Reminder: Fall 2013 Blogfest is TOMORROW!

As originally posted by co-administrator Gort:

Northeastern Pennsylvania Bloggers will be hosting the 8th semi-annual Blogfest at The Red Mill

• 340 S Main St
• Pittston, PA 18640-2367
• Friday September 27th at 6PM

This is an informal gathering of bloggers, candidates for office, elected officials and anyone interested in politics or blogging. There is no charge for admission.

Since it's inception 3 years ago Blogfest has been described as the best political event of the season. No speeches are allowed and the rule is agree to disagree but don't be disagreeable. Many local and statewide candidates will be attending.

RSVP on Facebook

About the header image: September 25, 2013

The Bloomsburg Fair is in full swing this week. While enjoying the tractor pulls and Deep Fried Everything, take a glance at the little shows dotted here and there around the fairgrounds. What is it this year? The World's Smallest Horse? The World's Biggest Rat (ALIVE!)? Actually, I have inside information that there is a Giant Rat to be seen there, along with a Headless Woman, a Spidora (a spider with the head of a woman!), a Serpentina (a snake, also with the head of a woman!) and the debut of an all-new terrifying attraction - a genuine member of the walking dead, a Zombie!

Attractions like these (Single-O's, in carny lingo) - along with jugglers, acrobats, a hypnotist, and a big cat show, as well as the test-your-strength machine, the guess-your-weight-and-age guy, and all sorts of games, some of them even winnable - help to maintain an organic connection between the Bloomsburg Fair of today and the carnival sideshows of days gone by. In 2005, the Bloomsburg Fair was graced by the World of Wonders Sideshow, one of only a handful of genuine traveling sideshows making their way across the U.S.  The legendary Ward Hall himself, a demigod in the world of sideshow, served as the outside talker for the show, and was accompanied by Pete "Poobah" Terhurne, who performed with the World of Wonders for many years until his death in July 2012.

The World of Wonders is not playing Bloomsburg this year, but there's still plenty of fun stuff to see and do - some of it just hidden in out-of-the-way places. Enjoy it all!


If you have any photos you'd like to see used as the NEPA Blogs header, please send them to us at nepablogs@gmail.com.

PA Live! Blog of the Week: Mandy Boyle

NEPA Blogs will be presenting a "Blog of the Week" on WBRE's PA Live! every Tuesday. PA Live! airs weekday afternoons on WBRE from 4:00 to 5:00.

Watch this episode on the PA Live! site: http://www.pahomepage.com/story/blog-of-the-week-october-1st-2013/d/story/1-4SiSxV7ECkuy0rdVsrDA


Our PA Live! Blog of the Week this week is the self-titled Mandy Boyle, formerly known as Mandy Boyle: Freelance Writer (http://mandyboyle.com/.)  

Mandy Boyle is a lot of things. A writer. A blogger. A bride-to-be. One-fourth of the Fearsome Foursome, the quartet of ladies who will be putting on the second annual NEPA BlogCon on October 5 at Luzerne County Community College. (Hurry! Ticket sales end this week!) Since January 2009 she has been sharing all the myriad aspects of her life through her blog.

Mandy Boyle is a "Life" blog - and what a life it is! From her experience at a bridal expo to her love of Autumn to the deep and powerful connection she has with Northeastern Pennsylvania, Mandy Boyle puts so many pieces of her life out there for all to see (including the moment she got engaged - captured on video before a live audience!) To share so much of herself with the big wide world requires a certain amount of fearlessness. So Mandy Boyle is that, too: fearless.

Life blogs aren't for everyone. Everyone has a story to tell, but not everyone wants to share it. When you have the right person who is willing and able to share a tale that is well worth telling, and does it well, it's very much worth your time to take a look and see what she has to say. Mandy Boyle is definitely worth a read!

If you have a blog you would like us to link on NEPA Blogs, or know of a blog you think we should link, please let us know! You can always drop us a line at nepablogs@gmail.com!

Blogosphere Happenings: Vintage Fall Ball

The Vintage Theater has a  fundraiser going on this evening that they wanted us to share with you.  In the past, The Vintage Theater has been extremely supportive of the local arts and literary scene.  It has hosted such events as Tweet-ups, Pecha Kucha Night and the Scranton Story Slam.  If you are looking for something to do this evening, I'd recommend heading downtown and checking out the Fall Ball!  

 

 

RSVP on Facebook

 

 

Original Email Message:

 

Hi there!

