Cleveland

The Smiths have a family tradition of driving to GE Lighting's Nela Park two weeks before Christmas to see their annual Christmas lights display. Of particular interest to us is seeing each year at Nela Park the replica of the National Christmas Tree. We also enjoy discovering each year's decorating theme.

This year, the Nela Park holiday lights display featured Cleveland landmarks. Therefore, we decided to not only see GE Lighting's Nela Park, but also to see the holiday lighting at the landmarks themselves. 

On October 27, 2015, we were very fortunate to be invited to attend Case Western Reserve University's think[box] Thinkapalooza!

Even before the new think[box] space opened, we had heard about how great it was going to be. Thinkapalooza was part of the grand opening of Case Western Reserve University think[box]'s new space for promoting innovation and entrepreneurial enterprises. Its new name is the Larry Sears and Sally Zlotnick Sears think[box] and it is located in the Richey Mixon Building. It is one of the largest centers of its kind for an academic institution.

think[box] is a resource that will first focus on the students, faculty, and staff of the university, but will also be open to others in the surrounding community.

We want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Cleveland Play House on their centennial, and for earning the 2015 Regional Theatre Tony Award!

During the 2014/2015 program year for Cleveland Museum of Natural History, I remembered hearing about Think & Drink with the Extinct events. Since I have attended astronomy programs and other public events at the museum, I was intrigued, and started promoting the events in my @sos_jr tweets. Promoting events/meetings is the reason I starting using Twitter.

I did not think that it would take until Fall 2015 to finally have a night that I could attend. I decided to share my photos and tweets from the evening to thank the organizers of the event, and to encourage others to attend. I will not attempt to fully express what the event is like -- it is something you need to experience for yourself -- but I will say that if you like having access to extremely bright people from whom you can learn, then you should attend.

On October 21, 2015, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (@goCMNH) had their monthly Think & Drink with the Extinct (#ThinkandDrink). The evening's theme was "Paleontology - Fossils and Ferments." October 21, 2015, just happened to be Back to the Future Day -- somehow it seemed right to be in a museum to celebrate.

I have been writing blog posts about Ingenuity Cleveland's IngenuityFest since 2012, and attending long before that. IngenuityFest is the perfect marriage of my interests in arts and technology.

Cleveland Technology + Art = IngenuityFest Weekend 2015!

I went to all three days, October 2-4, of IngenuityFest 2015. I am sharing my photos and tweets from the weekend in this blog post as my way of thanking all the presenters. I made a point of talking to many artists in their installations, and local tech leaders at their booths. I can't include everyone I spoke to, but will mention a few in this post.

I have also included my tweets from the inaugural Hingetown Hoedown, which took place Saturday night. It was incredible to see so many people attend this first-time event!

On Tuesday, October 20, 2015, we had a great time attending the Ohio Blogging Association's Cleveland Bloggers Dinner at Sterle's Country House.

While we enjoyed the food, and the old-world ambience of the restaurant, the main reason we attended was to interact with fellow Cleveland Bloggers! If you are a blogger, we highly recommend you attend future Ohio Blogging Association events.

I was fortunate to have Kevin Lockett present a talk entitled So You Think You Know Podcasting at my October 17, 2015, WebSigCleveland.org meeting. Kevin's podcasting talk also provided resources and creative ideas beyond podcasting, which is why I decided to gather my notes, tweets, and Kevin's slides, and create this blog post.

My notes on the presentation are included in my @sos_jr tweets I did during the meeting, so I have embedded them in this blog post. 

Dueling Pianos! Fun!

This is the seventh blog post I have written about a Cleveland.com TweetUp, and my wife, Julie, and I have attended many more. They are always about having fun in Cleveland while making new friends and meeting old Tweetup friends. I saw some people I had not seen in a while, so it was great to reconnect.

Like the February 5, 2015, Corner Alley - Uptown TweetUp, the September 24, 2015, Cleveland TweetUp at the The Big Bang Cleveland was about welcoming a new entertainment venue to Cleveland. It was again hosted by Kristel Hartshorn and Troy Smith. I suggest you follow them on Twitter, and read their Cleveland.com articles, since they write about Cleveland entertainment.

Every year, we enjoy viewing the artwork at the Chalk Festival at the Cleveland Museum of Art. As in 2014, Stuart was glad he was able to participate by adding his chalk drawing to the weekend display.

The weather was beautiful, and there was a huge turnout of Cleveland artists. Please read on to learn about an act of kindness and generosity by some children at the festival.

My weekend plans went from nothing planned to really fun when I learned about two free events via Twitter.

I had not planned on writing this blog post about the weekend. I even told people I talked to at the events that I was not going to write about the weekend. However...

After the weekend was over, I decided I wanted to capture the information I learned about local adventures. I also wanted to thank NEO Cycle and the Cleveland Pops for the good time.