This is the final day of annoying solicitations. I’m happy to write that it looks like all costs will be covered for the next two years with a final round of contributions. A couple of the checks have already arrived.

Yesterday I wrote about no political ads for this election. One other ad-related note that you won’t see. Any of the ad-sense programs. You know, those little text ads at the bottom of posts on other sites. I’m not a big fan of them, and with the support received, I see no reason to plug those in and create more clutter.

That’s one of the things I am very happy to with this site — keeping it relatively clean, uncluttered and simple.

Thanks to the support of everyone, it gets to stay that way.

Just a couple more days of slightly annoying pledge posts.

One of the things I hate about election years are political ads when I’m watching sports. Drives me nuts. Watching sports is part of the escape from the daily crap. Partisan stuff just wears on me.

So, with everyone’s support for this site, I will get to be more picky about what I accept for blogads on this site. I’m making a promise now, that for this Presidential election there will no political ads on PittBlather.com. No pro- or anti- anything regarding the candidates (including non-Presidential) or “issue” ads. It’s going to be nasty enough, probably by September.
Essentially I’m promising a politics-free safe-haven.

Just click one of the begging buttons on the right sidebar and make sure this can be a reality.

This is day 2 of the pledge drive for PittBlather.com. For those who don’t remember why I ask for support, here’s why. When I started writing PittBlather (and its predecessor PittSportsBlather), the deal with my wife was that this would not cost anything other than time.

Keep in mind that your contributions to PittBlather.com can help to indoctrinate the next generation of Pitt fans.*

_{*This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA.}

It’s that dreaded time again. It’s been two years and now it’s time to ask for donations in support of PittBlather.com. Unlike the last time, this go-round has modest goals. I’m just looking to take care of server costs for the next couple of years along with getting some work done on the site.

I’m as uncomfortable about asking as you probably are reading this.

As usual, all the contributions during this week will be plowed directly into this site.

Some of you have already hit the begging buttons this year, so thanks once more.

If you are more comfortable directly sending a check, drop me an e-mail at pittblather-at-gmail-dot-com and I’ll give you an address.

It’s with your assistance that this kind of hard work can continue.

On the sidebar, there is a new grouping called “Pitt Consortium.” I am thrilled that the number of Pitt blogs has reached the point where it needs it’s own separate group. Make sure you check these guys out as well.

If you are primarily a Pitt blogger, and have been able to stay active for more than one month, just let me know so I can add you to the list.

The support and loyalty of everyone is always appreciated, even as it embarrasses me a little. It means a lot, since I’ve never actually met any of you except for Steve G. Hmm, there may be a bit of correlation.

Buzz is not getting banned for giving me some crap.

I have banned only a few people in the 4+ years of Pitt blogging. I don’t have hard fast rules that constitute banning, and I do give warnings. Buzz never approached anything that even had me considering banning him. Basically, to get banned you have to repeatedly do any or all of the following:

• Personally attack people in the comments to the level of complete derangement (Buzz’s complaints do not even reach a threshold that would merit a warning).
• Go after Pitt players on a personal level — it’s one thing to criticize their play, but to declare that a player is “garbage” or has some personal defect based on what they do on the field or court is not something I feel is acceptable in college.
• Be a useless troll
• Spam
• I’m sure there are some other things, but they haven’t happened yet.

Now, I’m not sure who Buzz thinks started this blog, but I’ve been here from the beginning. I’ve been lucky to have several quality people who contribute. Dennis being the latest. But, others like Keith W., Shawn, Lee in Altoona State College, John, Harlan and Pat have all been here posting (and are still able to if they feel like it).

I don’t look to this site as a money maker. It has turned into something that has created opportunities for me outside of this, and that has been a great side effect. It was, however, never the goal when it started This is my fun stuff. The place where I can share all the news I would gather anyways, and offer my thoughts on them and Pitt basketball and football games.
That this site has increased in readership is fantastic, but here’s reality. The increase is more connected to what Pitt does, not what I or anyone else writes. When things are well, or there is active news, the numbers go up. Just take a look at the past 12 months and you can see what happened to readership during football season when things weren’t going well, and the spike in December when so much good stuff happened (beating WVU, recruiting news and beating Duke). Honestly, if I was only interested in increasing eyeballs, I’d just talk about recruiting. Nothing seems to help the hit count more than speculation on the future.

Now,  back to the fun.

My in-laws finally got high speed. Unfortunately, they lack wireless in their house. That rendered the laptop useless. Big problem when I forgot my password cheatsheet. I had gotten lazy with most of the passwords for this and other sites stored on the browser. That I actually got mildly pissed and frustrated by this is a little silly.

