Blog sosAssociates

March 8, 2026 -- Today, I am celebrating fourteen years of creating my sosAssociates.com blog.

Four Featured Blog Posts

Of course, all our blog posts have interest to us, but what follows are four blog posts that Julie and I want to feature here. The first two are our travel blog posts that also include photos and information about my two month-long backpacking trips. The third post is about our family's involvement with a special place in Cleveland -- Euclid Beach Park.

The fourth featured post was actually mostly written in mid-August 2024, but was published on New Year's Eve to celebrate an active year in 2025. If you jump to the bottom of this seventh hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) blog post, to the "PART TWO: Recovery Again" section, you will see how my second successful surgery in 2024 led to me being able to do so much in 2025.

2025 Blog Posts

I want to say thank you to the people responsible for all the great things I was able to do in 2025 that I wrote about in my blog posts. I will continue to share in my future blog posts the good times in the Cleveland/Akron area, and in my travels.

Last year, I wrote that I expected to write fewer blog posts in 2025 due to plans that would keep me away from the keyboard -- this prediction came true.

March 8, 2026 -- Today, I am celebrating fourteen years of creating my sosAssociates.com blog.

Four Featured Blog Posts

Of course, all our blog posts have interest to us, but what follows are four blog posts that Julie and I want to feature here. The first two are our travel blog posts that also include photos and information about my two month-long backpacking trips. The third post is about our family's involvement with a special place in Cleveland -- Euclid Beach Park.

The fourth featured post was actually mostly written in mid-August 2024, but was published on New Year's Eve to celebrate an active year in 2025. If you jump to the bottom of this seventh hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) blog post, to the "PART TWO: Recovery Again" section, you will see how my second successful surgery in 2024 led to me being able to do so much in 2025.

2025 Blog Posts

I want to say thank you to the people responsible for all the great things I was able to do in 2025 that I wrote about in my blog posts. I will continue to share in my future blog posts the good times in the Cleveland/Akron area, and in my travels.

Last year, I wrote that I expected to write fewer blog posts in 2025 due to plans that would keep me away from the keyboard -- this prediction came true.

From My 2023 Recovery from Surgery to My 2024 Chest Pain Journey to Recovery Again

After writing my last three HCM recovery blog posts, I did not expect to ever write about my heart condition again. Since hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a progressive heart condition, I did think in the back of my mind that I may need additional treatment that I might write about at some point in my life, but I assumed that it would be in the distant future or maybe never happen within my remaining lifetime.

At first, I debated listing this as my seventh HCM blog post, since at the time I write this, my current chest pain and occasional breathlessness has been confirmed to not be caused by my ongoing HCM cardiac condition. As you read this HCM blog post, you will learn how my chest pain does, most likely, relate to my April 27, 2023, open-heart surgery, which I needed due to having HCM. I write "most likely," since I write this while still in the middle of actively seeking treatment that will be successful in stopping my chest pain.

I want to be clear that my chest pain is mild most of the time, but it has worsened the last two months (July/August 2024), and is now interfering with all of my normal life activities. My chest pain is difficult to treat, since it grows and subsides in intensity seemly randomly -- nothing makes it worse and nothing makes it better.

I decided to write the majority of this blog post starting in mid-August 2024 . . .

• to capture the current status of my progress to find a successful treatment while it is still happening.

• since I find that writing is something that I can do while in pain/discomfort, and it helps distract me from my current situation.

• as part of my goal to help me accept what I don't have control over. (This is hard for me.) Documenting the treatment process helps me mentally.

• to, most importantly, have a positive outlook for the future. Notice that the title includes the word "Recovery" at a time when there is no guarantee that I will get better. My plan is to write about what is happening to me through the end of August 2024, and then later add the final outcome which I expect to be positive!

If you are reading this seventh HCM blog post, it means that I published it because the journey that I document in the following text ended in the success I desired. To all those people that I mention in this blog post, I am grateful for their part in helping me to leave my chest pain in the past and now enjoy my life fully again!

Within 20 minutes of arriving, on Saturday, December 6th, at Ingenuity's Flannel & Finery 2025, I was blown away by the stage show that greeted me as I entered the artistically lit cavern that is the Ingenuity Cleveland Hamilton Collaborative building. The rest of the evening proceeded with electronic music of the Tesla Orchestra, fun food, circus jugglers, Smoke and Mirrors laser game, and a crafts area where I used an ink press to make an Ingenuity Cleveland 2025 ornament. There was a costume bar where attendees could get creative and outfit themselves with fancy masks or add some flair to what they were already wearing. Cleveland was dancing into the night as the Ingenuity dance party brought a fun group of people out to move with the music until just past midnight. After the music ended, it was nice to talk to other people who had been on the dance floor. Everyone I met was so friendly and welcoming!

I learned of this party for creatives from an invitation that Ingenuity Cleveland Executive Artistic Director Emily Appelbaum sent to me and others. When we saw each other, Emily greeted me warmly and thanked me for promoting Ingenuity over the years on social media and in my Ingenuity Cleveland blog posts. I suggested that I get a photo of her, since I rarely get one at the events she plans. We took the photo you see at the top of this blog post. Later in the evening, I learned from Assembly for the Arts President & CEO Jeremy Johnson that Emily Appelbaum was offered a position in California, and would be leaving Cleveland. After learning that she would be leaving her leadership role in Cleveland after 10 years, I was especially glad that I made a point of getting a photo with her.

I hope this blog post encourages all those who read this to join me in having fun at future Ingenuity Cleveland parties.

This a blog post about two stories. First, as the title indicates, it is my opportunity to share my photos, the people with whom I connected, and some of what I learned at the Futureland AI Forward Summit on Thursday, November 20, 2025. The second story is how I am having a busy month, and to save time, I used AI for the first time to write part of this blog post.

First Story

I want to mention here that it was great to see the performance of Myles "Humble G" Smith of International Multimedia Group, and later have a great conversation with him and Jalá Smith. I had written a blog post which featured Humble G many years ago , so it was great to see him perform again!

In the afternoon, I attended TerDawn DeBoe's presentation, "Workshop: From AI Overwhelm to 10X ROI in 90 Days." You can learn more about her work at WorkWithTerDawn.com and InstituteOfBusinessai.org. I was interviewed about what I thought of her presentation, and if she uses it in a future promotional video, I will add it to this blog post.

Second Story

The second story was driven by my goal to create the text for this blog post quickly. It was after 11:22 pm, and I was finishing the draft of my blog post about the Grand Opening: Upland Sims Park Expansion - City of Euclid. I was tired, but I had set a goal of starting the text about the Futureland event, and I did not want to go bed without beginning to write it. I decided that since the Summit was about using AI, and was sponsored by Google, I would try for the first time using the Google Gemini AI platform. I gave it minimal promps and the text I had shared on social media. By 11:40:38 pm, I had an OpenDocument (.odt) file of a blog post text, and then decided it would be easier for me to add an HTML file to my website. I had Gemini create the HTML (Hypertext Markup Language - HTML5 version). I finished the evening at 1:02:09 am by choosing the following privacy option: "The activity you selected is being permanently deleted from your account and no longer tied to you."

The most important takeaway from the Summit is that our Northeast Ohio leaders are looking to use AI and other technology to better serve our community. I did talk to a couple of the presenters about how many unscrupulous people are using AI to steal creative people's intellectual property, to create false propaganda, and for other unethical activities. I shared with them the case of the felon in the White House creating an AI video of himself as a king dropping feces on the public that does not support him. They shared my concerns, and I was impressed that they did make the Summit focus on positive uses of technology in the world. As I shared on Bluesky social while I was writing this blog post, many ". . . of the presentations weren’t even about AI per se, but just about how to use good data and technology to better serve the community. Technology in the hands of good people can truly improve lives."

