that is also on the site).

Both the Masked Blogger and I will be attending and we’ll try to post during the Friday panels for those who are unable to attend.

So that last post about the death of Church Street Station inevitably led me to thoughts about Light Up Orlando, another cultural icon of Orlando in my formative years that has just died on the vine. The story of the city’s most identifying event for a period of time in my opinion can best be summed up by doing a Google for light up Orlando. It shows a sad tale of an event that no longer exists (as evidenced by the dead URL when clicked), but whose mishandled shadow still exists in the description of the site in the search result.

You see, the event went away due to some major attempted social overhaul by past Orlando administrations, apparently people having fun was not in the desired civic image of some people. But, a few years back an attempt to revive the event was made, which was semi-successful, but never followed up. It just died again, like it didn’t matter in the first place. It was a sad second unceremonious wimper of a death not befitting an event that was the only true cultural on-going tradition this city has ever known. This wasn’t Disney’s event or even Universal’s, but it was ours.

The basic history, and I could be wrong, as I was fairly young then and prone to make up stuff, can be drawn back to a columnist by the name of Bob Morris. He came up with the idea of the Queen Kumquat Sashay, the unofficial parade that kicked off Light Up Orlando. This parade was a parade for and by the people. No floats, no entry forms, just show up in a parking lot with something ridiculous to wear and away you went down the parade route. It is important to note that the last attempt to revive the Light Up Orlando event did not include the Kumquat Sashay, which illustrates that the architects of the event knew nothing of its true meaning and history. So after some good fun of either being silly or laughing at silly people, everyone hung out downtown where we blocked off Orange Avenue and most of the side streets between oh, I don’t know, South to maybe Washington. There were bands, small locals, semi-large fair type acts, maybe a headliner or two at various stages, lots of fair food, and lots of beer stations. Later in the evening the mayor would get on a stage and make a speech and then throw a big OUC branded power switch that would light up the city’s official giant holiday tree, hence, Light Up Orlando. This event was held in September or maybe November, just before Thanksgiving it seems, because why else would we be lighting the tree? Anyway, that’s how I remember it, and I like my version because it makes sense, has a point that is not too overly serious and is just fun. Basically just a big round about way of lighting up our tree and taking a moment to say we are the city of Orlando, not just an adjunct of Disney.

So, what say you Orlando? Why don’t we be a city again and make a serious concerted effort to take back our identity and revive and restore a tradition that we can enjoy with our kids, grandkids and so on! I think before we try to look into things like new civic centers and arenas and gigantic condo towers that will never get sold, we should take a small piece of the budget and our time to treat ourselves to a little simple civic minded partying.

Julie mentioned something earlier in her list of things that might make people in Orlando the angriest city, #9 on her list: Church Street Station has been desecrated and no one cares.

I think I fit into that category and I didn’t even realize it. I grew up hanging around Church Street Station, just as my parents and their parents before me. I remember when they put in the Exchange, and it’s arcade on the top floor was like a pre-teen kid’s paradise. I would ride my bike down there and chain it up to the stairwell, meet up with friends and play a dozen games, grab some pizza at the place that had the big Italian chef statue out front, and look in the stores. Later as I entered young adult hood before I could get into the bars downtown I would hang out in Church Street Station. You could watch the Robot King, the wheelchair bound sax player who sold the roses, the awesome guitar guy who played with a prosthetic hook, the family of latino kids who sang while their dad played guitar, and all the other street performers. You could watch people make themselves sick on the gyroscope, take dates to Olive Garden, have some churros or just hang out around the fountains. One year World Cup even came to town and that whole area was awash in rowdy soccer fans. In the winters they would dump a pile of snow for kids to play in.

So what happened? There’s Amura and TooJay’s left and that’s it it seems for eateries. The ice cream parlor is gone, so is Olive Garden and Safari Joes, or Jack’s, it’s been so long I forget what it was called. There’s no street performers anymore, not that I ever see my limited times I go down there. The whole exchange was bought by Lou Pearlman who I guess forgot he added it to his portfolio because I don’t really see that anything is being done with it. There is really no reason what so ever to go there anymore. It’s like a plant that we forgot to water on vacation.

Saturday night, television network VH1 was in town to film an 80s themed episode of their VH1 Live series. The event not only coincided with the Hard Rock Hotel’s 5th anniversary celebrations, but also served to showcase their made-for-tv film, “Totally Awesome,” a spoof of 80s pop culture.

