Category Archives: Things To Do

Things To Do In Kansas City, Kansas City Events, Kansas City Entertainment

Locating Kansas City Employment Opportunities In A Tough Job Market

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Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

I’m guessing we all know at least one friend or family member who’s lost their job, taken a pay cut at work or taken a reduction in hours just to keep their job. Unemployment is at 10% and that figure doesn’t even include those who are working for less pay. It’s probably not too far-fetched to assume at least half of us are making do with less than we were a few years ago.  Being in the real estate industry, I hear many stories of struggles with lost  real estate equity and I can only imagine the stress that comes with losing your job.

I recently spoke with a friend who lost her job and the emotions were overwhelming really. When I stopped and really thought about it, I began to realize just how much effect a job loss could have on an individual.  At the time, all I was able to offer was the old fall-back of telling someone to keep their chin up and things will get better. Later I got to thinking about how hollow that response was and I decided to jump online to see what types of accounting opportunities I could find in the Kansas City area. Being self-employed I’d never had to go down the job search path, but it didn’t take long to get in the swing of things. I was able to put together the following possibilities and I emailed them to my friend. I haven’t heard back yet on whether she’s found any good possibilities but having put in the time of locating a list of  job finder sites, I thought I’d share the info. The following links take you to the pages within each site, in this case after searching “accountant Kansas City”…

Yahoo Hot Jobs – 63 possible Kansas City area accounting jobs
Career Builder – 147 possible Kansas City area accounting jobs
KC Business Journal – 526 possible Kansas City area accounting jobs
Jobs.com – 107 possible Kansas City area accounting jobs
Job-Hunt.org – 82 possible Kansas City area accounting jobs
Simply Hired – 63 possible Kansas City area accounting jobs
Flip Dog – 59 possible Kansas City area accounting jobs
Indeed.com – 125 possible Kansas City area accounting jobs
Craigslist KC – 14 possible Kansas City area accounting jobs
Monster.com – 14 possible Kansas City area accounting jobs
Hound – 14 possible Kansas City area accounting jobs

Posted by Jason A. Brown

Have You Checked Up On The Kansas City Charity That Gets Your Hard-Earned Money?

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If you were one of the gracious ones out there who donated to a charity during the holiday season, there’s no doubt someone out there thanking their lucky stars for what you gave. Let’s just hope it’s the target you intended and not someone fronting as a charity to take advantage of your donations. Even well-recognized charities can have problems along the way and the list of what-ifs is really endless. So it’s a good idea to check up on the charities that receive your valuable donations and the process of doing so could be easier than you’d expect. A web site called Charity Navigator evaluates the standing of more than 5,000 U.S. charities by, among other things, reviewing the companies reported financials. In the end, the site gives out a rating from one to four stars. In addition to giving ratings, you’ll find a ton of other information like insider articles, recent news and the all-important charity search feature.


A great feature on the site is the ability to search for charities by area, and not just by name.   To do so, just type a city name into the search bar. When I typed in “Kansas City” there were 30 results, including large charities like City Union Mission, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Harvesters, Kansas City Symphony, YMCA of Kansas City and Nelson-Atkins Museum. But there were also others I hadn’t heard of that received high ratings, like The Family Conservancy and the PKD Foundation. You can also search for charities broken down by category.

One of the important aspects of any charity is the organization’s financial health. That’s why Charity Navigator makes this one of the determining factors when giving out ratings. Since the Salvation Army is defined as a church, the organization doesn’t have to disclose to the IRS the same financial information that other charities do. This prevents the site from being considered by Charity Navigator.  Here’s more information about the omission of the Salvation Army.  If you’d like to jump right to charities that deal with emergencies like natural disasters, be sure to check out the Hot Topics section. It also a good idea to check that your favorite charity is on the IRS list of qualified charitable organizations. Lastly, here’s the IRS requirements for taking charitable deductions come tax time.