Hope you're having a September that's filled with everything apple, cinnamon, and pumpkin. Fall certainly has The Vintage feeling in the spirit of things and in honor of just that, we'll be hosting a Fall Ball event on Saturday, September 21 at 7:00 p.m. in our venue at 326 Spruce Street in Downtown Scranton. We'd love if you can join us, stop in, enjoy some delicious local eats and wares, and hopefully, help us spread the word about our organization and event.  (P.S. - we still have vendor spots available!) 

The Vintage is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas and we're always looking for support from our community to keep our arts, literary, and performance venue alive and well. We're encouraging all of NEPA to attend the Fall Ball as well as make a recurring donation to keep us going strong. 

Any help you can give us in promoting the Fall Ball is very much appreciated and we hope to see you there! Please let me know if you have any questions at all - I'd be happy to provide photos, quotes, or other details to spread the word about this event :)

Thank you again for all of your support!

Mandy Boyle

Chairperson, The Vintage Advisory Board

News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

______________________________________________________________________

Celebrate the Start of Autumn at The Vintage's Fall Ball

We love a good party. We love the fall. We love seeing new and old friends. Let's do all of that on one night.

The Vintage Theater, an all-ages arts space and performance venue within downtown Scranton, is approaching its fifth year of operation and could not be more ecstatic and proud of its hard-work towards its mission of accessible and affordable arts of all mediums, styles and genres. The Fall Ball is our way of saying thank you to the community and welcoming the season - we hope you'll join us!

The event will be held on Saturday, September 21st, beginning at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $5-$10 (give more if you can) at the door. The Vintage's Fall Ball will showcase food from local farms, mulled wine (for 21+ patrons only), spiced cider, delicious fall-inspired chocolates, artisan wares, live music and much, much more. 

An array of local vendors and artisans will be on-site, including Bella Faccias Chocolate Creations, offering gourmet chocolates and OM in The Attic, featuring hand crafted, one-of-a-kind, vegan, wooden jewelry, infused with love, made using fallen branches from Northeast PA. Additionally, The Vintage will be partnering with several local farmers who will be offering fresh produce, as well as samples of food, wine, and desserts. 

Artists Diana Perciballi, Heidi Van Lueven, and Brent Pennington will also have work on display and available for purchase.

If you're looking for the ideal way to welcome the season while support arts, culture, and local businesses in Downtown Scranton, The Vintage's Fall Ball is the must-attend event of the season.  

For more information, visit ScrantonsVintageTheater.com or join the official event page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1406913696195263/?ref=22

What: The Fall Ball

Who: Hosted by The Vintage

When: September 21st 2013; Doors open at 7:00 pm

Where:The Vintage Theater, 326 Spruce Street, Scranton, PA 18503

Tickets: $5.00 – $10.00 (give more if you can) - At Door

Contact: Conor O'Brien, info@scrantonsvintagetheater.com or 570-507-9671

Like Us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scrantonvintage

Follow Us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/vintagetheater

Donate: https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/fiscal/profile?id=8397

Our Website: http://www.scrantonsvintagetheater.com

Miss Shuganah

Another long-overdue link to one of the folks from last year's NEPA Blog Con. I might have met her, especially if she was hanging out with Para-Dice Jackson. I have a terrible memory for names, but I'm pretty sure I wound up with one of her blog cards. (BLOG CARDS ARE VERY IMPORTANT, YO.)

Anyway. This is one of those blogs that makes you think it needs a parental advisory sticker, except that none of the crass or outrageous or offensive stuff that Miss Shuganah Posts is any worse than the crass or offensive or outrageous stuff anyone else posts. Plus it's funny, and there's stuff about dogs and recipes and whatnot.

Miss Shuganah: cesspool of batshit
http://miss-shuganah.com/

Check it out. And come to the NEPA BlogCon on October 5 and see what kind of interesting bloggers you might meet there!

About the header image: September 18, 2013

On Saturday, October 5, Luzerne County Community College in Nanticoke will play host to the second annual NEPA BlogCon, the product of the passion, drive, and hard work of four tech-savvy bloggers who call themselves the Fearsome Foursome: Karla Porter, Leslie Stewart, Mandy Boyle, and NEPA Blogs co-administrator Michelle Hryvnak Davies. While this event, Northeastern Pennsylvania's first and (so far) only blogging convention, is a fully independent operation, NEPA Blogs will be well-represented there - both Michelle and I will be there, and many of the people listed on the NEPA Blogs sidebar will also be in attendance.

The NEPA BlogCon is a great opportunity to meet other folks from the local and regional blogosphere (last year's event drew bloggers from New York to Maryland and points beyond) while learning more about every aspect of blogging. Expand your blogroll while learning all about different aspects of blogging. And the event isn't just open to established bloggers - more than a few of the attendees at last year's NEPA BlogCon were just getting into the world of blogging, and some didn't even have blogs yet!

