Here’s a video tour of the Robert D Ray Asian Gardens that I took yesterday evening using the new iPhone 3GS. I hope you enjoy.

Check out the latest video to promote the greater Des Moines area.

This is a video that was recently published on YouTube. It appears to be shot in 2006, and the editing isn’t perfect, but it’s a good overview of the what Des Moines has to offer. It was originally part of a tourism infomercial for Greater Des Moines Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Enjoy a collection of pictures that I have taken since moving to downtown in March 2008. I just love this place!

I hope you enjoy this collection of Holiday inspired photos and music. I also wanted to say “Thank You” to all of my first time and regular readers of the blog. I hope to bring even more exciting content in 2009. Best Wishes to All!

I recently ran across a YouTube Video that a guy named Adam put together back in October to provide a mini tour of downtown Des Moines.

I thought I would share this cute little holiday video that helps us realize what the world would be without the internet. For one, I guess you wouldn’t be reading this blog. I hope you enjoy!

With thanks to: http://www.itsawonderfulinternet.com/

This video contains some pictures that I have taken of the holiday lights and snow from around Des Moines. I hope you enjoy!

Nathan Wright of Lava Row from Ignite Des Moines shares 20 Things Des Moines Needs Right Now, from a better airport to graffiti artists to a bike garage.

As much as I hate the cold weather, and yesterday morning it was very cold and windy, I stood outside of City Hall with about a hundred other residents of Des Moines to join hundreds of cities across the country in a protest rally against the passage of Proposition 8 in California which took away the civil right of marriage in California. I’m still confused on how a majority is ever allowed to vote for a minorities rights, or why the idea of two people in loving committed relationship that want the same 1,138 rights afforded to straight-married couples is such a divisive issue. No one is asking for any church-recognized marriage, just the same civil-marriage that is required by law to be recognized as a marriage.

At least here in Des Moines, and in Iowa we may have a chance to show that we are still a progressive state on civil rights issues. On Dec. 9, the Iowa Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in Varnum vs. Brien, which will determine whether gay marriage is legalized in Iowa.

You may not know it, but Iowa has a long history of being very progressive on civil rights issues. For example:

• Iowa public schools were desegregated a century before 1954’s Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka. 
• Iowa was the first to admit a woman to the bar, in 1869 – three years before the Supreme Court ruled that states could deny women the right to practice law. 
• Iowa abolished slavery a generation before the federal 13th Amendment. 
• Iowa had the the first black Miss America contestant. 
• Iowa had the first black athlete’s at it’s major universities. 

 
State Senator Matt McCoy said it best yesterday, “This is the civil rights fight of our time.”

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As many of you may already know, I’m a gadget geek and I love technology, hence the blog and the job with Wells Fargo Financial technology. One of my favorite gadgets, and one that I never leave home without, is my iPhone. I’m one of “those” that got one day 1 over well over a year ago. I use it for all kind of things in addition to making and receiving phone calls. In since this blog is about Downtown, I wanted to share a few ways that I use my iPhone around downtown as well as talk about some of the exciting things other cities around the country are creating for “location-aware” devices, primarily the iPhone.

To begin with, let me share with you one of the most innovative ideas I’ve seen a city come up with to promote their city and to provide free tools to their residents. The city I’m speaking of is Washington, DC. Their Mayor and the cities’ Chief Technology Officer (I’m not sure if the City of Des Moines even has this position?) developed an innovation contest and gave away up to $20,000 worth of cash prizes to take the cities’ data and build applications that use that data to benefit residents and tourist of the DC area. Wow! What a great way to get creative tools built. Can you image if Des Moines sponsored a contest like this? The Des Moines area is full of creative technology folks and with all the technology jobs here in our area, we would be sure to have some great innovations submitted.

So what has been submitted thus far:

DC Location-Aware Realtime Alerts – iPhone users can download this free app from the App Store to see the location and type of crimes that have been committed near them in near realtime. They can also see the nearest metro station based on their current location, including the next two inbound trains in each direction.

More applications… Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this past week there was some chatter about a an article that appeared in the Kansas City Star. The article, KC Can Learn from Downtown Des Moines, by Kevin Collision, compares what Des Moines has done for downtown compared to what Kansas City has done. Here are a few excerpts from the article.

Bottom line: Anybody in Kansas City who believes we’ve done enough revitalizing our downtown over the past few years had better wake up. Regional cities such as Des Moines have been striving too, and, more importantly, they’ve been doing it consistently over a longer period of time.

It was 20 years ago that Des Moines civic leaders hired Mario Gandelsonas, a Princeton University scholar of urban design, to help the city come up with a plan to foster its downtown revitalization. The results have been impressive.

More than $2.8 billion has been spent downtown since 2000, much of it aimed at making the area more appealing to that educated, younger adult crowd with an appetite for urban living.

Factoid: While metro Des Moines is much smaller than metro Kansas City, 525,000 vs. 1.95 million people, its downtown has 77,000 workers vs. 100,000 in KC. The city can thank major employers, including the Principal Financial Group, Meredith Corp., Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., Wells Fargo Financial and the state of Iowa, for its downtown employment base.

With this article in mind, here are a couple of videos I found on YouTube that talk about what people like about Des Moines.

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In celebration of Election Day, I thought I would just share some of my favorite Obama campaign posters and music videos.

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