Immigrant Entrepreneur Success Story

Luong Thi Gia Hoa Ryan was born in Viet Nam, the oldest of twelve children. She worked for U.S. Government as Interpreter and Secretary during the Vietnam War and supervised local workers for the U.S. Government.

Over 250 friends gathered at the Sai Gon Plaza on Saturday November 5, 2011 to celebrate the 40th anniversary since Gia Hoa Ryan first came to America in November 1971 from Viet Nam. This was also the 18th anniversary of the establishment of the Friendship Foundation in December 1993. This was also the 6th year since the opening of the Sai Gon Plaza in November 2005.

She's a terrific lady, a dynamic entrepreneur and a credit to her new country and city.



Gia Hoa Ryan and Mayor Frank Jackson

Gia Hoa Ryan's 40th Anniversary Party
4 pages of photos and video

Christmas 1981 - A Flame for Freedom in Poland

It was 30 years ago, December 13, 1981, that martial law was imposed upon Poland by the communist government. Poles were aghast, horrified, frightened. And so was the man in Rome, a Polish native named John Paul II, and so was another man thousands of miles away in Washington, DC, President Ronald Reagan.

When word of the communists’ actions reached the White House, President Reagan was furious. He wanted to help the people of Poland in any way he could. At that very moment, Reagan committed to save and sustain the Polish Solidarity movement as the wedge that could splinter the entire Soviet bloc, as the first crack in the Iron Curtain.

“May I ask you a favor, Mr. President? Would you light a candle and put in the window tonight for the people of Poland?”

Read the eyewitness account of that special night

Merry Christmas

Even Santa needs to meditate and relax sometimes.

Digital Nativity

You have to like this video - the Christmas story told as if there was social media 2000 years ago.

Geek Christmas

Let's face it. As people like us make the holiday rounds, we will be on one long tech support incident. Especially if the relatives have the tech knowledge of the guy who hung these Christmas lights.



"Can you look at Cousin Mary's PC? She lost all her icons."

Can you get my wireless set up?

How do I hook up my phone/tablet/mp3 player to my computer and TV?

Why do I get these boxes popping up on my screen every 15 seconds? I swear I didn't touch anything!

So make sure you travel with a USB flash drive that has anti-virus, anti-malware, a registry cleaner and other utilities. Upgrade them to at least Internet Explorer 8 if not IE 9 and/or Google Chrome. Maybe set them up for one of the cheap cloud backup services too so they won't be calling you on New Year's Day saying their PC crashed and they don't have any backups.

And try to enjoy the holidays - even if you are left upstairs in the computer room while everyone else is downstairs drinking eggnog.

Ho Ho Ho.

Rock of Ages - for Hanukkah?

You learn something new everyday.
To me, Rock of Ages has always been an old time Christian hymn.

I learned yesterday that Jews have a Rock of Ages song too. They sang it at a ceremony celebrating the first night of Hanukkah at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.



See more photos and videos from the Maltz Museum Hanukkah ceremony

Project Love

Each year Project Love honors individuals for their roles as influential persons on behalf of humanity at an annual Rescuer of Humanity Awards Dinner. This year's dinner was held on November 30th at Executive Caterers at Landerhaven.

The dinner emphasizes the Project Love theme that one person, willing to take a chance and reach out their hand, can truly make a difference.

Cleveland Collinwood High School student Imane Blaine recited her poem Pressure about student peer pressure.



See more from the Project Love Awards

Philanthropia

After the tragedy of 9/11, New York City absorbed such a large portion of all charitable donations that many local non-profits struggled to reach their own goals. In response, Harlan Diamond and Executive Caterers rededicated their December Corporate Club luncheon to the support of local charities, especially smaller organizations without substantial resources of their own.

That first Philanthropia saw 200 guests and raised $9,000. In 2007 it had outgrown the Grand Ballroom, spilled into the Lander Ballroom, and with over 1200 guests they raised over $128,000. Each year's community response is bigger and better.

