ProPress, Berea Road, Cleveland

When I travel to Cleveland, I spend a few days working at ProPress, a small advertising/creative services agency. Before I moved to New York City almost seven years ago, I worked as a graphic designer here. ProPress was so small at the time that it was actually just me, Jason, and the two principals, Steve and Teresa.

I'm staying at the Hampton Inn Downtown Cleveland on East Ninth Street. The hotel is built on the site of the former Regency Apartments, where I lived (with my cat Cricket) after I graduated from high school in the early '90s. At the time I was paying $325 a month for a studio apartment, and it was hell trying to come up with just that every month. I ended up breaking my lease and packing all of my things up into a shower curtain, but that is another story for another time.

After putting in a few good hours at ProPress, I met up with my former roommate Raymond, and we had dinner at Sushi Rock in Cleveland's Warehouse District.