Indianapolis is My Home

16
Aug

Lucas Oil Stadium Tour

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Downtown, Indianapolis Colts, Lucas Oil Stadium, Real Estate, Sports

I was one of the few (me and another 9,999) people that were able to score some tickets for the inaugural public tour of the Grand Opening of the new Lucas Oil Stadium here in Indianapolis.

The stadium and functionality of it are very impressive. The crowd control for the event wasn’t very impressive. If there really were only 10,000 people allowed into each tour, their ability to move people into the stadium quickly left something to be desired.

The tour was basically self-guided, you couldn’t go anywhere you wanted, but you basically just wondered around at your own pace and could linger where you wanted. The problem was that you only had two hours. We arrived at the stadium right at 10am when we were supposed to and didn’t make it into the front doors until after 10:30am. We walked around a bit and eventually decided to work our way down to the field itself.  Once you make it down to the field you can’t come back up into the street level concourses, so you’re on your way out at that point. You’re then faced with the decision of just going straight-out the back loading dock ramp or divert to walk past the locker room.

When we started in the line for the locker room, it was 11:10am, we walked out of the stadium, done with our tour, at 12pm. Didn’t get to go "into" the locker room, just walk by it and take a quick picture.

You can see all my photos in my slideshow below.

14
Aug

Scaffolding Accident at M & I Building Downtown

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Downtown, News, Real Estate, WRTV - TV Channel 6

The big news downtown today was about three workers that fell from scaffolding on the M & I building downtown. You can read about the event on the IndyChannel website.

The workers were on scaffolding on the south side of the M&I Bank building at Ohio at Pennsylvania streets when the scaffolding malfunctioned, sending them plummeting to between the 12th and 14th floors of the 28-story building, Indianapolis fire Capt. Gregg Harris said.

The power of digital cameras and the Internet allows us to see photos up-close and personal that you won’t be seeing on the news.

Check-out the photos Stephen James has shared on his flickr account that were taken by Joe Black. Stephen works on the 7th floor of the building, the accident occurred on the 12th floor.

09
Aug

Pan American Plaza by Polina Osherov

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Downtown, Indianapolis Colts, Indianapolis History, Local Artists, Lucas Oil Stadium, RCA Dome, Real Estate

Polina Osherov is a local photographer here in Indianapolis and she recently shared this photo with me that she took of the Pan American Plaza area downtown. I just thought this was a great photo showing some of the history of sports in this city.

From the Pan Am Plaza that was built for the Pan American Games that the city hosted in 1987.

You can see the RCA Dome, home of the Super Bowl Champion Indianapolis Colts that was built in 1984 at a cost of $82 million.

Then in the background to the south you’ve got the soon to be opened Lucas Oil Stadium, the new home of the Indianapolis Colts and the home of the 2012 Super Bowl!

29
Jul

Neil Diamond Turns On His Heartlight Tonight

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Concerts, Conseco Fieldhouse, Downtown

As a child I used to grab rummage through my parent’s album collections and listen to all my favorites as I’d play in my room or out in the living. Usually I was playing with Legos or building a card house, but many times the album I’d be listening to would be one of Neil Diamond’s.

I didn’t realize how prolific of an artist he really was until he was the guest on American Idol this past season. This guy has really produced some hits for himself and others and has been doing it a long time.

You can have the opportunity to see the legend perform tonight at Conseco Fieldhouse downtown Indianapolis.

You can get more information about the event from Eventful.com. If you’re already going, let me know what you think about the concert afterwards. Grabbing some fan photos would be great too! If you post them on your site or on flickr, just let us know.

22
Jul

More Tickets Available for Lucas Oil Stadium Tour

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Downtown, Indianapolis Colts, Lucas Oil Stadium, Real Estate, WISH - Channel 8

More tickets are going on sale today in about 10 minutes if you’re interested. I’ve already snagged my set of two tickets for my son and I to take the first tour of the day on August 16th.

Twenty thousand tickets will be available Tuesday morning at 10 at the Conseco Fieldhouse box office or Ticketmaster.com. The tickets are free and required.

Not sure if you saw the other recent coverage of some of the seats that are available for fans in the new stadium.

How do you like those puppies? You’d be a bit upset wouldn’t you? They could have at least put up a nice LCD screen on the columns couldn’t they?

You’ve got to wonder if the people that designed the seating have ever been to a game before? Or is this the case of the new stadium needing to meet a specific seating threshold number of seats available? My boss suggested they could have hung seats off the various decks like those toddler seats you clamp on your kitchen table.

