For the first time this year, it actually felt like Spring outdoors. It started out at around 20 degrees when I left for the office, but soon cranked up into the 40’s. It’s amazing how one’s attitude can change once the wind stops blowing, the sun begins to shine brightly, and the temperatures being above freezing.
Having an hour or so of free time available, allowed for me to get back at sorting thru accumulations of paper that seem to multiply during the night. As with most everyone else, clutter is often invisible until we step back far enough to notice it. Some seem to work their best in the midst of chaos, but for me, it always has a way of bogging down my ability to focus.
The rest of my day was spent preparing for a number of showings tomorrow. With the many I have on my list, yours truly is going to be busy with showings most of the day. Hopefully there’ll be one that’ll pique my buyer’s interest. For sure, we’ll be visiting quite the variety of home styles.
I had a second showing of a property today along with several relatives of the buyers also being included. When finished, it appeared the home was all the more appealing to them, so I’m hoping they’ll be calling me back to make an offer on it. There were several questions they had which I didn’t know the answers, so when I arrived back at my office, I called the sellers and got their questions answered which will make them all the happier.
After thinking all the more about what’s going to happen with Southbridge Mall after Younkers closes its doors for good, I’m beginning to wonder if there shouldn’t be some radical changes made to that entire structure. I began thinking about what Cedar Rapids did in revitalizing the district of their City that was devastated by our flood of 2008.
In less than ten years, the transformation that took place was staggering–especially in the area referred to in the past as “Czech Town”. From NewBo City Market, to those quaint little Czech Village shops, it was an uplifting sight to behold. I was also impressed by the number of new multi-storied condos that were built nearby which a number of their City’s young professionals readily snapped when completed. And to think it all happened because of a group of selfless, forward-thinking people being able to transform their dreams into reality.
If you’re ever in Cedar Rapids, do make sure to visit NewBo City Market and its surrounding areas. When I was there last year, it was quite a delightful experience. With the number of people at NewBo, in spite of it being a chilly Sunday morning to boot, made me believe NewBo City Market is a very popular place for everyone.
Now let’s compare NewBo City Market to our Music Man Square. I’d freely place my bets on NewBo being around a whole lot longer than our “Square”. While remembering the millions upon millions of dollars that went into our Music Man Square which is a non-tax paying entity and running in the red year over year since its inception, I’ll poignantly once again say that it never ever should’ve been built in the first place. As the wise ones have said for generations, “Willful waste brings woeful want.”, and without a doubt, our “Square” is a classic example of a continued and willful waste of our taxpayer’s dollars.
Someone was reeling on me today about it, and all I could say was just what I’ve said from the time our Mayor Carl Miller was pumping everyone up about building it because, “It’s not worthy enough of an endeavor to spend our taxpayer’s dollars on a special interest group’s belief of being able to bring a dinosaur back to life.” I do hate it when I’m right, but oh well, we all must get on with our jobs of living and hopefully start learning from our past mistakes.
My one-liner for tonight is: Confusing yourself is a way to stay honest.
