Hey Cleveland, smile for you close-up!

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Every weekday afternoon I drive on 422-East, take the Harper Road exit and turn left. Every weekday afternoon, I notice that the red light is extremely long while the green light is extremely quick. Every weekday afternoon, people do not want to wait through the first red light, and definitely do not want to wait through a second one. They are impatient, yes, but this is a long red light.

In order to avoid that second dreaded red light, they follow closely to the car in front of them, hoping that will be the difference between being legal (yellow light) and breaking the law (red light). Even when there is a red light, some still continue to dangerously travel through the intersection simply so they can avoid that dreaded second red light. Read the rest of this entry »

Update Below

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This is the story of how a t-shirt with one word on it awarded thousands of Clevelanders and others, pizza for only 23 cents. Were you daring enough to stand in line?

Wiz’s Haywood says LeBron should stop complaining about rough play

CLEVELAND — Overrated hasn’t worked. Now one of the Washington Wizards is calling LeBron James another name: Crybaby.
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“I mean, come on man, this is the playoffs,” [Brendan] Haywood said following Monday’s practice. “He wears 23, he wants to be Michael Jordan, I can respect that, he’s a great player. You saw what Mike went through. Mike got fouled way worse than this. No one is trying to hurt him, everybody is trying to play basketball, trying to play tough. Play basketball and leave it alone.”

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I thought that Part 1 of this story was not long enough so I present you with Part 2, which will be considerably shorter. Last time I left you it was Saturday, March 8, 2008 and the snow had finally stopped at ~9 pm. There isn’t much more left to the story, but I promised you a Part 2, so I will give you a Part 2… Read the rest of this entry »

The story begins on Thursday, March 6, 2008. That is when we started hearing about watches and warnings, when we started hearing about all the snow we were about to receive. No one knew what was coming, the weather people always predic, the “Storm of the Year” which rarely ever arrives. I had a feeling this one might actually deliver but I wasn’t sure. I even joked with my co-workers and folks about having to work at Nordstrom on Saturday and that a foot of snow wouldn’t keep the shoppers from shopping. Little did I know… Read the rest of this entry »

Let me tell you a story. Every Saturday, I work at the Cafe at Nordstrom. Every Saturday the day goes by without a story to tell. Today, was not the case.

I remember little, as I was told that I turned into a 10-year old with his mouth wide open, but I will try and relay as much as I do remember. I was behind the counter, as I normally am, when I saw a large crowd entering the cafe. Then before I knew it, I heard someone say, “Hey LeBron.” I think this is when my mouth hit the floor…of the First Level. (FYI, we are on the Third Level.) The LeBron James had just entered the Cafe that I work at!

I looked up to him, yes, everyone must look up to him, he is ginormous. He is younger than me, and yet, he seems to be twice the size of me! Crazy! At this point, everyone from the back of the house, front of the house and customers, were all around, including his entourage. This man commanded the room just by walking in it, how cool is that?

He ordered a Nantucket Nectar bottled juice and a muffin, to go. It was I believe a Half-And-Half, and was definitely a blueberry muffin. Confusion arose over where we were ringing him out and bagging up his stuff. I might have bagged up his stuff, I don’t remember, but I do remember beginning to ring him up. I was handed $10 from my assistant manager, who received it from LeBron, when our head manager told LeBron it was on the house. He took his muffin, beverage and entourage and left the cafe, allowing everyone to exhale.

My head manager then said to me, and the assistant manager, “You were going to charge, LeBron?” Well yes, we were, because he makes more than all of us combined, but it was his call, and so it was on the house. After that, everyone conversed about the man who walked in our Cafe only for a few minutes, but made an everlasting impression on all of us.

What a day at the Cafe at Nordstrom in Beachwood, OH. It is one that I will never forget, even if my mouth has only begun to come off the floor. Thanks LeBron!

SSIA (subject says it all)

…coming from Solon, OH.

I was driving 35-50 MPH on the highway, when the speed limit is 60 MPH and I normally drive 65 MPH. I am cold and wet and need to get to work…grr.

According to Ingenuity Cleveland’s web site, the festival is “four days of creativity and innovation.” I would agree with that statement. My folks and I went today to walk around and enjoy the festivities. When we arrived, we were greeted by the sounds of Beat the Donkey, Featuring Cyro Baptista. The music was unique and very entertaining. People all around the stage were dancing and simply enjoying themselves.

I took out my camera, acted like I had a press pass, and just started shooting photos of the band and the crowd. Unfortunately, I got so caught up in the rush, I didn’t really check my photos to see how they were coming out, as I took them. That caused a good amount to be blurry and pretty much worthless. However, there is a positive side. I enjoyed greatly taking these photos, and pretending like I was a professional photographer.

I sit at a desk Monday – Friday, 9-5, and well, it seems as though that job has become very stale to me. By 2 or 3 in the afternoon, I am falling asleep in my chair, pretty much bored out of mind. However, last night, I could have listened to that music and took pictures for hours. It was fun, energizing and the rush was amazing. Sure the photos I took weren’t as good as I hoped, but you know what, practice makes perfect. Hopefully that practice will take me from an amateur photographer to a professional one.