I currently don't plan on using AI, since it does not meet my current needs, but at the same time I think it is important to learn what it can do. I highly recommend attending future Futureland Summits, since their presenters did an excellent job of introducing technology that could further positive objectives in our community.

We are so glad that Stuart saw Share the River's re-post on social media of the City of Euclid's announcement about the grand opening of the upland expansion of Sims Park on Saturday, November 15, 2025, at 10:30 am! If you search our past blog posts for "Share the River," you will see why we recommend people follow them on social media and look at their blog posts. It is a great way to learn about fun things happening in our community along our waterfronts (Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie)! We were particularly interested in this opening, since we had walked the Euclid Lakefront Trail and explored Sims Park on Friday, August 29, 2025. We put this blog post together to share:

• What we learned about the history of the Sims Park lakefront area.

• Our experience on our Friday, August 29, 2025, walk along the Euclid Lakefront Trail and through Sims Park.

• The presentation at the Saturday morning, November 15, 2025, New Upland Sims Park expansion Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony.

• Our Saturday afternoon, November 15, 2025, exploring the new Upland Sims Park expansion and the Euclid Lakefront Trail.

We hope this blog post will encourage others to explore the new Upland Sims Park Expansion and the Euclid Lakefront Trail. As a community, we need to continue to open up our lakefront and expand natural areas. We are excited by the progress that we have written about for over a decade.

I was so pleased to have participated in the academic activities that were part of this year's celebration of the 60 years of Archives of the History of American Psychology (AHAP). After attending the Wednesday, October 1, 2025, Archives 60th Anniversary Open House, the Executive Director of the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology, Cathy Faye, Ph.D., invited me to return for a full day of learning about the history of AHAP at the Saturday, November 8, 2025, Symposium: Reflecting on 60 Years of the Archives of the History of American Psychology. Following the symposium, a HUGE surprise announcement was made at the celebratory cocktail party: A one-million-dollar challenge grant!

Over six years ago, I learned about the National Museum of Psychology. When I finally visited on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, I learned that there was much more to the Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology than just the psychology museum.

I really enjoyed all the times I have visited the Center, and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to learn more about its history on this 60th anniversary. I put this blog post together to congratulate the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology board members, staff, and supporters, not only for the progress made over the Center's history, but for the bright prospects for the future!

I appreciated being invited by The Cleveland Museum of Art Director of Communications Jacqueline Bon, to the Thursday, November 6, 2025, preview of Renaissance to Runway: The Enduring Italian Houses, but I did have questions about this new exhibition. I wondered what was meant by the statement that the exhibition would feature "art and fashion interwoven." I knew that I liked Renaissance art, but I was not sure that I would appreciate how this artwork impacted the development of ". . . fresh perspectives throughout the fashion landscape."

Fortunately, while attending the opening reception for the New Work: FRONT Fellows Show, I was able to talk to the museum's Chief Marketing Officer, Todd Mesek, and learned that the upcoming Renaissance to Runway exhibition would, indeed, be of interest to me!

The Renaissance to Runway: The Enduring Italian Houses exhibition runs from Sunday, November 9, 2025, through Sunday, February 1, 2026. Since the New Work: FRONT Fellows Show is currently being shown at Transformer Station through Saturday, December 27, 2025, I decided to also add information about this special, final, FRONT show. I put together this blog post to share my photos and observations about these two current shows, and to thank The Cleveland Museum of Art for bringing such exciting exhibitions to our community!

On Saturday, October 25, 2025, our family attended the annual aMAIZEing Night-O. Our family recommends the corn maze at Szalay's Farm & Market! It is excellent!!! And, we HIGHLY recommend walking the corn maze at the annual NIGHT orienteering event with the Northeastern Ohio Orienteering Club (NEOOC)! If you want to attend a future NEOOC orienteering event, they are open to all!

Last year and this year, we made a point of arriving early, before the NEOOC orienteering event, to take in the fun atmosphere of Szalay's Farm & Market. We purchased dinner (note that the food service booths only take cash for purchases), and sat at a swinging picnic table. After dinner, we enjoyed seeing this beautiful display of produce, and -- special this time of year -- the Halloween decorations. Since we stayed until dark, we were able to see the care the employees took in putting away the produce display for the night.

The maze is not normally open to the general public during the evening, so it was special for the Northeastern Ohio Orienteering Club members to be able to navigate the maze in the dark!! If you want to attend a future NEOOC night orienteering event, just bring a flashlights and have basic knowledge of how to read a map.

Is this the end of an era? After 20 years of the Euclid Beach Park Now organization hosting Remembering the Sights and Sounds of Euclid Beach Park, their board voted to discontinue this annual event after this year. Julie was the only board member to vote for continuing this Cleveland tradition in the future. This event has taken place every year at what is now the Cleveland Metroparks Euclid Beach Park. This year's event, on Sunday, September 28, 2025, from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm, took place exactly on the 56th anniversary of this now-defunct amusement park's closing on September 28, 1969.

There was a huge crowd attending this year's event!!! They enjoyed the amusement park displays, carnival food, and the special car show entitled "The Cars We Drove to Euclid Beach." With such a large, enthusiastic level of participation in 2025, we hope that some sort of amusement-park-related event will be created to replace this 20-year tradition in 2026.

The memory of the former Euclid Beach amusement park has a bright future in the form of an enlarged Cleveland Metroparks Euclid Beach Park and a new City of Cleveland Euclid Beach Arch Park.

I have written 21 blog posts about Ingenuity Cleveland and their events: IngenuityFest and Bal Ingénieux/Ingenuity Bal. We are very fortunate to have this gathering of Cleveland creatives that is Ingenuity Cleveland. On September 26 and September 27, 2025, I attended the celebration of their 20th anniversary season at IngenuityFest 2025: Forging The Future.

I hope this blog post encourages you to attend future fun events hosted by Ingenuity Cleveland!

As I parked my car, it was a beautiful summer day for the Cleveland Museum of Art 36th Annual Chalk Festival on Sunday, September 21, 2025. Less than ten minutes later, it started raining, but fortunately, it was a short cloudburst. The rain only returned on and off for the rest of the afternoon. Despite the fact that I missed seeing the pre-rain chalk drawings by just a few minutes, I still found the artwork most enjoyable, along with the festive environment of the Fine Arts Garden.

I heard a fellow attendee of the event state that the brief rainfall brought a “soft focus” to the chalk artwork! That was an astute observation.

For this, my fourteenth Chalk Festival blog post, I want to thank all the creative people who participated. The chalk art created at the Cleveland Museum of Art Chalk Festival every year is outstanding!

We were fortunate that the eighth annual Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Asian Lantern Festival was extended beyond its original August 24th end date, since we had just returned from our second trip this summer. Nine years ago, we enjoyed a similar event in Columbus, Ohio, during the winter (December 30, 2016, Ohio Lantern Festival at the Ohio State Expo Center and Fairgrounds), but we had never attended this annual Cleveland summer event. We put together this blog post to show the good time we had when we visited the zoo with our sons on the evening of Saturday, August 30, 2025.

We remembered enjoying an acrobatic show many years ago at the Ohio Lantern Festival, so we were very pleased to learn that the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Asian Lantern Festival also had live acrobatic performances.

It was fun seeing the lanterns at the time when daylight melts into evening darkness, and the lights become more brilliant. In addition to the lighting displays, we were fortunate to see the elephants, Amur tigers, grizzly bears, and wolves.

The Asian Lantern Festival had interactive displays, and while we were writing this blog post, we learned that there were more interactive exhibits this year than in the past. We had fun standing on sensor platforms and hitting large buttons that activated the displays.

