Since the homefront is in flux, I’m not making the trip to Pittsburgh today. I am, however, still watching the game. Going over to a friend who has the dish (and ESPN2 Alternative).
I will be live blogging it over at AOL today.

I appreciate the e-mails and comments of support that I’ve received. Thank you

This has become aggravating as expected. It’s not helped since I can’t do much on the computer (as you have probably noticed by the reduction in output) and I’ll have to miss the Michigan St. game, but we’ve kept perspective. No one hurt. Very limited damage.

Unless one of you is an Ohio lawyer specializing in product liability, or knows someone who can go month-to-month on a rental east of Cleveland; there isn’t much else we need.

Things have a way of working themselves out one way or another. This will, and hopefully things will go the right way. On the plus side, we are definitely getting rid of a lot of useless crap that has accumulated.

I’ve sold out.

I’m blogging for the man. Or in this case the media conglomerate.

AOL has hired me to write about Pitt — along with a slew of other college football bloggers — this season. The “official” launch of the AOL CFB Fanhouse Sportsblog was supposed to be yesterday, but it has been delayed until this coming Monday. Write now it is a big mash-up with the focus on the NFL (seems to be a popular place for ex-college players to go, might catch-on).

When the AOL CFB blog is up and fully running there will be it’s own place and you can even narrow it by the particular team or even place — meaning you can follow just Pitt or all Pittsburgh teams that are blogged on AOL. You should also be able to pay attention by conference, so you can follow the other Big East sellouts bloggers and their teams.

The clincher for me to do this wasn’t the money or more exposure. It was also being asked to be the lead blogger for the Big East. Meaning, I help keep an eye on things for the conference and talk with the other BE bloggers. I can be a bit of a control freak, so that appealed to me. Besides, it’s important for a Pitt guy to be one of the CFB bloggers with a modicum of influence (not that I’d abuse power and authority, much).

I’ve already been doing some posting, and you can find just my posts here if you want to limit to just me. As you can see, I’ve already done some posting. I am sorry not to have broken the news earlier, but AOL wanted this to be a soft launch initially and build up some content.

So what does that mean for this shiny new blog? Not much is changing. I will obviously be putting some posts over there, but this blog is not going anywhere. The AOL Blog is just for the season, not all year. Additionally, they want the posts somewhere between 100-400 words. So, unlike many of the posts here, they should be a little shorter.

Plus with Keith W. helping during the season, I think the impact will be minimal.

The wireless connection in my house was getting a little wiggy the last few days. I just figured it had something to do with the wireless router or the DSL line itself. By late Thursday morning, I couldn’t get e-mail or access the web. I figured, I’d just deal with it on Friday or Saturday when I got back from Pittsburgh. No time on Thursday. Even saved a couple posts to put them out later.

Got to Pittsburgh a little later than I wanted — no Penn Pilsner for me — so went straight to Fan Fest. Afterwards, went to my friend Pat’s and we hit a few bars on the South Side.
This morning, after shaving the hair off of my tongue, I went down the street to Beehive to glom onto their free wireless and average coffee. To my frustration, I discovered the problem with the connection was with my computer. Spent an hour trying to figure out what was wrong with my wireless network adapter. Not very easy when you can’t actually get on the internet to try and find information or new drivers.

Finally gave up, and figured I’d look for info when I was home on the wired computer.

I was doing that, and turned on the laptop to make sure of the particular adapter I had to see what there was. Lo and behold, the damn thing is now working fine. This is actually worse to me because it means it could go on me without warning again. Intermittent problems are much more frustrating to me.

I’ll post about Fan Fest and some pictures later.

Okay, folks. Tomorrow I’m heading to Pittsburgh for the FanFest. Just look for the short, bald guy lugging a laptop and a camera. I’m sure I’ll stand out.

I’m hoping to get in early. Maybe get to the campus if I have time. I plan to stay overnight then leave some time in the late morning for a special trip down to Morgantown.

I need to find some places with free wi-fi, so I can squeeze in a little blogging when time permits. Specifically on the North Side, South Side and in Oakland. I know the Beehive offers it on the South Side. In Oakland there’s Panera and I think Kiva Han. I just like to have options. Anyone know of some other places?

