Cleveland

Well, Cleveland is now in the past. I really enjoyed planning it out. The original plan was to possibly see the games on Friday and Saturday night. In researching events in Cleveland, I noticed that comedian Sheng Wang was going to be in town, so I bought tickets to both Sheng Wang and the Guardians for Friday night, just in case the weather didn't cooperate on Saturday. Eventually, the forecast bore out that there was no issue on Saturday, so I sold the Guardians tickets.

I'm glad about that on a couple of levels. 

First, a comedy show was the perfect thing to see after about eight hours of travel on Friday. The airport/airplane rinse-repeat really wore me out. I kept myself calm by imagining myself walking off the plane in Cleveland and being able to just walk out of the airport. Once I actually got out, I made my only misstep of the trip, which was taking a cab instead of an Uber. 

Secondly, after the game on Saturday, I realized that I really didn't need two nights of sitting in the stands at Progressive Field. One evening was plenty. I roamed around the ballpark and thought it was cool, but I think doing it on both nights would have been overkill. My patience for drunk people and loudmouths is dwindling and a lot of the ballpark experience can be determined by your neighbors in the ballpark. I had a couple of lightly obnoxious people in front of me and a family with young kids to the left of me.

Sheng Wang turned out to be really funny as well. His opener not so much, but that was OK since he wasn't on all that long. I love Wang's delivery. I thought he meandered a bit through some kitchen gadget stuff but his last 20 minutes were very solid. He ended on a grateful note and said that he learns a lot about his audience from the staff at the venues, who are complimentary of his audiences. And he went on promptly at 8 and was done at 9:15. I loved this, because I was beat after the travel.

I watched baseball after the show, which got me amped for Saturday's game, then went to bed.

Saturday morning, I woke up and headed downstairs for my free breakfast at about 8:30. There was some glitch with the system when I checked in Friday night, so the associate gave me a voucher. I had a French toast since I basically had had a breakfast sandwich for lunch on Friday. I walked around Lake Erie before my entry time at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was at 10:30. There was a walk and run for St Jude's down by the lakefront. 

The only thing that I didn't pack that came back to bite me was a hat. The sun beat down on me a bit while I awaited my admission time at the HOF and later when I was waiting for the gates to open at PF. But I managed in both cases. There's always something that I forget, and I'm just glad it wasn't my sunglasses or passport.

The HOF was enjoyable. I thought about my dad a lot and I thought he would like it, but he'd be disappointed in the lack of drum representation. There were only a few drums or drum paraphernalia in the displays and not very much in the gift shop. It seemed like the guitar was the only instrument featured. 

And the HOF was crowded. This mostly had to do with the fact that it was Member Appreciation Day. (Incidentally, it was Fan Appreciation Night at the ballpark). Lots of cramped spaces filled with people. The basement was really cool and featured several exhibits. One was about the various places that rock originated and the influence of those places on the sound. Another was on women, and another about SNL, which was OK but the exhibit that Sarah and I saw in Chicago about SNL was much cooler.