Median point . Or something

Hi Greg eevnmorfun ,

That orange dot, is the Object's Origin (or more precise, it is the Origin (0, 0, 0) of the 3 dimensional orthogonal Coordinate System of the Object).

It usually indeed doesn't make sense to have that far away from the Object.

To 'fix' that, you can go to Object > Set Origin > Origin to Geometry (for instance):

You can, get your Selected Object(s) 'back' in your Viewport, by pressing the NUMPAD Period Key, and get all your Objects in View, by using the HOME Key.

This is all covered in the Blender Basics Course: https://cgcookie.com/courses/blender-basics-an-introduction-to-blender-4-x

As Martin mentioned, the Blender Basics is the place to start, if you haven't watched that course already, we strongly recommend you start with the Blender Basics and then come back to this one. If you already watched it then keep going with Press Start.