Thursday, June 26, 2008

I want my...


baby back, baby back, baby back, baby back...RIBS!! YUMMY!!

That's right kids, this weekend is the 21st Annual Barbeque Round-up, and yours truly here is planning on stuffing herself silly! I looove myself some ribs!

If you have never been to the Barbeque Round-up, I highly suggest you attend! There are vendors from all around the country that come here to lil' ol' Iowa to compete for our tastebuds! That's right, they're here to compete. As you go around tasting (and tasting some more...and some more...) you need to keep tabs on which vendor you liked the best. Because you will be asked to fill out a ballot at the end for your favorite.

Now, I'm going to let you in on a little secret here...the best way to really enjoy BBQ Round-up is to split up. Get a big group together and everyone goes to a different booth and orders a sample. They give you roughly 3-4 ribs and sauce with each sample. You then meet back up and split those puppies up! This way, you get the best of all worlds! Take it from a seasoned BBQ-Roundup veteran, this is the way to go!

Hope to see ya'll there! I'll be the one stuffing my face...er...wait...that'll be most of us...nevermind!

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Floods--2008

I cannot begin to put into words the awe and absolute devastation that I am witnessing in this city of ours. Never in a million years did I ever believe that I would see something so catastrophic.

Natural disasters like this don't happen here. They happen somewhere other than here and I watch them on the national news in disbelief, but also in relief that it's not happening here.

But then it did.

It happened here.

In a catastrophic way.

I have yet to run into one person in this area who hasn't either seen the footage on television or actually witnessed it for themselves. Most have that glazed over look in their eye. The kind of look that recognizes they've seen something terrible and yet, cannot even begin to process it. It is just totally mind-blowing to see downtown Cedar Rapids right now. It looks surreal. Like something out of a bad movie. But it's not. It's real. Very real. It is so devastating to see buildings swallowed entirely by water. Buildings, that we here are all so familiar with.

One building in particular, that I and my fellow colleagues at HPL are all too familiar with is the Cedar Rapids Public Library. I cried when I saw the building in an ariel shot on the news. It literally took my breath away to see how high the water was around that building. And then to think about how high the water must be inside the building made me sick to my stomach.

For those of you who don't know, I am a former employee of CRPL. I spent three years of my life in that building, oftentimes on a daily basis. I know the books and the building intimately. I know the employees just as intimately. It breaks my heart to think of what is possibly lost in that library. Not only in damage to materials and structure, but to the staff who works so hard to make the library what it truly is. I have always loved libraries. They very often feel much like a second home to me, because of my familiarity with them. So to see one in such a condition is like seeing my own home...just devastating.

Obviously, there is more than just the library that is affected by this tragedy. Thousands are misplaced from their homes. Businesses in the downtown area are destroyed or at the very least water damaged. Our city, as well as hundreds of others around the state of Iowa have months of hard recovery ahead of us.

As I stated in the beginning, it is just so hard to put into words what I have seen over the last few days.

But I, like hundreds of others will be there when the waters recede to help with clean up. We will rebuild. But we most certainly will never forget.

Please keep all Cedar Rapids citizens and others in your thoughts.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Drowned Rat?


I don't know about the rest of you...but I'm starting to feel a little tired of the rain!