If you're thinking of going, don't delay - tickets are limited, and ticket sales end Friday, September 27. If you go, be sure to take a stack of blog cards to pass out to your fellow attendees, and a camera to capture the memories.

Header image is by Brent Pennington, Photographer, and is part of a set found on Flickr here.


If you have an image you'd like to see featured as the NEPA Blogs header, send it to nepablogs@gmail.com.

PA Live! Blog of the Week: 50 Things to Know

NEPA Blogs will be presenting a "Blog of the Week" on WBRE's PA Live! every Tuesday. PA Live! airs weekday afternoons on WBRE from 4:00 to 5:00.

Our PA Live! Blog of the Week this week is 50 Things to Know by Lisa Rusczyk (http://50thingstoknow.com/, which replaces http://50thingstoknowblog.blogspot.com/).

Lisa Rusczyk has seen a lot. A wife, a mother, a homeowner, a writer, a blogger (in addition to this blog, she's also the blogger behind the "Charlie the Cavalier" blog), and a person who has worn many other hats, she's had a lot of experience in a lot of different areas. Why not share what she's learned with the rest of the world? And while she's at it, why not invite everyone else to share the things they've learned with the rest of the world?

That's the basic idea behind 50 Things to Know. Since February 2013, Lisa has been taking things from the very basic to the somewhat abstract and breaking them down into lists of fifty pieces of advice. The advice is sometimes obvious, sometimes obscure, and sometimes of the "why didn't I think of that?" variety. These lists are full of hints, tips, and advice for everyday situations, from someone who has been through them.

Lisa realizes she doesn't know something about everything, and invites readers to submit lists of their own! Several of her lists have been turned into books available through Amazon. But in many cases the advice is right there on her blog. Why not check out 50 Things to Know and see what she has to say?

If you have a blog you would like us to link on NEPA Blogs, or know of a blog you think we should link, please let us know! You can always drop us a line at nepablogs@gmail.com!

Para-Dice Jackson

Para-Dice Jackson
http://paradicejackson.wordpress.com/

A fashion-focused blog by Para-Dice Jackson, born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, now a Scranton-based mother of two boys and a student at Marywood getting simultaneous bachelor's and master's degrees in Advertising and Public Relations.

I met Para-Dice Jackson at last year's NEPA Blog Con. I asked her what her blog was about, and she replied "Socialite Living." I had no idea what that meant, and I still don't. But maybe if I read through all the posts she's written since she started her blog in January 2012, I'll be able to figure it out. Or maybe I'll ask her if I run into this year's NEPA Blog Con, being held October 5 at Luzerne County Community College in Nanticoke!

About the header image: September 11, 2013

The quiet patriotism of a flag flying over the Scranton Times building in downtown Scranton; in the foreground, The Vintage in the old Manhattan Project Room on the ground floor of the Hotel Jermyn provides an art space for writers, painters, photographers, musicians, actors, and artists of every sort.  That wasn't what I set out to capture when I took this photo after a meeting of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Writers' Collective a few months ago. I just thought it was a pretty image, and I happened to have my camera with me.

Autumn is coming, and with it opportunities to capture the beauty of Northeastern Pennsylvania as the trees deck themselves out in lavish colors for a few weeks. If you have a seasonal photo or any image you'd like to see used as the NEPA Blogs header for a week, send it to us at nepablogs@gmail.com.

PA Live! Blog of the Week: Onomahuna

NEPA Blogs will be presenting a "Blog of the Week" on WBRE's PA Live! every Tuesday. PA Live! airs weekday afternoons on WBRE from 4:00 to 5:00.

Watch this episode on the PA Live! site: http://www.pahomepage.com/story/blog-of-the-week-jim-babinskis-onomahuna-september-10th-2013/d/story/K0hEj5gFqUKxVxmocPZDmg


Our PA Live! Blog of the Week this week is Jim Babinski's Onomahuna (http://onomahuna.com/).

There are lots of food review blogs out there, but this isn't one of them. Jim Babinski didn't set out to judge restaurants and the food they serve. Instead, on Onomahuna he showcases local eateries that might otherwise be missed. As he writes, "If someone visiting you for the first and last time asked to sample local food where would you send them? Those are the places I want to feature here."

Onomahuna focuses mainly on eateries in and around the Scranton area, which really isn't much of a limitation given the sheer number and variety of places to eat there. It would take a very long time just to sample some of the food at each of the places listed! Jim is also open to blog post contributions from others who would like to share information about their favorite places to eat. Full details are here.