Also, if I end up with a late start, I may just go straight to the North Side and avoid the later traffic issues. So if there’s anyplaces on the North Side with free wi-fi let me know. Right now, it seems the city is blanketed by a pay-to-use company. Admittedly I’m tempted to pay the $5 just so I can have a beer and post at Penn Brewery before fan fest.

I married into a family of late sleepers. I am the only adult awake in a house with 4 kids (3 under the age of 5) running wild. Send help.

Mark May is in South Bend for the College Football Hall of Fame ceremony and golf tournament. Today he gets inducted.

All but one day at Pitt was spent on the offensive line.

“When (head coach) Jackie Sherrill recruited me, he promised me I could play defense,” May said. “My first day as a freshman, I was on defense. One day. The next day, they switched me to the offensive line. At least he lived up to his promise.”

He talked a little about how and when he got his start in TV.

“My college years were so great because of the opportunities to bond with my teammates,” May said. “Pittsburgh was a special (school) in a special city. The people there cared about you. I was able to learn so much from the alums.”

It was also the place where he got his start in television. He got to know a sports director at the ABC affiliate. He convinced May to get involved in television before he graduated. When May was chosen by the Redskins, that sports director convinced the head of sports at the ABC station in Washington to hire May.

That training was followed by post-football jobs with TNT and CBS before finally landing at ESPN about five years ago.

Pitt fans would appear to be the exception among college football blogdom (writers and readers) in liking May on ESPN’s College Football studio show. Much the way ND partisans are the exception towards seeing Lou Holtz there.

The Arizona Cardinals, technically one of the oldest NFL franchises, have decided they need their own “Ring of Honor.” During today’s exhibition game against the Steelers, the late, great Marshall Goldberg will be one seven players and Bidwell, Sr. placed in the ring during halftime (PDF).

All fans in attendance will receive a commemorative Cardinals Stadium lanyard/ticketholder.

Ooooh. Well, there are the cheerleaders at least.

Just to let everyone know, I’m alive.

I’m at my brother-in-law’s house. We’re now in Eaton, OH a nothing little place near the Indiana border.

The wi-fi connection for the whole resort/hotel went kablooey Wednsday afternoon — I was lucky to get the posts out that morning. No one could get connected — and it was still down when we left this afternoon. Considering the place was in the middle of no where, there was no other place offering wi-fi connections.

Thanks to Keith for letting everyone know I was unable to post. Keith will be posting when he can this fall as well. It’s good to have him helping out this season.

For those who saw their comments delayed, sorry. The comment spam blockers are still learning and since I couldn’t get on the site to let them through.

Alright boys and girls, Chas has sent an SOS. All I know is he is somewhere in a ditch the Ohio wilderness without internet. Let’s hope Maurice Claret hasn’t gotten him.

I’m Keith and I’ll be your substitute blogger today and tomorrow. I am a recent Pitt graduate now living in Maine, writing sports for a few local newspapers.

Unfortunately, I was only planning on piloting this ship tomorrow, so I am a little behind today. I’ll have a media wrap posted soon.

Any tips, updates or complaints, feel free to comment or shoot an e-mail to keith.wehmeyer@gmail.com.

I know everyone loves to take advantage of substitutes, but behave because Chas will be back and ready to lay down the law on Saturday.

Getting a database error

UPDATE (9:15): Whatever it was it’s fixed. Very annoying. In the future when there is a problem, with the site I think I may use the old blogspot site as a fallback to at least update on the problem.

Last night, while over some Commodore Perry IPA at the Grovewood Tavern — which conveniently enough offers Wi-Fi — Adam helped me move the archives over to the new site. They will remain as “uncategorized” because if you think I’m going to go back and log some 3000+ posts into the right groupings… There’s still some things to work out, like making the “next page” icon at the bottom of the site visible to see older posts in the month. It’s there, but blends in the background.

We also took a look at the coding for the layout to see why some people were having some troubles with overlaps. The conclusion: it’s your fault. It was fine on our computers and on others of some people I called and checked. You may need to check your screen resolution and sharpen it more.

On the subject of commenting, here’s the thing. Everything is being caught when the e-mail field isn’t filled in. You don’t even need to use a real e-mail address. Pitt@pitt.com would be fine. The comment spam catchers just need to know you are a real person and not some spambot. I’m trying to find the right balance between giving everyone their comfort level for privacy/anonymity versus the beasts of comment spam and having to moderate and/or review all comments.