It was great that the festival was much larger than we expected. We enjoyed the event, and expect that we will go again in the future.

We hope you enjoy the photos and videos from our visit, and that they encourage you to visit the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo next year for the ninth annual Asian Lantern Festival.

We had not vacationed in New Hampshire since 1997, so when Stuart finished a month-long backpacking trip in southern New Hampshire, Julie joined him for an August 17-23, 2025, vacation in New Hampshire, Vermont, and on the USS Enterprise. We put this blog post together to share some of what we explored during this trip.

We want to note that this vacation was after two long backpacking trips that Stuart had already completed this year. Stuart's month-long Appalachian Trail backpacking trip is where he finished the final few miles in Massachusetts before hiking all of the Vermont section, and 50+ miles into the New Hampshire section.

We are sharing our photos and trip observations with you here to encourage you to explore the places we visited.

We had not been to Colorado since 1998, so when we were invited to attend our niece's wedding (celebrating Anna Bonebrake's marriage to Thomas Porricolo), we took the opportunity to extend the trip to include Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, and the Denver area. We were on this exciting trip from Friday, June 13, 2025, through Monday, June 23, 2025.

Due to our other travels, we had to delay writing this blog post, but we enjoyed putting it together as our way of remembering the good times we had in Colorado in June 2025. We are sharing our photos and trip observations with you here to encourage you to explore the places we visited in Colorado.

I attended the March 13, 2025, Akron ArtWalk after I learned about it via an invitation from Summit Artspace Executive Director Heather Meeker.

For this blog post, I gathered my photos, videos, and information about the following four venues I visited to encourage you to learn more about them:

• Summit Artspace

• Art x Love

• Akron Soul Train

• Akron Art Museum

I also include in this blog post information about Summit DD (Summit County Developmental Disabilities Board) and related agencies that Summit Artspace arranged to be involved to make this the "2nd Annual Inclusive Akron Artwalk." This is part of Summit Artspace's commitment to empowering artists of all abilities.

I also want to say thank you to Downtown Akron Partnership for sharing my #AkronArtwalk experience thread on Bluesky.

Thank you to the leaders of these four art institutions for providing an enjoyable evening for my first Akron ArtWalk. I hope that this blog post gets you motivated to get out to visit these venues, and to also learn about the other locations that are partners in these Akron ArtWalks. Have fun!!!

On Friday, March 7, 2025, I was in University Circle attending the Stand Up for Science 2025 Rally at Case Western Reserve University. While there, I made a point of visiting University Circle Artist-In-Residence Sylvia Munodawafa's exhibition, and then, since it was right across the street, I rode the Euclid Beach Park Grand Carousel.

I met artist Sylvia Munodawafa at the end of the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) opening of their "2025 Student Independent Exhibition,” and she let me know that her artwork is being featured in the University Circle headquarters building.

Also, back in November, at the "Illuminate the Circle” event, I met University Circle Engagement and Outreach Manager Debbi Abela and Chief Engagement and Collaboration Officer Sheffia Randall-Nickerson. They told me about a new University Circle Community Room, which I also made a point of visiting. I learned that artist Sylvia Munodawafa and others are providing community programing in this new space.

I hope reading this blog post encourages you to contact University Circle to visit their headquarters, and to ride the Euclid Beach Park Grand Carousel. Have fun!!!

It is hard to believe that today, March 8, 2025, I am celebrating thirteen years of creating my sosAssociates.com blog. Last year, I wrote about expected change, but this year, I don't know what to expect. I do anticipate many good times ahead.

I want to say thank you to the people responsible for all the great things I was able to do in 2024 and so far in 2025. I will continue to share in my future blog posts the good times in the Cleveland/Akron area, and in my travels.

All together, in 2024, my wife and co-blogger, Julie, and I had the second highest number of blog posts in one year since 2016, when we had 36 posts. (2024 is tied with 2015's 34 blog posts.) I have started 2025 with two blog posts, and I expect that I will have fewer blog posts this year due to plans that will keep me away from the keyboard.

I put together this blog post to share some of what I saw while visiting eight area galleries in February 2025. There is a variety of artwork presented, which will appeal to the different tastes of different people. I hope this encourages you to visit those galleries that have items of interest to you.

Thank you to the following galleries for an enjoyable month visiting:

1. Wednesday, February 5, 2025 - Picasso and Paper - Cleveland Museum of Art

2. Friday, February 7, 2025 - ArtLens Gallery - Cleveland Museum of Art

3. Friday, February 7, 2025 - Gala Porras-Kim: A Hand in Nature and Harminder Judge: Bootstrap Paradox and Birthing Beautiful Communities: Dear - moCa Cleveland

4. Friday, February 7, 2025 - Possibility for Repair and Opening Night for Back in the Dayz - Cleveland Institute of Art

5. Saturday, Friday 8, 2025 - d.a. levy: Subversive Printmaking in 1960s Cleveland - Zygote Press

6. Friday, February 14, 2025 - Opening Night for Love Is Resistance - Cleveland Institute of Art at Transformer Station (Cleveland Museum of Art Remote Location)

7. Friday, February 28, 2025 - North Chagrin Nature Photography Club - Cleveland Metroparks

8. Friday, February 28, 2025 - Opening Night of the 2025 Student Independent Exhibition - Cleveland Institute of Art

If you have limited time, I recommend prioritizing visiting the Picasso and Paper exhibition and the two Cleveland Institute of Art exhibitions at their main campus building and at Transformer Station.

I am grateful that we have so many galleries to enjoy in our area. I hope you take time to visit the institutions I mention in this blog post! Have fun!!!

On Monday, January 20, 2025, my wife and co-blogger, Julie, volunteered at the Euclid Beach Park Grand Carousel at the Cleveland History Center, while my son, Michael, and I spent Martin Luther King, Jr., Day 2025 visiting four of the museums in University Circle.

It was an unusually cold day (the outside temperature varied between 7°F and 11°F). We used drawstring bags to carry our multiple layers of winter clothing while we were in the comfortably warm museums, and then wore the clothing when we walked between the venues. At these low temperatures, the cold hurts any uncovered skin, such as our faces. Despite the extremely cold weather, was saw many families visiting the museums throughout the day.

I put this blog post together to share my photos and experiences of our visit to the following museums:

• Cleveland Museum of Art
  - Zygote Press
  - Specialty Departments and Programs
  - Picasso and Paper Exhibition

• Cleveland Botanical Garden

• Cleveland Museum of Natural History

• Cleveland History Center
  - Euclid Beach Park Grand Carousel
  - Cleveland History Center Exhibitions

I want to thank these museums for welcoming the community every year to visit as part of celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. I am grateful that we have such excellent, educational, and engaging museums in our community. Michael and I had a great time touring all the museums.

Welcome to the 2024 Trail Challenge, a guest led program where you are challenged to complete 10 trails in 10 different Cleveland Metroparks reservations on your own in 2024! Explore new trails, move to better health, discover the wonders of nature, and earn a prize.

This Cleveland Metroparks Trail Challenge 2024 blog post covers the trails I biked (November 3rd and November 9th), and hiked (December 7th through December 23rd). I had already "met the challenge" back in February, but decided to end the year by completing the rest of the land-based trails. This blog post is a continuation of my February 15, 2024, blog post.

Between my Trail Challenge week in February 2024, and my 12 trails in November and December, I have completed every single land-based trail listed for the Cleveland Metroparks Trail Challenge 2024!!! That is a total of 27 trails (15 in Feb + 12 in Nov/Dec = 27 trails) in all 18 of the Cleveland Metroparks reservations listed for the 2024 challenge! (There were an additional four water routes listes that I did not do.)

