Euclid Beach Park

Are you old enough to remember Euclid Beach Park? It was a great amusement park right on the Lake Erie beach off Lakeshore in Cleveland.

It closed after the season in 1969 so I don't remember much but my grandparents lived about 1 mile away so they took us there several times.

I do remember going there as a kid and seeing then Vice-President Hubert Humphrey speaking. He was shouted down by hippies and student demonstrators chanting "Dump the Hump!"

My friends and I picked up the chant and brought it back to the playgrounds in our neighborhood.

When I stopped in at the Arts Collinwood Gallery last week and saw some of the memorabilia, it brought back some of those memories.

We have some great pictures at ClevelandSeniors.com and a profile of Dudley Humphrey whose family has been making those Euclid Beach popcorn balls (and taffy and...) since the turn of last century.

We invited people to share their memories of the park and I am inviting you too. Do you remember Laughing Sal? The Thriller? The Wild Mouse? Dodgems? Tilt-a-whirl? Laugh in the Dark? The Fun House? Let me know

SharePoint and Pizza

Microsoft SharePoint is becoming the next best thing on office workgroup productivity. It's still a little confusing to many though.

We are having a free special Intro to SharePoint on Thursday June 28 from noon to 1:30PM at the Microsoft Office in Independence.

We'll have pizza and pop too so send your lunch with us.

RSVP so we can plan the food.

More details

Cleveland Firefighter Memorial

I think I was one of the first to see this new Memorial. I was driving by Browns Stadium last month and the brightly colored flames caught me eye.

I pulled over, checked it out and took some pictures.

Later that week I heard they were going to dedicate the memorial.

On Memorial Day weekend I was down at the Rock Hall for GuitarMania and was fortunate to be there when the Cleveland Firefighters Bagpipers performed around the new memorial.

I shot a couple minutes of video of the pipers and it's embedded from YouTube on the page.

Mickey Katz, Joel Grey and Jennifer Grey

I get a kick out of this one.

You know that Joel Grey, star of Cabaret, is from Cleveland. His father Mickey Katz was also a performer as is his daughter Jennifer "Dirty Dancing" Grey.

The father, Mickey Katz, did humorous songs in a heavy Jewish accent accompanied by a Klezmer style clarinet.

On a Conan O'Brien show, Mickey's granddaughter Jennifer did one of his songs - complete with the accent and clarinet. Way cool.

Check it out.

Cleveland Powwow

I'm a big fan of the annual Cleveland Powwow held at Edgewater. Native Americans and others show up for a weekend of music, dance, camaraderie and mutual respect.

This year was the 13th annual Powwow and featured some Aztec dancers from Mexico City. What a treat to see them perform a few minutes from downtown.

I posted photos and some of the drums to listen to here.

I am always impressed by the great respect they have for the people who have served in the military and in our country. One would think that this group would have an ax to grind against the government but they are most respectful as you will see in the photos and in the 3rd audio clip.

Free Comic Book Day!

WooHoo! Not only is Saturday May 5th Cinco de Mayo, but it is also Free Comic Book Day!

Check out the recipes for a Tijuana Margarita and Fabulous Fiesta Guacamole for Cinco de Mayo.

Bu then visit your participating local comic book shop to get free comics. Find a store via zipcode search and get more details here.

I'm a 15 year old girl

Everybody has heard about, or been trained to expect, that the person on the other end of that chat or IM is lying egregiously about their age, social status, weight, height, hair and maybe even gender.

All guys are buff fighter jet pilots and all women are supermodels.

Two funny reminders of this. This photo of who is on the other end of a chat will scare some sense into your teenage daughters.

And there is a company called Nerdy Shirts that offers this classic (on the left). (Check out some more of their funky shirts.)

Golly, fellas, I’m hitting 4.000!

Remember when Tribe rookie Gomer Hodge opened the season going 4 for 4 and exclaimed, "Golly, fellas, I’m hitting 4.000!"

Sadly, Gomer is suffering from ALS and can't speak and is in the final stages of the disease. Fans should send a letter or card to
Gomer Hodge
Autumn Care of Saluda
P.O. Box 488
Saluda, NC 28773

Read Terry Pluto's article about Gomer Hodge

Gomer's 83 at bats are a good example of a Villanova prof's recent study. Using a once-controversial statistical method called Bayesian analysis, a Villanova University professor has determined that a lower batting average can indicate better hitting ability than a higher batting average.

Read more at GreatLakesGeek.com

Bob Feller and Billie Jean King

I still am not convinced that most videos (with a business focus at least) are not a waste of bandwidth and a waste of eyeballs. If you just display a headshot of a speaker, that doesn’t bring value. And if I have to dedicate my eyeballs to a video (rather than multitasking by listening while walking the dog or driving) I am less likely to consume that content.

I shot some video on my camera at the ribbon cutting of Heritage Park at Jacobs Field last week. Bob Feller cut the ribbon and the whole clip is about 14 seconds. So I posted that on YouTube and embedded it in a few of my websites. That I think is valuable - or at least fun.

