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I had heard about the work of Sustainable Cleveland for years from talking to their staff and volunteers at their booths at Cleveland area environmental events I attended. This was the first year I was able to attend their Annual Sustainable Cleveland Summit. I knew that each year had a theme:

• 2011- Energy Efficiency
• 2012- Local Foods
• 2013- Renewable Energy
• 2014- Zero Waste
• 2015- Clean Water
• 2016- Sustainable Transportation
• 2017- Vibrant Green Space
• 2018- Vital Neighborhoods
• 2019- Engaged People

What I did not fully realize was that the 11th Annual Sustainable Cleveland Summit was the final event planned as part of this ten-year initiative by the City of Cleveland Mayor's Office. At the Summit, the leaders committed to continue the work of Sustainable Cleveland, but they were not ready to announce in what form these activities will take place. I look forward to when these future initiatives are publicly announced.

In this blog post, I will share tweets and videos relating to the 11th Annual Sustainable Cleveland Summit, and the work of Sustainable Cleveland and its many partners.

Weekend Journey: New York & Massachusetts Parks, and Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association (ALDHA) Gathering

Every year, we go to the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association - ALDHA Gathering weekend for workshops on how to backpack the great trails around the world. Normally, we make it a four-day weekend (including traveling), but this year we added some extra days on each end of the trip. These extra days enabled us to see some great New York State Parks with beautiful waterfalls, and more of the park where the Appalachian Trail crosses the highest mountain in Massachusetts.

It was fun to "bookend" our trip to the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association - ALDHA Gathering with waterfalls. We write our blog posts to share what we learn about organizations and about places that we enjoy. We hope you will share them with others.

On Sunday, September 29, 2019, our family participated for the fifth consecutive year in Euclid Beach Park Now's 15th Annual Remembering the Sights & Sounds of Euclid Beach Park event. This was a special year for us and for this Cleveland tradition for three reasons:

• For the amusement park, it represented 50 years of memories.

• For our family, it represented a new role for Julie and for our son, Kevin.

• For the Cleveland Metroparks, it represented fulfillment of a plan to honor Cleveland's history while better serving Cleveland's Collinwood community.

We write our blog posts as our way to thank the great organizations in Cleveland and Akron that bring joy to our lives. If you read our posts, you will see that we are very fortunate!

On Friday night, September 27, 2019, and Saturday, September 28, 2019, I continued my annual tradition of attending Ingenuity Cleveland's IngenuityFest and sharing in a blog post some of what I saw there. 

I am proud that my sons, Kevin and Mike, had a booth at IngenuityFest for their tabletop game, perMUTATIONS, for the third consecutive year!

As a graduate of the MNO program at Case Western Reserve University, I was invited to a special celebration on Friday, September 27, 2019. I was very impressed with the evening's activities. The celebration focused on two areas:

• First, the Master of Nonprofit Organizations (MNO) is one of just nine graduate programs ever accredited by the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council.

• The second cause for celebration was the launch of a new Master of Nonprofit Organizations (MNO) scholarship.

I look forward to learning more about the activities of the Master of Nonprofit Organizations (MNO) program as future leaders of the nonprofit sector are developed.

Today is my 10th anniversary on Twitter! I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all the good people in the Twitterverse who have invited me to learn about their lives and what they care about, by sharing interesting activities. And to the cultural, art, civic, and creative organizations, thank you for bringing joy into my life by informing me of new opportunities in which I could participate.

In #MyTwitterAnniversary blog post, I want to wish you a great month, year, and life full of adventure and fun times as I start my eleventh year of blogging and sharing on Twitter! 

This whole year, I have been looking forward to the Michelangelo: Mind of the Master exhibition, so imagine how excited was to I receive an invitation to attend the Media & Influencer Preview of "Michelangelo: Mind of the Master."

Once I entered the exhibtion, I found it interesting to see people interacting and learning about the exhibtion. I also greatly enjoyed talking to others I knew at the preview, and sharing impressions with people who I met for the first time, as we enjoyed the drawings.

On the same evening as the Michelangelo: Mind of the Master preview, I attended the last hour of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's Think & Drink with the Extinct event. It was a great way to end the evening in University Circle.

