Tag Archives: Simcity

March 6, 2013

Mobile Minutes: Better Block

By D

I had the most fascinating day today.

…if you’ve ever in my life time have made a comment about me and the involvement of politics please save your ‘I told you so’ for later…

This morning my girlfriend, Dur, and myself found ourselves deep in Kansas City, Missouri at our favorite location on an early Wednesday morning; 1 Million Cups. This is my first day going out in the world since being sick and we made it one wild day. After an hour there, and spending some time talking to some business friends of ours we split to Blanc burger to enjoy some quality food from Kansas City.

Afterwards [and some coffee later] Dur was dropped off for work, and my girlfriend and I went to an event in our city that we were curious about: Better Block.

The concept of Better Block is unique:

Take an area of a downtown area [like a city block] and spruce it up; clean up some downtown storefronts and invite local businesses to ‘rent out’ the area for day and practically throw a festival. The final product is to show citizens what a rebuilt, lively downtown can look like. Given the city I live in is older than Kansas City; it could be royally sweet if cleaned up correctly. My girlfriend and I got a tour of some of the buildings [none of which I had ever been in] and the creativity within this city on the architectural side is breath taking.

Prior to this, we had, had a meeting in the regional development office for a few hours and taking the knowledge from the Kansas City Shock; myself and my significant other introduced ideas of social media influence, soccer concepts for the festival, and even the introduction of some of the start up businesses we work with in Kansas City.

We caught the ear of the right person.

Walking to the buildings from the meeting I was able to walk with the director for the regional development office. We spent some time going over my past, the city, and then we entered into politics; both of us being political science students in college. By the time we had entered the first building my questions had been answered, my foot was in the door, and this much had become evident:

I’m entering the world of politics.

I’m on the planning board for Better Block, working with the media director, and am also going to start plugging this group into our connections within the Kansas City area. Imagine if the ideas of innovation and development in Kansas City spread to our neck of the woods, it’d be continued development for the entire region. Needless to say, my head is busting with ideas, concepts, and the overall irony of how my life has played out.

Those closest to me, reading this, combined with the events of the Kansas City Shock are sitting back knowing what all of this is:

The first step.

-D-

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Daily Events, Dating, Faith, Friends, Humor, Reality

February 16, 2013

Mobile Minutes: Imaginative Cities

By D

I’m having a dreaming problem. I’m dreaming too much, I’m having dreams while dreaming over cities that I’ve never seen.

Does that make sense?

Doesn’t to me either.

For several months the city I’ve been dreaming of is one that isn’t real. It’s along a river side, but the structures of concrete and steel. A image of power and security beckons with the hourly bell. I walk along the streets at day, studying the roads of this holistic shell. I never see the people; suits, ties, or jeans. I just spend hours, eternity, in the city of my dreams. Along a single road, paired into two even lanes, I find myself on the edge of the community, on the edge of the plains. On one side stands the structures, glass, crystal, and light. On the other lies the prairie winds; blowing through day and night. The world is split evenly between the two paths, one of concrete paradise, one covered in lush grass.

That city stood in my sleep, for hours, days, and weeks. However, while resting last night, I found a new city of technology, future, and light. Along this red canyon, sandstone speaking of its age. I stumbled into this growing area, surrounded by red dirt and sage. At first you have to travel down the canyon, a freeway to the west. Afterwards through quick decent, you’ve arrived with the rest. On each side towers these red layers of rock, each telling a story of their life within the clock. However, through the walls, and down the road the new concrete earth rose. Lights, cars, and boutiques dotted freshly along the streets. Again no people visible, at least until you reached the mall. Outdoor, indoor, a mix of architecture and natures law. The people walked along this world, talking through each random hall. An overwhelming notion of life took over the sense of my mind, this new world was unspoken of, no one knew where it was located along the maps creases and lines. I never knew the road numbers, I can never get there on foot. When I finally awoke this morning I knew I had to get this into my book.

Worlds never seen, cities never heard, at night I walk along these places planted in my mind, my quiet, slumber sight. I’m not sure if I’ll ever see these places, what a site they must be. Until that moment comes though, I’ll just visit them in my sleep.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Daily Events, Dreams, Travels

October 18, 2012

O: Simulated Reality

By D

There is well known fact that I have a deep, dark passion for a specific video game. This game has plagued me since around 1995 and I’ve grown with it over the years. It’s gone from 2-D, to 3-D, to actually making sense. It’s realistic, but also a simulation; it is…

…SimCity.

Literally, from the moment that Windows 3.1 was introduced into my life in elementary school, I’ve had a strong fixation on this game. There’s no point, there’s no last level, there’s no orc’s; the concept is clear: build.

