Once again, I'd like to create a post that will give my readers an opportunity to give feedback on events I can't make it to, and to let you know what I'll be going to (in case you'd like to join me). The only lecture which I am planning on attending features a couple of writers from The Onion which should be pretty hilarious. It's on Thursday at 8 in the MU. I probably won't make it to the one on primate aggression which is Friday the 5th at 9AM. The only home athletics event is the football game next Saturday; I will of course be there. The Varsity isn't getting anything new this week -- I reiterate my recommendation that you see Wall-E on the big screen, and The Longshots still doesn't appeal that much to me (I'm not hearing the buzz that I did for Bend It Like Beckham) but I'd love to hear about it if you go.
The M-shop is having a whole lot of bands for only $5 tonight and $7 tomorrow, all local. Tonight's are described as "indie pop rock" and I would say that they sound a little like early Smashing Pumpkins or Green Day (but I'm dating myself by saying that). Tomorrow's are described as "Indie Shoegazer Folk Rock" which puts me in mind of Simon & Garfunkel, but I'd say they're more like what would have happened if Nirvana had been on antidepressants instead of illegal drugs. There's shows Wednesday and Thursday as well, with acts from further away. Wednesday is also described as indie pop rock. I'd say they sound more like current pop music. Thursday is electronica and I'm not even going to risk my eardrums listening to a sample. How do I know what any of these bands sound like? the M-shop links to Myspace pages. There's also other music around campustown at the usual venues. Let me know if you catch any.
Reimann Gardens is having a "weed warrior days" Thursday morning. If there are any other events in walking distance of the neighborhood, this is the post to comment on them.
I've added some tags to this and my previous entertainment posts describing the costs associated: free, $($1-10), $$ ($10-25), and $$$(more). Football gets both $$ and $$$ since you can get a hillside ticket or spend pretty much as you want (in the thousands, no I am not kidding) in order to get better seats out of your season tickets, which are $300 by themselves. A regular seat will still get you into $$$ range, though.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Football: ISU vs. SDSU
Our neighborhood feels the impacts of football games greater than any other residential neighborhood in Ames. If you enjoy football (or just rooting for the Cyclones in any context, as I do) then it's pretty easy to make the best of it. This year, like last year, the first game was on a Thursday night. This can depress attendance a little since it's difficult for faraway fans who normally make the drive on a Friday night to take of at least one, and probably two days of work. Even nearby fans (at least all of my friends working in Des Moines) had to take off a few hours early to have enough time to drive up and enjoy dinner. However, attendance was pretty impressive with just the corners of the upper level looking empty, and fairly full hillsides. The improvements to the stadium were also interesting -- I don't know how impressive they actually are since they were mostly to box seats, and even if I ever see the inside of one in the future, I won't have any basis for comparison. There were also improvements to the bathrooms, and while new facilities that way are always nice (at least when they are new) and added capacity is always appreciated, I found the women's nearest our seats a little claustrophobic compared to the old one.
The game itself was a pretty thorough win on our part, which always makes a game more fun. I'm not enough of an expert on football to give you a forecast on the rest of the season based on this one game -- it was, after all, an opponent from a smaller school, and not nearly so formidible as Iowa or our conference schedule. The best part (besides the win) in my opinion was the gorgeous weather. Tailgating was a little warm mid-afternoon, but the game itself being in the evening meant that the temperature was perfect, combined with clear skies and little wind meant that outside was the place to be, regardless of your choice of entertainment.
On my way back I grabbed a can out of the yard of a neighbor. I pick up nickles on the ground no matter what form they take. Often a neighbor or two who are on the main route out of the stadium (Country Club, mostly) will put out a sack for trash and probably get a dollar or two out of the cans. I think this is great -- people don't like to litter but if they don't have a recepticle they will. I suspect fans overally were pretty well behaved because of the Thursday night game, so we'll see how the next one -- 6:00PM on Saturday, the 6th -- goes. The evening on a weekend will mean much more tailgating, and therefore more potential for litter, but the greater distance that the opponent is travelling means that a smaller percentage of our guests will be strangers.