Onomahuna has a broad web presence, including a Twitter account (for the most up-to-the-minute information) and a Tumblr page that used to be the main blog site but now serves mainly to redirect people to posts on the main site, http://onomahuna.com/. If you want to find out about, as Jim puts it, "fun local places to grab a good meal, catch up with old friends and enjoy your day," any one of those would be a great place to start - as long as it gets you to Onomahuna!



If you have a blog you would like us to link on NEPA Blogs, or know of a blog you think we should link, please let us know! You can always drop us a line at nepablogs@gmail.com!

About the header image: September 4, 2013

The header image for the week of September 4 through September 10 is a hauntingly beautiful yet disorienting shot of a sunset over downtown Wilkes-Barre from an unusual vantage point. This picture was taken by NEPA Blogs co-administrator Michelle Hryvnak Davies at the 5th Annual Rooftop Party to benefit the Osterhout Library on August 9, 2013. It is posted on Michelle's blog Sweet Valley Sunrises, which contains hundreds of gorgeous sunrise photos from Michelle's home in Sweet Valley (though it it should be noted that this particular photo is neither from Sweet Valley nor a sunrise!)

If you have an image from around NEPA that you'd like to see used as the header for NEPA Blogs, just send it to us at nepablogs@gmail.com.

PA Live! Blog of the Week: FilmBuffOnline

NEPA Blogs will be presenting a "Blog of the Week" on WBRE's PA Live! every Tuesday. PA Live! airs weekday afternoons on WBRE from 4:00 to 5:00.

Watch this episode on the PA Live! site at http://www.pahomepage.com/story/blog-of-the-week-filmbuffonline-september-3rd-2013/d/story/h1LIMJmfm0y45xM_4ktshg.


Our PA Live! Blog of the Week this week is FilmBuffOnline (http://www.filmbuffonline.com/FBOLNewsreel/wordpress/).

FilmBuffOnline is a world-class movie and entertainment blog. Since February of 2003, Rich Drees and his crew have been posting movie reviews, movie history, producer and director info and lots of other goodies that film buffs would enjoy.  Their tastes and the movies they enjoy are an eclectic mix, with a strong predilection towards comic book blockbusters, science fiction, and anime- and manga-based films that have been popular for so long. But with dozens of entries each month,  FilmBuffOnline is bound to touch upon something of interest for every film buff!

If you're a fan of films, FilmBuffOnline is definitely a blog worth checking out. And keep in mind, this isn't being written by a bunch of industry insiders in Los Angeles. It's a true NEPA Blog, written by people from NEPA who you might run into every day!

If you're passionate about something and want to share it with the world, a blog is a great way to do it. Rich Drees and his friends are passionate about movies, and they let the world know about it in FilmBuffOnline.

What about you? What are you passionate about? Show it to the world with a blog!

If you have a blog you would like us to link on NEPA Blogs, or know of a blog you think we should link, please let us know! You can always drop us a line at nepablogs@gmail.com!

Blogfest Fall 2013

Northeastern Pennsylvania Bloggers will be hosting the 8th semi-annual Blogfest at The Red Mill

• 340 S Main St
• Pittston, PA 18640-2367
• Friday September 27th at 6PM

This is an informal gathering of bloggers, candidates for office, elected officials and anyone interested in politics or blogging. There is no charge for admission.

Since it's inception 3 years ago Blogfest has been described as the best political event of the season. No speeches are allowed and the rule is agree to disagree but don't be disagreeable. Many local and statewide candidates will be attending.

RSVP on Facebook

From the Mailbag: The Lake Region Something

Happy Labor Day NEPA!  We all know that blogging can be a "labor" of love and one of our bloggers just started a third....you read that correctly....third blog!

NB-

I have a new monthly blog/online magazine titled THE LAKE REGION SOMETHING at http://lakeregion.blogspot.com/.

The LAKE REGION SOMETHING is for those who live in the region and those who visit, or would like to visit, the region.

It will feature lots of interesting "stuff" on entertainment and popular culture, taxes and personal finance, travel, etc, etc, etc, as well as information on local events and activities.

Please pay us a visit.

RDF

http://robertdflach.blogspot.com/

http://wanderingtaxpro.blogspot.com/

Read my tax articles at -http://www.mainstreet.com/category/authors/robert-d-flach-0

You may remember we previously linked to Robert's tax related blogs back in December.  Give Robert's newest blogging adventure some respect by checking out the Lake Region Something.