It’s a developers utopia. From the original, limited, but nostalgic Simcity to my personal favorite; Simcity 4 [in which you could create and program your own buildings]. It was a nerds paradise; a paradise that I didn’t end…ever.

To this day, on my trusty, old laptop; Simcity 4 is still loaded. Why? There isn’t much else more relaxing then looking at something created and modifying, adjusting, increasing, decreasing, and just relaxing as you escape from your world into another.

Or was there something more?

From what you’ve read above, it’s been a geek-fest of a males take on a video game. However, the concept behind it really stuck with me over the years. It wasn’t about the tornado, UFO, or some other random disaster [including Car-Zilla?]; it was about going behind and above and building the impossible.

Yes, I even used SC4 as a failed diagram about zoning regulations in my philosophy of politics course in college. The belief behind development just amazed me. I went ahead, in school, and pushed the envelop on State and Local Government, I followed Department’s of Transportation, my wallpaper as a child? State maps from around the United States. Going on vacation wasn’t about the destination, it was about traveling from A to B and where and how we’d travel [I'm already freaking about driving to Indianapolis in January]. I thoroughly enjoy the Shock because I’m getting develop something out of nothing in a place that I’ve watched grow through the years; Kansas City.

However, it turns out that Simcity, Shock, teaching degrees in social sciences; emphasizing geography, and others were it for me.

Through my rather random Twitter feed; I follow groups like the international airport just south of where I live, or the state’s DOT, I talk to the social media specialist of MODOT almost daily [even when I don't get lost]. I took what I loved in a digital world and placed it into reality. It’s evident with Subway, what do I do? Develop. I chart out growth patterns in neighborhoods and towns, I keep up to date with transportation adjustments, and I’m always looking for the next ‘hot spot’, bu  I never considered an actual public figure position that involved development until about a week ago. Right before my girlfriend started to learn about her opportunity to relocate to Kansas City, I was inquired by the social media lead at the chamber of commerce of the city I currently reside in. Inquiring on if I’d apply to become a member of the city’s Chamber of Commerce.

…yes…read that again…

I’m still sitting here, haven’t replied back to the thought, but naturally in this mind; the concepts are endless. I mean, check out this one idea I’ve had in my head:

In the current city I’m residing in the downtown looks…well, awful. Old buildings, no development, just a lack-luster attempt at survival; let alone growth. Watching the downtown of Kansas City become what it has over the years versus what I have here has been a challenge. So, I’m taking what little I know, what I constantly think I know, and I’ve created a way to bring some new, fresh life into this dull, old city.

Downtown, near a major interchange of two highways stands an abandoned, privately owned rail yard. The sidewalks are destroyed by weeds, half the fences have been knocked down/rusted apart, and there isn’t life anywhere around. Again, the rail yard isn’t used; it’s been abandoned for years; I remember when it went vacant.

So why not change that? This city has several running/biking trails throughout the city, and their growing [slowly, but surely]. However, there is no trail head in the city. Due to this, and vast acreage of the rail yard; the city can turn around and knock the yard as ‘blighted’ and take the action of eminent domain and take the yard. Additionally, through an actual useful TIF, since this area is specifically what TIF’s were designed for in the first place. Not to be used painfully such as it was in the Kelo vs New London case [think I didn't listen in class?].

With a TIF in place, we can start a two-fold plan for redevelopment in the area:

  • First, this mass amount of space can become a park/trail head for all the massive trails that stretch for several miles throughout the city. This would include a plan for a potential riverfront trail to run directly off of this park area, north into the softball/baseball complex/casino several miles to the north [the city sits directly on the Missouri River].
  • Secondly, in order to bring about actual growth and not just to spruce up the area; a calculated, commercial development would also be cornerstones within this park area. Businesses such as an Apple Store and Trader Joe’s, two businesses envied by the upcoming business minded generations of the area, would snap the city out of the fast food controlled, factory foregone past. Additionally, not only will the properly value continue to increase in the area [trust me, it can't get any lower, minus nuclear waste being spilled], but it will begin a decent to the north and take a two-three block wide area and build up new commercial entities. Being able to actually rebuild a downtown means that cornerstone businesses could take bake a blighted downtown area.
  • Finally, we take out the notes that Johnson and Wyandotte Counties in Kansas have learned in the last decade; when done calmly and carefully, tax breaks for businesses, regardless the condition of the land, can bring about additional interest to the region. The fact that this downtown area does sit on an interstate with ease of access to Omaha, Nebraska and Kansas City, Mo/Ks is also a lucrative pull for the sake of transportation.