Anyways, back to the festival. After the music, we walked around to look at all the other exhibits. There was a game where you strapped a headband around you, sat in a chair, and tried to sit as calmly as possible. The person was the most relaxed, moved a ball on the table towards their opponent and then eventually won the game. Next to that exhibit was a robotic chess player who was nowhere near a robot, he was a human.

Other places there were holographic images of the human form, a video shot on the walls of eyes changing from different people and races. There was a circus area with different sculptures providing shadows and fun.

To end the night there was a music group that was playing simultaneously, in real-time,  in Cleveland, Columbus, Florida, Fairbanks. It was cool, but after waiting 20 minutes for them to work out the technical difficulties, it pretty much lost its luster.

Today’s A Photo A Day comes to us from an exhibit inside where a quartet of musicians were tied up to computers to watch their vital signs as they played. It was very interesting and definitely cool to watch. I am not sure all of the particulars, but enjoy the photo where you see the 4 players, and their signs being displayed behind them.

Hopefully, one day, I will not just be taking these photos for fun…

Last night was the not-so great fireworks, while tonight was the not-so fireworks. I traveled downtown Cleveland with the folks to listen to the Cleveland Orchestra and watch some amazing fireworks. I was really excited because after last nights firework (notice no ’s’) show, I was dying to see a real show.

We got down there, listened to the orchestra for a few moments. Then, we started to scout our sitting spot, and my camera location. Originally we had a great spot for the fireworks, but then we were notified that because of construction on the Terminal Tower, the fireworks were going to be shot off from the old BP Building. We moved a few feet to the left, and I set-up my tripod. The orchestra was finishing up and the clouds came, along with the wind. Oh, the wind…it definitely came. The host from WCPN, the local NPR station, said give us 5-10 minutes to let the wind calm down and then we will start.

The 5-10 minutes came, but then everyone left. Due to the high winds at Public Square, it was unsafe to even try to set off fireworks so everyone was sent packing, only seeing part of the show. Hopefully, and I mean hopefully, the fireworks show will be rescheduled, so that I can at least see one real fireworks show this 4th of July season!

Today’s photo comes to us during the time when we first arrived downtown at Public Square and were enjoying the weather, the crowd and the music. Luckily, I took pictures before the fireworks or I might have missed my first day…

I went to a black and white photography exhibit opening at the Cleveland Art Museum with my mother, tonight. It was a lot of fun. I wish I could write a more descriptive recap of the evening, but after a long day of Nordstrom work, and spending more time on my feet looking at over 150 photos, I am really tired and therefore want to go to bed.

However, I will leave you with two photos: a “modern photo” in honor of the black and white exhibit, and a Little Italy photo that is today’s A Photo A Day.

And today’s photo…

P.S. Two photos in a row that contain people, what is up with that? I guess I am branching out…

I created a virtual scrapbook for Game 6, scouring the web for images of the Cavs’ success. Now, courtesy of my television, and 3 channels (Local ABC, Local CBS, and TNT), I have a TV/Digital Scrapbook of the events succeeding the Cavs Eastern Conference championship.

Below is my virtual scrapbook chronicling all events prior to, during and after Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals (Detroit Pistons vs. Cleveland Cavaliers). Right now, at time of publish, there are 54 image captures from 15 web sites. More will be added if necessary.

ONTO THE FINALS…

Images courtesy of the following web sites: DeadSpin.com, ESPN.com, FOXSports.com, CNNSI.com, Yahoo! Sports, NBCSports.com, NBA.com, NBA.com/Cavs, Cleveland.com, USAToday.com, NewsNet5.com, WOIO.com, WTAM.com, MSNBC.com, and NYTimes.com.

Now that I have decided to take a photo everyday, my camera goes where I go. If I go out to dinner with my folks, the camera is with me. That was the case tonight. We travelled to a unique Chinese restaurant and my mom suggested I might be able to capture the atmosphere with my camera. Unfortunately, I was unable to. I was feeling weird about taking pictures of the restaurant, while the workers walked around. I tried to take the exterior of the place, but it was too dark, and not that exciting.

So on the way home, I still needed today’s A Photo A Day. We drove by 2 different churches, and were lucky enough to be stopped at red lights each time. I took photos of each and was like one of these photos WILL be the photo of the day. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The pictures came out great, the churches were perfectly clear and well-lit. However, those photos have been done a million times before. The whole point of this project is to experiment and go outside the box. Choosing either of the church photos would not be anywhere near experimenting. Well, these were to be the photo of the day if the unexpected didn’t happen.

After passing the churches and getting on the highway, the skyline came into view. I could see Jacobs Field all lit up, with the Goodyear Blimp floating above. I could see the sky being painted in multiple colors. I could see a photo being formed, the only problem was we were going 60+ MPH on the highway, and quickly the skyline was shrinking. I hastily took two photos, just trying my luck to get something that I could work with. One photo was a bust, and the other is what has become today’s A Photo A Day. The unexpected was that even one of the photos even resembled the downtown Cleveland skyline, let alone became the photo I chose.

As you are looking at the photo below, viewing Jacobs Field, and the skyline, and the moving guardrails, don’t forget to notice that red dot in the sky. Until tomorrow…