Gavin Hall dot org

When traveling around I always see these great ideas that other cities and states implement that I wish Orlando would do. If only there was a "be Mayor for a day" program where I could create 3 laws in one day. If so here is what they would be (dealing with the food industry)

1) Food Ratings on Restaurants -- Stolen from LA -- Every restaurant has to have a letter grade displayed in their front window (A to F). It's great to know that the place you are eating at has passed health inspection and that the food you are eating is good to go.

2) Nutrition Info on Menus -- Stolen from NYC -- Every item on a menu has to tell you how many calories and grams of fat is in it. It's shocking on how bad some of the chain restaurants are for you. By doing this you are not only informing people so they can make better and healthier choices but you would also help the economy as it would lower rates of obesity in the state (currently Florida is 5th highest) thus lowering health care costs.

3) Local restaurants -- Stolen from Austin -- Austin has a cool "keep Austin weird" theme downtown. It gives tax breaks for owners of stores who live within the city limits. This encourages private companies to open up little places downtown and gives the city a great vibe. It could be taken a step further and allow alcohol sales to go an hour later for locally owned restaurants/bars downtown. Study show places with later alcohol sales have a lower rate of drunk driving accidents.

Seems easy enough. Of course I would demand a top hat during my be Mayor for a day. Demand!

I live in East Orlando which is typically called "The University" to people who live further then 10 minutes away (In Florida distance is by time not miles). Makes sense being University of Central Florida pretty much is what East Orlando is all about. To people that live on this side of town I live in Waterford which is an area with a huge outdoor center that includes a Target, Gap, 22 Screen Movie Theater, LA Fitness, Best Buy some 30 restaurants and lord knows how many shops.

The major stores that draw people are called anchors. An anchors job is to basically take people out of their car. This allows smaller shops that are based on foot traffic (like a smoothie shop) to be able to flourish. Someone will drive to Target but while there they will walk around to some of the other shops.

Downtown Orlando is setup to be based on foot traffic. It has been that way ever since I moved here. I always found it strange because before about five years ago you really couldn't live in the heart of downtown (now there are about 20 buildings you can live in) so there was no foot traffic. The only sudo anchors at that point were clubs. Bars don't count because you don't get all dolled up and pay for parking to go sit in a bar.

It amazes me that every other developer in Central and South Florida knows the concept of Anchors and how to get people out of their cars (which is required with people not using public transportation) yet no one in Downtown ever did it.

Hopefully this will change soon. Publix and an AMC movie theater should be opening up late this year but I don't think this will be enough. Downtown needs shops and restaurants that not only are big enough to draw people to them but also unique in Orlando. I hope that as more of these new skyscrapers finish they will start to flush out shops that draw people in. Small mom and pop shops are what give culture to a downtown and that is something Orlando could use a boost of.

Yay! Orlando finally has a soccer team!

Google went ahead and added StreetView to maps.google.com in Orlando which is just great to see. They have all of downtown and them some of the major roads through Orlando. What I find strange is the two things they left out. They didn't make it to UCF and they didn't go through Disney. I mean if you are here might as well do these two big areas.

Anyway I am glad to see them bringing Orlando in and hopefully they keep extending the coverage.

I was interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel about the iPhone. Read it here.

It's just a quick little line at the bottom but if anyone happens to have a hard copy of the paper let me know!

Etan is a new technology writer for them and is very versed on all things tech. His column comes out every Saturday and it's definitely worth checking out.

Although it's a damn shame I didn't get to use my "I'm a grown ass man" when asked about waiting in line comment ;)

One of my favorite design sites is called Brand New. They review new branding from companies and let the community throw in their two cents.

When UCF did a press release on the new logos I submitted the link over to Brand New and sure enough they did a review on the new look and feel.

I'm excited to see the reaction from the community to the new logo and a little exposure to the university.

Although note to self, next time give my blog URL to them ;)

Go Knights!

And I'm back! I didn't feel a need to blog as I was able to outsource it to Alex and Mike (here, here, here and here). But I felt a come back was needed -- Hell even Lindsey has a blog now!

Although this post won't be about my life or work (which are all going great, thanks for asking) instead it will be about UCF.

...oh ok maybe just one quick link to threadless cakes.

Back to UCF! I went to the Black and Gold game with Alex and Celly on Saturday and have been super excited to see the new logo after hearing back in Feb that we were dropping the "Golden" from our name...

...Until I saw Alex's blog post.

Wow, that logo is just horrible. Just not a very iconic image. I was expecting better.

Then I was pointed over to a few color renderings of the logo that were posted on a public message board and I went from hating to being undecided. I'm not going to lie to you...the knights head is pretty neat and for sure a step up from our current logo. Even if it does seem to be Rutgers Cousin. ;).

Any way, let me know what you think about them by commenting below.

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