Category Archives: Blogs

Pittsburgh Women Blogger MeetUp is Tomorrow! Tue 12/3

Portrait of a Woman Blogger, after Frederick C...

Portrait of a Woman Blogger, after Frederick Carl Frieseke (Photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com)

We’ve had a great interest in the idea of a Pittsburgh Women’s blogger MeetUp and now we are an official MeetUp.com group.

Due to last week’s threat of snow – the first meeting of this new MeetUp group was rescheduled to Tuesday, December 2, 2013 at 5pm at the c-leveled offices in Bloomfield.

If you would like to attend on Tuesday 12/3 – Please RSVP on the MeetUp page here.

Pittsburgh Women Blogger MeetUp 
Tuesday, December 2, 2013
5-6:30pm
c-leveled, 4117 Liberty Ave, Pittsburgh, Pa (NOTE – the google address is wrong – use this address – c-leveled is in the Drake Building which is across from the Bloomfield Bridge)

Can’t make it tomorrow? Please join the Pittsburgh Women Bloggers MeetUp group here.

Women Blogger MeetUp Next Week

Stern Woman Blogger

Stern Woman Blogger (Photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com)

I have recently had the opportunity to meet several new women entrepreneurs in Pittsburgh who are working on building some exciting companies.

I am looking for other women bloggers in Pittsburgh who would be interested in meeting to network and meet some of these entrepreneurs.  If this first event goes well, we are looking at making this a monthly event.

I am organizing an event next Monday or Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  If you a women, you have a blog and you would like to attend – click here to let us know what date and time works best for you.   (We’ll try to find a time that works for most people and we can plan a second event if needed.)

The folks at c-leveled, a consulting firm that works with small businesses and startups, has offered to host this meeting at their offices in Bloomfield. (Full disclosure – I work part-time for c-leveled).

NaBloPoMo – Pittsburgh Bloggers Take the 30 Days, 30 Blog Posts Challenge

NaBloPoMo_November_largeEach November writers around the world participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where participants try to write a novel in a month.  Not to be out done, the bloggers have jumped on the bandwagon with NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month).  The folks at BlogHer organize NaBloPoMo each month and provide a list of blogging prompts, participating bloggers and even some contests.  Over 2000 bloggers have signed up to participate in November 2013.

One of my fellow Pittsburgh bloggers posted about NaBloPoMo last week in the Pittsburgh Bloggers Facebook Group (yep – we’ve got an awesome Facebook group that is used for sharing links, answering questions and scheming up good things for Pittsburgh – if you are a blogger or would like to start blogging, you should join the group here.)

I’ve participated in previous NaBloPoMo’s before and I like the challenge, plus I’m eager to get back to writing blog posts for both IheartPGH and my other blogging project BlogLocal.  If you haven’t checked out BlogLocal – I’m working on building a community of local bloggers across the country.  Please take a look at the BlogLocal blog here, like BlogLocal on Facebook and follow @BlogLocally on Twitter.

NaBloPoMo PGH

NaBloPoMo_PGH_screenshotI thought it would be interesting to see what the Pittsburgh bloggers who are participating in NaBloPoMo November are writing about.  I’ve put together a Tumblr blog for Pittsburgh bloggers to share their NaBloPoMo posts for the month – http://nablopomopgh.tumblr.com.

There are a bunch of great Pittsburgh blogs who have stepped up to the NaBloPoMo challenge – you can check out the list here. And follow @NaBloPoMoPGH on twitter for updates.

Are you a Pittsburgh blogger who is blogging all month long? Leave a comment below and we’ll add you to the list!

 

Bucs Blog Round-Up

Last week, I made my introduction to the blogging world by posting a bite-sized rant about Pittsburgh Pirates fandom. I regret nothing.

Now, though, it’s time to get down to business. In the grand tradition of Myron Cope, Pittsburgh sportswriters remain some of the most intelligent and opinionated in their field and, with the exponential growth of Internet, so too have Pittsburgh sports bloggers grown, both in number and in opinion. Since Pirates bloggers are perhaps the most opinionated of the bunch, and since good journalism is essential to any good fan’s understanding of their team, I feel obligated to deliver to you at least a sampling of the finest the Internet has to offer, in terms of Pittsburgh baseball.

 

General Knowledge

Baseball without statistics is like peanut butter without jelly, or a shopping cart without a broken wheel. If you head down to PNC Park and don’t hear about Pedro Alvarez’s slugging percentage in the last 20 day games at home, ask for your money back. What’s that? You don’t know what a slugging percentage is, you say? Perfect. Check out these websites and be enlightened.