I updated the image from February 2024 with the additional dates of the reservations that I biked (blue) in November and hiked (red) in December.

I hope this blog post encourages you to get out on our local park trails to do the Trail Challenge in 2025! Please go out and explore our great, award-winning Cleveland Metroparks!

As I have done in the past, I wanted to create this blog post to share my photos from the holiday lights in the area, but this year there were two big differences:

• Unlike past years, I attended the official lighting ceremonies at four locations!! Normally, I only attend the downtown Cleveland Lighting Ceremony, and then would see the holiday lights display at Nela Park, Akron, and University Circle during my normal holiday visits to those venues. This made this year special!

• A second difference is that I also attended two arts venues the same evenings as two of the lighting ceremonies. I wanted to share these experiences this blog post. First, after I attended the University Circle holiday lighting ceremony, I went to a Baldwin Wallace Music Theatre Program production. Second, before the Akron holiday lighting ceremony, I toured Summit ArtSpace.

What follows are my photos and videos of:

• Saturday, November 23, 2024
  Illuminate the Circle: A Magical Holiday Experience - Cleveland's University Circle
  and Jesus Christ Superstar - Baldwin Wallace Music Theatre Program - Wine Cast

• Friday, November 29, 2024
  Tour of Summit ArtSpace
  and
  Welcome Santa Parade & Grand Reopening Celebration For Lock 3 - Akron

• Saturday, November 30, 2024
  WinterLand Cleveland - #WinterLandCLE in Tower City & Public Square - Downtown Cleveland

• Friday, December 6, 2024
  GE Nela Park’s 100th Annual Holiday Lighting Ceremony - East Cleveland

I feel so fortunate to be able to attend these holiday lighting ceremonies and arts events. Thank you to all the creative people who enrich my life!

I was fortunate to attend the Cleveland Museum of Art's preview of their new Picasso and Paper exhibition on Tuesday, December 3, 2024. As I was talking to blogger Dan Hanson during the preview, he pointed out how incredibly lucky we are to have the Cleveland Museum of Art bring this exhibition to Cleveland. Cleveland is one of very few places in the world where this exhibition will be shown.

I not only appreciated seeing the amazing artwork, but it was great to be given a tour by Curator of Prints and Drawings Britany Salsbury. She was able to give the historical background in a personal way during the tour she led. I always like to first visit the galleries of a special exhibition, and then attend a tour with a curator or docent.

The exhibition is huge, filling all of the museum's special exhibition space (both the Exhibition Gallery and the Exhibition Hall). With all this artwork, you will want to take time to view it closely, so I highly recommend planning to take plenty time to see it all. I also recommend taking a break halfway through the exhibition and then coming back with fresh eyes to see the second section.

I enjoyed the preview, and wrote this blog post to share my experience at the Picasso and Paper exhibition.

One of my joys is not only attending great PechaKucha events in Cleveland and Akron, but then afterwards learning more about the presenters. I do this by developing my PechaKucha blog posts about these events, which feature Northeast Ohio creatives. The process of writing this blog post provides me with the opportunity to take the time to study more about their interesting work. There is so much to learn from these people who make a difference in our community.

TAKE ACTION: I want to encourage readers of this blog post to go to a future events with a purpose in mind. Take time to connect to each other by not only attending the gathering, but interacting with both the attendees and the PechaKucha Night Cleveland presenters. At the very least, please personally thank the presenters and organizers for sharing their talent with our community.

The Thursday, November 21, 2024, PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 43 - Civic // Space event had additional significance, since it took place at the "America's Citadel of Free Speech " -- The City Club of Cleveland!!

I want to thank The City Club of Cleveland Chief Executive Officer Dan Moulthrop and the other City Club staff who helped bring this great event to their place of service to the community. Their hosting of the creative storytelling format event reflects their openness to encouraging postive speech in our community.

I hope you enjoy learning about the "Volume 43 - Civic // Space" presenters from what I share here:

After spending three days in and around Niagara Falls, we were out again for more fun the day after we returned. On Thursday, November 14, 2024, we had a most enjoyable day with our son, Michael, in Akron, enjoying two art exhibitions. Visiting Akron art galleries was a great way to spend a rainy day.

We first visited the Myers School of Art's Emily Davis Gallery at the University of Akron, and then went to the Akron Art Museum. We would have also visited Akron's Summit Artspace, but it is not open on Thursdays, and the three of us wanted to make use of the Thursday FREE admission at the Akron Art Museum.

Our main motivation for going to Akron was to see the following two exhibitions, but we also want to share what else we enjoyed during our day:

• Skull & Bones Exhibition

• GLOW: Neon & Light

We wrote this blog post so you can learn about our day, and to encourage you to visit these Akron art venues.

We put together this Niagara Falls blog post to share the photos and videos of our three-day trip on Monday, November 11, 2024, through Wednesday, November 13, 2024. The first two days, we explored Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. On the third day, we drove along the Niagara River exploring parks, first on the Canadian side and then on the United States side of the river.

It felt strange saying we were going to Canada the week after the United States election, but we had planned this trip out of the country before the turbulent election, and did share that we were coming back after three days.

We have gone to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, in the winter before, so we knew what to expect and had the proper warm clothing. We have memories from when we were first married of driving through a blizzard along the southern border of Lake Erie on our way to the Falls. This year, we had much more pleasant weather, except for some rain on the evening of the first day.

In recent years, we have only been visiting the Niagara Falls, New York, USA, side, so it was great to see what new attractions and improvements have been made by the Canadian Niagara Park System. In particular, we were amazed by the newly opened (in 2021) Niagara Parks Power Station and its tailrace tunnel, which opened in 2022.

We hope you enjoy our photos/videos, along with what we learned during our visit to Niagara Falls, Canada, and the Niagara River.

On Friday, November 1, 2024, I was very fortunate to attend a special presentation at the International Women's Air & Space Museum about the future of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). I have known about the museum for fourteen years, and I have seen their booth at official NASA events, but I have never attended one of their hosted programs.

It was fantastic to learn directly from Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa E. Wyche about what is currently being developed at NASA!

I am grateful to the sponsors of this event! The "Dinner with a Slice of History" series is made possible with the support of Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, Signature Flight Support BKL - Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics - Northern Ohio Section, HX5, and the America 250-Ohio Commission.

Thank you to the International Women's Air & Space Museum staff and board leadership for this great event.

I was scheduled to be out of town, but when my plans changed, I purchased my ticket to attend the Data Days CLE 2024 annual conference. The conference took place on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, at the Cleveland Public Library-Louis Stokes Wing. I have been following the activities of Data Days CLE on social media for years, but I have never been able to attend any of their events. I knew I would be in for an impressive day, and what I got was even more. It ended up also being a reunion with people I had not met in person for a while, and gave me the opportunity to meet new people who were attending or presenting.

I like how the Data Days CLE 2024 organizers make an effort to make it easy for all who are interested to attend their events. Since I follow Data Days CLE on social media, I had the opportunity to use the social media promo discount they offered to their followers. I recommend you see their current list of social media accounts at the bottom of their DataDaysCLE.org website, and follow those that you are active on, so that you learn about their future events.

I put together this blog post to share the photos and notes I took during the event. Of most importance is that I want to thank the organizers, sponsors, and presenters for making Data Days CLE possible. I enjoyed learning how our community is now better served after several years of work by the people participating in this annual conference.

On Tuesday, October 15, 2024, I was scheduled to be out of town on a backpacking trip that was unfortunately canceled. As that adventure opportunity closed, I was fortunate that another opportunity was presented to me as I was invited to attend the Eighth Annual Better World Day -- Cultivating Gamification for a Better World 2024 -- that took place at Hyland - Building #3 in Westlake.

