Welcome!

Posted on March 19, 2011 by drthomasho

orange

As I shared in the “About” section, this blog will emphasize social media resources for maximizing your quality of life in central Florida. According to a recent ranking, Orlando is one of the most socially networked cities in America! So, let’s get started!

For those of you who depend on Facebook, here are some key resources:

The Orlando Sentinel is very social media savvy as well as mobile-friendly and with many blogs. Watch for a subsequent post focusing on Twitter.

In the meantime, if you’re big on Twitter, be sure to follow @DrThomasHo/centralflorida.

Posted in General | Tagged | Comments Off

#NASAtweetup: NASAtweetup.info on Day L-2

Posted on July 7, 2011 by drthomasho

netvibescourtesy of http://www.facebook.com/netvibes

It was a good day. I picked up my credentials at Kennedy Press Accreditation and got a commemorative t-shirt at Space Shirts to wear on day L-0 because we’re wearing our NASAtweetup shirts on day L-1. Being an Orlando Newbie, I also learned my way around the Space Coast much better!

The highlight of the day was a tweet by Robert Scoble which shared the social media aggregation NASAtweetup.info which I built as a Netvibes public page. As I explained in my previous post, I am now turning my attention to its original purpose to aggregate the content generated by the NASA Tweetup tweeps. I have seeded the first few tabs, e.g. Twitter, with widgets where I already expect to find relevant content and I’ll be adding more later today as I learn more from my fellow tweeps about where else they intend to share their unique experience. Whether you’re a Tweetup participant or a viewer, check out the “General” tab to maximize your NASA TweetUp experience!

Watch with us as history is made at the final launch of NASA’s space shuttle program!

Let me know IF the NCAA goes after NASA’s Final Four. Winking smileP.S. I’m having trouble posting this to my Blogger blog so I’m posting to Orlando Newbie until I figure out what’s wrong.

Posted in NASA TweetUp | Comments Off

House-hunting: orientation

Posted on April 19, 2011 by drthomasho

house

It’s been about a year since my initial visit to Orlando during which we decided to make our big move. In June, we found our house in order to be able to move in time for our daughter to start the new school year. Accordingly, if you’re reading this blog because you’ve decided to move to central Florida, you’re going to have to start house-hunting yourself soon!

As my previous “geography” post indicated, you’re most likely to look for a house in either Orange, Seminole, or Osceola County. We settled in Seminole County motivated by its proximity midway between where I would have worked and Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford where we go to church. We were also motivated by proximity to State Road 417 as well as the “better” schools of Seminole County, but that will be the subject of a subsequent post. I’d advise you to avoid any location which would require you to regularly traverse I-4 as I indicated earlier, but of course, you’ll have to decide for yourself if you’d rather pay tolls…I would!

Orange County is a sprawling county which will deserve its own post as I learn more about it from research because I really never seriously considered living in Orange County. However, I do have some insights now as a result of living in the area for almost a year. I doubt that I’ll have anything to say about Osceola County because I just haven’t spent much time down there!

Posted in Housing | Comments Off

Navigating Orlando: toll roads

Posted on April 11, 2011 by drthomasho

icon_StkrTag

The Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority is a “jewel” of central Florida with which I imagine most folks have a “love-hate” relationship. I say “love-hate” because it’s a big help to getting around central Florida, but those tolls can really add up when one uses it regularly. Someone told me that he and his wife rack up $300 a month in tolls, but he rationalized it by acknowledging that he doesn’t have to pay any Florida state income tax. I’ll be posting about taxes later.

I use State Road 417 (Central Florida Greeneway) most because I live in eastern Seminole County (see earlier post), but I also make use of State Road 408 because it’s the best way for me to get to Interstate 4 whenever I (grudgingly) have to use I-4, but that’s also the subject of another post as well.

It isn’t all bad because there are tricks which can save you some money. For example, I just learned you can get onto State Road 528 eastbound at Semoran Boulevard and exit at Narcoossee Road withOUT paying any toll because there are no toll gates between those exits.

Anyway, one of my smartest moves soon after I arrived in central Florida was to go to the service center at 762 South Goldenrod Road to get an E-PASS Mini transponder for FREE (the transponder is free…NOT the tolls) to speed me through toll gates without having to stop to pay. Do it!

Posted in Transportation | 1 Comment

“Weathering” central Florida

Posted on March 31, 2011 by drthomasho

NoleyPhoto courtesy of @noley09 and Central Florida News 13

Well, central Florida made the national news today with our day-long “train” of thunderstorms and even tornados which rolled through. In the course of this day, I have learned some “facts of life” about central Florida weather as well as some tips.

