Have you been to the Power and Light district yet? If the answer is no, start making plans to go. It's worth it.

Okay, we know the concerns about the brand new entertainment district downtown: For starters, it didn't come cheap. $850 million dollars, to be exact and the city is on the hook for 300 million of that. If this thing goes under, the city will get a large chunk of the bill. I still wonder how it will affect the Plaza, Westport and River Market. How many bars and restaurants can the city and metro area support? But enough of the negatives.

The Power and Light district is impressive. In fact, when I first walked through the KC Live courtyard area earlier this month, the first thing that went through my mind was: "This is better than I expected."

There's no doubt that downtown Kansas City needed something like this... badly. When my wife and I flew here to shop for a house, KMBC put us up in a hotel downtown. We were surprised how absolutely dead it was after 5 pm. Not that it was all that exciting during the day either. Now, there's a whole new vibe.

I've been in several of the bars and restaurants in the Power and Light district and every one is upscale and seems top-notch. The new bowling alley, Lucky Strike Lanes, is my favorite so far. It's bowling alley meets New York City lounge, with a beautiful view of KC from large windows on the one side. What a cool place to take friends and family from out of town.

Of course, both the Sprint Center and the P&L district were practically built for out-of-towners. We wanted the Big 12 tournament back and this year, the tourney has returned and fans from all across the Midwest seem impressed by the new and improved KC.

Look, I'm cynical enough to know that a lot could still go wrong here. How many of these fancy establishments will make it and be here 1,2,5 years from now? We'll see. But I really hope the district thrives and downtown thrives with it. This is a great region and metro to live in and it deserves to have a bustling, fun downtown. So get going and visit already. It may have been built to attract the out-of-towners, but it's up to us here in the Kansas City metro to make sure our new crown jewel shines for years to come.

You hear stories all the time about people sending things to our troops serving overseas. Everything from food to socks get shipped to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, to give our soldiers a little taste of home.

But this week, I talked with two metro residents who are sending something truly unique to our fighting men and women. And it's gotten a tremendous response.

Cheryl Herrington and Larry Mills both have ties to the military. Cheryl's father was in the military and her brother died in Vietnam. Mills is a retired marine. They're also clowns. "Sweet Pea" and "Pappy" is be exact, when the makeup's on. They've been making people smile around here for years and now they've found a way to bring that joy to troops half a world away.

It's simple really. Easy to package and ship, too. Cheryl and Larry are sending red clown noses to our soldiers. That's right: those silly round noses that clowns wear as part of their costumes. The pair started sending out the noses last July and have already sent 13,000 of them. They've gotten a pile of E-mails and pictures back from the troops, including great photographs of soldiers proudly wearing the red noses. The e-mails and letters describe how the noses brightened the soldiers' day.

Larry gets emotional when he sees the pictures. He knows how much something like that can help the troops forget what's going on around them, at least for a little while. Cheryl says if something this simple can help the soldiers, they have to do it.

Cheryl and Larry's effort is called The Red Nose Institute and it's funded by donations. If you'd like to help, you can visit their website: TheRedNoseInstitute.com