The film was to be screened prior to the concert by 80s rockers Scandal and Rick Springfield, but as usually goes with live shows, things got behind and the show had to go on, with the film pushed to the end of the evening.

Scandal took the stage first for a 30 minute set of their hits. Lead singer Patty Smyth still sounded as good as she did when band hits like “The Warrior” and “Goodbye To You” were radio staples. I felt bad for the bassist, whom Smyth informed us had been in a car accident a few days prior and was playing with four broken ribs. Ouch! Smyth, however, was a ball of energy, bounding from side to side on stage, before charging onto the ramp that led into the crowd. This was the first time I’d seen her live and I really enjoyed hearing their hits live.
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A frightening day for the space shuttle Atlantis…

Today’s landing was delayed because an “unknown object” (literally an Unidentified Flying Object?) has been orbiting alongside Atlantis. This could be just a little piece of whatever, but there’s a chance–probably a better chance than they’re telling us, I bet–that the piece of space litter came from our shuttle.

As Sentinel space blogger Michael Cabbage reports, in one chilling line, “The event could be meaningless or extremely serious.” He promises updates here.

The NASA official site offers complete coverage and video here.

And to think, all this time we were worried about a fuel cell…

Thanks to Andie for this tip…

Gosh, somebody must’ve misplaced New York City, Detroit, and LA! According to this front-page reference to a Men’s Health article on AOL City Guides, Orlando is now the angriest city in America.

My first reaction was, “This is obviously propaganda placed by the Las Vegas Tourism Bureau, in another of their futile attempts to become the #1 tourist destination.”

But Sin City apparently has nothing to do with this (although I would not rule it out). The numbers were compiled based on assaults and violence, along with traffic CONGESTION–although not actual road rage, I notice. This explains how sleepy St. Petersburg ended up as #2 on their list. But not Tampa? Huh? Have you never seen the carnage at the intersection of I-4 and 275? Personally, I find this whole thing less than scientific.

Oh, sure, we’ve got a reputation as a tropical paradise, but as we all know, life around here ain’t all sunshine and margaritas. A few things that get Orlando steamed:

1.) The traffic.

2.) The traffic.

3.) The traffic.

4.) Theme park prices rise, but theme park WAGES do not. And no, a 13¢ per hour raise is not an appreciable increase.

5.) Tourists come here and do dumb things that make us look bad. Don’t tease the alligators, don’t jump out of moving Disney rides, don’t cross 6 lanes of traffic with no turn signal, don’t swing from your hotel balcony, don’t go surfing during a category-4 hurricane, and we’ll all stay out of the national headlines. OK?

6.) In order to listen to local radio, you must be under the age of 18 or over the age of 50. If you do not fit into these categories, there is very little on the airwaves that will appeal to you. Some stations show flashes of greatness, but on the whole…stick to your iPod.

7.) We pay insurance premiums we can’t afford for houses that we really, REALLY can’t afford.

8.) We love Northerners. Some of my favorite people were born up north. Shoot, I was born up there, come to think of it! It is not cool, however, for certain segments to bring their loudmouthed, caffeinated attitude into our ordinarily peaceful lives. As the bumper stickers so eloquently put it, “We don’t care how you do it up north.” It does not matter who you are or who you think you are–be nice.

9.) Church Street Station has been desecrated and no one cares. I still mourn Rosie’s.

10.) Above all else, we have been natural disaster-ed to death. I have come to believe that Florida was never meant to be inhabited by humans, which is why there is some new threat to the populace each and every year. Fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes…and all-new for 2006, earthquakes!

I won’t post the scores right here in case you’ve got them TiVo’ed and you didn’t watch them yet, but if you’ve already seen the Week 2 NFL games, go ahead and click to read more.
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With at least 5 malls in the metropolitan area, this isn’t going to ruin anybody’s life, but Lord & Taylor is finally closing its Florida Mall location after threatening to do it for several years.

I see a mention of stuff on sale for $5.99. If you’re a bargain-hunter…HURRY!

The Sentinel says the store was popular enough to stay open for quite some time. This surprises me, because even when I suggested to my friends that we go scavenge for bargains, the reaction I got was mostly, “Whatever. If we get to it.” I think we all prefer Macy’s or even Bloomingdale’s (although Macy’s keeps me pretty happy by itself, I must admit).

Which leads me to ask, has anybody here ever bought anything at Lord & Taylor? Anybody going to miss it at all?