Indianapolis is My Home

01
Aug

Brightpoint Moves HQ and Returns Home

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Business, Local Businesses, Northwest Side, Real Estate

It was almost 20 years ago that Brightpoint started their existence on the Northwest side of Indianapolis. They announce today that they’ll be moving their headquarters back to the Indy and not very far from where they started.

Brightpoint will be moving HQ from Plainfield and into the new building being finished by Interactive Intelligence.

The company, which has about 65 headquarters employees and about 1,000 workers in Indiana, plans to share a new building with software developer Interactive Intelligence Inc. and engineering firm Woolpert Inc. along Interstate 465 north of West 71st Street. The space will allow the company to implement an expansion that calls for up to 60 new headquarters employees in the next seven years.

It’s always good to hear about a company moving to make room for expansion, but I’m sure the loss will be felt by Plainfield as well.

Source: Brightpoint to move HQ to Indy on IBJ

29
Jul

Lead Foots Beware – Smokey’s Got a Brand New Car

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Areas, Government, Indianapolis Star, Traffic & Transportation

The Indiana State Police are the proud owners of 18 new, unmarked, 2008 Mustang GT’s to patrol Indiana highways. One car has been assigned to each of the Indiana State Police posts, but they also hunt together in “wolf packs” to catch speeders. It seems to be working.

The officers of the 18-car Mustang Unit wrote more than 4,600 speeding citations in June. That averages to about seven tickets per day, per car.

I passed two of these cars last week on the southwest side of I-465. A red one and a blue had pulled over a red pickup truck. My standpoint still remains the same. I’m regularly pushing the speed limit by 5-10mph but I also accept the fact that if I get pulled over I’m speeding.

The topic of law enforcement and speeding has been a popular one on this site. Anyone think it’s unfair for the police to use these types of unmarked cars? In the IndyStar story they mentioned one speeder going 127mph in his Corvette on SR37. That’s along my route to home and work so getting that guy in the pocket book sounds good to me.

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?

07
Jul

A Good Indianapolis Area Weekend

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Carmel, Surrounding Indianapolis

The 4th of July weekend is over and it’s back to work for me and just about everything else.

I felt like I was all over the area this past weekend but had a great time visiting with family, extended family and an old college acquaintance. Perhaps the biggest adjustment for this weekend was that our kids weren’t with us. They left on Wednesday to visit their aunt for a couple of days down in Portsmouth, OH.

Friday I slept in for quite awhile for the first time in a LONG time. It felt wonderful. There have been a lot of late nights lately and they’ve come with regularity for the past number of months.

When we did get up we got ready and headed to my parent’s house out in Stringtown, IN, which is just east of Greenfield. Met my brother and his family there for a good meal of my mom’s wonderful cooking and a number of hours just visiting and hanging out with each other. Again, weird because my two nieces were missing our kids not being there. Since it was the 4th, we went into Greenfield and watched the fireworks display at the high school. Surprisingly they were a good display for a small town. It’s also probably the closest I’ve been to and under the fireworks as they were going off.

Saturday morning we slept in again (two days in a row!!!) before we headed down to Brown County to visit with my cousin and his family. They rented a cabin and will be staying through the week. We had another great meal, played Hillbilly Golf and had some good conversation. Went into downtown Nashville for some ice-cream and to walk around a bit.

Sunday after going to church and running lights for our worship services, I drove up to Carmel and met with a friend from college. Friend probably gives too much credit for our relationship in the college days. He was a freshman and I was a junior or senior. We were both involved in student government and knew each other, but didn’t really hang out. There are a variety of reasons we scheduled to meet yesterday, but what was intended to be an hour or so conversation turned into 10 hours of talk, business discussion and a little bit of Halo on the original Xbox.

As I stated before though. Back to work.

The point of this story though is that there’s loads to do in and around Indiana, the key is having friends and family and a willingness not to worry about it so much and just go out and have fun.

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.

02
Jul

Dave Wilson’s One-Liners Comedy Club Closes in Greenwood

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Comedy, Greenwood, Local Businesses

Indianapolis will have one less thing to laugh at now along with a visual icon on the south side of the city in Greenwood. One-Liners’ comedy club will be closing down and it’s unknown if it was sold or just shutting down completely. The website looks like it’s now in some kind of partnership with Cracker’s Comedy Club, or maybe that’s just Dave being friendly with the local comedy scene.

The statement from their website says that the owner, Dave "The King" Wilson, a local WIBC talk radio host, in the article states the following:

In a statement on One-Liners’ Website, the couple said they were closing the business "to pursue other dreams."

There will be fewer laughs in the city and fewer people that will do a double-take as they drive on Main Street in Greenwood over by the I-65 intersection and see the backside of a plane that’s apparently crashed into the roof of the building.

They will certainly be missed.

The news story reports about some recent fines that the club had to pay due to some seemingly idiotic city ordinances and complaints that someone filed against them.

Greenwood comedy club closes after 16 years | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star

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