Posted by Jason A. Brown

Facebook: Mixing Kansas City Business With Pleasure

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Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

In keeping abreast of the best marketing avenues, I’m always interested in knowing which national sites are receiving the most attention. I’m sure most of us would expect Google to be the #1 visited web site in the country — and indeed it was for the week ending 1/2/2010.  You might have even correctly guessed that Facebook.com was #2. But I’ll bet you wouldn’t have guessed how close the results were between the two. Google had 6.9% of the market share and Facebook came in at 6.6%!  The huge market share pulled in by Facebook is impressive and if you’re in a business where referrals are important, not making yourself available on Facebook is a very questionable act. The marketing and network opportunities grow by the minute on Facebook and when I jumped in a couple of years ago I had no idea how much fun it could be to mix business with pleasure.  Many still find the act of mixing business with personal lives on Facebook to be a huge dilemma. I disagree and find Facebook makes for very entertaining business. I would agree that it’s different and not the way business used to be done. Want to connect on Facebook? Find me here… http://www.Facebook.com/KansasCityRealEstateAgent

Here are the rest of the sites receiving the majority of attention for the week, according to Hitwise…

1. Google 6.88%
2. Facebook 6.62%
3. Yahoo! Mail 3.75%
4. Yahoo! 3.44%
5. MySpace 2.66%
6. YouTube 2.15%
7. MSN 1.79%
8. Windows Live Mail 1.61%
9. Yahoo! Search 1.18%
10. Bing 0.96%
11. eBay 0.93%
12. Gmail 0.87%
13. AOL 0.71%
14. AOL Mail 0.55%
15. Amazon.com 0.51%
16. My Yahoo! 0.50%
17. Google Image Search 0.45%
18. Wikipedia 0.41%
19. Yahoo! News 0.36%
20. AdsZooks 0.29%


I always find it interesting that GMail isn’t counted in total with the main Google results. It’s on the GMail.com domain, so I’d think it should be. Yahoo is the same way as Yahoo Mail isn’t counted with Yahoo or Yahoo Search. If these were aggregated, Google’s presence would be much more than a 0.3% differential ahead of Facebook. Then again, if you were to combining things, a combination of  Yahoo, Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Search would surpass Google’s total by having more than 9% market share. And in looking over the top 20 list of most visited sites, what the heck is AdsZooks?

Posted by Jason A. Brown

FREE Kansas City Directory Assistance: Get Phone Numbers, Addresses And Maps Texted To You

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Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

You know that feeling you get when you need to get your hands on a phone number but refuse to call 411 and pay for directory assistance? Well if you haven’t heard, those days are over! It’s been more than a year since Google began offering consumers free directory assistance. Since that time the service has been improved and is now really catching on. GOOG-411 directory assistance is available from any land line or wireless phone.  If you haven’t tried out GOOG-411, you’ll want to program this phone number into your phones right away. In addition to allowing you to get phone numbers for free, it also has advanced features such as the ability to send yourself a text message directly to the phone from which you’re calling.

Free Kansas City Directory Assistance

Free Kansas City Directory Assistance

This service is no doubt dealing a hit to the bottom lines of phone service providers like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, Time Warner, Comcast, Everest and pretty much any other local or wireless service providers. But it’s a boon for consumers. GOOG-411 even includes VOICE recognition, which is great if you’re on the road and needing safe, fast and free directory assistance. Take my office location for example. If you wanted the address of my office texted to your phone AND a link to the Google Map sent along with the text, try this… Call GOOG-411 and when it asks for the city and state, say “OVERLAND PARK KS”. Then when it asks which Business, Name or Type of Service, say “JASON BROWN PREMIER REALTY GROUP”.  At the next prompt, say “DETAILS”.  At the next prompt pay close attention, because it doesn’t mention the mapping option. The next chance you have to speak, just say “MAP IT” — GOOG-411 will then immediately text the address and a link to the map to your phone! If you have a Blackberry and can’t remember what numbers GOOG stands for, it’s 4664. So program 1-800-466-4411 into your phone.

If you don’t need a map and simply want to use GOOG-411 to get the phone number, that’s free too — including being connected to that number. Now, if you’re like me, you’re asking yourself “why would Google offer a completely free service like this, that seemingly has no financial benefit to them?” Google employee Marissa Mayer helped answer that question by saying Google needs test audio to improve another service they’re hoping to roll out in the future — a voice-recognition-to-text search engine. So the more directory calls that are placed to GOOG-411 now (i.e. test runs of their software), the more accurate their voice recognitions software will be later.  But for now, finding the closest Kansas City Target, Hy-Vee or park just got much easier and the free service is available nation-wide.

