Category: Erie

Matt Millen Erie Connection?

Did anybody hear the Football Today Podcast on Oct. 9th?  Jeremy Green was talking with Bill Williamson about the Raiders.  When they got to the subject of possibly hiring a general manager, Matt Millen’s name came up and Jeremy Green said quote.

Its a long flight from Oakland back to Erie, Pennsylvania

So my question is this does Matt Millen reside here in Erie, PA and what is his connection here?

Officially an Erie-ite

I am now officially an Erie-ite. Once I get settled in a week or so I will update to 2.6 and begin updating Category-Visibility. Goal is to have a new version out mid to late August.  Have already been playing with 2.6 on a few other sites and like what I have seen. Also, keep an eye out for Eriedia.com soon to explode on the Erie scene….

AJSPS

Technology Fair & Student Showcase

If you get the chance today take a trip up to the Tom Ridge Center at Presque Isle. Northwest Pennsylvania Association of Educational Communications and Technology (NPAECT) is holding its 14th Annual Technology Fair and Student Showcase from 3:00 to 7:00 pm. The Technology Fair and Student Showcase is a celebration of the wonderful technology projects involving students from the tri-county area. The fair is free and open to public, so come and see what the students are doing with technology in their school.

AJSPS

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Beer with the Bishop

I am currently sitting at Barnes & Noble’s. I was just at Theology On Tap at Brewerie. This is a four part series put on by the Erie Diocese aimed toward young adults. I was pleasently surprised. The turn out, while not huge, filled the room that they reserved which leads me to believe was greater than they had envisioned. Being a long time Catholic I have my personal view of my faith and I had a preconceived notion of the churches view of my faith.
The first speaker in the series was the Bishop, Donald Trautman. The topic was “Finding Faith in a Messy World.” Now as could be expected the initial talk was pretty dull and lecturesc. He had a series of notes and followed them pretty closely. There was then a discussion session with the group you happened to be sitting with followed by a Q & A with the Bishop. This last part was very enlightening. The Bishop was much more candid, at easy, and quite personable. After, a short period silence there where many good questions. I came way from the experience with my faith strengthened and found that churches views where quite a bit closer to my personal views than I had initially thought. I now have a renewed faith in the Church as a whole.
There are three parts left in the series:

April 20th Happy Hours: 9 to 5 speaker is Barb Lindstrom about finding faith in your occupation.

April 27th Just War Theory, Pacifism and the War in Iraq speaker is Fr. Robert Susa about “….find a realistic and faithfully Christian response to war in today’s world.”

May 4th You Think You Know, But You Don’t. What does the Catholic Church teach about sex and love? speaker is Dr. Mary Ann Rivera about “… the complexity and the gift of sexuality and relationships for today’s young adults.”

So, if you have any interest at all, I highly suggest you join the group next week. Sit back have a beer and examine your faith.

AJSPS

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ETN ePaper sucks ass

I ask you does Erie Times-News not understand that the internet is a different medium than paper? I just checked out the electronic paper because I am tired of the piles of newspapers on my dining room table. That is the worst designed piece of crap I have ever seen; I use to think the old GoErie site was bad. Who ever designed the UI for the for the ePaper should be drug out into the street and pelted with rotten fruit. It is clumsy at best. Do they really expect people to pay for this? Why not just have the articles displayed like the rest of the GoErie site. It’s not like there is some hidden secret to what makes a good news site; they done a decent job on the redesign of the main GoErie area.

AJSPS

P.S. This article was subject to drastic over statements do to my odd mood at time of writing.

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Didn’t get around to it.

Here are a number of things I was going to blog about but didn’t get around to it.

  • 3/8 – Jordan’s King Abdullah II pushing for renewed US peace efforts in the Palestine. Update throughout March the King has been pushing for other middle east countries to move toward peace, meeting with Talabani, Lebanese Prime Minister, King Hamad, Massoud Barzani, Saudi King Abdul Aziz, and today Condoleezza Rice. Jordan has long been one of most stable countries in the middle east. It is good to see Jordan taking a forward stance in Peace efforts.
  • 3/8 – Jennie Finch, former olympic team softball pitcher, was on Mike & Mike. She has taken over ESPN’s Fantasy Baseball outlook.
  • 3/9 – Longar Longar, Oklahmoma University Center, how cruel is this kids parents not bad enough that his last name is Longar they gave him the same first name.
  • 3/10 – Erie bowler Mike Machuga’s Machuga flop was on the popular video blog Rocketboom.
  • 3/13 – Penguins are staying Pittsburgh.
  • 3/22 – New York Times Columnist David Pogue, featured Grand Central in his column very slick.
  • 3/22 – Stephon Marbury’s $15 shoes Starbury. available at Steve & Barry’s. In the world of $100 shoes how awesome is this.
  • 3/22 – Sleeping in Space just plain cool check it out on Science Friday.
  • 3/22 – Scratchless CDs

Hope you enjoy these better late than nevers.