I am grateful to be able to attend many great events as a member of both the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History!

2019 is a special year! Congratulations, Cleveland Museum of Art, on celebrating the 30th year of the Chalk Festival over the weekend of September 14-15, 2019! We were able to continue our annual tradition of creating a blog post with photos from the Cleveland Museum of Art's Chalk Festival.

Every year, the chalk art created at the Cleveland Museum of Art's Chalk Festival is outstanding! Please take some time to see the chalk artwork by reading our blog post!

This is the third year that I have been fortunate to be invited to the Print Club of Cleveland’s Fine Print Fair Opening Night Preview Party at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Thursday, September 12, 2019, Preview Party gave attendees an opportunity to "Be the first to view and acquire outstanding works" and "Enjoy a cocktail reception" before opening to the public. The Fine Print Fair is open to the public the weekend of September 13-15, with FREE admission.

I am grateful to be able to attend many great art events like the Print Club of Cleveland’s Fine Print Fair at the Cleveland Museum of Art!

10th Anniversary Cleveland GiveCamp!

The Mission of Cleveland GiveCamp is to pair creative and technology talent with nonprofits in need.

On July 19-21, 2019, Cleveland GiveCamp marked the tenth year of its tech volunteers serving nonprofits in the Cleveland and Akron areas. We (Stuart O. Smith, Jr., and Kevin F. Smith) want to share with you tweets, videos, photos, and information about Cleveland GiveCamp 2019.

Stuart has volunteered at Cleveland GiveCamp Weekend for all of its ten years, and this was Kevin Smith's sixth year working on the Cleveland GiveCamp social media team.

10 years! It is hard to believe that it has been ten years! It has been exciting to see Cleveland GiveCamp grow over the years and help so many nonprofits with free websites and other tech solutions.

What a day! We attended Cleveland's second Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Opening Day for Trails - Cleveland on Saturday, April 13, 2019, at Cleveland Metroparks' Merwin's Wharf. We knew to expect a great event, but the very large participation of Clevelanders interested in learning about Cleveland's urban trails was beyond what we had expected.

I was fortunate to be invited by Pandata to the April 11, 2019, OHTec 13th Annual Cleveland Best of Tech Awards (affectionately known by its hashtag: #NerdOscars), which is part of OHTec Tech Week. This blog post includes information about the 2019 Best of Tech Awards finalists, and lists the winners.

There was a wealth of information about the Northeast Ohio tech community to be found at the many booths during the reception. For me, it was also a great reunion, since I saw many people from the tech community who I don't get to see as often as I would like.

I first learned about the Cleveland Metroparks Adventure University a year ago. It looked like somethng I would really enjoy, but we were dealing with a family emergency that kept me from attending the Spring of 2018. When I saw on Twitter that the third annual Cleveland Metroparks Adventure University & Gear Swap would be taking place at Baldwin Wallace University on Saturday, March 23, 2019, I was doubly excited to attend. First, I saw that they had exciting organizations participating, and workshops planned in areas that greatly interested me. Secondly, my annual case of "Springer Fever" had set in, and I was ready to learn from presenters about my future adventures. 

THINK & DRINK
Cleveland's brainiest happy hour . . .

Raise a glass with the Museum on select Thursdays and explore our different topics and latest discoveries with scientific experts — and drinks brewed by Northeast Ohio's best breweries — as your guide!

With a short walk in University Circle, I went from photography from 1940–1950 at the Cleveland Museum of Art to the world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Normally, these museums are not open late on Thursdays, but Thursday, March 21, 2019, was special!

This post about the Think & Drink -- Fantastic Beasts of the Natural World is the second of two blog posts about my evening in University Circle.

Join Us to Celebrate the Opening of “Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940–1950”

The Cleveland Museum of Art invites you to attend the opening celebration of the special photography exhibition Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940–1950.

A simple email invitation led to an enjoyable evening in University Circle, beginning at the Cleveland Museum of Art and continuing at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Normally, these museums are not open late on Thursdays, but Thursday, March 21, 2019, was special!

This post about the Gordon Parks photography exhibition is the first of two blog posts about my evening in University Circle.