Posted by Jason A. Brown

If The Nelson-Atkins Museum Is The Only Kansas City Museum That Comes To Mind, Think Again

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Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

The Nelson Atkins Museum has celebrated 75 years and it’s understandable if that’s what comes to mind when you think about Kansas City museums. But the Kansas City area has many more museums to offer, so allow me to broaden our horizons.  When I started putting this list together I jotted down five museums I knew I’d visited. In putting together the list, there were a few others I’d visited as a child but had been forgotten. There were a half-dozen or so others that I was aware of but I’d never visited. But the list didn’t stop there and, to my surprise, there were another 15 to 20 museums that I had no idea made Kansas City their home. So, the next weekend you can’t find anything fun to do, spend an afternoon checking out one of the following local museums…

Airline History Museum in Kansas City
American Jazz Museum in Kansas City
American Royal Museum in Kansas City
Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center in Kansas City
College Basketball Experience in Kansas City
Hazelle Rollins Puppet Museum in Independence
Johnson County Museum of History in Shawnee KS
John Wornall House in Kansas City
KC Rail Experience at Union Station in Kansas City
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City
Lanesfield School in Edgerton KS
Legler Barn in Lenexa KS
Liberty Memorial Museum of World War I in Kansas City
Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop & Farm in Olathe KS
Missouri Town 1855 in Lee’s Summit MO
Money Museum at the Federal Reserve in Kansas City
National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame in Bonner Springs KS
National Frontier Trails Museum in Independence MO
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City
Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park KS
Science City in Kansas City
Shawnee Indian Mission in Fairway KS
Shawnee Town in Shawnee KS
Shoal Creek Living History Museum in North Kansas City
Steamboat Arabia in Kansas City
Toy & Miniature Museum of Kansas City
Treasures of the Steamboat Arabia Museum in Kansas City
Truman Presidential Museum & Library in Independence MO
Union Station in Kansas City
United Federation of Doll Clubs Doll Museum in Kansas City
Wonderscope Children’s Museum in Shawnee KS
Posted by Jason A. Brown

Add Swimming To Your Short List Of Activities This Winter In Kansas City

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Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

With colder days upon us, swimming pools are probably the last thing on many of our minds. Yet, even though all of the outdoor city and HOA community pools have long since closed for the winter, it doesn’t mean taking the kids swimming is no longer an option. If you’re looking for a mini-vacation in Kansas City, there’s always the Great Wolf Lodge, Schlitterbahn Vacation Village and Coco Key Water Resort options. But there’s also much cheaper daily options  in the Johnson County Kansas and Kansas City areas. Here’s a list of indoor public swimming pools to consider this winter…

Kansas Indoor Swimming Pools
Blue Valley Recreation Aquatic Center in Overland Park KS
Johnson County KS YMCA
Matt Ross Community Center in Overland Park KS
Roeland Park Aquatic Center
Sylvester Powell Jr. Community Center in Mission KS

Missouri Indoor Swimming Pools
Centennial Pool Plex in Blue Springs MO
Gladstone MO Community Center
Gregg/Klice Community Center in Kansas City
Henley Aquatic Center in Independence MO
Kansas City YMCA
Legacy Park Community Center in Lee’s Summit MO
Liberty MO Community Center
North Kansas City Community Center
Park Hill Aquatic Center in North Kansas City
Southeast Community Center in Kansas City
Tony Aguirre Community Center in Kansas City

Posted by Jason A. Brown

Plaza Lighting Ceremony Complete With Elbows and Fireworks Display

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Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

Don’t get me wrong. The Plaza Lights are an amazing lighting display.  Known about around the world in fact. It’s fighting the large crowds at the actual lighting CEREMONY that I’ve never understood. For those new to Kansas City or visiting family this week, the Plaza lighting ceremony is an annual event that occurs at 7 PM  each Thanksgiving. Nearly 300,000 light bulbs are turned on with the flip of a switch. Cool? Yes. Just as impressive at 7 PM on any night other than Thanksgiving? Yes, if you ask me. The three times that I’ve fought the crowds on Thanksgiving night, I kept asking myself “why am I here?” Yes, it’s clearly a case of fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times… well, I guarantee you there won’t be a fourth time. No matter how hard it is to tell 5 and 8 year old boys no… when they’ve never seen the lighting ceremony before… when they say  “dad, how is it fair that you’ve got to go but we haven’t”… I’m beginning to see another lighting ceremony in my future.


