12:33 PM, Dec 28, 2007 
Economic Indicators
I got off the phone with my brother yesterday afternoon, secure in the knowledge that I'd be heading right home after work, with a brief stop at the leasing office to pick up a package or two. These thoughts were ripe in my mind when, while celebrating the light workload this time of year I was watching some youtube videos at my desk, I received an IM from Matt inviting me to have a beverage after work. Immediately all my light plans fell through.
I was informed that the meeting time was 5:40pm at JP Wine Bar, and left the office at about ten after five. On the way it occurred to me that I could never make it home and then to the bar in thirty minutes. The walk from my place to the bar takes twenty minutes, and that's with no snow on the ground. So around 55th and Swope I made an administrative decision to drive straight to JP.
Since all the Arena/P&L-related road construction, it is an absolute breeze to get to that area from highway 71. I lucked out and found a beautiful parking spot right in front of the bar's front door. I suspect it had only been available for a matter of seconds, because even at 5:35pm, the place was very busy. I grabbed the last stool up at the bar and got a beer while I waited for Matt and Jackie to arrive. I busied myself with taunting text messages to Matt, as to why he hadn't arrived yet. It was humorous.
I watched Matt and Jackie approach the bar's door from different directions at the same time. I suspect that Jackie was waiting in a car for Matt to get there, and saw him tying up his horse. I didn't have any cash, so I covered the first round on my card. We grabbed a table and set about having a refreshingly frank conversation about relationships and other assorted inappropriate things.
Jackie left after a couple of beers for free sushi in Overland Park. She urged us to come with her, but we were not interested in a forty mile round trip for free sushi, especially in falling snow. We said good-night to Jackie, and hello to Chris who arrived within four minutes of Jackie's departure, as if ordained by fate. Our conversation degenerated from refreshingly frank to just plain gross.
In the time that we sat at that table at JP Wine Bar, we watched scores of well-dressed beautiful women come in, until the ratio of not just women to men, but beautiful women to men reached critical mass. It was ridiculous. It's all part of a trend I've noticed lately, and assures me that downtown is going to make it. I will use this opportunity to announce my grand unified theory of economics. Since I haven't yet heard or read of any other theories of this sort, I will name it, pending dispute, the Bahuic Effect.
I assert that a neighborhood's value and prospects are directly proportional to the number of visible beautiful, apparently single women. In the last year or so, the concentrations of Kansas City's beautiful woman population has shifted from more traditional beautiful places like the Plaza, Brookside, and Johnson County(where such women are too often laden with cumbersome and age-hastening husbands and children) to more urban, less car-centric places like Southmoreland, Midtown, Union/Dutch/Hospital/Quality Hill, and the two new motherlodes: the River Market and the Crossroads. This change has become apparent from the beginning to the end of 2007.
Anyway, Matt and I said good-night to Chris as he went to join Nick and Josh at Jilly's, and we went down to the Peanut to split a pitcher of Fat Tire and eat some oh-so-healthy Peanut BLTs. We walked shivering back to our respective homes, our coats absolutely useless against the driving icy wind. With a full night, we were still home before 11pm.
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