Link Round-Up, August 11
It’s Fair Time, now through August 19!! As one of many around here who worked for several seasons at the Fair, I can tell you there are several hundred folks working out there right now for whom the rest of the world simply does not exist for 12 days. This week’s Link Round-Up offers links [...]
Eliminate Walnut Transit Mall?
Josh asks whether the City of Des Moines should eliminate the Walnut St. Transit Mall and return that area to street-level retail.
My thought is no. With Younkers gone, there is no “anchor” in the area anymore. And, there is PLENTY of new retail space popping up all over downtown Des Moines - East Village, Court Ave., [...]
Katrina second anniversary brings attack on ACOE incompetence; was 1993 an omen?
During the floods here in 1993, there was speculation that the Army Corps of Engineers had purposely allowed the temporary levee at Sixth Avenue to fail, flooding the surrounding working-class neighborhood around North High School and Birdland Park because it would prevent extensive damage in the downtown area. (I’m pretty sure companies like Wells Fargo [...]
The Spirit of Des Moines Dinner boat will cruise again
Remember the Spirit of Des Moines? That’s the paddlewheel dinner boat that used to cruise the Des Moines River back in the early 1990’s. If you’ve lived here long enough, you might recall that the Spirit met an untimely end when a drunken woman untied it from its moorings one night and set it afloat. [...]
The First Official Iowa State Fair Meme-On-A-Stick!
I don’t know exactly why I love the State Fair… it’s always scorching hot, the food is bad for you, and it’s a lot of damn walking. But, it’s also one of the “1,000 Places to See Before You Die” according to travel author Patricia Schultz. And as a lifelong Iowan, I believe it’s quite [...]
InPlay Des Moines disappoints
Update 2/6/2008:
I feel compelled to update this post. I’ve noticed I’ve received several visitors to my blog who seem to be searching for information on InPlay Des Moines, and the post that’s showing up on Google is this one, with the headline “InPlay Des Moines Disappoints.” But, although we did have one bad experience with [...]
How I Spent My Summer Vacation
It’s August already! The sales tax holiday is over, as is the big garage sale at the White House on Penn Avenue. I’m not sure exactly how this all happened so quickly, but here we are nearing the end of another summer vacation! I’ve really enjoyed reading about everyone’s summer adventures, and thought it would [...]
I’m now at Central Iowa Bloggers!
Wow, what a nice surprise: Andy Brudtkuhl recently sent me an email to let me know that my marketing blog had been added to the roll at Central Iowa Bloggers, the website of a group that meets monthly to discuss blogging and social media here in the Des Moines area. (These folks are being way [...]
Cardboard kids force traffic to slow down
Despite the fact that the speed limit on our street is 25 mph, we daily see cars zooming from one end to the other at speeds in excess of 60 mph. We call the police, they run radar for a couple days, and when they leave the problem returns. A two-way stop sign placed at [...]
The evils of bottled water: it’s not the ‘tap water’ that’s a problem
My family and I have long joked about how the bottled water display in the grocery store is probably hooked up to a regular old tap water faucet, and Aquafina’s recent announcement suggests that we might be on target.
So you can probably imagine a little of what was going through my mind when I read [...]
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