The game itself was a pretty thorough win on our part, which always makes a game more fun. I'm not enough of an expert on football to give you a forecast on the rest of the season based on this one game -- it was, after all, an opponent from a smaller school, and not nearly so formidible as Iowa or our conference schedule. The best part (besides the win) in my opinion was the gorgeous weather. Tailgating was a little warm mid-afternoon, but the game itself being in the evening meant that the temperature was perfect, combined with clear skies and little wind meant that outside was the place to be, regardless of your choice of entertainment.
On my way back I grabbed a can out of the yard of a neighbor. I pick up nickles on the ground no matter what form they take. Often a neighbor or two who are on the main route out of the stadium (Country Club, mostly) will put out a sack for trash and probably get a dollar or two out of the cans. I think this is great -- people don't like to litter but if they don't have a recepticle they will. I suspect fans overally were pretty well behaved because of the Thursday night game, so we'll see how the next one -- 6:00PM on Saturday, the 6th -- goes. The evening on a weekend will mean much more tailgating, and therefore more potential for litter, but the greater distance that the opponent is travelling means that a smaller percentage of our guests will be strangers.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
ISU Lectures: Paul Shirley
Paul Shirley's talk was a lot of fun. He's got a self-deprecating shtick, heavily laden with sarcasm, that makes you think he'd be a fun guy to spend an evening having a conversation with. Since the talk was part of the Globalization series (actually a mechanical engineering course, but everything's open to the public), he tried to make a few points about how students should respond to that, namely:
1. Don't try to predict change; it's unpredictable by its very nature. (he recommended The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.)
2. Don't specialize yourself too much, as tempting as it is as an engineer.
3. Pay attention to the world around you. Go visit it.
He also had some life lessons to impart learned from sports and the business of sports, about how to deal with stress and failure, mainly having the right attitude so that you don't compromise your own success, as well as living in the moment. He also recommended writing as a way to handle failure. But the main thing I got out of it was the anecdotes, pretty hilarious on their own but made funnier by his style (if you like it; there were a few times when Chris, my old roommate, and I were the only ones laughing out loud. I think some of the students were afraid to be amused by a classroom speaker.) If you missed it, there's supposed to be a podcast, but it looks like they haven't updated that feed since spring. Check back with www.lectures.iastate.edu/podcasts/ in a week or two. I'd totally recommend his book, and he was classy enough to stick around signing them afterwards; I'm sure he'll be back in Central Iowa to sign books at some point in the future.
1. Don't try to predict change; it's unpredictable by its very nature. (he recommended The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.)
2. Don't specialize yourself too much, as tempting as it is as an engineer.
3. Pay attention to the world around you. Go visit it.
He also had some life lessons to impart learned from sports and the business of sports, about how to deal with stress and failure, mainly having the right attitude so that you don't compromise your own success, as well as living in the moment. He also recommended writing as a way to handle failure. But the main thing I got out of it was the anecdotes, pretty hilarious on their own but made funnier by his style (if you like it; there were a few times when Chris, my old roommate, and I were the only ones laughing out loud. I think some of the students were afraid to be amused by a classroom speaker.) If you missed it, there's supposed to be a podcast, but it looks like they haven't updated that feed since spring. Check back with www.lectures.iastate.edu/podcasts/ in a week or two. I'd totally recommend his book, and he was classy enough to stick around signing them afterwards; I'm sure he'll be back in Central Iowa to sign books at some point in the future.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Entertainment Within Walking Distance
As I said in my first post, this is the sort of thing I'm planning on blogging about for the most part, since neighborhood business is going to be too infrequent to make a solid blog out of. Today's entertainment within walking distance was Acacia's Root Beer Floats. The weather yesterday had been threatening but today was perfect - warm enough to make ice cream a good idea, not so hot that it's unbearable to be out in it. Acacia is one of the smaller fraternities, found on Grey Avenue. The root beer floats were $3, with profits going to Pages of Promise (a student run, non-profit organization that holds biannual text-book drives on campus to send to schools and libraries in Africa) and the American Red Cross (to help recovering communities in Iowa devastated by historic flooding this past June). Another aspect of the event was a root beer pong tournament, at $2/game. If you're unfamiliar with beverage pong, the basic idea is pretty simple - teams stand at either end of a ping pong table, trying to bounce a ping pong ball into each others' cups, thus obligating the owner of the cup to consume its contents (usually a small amount in each cup, and several cups -- first team to empty all its cups loses.) The game is actually highly structured with all kinds of rules about what happens when a ball goes somewhere other than a full cup, and don't worry, the ball gets washed every time it goes off the table, or in a cup. SCAN members can probably guess the usual context of this game. As a result, and also since the tournament area was bathed in rap music, I can't really recommend sticking around to most SCAN members -- it's just not a scene I see you as being comfortable in -- but if you have fond memories of pong and rap music, $2 isn't a bad deal. For the majority of you, though, I can still recommend the floats, and simply suggest that after buying them you enjoy them somewhere more peaceful. This is Acacia's first year doing this as their philanthropy event -- their previous one involved the use of fire hydrants and the city was going to start charging them for the water. As a result, whether it happens the same way next year is a bit up in the air. Watch this space for more Greek philanthropies like this one.
