Sunday, June 30, 2019

Special Food Lineup for the 2019 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Cleveland

Delaware North, the official food, beverage and retail partner of the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field, announced a lineup of new items for the MLB All- Star Game.




The menu showcases local favorites and ingredients such as Cleveland Kraut, a variety of pierogi and rich sausages.

Loaded Pierogi

On June 28, 2019 media were invited to preview the foods and ask the chef questions.

Chef Joshua Ingraham


See photos, descriptions and videos of all the new All-Star Game foods

More Cleveland foodie stuff at ClevelandCooks.com

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Liszt Concert in the Hungarian Cultural Garden

Each year the Hungarian Cultural Garden puts on a free performance featuring the music of Franz Liszt for the community. The last several years the talented students and teachers from the Aurora School of Music led by founder and director Vera Holczer-Waroquet, have performed.

The weather was perfect and the performers were amazing.

See photos and videos of the Liszt concert in the Hungarian Cultural Garden

Carina Vincenti 

Francisco Fierro

Jose Ramon Garcia Perez

Raquel Roman Rodriguez accompanied by Vera Holczer



Hungarian studies at CSU

A special announcement was made at the end of the Liszt concert program in the Hungarian Cultural Garden on June 23, 2019.


Endre Szentkiralyi, president of the United Hungarian Societies, announced that starting in 2020 the Hungarian government will pay for 4 years of a Hungarian professor to teach at Cleveland State University.



See video of the CSU Hungarian announcement and more

Thursday, June 20, 2019

Euclid Beach memories

When we were adding the new Euclid Beach Pier to our coverage of Euclid Beach Park it brought back memories of the old park.


Rocket Ship Ride

Laughing Sal aka Laffing Sal poster

I was very young when the Park closed but I remember going with my Mom and her friend and daughter to Euclid Beach Park in 1968 for a speech by then Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey who was running for President. I recall the protestors with signs and chants saying “Dump the Hump.”

What do you remember?  Leave a comment.


See more photos of old Euclid Beach  and at

Cleveland101 coverage of Euclid Beach Park

Cleveland Cultural Gardens Centennial Peace Plaza Groundbreaking Ceremony

On June 11, 2019 the Cleveland Cultural Gardens Federation held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new Centennial Peace Plaza in the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.






After welcome and speeches, the actual groundbreaking took place with CCGF President Dr. Wael Khoury being joined by the Plaza committee leaders, major donors, Mayor Frank Jackson and others for the ceremonial shoveling of dirt.

Groundbreaking of Centennial Peace Plaza
Cleveland Cultural Gardens Federation Executive Board

Photos and videos of the Cultural Gardens Centennial Peace Plaza groundbreaking

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Walk under bridge to Cuyahoga River at Shooters in Cleveland

For years there has been a bust of Viking Explorer Leif Erikson near the entrance to Shooters on the west bank of Cleveland’s Flats.

 Dan Hanson just noticed that now you can walk under the piece of the bridge from the parking lot to the Cuyahoga River and see some of the ironwork of the bridge.


Walk on the new Euclid Beach Pier at Lake Erie in Cleveland

On Wednesday May 22, 2019 the Cleveland Metroparks had a ribbon cutting ceremony to mark the grand opening of the Euclid Beach Pier.

The new 315-foot pier partially extends over Lake Erie, offering views of the downtown Cleveland skyline not experienced from this location for decades.

Dan Hanson took a walk out onto the pier.  Sorry for the wind noise.


Rep Anthony Gonzalez - D-Day 75th remembrance at League Park in Cleveland

Ohio 16th District representative Anthony Gonzalez  read the prayer that President Roosevelt read to the nation on the night of June 6, 1944.


USS Cleveland (LCS-31) - D-Day 75th remembrance at League Park

Under the umbrella of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Foundation – the U.S. Navy, Cleveland Indians and the Baseball Heritage Museum at League Park saluted and thanked those who served during WWII. This D-Day Remembrance ceremony honored over 100 men and women of the greatest generation.

Mrs. Robyn Modly, Ship Sponsor of the USS Cleveland (LCS-31), told about the history of the ship and future plans. The USS Cleveland (LCS-31) Legacy Foundation has been established with the purpose to send the USS Cleveland (LCS-31) to the Fleet with the greatest start possible, to support the ship and crew throughout her service life, and to welcome her home to Cleveland at the completion of her Naval service.


More on USS Cleveland



21 gun salute, Taps to end D-Day 75th at League Park

The D-Day ceremony at League Park concluded with a 21 gun salute, the playing of Taps and the singing of God Bless America led by Major Scott D. Allen, U.S. Air Force.




More photos and videos from 75th anniversary of D-Day

37 Baseball Hall of Famers served in World War II led by Bob Feller

Under the umbrella of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Foundation – the U.S. Navy, Cleveland Indians and the Baseball Heritage Museum at League Park saluted and thanked those who served during WWII. This D-Day Remembrance ceremony honored over 100 men and women of the greatest generation.