On March 3, 2019, I heard the exciting news:

OPEN HOUSE Includes Free Admission for All, Beginning March 16

I immediately made plans to attend the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland - moCa Cleveland Open House on March 16th!

It is great that we now have another art museum in Cleveland that opens its doors for all to enjoy without charging an admission fee!

On March 7, 2019, we decided to plan a family day. We first thought of places we had enjoyed in the past, but decided what we really wanted was a day together exploring places we had never visited as a family. Luckily, we remembered seeing a sign for The Warther Museum as we drove down Interstate 77. Every time we drove past the sign, we would say that we needed to find a time to visit The Warther Museum. Julie had great memories of visting The Warther Museum when she was a Girl Scout, and had been telling us for years that we needed to go there someday. She knew we would enjoy seeing the carvings, which included very detailed models of trains.

As we explored Google Maps for other places to visit in Ohio's Tuscarawas County, we decided to make trains the theme for the day, and go to the Dennison Railroad Depot Museum.

We made our plan to visit these two Ohio museums which are located in the City of Dover and the Village of Dennison -- just about an hour and a half south of Cleveland.

2012 to 2019!!! My seventh Blogiversary of celebrating the fun of exploring our community!

Thank you to my great co-writer and wife, Julie Smith! I always enjoy sharing the journey with her. I also want to thank the many organizations that hosted the events/activities I wrote about this year!

Julie and I wrote 47 blog posts in 2018, which is the greatest number of blog posts we have ever done in one year! One of the reasons we wrote so many in 2018 is that we enjoyed visiting many of the venues for the FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. Julie and I want to give a big THANK-YOU to Fred Bidwell and the other FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art organizers. 2018 was the inaugural year for these exhibitions, and we are looking forward to FRONT returning to Cleveland in 2021!

Congratulations to the Brite Winter 2019 organizers! Ten outstanding years of outdoor winter fun -- music and arts in Cleveland!

On Saturday, February 23, 2019, we had a great time at the tenth annual Brite Winter. We arrived a bit earlier than in the past to have more time to enjoy the outdoor activities.

In this blog post we share two videos that do a great job of capturing the environment, and our 154 @sos_jr tweets and retweets show photos/videos from this outstanding day in Cleveland!

On this 10th anniversary, we want to thank the Brite Winter organizers for the many years of winter outdoor fun!!! We have very fond memories of attending our first Brite Winter when it was just a small event in 2011, and have watched it grow into the huge event it is now!

On Thursday, February 21, PechaKucha Night Cleveland will be live on stage at The Music Box in the Flats West Bank.

Japanese for “the sound of conversation,” PechaKucha features a rapid succession of 8-10 speakers, each sharing new ideas about topics ranging from visual art, architecture, and technology to food, film, music, photography and furniture design through a vibrant 400 second long presentation (20 slides X 20 seconds each). . . .

#PKNCLE33
@PKNCLE

I always enjoy attending (and writing about) PechaKucha Night events in Cleveland and Akron. Therefore, I was glad to be able to go to Cleveland's Music Box Supper Club on Thursday, February 21, 2019, for PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 33.

After Michael Christoff's PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 33 talk, he made the BIGGEST announcement in the ten+ years of the organization:

The next event, Global PechaKucha Night: Waterways, will be an international event spotlighting the importance of water and sustainability.

This blog post can't capture all the exciting implications of the Wednesday, January 23, 2019, Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access announcement!

Open Access at the Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art announced on January 23, 2019, that it is an Open Access institution, using the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) designation for high-resolution images and data as related to its collection. At the Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access means the public now has the ability to  share, collaborate, remix, and reuse images of many as 30,000 public-domain artworks from the CMA’s world-renowned collection of art for commercial and non-commercial purposes. In addition, portions of collections information (metadata) for more than 61,000 artworks, both in the public domain and those works with copyright or other restrictions, works are now available. 

This announcement that I will share information about in this post is just the beginning. It is only a hint of what is to come.

The Open Access partners of the Cleveland Museum of Art at the event showed some intitial uses for the all the Open Access artwork, but the potential for the future goes beyond what was presented on this first day. As the Creative Commons Chief Executive Officer Ryan Merkley said, "...this is a big deal."

