Tick-Borne Disease

Free at Bexley Library Adventures in Ecological Horticulture with Rebecca McMackin Wednesday, March 18 1:00pm - 2:30pm Gone are the days when a garden could be ornamental alone. We now recognize the impact that our land care practices have on the ecosystems around us, and can see the importance of encouraging biodiversity. Thankfully, we do not need to sacrifice beauty when we invite butterflies and songbirds into our gardens. Rebecca McMackin has cultivated gorgeous landscapes in the toughest environments possible: urban parks, school playgrounds, and the sidewalks of New York City. She will take lessons from her work at Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Brooklyn Museum, and decades of research to share how those of us who are fortunate enough to care for land, can do it beautifully and ecologically. Rebecca McMackin is an ecologically obsessed horticulturist and garden designer. She writes, lectures, and teaches on ecological landscape management and pollination ecology, as well as designs the rare public garden. She is currently Lead Horticulturist for the American Horticultural Society, an Associate with the Harvard Divinity School’s Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative, and Consulting Arboretum Curator for Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, NY. Rebecca spent a decade as Director of Horticulture of Brooklyn Bridge Park, where she managed 85 acres of diverse parkland organically. Their research into cultivating urban biodiversity and ethical management strategies has influenced thousands of people and entire urban parks systems to adopt similar approaches. She has been published by and featured in the New York Times, Gardens Illustrated, on NPR and PBS. Her garden for the Brooklyn Museum recently won the PPA’s Award of Excellence and her TED Talk has been viewed over a million times. She holds M.Sc. from Columbia University and University of Victoria in landscape design and biology and recently completed the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. This program is presented in partnership with Rooted in Bexley and generously funded by the Bexley Community Foundation and Bexley Community Author Series Fund.

Let’s meet and discuss this fun but moving collection of wildly creative short stories. (Photo credit: TimesNowNews.com)

The Forge does have a full bar and kitchen. There is no cover charge but they do request all attendees to purchase a minimum of ~$20 per person. Soft drink refills are $1 each. Please support our hosts so we can continue to provide great events for the group! The Forge has a large library of games available for us to enjoy. Hosts and regulars will also provide numerous popular games but please bring any games you would like to teach and/or play. Doors open at 6, and we expect gaming to be rolling by around 630. Please promptly end your games and clear out the space at 10pm when the bar closes. We encourage socializing but do not permit disruptive behavior of any kind. Thank you for your continued commitment to providing a fun and welcoming space to veteran, newbie, and rookie gamers in the Columbus area. Parking can be challenging. There is a parking lot behind the neighboring Mexican restaurant that is free and easy to walk from but it's a bit hidden.

This is a relaxed, community-driven Unity GameDev meetup. There’s no strict agenda this time — just developers getting together to talk shop, share projects, and exchange ideas. **Some topics that may come up (based on attendee interest):** • Frame Debugger & performance tooling • Addressables & additive scene workflows • Input System, localization, responsive UI • AI integration approaches • DevOps & LiveOps experiences • Full lifecycle: idea → cross-platform publishing • Favorite Asset Store tools and hidden gems • Weird Unity quirks we’ve all run into *Nothing is locked in.* Bring a project if you’d like. Bring a question. Bring a lesson learned. Or just come hang out and meet other developers. All skill levels welcome!

Let's grab some coffee/food and share a morning chat! The East Market has an ample parking lot and outdoor and indoor seating. Grab a cup of coffee from Winston's Coffee & Waffles or on your way to East Market and meet us on the second floor - table behind or east of the elevator. Per what this group is about: "Everyone is welcome! International transplants to Columbus who want to improve language skills, Columbus residents who want to discuss international travel and culture, and anyone who enjoys getting together for good conversations."

The topic for March is "Our Bodies, Ourselves" Speak Easy: true stories, told live. The idea is simple: an audience, an open microphone, and great stories. Hilarious, gripping, poignant- it's up to you. Audiences are invited to come to listen or come to tell as folks from all corners of Columbus offer their stories live on stage! Held at Wild Goose Creative's warm, intimate space, this night of tales occurs on the 3rd Thursday of every month. Doors open at 6:30 pm, show starts at 7:00 pm. Please arrive early if you want to tell, as we generally only have room for a limited number of tellers, and the sign-up sheet has a tendency to fill up fast. Formed around the idea that people need stories--they're what hold and draw us together--SpeakEasy celebrates the strangeness and commonness of being human. And in a world of smartphones, Facebook, Twitter, and more . . . it gives people a real, breathing, in-person way to connect. The night is geared for true stories of all kinds, taking the best tales told around kitchen tables, in darkened pubs, on the street corner, and at late-night parties and giving them an audience. Speak Easy is also a great outlet for performers, writers, and artists looking to share their favorite stories and perfect their skills. We strongly encourage tellers to please tell the story rather than read it so we keep within the spirit of good storytelling and stay engaged with the audience. All are welcome. Hang around after the show for a drink and build community!

Celebrate the first day of Spring with us! Join us at select [#MarketDistrict](https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/marketdistrict?__eep__=6&__cft__%5B0%5D=AZXglupYTNnuPXhU3gU2DI9GInOg8OWWSvEJTry0VDGnMwh3tC6LxAkyc13s7j-hzoCa7zpemBLJbwdOAIfL-4l-h-eX3x7UFBl6CgHm1ijsL9C9hR_jWvIa_CNOjxBCQzMpVcaRfKr1LrRukr4nY0KHoqN2w3gXLadSqHBf6hPcBx13ltDk2suI8GhnjfjDOUs&__tn__=*NK-R) (*we are meeting at Grandview Yard*) locations for Flights & Bites on the third Friday of the month from 5-8pm. *We'll meet about 5:30pm til 7:00pm. Feel free to join us anytime before 6:45pm.* **Cost: $15.00 per person *(covers 4 wine or beer samples paired with gourmet appetizers)*** **Meet**: The staff will set aside tables for our group, just behind the bar. Feel free to brings cards if you want to play after your tasting. Sometimes, we head to a venue to hear live music afterwards.

