Over 60 Scandinavians and friends met at the Shooters restaurant in the Flats to celebrate the fact that Leif Erikson was the first to discover North America — almost 500 years before Columbus thought he had arrived in India. A special toast was held to the great Scandinavian Viking explorer in front of the Leif Erikson Monument at the base of the old swing railroad bridge outside the entrance to Shooters.

Ingemar Svala, our own Professional Photographer (website http://ingemarsvalaphotography.com) took many photos at the event. Click here to view web album!

Why does it matter now? Well, some modern day claims are outrageous. Of course the Native Americans were here first. But who traveled to America first? It may well have been the Chinese (although they apparently did not want to keep their records available for later generations).

We know for a fact that is was not Columbus. The case is made for Leif Erikson’s exploration around 1000 AD. See attached “Who Really Discovered America” — an amusing read.

It was natural for Leif to explore. He did tell others of what he found but his “marketing” was poor. It was also natural for the Chinese to travel far and wide but they apparently did not preserve their records well for future generations. Still, the Chinese probably traveled to the American continent before Leif. Columbus discovery is much disputed. See e.g. http://yeefow.com/past/499.html. Leif was the first European while a Chinese explorer likely was the first Asian.

Did you know that an infinite supply of free fuel is available for both heating and electricity, courtesy of our sun, a fusion reactor perfected long ago, conveniently situated 93 million miles from our planet?

Neil Sater, CEO of the local “green tech” company Greenfield Solar talked about solar energy in general and his companies special technology in particular. At GreenField, the goal is to drive solar energy into mainstream adoption through lower costs, without subsidies. They have developed a radically different approach to solar energy, using high intensity concentration. This technology was developed to be highly scalable, allowing for rapid increase in production, at low cost. Click here to view the slide show from Neil’s presentation.

Solar power holds the promise of delivering clean energy to meet the world’s growing demand. Lower costs and scalable production are the keys to delivering on this promise. The future is now, and GreenField http://greenfieldsolar.com is proud to usher in a new era in solar energy.

Neil’s interesting presentation was followed by a long Q&A session and continued discussions while cocktails and hors d’œuvres were served.

The third annual SACC-Ohio crayfish party gathered a record of almost 60 members and friends. Everyone enjoyed the crayfish, the singing, and the opportunity to meet old and new friends. Click here to see the invitation.

Please click on this link to view a photo gallery from the Crayfish Party. We thank our own press photographer for these photos: Ingemar Svala Photography
Vermilion, Ohio
440 522 6030

Jeff Friedman is a volunteer presenter for The Climate Project (TCP). TCP is a movement to educate and challenge citizens and governments about the growing crisis of global warming and was created as a follow-up to the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth.

Jeff is one of 1,000 individuals in the US, who completed a training program led by former Vice President Al Gore to spread the message about the threat of and solutions to global warming.

Jeff is the owner of Webtego, a Cleveland-based website development firm and volunteers his time giving presentations throughout Ohio, educating community groups, businesses and local governments about climate change and how individuals and organizations can be a major part of the solution to the growing crisis.

The Edays in Savannah gathered around 300 participants from Sweden and the United States. Click here for more information on this event.

Recently, around 40 members and guests had an opportunity to visit The Robbins Company in Cleveland (www.robbinstbm.com), one of only two worldwide manufacturers of big tunnel boring machines or TBM's. Such TBM's have for instance bored the tunnel under the English Channel and the new railroad tunnel under Malmö. Robbins is specialized in hard rock boring which actually is less expensive than the older blasting techniques. In these recession times it was good to hear that Robbins expects a continued increase in sales in 2009.