Cedar Rapids 101

Hazel and I are off to Cedar Rapids tonight to go see my Parental Units. We'll be there through Sunday (I hope to be back by the NFC Championship Game... don't think Hazel even knows who's playing) but I thought I'd use today to give a little bit of random facts about Cedar Rapids. Ok, so technically my folks now live in Marion (suburb) but there's more to write about Cedar Rapids.

* 2nd largest city in Iowa. Claims 242,000+ in the Metropolitan Area. I think Davenport is bigger, but they are split into two different states.
* Is known as "City of Five Seasons" although I don't know anyone that can name the 5th Season. Most of us call it "City of Five Smells" and can accurately name all 5 smells.
* Home of the National Czech and Slovak Museum. Czech village has an awesome farmers market and some good places to eat.
* Home of Quaker Oats. Most of your oatmeal and cereal is made there. Best day of the month is Crunch Berry Day when the whole city smells like Crunch Berries! Seriously!
* New home of the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa. This has been since I graduated High School so I haven't been there.
* Has a million dollar tree downtown. It's the big thing you see from the interstate that's made of metal as you drive down I-380. Still can't believe that cost a million bucks!
* Is one of two cities in the world that has the court house on an island. The other one is Paris, France.
* Home of Brucemore - A definitely fun place to tour. It's a "Queen Anne-style mansion built in 1886". I just remember that the dude had a pet Lion!!! How cool is that?
* Home of Grant Wood for a while. He actually was the art teacher at my middle school for a while and they have found works of his there.
* Cedar Rapids Symphony has been called one of the best smaller town symphonies in the country by multiple sources. They are a lot of fun to listen to - even though Tiemeyer was so hard to follow for all 20+ years that he was there!
* Current superstars that are from Cedar Rapids - Ashton Kutcher, Elijah Wood, Ron Livingston (think Office Space - or Sex and the City for Jen), Terry Farrell (Star Trek Deep Space Nine among others). And of course - ME!!!
* For more history of Cedar Rapids (too long for me to read right now) - GO HERE.....

That's all I can think of at the moment. Didn't put too much thought into it last night so I'm probably missing a bunch of things.

Song of the Day - I broke out my "Best of DC Talk" CD that I made. They had some quality stuff but too bad the band is no longer together. They started performing together when they were all teenagers so it was amazing that they stuck together for so long. Still one of the better concerts that I've been to over the years!

Video of the Day - nothing new.... I have some new DVDs coming today from Netflix.

Webpage of the Day - I found this very intriguing. A guy started a webpage for the purpose of advertising and it only cost $100 for a spot. For most companies, $100 is nothing for advertising but when you get 1000 companies paying that, he immediately gets a million bucks! Smart guy! His page was recently hacked but is back up for everyone to enjoy!