All of this is so, so theoretical that it really isn’t funny, and with the government of this city being run still by the “good boys gun club”, it is doubtful that progress would take place immediately.

However, who knows what the next week, month, or year holds?

Regardless, I find it amazing that video games and a strange, geeky childhood passion can stay alive so long to the point to where I’m looking at actual movement inside the political machine.

1.4 years since my life got turned upside down…

…I think we’ll count this as progress.

-D-

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Daily Events, Dreams, Humor, Reality, Travels

May 23, 2012

X: Economist Point of View

By D

Why are little boys so destructive?

Truthfully, even as one once upon a time, it almost seems like inherent nature to tear apart anything and everything that anyone works hard to create. While I was a small child I did that to MC [not tear her apart, that'd be weird]. She had worked hard all week for a big paycheck while living out in the trailer park. As a reward she had gone to the store and bought a 12-pack of Pepsi [you do not understand MC's addiction]. One Saturday in the summer heat, my ‘friends’ and myself went into the trailer, grabbed the pack and went outside.

We spent the next thirty minutes throwing the cans on the ground, just to see the pressurized, carbonated…stuff…spray all over the broken up concrete. Even thinking of that moment twenty years later makes me sad, knowing how hurt my mother was. Working so hard to just see an individual carelessly tear your work to pieces.

I would hope that eventually I would learn some sort of lesson from this story. Thankfully, it only took twenty years for it to stick. Even past the summers of melting down Matchbox cars in ‘fire pits’ along the garden with lighter fluid [leaving a pre-teen alone at home all day during the summer just isn't wise], I started to slow down my war path of morbid curiosity.

It was late in the 90′s…around 1998 that I discovered the game Simcity [yes, this is going that direction]. The concept was simple; build a city in a game in which the player wins, but could lose. Basic economics. I tried playing the game on our Windows 3.1 systems at school and eventually our house, with friends, but all they’d do is unleash the monster and tornado and let the town burn to the ground. While they were on the floor laughing at the mass chaos taking place in the world of 0′s and 1′s, almost what felt genetically I was thinking, “How can we build it back, better?” As technology progressed, so did the game itself; Simcity 2000, Simcity 3000, and eventually the grand-daddy of them all Simcity 4. At this point I could create cities that simulated real life in a very realistic sense [for the digital age mind you], plus it was a guilty pleasure that was relaxing. No disasters, nice music, no ‘shoot ‘em up’ games, nothing, but building and growth.

The past eleven, going on twelve months have been Simcity in a nutshell for me. Aside from the very realistic aspect of building design, growth, and profits that comes with my job at Subway, the obviously growth comes from the realistic side of my own personal life. While I’ll never keep from condemning divorce, as the sole thought of it is more disheartening in my own life then so many other ‘real world issues’, I can say that God was able to take my life, click the pause button, extinguish the fires, and thinking to Himself, “How can I build him back, better?”

Tonight, I was sitting in Starbucks, Dur was in town as she is getting ready to relocate to this neck of the woods, and Darco was working the bar. A frequent customer named Chris stepped into the store about an hour prior to closing and proceeded to sit next to me. While I know little about Chris, I know this much; we’re similar in age and he is working on his Masters in Economics. Gross. However, with my unsettling thirst of stocks, the market, and IPO’s; amazingly we never run out of things to discuss.

Tonight he was following up, asking me about the Kansas City Shock, and eventually he posed the question that eats at me every night:

So, what are you going to do if the Shock fail?

As much as I try to ignore it, we have to recognize that not all business are successful and creating your own is quite the risk in itself. There is no argument to this, but I openly admitted to Chris that I had no idea. Pay off my school debt and keep working at Subway [one way or another that was going to stay the theme anyways], but there really was/is no ‘plan’ of what is next.

After explaining that to him, this kind, well mannered  man looked at me and replied with:

I was just curious. You just really seem to come off as a person who is destined to operate his own business, you’re a builder.

This guy doesn’t know much about me, he’s an economist in the making, and loves watching the market. However, by way of Simcity and beyond. I’ll choose to neither agree or disagree, but regardless I’m grateful that I’m finally to a point in my life where I’m not nearly as destructive as I once way.

I suppose there is a truth behind the words that echoed through on Sunday morning; if I am to look at the world through redemptive eyes, I must be able to ask, “how can we build them back, better”, just as God did for me.

-D-

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in #KCSHOCK, Daily Events, Faith, Friends

January 27, 2012

Mobile Minutes: Video Games

By D

It may just happen…

IT MIGHT JUST HAPPEN…

IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN!