First, today’s stormy weather was unseasonable for March (or even April which starts tomorrow) because we’re still in the dry season. This week’s (it’s spring break for our many visitors Sad smile) weather is representative of the summer and I do recall experiencing similar weather last summer during my first summer as a Florida resident.

As a result, although I was already aware of the common occurrence of lightning as well as the potential for tornados, I only learned today from the meteorologists at Central Florida News 13 that Florida has MORE tornados than any other state! Having just moved from the midwest, I was surprised to learn that! I also learned that lightning is very common here as well.

That brings me to my first weather tip to watch Central Florida News 13 for current weather reports if you have Bright House cable service. I’m sure Bright House would be happy for me to tell you to select Bright House (IF you’re STILL using cable TV, but that’s the subject of another blog post), but there are some advantages to AT&T U-verse although I can’t get U-verse where I live! Central Florida News 13 devoted their news channel to severe weather coverage so I felt as well-informed about weather conditions as I ever did in Indiana where I can assure you that severe weather coverage is a very big deal!

Also, be sure to follow @CFNews13_WX on Twitter as well as to use Twitter as I did.

Posted in Climate | Tagged | 2 Comments

Food trucking Orlando

Posted on March 28, 2011 by drthomasho

imagephoto courtesy of TheDailyCity.com

I was going to do some posts about where to live in the Orlando metropolitan area, but I’ll put those off until after I do some posts about eating in Orlando as I promised to do for folks attending Orlando 2011 next week. Since TheDailyCity.com’s Food Truck Bazaar is coming up on Tuesday, I thought I’d start with food trucks!

Shortly before I left Indianapolis last year, Indianapolis became the home of West Coast Tacos which is similar to Orlando’s Korean BBQ Taco Box. I’ve only tried this food truck so I don’t have any first-hand experience with any of the other food trucks, but based on the “word of mouth buzz” you ought to be encouraged to seek out the other food trucks while you’re in Orlando. Many of them use Twitter to tell their clientele when and where they will be serving:

Here is a map with a Twitter feed by Chris Roberts.

Especially for those of you who will be visiting our fair city, I hope you get to check out this food phenomenon especially if you’re not fortunate to have anything like this back home!

Posted in Food | Tagged | Comments Off

Central Florida geography “lesson”

Posted on March 25, 2011 by drthomasho

central Florida

Before I share more about the Orlando metropolitan area, it’s time for a geography lesson. Central Florida consists of 9 counties, but the Orlando metro area consists of the following counties:

  • Orange
  • Seminole
  • Osceola

Orlando is the county seat of Orange County which is the most populous and urban county. North of Orange County is Seminole County (where I live) which is primarily a “bedroom community” with beautiful natural areas in its eastern half and explains why it dubs itself as “Florida’s Natural Choice” although its western half is very suburban! South of Orange County is Osceola County which is primarily known as the home of numerous lodging, shopping, and recreational opportunities for Disney World visitors. Due to the relatively short time I’ve lived in central Florida and its location relative to where I live, Osceola County is still largely a “mystery” to me!

Because I live in Seminole County, I’m in the best position to share about Seminole. As we proceed, forgive my “limitations” due to the relatively short time I’ve had to learn about Orange and especially Osceola Counties which are sprawling local jurisdictions much larger in area than the much smaller Indiana counties with whose size I was much more accustomed! In time, I will remedy that situation and I hope that you are pleasantly “surprised” by how much I have already learned and will share with you!

Much of my motivation for this blog is to share my “discovery” with you! Let’s get on with it!

Posted in General | Tagged | Comments Off

Tweeting Orlando

Posted on March 21, 2011 by drthomasho

about-birds

On Twitter’s fifth birthday, it’s fitting to share about how Twitter has made it so much easier to keep up with what’s happening in the Orlando metropolitan area and central Florida in general.

As I said in my first post, be sure to follow @DrThomasHo/centralflorida. I’ve worked hard to keep this Twitter list fresh and relevant while struggling to stay under Twitter’s list limit of 500. It’s what I use to keep up with what’s going on because I don’t follow most of the people on this list unless they are following me as well.

Corresponding to the Facebook pages I listed in my first post are the following Twitter accounts:

Watch for subsequent posts highlighting the use of Twitter for specific topics relating to Orlando and central Florida.

Posted in General | Tagged , | Comments Off