After this week’s tornado that ripped through Hempfield Township, a lot of local media has been running donation drives to support the Red Cross.

Not to nit-pick (but I will): you’re mispronouncing it.

The Red Cross chapter is the Westmoreland-Chestnut Ridge Chapter.  Not Chester.  Chestnut Ridge.  I cringe every time I hear it said wrong.

I know Westmoreland County isn’t as glamorous as Allegheny, or as “interesting” as Fayette, but here’s a short history lesson.  The Chestnut Ridge is an area of the Laurel Highlands, named after the American Chestnut trees that once grew there.  When the Saint Vincent Basilica was built, the wood used was American Chestnut.  After the building of the Basilica, a blight hit the tree species, and very few remain today in mature form, and the species is still in danger of extinction.  This makes the Saint Vincent Basilica pretty much priceless, which is crazy to think about.

Anyway, click below to donate to the Red Cross and help the families in Westmoreland County affected by the tornado.

Wednesday brings a big decision for me (well, not really, I already RSVP’d to the one event, but I’m pretty bummed anyway).  While I am heading to the North Shore to a special reception for Squonk Opera, one of my favorite columnists of all time will be at Pitt’s campus: Dan Savage.  Basically, if you have ever thought about sex, you should go.  Hell, even if you’ve never thought about sex, you really need to go.

Dan Savage is the internationally-syndicated sex-advice columnist from Seattle, you can read “Savage Love” every week in City Paper.  He also has a weekly podcast and, along with his husband, founded the It Gets Better Project.  I’m a huge fan of his work and activism (google Santorum, or don’t, if you have a weak stomach or are at work), and I usually quote him to my friends, endlessly.  However, if you read nothing else by him, please read “The Commitment,” a book where he examines marriage, and every iteration of relationships by looking at his family.  It’s such a good book that I pulled  quote from it and wrote a toast for a wedding around it.

Anyway, enough of me gushing.  Savage will be at Pitt on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m.  The event is free and open to the public, but preference is given to Pitt students (fair is fair).  Hopefully, we’ll see some of the question and answer session go up to Savage’s youtube channel, if so, I’ll post a few in the future.

Have fun, I’ll be jealous from across town!  Click here for the Facebook event and more information.

I don’t know how long this will be up, hopefully I can pop in with some more info later, but anyone looking for a blogger, I feel as though I’m going to be free very soon and looking for a new home online…

OMGPittsburgh is a possibility, or maybe I’ll start something myself, but how would people find me.  Sigh.  I love blogging here, who knows, maybe we’ll get another miracle!

Contact me here!

A friend of mine put together this video (hopefully it will embed correctly) about the film tax credit.  It comes down to the fact that if the tax credit is not in the budget, Pennsylvania, and Pittsburgh specifically, is going to lose out on a lot of jobs and revenue.  Christopher Nolan has already been spotted downtown scouting out locations for the third Batman movie, but he’s gone on record saying that he won’t be able to film in Pittsburgh without the tax credit.

Please call the Governor and let him know that you support the tax credit.  Pittsburgh needs a hero.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcXZa41UysE[/youtube]

You smell like a wet dog.

Not that that really matters, you’ll be covered in a blanket of snow tomorrow morning.

Still working on getting mobile uploading working, I’ve been posting a lot, but nothing is showing up, more soon.

From the depths of Metblogs, once again comes…a kitteh.

As I mentioned briefly before, I’m looking for more writers.

Here’s the deal: We (Metblogs authors) write because we love the cities we live in (now granted, I consider Southwestern PA to be Pittsburgh.  I spend enough time romping through Westmoreland and Fayette counties to know we’re all Burghers).  All you have to do is write about Pittsburgh.  Anything that is related to Pittsburgh.  I tend to write about transportation, culture-type things and fun things I see when I’m walking to and from my bus stop.  If you want to write about those things too, that’s awesome!  I don’t know much about Pittsburgh politics, since I live in the suburbs, and I tend to only follow hockey.  We’re pretty irreverent here sometimes, we have fun with what we write.  If we don’t, what’s the point?

What do you get out of being a Metblogs author?  Well, I keep getting invited to things, for free!  I’ve seen a bunch of special preview shows, gotten to interview awesome people who I would normally not have access to, and also, every now and then, just get free stuff.  I’ve gotten a lot of exposure for my own blog, and made friends in other cities because of the community of authors.

And, here’s the fun thing, since I’m Captain now, I can give you stuff.  Case in point, at least every other month (but I’ll try for monthly), we’ll have an author meet-up, and the first round of drinks is on me (21+ only, younger authors can write, but I’ll be buying you something non-alcoholic).  That’s right, free drinks, just for writing about the city you love.  Seriously, where else are you going to find a deal like that?

What do you need to do?  Write about Pittsburgh.  That’s it.  I try to post at least once a day (sometimes I fail, hence the need for help).  The general rule is to post 2-3 times a week, but if you can’t, that’s okay too.  When we have a lot of authors, we just make sure that we don’t post over one another (that is, letting other posts sit at the top of the page at least an hour, and scheduling of posts does that easily), unless something is happening live.  I post a lot from my phone (you can post from a flip phone, Android, or iOS device).

If you’re interested, send me a message, I’d love to see some previous online writing if you have some, and if you don’t, that’s okay too, I’ll work with you, no worries.

As always, thanks for reading.

I was driving on McKnightmare road when I got pummeled by rain.  However, nothing like this:

Photo credit: @junofive

Good gravy.  Stay dry and be safe out there!

So here’s the big update.   As you can see, we’re not going away!  The servers went down for a few hours, and again later for about ten minutes for some maintenance, but we’re here to stay.

Mobile uploading is up, and I’ll be testing it out tomorrow, so look for a post as I walk up The Hill (I’ll give you a hint, it involves Fleury).

The other big news (at least to me), is that I’m now officially the city captain!  Now I’ll be able to bug people to add them as authors.  I’ll have another post up about that, but basically, I want more people to write for Metblogs.  I’ve gotten all kinds of free tickets and invited to cool events since I’m a writer for Metblogs.  I’ll even throw in author meet-ups (maybe every other month or so), and I’ll buy the first round of drinks.

Authors just need to be able to post a few times a week as they’re able, and the posts have to be about Pittsburgh.  Other than that, you’re free to write about anything.  I write a lot about theater and transportation, as well as things I see as I walk around town, but you can cover whatever you want.  But like I said, I’ll post more about that later.

There are some cool things coming down the pipe, I can’t wait to help roll them out.  In the meantime, if you have any suggestions as to what you want to see, hit me up in the comments, I’m always happy to do a new project (like The July Project), or cover what people are interested in.

Thanks for reading, I’m really glad you’re here.

Image Source

Just waiting for tonight.

I was not able to watch the game on the big screen yesterday, but for those that did: cheese steak!