Indianapolis is My Home

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

14
Jul

I Got My Lucas Oil Stadium Tour Tickets

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Indianapolis Colts, Lucas Oil Stadium, News, Sports, Things To Do in Indy, WRTV - TV Channel 6

This morning I got a text message from Ticketmaster reminding me that the tickets for the free, public tour for the new Colts Lucas Oil Stadium tour that’s taking place on August 16th.

I went on to Ticketmaster’s website this morning and initially tried to get 4 tickets so each member of my family could attend. I couldn’t confirm that order so I backed my order down to two so my son and I could go. That was successful. I didn’t realize how huge the demand for this was until I saw a news article about it later.

Fans began lining up at about 7 a.m. for a chance to get the tickets. Some were season ticket holders, but most were people who normally don’t get to go to many games, 6News’ Julie Pursley reported.

Now I’m in a discussion about whether or not it was appropriate for the Colts or whomever to limit the “free” tickets to only 60,000 if there was a demand for much more. Did they create a problem? Is it okay for scalpers to now sell the once free tickets at a premium? Is it worth it to you to get to see the stadium in this way?

Colts Fans Snag Free Stadium Tour Tickets - Sports News Story - WRTV Indianapolis

12
Jul

Death Is Coming to Indianapolis

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Cultural Events, Indiana State Museum, Things To Do in Indy

Although the homicide rate in the city has been having a significant increase of late, there’s another version of death is coming to the Circle City. In this case it’s the “Bodies. the Exhibition” exhibit that’s coming to the city. Then there’s also “Body Worlds III” scheduled to come to the Indiana State Museum.

Atlanta-based Premier Exhibitions Inc. is looking to bring its controversial "Bodies… the Exhibition" show to Indianapolis. The exhibit, which features cadavers that have been plasticized, dissected and posed, has been dogged by reports that the specimens used in the presentation may be the remains of tortured Chinese prisoners.

If the show opens here, it would debut mere months before the Indiana State Museum is slated to bring the more reputable "Body Worlds III" exhibit to Indianapolis. The founder of that show’s company, Dr. Gunther von Hagens, has spoken out against using bodies from China, which doesn’t closely regulate its specimens.

Details on an Indianapolis exhibit are foggy. A woman who answered the phone at Premier, a publicly traded company, first said the exhibit was scheduled to open in Indianapolis on July 19 and referred detailed questions to a spokeswoman, who did not return a message.

Both of these exhibits sound like they’d be very interesting to experience and see. My question though is if we’re concerned about where the bodies came from in the “Bodies..the Exhibition” exhibit, what are people doing about it besides not going to see them? Are they only upset that they’ve got them placed in their cities, or are they really concerned about the conditions in China that potentially caused the deaths of the cadavers used in the exhibit?

Source: Controversial cadaver exhibit coming on IBJ

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

SmallerIndiana

Author: Jason Bean, Category: Business, Business Entrepreneurs, Business Leaders, Indy Bloggers, Organizations, Seminars & Conferences

Have you heard of SmallerIndiana? Are you already a member? Are you actively involved in business and networking in Indiana?

You’ve got to check-out this site if you’re not familiar yet.

Here you can see some of the more popular members that are active in the network.

Visit Smaller Indiana

07
Jul

Indy Fireworks - Brian Bonner

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

Here are a couple of photos from local Indianapolis photographer, Brian Bonner. Do you love taking photos of fireworks? Do they turn out for you? I’ll have to upload mine from Greenfield this year and share them on flickr.

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