Upcoming neighborhood entertainment that I'm planning on attending is the first in ISU Lectures Technology, Globalization, and Culture series, featuring Paul Shirley, former ISU basketball player and author of Can I Keep My Jersey?, as well as the first football game of the year. The lecture is in the auditorium in Howe Hall on Wednesday at 6pm, and is free and open to the public. Shirley is highly articulate, and when he finished his degree in mechanical engineering before he'd used up his NCAA eligibility, he stayed on for a year of grad school. The football game is Thursday evening, check out cyclones.com for more info including the various ticket prices (this is one of the cheapest games of the season for single game tickets). SCAN residents are welcome to contact me if you'd like company walking to campus for the lecture. (I'll be with friends from my undergrad days for the game.) Events I'm going to be missing include anything happening over the weekend (I'll be out of town); mostly bands at various campustown businesses and the M-Shop as well as a comedian at Stephens Saturday night. That show is free, but part of Destination Iowa State (i.e. intended for incoming freshmen) so I'm not sure whether it'll appeal to you; he's not anyone I'm familiar with. Also there's a women's soccer game tonight (a bit of a stretch to call the soccer complex walking distance; it's on Elwood aka University way up north at 6th Street, right next to Lied) as well as the Cyclone Fan Fest at the new indoor practice facility next to the stadium Sunday afternoon. Chris may go to that depending on when we get back -- I have a meeting that afternoon. Another maybe is what's playing at the Varsity II right now -- I've already seen Wall-E (and if you haven't GO NOW, best movie of the summer) and the other is The Longshots, the story of the first girl to play Pop Warner football. Sounds like it would be good if you were into sports movies and/or women's empowerment films. I did like Bend it Like Beckham, which also had interesting cultural aspects. Not sure about this one.
If anyone goes to any of the events I can't make it to, leave a comment below letting your neighbors know about the experience. In the interest of minimizing jerks posting anonymously, I'm requiring a login; if you've already got a gmail account you're good to go, and getting one is pretty easy. I'll have other posts about the ones I do attend.
Upcoming neighborhood entertainment that I'm planning on attending is the first in ISU Lectures Technology, Globalization, and Culture series, featuring Paul Shirley, former ISU basketball player and author of Can I Keep My Jersey?, as well as the first football game of the year. The lecture is in the auditorium in Howe Hall on Wednesday at 6pm, and is free and open to the public. Shirley is highly articulate, and when he finished his degree in mechanical engineering before he'd used up his NCAA eligibility, he stayed on for a year of grad school. The football game is Thursday evening, check out cyclones.com for more info including the various ticket prices (this is one of the cheapest games of the season for single game tickets). SCAN residents are welcome to contact me if you'd like company walking to campus for the lecture. (I'll be with friends from my undergrad days for the game.) Events I'm going to be missing include anything happening over the weekend (I'll be out of town); mostly bands at various campustown businesses and the M-Shop as well as a comedian at Stephens Saturday night. That show is free, but part of Destination Iowa State (i.e. intended for incoming freshmen) so I'm not sure whether it'll appeal to you; he's not anyone I'm familiar with. Also there's a women's soccer game tonight (a bit of a stretch to call the soccer complex walking distance; it's on Elwood aka University way up north at 6th Street, right next to Lied) as well as the Cyclone Fan Fest at the new indoor practice facility next to the stadium Sunday afternoon. Chris may go to that depending on when we get back -- I have a meeting that afternoon. Another maybe is what's playing at the Varsity II right now -- I've already seen Wall-E (and if you haven't GO NOW, best movie of the summer) and the other is The Longshots, the story of the first girl to play Pop Warner football. Sounds like it would be good if you were into sports movies and/or women's empowerment films. I did like Bend it Like Beckham, which also had interesting cultural aspects. Not sure about this one.
