Blog sosAssociates

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.

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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:

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• 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.

I want to start off this blog post by first congratulating the Cleveland Cultural Gardens Federation leadership and the many volunteers who contributed their time and talent to make this year's One World Day a grand success! Not only did they break a record for the number of participants in the 2023 Parade of Flags, but the Northeast Ohio community came together to support their vision of "peace through mutual understanding" by having a record number of people attending on Sunday, August 27, 2023!

I always have a great time at Cleveland's One World Day, and this year, the 77th Annual, I was fortunate that my wife and co-blogger, Julie, was available to join me in the fun! Looking at my past "Cleveland Cultural Gardens" blog posts, I see that it was ten years ago that I attended this Cleveland muti-cultural event for the first time. Wow, ten years ago! I am particularly impressed by the number of new gardens that continue to be created.

I am grateful to have been able to attend One World Day for these past 10 years, and I appreciate the leadership of the organizers for their work to continue and expand this great Cleveland tradition into the future!

I am so glad that I was able to attend the 10th Annual Buckeye TrailFest at Shawnee State Park, which was held Thursday - Sunday, August 17-20, 2023. As I wrote in my last blog post, Summer Vacation 2023: South Haven, Michigan and Merry-Go-Round Museum, I have been very busy since recovering from my April surgery, but I still wanted to take the time to put together this blog post for two reasons that are important to me:

1. I want to encourage others to learn about the Buckeye TrailFest and the important work of the Buckeye Trail Association in maintaining the longest trail in any one state in this country.

2. The main purpose of this blog post is to thank the organizers and presenters of the Buckeye TrailFest 2023 for sharing their talents to create a successful event. I am very grateful for all their efforts to make a welcoming and educational event for all attendees.

I look forward to more journeys on Ohio's long trail -- the Buckeye Trail -- in my future.

We wanted to share our summer vacation with you, so we created this blog post to capture our experiences in and around South Haven, Michigan, and at the Merry-Go-Round Museum in Sandusky, Ohio. Originally, we had planned a trip to Alaska for August 2023 that we decided to cancel due to the uncertainty about Stuart's recovery following his surgery. We thought it was best to make our 2023 vacation within a day's drive from our home. South Haven is just over four and a half hours from Cleveland.

We organized this blog post around Stuart's photos and videos about different parts of our vacation:

Monday, July 31, 2023 - Monday, August 7, 2023, Michigan Vacation

• Sunset Inn Bed & Breakfast

• South Haven, Michigan

• Waterfront: Lake Michigan & Black River

• Day Three: Wednesday, August 2, 2023 - Kal-Haven Bike Trail

• Day Four: Thursday, August 3, 2023 - Day Trip to Saugatuck, Michigan

• Day Five: Friday, August 4, 2023 - Van Buren Bike Trail

• Day Seven: Sunday, August 6, 2023 - Michigan Maritime Museum

Monday/Tuesday, August 7 - 8, 2023 - Exploring Sandusky & Huron, Ohio

• Day Eight: Monday, August 7, 2023 - Afternoon/Evening Exploring Sandusky, Ohio

• Day Nine: Tuesday - August 8, 2023 - Merry-Go-Round Museum

• Day Nine: Tuesday, August 8, 2023 - Afternoon Exploring Huron, Ohio

We hope you enjoy learning about our vacation!

We were very grateful to be able to go on this wonderful vacation after the events that occurred earlier this year.

A year ago, I learned about and planned on attending the grand opening of the Cleveland Foundation's new headquarters building in 2023. I had learned that the building was going to be much more than the Foundation's home for their staff to work in -- it will also be a resource for the greater community to use! A new role in the community for the Foundation -- very exciting! I looked forward to the opening and to being part of the community celebration.

Next, in May 2023, it was announced that in addition to the new beginning with a new building, there would be a change in Cleveland Foundation professional leadership -- President & CEO Ronn Richard's retirement would lead to the installation of Lillian Kuri as the new leader of the Foundation on August 1, 2023.

Finally, as I attended the Cleveland Foundation 2023 Annual Meeting and open house/tour, I learned about more new beginnings -- a second building!!

In this blog post, I will share announcements that were made before the 2023 Annual Meeting and related festivities, and then write about my experiences at the following celebrations:

• Thursday, July 13, 2023 - Annual Meeting Celebrating Community Service

• Friday, July 14, 2023 - Cleveland City Club Meeting: Honoring Ronn Richard's History of Service

• Saturday, July 15, 2023 - New Headquarters Opening Dedication

• Saturday, July 15, 2023 - Exploring the New Cleveland Foundation Headquarters

• Saturday, July 15, 2023 - Celebratory Performances for the KeyBank Dance and Arts Studio

I learned about another reason to celebrate in the near future:

• THE FUTURE! - Another New Building To Come!!

