New recipes from Fast, Fabulous, Fresh Foods Class

Class 7 of the Fast, Fabulous, Fresh Foods had Tuscan Bean Salad as the main recipe and

White Bean and Tuna Salad Recipe as a bonus recipe.

Republic Day of India - 3 regions

Sometimes you can forget just how big India is.

Imagine if someone asked you what the favorite food or musical style or sport or... was for the US? You would ask "What region" or "Which people?"

Now consider India with 1.1 billion people!

At the 63rd Republic Day of India celebration in Cleveland there were 3 different dance performances from 3 different regions of India.

First was Bharata Natyam or Chadhir Attam - a classical dance form from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

The second dance was from the western state of Gujarat where we were entertained by a Garba Dance.

The third came from the northern state of Punjab where the ladies performed Giddha, the popular folk dance performed by women mainly at festive and social occasions.

Pictures and videos of the dances and more from Republic Day

Geek Love

One of the first columns I ever wrote for Inside Business Magazine (about 12 years ago) was titled Geek Love.

It told about nerdy and techie places that Geeks and Geekettes might find each other - like user group meetings.

We are in the smartphone/tablet age so of course Geek Love has evolved.

There is a new free app called Kiss My Valentine that will "send text kisses and text hugs to family that normally I may have not taken the time to reach out to in the past"

Learn more about the Kiss My Valentine app.

The Scottish can party!

Never let it be said that the Scottish can't party.

The 253rd anniversary celebration of the life of Robert Burns, Scotland's National Poet, was held at the Croatian Lodge in Willoughby on January 21, 2012. The event was put on by the Scottish Heritage Association of Northeast Ohio (SHANO).

Great music from various pipe bands. Plaid Sabbath pipe band played. That may be the best name I ever heard for a pipe band.

One of the highlights of the evening was the Presentation of the Haggis. Yes, haggis. Haggis is like a savory pudding made of such things as sheep's heart, liver and lungs along with oatmeal, suet and spices. It is encased in the sheep's stomach and cooked for a minimum of three hours.

They recited Robert Burns Ode to a Haggis with great gusto and toasted the Haggis with some tasty single malt Scotch whiskey. Of course, toasts were not few in number at this party.

3 pages of pics and videos from the Scottish Robert Burns celebration.

What's wrong with the world

Happy Indian Republic Day

On January 26, 1930 the Indian National Congress declared 26 January as Independence Day or as the day for Poorna Swaraj (Complete Independence) which occurred 20 years later.

On January 26, 1950 the Constitution of India comes into force, forming a republic. Rajendra Prasad is sworn in as its first President of India.

Also, On January 26, 1965 Hindi became the official language of India.

Tablet and E-book reader Ownership

The recent Pew Internet report had some not very surprising news about Tablets and E-book readers.

"The share of adults in the United States who own tablet computers nearly doubled from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January and the same surge in growth also applied to e-book readers, which also jumped from 10% to 19% over the same time period.

The number of Americans owning at least one of these digital reading devices jumped from 18% in December to 29% in January.

These findings are striking because they come after a period from mid-2011 into the autumn in which there was not much change in the ownership of tablets and e-book readers. However, as the holiday gift-giving season approached, the marketplace for both devices dramatically shifted. In the tablet world, Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble's Nook Tablet were introduced at considerably cheaper prices than other tablets. In the e-book reader world, some versions of the Kindle and Nook and other readers fell well below $100."

Year of the Dragon

Happy Chinese New Year




Yin Tang explains the Year of the Dragon

Cleveland International Hall of Fame

The 2012 Class of the Cleveland International Hall of Fame (CIHF) got a writeup in Mike O'Malley's column in the Plain Dealer today.

Check it out online.

China, Art and Cleveland

For the first time in museum history, the Cleveland Museum of Art assembled distinguished business and government leaders in a symposium to discuss how Cleveland can learn and benefit from China's successful emergence as one of the world's leading economies in the 21st century; and how the expertise of the symposium's panelists can influence the development of an international business agenda for Northeast Ohio.

Highlights included:

• Ambassador James Keith addressed the upcoming elections in the US and the power changes in China and how they might play out in 2012 and beyond.


• Eaton CEO Sandy Cutler targeted 5 areas whereby NE Ohio can benefit from China's growth


• Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic said we did not lose our jobs to the Chinese.


• Cleveland Museum of Art President and CEO David Franklin, PhD spoke about the Museum's history with Chinese art and artists


• Dennis Scholl, VP/Arts, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, expressed concerns about Intellectual Property in China


• and more

The Art of Reinvention: China, Ohio and the New Global Economy

Art with Pendulums - that's Physics

Remember from Mechanics that the period of a pendulum is proportional to the square root of the length of the line suspending the weight? Simply put, the longer the pendulum, the slower it swings.

Harvard students built a device with a series of 15 pendulums in a row, each one slightly longer than its neighbor, then set them in motion and filmed the result.

The resulting patterns in this short video are quite fascinating to watch ... sure it’s physics, but it's also art.

Tweet Choir - Microsoft CES Keynote

Tweet Choir at Microsoft CES Keynote. I'm not kidding.

Where is the Geek in Inside Business Magazine?

Looking for Dan Hanson's eIndustry column in the January issue of Inside Business Magazine? It's online.

Dan Hanson eIndustry January 2012

The column focuses on making your web site more friendly to mobile devices.

Culinary Bucket List

How many of these 100 foods from the Culinary Bucket List have you eaten? The average person has tried less than 20.

I got 48.