Looking back at past years in my calendar, I see this is the fifth year I have attended this event. In this blog post, I will share both my photos and notes from Better World Day 2024. I want to encourage you to learn more so you can help spread the word about this great annual event that provides support to nonprofits!

I hope this blog post encourages you to attend future Better World Day events! A BIG thank-you to Todd Packer and Marc Majers for gathering such great presenters for the past eight years, and continuing to work to make a better world through technology for local nonprofits.

I was scheduled to be out of town, but when my plans changed, I offered to volunteer at the NASA International Space Apps Challenge Cleveland 2024 that took place in person at the NASA Glenn Research Center and also had an online option. I attended the first day (Saturday, October 5, 2024) of this two-day event. I knew it would be a great event, since I had attended in 2019.

I decided to put together this blog post to recognize the real heroes who made it possible for the participants to take part in this 2024 NASA weekend event -- the organizers, mentors, judges, and sponsors.

In this blog post, I will list the teams, share my photos/videos from the event, and encourage you to learn more so you can help spread the word to more people about this great annual NASA weekend hackathon!

When Stuart saw the announcement on social media for the Institute for Human Science and Culture's Misinformation Society panel discussion on October 2, 2024, he knew that it was important to attend. The topic is of immediate importance as we are in an election cycle that has included a historic level of misinformation and disinformation.

Originally, Stuart planned to watch the YouTube livestream of the event. After Stuart wrote about his tour of the National Museum of Psychology on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, Julie also became interested in seeing the museum.

This blog post is about the two of us attending the October 2, 2024, panel of University of Akron professors discussing misinformation/disinformation, and then touring two sections of the Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology.

The Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology, located at The University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, collects, preserves, provides access to, and interprets the historical record of psychology and related human sciences. . . .

The Center houses the Archives of the History of American Psychology and the National Museum of Psychology, as well as the multidisciplinary Institute for Human Science and Culture.

We want to thank the "Misinformation Society" panel members for sharing their knowledge on this important topic. Also, a BIG thank you to the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology staff for their Brown Bag History series and for our visit to the institute galleries and the Psychology Museum. We are very fortunate to have this great resource in Northeast Ohio.

The first day of fall had already arrived the Sunday before, but in Cleveland, we stretched the summer fun one more week by having three great events over the weekend of Friday, September 27, 2024, through Sunday, September 29, 2024:

• Friday - Sunday, September 27 - 29, 2024 - IngenuityFest 2024: Era of Ascent
  I attended Day One and Day Two of this three-day celebration of Northeast Ohio creatives.

• Friday, September 27, 2024 at 8:00 pm - PechaKucha Night Cleveland Volume 42 at IngenuityFest

• Sunday, September 29, 2024 - The 19th Annual Remembering the Sights and Sounds of Euclid Beach Park

The following blog post includes my photos and videos from the weekend, along with event information and what others have shared. I hope this blog post encourages you to learn about the year-round activities of the organizations that planned these events.

I hope this blog post encourages you to attend future fun events hosted by Ingenuity Cleveland, PechaKucha Night Cleveland, and Euclid Beach Park Now!

RIP Twitter Bird (2010 - 2023)

This is not a blog post. Click here to redirect to blog post comment about my Twitterversary still being canceled on October 1, 2024!

On Sunday, September 15, 2024, my family visited the 35th Annual Chalk Festival at the Cleveland Museum of Art after the event had ended for the day. I like to visit the venue at the end of the second day every year to see all the completed chalk drawings. This is my 13th year taking photos of the museum's annual Chalk Festival.

I want to thank all the creative people who participated. The chalk art created at the Cleveland Museum of Art's Chalk Festival every year is outstanding!

On Sunday, September 8, 2024, our family was very fortunate to attend the BubbleFest Cleveland public event at University Circle's Wade Oval. We also went to the evening BubbleFest Variety Show as guests of one of the organizers, Steve Presser!

We are so glad to have seen Steve Presser's announcement about BubbleFest Cleveland 2024 and the video he shared, since it led to lots of bubbly fun! We wrote this blog post to thank and honor the organizers of #BubbleFest2024. We are so lucky in Cleveland that this international bubblers convention took place here, and that the convention attendees chose to share their outstanding talents with the public. They provided two FREE events and a special variety show featuring the best bubblers from all over the world!

On Saturday, August 31, 2024, we had a great time with our son, Michael, learning about the history of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Malabar Farm State Park. At the farm, we went on both the Big House tour and the farm tour. The farm tour consisted of a narrated ride around the farm property on a tractor-pulled wagon. We then visited the many animals in the Main Barn.

After an enjoyable morning at Malabar Farm, we then had lunch at the Mohican Lodge and explored some of Mohican State Park.

We put together this blog post to share with others our photos from the day and links to park resources. It brings us joy to add this trip to our other travel blog posts. This fun and interesting day was like having a mini-vacation!

Princess Cruise Lines 10-Day Denali Explorer - Tour CB3

Itinerary:
| 3 Nights on Land (Fairbanks, Denali) | Wilderness Rail Service to Whittier | 2 Days Scenic Cruising (Hubbard Glacier, Glacier Bay National Park) | 3 Ports (Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan) | 1 Day At Sea | End at Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |

We have always planned on taking a trip to Alaska! For years, Stuart has heard how much Julie wanted to visit the places she learned about from her parents, who traveled the state of Alaska in their camper in the 1980s.

We want to thank Direct Travel Leisure Sales Advisor Mari Ann Casamatta (Office: 440-602-8050) for her assistance in finding the perfect cruise for us. We explained our interests, and she was able to find a cruisetour itinerary that worked with what we wanted to see on our first-time visit to the state of Alaska. This was also our first-time cruise experience, and throughout this blog post, we link to web pages and maps that were helpful in making the most of it. (Be sure to take a look at some of the websites we recommend that might be of interest to you if you are planning a trip to Alaska.) With Mari Ann's assistance, all the details for the air travel and the Princess Cruisetour were successfully rearranged from the trip we originally planned for August 2023 to this year's trip in June/July 2024.

This blog post describes our daily activities, followed by our photos and videos from each day. Our Princess Cruise Lines 10-Day Denali Explorer Alaska Cruisetour went from Sunday, June 23, 2024, through the morning of Wednesday, July 3, 2024. Our Alaska cruisetour included a three-day land journey, followed by the seven-day Alaska Voyage of the Glaciers Cruise on the Grand Princess^® ship. We also added an extra day to our journey on Thursday, July 4, 2024, to explore Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

We attended the 32nd Annual Parade the Circle and Circle Village with our son, Michael, on Saturday, June 8, 2024, and wanted to share with you our photos and videos, and links to what others shared about the day. We attend this event almost every year.

This blog post mirrors the way the parade was organized into sections marked with colored banners. We divided this blog post into these same color sections to make it easier to find pictures of people/organizations that may be of interest to you. Be sure to watch the videos in full screen mode so you don't miss anything!

We were grateful to be able to attend the Annual Parade the Circle and Circle Village, and look forward to future years of this great arts event!