Thank you, Cleveland Museum of Art, or bringing both Renaissance Splendor: Catherine de’ Medici’s Valois Tapestries and Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern to Cleveland! I look forward to coming back to the museum to see the exhibitions again with Julie, my co-blogger and wife.

On Friday, January 18, 2019, Stuart returned with Julie to show her these two major exhibitions. Both Wednesday and Friday nights are good weeknights to go to the Cleveland Museum of Art, since they are open later than other nights -- until 9:00 pm. Visiting the museum makes for a very enjoyable evening.

As we have done the past four years, we have created this #NewYearsEve and #NewYearsDay 2019 #ThankYou blog post to review some of the fun things we did in 2018. We enjoyed reliving the year through our 47 blog posts, and also recognize that we have many people to thank for all the activities and events that we attended in 2018.

This blog post includes images that link to our 2018 blog posts, as well as all of our 88 @sos_jr year-end thank-you tweets from New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

The Mission of Cleveland GiveCamp is to pair creative and technology talent with nonprofits in need.

Stuart did not have time to write this blog post at the end of July, since he was preparing for a backpacking trip and writing blog posts about FRONT International, but we still wanted to share our experiences at Cleveland GiveCamp 2018.

On July 20-22, 2018, Cleveland GiveCamp Weekend marked the ninth year of serving nonprofits in the Cleveland and Akron areas. The Smiths (Stuart, Kevin, and Mike) want to share with you the following tweets, photos, and information about Cleveland GiveCamp 2018.

Stuart has attended Cleveland GiveCamp weekend for all of its nine years, and in 2018 served on the Cleveland GiveCamp Steering Committee for his eighth year. He continues to manage both the ClevelandGiveCamp.org website and the @CleGiveCamp Twitter feed year-round, and serves on the Social Media Team during Cleveland GiveCamp weekend. This was Kevin's fifth year working on the Cleveland GiveCamp social media team. Mike returned this year to work on a Wordpress project for Hope for Kids Geauga (HopeForKidsGeauga.org) at his seventh GiveCamp. Cleveland GiveCamp continues to be one of the largest GiveCamps in the nation.

I was very fortunate to receive an email invitation to arrive early for the November 29, 2018, Cleveland Museum of Art's preview event. There is a lot of interest in the newly opened exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art! The tickets for the weekend following the preview ended up selling out, and the night I attended brought in a good-sized crowd of Museum members to see the two major fall 2018 exhibitions:

• Renaissance Splendor: Catherine de’ Medici’s Valois Tapestries

• Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern

In this blog post, I will share what I and others observed and shared on Twitter (including photos of the artwork), along with some other comments and resources about these two exhibitions. I like that the museum is featuring both their Renaissance Splendor: Catherine de’ Medici’s Valois Tapestries and Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern exhibitions together, and offering special combined ticket pricing for the public (museum members get free tickets and their guests get discounted tickets).

Traditionally, on the weekend after Thanksgiving, Cleveland kicks off the holiday season! On Saturday and Sunday, November 24 and 25, 2018, we took part in some great holiday celebrations!

We wrote this blog post as our way of saying thank you to PlayhouseSquare and Cleveland Play House for Holidazzle 2018, and to Downtown Cleveland Alliance and Cleveland Public Square for Cleveland Winterfest 2018.

We also want to mention the great Cleveland Foundation skating rink on Cleveland Public Square! The Foundation has been sponsoring a winter skating program since 2016 as a great addition to the year-round programming that takes place at the Cleveland Foundation Centennial Plaza.

In addition to Holidazzle and Cleveland Winterfest, we have included in this blog post tweets with photos and videos from this year's TubaChristmas Cleveland. Julie performs in TubaChristmas concerts in either Cleveland or Akron every year.

On the afternoon of Saturday, November 3, 2018, I attended the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire. 2018 marks the sixth year for the Cleveland Public Library - "The People's University" - as a sponsor and host of the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire, and I have attended and written blog posts about three of the previous years' events.

