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.”

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

Read the rest of this entry »

I along with about 25,000 others attended a rally downtown today in support of Barack Obama today. With just four days to the General Election, Obama wanted to say thanks to those in Iowan who helped him with his first nomination victory during the Iowa Caucuses.

Here a few quotes from today’s rally along with a video slide show I put together from on his theme songs that was played today. I also have some video coverage that I shot today.

“I had confidence in the people of Iowa because I knew that the American people are a decent people and a generous people, willing to work hard and sacrifice for future generations. No where was that truer than here in Iowa. On the day of the Iowa caucus, my faith n the American people was vindicated and what you started here in Iowa has swept the nation. We’re seeing the same turnout, we’re seeing the same people going and getting in line, volunteers, people participating, a whole new way of doing democracy started right here in Iowa, and it’s all across the country now.” – Barack Obama

Read the rest of this entry »

Gateway Lofts

1719 Grand Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa 50309
Phone: 515-280-1962
Property Manager: Tina Braafhart
Website: www.gatewayloftsdm.com

Open House: Mon.-Fri. 9am-5pm; Sat. 10am-2pm;
Sundays & Evenings by Appointment

Pricing: starts at $950 a month

Units in Project: 80
Floors in Building: 3

Property Features:
• one bath loft flats with 850 to 1,311 square feet, starts at $950
• two bath lofts flats with mezzanine, 1,212 to 1,960 square feet, starts at $1,250
• true urban lofts with large windows and spacious open floor plans, and concrete flooring
• indoor first floor climate controlled parking and outdoor parking available for guests
• stainless steel appliances, gas ranges and microwaves
• true urban style concrete kitchen and bathroom countertops
• brazilian black slate tub/shower surrounds with true overhead rainfall-style showerheads
• in-unit washer and dryer
• limited, controlled access for your safety

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s our October update of what Netflix DVDs downtown residents might are watching as of Monday, October 27, 2008.

Last month’s number one, The Final Season, has fallen to number two, and in at number one is movie from 1980, Flash Gordon. Not sure I understand it’s currently popularity here in Des Moines, but some people downtown must be renting it.

This month instead of posting a screen scrape from Netflix for the top 15, I am providing just the top 5 and trailers for each of them. Enjoy!

1. Flash Gordon

Read the rest of this entry »

Running No-Where(A Time Lapse/Slow Motion mix) from HedsIc on Vimeo.

Read the rest of this entry »

This weekend the Des Moines area Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community will celebrate Pride, marking 30 years of Pride Celebrations in Des Moines. Major events of the celebration include a Pride Weekend Kickoff Party at the Garden Friday evening; a street party in the East Village Saturday evening; and the annual Pride Parade and Festival on Sunday. Full details of this weekend’s events can be found on their website at: CapitalCityPride.org. Des Moines’ annual Pride celebration is generally held the second weekend in June every summer, but this year had to be re-scheduled due to the flooding that was occurring during that time in downtown Des Moines.

A local group of residents, formed together as Capital City Pride-Des Moines organizes the event. Their mission is to “promote acceptance, tolerance, and understanding of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community through education, programming, and visibility.”

Last year more than 8,000 attended the weekend long festivities and organizers are hoping for even a larger crowd with this being the 30th anniversary of the first Gay Pride demonstration in the City of Des Moines. This years theme for Pride 2008 is “Catch the Spirit” and the event is being sponsored by more than 90 Des Moines-area businesses and organizations.

I’m looking forward to attending this year’s celebration. Last year I was out of town during the celebration, but have attended the celebrations here in Des Moines the last few years. I find it’s around this time that people generally ask me “Why do you have to have these Pride celebrations?” I always try to answer first with a phrase that I saw on an Atlanta billboard the very first Pride celebration I ever took part in, back in 1994, it said” We are not ashamed of who we are; and for that we are proud!” I think this phrase says a lot.

Read the rest of this entry »