For me, the timing of the Cleveland History Days 2023 was perfect, since it was two months after my septal myectomy open-heart surgery at University Hospitals, and I was finally able to be active again for the first time in 2023.

With over 50 events happening during Cleveland History Days 2023, I was grateful to the organizations that hosted so many interesting activities. I did elect to skip the the Cleveland "Take A Hike" tours, since I was unsure of myself doing a lot of walking, but near the end of the 10 days of activities, I felt well enough to attend the "Ohio Freedom Path Hike" on Saturday, July 1, 2023. I can highly recommend the Cleveland "Take A Hike" tours from attending them with my wife in the past. I have heard that in recent years they have developed new tour locations and updated old favorite tours.

I was so impressed with all that was happening during these 10 days, that I wanted to capture what I could in my blog post. I hope you enjoy the following and share with others. Remember that even though Cleveland History Days is only once a year, most of the the places it features are available to explore year round!

Please read about the following:

• Friday, June 23, 2023 - Cleveland History Days Opening Ceremony

• Friday, June 23, 2023 - Cuyahoga County – Rediscover The Detroit-Superior Bridge: Community Conversation

• Saturday, June 24, 2023 - Cuyahoga River Rally

• Sunday, June 25, 2023 - Open House at The Historic B&O Roundhouse

• Tuesday, June 27, 2023 - Buckeye Trail

• Saturday, July 1, 2023 - Ohio Freedom Path Hike

• Saturday, July 1, 2023 - Talk at Cleveland Public Library: “The Other Trails of Tears: The Removal of the Ohio Indians”

In this third and final blog post about my December 2022 through spring 2023 experiences with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, I share information about my week on the University Hospitals third-floor in both the Cardiothoracic ICU (intensive care unit), and then the post-surgical telemetry unit. I end the blog post writing about my first week and month at home.

It is interesting how my progress was not linear -- I had bad times after good. My strength and pain came and went away with no logical relation to what I was doing.

After the first week at home (May 4-11, 2023), issues arose that seriously slowed me down. Apparently, my successful first week of feeling energetic enough to walk was not the norm. Very similar to my experience in the hospital, my progress was not linear -- I had bad times after good.

It is hard to explain -- at the same time I felt so much better than I had for the first four months of this year with my hypertrophic cardiomyopathy symptoms, I now had problems caused by the after-effects of the surgery. The debilitating symptoms from having a deformed heart caused by HCM were eliminated by the surgery, but the surgery caused issues!

On March 28, 2023, Cardiologist Eiran Gorodeski MD, MPH., my wife, and I reviewed my options now that CAMZYOS® (mavacamten) was shown to not be a successful treatment for my hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).

Before the meeting, I identified and researched what I thought were my five options going forward after the CAMZYOS® failed to work for me. I put together a spreadsheet with columns laying out the pros and cons of all five options, along with my questions for the two most likely options. I brought my laptop with the spreadsheet to my appointment with the results of my research.

In reality, I already knew before the appointment that I was down to just two valid options, but I was glad that I prepared for the appointment so that my choices were based on research and not just emotion.

The cardiologist appointment ended with Dr. Gorodeski making a referral for one appointment (on April 7, 2023) with both Interventional Cardiologist Anene Ukaigwe, MD, and Cardiac Surgeon Yasir Abu-Omar, MD, to get their opinion on if I was a good candidate for alcohol septal ablation and/or septal myectomy.

On April 7, 2023, I had an appointment to choose one of two life-changing procedures to regain the life I had before I started having hypertrophic cardiomyopathy related symptoms approximately four months ago. (I wore my Continental Divide Trail t-shirt to the appointment to remind me of the appointment's significance.) During my appointment, the two doctors reviewed the current statistics regarding the success and risks for alcohol septal ablation and septal myectomy. In the end, they let me know that I was a good candidate for either procedure -- the decision was mine!!

As I wrote in my "2022 Reflections" blog post, I was very active last year, but I ended the year having reservations on what the new year would bring.

With all of my activities in 2022, and throughout my life, you would not know that I had a progressive, genetic heart disease that would lead me to have to stop almost all my activities as I started 2023.

Being diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy reminds me again (since I already knew) why I made time in recent years to hike sections of America's long trails (Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and Continental Divide Trail) and stay active attending events in the Cleveland/Akron area while I still had my health. I plan to return to my normal, active life after I find a successful treatment.

As you will read in this blog post about my condition, you will learn that despite having hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, modern medicine does offer hope for getting rid of the debilitating symptoms.

Today, March 8, 2023, I celebrate eleven years of creating my sosAssociates.com blog!!

“The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change -”
-- Heraclitus.