As you can see from the giant check held by MC Leon Bibb, the 2010 Philanthropia raised $141,905 for local charities. Congratulations to Harlan Diamond and his team for another outstanding community event.

Pictures and video from Philanthropia

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans

Despite being a destitute, divorced, single-mother at age 16, Dale went on to be a role model for millions of young girls, author 28 inspirational books, write over 300 songs, provoke a generation to care for special needs children, adopt five children, and live out a beautiful 50-year marriage to Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys.

A commemorative 2-DVD set was issued on November 5, 2011 in conjunction with Roy’s 100th birthday.



Did you know that Dale's first marriage was to Thomas Fox when she was 14 years old?

Or that The Roy Rogers Show debuted on December 30, 1951 and aired 100 episodes until 1957. Stars of the show were: Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger, Dale Evans and her horse Buttermilk, Pat Brady and his Jeep Nellybelle, and Bullet The Wonder Dog.

See more fun facts about Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit

The 9th annual Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit was held October 3-5, 2011. The focus was State of the Heart: Cardiovascular Technologies and about 1,000 senior executives, investors, entrepreneurs and clinicians gathered at Cleveland Clinic to discover the future of medicine.


3 sessions stood out for me. The Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2011, the Vice-President Dick Cheney session and the Jeopardy game with IBM's supercomputer Watson.

More from the Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit

My Cleveland

An Indian-American (Mike Srestha) playing a Spanish song (Feliz Navidad) at a Christmas event at an Irish Catholic Church (St Colmans). That's my Cleveland.



An Asian-Indian group called Project Seva has been working with St. Colman's Church at West 65th and Lorain since 1999. "Seva" means "Selfless service" or "To serve humanity" in both Hindi and Punjabi. Serving Humanity is one of the pillars of the Sikh faith.

Volunteers of Project Seva have been serving the community for many years. Last year, Project Seva served over 125,000 pounds of food in 3 churches and the American Indian Education Center.

Witnessing the neighborhood people so thankful to receive a hot meal and some Christmas cheer was a real eye opener.

See more from Christmas at St Colman's.

MedWish

Do you know about MedWish?

As the result of an experience he had in Africa even before he became a doctor, Dr. Lee Ponsky started MedWish in his garage. Simply stated MedWish takes supplies that would normally be discarded, but are still of good quality and in good working condition, and sends them to third world countries where they are saving thousands and thousands of lives.

What a great idea and project.

I learned about it at the annual Project Love Rescuer of Humanity Awards

Some amazing people were honored.

Gifts for Geeks

Last chance to get Gifts for Geeks in time for Christmas. Free shipping too!

Hard Drive Shortage

“The availability of Hard Drives has decreased dramatically since the floods in Thailand caused many manufacturing plants to close. At this moment, Hard Drives are under worldwide constraint and there are no Hard Drives in Canadian distribution. Any device with a Hard Drive in it may be under constraint. Therefore, pricing will fluctuate without notice.”


I have seen prices go way up and some "one to a customer" limits.

How about you?

WIN Cleveland Party

We should have photos and video from the WIN Cleveland Holiday Diversity Party at City Hall up soon at ClevelandPeople.Com.

The photo above is most of the WIN Ambassadors with Mayor Jackson in the Red Room of City Hall before the event.

If not STEM, where are bright students headed?

I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon over the last few years and recent events have added more data to the thesis.

We all know that the US is lagging in producing students in STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – disciplines. This will lead to a huge competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace.

At a recent City Club speech, Adobe co-founder Chuck Geschke told how Adobe was having a very difficult time finding properly educated people from the US to fill their science and techie positions. They have to go overseas to find enough candidates.

At local NEOSA events and from direct conversations with people in the tech business it is apparent that companies are desperately seeking talented programmers, engineers and other STEM-type people.

When are schools and parents and students going to do something about this? When companies are fighting over a single Dot Net developer for example, don’t you think the educational system (public or private) would work to produce graduates with these skills. High-paying, white-collar jobs are just waiting for applicants.

Read the other interesting trend and listen to the One Minute Podcast