AJSPS

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Two Week Hodge Podge

Ugh, I can’t believe it has been two weeks plus already. First, week I got a nasty case of the flu or some other virus. The next was just insanely busy. In the middle the annual horse shoe Tournament at Calfin’s Restaurant (Lavery’s Corner, Rt 98 & 6N). Thats right horse shoe tournament in the middle of February. I think this was the 14th year. It would have made a great first episode for iPeatVB (more on this later). However it snuck up on me and I don’t have any of my equipment ready yet. Plus my brother needed an extra man for their team. We were not to successful but fun was had by all (I always wanted to say that). I think it is pretty safe to say If your idea of a good time is to play horse shoes in 30 degree weather in the rain you might be a redneck.

All you good Catholics out there probably also notice that Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday has come and gone. This commences for me the only time of year in which it is ok to eat at McDs. Thats right during this time of fasting is the only time I will eat at the glutton’s paradise. Why you ask? Because of two Filet-o-fish and a Shamrock Shake. The glorious all glorious, Greatest McDonald’s creations of all time the Shamrock Shake. To my surprise though we in northwest PA are but a lucky minority. In my attempt to see if these seasonal treats where available, McDonalds does not even admit to selling the Shamrock Shake in the US. As I researched further I came upon a stunning tale of whoa. read for yourself and feel lucky you live in Erie County http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0948/.

Listening to the Science Friday Podcast this week and their story about the shrinking ice cap, one thought came to my head Panama has to be shitting itself. If the long searched for Northwest passage opens up far fewer ships are going to be sailing through the locks. Especially as they continue to build bigger and bigger ships.

A new, well not often heard, interesting perspective on western civilization, those that oppose western civilization, and the war was heard on “The Blog Week in Review” this week. If you are not a frequenter of Pajamas Media and/or don’t listen to Blog Week in Review I highly suggest checking out both as well as specifically this week’s guest Victor Davis Hanson he definitely made me rethink some things.

Finally, did anyone else find incredibly humorous yesterday on the Dan Patrick Show every time Reggie Miller called Dan Patrick “Daniel” in that motherly voice. I was laughing my ass off.

AJSPS

P.S. Oh the iPeatVB alluded to above is the next venture I am working toward. And if you have followed any of the Amanda Congdon projects you are well aware that TV is a dirty word in the world of blogging, but Video Blog or Blogger is just to much of a mouthful so hence I will be bringing you iPeatVB. A wiki will be going up shortly to gather ideas past the first several episodes I have mapped out in my brain. Say tuned. (wow I guess that phrase is going to have to change to now that we aren’t tuning anything nor are we staying having it delivered directly and reading, listening, watching whenever we please.)

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GoErie finally produces something to go to

After years stuffing as many ads and partial article as possible and numerous dead links on their web site, it seems that Erie Times-News finally understands how to create a usable web site and the importance of good design. Not only this but they are also embracing new media with blogs, discussion boards, podcasts, and web cams. While this new face is a giant step forward for the times, it is quickly evident that they are still afraid of the internet and its effects on their subscription base. Try to even read highlighted articles and the reader swept off to the very unfriendly registration page. This is a huge annoyance when you just want a quick glance at the days news and don’t have time for a full reading but want more than the one line heading. The biggest gaff of all though is the complete lack of RSS Feeds. It is not like this is a complicated technology to conquer and the number of readers this technology can draw in is huge. If you want evidence of this just take a trip to alexa.com and compare goerie.com to erieblogs.com you’ll notice in past few months erieblogs has caught and twice over took goeerie in number of hits. That is quite impressive and definitely says something about the state of our local news and the power of new media.

AJSPS

P.S. After spouting off above I went back to GoErie and if a RSS smart browser is being used the GoErie RSS is accessible and does supply a few lines more than the heading. Note to Erie Times-News you may want to make this a little more apparent by oh I don’t know using one of the many RSS or feed logos that are out there or at least adding RSS feed in text at bottom of the page with your other subscription links

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Froggie gets slain by BOB

I am so pissed off right now. I got in the car to drive home today and instead of sticking in my iPod I decided to turn on Froggie 94.7 and to my dismay I hear “Do Do you love me straight now baby are you gonna love me forever” I change the station turned it back and sure enough NO froggie instead I get BOB the perfect blend. Ya mean perfect Blend of crapp. Erie has to be the worst City in the nation for radio. I am pretty sure classy 100 was already covering this genre of everything. Now there is no oldies station, no alternative station, no rap station (I am not counting pop crap they put on 103.7) All erie has is country out the ass and pop stations. One or two mediocre rock stations. Plus some crap station in Ohio keeps drowning out 95.9 London’s New Rock. Thankfully I live close enough to Meadville to get WUZZ 94.3 in. Pretty soon though I am going to be forced to buy satellite if I want to listen to anything other than my iPod.

AJSPS

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