So, if you like crowds or have kids crying that life’s just not fair, then you could head down a little early to  try and establish your position in the crowd. Have your elbows ready for a workout. Another option could be finding a location near the Plaza where you can view the lighting ceremony from afar. You’d also still get the enjoyment of the fireworks show that follows the lighting ceremony. Or you could be a rebel and visit the Plaza late Wednesday night for the unceremonial 2 AM test run lighting that occurs the night before Thanksgiving. If none of that works, you can do what I normally do each year and wait a couple of weeks to go down to the Plaza and see the lights – you  may not believe it, but the lights look just as amazing two weeks later. No matter when you go down, you’ll see 80 miles of Christmas lights on every one of the 150 area buildings. If you do decide to attend the actual lighting ceremony at 7 PM Thursday, doing the honors this year will be Saturday Night lives own Jason Sudeikis.

Posted by Jason A. Brown

Check Out The “Walk Score” or “Drive Score” For Any Kansas City or Overland Park Address

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Hands On The Heartland
Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

Are you wondering how accessible a particular address or neighborhood is? Wondering what amenities lie nearby and just how long it might take to walk or drive to those amenities? Well, the next best thing to driving the areas is checking out the area’s Walk Score or Drive Score. Walk Score has incorporate Google mapping into it’s functionality and is a great way to check out what parks, schools, library, shopping and other amenities are nearby. If you’re like me and  have no intentions of walking anywhere, then you’ll prefer to check out the Drive Score instead.

Keep in mind that a Walk Score doesn’t take into account topography (i.e. hills) or weather (i.e. how 10 degrees or 110 degrees would affect your walk). So whether you live in Kansas City, Overland Park, Olathe or another area city, just type in your home address and check the results. If you’re moving to the area, I suggest searching homes for sale on my site (www.JBPRealtyGroup.com) and finding a home that generally fits your needs. Enter that address into either site to find the Walk Score or Drive Score for that address.

Posted by Jason A. Brown
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Shawnee Mission Park: Fewer Deer, Fewer Fireworks & More Rumors Of A Confiscated Water Winger

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Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

So what’s the largest park in Johnson County Kansas? It’s Shawnee Mission Park, which is just a few minutes from my home in Western Lenexa Kansas. I’m very fond of this park having spent MANY weekends in the late 1980’s waxing my car, playing football and generally keeping an eye on the girls passing by in cars. Ah, the good old high school years, when cell phones came with 12″ by 12″ carry bags! Rumor also has it that some troublesome kids used a water-winger to launch water balloons off the big park tower for 20 minutes before the park police confiscated the evidence – but that’s just a 20-year-old rumor and there’s no proof that I was anywhere nearby if it did happen.


Shawnee Mission Park

Shawnee Mission Park is a 1,250 acre park located within BOTH the cities of Shawnee and Lenexa — I’ve always found that aspect of the park interesting. It also may have played a role this year in the park not hosting the Fourth of July fireworks show for which it had become famous. There must have been some funding issues and I’m guessing they were related to the lower tax base that many cities are facing in our current economy. I don’t know if one city or the other backed out first or if maybe it was a mutual decision but it was a huge disappointment for many area residents. Maybe they’ll find the funds to make it happen again at some point in the future.

In addition to being the largest park in Johnson County KS, Shawnee Mission Park is the most visited park in the entire STATE. That’s amazing and one of the local allures is the park’s 120-acre lake that can be used for small boats, fishing and sail boarding. The park also has 12 shelters of varying sizes for cookouts and family get-togethers. The area’s nature trails are excellent for viewing the park’s out-of-control deer population. Now if you think I’m going to get off on a tangent on that controversial issue, you’re crazy.  OK, maybe you’re not crazy and all I’m going to say about the matter is that planned deer harvest needs to happen. With the deer population running more and more out of control, a controlled hunt is much better than leaving the deer population to die a prolonged death by starvation. And I’m speaking as a guy who’s never shot a bird or a deer or killed an animal in my life — except maybe a road kill here or there.

Shawnee Mission Park

Shawnee Mission Park

The park also has the popular Theatre in the Park, which this year featured Annie, Jesus Christ Superstar, All Shook Up and Cinderella. As you’d expect, there are many trails running throughout the park, one of the main  ones being Mill Creek Streamway – a winding 11 mile asphalt trail through the forest on the park’s west side.  There is also the South Shore Trail, North Shore Trail and the shorter 0.4 mile Sertoma Woodland Trail. Don’t be surprised to see foxes, turkeys, woodpeckers, cardinals, ducks, whip-poor-wills and the occasional bald eagle. Other special park features include a dog park, an archery range, tennis courts, a radio-controlled airplane field and a beach at the east end of the lake.

Posted by Jason A. Brown
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