My blog n'at

Quit laughing. If you know me you’re saying “he doesn’t shut up”. That’s besides the point right now. I’m talking about presenting at Podcamp Pittsburgh 5 this year.

I’ve been an attendee since the first Podcamp Pittsburgh and a speaker since the second one but never have a doubted if I would be able to be involved until this year. Podcamp is my favorite time of year because great people get together to educate the masses on what makes up social media/networking, trends and you really cant beat the price, it’s free! That’s right, you get FREE advice from industry leaders that might normally charge you some hefty cash.  I also go for the friendships I’ve made with podcampers, to get chopped by the Wrestling Mayhem Show and to brainstorm (total geek-out moments).

Should I Drink That has become a staple of providing the alcoholic beverages for the Meet n Greet the last 2 years (we’ll be doing it again this year!) and thats where I really get to sell the show to people and talk beer. The following day we join the Wrestling Mayhem Show for a joint session in Grassroots Podcasting but this year sickpuppy wants to try something new so who knows what we’ll do. Podcamp is a great promotional tool for us plus it gives us a chance to talk shop with those wanting to learn.

That’s not where my issue comes from (3 paragraphs to get to my point, see what I mean, I like to jibba jab), I do social media for a living and the hesitation I have is if I have time to prepare a quality presentation. I know, its podcamp and a very laid back environment. I can talk this subject in my sleep and have been to a few events where I didn’t know what the topic was until 5 minutes before I went on but this is different. This is non-SIDT Doogle and if you’re coming to hear me talk I want to make sure you’re getting a quality presentation. I’ve always shot from the hip with a few note cards and that worked really well but this is a setting that a lot of information can be given and I want to make sure nothing is lost.

I could be over-thinking this and selling myself short on how fast I can actually put this together. I may be taking this more serious than I need to. Maybe this is the time I make that leap I’ve hinted to some of yinz about. Since I was brainwashed in my role as project coordinator at Ericsson many moons ago sometimes its a curse to be so meticulous.

what do you think?

(click me and i’ll get bigger)

I check out our stats religiously to see if there are any spikes in traffic. Once the whole buying a house/moving process started I got a little very lazy on keeping up. I was checking out a few things yesterday when I saw another spike so I had to start investigating and thats when our good friend Adri broke the new to the world – Should I Drink That was listed under the ‘What’s Hot” section of iTunes in the Food category!

I don’t even know what to say about this one. Amazed is probably a good one. SIDT is in the process of re-inventing how to cover beer festivals and live events so to get news of this honor gives me the extra boost to keep on going when I could just say screw it, I’m done, i have more important things to do. If any of my readers are fans of the show I want to thank you for downloading it and supporting us. If it wasn’t for you we would have stopped after 10 shows. We do love all of you, even if you’re from Philly

cheers!

The almighty Sorg posted this morning a link to the movie “The Social Network” coming out in October which tells the story of how Facebook was founded, the drama and blah blah blah. Other White Jim also posted on Facebook (ironically) about it and I got to thinking, if one was made about the Pittsburgh social networking scene who would play you? Let me know in the comments your top 2 choices. Yinz outside of Pittsburgh feel free to chime in also, you can have a cameo.

I’m taking first dibs here and saying Zane Lamprey or Jack Black

(click here to see the entire gallery on Flickr)

What an incredible evening! Tuesday night a lot of the work I’ve done on SIDT paid off when I was invited backstage to hang out with Zane Lamprey (and a few beverages) before his Drinking Made Easy show started at Mr. Smalls Theater. I was contacted a couple weeks ago by Zane’s PR people asking if we would be interested in talking with Zane. They knew of the podcast and thought we would be a great fit. Were we ever!

As we walked up to the door we were greeted at the door by Steve McKenna who was already downing some beers. Incredibly nice guy but that may have had to do with the fact I was carrying a box of  presents.

• 1 growler of East End Monkey Girl
• 1 growler of Erie Derailed
• 1/2 gallon of Rebel Yell whiskey
• 750ml Brookside whiskey
• bag of misc. swag from Bocktown whom also provided the growlers
• 1 Gray Kangaroo personal alcohol filter
• 6 pack of SIDT hangover preventer – a.k.a. Pedialyte

The “green room” I think it’s the old sacristy which is where we chatted up Marc Ryan. That’s right, Mr. Smalls is in an old church. Pittsburgh likes to convert old churches into venues for mass consumption of alcohol.