…I’m playing video games tonight…

Update 01/29/2012: I wound up at IHOP with some friends until 4:30am. Sorry Simcity,  you’re just going to have to wait.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Daily Events, Humor, Reality

November 19, 2011

X: 6 and counting…

By D

Where were you six months ago? What were you doing? How were you acting and who were you around? Simple questions right? I mean, it was only six months ago, what can possibly change in the short time span in ones life?

I was walking into a restraurant yesterday and I found myself counting dates with my fingers. “June, July, August, September, October, November…six months…it’s been six months.”

I smiled as I walked in with my team [soccer]. While heading back home last night, and trying not to harass the players in the car, I took a split second to reflect on my location and life.

Things aren’t perfect, nor are they meant to be, but life is good.

Note: For those curious, we did win our first game last night 8-7,

Today I’m heading out east with L-Mac for a semi-final high school football game [the high school I graduated from is playing]. It was like what I told K8 last night. I just feel filled with the holy spirit. This week was not by any means the most pleasant week of my life; bad dreams, sleepless night, frustrating working conditions, and the ever elusive money issues. However, by the time all of it was said and done, I sat down in my car last night, listening to the wind blow through the trees and what I thought was simple, “This is exactly where I need to be.”

It’s hard to believe how well this site is running, over 4,500 views, plenty of comments, and people subscribing at a weekly basis. Absolutely wonderful. Furthermore, through writing out these thoughts, ideas, concepts, and worthless moments [throw it up for Simcity ya'll]; I’ve been able to organize, structure, and gather my thoughts a bit better; and in return more and more people are being able to open up, share, and discuss our hardships…together; all of our hardships.

So, here’s to another six months. Can you fathom what we’ll all be doing next June? A year past it all. A year further into ‘life’. It’s exciting. These are exciting times. Life is exciting.

-D-

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Daily Events, Friends, Reality

November 18, 2011

#getyourpraiseon

By D

I’ve been in a funk all week, let’s get some praise up in here!

Weekend:
Second soccer season starts tonight
5k
High school (alma mater) semi-final football game
Awesome weather (high 60′s)
US Women’s National Team vs Sweden (two of my three favorites)
MoVal for Sunday
Plenty of Simcity
All God

-D-

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Uncategorized

November 17, 2011

Mobile Minutes: Sagebrook

By D

I have this undying craving to load up my territory of Sagebrook on Simcity4 and just have at it. In the mood to build.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Uncategorized

August 13, 2011

X: Utopia

By D

How can I tell that I’m starting to recover?

I’m getting creative.

Understand part of this I blame strictly on my job. Working in the marketing world is a fantastic way to expand ideas and thoughts. However, being a ‘dreamer’ as I affectionately have called myself over the years; the past week has proven to instill some absolutely wonderful ideas:

A Few:

  • Finding the funding to purchase an old two story brick facade in downtown and converting the top floor into a loft [mine] and the bottom floor into a business front for…
  • …looking into creating a club soccer program in this sleepy town [believe it or not the followers exist], but this would be maintained while…
  • …I am continuing work with Subway, including sales building profiles, and assisting with new stores in the region, and…
  • …working to create a new ‘fresh’ idea for the Subway franchise in the North American sector

Those are just a few things thought up over this week. It tells me this, while I’m not professing to be a genius on any grounds, it does tell me that my brain is starting to focus on potentials, possibility, we’re talking in merely a few hours these ideas crossed my mind about this ‘downtown’ of this place [population 1,399]:

  • Insure a grant to ‘redevelop’ the downtown of Smalltown USA
  • Rebuild the corner, two store facade as stated above
  • Install a small chunk of rail that once went through downtown across from the facade fronts
  • Place an old diner car on that piece of rail and build a small diner inside of it ‘Lunch Time Express’ anyone?
  • Across the street that intersects all of that bring in a second C-Store to the community
  • Expand shops throughout the facade, emphasizing antiques, decor, and a few specialty spots
  • Repave the parking lot, level it out, install a sign on the main highway pointing towards this avenue as the business hub of the community

All of this was thought up in a few hours earlier today. Sure, it doesn’t factor in the huge variance [capital], but these simple steps rebuild a lost a town on the map, and by rebuilding a town, I in turn rebuild myself. Does that make sense? The beauty of blogs is being able to monologue without too much argumentation.

So why is this piece sitting in this webpage, and under a ‘X’ title. Reconstruction. What do you do when your world crumbles? You pick up the pieces are start rebuilding.

I always knew there was a reason I loved lego’s as a child and the video game SimCity as a teenager/young adult

-D-

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Reality

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