Also, I am excited that my sons had a booth at the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire this year, featuring their tabletop game, PerMUTATIONS. This is the first time they have been invited to share their game with the public at the Library. They have demonstrated their PerMUTATIONS game at the last two Ingenuity Cleveland's IngenuityFest events, which you can read about in our blog posts.

What follows are my 100 @sos_jr tweets and retweets, so you can see photos from the event, and learn how the Cleveland Public Library uses the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire to bring together area makers and creatives to share their knowledge and to encourage others to join them.

I recently learned that the Cleveland Foundation has launched the new Ctrl + Alt + CLE group. Although I missed the first meeting on September 6, 2018, #CtrlAltCLE Convenes: Tech & Digital Equity, it dealt with a topic that I am very interested in, so I knew I should make it a point to attend future meetings. Fortunately, I was able to attend the second #CtrlAltCLE meeting, and a special #CtrlAltCLE blockchain training for nonprofits/government.

In this blog post, I will share:

• Some of the background information from the Launch of Ctrl + Alt + CLE.

• Information about the two #CtrlAltCLE meetings I attended on the topics of Digital Equity and Blockchain for Social Good.

• Funding opportunities announced for Digital Equity and Blockchain for Social Good.

I am also including information about Lynda.com classes that relate to the work of #CtrlAltCLE. The classes are available FREE with your library card!

This is just the beginning of the new #CtrlAltCLE program, and I recommend you join with me in learning how Ctrl + Alt + CLE will evolve.

I knew of Hack Cleveland from reading their @HackCleveland tweets, but I had never attended any of their events. When I read that the Hack Cleveland leadership team had scheduled a #Fix216: Criminal Justice Reform Scope-A-Thon for Friday evening, October 26, 2018, and Saturday, October 27, 2018, I signed up. I figured it was a good time to not only learn about the group, but also learn by participating in the methods they used to develop a social justice technology solution. I also liked the idea of a "Scope-A-Thon," with its emphasis on investing the time to find the right plan to succeed on the issue that would give the greatest benefit.

1. Bail Reform

2. Re-Entry Skills Alignment 

3. Collateral Consequences/Sanctions

A BIG thank-you to Summit Artspace for reaching out on Twitter and recommending I visit the Summit Artspace gallery as part of the High Arts Festival Akron 2018 finale celebration on Saturday, October 6, 2018.

I already knew about the Akron High Arts Festival, and had it in my weekend calendar along with other local fun activities. Thanks to the tweet from Summit Artspace, followed by a Twitter direct message with some great information from Downtown Akron Partnership, I knew I had to attend this event!

I love how the High Arts Festival logo reflects how this Akron event has grown to not only include the Visual Arts, but also Music, Film, and the Literary Arts!

My weekend of Friday, September 28, 2018, through Sunday, September 30, 2018, was a time to learn about the creative people of Cleveland! The weekend started on Friday with an evening with creatives, which I wrote about in my blog post, PechaKucha Night Cleveland Volume 32 at Sachsenheim Hall. It continued with Ingenuity Cleveland's annual celebration of artisans, makers, and technology! This year, the theme was IngenuityFest 2018: FuturePast!

I continued my annual tradition of living the full IngenuityFest experience by attending all three days and talking to as many exhibitors as possible. This was the second year at their new, permanent location at The Hamilton Collaborative, 5401 Hamilton Avenue, Cleveland, which is now their year-round community hub.

I am proud that my sons, Kevin and Mike, had a booth at IngenuityFest for their tabletop game, perMUTATIONS, both last year and this year.

Please share the information in this blog post with your friends. I enjoy attending this event every year, and want to encourage you to invite people who have not attended.

Stuart had planned to be out of town in September 2018, but a change in plans brought him home early, allowing us both to attend PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 32 on Friday, September 28, 2018. We always enjoy both attending PechaKucha Night Cleveland events, and writing blog posts about them!!

We really appreciate the PechaKucha Night Cleveland leadership team, presenters, and sponsors, and want to thank them for all these great events.

When we published our FRONT - Oberlin blog post about our Sunday, August 5, 2018, visit to Oberlin College's Allen Memorial Art Museum, we expected to not have time to visit any more FRONT venues. Stuart had planned to be out of town in September 2018, but a change in plans brought him home early.