In my 2021 sosAssociates.com Blogiversary: Nine -- In the year of Social Distancing! blog post, I wrote about how the world had changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 8th of last year, as I published my blog post sosAssociates.com Blogiversary: Ten -- I can't believe this is the TENTH YEAR!!, I was fairly prepared for change -- on February 10, 2022, my dad had moved to the Cleveland area so that my sister and I could care for him. Unfortunately, as we entered 2023, my dad, Stuart O. Smith, Sr., passed away on the morning of Friday, January 6, 2023, at the age of 89.

Now, as I write my 2023 Blogiversary blog post, I am in the middle of another potentially life-changing situation, but I believe I have a good support team that will help me find a successful solution to overcome the current challenge. I hope to write a blog post later this year to document my planned success.

The focus of my blog posts has evolved over these 11 years since my co-writer and wife, Julie Smith, and I started writing our blog posts on March 8, 2012. I enjoy documenting activities in which I participate, and invite you to read my blog posts that cover topics of interest to you.

We want to share the fun we had on Monday, January 16, 2023, where the "City meets the Lake" (Cleveland's North Coast Harbor) on the day our nation honors the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Thank you to the Great Lakes Science Center and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum for opening their doors admission-free to the public on this special day!

For the past eight years, I have ended the old year and started the new year by creating thank-you tweets as a way to show my gratitude to the many people and organizations that had a positive impact on the lives of my family this past year. I would then compile those tweets, along with others from the year, into a year-end blog post that I would invite you to read.

From mid-September 2022 through the end of the year, my wife and I have had several challenges involving more than one family member, and we knew we would enter the new year with some uncertainty. This caused me to delay the process of creating my annual, new year blog post until the middle of the first month of the new year (Sunday, January 15, 2023).

I want to now share some of my adventures and activities from this past year, and state how I appreciate those people/organizations that enriched my life in 2022. I am also using the blog post to honor my dad, Stuart O. Smith, Sr., and express how grateful I am to have had a great deal of quality time with him this past year.

I want to wish you who are reading this blog post all the best as we begin a new year full of possibilities!

Thank you to The City Club and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) for the Tuesday, October 11, 2022, "... unique tour inside NEORSD’s sewer system at Edgewater Beach." The following is about the sewer tour, along with additional information about NEORSD and its water outfall near Cleveland Metroparks Edgewater Beach.

I am so glad that I saw @TheCityClub's September 27th morning tweet, so I could sign up to be one of the 20 participants for the Tuesday, October 11, 2022, tour.

I was glad to read that so many people were interested in the 50 Years of Clean Water Investment event that The City Club had to create a waiting list! For years, I have been interested in seeing what was beyond the Edgewater entrance gate of the sewer. I was grateful to be one of the few fortunate people who were allowed to go on the tour.

I normally spend three full days at the annual IngenuityFest Weekend, but family commitments only allowed me to visit on Saturday, September 24, 2022, for three hours in the evening. I was so impressed with the event, I want to share in this blog post the photos/videos that I and others shared about the weekend. After 2020's IngenuityFest being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and last year being an outdoor event at the Cleveland Metroparks, it was good to be back at a more traditional IngenuityFest Weekend of creativity at the Hamilton Collaborative location.

I also want to mention that one of the highlights, in addition to the incredible displays and performances, was reconnecting with people that I have not seen in person the last few years. It has been a difficult time for many people, and I am grateful to the artists who are IngenuityFest, and the sponsors that support their work.

Chalk Festival

Saturday and Sunday, September 10 and 11, 12:00–5:00 p.m.
Fine Arts Garden

Children and adults enjoy this annual event where community members join professional artists in using the walkways around the Fine Arts Garden as a colorful canvas. Begun in 1990, our festival is a modern expression of a Renaissance tradition from 16th-century Italy in which beggars copied paintings of the Madonna by Raphael and his contemporaries using chalk on the plazas outside cathedrals. Watching the chalk artists and enjoying the entertainment is free.

I was so glad to be back in person after two years!! In 2020, for the 31st annual Cleveland Museum of Art's Chalk Festival, the event went virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, "I was very disappointed that a spur-of-the-moment trip south to take care of some family business prevented me from attending ... " but "I was rewarded greatly by the Cleveland Twitterverse," who posted their photos online so that I was able to share them in my blog post.

I was so pleased that the 33rd Annual Chalk Festival would take place in the Fine Arts Garden on Saturday/Sunday, September 10 and 11, 2022, rain or shine! These were dates I could attend!!

The following is my eleventh Cleveland Chalk Festival blog post. I really enjoy seeing the creativity each year (which is why I even wrote blog posts for the two years I enjoyed remotely). Please retweet any tweets that have photos of chalk artwork you enjoy to encourage more people to attend and participate in future years!