I also shot about 40 minutes of Billie Jean King at the Wolstein Center last week. I did not post that anywhere because, while the content was interesting, the images were basically Billie and her Q&A partner Christine Brennan from USA Today sitting there and speaking. I may pull the audio out and post it but I don’t see the value in the video - do you?

Bill Gates Live

One of the good things about being a Microsoft MVP is the annual MVP Summit in Seattle. On Tuesday March 13, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates gave the keynote address to about 1700 MVPs from about 90 countries.

I can't relate items from the speech because I am under non-disclosure but did post a few general interest items here.

Including a snippet on our old friend Microsoft Bob. ;-)

CompUSA Update

I stopped in at the Chagrin CompUSA today. The good news is most items are 10% off. The bad news is they are NOT honoring the sales prices that were published in the Sunday flyer.

I expect the 10% to grow to 15, 20% and more soon. They are even selling store furnishings and fixtures.

Of course, 10% off CompUSA prices is still much higher than what you can find on-line in most cases.

Cleveland Cooks

Debbi Snook wrote a nice piece on the Cleveland Cooks cookbook in today's PD in the Taste section.

Besides all the great recipes representing Cleveland's ethnic diversity, Snook mentions some of the many local celebrities who have recipes in the book.

Check out her article

or get more details on the cookbook, including purchase options.

Y2K Vu all over again

There's a lot of buzz about the imminent early Daylight Saving Time.

Most of our devices pre-date the recent law adding the 4 extra weeks (3 before, 1 after) to DST.

That will affect some PCs and other devices.

Learn what you can/should do at GreatLakesGeek.com

The Name Game

OK, this is frivolous but it's fun.

Check out the new Name Game either here or here and see what you new name would be as a:

Gangsta, Drag Queen, Soap Opera Star, Goth, Detective and so on.

Just call me Danizzle.;-)

Or Joseph Montford or ...

Beat up by a Woman?

That used to be a school-yard taunt. “A girl could beat you up!”

After meeting professional boxer Vonda Ward at the Greater Cleveland Sports Awards banquet last night, I humbly submit to the fact. She could beat me up!

The 6’6” Ms Ward was one of many amateur and professional athletes at the event.

Check out photos

Also, check out the brief podcast with Good Morning Anchor and event MC Robin Roberts who told me about the state of women’s athletics and why we shouldn’t compare the NBA and the WNBA.

Rock and Roll Memories

I’m of that age where I used to practically live at the old Agora (on 24th and Payne) on weekends and for concerts. I saw some amazing local and national bands there including The Cars, Todd Rundgren, Meatloaf, Ian Hunter, Southside Johnny, Bruce Springsteen and plenty more.
So close to home, so intimate, so cool. I miss it. (I know, the new Agora is just down the street on Euclid but it’s not the same (or I’m not.))

And I am one of the few who really saw Bruce Springsteen twice on the same night. We saw him at the Coliseum and heard that Southside Johnny would be at the Agora. After the last song at the Coliseum we hauled a** and drove to the Agora and got there about 2 minutes before Southside introduced his “surprise” special guest. Wow – what a night.

I was also fortunate to be working with the electricians for most of the World Series of Rock concerts so I got to hang out backstage with the likes of the Rolling Stones, Bob Seger, Aerosmith, Rod Stewart and the Faces, J Geils, and so many more. By luck I took the best close-up of Peter Frampton in history. Better than the album cover.

I have a million stories from the World Series of Rock and the Agora days (not to mention the Euclid Tavern, The Flipside, Peabodys, etc) and got called by Carlo Wolff several months ago to share some for his book. The timing was terrible for me and after about a dozen calls and e-mails, Carlo gave up.

But he did produce the book, Cleveland Rock and Roll memories. Maybe I’ll have to write my own sometime.

Book review

Pics from the launch party

Neosa Webcast

I will be doing the Neosa webcast Wednesday (Jan 17) at 11AM with Jim Cookinham.

We'll be talking about/showing some new items from CES and MacWorld. Also taking a look at Microsoft Windows Vista and the new version of Office.

You can register at anty time or view the webcast Wednesday here.

Viva Las Vegas

I made the annual trek out to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. While I miss Comdex and the strict IT focus of that show, I have to admit that CES has some fun stuff.

I used my new Olympus digital voice recorder to do a bunch of podcasts from the show floor. They have a lot of crowd noise but I think it adds to the audio.

I've started posting them on the Great Lakes Geek site here

While there it was Elvis Presley's birthday so there were flowers and signs by his statue in front of the Las Vegas Hilton.

The Mysterious Tin Fu Club Meets Again

The Mysterious Tin Fu Club Meets Again.

The Tin Fu Club had a Holiday Gathering on Thursday, December 14th and a very diverse group met.

Check out some pictures of the 45 or so Tin Fu Clubbers

Bill Gates for President

Dilbert creator Scott Adams has jumped on the bandwagon to elect Bill Gates as president of the USA in 2008 citing his business success and charitable efforts.

(Hey, we've had worse)

What do you think? Ross Perot was a businessman as was Jimmy Carter, so it's not unheard of (though Steve Forbes never got more than a few percentage points)

Visit the Gates for President site and then vote in the Great Lakes Geek survey.