With a very busy weekend coming up at the end of September 2018, we decided to make time on Wednesday afternoon, September 26, 2018, to visit the Ohio City FRONT International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art venues.

Since the opening of the FRONT International Triennial on Thursday, July 12, 2018, we have visited over fourteen venues. We want to take this opportunity to thank the organizers of, and the venues that hosted these great FRONT International Triennial exhibitions.

This year, the Akron Mini Maker Faire took place at the Main Library of the Akron-Summit County Public Library on Saturday, September 22, 2018. This was earlier in the year than it normally takes place. Stuart had planned to be out of town in September 2018, but a change in plans brought him home early, allowing us both to attend the Sixth Annual Akron Mini Maker Faire! Stuart has attended all six years.

Our @sos_jr tweets and retweets show some of what we and others experienced at the Akron Mini Maker Faire. We hope they give you some insight into what these Makers do, but to learn more, you need to attend the next Akron Mini Maker Faire and talk to the Makers directly.

I had planned to be out of town in September 2018, but a change in plans brought me home early, allowing me to continue my annual tradition of creating a blog post of my photos from the Cleveland Museum of Art's Chalk Festival It is one of my favorite community events, which was celebrating its 29th year on the weekend of September 15-16, 2018! 

I have added my own chalk drawing in the past, but this year I rode my bike on the evening of Sunday, September 16, 2018, to see all the finished artwork after attending the Cleveland Cultural Gardens 73rd Annual One World Day.

Here are my 130 photos of the Cleveland Museum of Art's 29th Annual Chalk Festival, including my favorite pieces.

I had planned to be out of town in September 2018, but a change in plans brought me home early. I was excited to learn that I had not missed a great event that I attend every year -- Cleveland's Annual One World Day, held this year on September 16, 2018, at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.

I have enjoyed One World Day for many years now, and want to thank the many volunteers and organizers for keeping this great Cleveland tradition alive!

We had never been to Oberlin College's Allen Memorial Art Museum before. We are so grateful that the FRONT International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art chose it and other Oberlin art venues for the inaugural year of FRONT. When we visited on Sunday, August 5, 2018, we were extremely pleased with the gem we found there.

On Saturday, August 4, 2018, I returned to the venues in Uptown Cleveland to show my family what I saw on the opening day of FRONT International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art.

I hope you enjoy my photos in these tweets of my return visit to FRONT International Triennial in Uptown Cleveland.

Thursday, August 2, 2018, was a great day to explore Akron art! I had planned to go to Akron to spend the afternoon at the FRONT International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art venues in Downtown Akron, but the day I picked had even more to offer!

Besides receiving free gallery admission to the Akron Art Museum on their "FREE Thursday," there was also a special event announcing a new community service at the Connect with Dot Launch Party! In addition, the nearby Summit Artspace had in its main gallery the PARALLAX Contemporary Art Juried Exhibition, which runs until August 18, 2018.

Since the opening of the FRONT International Triennial on Thursday, July 12, 2018, I have visited over six venues before going to the Akron Art Museum.

On Tuesday, July 31, 2018, we ended the month by taking the afternoon to explore the FRONT International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art venues in Downtown Cleveland. These are the first venues we have had time to visit since the FRONT International Triennial opening on Thursday, July 12, 2018. 

We spent seven relaxing hours taking our time seeing the artwork, and wanted to share our experience through our @sos_jr tweets and retweets about the day.

On Thursday, July 12, 2018, I took a vacation day to attend the FRONT International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art opening day press conference. This blog post continues where my FRONT International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art - Opening blog post leaves off -- to share my experiences visiting three of the FRONT International Triennial venues in University Circle and Uptown Cleveland. 

FRONT International Triennial Opening Day Press Conference!

The BIG day is finally here!

Since I had received press accreditation back in January 2018, I received a password for the FRONT VIP Portal, and the following details from the SUTTON PR firm:

... our opening day press conference on Thursday July 12th, 2018 at 10:30 am. William M. Griswold, Director and President of the Cleveland Museum of Art, will join both Fred Bidwell, Executive Director of FRONT, and Michelle Grabner, Artist Director of the inaugural edition, to provide remarks, alongside the leadership of FRONT’S presenting partners. The event will take place at The Cleveland Museum of Art in the Gartner Auditorium at 1150 East Blvd, Cleveland OH 44106.

