OK, this is a promotion for meeting planners and not the rest of us, but I’m on an email chain that touts these things and here’s a copy of what I received via email a few minute ago. Looks like Nov. 11, 2011, is the official opening date for the much-discussed hotel.

I clicked on the promotion hoping that perhaps they were selling $11 room nights at the soon-to-be Omni; I figured with my taxpayer/owner discount, maybe my room night would be rounded to an even $5 or so. But alas, the deals right now are only for event planners.

Courtesy of Scribd, you can check out the promotional mailing.

Next Sunday, Oct. 23, the 2011 State Fair of Texas will wind down for the 125^th time. The deep fryers will cease to bubble, and the music will undoubtedly fade. If you plan to visit before the cotton candy dust settles over Fair Park, here’s a couple of places you can find exhibitors from our neighborhood:

Lake Highlands entrepreneur and pet lover Linda Smith’s Fur-Ever My Friend exhibit is in the Craft Pavilion. The online store is mainly pet memorials, but the fair exhibit also has plenty of gifts for those with well-loved, four-legged friends — pens, sleep shirts and bumper stickers included. fur-evermyfriend.com

Metroplex Piano Warehouse, which is located at LBJ & Greenville, is exhibiting pianos in Grand Place. The store carries the brands Kawai, Pramberger, Kohler & Campbell, Seiler, Bechstein, Casio, PianoDisc and Samick Digital — both digital and player pianos. metroplexpiano.com, 972.388.1130

The Grand Opening of Liquid Zoo Bar & Grille in Lake Highlands is this weekend.

Yes, we know they’ve been open several weeks now, but now they are making it official. Saturday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. — win prizes and enjoy surprises, drink specials, live music by Filet of Soul — beginning at 9 p.m. — Karaoke, shuffleboard, food TV and more. Seriously? What else could there be?

Liquid Zoo is located at 6750 Abrams Road. Call 214.221.3004 for more info.

By now you’ve probably heard that the guy who made Apple what it is, Steve Jobs, died Wednesday. There’s not a lot of neighborhood, hyper-local introspection I can bring to bear on that news, other than to acknowledge that just about everything we do at the Advocate utilizes Apple technology or technology inspired by Apple.

What Apple did, and what other innovative companies have done as a result of what Apple did, have forever changed journalism and the way we prepare news and the way you consume it. And although there are plenty of times when that fact is frustrating and unsettling to those of us trying to remain employed in the business, that is all good news for those of you who can now receive whatever news you want in whatever form you want virtually without cost or obligation or bias, if you so choose.

A neighbor passed along a brief online link to some little-publicized things Steve Jobs said over the years as he went from a young entrepreneur to an older rich guy to a fabulously wealth and famous man who couldn’t innovate or talk his way out of certain death.

Jobs may have been many things — insufferable, arrogant, a taskmaster and charismatic in addition to all of the good things people are saying about him now that he’s gone — but he was unique, and he recognized and acted upon some basic life principles that most of us tend to forget as we meander through the day.

Sure enough, at 5 p.m. Wednesday, the neighborhood’s newest restaurant and bar — Go 4 It Sports Grill at Northwest Highway and Plano Road — opened its doors, a few months behind the original schedule. At 6 p.m., according to an employee, “you could hear crickets in here”, meaning that the place was empty. By 6:30 p.m., though, he says the place was mobbed, and when we turned up around 7:15 p.m., I saw two empty chairs. So much for a quiet, “soft” opening.

The place looks like a winner, although it’s a bit unconventional for the genre. For one thing, there are lots of windows, and none of them appear to be screened or shaded. Most sports bars, or at least most of the ones I’ve visited, generally are somewhat dark and tend to have the seedy, spilled-beer smell permanently wafting in the air. This one appears geared to families, and the soft opening featured lots of kids. There are plenty of TVs, the chairs were comfortable, the huge U-shaped bar looked to be made of granite, the prices were pretty standard for bar fare, and I spotted a Golden Tee machine, a pool table and some additional spaces, presumably for darts and a few other game diversions.

As for the food, last night probably wasn’t the best time to judge things. The kitchen was literally overrun with orders, so much so that around 8:30 p.m., our waiter told us the place had to quit taking food orders because the kitchen couldn’t keep up. We had ordered earlier, though, and our chicken Caesar salad and house burger ($7.95 each) were good. I had ordered the burger “medium” and it came out “well-done”, but the meat still tasted juicy, and I’m not that picky, anyway. The tater tots, in particular, couldn’t have been better — just crispy enough, salty enough and tasty enough to be memorable. I saw onion rings and fries being toted to other tables, and they were both golden-brown-looking, too. And the chips (nice and crunchy) and hot sauce (spicy) were good, too. Good thing we were full before dessert; our waiter said the dessert hadn’t shown up yet.

Overall, this looks like a place that will stick. Families should be comfortable here (the after-school sporting-event crowed apparently has already found it), there’s plenty of well-lit parking, there’s a spot for smokers outside on the sidewalk and they can still see the TVs, and the service was friendly and attentive, even if a bit harried. The place will be open daily until 2 a.m.

According to a sign in the window, Go 4 It Sports Grill at Northwest and Plano will open “2day at 5 p.m.”

I peeked in the window this morning — it looks roomy with rich colors and a few big screen TVs.

The bar and grill will be open until 2 a.m., seven nights a week, and will serve American, Cajun and New Mexican fare — more here.

For a quick review of the new restaurant, which we visited late Wednesday, click here.

In editing an October story about artist Kathleen Wilke, whose eerie images of the “Lady of the Lake” also appeared in our cover story, Dark Shadows, we learned about another emerging local artist, a designer to be exact, who’s creations — “fashion for the beach and boat” — are quite fabulous.

Wilke recently shot a series of photos from Nadja Bem’s super-hot “Love in a Bungalow” line of swimwear, dresses and beach clothing and accessories—underwater, of course. Left is a Bem-designed dress photographed by Wilke.

“We had a great time doing that shoot and my model was such a trooper – 6 hours in the water, under the water,” Bem says.

You can see some of Bem’s designs on the Love in a Bungalow Facebook page. Wilke has some projects in the works —we will fill you in soon.

Two authors who last summer were featured in separate Advocate articles had a chance to meet at a recent book signing event at My Office in Lake Highlands, where photographer Jo Perrizo snapped this shot.

Young Courtney Roberts, Author of Uh-oh Cat and Carol Brickell, author of Cinco the Clinic Cat both appeared in the July 2011 Advocate.

It’s a small world: When they got talking, Brickell learned that Courtney’s grandfather is her longtime doctor!

Photo swiped from the Dallas Bike Works site — thanks, guys!

The Bicycle Cafe is opening as soon as next month next door to Dallas Bike Works at Northwest and Lawther. James at Bike Works is tracking down the owner Armando for us. Meanwhile, here’s what the Bike Works folks have on it:

“There is a new business going in next to us and we want to welcome them our corner. Armando is opening the Bicycle Cafe and the rumor mill is churning out lots of good stuff. I hear tell of breakfast food, healthy wraps, permanent bike storage, early and late hours…

and BEER!”

By the way, runners, walkers and everyone else — not just cyclists — will be welcome here at the cafe. More news as we get it.