I was so glad to attend the Flights of Fancy - An Ingenuity Bal on May 4, 2024, at the IngenuityLabs (5401 Hamilton Avenue, Cleveland) for two reasons. First, is that I attend IngenuityFest practically every year, and write about my great experiences enjoying the event in my Ingenuity Cleveland blog posts. Thus, I wanted to attend the Ingenuity Bal fundraiser to support IngenuityFest 2024 and the year-round programing of Ingenuity Cleveland. The second reason is that I have great memories of attending this fundraiser for Ingenuity Cleveland many years ago, and I knew it would be a blast

As I entered the building, I was fortunate to be able to talk briefly to Ingenuity Cleveland Executive Artistic Director Emily Appelbaum, and thank her for her good work. She had made it a point to approach me and give me an invitation to the Ingenuity Bal at the April 26, 2024, Greater Cleveland Partnership/COSE and Assembly for the Arts "Art at Work "networking event. I greatly appreciated her making sure that I knew about the event. I am glad I was able to attend. At the end of the evening, I made a point to get a photo of Emily Appelbaum and me for this blog post, but unfortunately the photo was too dark and blurry to use here due to the atmospheric lighting. I decided to use her photo from the Ingenuity Cleveland Team Members web page, since it also shows you her extensive experience. We are fortunate to have Emily Appelbaum's expert leadership in Cleveland, organizing our community's creative people.

Cleveland Ghostbusters - Fashion Rock Project - aerialists - costumes - belly dancers - acrobats - circus fun - jugglers - crafts - dancing - and so much more! I hope my photos/videos from the evening give you a sense of the excitement which is Cleveland's Ingenuity!

When I arrived at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the place was hopping! I saw several youth groups arrive, and many people in the Ames Family Atrium enjoying fine prints, or a meal from the Provenance Café. There was so much being offered at the museum, and I was grateful to be there when the museum opened at 10:00 am to spend the full day exploring!

I want to share with you the following three art exhibitions that I knew about when I arrived on Friday, April 26, 2024, plus the immersive experience that the museum's staff recommended I visit:

1. Print Club of Cleveland’s 39th Fine Print Fair

2. Korean Couture: Generations of Revolution Preview and Tour

3. April 25, 2024, blog post: "Africa & Byzantium" Preview - Cleveland Museum of Art

4. Into the Seven Jeweled Mountain: An Immersive Experience

Thank you to the Cleveland Museum of Art for inviting us to the Wednesday, April 10, 2024, preview of the Africa & Byzantium exhibition, which included remarks by VIP delegates, and a tour of the exhibition. The exhibition is open to the public Sunday, April 14 through Sunday, July 21, 2024. It took over four years to bring Africa & Byzantium to the Cleveland Museum of Art. We appreciate being among the first people in Greater Cleveland to view these historic artworks, many of which have never been shown in the United States.

We created this blog post to share our photos from our visit, along with our impressions of the exhibition.

The invitation to attend came as a result of our support of the Cleveland Museum of Art with our many sosAssociates.com blog posts about the museum. We enjoyed the event, and wrote this blog post to share our experience at Africa & Byzantium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. We plan to use our membership benefit to return to see the exhibition again. We were very grateful to be able to attend the preview!

1806 - 2024 - 2099! The April 8, 2024, total eclipse was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence for Ohio!!! We want to share here what we and our son, Michael, experienced during the three-day celebration (April 6-8, 2024) leading up to the start of the eclipse at 1:59 pm on the third day, and the amazing total eclipse as it happened at 3:15 pm.

We ended our blog post about the 2017 partial (80%) eclipse with the message "See you in 2024!" and a countdown clock. After waiting seven years, it feels strange that the countdown clock now shows the number of days since the event happened! Total eclipse 2024 is now history!

The moment of the total eclipse was incredible (it really can't be put into words), but we also want to note that the three days of eclipse celebration also featured many of the great organizations that improve the quality of life for those of us who live in the Greater Cleveland area. We hope to capture here not just what we observed during the 2024 total eclipse, but also the spirit of our community at the Cleveland events we attended.

On March 30, 2024, I decided to attend "330 Day" at House Three Thirty after I saw the interesting activities planned for their special day of celebration! What made the event special is that it was in recognition of the first anniversary of this new community center created by the LeBron James Family Foundation. While the activities of the day were really enjoyable, the thing that made me really interested in attending is the knowledge that this facility has a higher purpose.

It is great that the LeBron James Family Foundation supports this new community resource in Akron!

I wrote this blog post to congratulate House Three Thirty on their first year of serving the community, and to share what I learned. What follows is information from the day, and the photos and videos from my visit, organized under the following headings:

• 3:30 pm on 3/30 - Our Community PROMISE

• Venues

• Family Room Entertainment

• Cabaret Entertainment

We are very fortunate to have House Three Thirty in Northeast Ohio!!

We are very fortunate in Cleveland to have Manabu Ikeda: Flowers from the Wreckage make its United State debut at our very own moCa Cleveland in Uptown Cleveland - University Circle. When I saw Manabu Ikeda's exhibition, along with two other new exhibitions, as part of the moCa Cleveland Opening Night Celebration, I knew I would need to come back a few more times. There is so much to see in the details of Manabu Ikeda's artwork. Fortunately, the exhibition is in Cleveland through May 26, 2024, and moCa Cleveland is always FREE and open to all.

This blog post is about the February 2, 2024, moCa Cleveland Opening Night Celebration, and my March 29, 2024, return visit during a Studio Access with Manabu Ikeda session at moCa Cleveland.

I am so glad that I finally toured The National Museum of Psychology on Wednesday, March 20, 2024!! The National Museum of Psychology is within the Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology (CCHP), which is located at The University of Akron.

I think I first learned about The National Museum of Psychology about five years ago. I must have learned about the museum from shared social media announcements when they completed their 2019 building renovations. At that time, I immediately said to myself that I must go to explore this museum, but my visit to the museum kept getting delayed. I had earned a double major as a college undergraduate in psychology and history, with my psychology major being what I considered my primary emphasis, so I was excited to know there was a nationally recognized museum focused on my area of my interest so close to home.

Since The National Museum of Psychology does not open until 1:00 pm on Wednesdays, I first stopped to see the LeBron James Family Foundation's House Three Thirty facility - very impressive. It has a cabaret, museum, coffee shop, taco restaurant, sweet shop, bank, and more. This was my first time visiting.

In addition to The National Museum of Psychology, I also visited the Institute for Human Science and Culture (IHSC), which is on the 3rd and 4th floors of the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology (CCHP).

I was very fortunate to happen to pick a Wednesday (March 20, 2024) that the Summit County Children Services had arranged a special tour, pizza dinner, and informational session at the psychology museum, which they invited me to attend. I enjoyed hearing from the agency staff and from students benefiting from internship opportunities offered by this important agency.

I knew I would enjoy visiting Cummings Center for the History of Psychology (CCHP), and I am glad I finally did visit after the long delay since I learned of it five years ago. Thank you to the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology (CCHP) staff for my visit. We are very fortunate to have this great resource in Northeast Ohio.

An evening of hugs and high-wow-factor presentations! That is what PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 40 was for me!

The evening's festivities took place on Thursday, March 7, 2024. Located on the shore of the Cuyahoga River, the Music Box Supper Club in the Cleveland Flats West, was the perfect spot. I had just been in this entertainment section of Cleveland two weeks earlier for Brite Winter 2024, and I was glad to be back in the area.

I am writing this blog post to try and capture some of the high-level excitement which is PechaKucha, but it cannot be fully described -- it is something that must be experienced in person! This blog post will act as a bookmark for my memory to help recall the feeling of the evening, and for those of you who did not attend, I hope it serves to encourage you to attend a future PechaKucha Night Cleveland event.

It is pretty amazing that PechaKucha Night Cleveland has been featuring creative Greater Cleveland people since 2008! We are fortunate to have one of the oldest PechaKucha Night communities in the world.

PechaKucha is always a good time. Thank you to the PechaKucha Night Cleveland leaders for making these great events happen!! I look forward to attending more!

Today, March 8, 2024, as I celebrate twelve years of creating my sosAssociates.com blog, I am expecting that this year will be much different than last year - which is a good thing. A year ago, I was in the middle of a potentially life-changing situation.

