It's impossible to ignore the industrial history of the apartments in the Crescent Macaroni & Cracker Company and the Waterloo Mills buildings, on the east side of Iowa Street between Fourth and Fifth streets near downtown Davenport.
• The Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau is encouraging people to take advantage of events, attractions, restaurants, stores, and hotels/motels in the Quad Cities area. The agency has scheduled the "Be a Tourist in Your Own Backyard" promotion for the weekend of January 14 to 17, asking residents to take a mini-vacation in the Quad Cities.
On Saturday, Phil Dingeldein will serve as director of photography for a three-minute film, in what is the culmination of a Project Greenlight-like contest run by the Iowa Motion Picture Association. Three scripts and three directors were chosen, and over the course of an afternoon, all three will be filmed as part of a seminar in Des Moines.
• AirTran Airways announced that it will enhance nonstop service between Quad City International Airport and Orlando International Airport. The new nonstop flights will begin March 9. All flights will be aboard the largest aircraft serving the Quad Cities airport, a Boeing 717 aircraft, with approximately 100 coach seats and 12 business-class seats available.
• The Iowa Tourism Office has released its 2005 Iowa Travel Guide, filled with information about hundreds of destinations in all parts of the state. The new guide's availability is especially timely, as parents are looking for fun, educational places to take their children, many of whom are enjoying a holiday break.
The magic number for the Isle of Capri is $207 million. That's the gaming company's estimate of the new money that the Quad Cities would receive over 10 years from its proposed expansion of the Rhythm City facility, which would include construction of a 10-story riverfront hotel and a 500-space parking ramp.
• For the 2003 calendar year, Bettendorf Fire Rescue, & Emergency Medical Services was one of 14 departments in the State of Iowa to receive a Life Safety Achievement Award from the Residential Fire Safety Institute for its proactive efforts in fire-prevention and -education while protecting its community and achieving zero structural-fire deaths.
The future of the Social Security system - presently predicted to be broke sometime between 2042 and 2053 - doesn't depend on Mike Whalen, the founder, president, and CEO of Moline-based Heart of America Restaurants & Inns.
• Bettendorf Mayor Mike Freemire recently met with the state's Community Attraction & Tourism (CAT) review board in West Des Moines, where he was notified that the downtown riverfront-development project for Bettendorf has been scored and will move toward negotiations sometime in January.
Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, 40 percent of eighth-graders at Bettendorf Middle School must be proficient - at their grade level - in reading and math. In 2003, 80 percent of those children tested proficient in those subjects.

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