Early-bird coffee and conversation at [Crimson Cup Coffee Shop - Clintonville](https://www.crimsoncup.com/about/location/clintonville)!

Let's grab some coffee/food and share a morning chat! The East Market has an ample parking lot and outdoor and indoor seating. Grab a cup of coffee from Winston's Coffee & Waffles or on your way to East Market and meet us on the second floor - table behind or east of the elevator. If the weather cooperates we will be meeting in the patio. Per what this group is about: "Everyone is welcome! International transplants to Columbus who want to improve language skills, Columbus residents who want to discuss international travel and culture, and anyone who enjoys getting together for good conversations."

We thought of one of the interesting things that can be enjoyed at this time of the year. We will be meeting at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church for a "Fish Fry" in Marian Hall on Friday, March 27th at 5:00 PM. It might be fun for you to experience what has become a tradition on the Fridays before Easter. They will have fried fish or baked fish, French fries and Cole slaw, as well as beverages, all for $16.00 for adults. They will have other beverages and desserts available for sale, as well. We have never tried this, and sometimes there are quite a few people at these events so we hope that we will be able to find each other easily. I'll try to have signs outside Marian Hall that Identify our group. We hope to have you join us!

**Improving Office in Franklinton** Physical location: Improving Office 330 Rush Alley Suite #150 Columbus, OH 43215 Schedule: 6:00 p.m.: Socialize, eat, and drink. Improving will be providing pizza and beverages. 6:30 to 8:00 pm. Main meeting and presentation(s). Topic: Type Annotations with John Cassidy We meet on the last Monday of each Month. Presentations are given by members and friends of this group. If you would like to do a presentation (small or large) on a python topic, please contact Central OH Python at centralohpython@gmail.com

Discover Kiro, AWS’s innovative development environment that adapts to your workflow. Whether you prefer specification-driven development or a more intuitive, vibe-based approach, Kiro empowers you to build applications your way. In this session, speakers will explore Kiro’s core functionality and its evolution through re:Invent 2025, along with demonstrations of prompts used to create APIs, hooks, and steering documents. In the latter part of the session, watch as we build a complete example from scratch, showcasing Kiro’s agentic AI workflow in action for spec-driven development and vibe coding. What You'll Learn - Core Kiro concepts and development philosophy Feature evolution: pre and post re:Invent 2025 Practical examples: API creation, hooks, and steering docs Live coding demonstration with real-time problem solving Who Should Attend - Developers, solutions architects, and technical leaders interested in modern AWS development tools and AI-assisted coding workflows. **Speakers Bio:** Matthew Jorat: Matthew Jorat is a Customer Solutions Manager at AWS with nearly three decades of expertise in AI, cloud transformation, migration, modernization, IT, technology, and business. His career spans infrastructure engineer, solutions architect, security auditor, customer success director, support and services director, and operations officer. He was an early adopter of AWS services as a customer, and his current role at AWS uniquely blends his technical and business skills as he partners with executive teams to translate strategic priorities into measurable business outcomes through cloud adoption, AI implementation, and operational excellence. Matt leads end-to-end AI initiatives for enterprise customers, identifying high-impact use cases and maintaining relentless focus on measurable ROI. He holds eight AWS certifications and serves as Adjunct Professor at Franklin University teaching cloud computing and AWS architecture. His expertise encompasses GenAI, agentic AI systems, migration, modernization, and optimization strategies that drive transformation at scale. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattjorat/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattjorat/) Girish Bhatia: Girish Bhatia is a seasoned technology delivery leader with deep expertise in cross-domain program management. He holds multiple AWS certifications, including AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate, AWS Certified Developer – Associate, and AWS Generative AI Practitioner, and is also an AWS Community Builder. Girish brings over two decades of experience in the information technology industry. Throughout his career, Girish has led major technology-driven business transformation from modernizing on-premises applications to driving large-scale cloud migrations. His work includes API-based integration platforms, data-center and mainframe modernization, and enterprise cloud adoption initiatives. Based in Columbus, Ohio, Girish works at a tech-forward fintech company. He is passionate about AWS serverless architectures, Generative AI and emerging cloud technologies. An avid learner and builder, he continues to explore and apply the latest innovations in AWS to help organizations accelerate their digital transformation. https://www.linkedin.com/in/girishbhatia/[https://www.linkedin.com/in/girishbhatia/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/girishbhatia/) **THANK YOU** *Franklin University* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Franklin University*, please visit their website: https://www.franklin.edu/ **DIRECTIONS** Franklin University Fisher Hall 300 E. Main St, Columbus, OH 43215 Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jxjBA2hUmS5qrvhq8 Parking is FREE! Please park in Lot C in front of Fisher Hall. See attached map. NOTE: Map the address only. When mapping with Google Maps it may use the Fisher Hall at OSU, which is NOT correct. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com

Hi ladies. We will meet in front of the Nature Center and head to the two Observation decks. We will then hike Hickory Ridge, Ripple Rock, Overlook and Sugarbush trails to get approximately four miles total distance. We will walk approximately a 18 minute mile pace. Please wear appropriate hiking shoes.