If anyone goes to any of the events I can't make it to, leave a comment below letting your neighbors know about the experience. In the interest of minimizing jerks posting anonymously, I'm requiring a login; if you've already got a gmail account you're good to go, and getting one is pretty easy. I'll have other posts about the ones I do attend.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Welcome to our neighborhood's corner of the internet
As this is the first post, I'm going to keep things brief and just take care of a little business. First off, for those who've wondered in off the internet, I want to cover who we are. If you're from the neighborhood, you're probably wondering "Why a blog?" and I'll get to that too. What I'm hoping will be "regular" content will wait for another post.
The South Campus Area Neighborhood Association began in 2002 when neighbors and the city began to work together toward an improved enforcement of over-occupancy, trash, parking, noise and other city ordinances. We welcome participation by all interested parties. We are not anti-renter; it is just as important to us to make sure that a student renter’s landlord complies with ordinances that benefit the renter as it is to remind the student that excessively loud late night parties, underage drinking, and public urination are not acceptable, especially in a low-density neighborhood with the mix of families, retirees, and working adults that we have living in SCAN
Since 2002, we’ve had success with our historic preservation committee and home tour; legal victories regarding the over-occupancy zoning ordinances and “couch ordinance”; had many meetings with city and university officials, and had an intern to assist in organizational issues.
Now in 2008, SCAN continues these efforts through guest speakers at the annual meeting, and the hiring of a Public Relations Director (me!).
Why a blog? Well, our mission is to work with the city of Ames and Iowa State University to maintain and revitalize a healthy, diverse, family-friendly neighborhood that reflects the best of a true "university community”. One of the things I'd like to do in this blog is help reflect that community: specifically, to talk about what's going on not just with the association and in city government as it affects us, but the diverse cultural and entertainment events available. Part community calendar, part review (and what would a blog be if it didn't have reviews of something?) these posts will be all about what's within walking distance - not to slight the great things that happen in Old Town, Downtown, Somerset, West Campus, or the other parts of Ames, but this is about our vitality here, south of campus.
The South Campus Area Neighborhood Association began in 2002 when neighbors and the city began to work together toward an improved enforcement of over-occupancy, trash, parking, noise and other city ordinances. We welcome participation by all interested parties. We are not anti-renter; it is just as important to us to make sure that a student renter’s landlord complies with ordinances that benefit the renter as it is to remind the student that excessively loud late night parties, underage drinking, and public urination are not acceptable, especially in a low-density neighborhood with the mix of families, retirees, and working adults that we have living in SCAN
Since 2002, we’ve had success with our historic preservation committee and home tour; legal victories regarding the over-occupancy zoning ordinances and “couch ordinance”; had many meetings with city and university officials, and had an intern to assist in organizational issues.
Now in 2008, SCAN continues these efforts through guest speakers at the annual meeting, and the hiring of a Public Relations Director (me!).
Why a blog? Well, our mission is to work with the city of Ames and Iowa State University to maintain and revitalize a healthy, diverse, family-friendly neighborhood that reflects the best of a true "university community”. One of the things I'd like to do in this blog is help reflect that community: specifically, to talk about what's going on not just with the association and in city government as it affects us, but the diverse cultural and entertainment events available. Part community calendar, part review (and what would a blog be if it didn't have reviews of something?) these posts will be all about what's within walking distance - not to slight the great things that happen in Old Town, Downtown, Somerset, West Campus, or the other parts of Ames, but this is about our vitality here, south of campus.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
