• The Bittinger Law Firm has both moved and grown in size recently. Founding partner Ann Bittinger said the firm moved mid-January from its Beach Boulevard location to a new office in Ponte Vedra Beach. Ursula Baum, former senior attorney at the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration, has also joined the firm.
• Add the Thursday grand opening of the Jacksonville Bank’s downtown headquarters to the list of activities scheduled for Super Bowl week. From 5 to 9 p.m. the bank is hosting an invite-only reception that will include a viewing of the light parade on the river and fireworks display from the Laura Street building’s 10th-floor balcony.
• One of the more exacting jobs this week has been the placing of tiny cameras in the Alltel Stadium turf. It will be a first for the game as viewers will see a ground’s-eye shot of the teams lining up for extra points. The cameras are half the size of a No. 2 pencil.
• The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office was happy to see the Atlanta Falcons lose one game short of the Super Bowl. No, they’re not Philadelphia Eagles fans, they were worried Atlanta fans would drive to Jacksonville, further entangling local traffic.
• The Downtown Development Authority’s surprise presentation of the Klechak Award to Foley Lardner partner John Welch almost backfired when Welch, unaware of the honor, showed up late for the ceremony. “We were about to give it to (Jacksonville Airport Authority publicist) Michael Stewart,” joked Dr. Thomas L. Klechak, the award’s namesake.
• Former Downtown Development Authority Chairman Jim Citrano marveled at the bustling downtown as it prepares for the Super Bowl. “The window treatment of choice downtown used to be plywood,” Citrano joked during the DDA meeting.
• The next two Super Bowl venues have booths in the media area at the Osborn Center and the attention is around Miami (2007) instead of Detroit, which has the game next year. Good reason: Miami’s booth workers include a young lady in a very brief bikini.
• The Chamber’s big kickoff dinner tonight is a sellout and the concert afterwards is within a thousand tickets of being full. The Arena dinner starts at 6 and then the concert and visits by Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and the coaches is at 8.
• The parties this week stretch from St. Augustine to Georgia and we hear that the hottest ticket is to the Nike affair. It’s more than a rumor that golfer Tiger Woods will be there to highlight a big celebrity lineup.
• One golfer here for sure is long-hitting John Daly, who shows up Tuesday evening to promote a product. He’ll appear at Sawgrass just prior to the big media party as his handlers hope to get some attention from those coming early for the party.
• Note on the media party, which will be around the 17th green at the TPC: there will be 35 buses shuttling writers and broadcasters from various in-town locations.
• There has been a lot of overreaction about the negative column in the Washington Post — every Super Bowl city gets raked over before the teams arrive and there’s nothing else to write about — but we got a defender from Orlando when a Nashville columnist tried to get clever about our shortcomings. Former T-U columnist Mike Bianchi wrote that any city which claimed Minnie Pearl shouldn’t look down on any other and that they probably think it’s the “Phantom of the Opry.”
• There are over 30 foreign media types here this week and the NFL has a big party for the international media coming up at the University Club.
• Playboy hasn’t made a secret of its party location (River City Brewing Company) but equally-fueled testosterone Maxim won’t tell anyone where it’s rocking until the day before. Somewhere at the beach, we hear.
• An omen: when the New England Patriots’ plane touched down Sunday at Cecil Commerce Center, it was dreary and overcast. An hour later, when the Philadelphia Eagles’ plane landed, the temperature had risen 10 degrees and the sky was clear.
• One of a Super Bowl’s unique qualities is “Radio Row” with the nation’s sports talk shows lined up in the media center. The “Row” this year is actually three rows as the Osborn Center is smaller than past venues and the stations are split up in all three main corridors.
• One person who surely won’t misbehave at the media center parties is Charles Griggs, the TV-7 commentator and Jacksonville Free Press writer. His wife Cynthia is one of the Osborn Center’s security guards.