A year ago, I predicted three changes would occur in 2023. They all happened, and were resolved to my satisfaction.

I want to say thank you to the people responsible for all the great things I was able to do in 2023 and so far in 2024. I have big plans for 2024, which I will continue to share in my future blog posts.

Please take time to read some of the 18 blog posts from 2023 and the seven (as compared to only two a year ago due to illness) that I wrote so far in 2024.

A BIG thank-you to the Brite Winter leadership team, volunteers, sponsors/partners, and Ingenuity Cleveland Ingeneers for a great #Brite2024! Some of my family visited the event earlier in the day on Saturday, February 24, 2024. They reported that they had a great time seeing people they knew at the event, but said I should be prepared for the cold. I had also seen on Brite Winter's Facebook page the official #FluriForecast from Cleveland 19 News Chief Meteorologist Jason Nicholas -- it would be cold. When I arrived just before 8:00 pm, I heard several people comment on the cold.

Brite Winter Vision Statement: ". . . to build community while helping us embrace the cold winter months. . . . We embrace our core values of positivity, community, creativity, artistic excellence, and accessibility." Remembering to embrace the cold in a positive manner, and acknowledging that it was not really that cold for winter in Cleveland -- come on folks, it is a full 11 degrees warmer than Brite Winter 2014 -- I dressed for the weather and a great time at Brite Winter 2024!

I enjoyed the musical performances Saturday night! I think many people attending that night learned that it is not cold out in winter in Cleveland on a February night if you keep dancing the night away!

Congratulations, Brite Winter, on a successful event for your 15th incredible year. I look forward to attending your 16th year in 2025, and more beyond.

NOTE from Stuart: On January 2, 2024, I was asked by the University Hospitals Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute Senior Media Relations Strategist to have my story added to The Science of Health blog and the Heart & Vascular Patient Stories sections of the University Hospitals website for February -- American Heart Month. I provided the photo for the story, and approved the story before it was published on the hospital's website.

The reason that I chose to publish this HCM recovery blog post today, Wednesday, February 28, 2024, was because the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association announced that today was HCM Awareness Day.

As we come to the end of American Heart Month 2024, I am glad to have permission from University Hospitals to share their blog post about my HCM recovery story with you on my blog.

We enjoyed the second day of the Cleveland's Year of the Dragon Lunar New Year Celebration at Asia Plaza on February 11, 2024, and then went to the 2024 Year of the Dragon Downtown Akron Lunar New Year Celebration at Akron Civic Theatre on February 18, 2024. We enjoyed participating in both of these celebrations, and wanted to create this blog post to share with you some of what we saw.

We hope this 2024 Lunar New Year Celebration blog post encourage others to go out and explore more of Northeast Ohio!

Welcome to the 2024 Trail Challenge, a guest led program where you are challenged to complete 10 trails in 10 different Cleveland Metroparks reservations on your own in 2024! Explore new trails, move to better health, discover the wonders of nature, and earn a prize.

My wife and co-blogger, Julie, and I have completed the Cleveland Metroparks Trail Challenge in the past, taking most of the year to do it. This year, I decided to do something different, and complete the challenge in one week. I picked the first full week of February (5 days: February 5-9, 2024) to hike "... in 10 different Cleveland Metroparks reservations ..." In total, I hiked five days on 14 trails in ten reservations, and worked out at a gym on four of the mornings. I also ended the week on Saturday, February 10, 2024, by attending a Northeastern Ohio Orienteering Club event where they had developed a new map for the Geauga Park District's The West Woods.

What follows are some trail resources, followed by information and photos/videos from the trails I hiked. I hope this blog post encourages you to get out on our local park trails in 2024!

This, my fifth HCM blog post, is about my being interviewed on January 22, 2024, by Spectrum News 1 reporter Kimberly Perez. It is a continuation of the last HCM recovery blog post, and a result of my cardiologist, Eiran Gorodeski MD, MPH, recommending that I share my story on television. I refer to this as my second "recovery" blog post of my HCM series.

Hiking on the Buckeye Trail, starting two months after my open-heart surgery, was a big part of my recovering my strength, stamina, and balance. When I was contacted to be interviewed by Kimberly Perez from Spectrum News 1 on Monday, January 22, 2024, I thought it was very important to have the interview take place on the Buckeye Trail. I suggested she conduct the interview while we hiked together on the Buckeye Trail to the Bridal Veil Falls Scenic Overlook in the Cleveland Metroparks Bedford Reservation. These Falls are on a beautiful section of the trail that is easy to reach by a short walk from your car.

I arranged for my wife and co-blogger, Julie, to join us to take photos of the interview process. I am so glad that she was able to attend, since she captured the beauty of the area with her photography. The day after I posted photos, the Buckeye Trail Association shared my Facebook post with their 11,000+ Facebook followers.

The temperature was in the 30s when Kimberly Perez and I starting talking while walking down the trail. She used her smartphone to record my answers to her questions, as I told my story of past backpacking trips; my debilitating HCM symptoms in the spring of 2023; and my recovery, which led to my backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail.

On Saturday, February 10, 2024, at the same time I was heading to a Northeastern Ohio Orienteering Club event, Spectrum News 1 posted their video about me. Please watch the video and accompanying article.

I am already planning more adventures in 2024, which are possible thanks to my successful open-heart surgery at University Hospitals.

I decided to write this blog post for two purposes:

• First, to thank the leadership of Maelstrom Collaborative Arts for their Saturnalia 2024 gathering which took place on Saturday, January 27, 2024.

  . . . kick off our sixth year with the return of Saturnalia, our night to celebrate the art and artsy made at Maelstrom Collaborative Arts!

• Second, and the more important reason, is that Saturnalia 2024 represents a return to normality, and kicks off the realization of more great art events in the future!

  Our last Saturnalia party was December 2019! Obviously, a lot has changed since then . . .
  
  We had such plans at that Saturnalia, plans that did not account for a global pandemic. But despite it all, we continued to make an array of boundary-pushing art.

I support what Maelstrom Collaborative Arts has created, and I was impressed by the friendliness of everyone at Saturnalia 2024. The format of the evening allowed the performers to become the audience for other performers, and therefore encouraged everyone to socialize.

I hope this blog post encourages you to learn more about Maelstrom Collaborative Arts and to partake in some of their entertainment!

I was fortunate to be able to attend the Friday, January 26, 2024, SOLD OUT DigitalC Citywide Network Launch Party -- so much information was shared that evening about what will be happening this year in Cleveland!

I am putting this blog post together for three reasons:

• First, to share a little about the interesting information I learned at the launch event and my past interest in DigitalC's work. Creative solutions to the digital divide issue in Cleveland has always been of interest to me.

• Second, to establish what I publish here as a starting benchmark of expectations. From this starting point, the community can measure the progress of DigitalC's staff as they move forward with the Cleveland digital revolution that they have envisioned.

• Finally, to make this my first step in fulfilling the commitment that all the attendees to the DigitalC Citywide Network Launch Party were asked to make: To support the mission of the organization using whatever resources you have available.

It is my hope that this blog post encourages you to join the people who attended the launch event in making the commitment to support the DigitalC mission.

On June 11, 2023, I ended my third Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy blog post questioning whether I would have a fourth "recovery" blog post:

Well, my idea of writing an HCM (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) recovery blog post changed from a doubt to a must-do when my cardiologist, Eiran Gorodeski MD, MPH, recommended I share my story with others on television. He had University Hospitals Senior Media Relations Strategist Carly Belsterling contact me on October 16, 2023. After an initial interview with her, I met with TV-3 News Special Projects Reporter Lindsay Buckingham on December 5, 2023, at a special location. Dr. Gorodeski was also interviewed for the news story, and he shared how I have a specific type of heart failure called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that affects about 750,000 Americans.