I enjoyed talking to several people at the reception -- it was great to see so many people here from all over the country.

We were excited to be invited to attend the Saturday, July 7, 2018, Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors preview.

Here are our photos from the preview, followed by the tweets we shared as we toured the exhibition. We enjoyed seeing this special presentation of Yayoi Kusama's work, and even walked through the exhibition a second time to see everything from a different perspective.

Photos can't do it justice. The Infinity Mirrors installations of Yayoi Kusama are something you truly need to experience. It is great that we have an art museum in Cleveland that features great diversity, from the Eyewitness Views: Making History in Eighteenth-Century Europe exhibition we saw in the spring, to today's Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors.

Due to commitments at home, this is the first vacation in quite a while where we both were free to take a week-long trip. Because of this, we decided to write this blog post about the different locations we visited in Michigan from June 24 through July 1, 2018. We are sharing our 100 @sos_jr tweets and retweets to show our activities and our photos.

While not a perfect trip, in that we ended up needing to cut it short by two days, we created this post so we can look back on it to remind us of the fun we had and to share it with visitors to our blog.

• Monday, June 25, 2018 - #MightyMac

• Tuesday, June 26, 2018 - #MackinacIsland

• Wednesday, June 27, 2018 - @GrandHotelMI

• Thursday Morning, June 28, 2018 - #CastleRock and #Fudge

• Thursday Afternoon/Evening, June 28, 2018 - #SeeFrankenmuth

• Friday Morning, June 29, 2018 - @Bavarian_Inn

• Friday Afternoon, June 29, 2018 - @BronnersXmas

• Trip Home and After

Happy traveling!

After attending the inaugural Common Ground on July 30, 2017, I knew that I would want to make a point of attending future Common Ground community conversations and related events. When I learned that the Cleveland Foundation planned to have the 2018 Common Ground on June 24th, which was during a week I had planned to be out of town, I delayed the start of my vacation. I am glad that I stayed in Cleveland that day to attend Common Ground 2018!

With so many interesting topics, I had a problem. It was great to have the problem of having to choose from so many options. In the end, I was able to take the 13+ sites that had topics that interested me, and decide on four that I would really like to attend. With the very full agendas happening at each location, I ended up only having time to visit two sites:

• Sunday, June 24 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM - Social Enterprise: Uplifting the Underserved at Cosmic Bobbins

• Sunday, June 24 1:00 PM - 3:30 PM -Why Do Parks Matter? - The Trust for Public Land

On June 9, 2018, we had a great day that we want to share with you. This blog post includes 152 tweets from before and during the Cleveland Museum of Art's Parade the Circle, and from our evening activities on the Cleveland Metroparks' waterfront. Writing this post reminds us of the fun we had, and we hope it encourages others to explore these and related activities in the future.

We were able to attend the Parade the Circle together again in Cleveland's University Circle, and wanted to share our experience and photos from our @sos_jr tweets and retweets. If you never attended Parade the Circle, it is a must-attend Cleveland event!

We started off June 2018 with some great activities and music. We often go to the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cleveland Metroparks, and we wanted to share in this blog post some of the unique things we did on June 1 and June 2, 2018.

What we needed was a simple day to get away -- thank you, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and the Cleveland Zoological Society, for providing the perfect venue.

Earlier in the month, we had learned from tweets by Etsuko Dunham, Danielle Garbo, and Kelly Manderfield about some incredibly beautiful Japanese cherry tree blossoms in the Cleveland Metroparks' Brookside Reservation, which is very near the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.

There is always something going on that you can learn about by following the right organziations on Twitter. I saw a tweet by @ShareTheRiver that linked to Cleveland Water Tour of the Garrett A. Morgan Water Treatment Plant

The Share The River event post stated that in celebration of American Water Works Association's Drinking Water Week, Cleveland Water was hosting an open house of their Garrett A. Morgan Water Treatment Plant. This was the final event of Cleveland Water's Drinking Water Week 2018 activities.

I am very interested in the subject of water treatment and city resource infrastructure. 