 

Baseball Reference

Click image for link

Baseball Reference covers all the bases (no pun intended), providing information from a player’s batting average to his place of burial (if applicable). What’s more, the site provides formulas for the more complicated statistics, which can be found by simply hovering at the top of a column. Regardless of what you’re looking for, though, Baseball Reference is the place to start.

 

FanGraphs

Click image for link

Click image for link

FanGraphs reads more like a blog than Baseball Reference does, and tends to cover a lot of straightforward baseball stuff (Here’s an article about The Pleasures of Team Allegiance, which probably does more convincing than I could ever hope to). Still, there’s a twist. FanGraphs is representative of the growing camp in baseball journalism that supports a larger integration of advanced statistics, called sabermetrics in analyzing how the game works, (see Moneyball for more information, or the book for even more information) which has ruffled the feathers of baseball “traditionalists” the world over. Stay tuned for news of a new world order, but in the meantime, let’s transition to the main attraction…

 

Pirates Blogs

This is where we get specific. Any knowledge that you might acquire in the above websites can be used to better understand the blogs that follow, and likewise, you can use stats and facts to keep certain bloggers honest. Not that you’ll need to use your new superpowers on Pirates bloggers—those guys are on your side. Instead, cross-examine scheming Reds and Cubs bloggers, who might be trying to show you up.

 

Bucs Dugout

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Click image for link

A member of the SBNation network of blogs, Bucs Dugout is managed by Charlie Wilmoth, and covers late breaking news from the Pirates’ front office, (trades, free agent signings, etc.) as well as provides gamethreads for fans to comment on games in progress, and recaps past games. Additionally, the writers at Bucs Dugout often open the floor to fan submitted posts, photos and links.

 

Pirates Prospects

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Click image for link

Formerly B.U.C.C.O. Fans.com, (where B.U.C.C.O. stands for Bring Us a Championship Caliber Organization), Pirates Prospects is managed by Tim Williams, and is mostly concerned with the MLB draft and Pirates’ minor league system. Williams and company emphasize that the children, and not the current big leaguers, are the future of the organization.

 

Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke?

Click Image for Link

Click image for link

W.H.Y.G.A.V.S.? derives its title from Pat Lackey’s understandable frustration with the team following its collapse in 1992, and the veritable disappearance of superstar players like Van Slyke. Recently, Lackey has had slightly less to be upset about, as the light at the end of the tunnel draws ever nearer, but he, like many other Pirates bloggers remain cautious about getting too excited for the team.

 

Raise the Jolly Roger

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Click image for link

Brian McElhinny has a phenomenal Twitter presence, and, in addition to writing daily posts about the Buccos, can be seen to tweet the popular hashtag, “#RaiseIt,” whenever the Pirates get a win. Though the call to raise the Jolly Roger has become strongly associated with Pirates’ broadcaster Greg Brown,  McElhinny deserves some praise for personifying the enthusiasm that Pirates fans can have for their team.

All of the bloggers discussed above, plus many other writers, can be found on Twitter, and have been compiled in a Twitter list for your convenience.

 

Writing about the Rust Belt – GLUE and Rustbelt Almanac

I’ve got two great projects to share with you, both are related to sharing stories about rustbelt cities including Pittsburgh.

If you have been a regular reader of IheartPGH over the years, you have probably read a few of our posts about GLUE.  GLUE stands for Great Lakes Urban Exchange – a project that was started by a Pittsburgher and a Detroiter (is there a Detroit equivalent to the word Pittsburgher?).  I’ve been fortunate to attend many of the GLUE conferences, the most recent conference was held in September 2011 here in Pittsburgh.  Through GLUE I have had the chance to meet my blogging counterparts from other rust belt cities.  Some of my fellow GLUE friends have been discussing another GLUE conference for this fall.  We’ve also launched the GLUE Tumblr blog – which is open for submission.  If you have a story, link, photos or video that you would like to share with fellow city lovers please submit here – http://gluespace.tumblr.com/submit

Speaking of story sharing.  Meet Rustbelt Almanac – a new magazinge that will be launching very soon with a first issue about Pittsburgh.  Congrats to the Rustbelt Almanac team on not only meeting but beating their fundraising goal.  Check out the video below.  (There is one more day to contribute – you can still donate to the Rustbelt Almanac kickstarter campaign here.)