In this recovery blog post, I will share an update on the great progress I have made, information about the significance of the interview's location, and then the actual interview that was broadcast, along with its companion article.

On October 29, 2023, I started writing this blog post, but I was delayed in finishing it until the middle of December due to another family emergency and some back-end work on my sosAssociates.com website. I am glad that I have now completed this blog post, since the topic presented is part of a long-term trend I have written about in the past. It deals with the important work of improving the City of Cleveland's (and this region's) waterfront and park systems. The plan presented is very long-term, so I wanted to capture today's ideas, and compare them with the future reality.

PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 39 - Untold Lakefront Stories took place on October 20, 2023, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Cleveland's NorthCoast Harbor.

This particular PechaKucha Night Cleveland was very unique!! It first presented the interesting history of Cleveland's Lakefront from a variety of cultural viewpoints, and then showed how the future will build on this past as outlined in the newly updated Cleveland’s North Coast Master Plan.

I also include in this blog post what was recently shared at follow-up presentations that took place after PechaKucha Night Cleveland Untold Lakefront Stories. We are fortunate that so much was shared online from these follow-up events.

The following are the sections of this blog post:

• Past Ingenuityfests Showed Hidden, Spectacular Lakefront Views!

• Images of Today's Lakefront

• October 20, 2023 - PechaKucha Night Cleveland: Untold Lakefront History
  Five Stories Told by Clevelanders for Clevelanders

  I loved the topic, Untold Lakefront Stories, and I enjoyed learning from the five presenters about their good work:

  1) Cynthia Connolly - Chair of the Lake Erie Native American Council
  2) Fran Stewart - Ohio Freedom Path (Underground Railroad)
  3) Keshia Johnson Chambers - Greenbook Cleveland
  4) Ferian Young - Asiatown Migration
  5) Andrew Sargeant - The Whole History

• October 20, 2023 - PechaKucha Night Cleveland:
  First Public Release of North Coast Lakefront Draft Master Plan

• October 20, 2023 - City of Cleveland Beautiful Night Views

• October 23, 2023 - Cleveland's North Coast Master Plan Virtual Draft Presentation

• November 1, 2023 - The City Club of Cleveland:
  Happy Dog Takes On Cleveland's Lakefront Development

• November 11, 2023 - Thank you, PechaKucha International, for your kind words!

• Related Blog Posts

I hope to look back at this blog post in future years after the project is completed and I am standing on the lakeshore enjoying the new lakefront of Cleveland.

Starting in 2010, I would annually announce/celebrate my Twitterversary at the beginning of October with a tweet, and on some years, a Twitterversary blog post. This year, with the owner of Twitter deciding to kill off the Twitter bird, and my being barred from using Twitter in any productive way, my Twitterversary is canceled for 2023. For me, the Twitter that I had known and found useful is now gone.

I am publishing this blog post about the end of Twitter on this, the last day of October 2023, as my way to:

• Thank those who commented about my departure publicly on what used to be Twitter

• Acknowledge the change (mourn the loss)

• Celebrate the past

Now that I have returned from my Appalachian Trail adventure trip, I want to take the time to publish this blog post about my visit to the Norman Rockwell Museum one month ago on Tuesday, September 26, 2023.

I had grown up with some humorous "Four Sporting Boys" Norman Rockwell prints that my mom framed for my room as a child, and which, as an adult, I put in my sons' room. I also was active in Scouting, and thus saw almost all of the Normal Rockwell "Boy Scouts" prints. They were displayed at the church where my troop had its meetings. The first time I visited the Norman Rockwell Museum, I thought I knew Norman Rockwell's artwork, but as I wrote in my thru-hike journal, seeing this original artwork was nothing less than amazing!!

However, I want to be clear that, as I learned on my first visit and confirmed on subsequent vists, while you may feel you know Norman Rockwell's work, it is not the same as seeing the original artwork. Look at the brush strokes -- get close and look at the texture -- take a museum guided tour to learn the story behind what you are seeing. Visit the Norman Rockwell Museum in person!

Every time I have visited the Norman Rockwell Museum, I have learned and seen something new. I hope this blog post encourages you to visit the museum if you are ever in Massachusetts. I look forward to visiting the museum again -- maybe even next year as I hike from Massachusetts into Vermont and beyond, as I continue north on the Appalachian Trail.

The day after attending IngenuityFest 2023: Biologies & Geologies (September 22 & 23, 2023), I left on a trip. Now that I have returned, I want to publicly express here how grateful I am to Ingenuity Cleveland leadership and their community partners for this year's gathering of creative people in Cleveland.

My son, Mike, and I enjoyed exploring the artistically lit caverns of Ingenuity Cleveland's 300,000-square-foot Hamilton Collaborative on the evening of Friday, September 22, 2023. There we found music, art, and much more!!

Then, on Saturday, September 23, 2023, Mike and I returned with our whole family to explore more. In addition to seeing more of the exhibitions I enjoyed Friday night, I spent time talking to people at the community organization booths in the upper part of the building. There is where I learned about the latest new happenings in Cleveland.

Since its founding in 2004, IngenuityFest has featured both technology and art. These are both areas that interest me greatly, so it is no surprise that I have been writing about IngenuityFest from the first year I started writing my blog in 2012.

I have been writing about IngenuityFest since 2012, but I have been taking my family to this great event for even longer. I look forward to attending again next year!

Starting with the 2012 Cleveland Museum of Art Chalk Festival, I have created a blog post every year to capture some of the incredible chalk art created on the Fine Arts Garden's stone pathways in front of the Cleveland Museum of Art. This includes both 2020, when #CMAChalkFestival was online only -- "Social Distancing Style" -- due to COVID-19, and 2021, when "a spur-of-the-moment trip south to take care of some family business prevented me from attending," but my son, Kevin F. Smith, saved the day by attending and sharing photos on social media.

I enjoyed creating chalk drawings at the event in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, but have not participated as an artist in recent years.

I am so glad I was able to attend the 34th Annual Cleveland Museum of Art Chalk Festival on Sunday, September 17, 2023 -- my 12th year taking photos and videos of the event. I hope you enjoy what I put together to capture the artwork and the atmosphere of the event.

Thank you, NASA Glenn Research Center, for the NASA Aviation Day which was a free, public event that took place on Wednesday, September 13, 2023, at the Cleveland IX Center. I enjoyed talking to NASA Aeronautics staff members. They shared their knowledge about new technology developments with great passion.

I am sharing my photos, videos, and comments about the day in this blog post, since I appreciated the opportunity to learn about the latest NASA developments for the aviation industry. I also want to thank Tom Kunsman for recommending that I attend this NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) event! I recommend following Tom on social media (on BlueSky), since he does an excellent job of promoting all things NASA happening in Cleveland.

I enjoyed the morning's panel discussions at NASA Aviation Day. I learned about very new technology and safety developments happening at NASA Aeronautics.

Four Transformations for Sustainability, Greater Mobility, and Economic Growth:

• ULTRA-EFFICIENT AIRLINERS
• FUTURE AIRSPACE AND SAFETY
• HIGH SPEED COMMERCIAL FLIGHT
• ADVANCED AIR MOBILITY

After the morning's NASA Aviation Day panel discussions, I toured the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) display area. People usually associate NASA with space travel, but at this event, the emphasis was on the first "A" in NASA -- Aeronautics.

I truly enjoyed talking to NASA Aeronautics staff — they have such incredible passion for what they do, and are willing to share their knowledge as I ask questions .

NASA events are always interesting. I look forward to attending more of them in the future.