WISH TV 8: Indianapolis News and Weather - 20,000 stadium tour tickets available

21
Jul

Starbucks Closing 12 Indianapolis Area Stores

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Business, Carmel, Coffee Shops, Downtown, Greenwood, Indianapolis Area, Keystone, News, Northwest Side, Real Estate, Speedway, West Side

When I first heard about the news that Starbucks has finally appeared to out-grow their britches, I thought I’d read that there weren’t any Indianapolis stores closing. As the image above humorously depicts skewing the original imagery by M.C. Escher, Starbucks always seemed to be everywhere. Between their actual stores and their little satellite stores located in other stores, they’re everywhere!

At one point in our lives, my brothers and I have all worked at a Starbucks store. My middle brother went the furthest with it as he actually opened a new store, which I think is one of the ones being closed now, which doesn’t make any sense to me.

Here are some of the soon to be closed locations:

• College Avenue & Fall Creek Parkway
• 38th and Meridian St
• 3855 E. 96th Street
• 9642 Allisonville Rd.
• 5060 W. 38th St.
• 5945 Crawfordsville Rd
• 3021 W 16th St
• 3801 S. Keystone Ave
• Merchant Square in Carmel
• US 31 & Fry Road in Greenwood
• Albany & 17th St in Beech Grove
• Metropolis Mall 2499 Futura Parkway in Plainfield

I had a Starbucks coffee for the first time in quite awhile on Thursday night. I’ve been cutting back on my coffee purchases in general, but when I do have a drink it’s been purchased from local coffee shop the vast majority of the time.

All-in-all I think closing a number of stores is a great move for Starbucks. I’m sure it will be a great opportunity for local shops and even Dunkin Donuts to make more of run for market share as well.

From my time working at the SBUX though, I think they’re a great company to work for that seems to care about their employees and work with them to keep balance in their lives.

Story Source: Grinding to a halt: 12 local Starbucks
Image Source: MIT Laboratory for Branding Cultures

08
Jul

Indianapolis Monumental Marathon Coming in November

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Downtown, Outdoor Recreation, Sports

A new marathon is coming to town and I couldn’t think of news that impacts me less. You see, I’m not much of a runner (at all), but news of more events like this are exciting because it brings more visitors and interest to our city. Visitors will have the choice of a full marathon (26.2 miles) or half of that if they’re interested.

The Indianapolis Monumental Marathon will take place on November 1st and the organizers are preparing for this year and years to come as popularity increases.

"We designed the course knowing we may have 1,5000 or so this year, but it’s been designed and laid out so that we can handle the increase in numbers each year as we grow," said Ken Long, director of the Monument Marathon.

The course will take runners through loads of the city’s most popular monuments and landmarks. As a non-runner though, I’m just wondering how much “sight-seeing” the participants are going to be doing while their in the middle of their run.

Are you a runner? I’d love to hear what you think of this new marathon coming to town. Will you be running in it?

03
Jul

PHOTOS: Indy Lights at Night by Brian Bonner

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Downtown, Indianapolis Photos, Local Artists

I recently got a couple of more photos from local Indianapolis photographer, Brian Bonner. This time he’s sharing some photos with us of a couple of locations in downtown Indianapolis.

You can probably recognize these locations pretty quickly as different points along the Canal downtown. Be sure and visit Brian’s site for lots of other photos and great macro shots.

Do you have photos of Indianapolis you’d like to share? I’d love to see them.

24
Jun

Jon McLaughlin Performing "Perfect" at Colts Fan Fest

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Concerts, Downtown, Indianapolis Colts, Local Musicians

Here’s a video of Jon McLaughlin performing "Perfect" as his opening song at the Indianapolis Colts Fan Fest event in Indianapolis this past Friday.

I’m not sure what happened to the audio a little ways in. We were right in front of the speakers, wonder if my camera’s mic couldn’t handle it?

Hmmmm

24
Jun

Public Tours of Lucas Oil Stadium

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Downtown, Indianapolis Colts, Lucas Oil Stadium, Real Estate

Here’s your chance to get a personal tour of Lucas Oil Stadium. Well, personal as in you and 19,999 other people you don’t know going with you.

The event is free, but people who want to go will have to get a ticket. Those will be made available starting July 14 on Ticketmaster’s Web site.

Officials said as many as 20,000 people can be accommodated on each of the tours and that more will be added if needed.

Regardless, I think I’ll be trying to get me a ticket for that little deal. Try to take my son too. You can get a video tour here or go straight to Ticketmaster and get your tickets for the live tour here.

Public Invited To Lucas Oil Stadium Tour - Indiana News Story - WRTV Indianapolis