Cleveland Museum of Natural History has nature hikes at Mentor Marsh. We learned that the Museum's Natural Areas Department has over 9,400 acres of land on 56 natural areas.

When Julie and I heard about the May 6, 2018, Bald Eagle Fest at Mentor Marsh, we were excited to check it out!

2018 marked the fifth year for Station Hope, which I have enjoyed for the past two years. It is an incredible event to experience!

Congratulations to Cleveland Public Theatre and all the Station Hope 2018 organizers for the grand success of this annual Cleveland event!

I thought it would be interesting to attend the Akron Waterways Renewed! Blue Heron Homecoming when I learned that it was taking place at the Akron Water Reclamation Facility.

Julie and attend most of the MIX at CMA events during the year. We enjoy both the general party atmosphere in the Ames Family Atrium, and the themed tours through the galleries led by art experts from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

My CMNH friends, adult programs coordinator Ashley Hall, and preparator and lab manager Lee Hall, had often recommended that I attend a Cleveland Museum of Natural History Members Behind-The-Scenes Night. They told me that attendees get to explore the normally off-limits lower levels of the Museum.

Therefore, when Spike Radway invited me to attend with him and Henry Lee, I knew I needed to make time to go.

My wife and great co-blogger, Julie, and I enjoy attending the Starship Troopers, the Reel Science event featured a science talk by the museum's collections manager of invertebrate zoology, Dr. Nicole Gunter. This was the last of the 2017-2018 Reel Science series. The Museum's adult programs coordinator, Ashley Hall, is already gathering ideas for next year's films -- send her your recommendations! 

I highly recommend both the monthly Cleveland Digital Publishing Users Group - CDPUG meetings (the final Thursday of most months), and also the special field trips that they plan. Spike Radway, the founder and program director of CDPUG, always recruits great presenters for the meetings.

It was great to start the month of May with a special field trip to the Apple Eton Store to learn from both Erica Brenner of Erica Brenner Productions, LLC, and Bill Baraona of Flex Media about video editing.

When I first learned about Front International Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art in the summer of 2016, I was very excited about this grand art show taking place over many northeast Ohio locations in the summer of 2018. What I did not know was that it was even bigger than just the summer exhibitions. I have already enjoyed attending several Front International artist talks, and look forward to more of these pre-summer events. 

I also want to note that FRONT International: An American City took place at the new MidTown Tech Hive. When I arrived, it was fun to learn that I already knew some of the people who work in this new tech-centric space. I recommend you learn more about Tech Hive by watching for a summer grand opening event which will be announced by Digital C. 

My family participated in a great day of activities planned by the new REI Cleveland store ahead of the grand opening of their Beachwood location.

• Backpacking 101
• Backcountry cooking
• Essential knot tying
• Smartphone photography for the outdoors
• Bluegrass fireside concert

We attended a day of activities at Holden Arboretum, so in addtion to the special activities planned by REI Cleveland, we also explored the Murch Canopy Walk and the Kalberer Emergent Tower.

A flurry of activity! In late April and early May of 2018, I had eight busy days of activities! I originally created this as one single blog post listing all nine events, but later decided to publish nine posts to make it easier to find for my website visitors to read.

I still think of it as one post that I hope will not only give you insight into my eight-day week, but more importantly, encourage you to support these organizations with your presence at future events.

In our blog post, Cleveland Museum of Art's "Eyewitness Views: Making History in Eighteenth-Century Europe," we wrote that Stuart attended the Eyewitness Views Media and Influencer Exhibition Preview on February 24, 2018. Unfortunately, at the last minute, Julie was not able to attend. We knew she would enjoy this exhibition, so we planned to come to the show together at a future date.

We ordered our tickets to return on Wednesday, April 11, 2018, since the Cleveland Museum of Art's is open late -- until 9:00 pm -- on Wednesday nights to accommodate people like us who need an evening visit time.

While Stuart knew Julie would enjoy Eyewitness Views: Making History in Eighteenth-Century Europe, her enthusiasm for the show was even more than Stuart anticipated! It was fun to start the evening by having our photo taken in the Venetian gondola provided by the Cleveland Museum of Art.