I Choose Indy!

Here’s a slideshow of photos from yesterday’s semi-tanker explosion on I-465 on the northeast side.

These are some amazing images. It’s a miracle there weren’t more domino wrecks and casualties with such a blast and traffic heavy area.

I’m curious as to how much this is going to impact traffic. I think it’s going to be much more than people expect, although I heard tonight that westbound traffic on I-465 has been restored?

I’d love to hear what other people’s experiences have been. Whether you were there or close when it happened, or how your commute has been impacted since the explosion, let us know in the comments.

Let’s continue to keep expanding our sports and athletic footprint for Indianapolis. We know how to host world class events, let’s bring another worldwide event like the FIFA World Cup to our city.

I had a great experience a couple of weeks ago with Church Brothers Collision Repair. I had seen that they were on twitter and sent them a quick message asking if they repaired broken seatbelt retractors.

They responded that they did so I let them know I would plan on coming into their downtown location to have them give me an estimate.

When I walked in to the location, Danyel greeted me warmly and I let her know that I was interested in getting a quote on repairing my seatbelt in my car. She confirmed that I was the person that asked about it on twitter and I asked if she was the one that managed the account.

Danyel said no but that their corporate office was looking to use twitter more to interact with customers and potential customers and they contacted her because I said I’d probably stop by their location today.

Danyel got a specialist, Wes, to come out and look at my car and see what I needed with my seatbelt. While he was looking at the car I also asked him about replacing some of the interior door handles that were starting to crack and break. Wes worked up a quote for me on the price for replacing the items and the labor involved. I couldn’t have asked for any better customer service and interaction from Danyel and Wes. They both did a tremendous job.

What a great extension of using twitter to work with customers, then build on that interaction by letting locations know to expect that customer and to reinforce the positive experience of using twitter.

Bravo and kudos to the Church Brothers Collision Repair team for making my experience with their company and absolutely positive one.

Now I just have to figure out how I’m going to pay the money to get the new seatbelt mechanism replaced and installed. Seat belts aren’t important are they? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

There’s an event coming up this week at Conseco Fieldhouse that’s something you’re probably going to want to attend. It’s called "A Night of Protective Thinking" and it’s completely free.

The event has been organized and developed by An Escape Plan. Jeff Patterson, IMPD officer and self-defense trainer will be sharing with participants a variety of skills and resources they can use to protect themselves when they’re confronted with a situation we’d all prefer to avoid.

Understanding how to establish the idea of "Protective Thinking" for yourself and learning how to use self-defense to keep you and your family and friends safe is the purpose of the event.

The event is completely free, but you must register to attend. and parking is free as well in the Conseco Fieldhouse garage. The event takes place this tomorrow night at 6:00pm at Conseco Fieldhouse. The doors will open at 5:30pm.

Don’t let this opportunity pass you by.

Be Aware. Be Prepared. Be Safe.

Originally posted at Erik Deckers’ Laughing Stalk blog

What do you want, Indiana? What’s it going to take for our state, or at least our city, to support a professional women’s basketball team? I’ve taken my family to four different games this year, thanks to some free ticket love from my new BFF Julie Graue, the VP of Business Operations of the Fever.

My family are Fever fans through and through. As the father of two little girls, I want them to have athletes they can look up to as role models. Hell, as the father of three kids, I want my kids to have positive role models regardless of gender and sports.

We love the Fever because they play clean, they don’t get arrested, and they don’t start brawls with fans in the stands, unlike some local Men-B-A teams I could name.

And unlike our Pacers, they’re actually in the finals this year. I haven’t seen the Pacers in the finals since Shaq and Kobe were still on speaking terms.

Tonight, the stands are full, so I brought my family to the local Buffalo Wild Wings just a mile from our house to watch the game. We’re in Indianapolis (well, Fishers), it’s game three of the WNBA finals, and with just a few minutes to go in the game, you’d think we’d be listening to the audio of the game, right?

Wrong.

We’re listening to the Dallas-Denver game, a game between two teams that, if I got in my car now, would take me two days to reach.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a football freak and I would watch this game mostly because I don’t like Dallas, and would love to see anyone stomp them. But we’re missing a local professional team in their championship only because they’re women?

I won’t go into why I think Buffalo Wild Wing should support their local teams, but I do think it’s pretty poor community relations on the part of the Buffalo Wild Wings, especially if they expect to be supported by their local community.

And I’m actually not surprised by this either. This is the same kind of attitude I’ve seen in the city. We expect the Simons to pay for a sports team and yet we don’t come out and support them. We’re proud of the Fever as a city, and yet it took Larry Bird buying the entire upper balcony of seats and giving them away for free to get people to come out for Game 3 of the Division Championships.

Are we that apathetic as a city about anyone who doesn’t play football or men’s basketball that we can’t support them? Even the Triple-A Indianapolis Indians (another personal favorite) gets more publicity and community respect than the Fever.

There has been talk that the Fever may not even be here next season. And if that happens, I hope the Fever can go out on top, with a WNBA Championship and rub it in the faces of the city that turned their backs on them.

I’ve been to games where the entire upper level was nearly empty, where there were more empty seats in the lower section than there were people. We need people to get excited about the team, and to actually sink just a few bucks into a game. Hell, you can get $4 tickets on some nights, $8 on other nights. Twelve bucks will get you on the lower section if you go on the right nights.

If the Simons are able to keep the team in the city next year, take one night — just one night — and go to a game. Don’t ignore them, thinking they’ll never shut them down or sell them. Don’t stay home, thinking someone else will fill your seat. We can’t even get our local restaurants to support them during the finals, so it’s going to be up to the rest of us to do it.

And I’ll continue to support local restaurants who support their local teams. All their local teams.

UPDATE: The Fever just won their game, 86-85, and the entire crowd cheered for the results. So I asked the manager about it, to see if he realized that he might have made a small error in judgment. He said that while he “supports the local team,” he felt he had to bow to the wishes of the Cowboys and Broncos fan who were sitting in the bar and wanted to watch that game. He was worried that the Cowboys and Broncos fans would be upset that they switched the game over to the basketball game, yet there were more people sitting in the restaurant area, and we were all cheering for the Fever.

Whatever, dude. You might have the game on on Wednesday night, since there are no football games on, but that seems a bit fair-weather-fannish.

The Indianapolis Cultural Trail: A Legacy of Gene & Marilyn Glick announces another public art installation. “Moving Forward,” by Indianapolis-based architect Donna Sink, is a series of three custom-designed eco-friendly bus shelters that will showcase original poetry by published writers. The shelters will be located along the Cultural Trail on the south side of Virginia Avenue near Lexington Street, McCarty Street and Woodlawn Avenue.

Each shelter will be comprised of ecoresin panels, which are made using 40% post-industrial re-grind content, mounted in a stainless steel frame. The shelters will be installed on TX Active photocatalytic cement pads. These pads will be self-cleaning and will help reduce many pollutants deemed harmful to human health and the environment.

Download the call for poets here or call 317.713.3333 for more information about the Cultural Trail public art program.

A call for poetry begins this week and submissions are due November 22, 2009. Published poets living in or with ties to Indiana are invited to submit work based on subjects such as community, neighborhoods, landmarks, shared spaces, transportation, history and the future. Poets must have published at least one poem in a print magazine or anthology prior to submitting work for “Moving Forward.” Selected poems may have been published previously.