Welcome to Orlando

Home of that damned mouse, among other things. Here’s the news:

Car crashes into woman’s house for the 4th time in 17 years

Patricia Smith said a traffic light on the corner of Goldwyn Avenue and Orange Center Boulevard, in front of her house, confuses drivers and causes them to crash. The driver suffered minor injuries. No one in the house was hurt.

Time to Move

Man Left In Wheelchair Outside Orlando International Airport For 3 Days

A 72-year-old Kansas minister with medical problems is recovering in a hospital Friday after he was apparently left sitting in a wheelchair on a curb outside Orlando International Airport for three days. Kenneth Davis was reported missing this week when family members in Wichita lost contact with him after an AirTran flight to Orlando. Davis was scheduled to attend a Florida gospel conference this week, the family said.

Family members told WKMG-TV that Davis was not feeling well and called for assistance at the airport. Davis’ daughter, Melinda, said her father was then put in a wheelchair and rolled to a curb outside Orlando International Airport, where he sat from midnight Monday until Wednesday afternoon. Orlando police found Davis sitting in the wheelchair Thursday. Davis remains in an Orlando hospital and is barely able to speak, the report said. The family is asking for surveillance video to determine how long Davis was sitting outside the facility. The incident is under investigation.

curbside parking is not allowed post-9/11. (Wheelchairs ok)

Gun-Shoe Exchange Nets Missile Launcher

Police were hoping for a good turnout at their “Kicks for Guns” sneaker exchange Friday, but they weren’t expecting to get a surface-to-air missile launcher. An Ocoee man showed up and exchanged the 4-foot-long launcher for size-3 Reebok sneakers for his daughter. Taking advantage of the exchange’s no-questions-asked policy, the man was not identified. He told the Orlando Sentinel that he found the weapon in a shed he tore down last week. The man said he took it to three dumps to try to get rid of it, and they all turned him away.

You know you’re entering tough times when you have to give up the family missile launcher.

Mickey Who?? In Orlando, Jesus Christ is crucified and resurrected here six days a week.

Snarling Roman soldiers whip and drag him, and somber audience members watch. Some quietly weep at a pageant bloody and cruel. It is the grand finale at the Holy Land Experience, and not the attraction most tourists envision in a Florida vacation. Just miles (kilometers) from Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld in Orlando’s overstimulated tourist corridor, Holy Land has in its six years of operation aimed to recreate Jerusalem of Biblical times.

Trinity Broadcasting Network, a California-based Christian empire with 12,500 worldwide TV and cable affiliates, took over Holy Land and its estimated $8 million mortgage. The park has a “scriptorium,” an opulent-looking building with an enormous collection of rare Bibles and artifacts. Powell said it is the largest of its kind outside the Vatican. Other stops include a scale model of Jerusalem, an exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls and a model of the garden tomb where Christ was supposedly buried.

The Holy Land Experience is located in Orlando next to that other Holy Land Experience, also called the Mall at Millenia.

Jesus Christ!