After the ceremony, Bob DiBiasio, Sr. Vice President-Public Affairs, Cleveland Indians Baseball, told about the 37 Baseball Hall of Famers who served in World War II and the story of Bob Feller who was the first to enlist.

Feller had already won 100 games and was driving to Chicago to sign a new contract.  When he heard the news of the Pearl Harbor attack on the radio he turned around and drove to an enlistment center and signed up.

Baseball Hall of Famers who served in World War II


Watch this short video with Bob DiBiasio telling about the Hall of Famers who served.


What would our modern athletes do?



D-Day 75th anniversary Remembrance Ceremony League Park June 6, 2019

On the 75th anniversary of D-Day, under the umbrella of the Bob Feller Act of Valor Foundation - the U.S. Navy, Cleveland Indians and the Baseball Heritage Museum at League Park saluted and thanked those who served during WWII. This D-Day Remembrance Ceremony honored about 130 of the greatest generation who served in World War II.


World War II Veteran at League Park


Under Secretary of the U.S. Navy Thomas B. Modly gave the keynote address and his remarks included the story of his emotional visit to Normandy.


World War II veteran with Under Secretary of the U.S. Navy Thomas B. Modly


Wednesday, June 05, 2019

Rootkits and Bootkits: Reversing Modern Malware and Next Generation Threats

Rootkits and Bootkits:
Reversing Modern Malware
by Alex Matrosov

Malware and other threats are reported on and written about so ubiquitously that we tend to gloss over them. We have heard the advice 1,000 times - keep your system updated, don't click on unknown links, keep backups, etc. So another book on malware and other threats can be met with a yawn.

Rootkits and Bootkits: Reversing Modern Malware and Next Generation Threats from no starch press is different.
First of all the authors have outstanding credentials. For example, Alex Matrosov is a leading offensive security researcher at NVIDIA. He has more than two decades of experience with reverse engineering, advanced malware analysis, firmware security, and exploitation techniques. Before joining NVIDIA, Alex served as Principal Security Researcher at Intel Security Center of Excellence (SeCoE), spent more than six years in the Intel Advanced Threat Research team, and was Senior Security Researcher at ESET. Alex has authored and co-authored numerous research papers and is a frequent speaker at security conferences, including REcon, ZeroNights, Black Hat, DEFCON, and others. Alex received an award from Hex-Rays for his open source plug-in HexRaysCodeXplorer, supported since 2013 by the team at REhint. Wow.

The book gives an evolutionary/historical look at rootkits and bootkits including the newer classes of malware that target the BIOS and chipset firmware which current Windows defensive software can't reach. It covers boot processes for Windows 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems. So you will learn about how Windows boots-including 32-bit, 64-bit, and UEFI mode-and where to find vulnerabilities as well as the details of boot process security mechanisms like Secure Boot, including an overview of Virtual Secure Mode (VSM) and Device Guard.



The first part cover Rootkits and the authors look at the "classic" OS-level rootkits such as TDL3 and Festi rootkit. These case studies show how hackers view the operating system internals and compose their implants using the structure of the OS. You will read reverse engineering and forensic techniques for analyzing real malware.

Part 2 focuses on Bootkits and the authors dive into the Windows boot process and what has changed over time. This includes the Master Boot Record, partition tables, bootmgr module and so on. It is very complete and includes coverage of newer virtualization approaches and ransomware.

Part 3 deals with the forensics of bootkits, rootkits and other BIOS threats.https://nostarch.com/rootkits will get you updates and more resources like a link to the author's website for source code and more.

I did not read the book cover to cover and expect unless you are a security professional you won't either. But I jumped around and learned more about things I thought I already knew well (like the legacy boot process) and lived through (remember the Brain virus on 360k floppies?)

It's a great resource to have and I am sure I will be visiting it more in the future for specific answers and techniques because the bad guys just do not stop. Recommended.

Monday, June 03, 2019

Python Crash Course book review

Python Crash Course, 2nd Edition:
A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming
by Eric Matthes

This is the second edition of Python Crash Course, 2nd Edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming" the best-selling Python book that has over 500,000 copies in print.

Edition 2 is cleaned up and better organized and focuses on Python 3 only (no reason to learn Python 2 anymore.) While it uses Python to teach you to code it also teaches clean programming skills that apply to most other languages.

The author, Eric Matthes, is a high school math and science teacher living in Alaska who teaches an Introduction to Programming class in Python.

The book is neatly broken down into two parts. The first half focuses on installing and using the Python language. It teaches using data, whiles, ifs, loops, accepting user input for interactivity - all the basic programming stuff.


The second part features three projects: a video game (like Space Invaders), data visualization techniques to make graphs and charts, and an interactive web application.

The book lists other online resources and has a well thought out Table of Contents and Index. Appendix A covers installation issues and troubleshooting on various platforms. Appendix B covers Text Editors including more on the recommended Sublime Text editor and Integrated Development Environments (IDE). Appendix C gives resources and ideas to take your coding beyond the book. The final Appendix shows how to use Git for version control in your programming.

It's a great resource and not a surprise that so many copies have sold. Recommended.


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