Essentially, I ended up with a semi-forced blogging break. Probably good for me. Since I wasn’t going to be able to blog, I just stayed away from the computer most of the time. A little information deprivation.

Back to blogging.

Do you ever get the feeling there is a bit of regret amidst present and former Pitt decision makers about not hiring (now) LSU defensive coordinator and the hot head coaching candidate, Bo Pelini?

Word is as A.D. at Pitt, Long was interested in hiring Pelini but was rebuffed by higher-ups and tabbed Dave Wannstedt. Maybe Long will make a play for Pelini this time.

Mmm-hmm. That reminded me of something I read earlier this month in a Zeise chat.

ticktockman: What role does Jerry Cochran play in this program? We’ve sucked through various AD’s and Coaches, but he has been a constant it seems.

Paul Zeise: I’m not sure how much he has to do with the program. I know his first choice for the head coach the last time was Bo Pelini and he was obviously over ruled, so while he has some say, he clearly doesn’t have the final authority to do anything.

That leaves the blame all on Chancellor Nordenberg as Chochran and Long apparently have quietly whispered in different reporters’ ears how they wanted Pelini a few years ago. That is assuming both are being truthful and not engaging in a bit of revisionism.

Those of you using Internet Explorer are experiencing some problems with the site. Really not sure why it is not working in IE. It is coming up without a hitch in Firefox, so if you have both go with Firefox. That is not really a solution so much as a work-around, I know, but this is not an area of expertise for me.

Checking the site in IE, I also get just two posts and the layout is screwed up. The error message says that there is a “Syntax Error” in line 147. Great.

My hosting company has been having some major network/router issues. I’m not sure if that is the reason for the problem. I haven’t done anything to the site in the last couple days, so I’m hoping this is temporary.

Personally, I highly recommend using Firefox anyways. Loads a lot faster. Runs smoother. It imports bookmarks from IE with ease. The add-ons and extensions are tremendous. The only time I use IE is for certain jobs that require it, along with the all-access site for Pitt (yet another reason I don’t look at it that much).

UPDATE: The offending code from an earlier post has been removed. Thanks to Stuart for letting me know. I use an extension called “Adblock Plus” in Firefox. Tremendously effective adblocker that doesn’t just block ads and pop-ups. It essentially keeps them from showing up by (I guess) suppressing the code. Unfortunately the code is still there, so when I cut and pasted a bit from a story, the code was still there and I put it in the post.

I don’t have an excuse. Posting, even in speculation, about why Pat Bostick went home was just wrong, regardless of my intent.

Of course, that isn’t really good enough. I owe an explanation of how I got to that point.

When I saw the articles and the statement from Coach Wannstedt about Pat Bostick leaving for a while, I focused on the last sentence:

“No timetable has been set for his return. we are leaving that judgment to Pat and intend to do everything we can to be supportive of him and his family.”

I took that to mean it was a legitimate family/personal issue.

I was also curious as to what it was. I went to the Lancaster newspaper to see if there was anything happening and saw the article. Being from the Lebanon area (about 15 miles away), I know Lititz does not have a particularly large population and a simple white pages search yielded a single “Bostick.” The two things mean nothing. It did make me wonder and worry some more.

Worry enough, that I went to the message boards to see if there was anything else out there. I started reading the worry and speculation that Bostick was leaving the program for whatever reason. Oh, woe unto Pitt. Why do these things keep happening to “us?” And I got pissed.

Pissed that other Pitt fans were flying off the handle and apparently ready to turn on the kid without another thought. Pissed at an overreaction. Pissed because I thought I knew better.

The smart thing would have been to just walk away from the keyboard for a while. Cool down. Do something else.

Instead I stupidly added my own speculation. I did it because in that space of time, I presumed myself to be some sort of superior fan. I made one of the biggest mistake a fan can do — see himself as some sort of representative of the team and/or “true fans.” Some sort of protector of the interests of the team and players. That’s when fans do the stupid crap that gives fandom a bad name. It’s not being biased that gets fans in trouble. It’s when the fans think they are part of the team or representing them directly.

I knew shortly after I posted it, that I shouldn’t have. I knew better, and I still screwed up. Regardless of my intent, I was wrong. I’m not going to delete or edit out what I wrote. Scrubbing a post doesn’t change it, and I have to own my mistake. All I’m going to do is add a link to this post.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry to Pat Bostick and Bostick family for publishing my own speculation about what is a private and personal issue. I’m sorry to Pitt and Pitt Athletic Department for pretending to be some sort of rep. And I’m sorry to everyone who reads this for crossing the line.