The interview with Zane turned out amazing and will be posted shortly. He was very welcoming and we really appreciate that he took time to hang with us 10 minutes before he went on stage. The man was in the zone. If his name sounds familiar, Zane was the host of a show called Three Sheets which aired on MOJO, FLN and, as he announced at the concert, Travel Channel will be airing all episodes. Zane said he’d be in touch again to give us an update on everything.

This was my first time seeing a comedy act on stage since I won my Comedy Central private party with Lewis Black so I forgot what it was like until that front row was blasted by the acts. LOVED it! People, when are you going to learn not to heckle the talent. You’re gonna get burned.

The tour is called Drinking Made Easy which is also the name of his show on HDNet this fall. In fact as he tours around America he is recording episodes. Unfortunately Pittsburgh got snubbed but we do hope he returns soon.

Zane gives you an education on the basics of alcohol which you may not know. From a craft beer angle I have to say he covered us rather well and showed what goes into beer and how its made. Afterwards we hung out with some SIDT fans which I do have video of and will get on You Tube shortly. It goes along with the EP we recorded for so you’ll need to sit tight for this week.

I’m not a fan of books and in fact I hate reading but after picking up Zane’s book “Three Sheets: Drinking Made Easy! 6 Continents, 15 Countries, 190 Drinks, And 1 Mean Hangover!“ I finally found something I can get into and not get bored outta my skull. Once I finish the book I’ll write a review.

Its been almost a week and I’m still geeking over it. It’s good to be the SIDT.

Hey everyone, we need your help with something that was just brought to our attention and will take you less than 2 minutes but we need you to do it ASAP since the deadline is May 31st!. Pittsburgh Magazine is holding its Best of the Burgh competition again this year and there is not ONE mention of craft beer or podcasts. We want to change that and here’s how you can win something very badass in the process.

1. Go to : http://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/Pittsburgh-Magazine/April-2010/Best-of-Pittsburgh-Survey/
2. Scroll to the bottom and in “Did we miss something? – Best of Other” type in “Should I Drink That – Best Craft Beer Podcast”
3. Submit

Now you can fill out the rest if you’re so inclined but the main thing is to get us in the OTHER category.

Pittsburgh is booming with great craft beer destinations and no where in “Food and Drink” do you find a category for them. Pittsburgh needs to be aware of the incredible craft beer culture we have in this city and by submitting our names you’re helping to get the word out!

Now, since we like to reward you for your help here’s what you get, let us know you voted (honor system here folks, we trust you) and you will receive 5 entries for… 2 tickets to see Zane Lamprey’s Drinking Made Easy Comedy Tour at Mr. Small’s Theater on June 8th at 8pm! You may know Zane from his hit TV show Three Sheets so now you can hang with SIDT & Zane in the same night! Its a drinking doubleheader!

Get out and vote!

DEADLINE IS MAY 31ST!!!

4 years ago today sickpuppy and I launched SIDT. We figured that it would last 10 shows and maybe a couple hundred downloads from friends. This evening we’re releasing EP63 and are pushing 700,000 downloads.

I thought about doing a “state of SIDT” address for today but realized that required a lot of work and I have beer to drink. I know we say this every year but we’ve kept our promise, wait till you see what we’re gonna do next. 2010-11 has already shaped up to be unreal and we will be doing more with our social media sites getting you guys even more involved.  iphone/droid apps are in the works, more with the DD hotline and goodies I havent even told sickpup about.

I will say this, our 5th anniversary is going to be a freaking bash

Thanks everyone for the support and don’t forget to call…

cheers!

Since the Pittsburgh Magazine article came out I’ve had quite a few notifications of new followers. Most times I’ll follow back because I’m always up for a good conversation and try to keep up with everything going on through the day but lets be honest, you can’t follow all the time (just like it can’t rain all the time).

This morning I tweeted that I was psyched to see Anthony Bourdain was coming to Pittsburgh to talk. This is a must for me so I told Lushie we need to make plans for it. Shortly afterwards I had a reply from TwinmamaTeb saying “@douglasderda clearly you missed all my tweets about the presale and gettting 8th row seats. heh.”. That’s when I thought, how many conversations am I missing?  Granted most tweets are people spewing random nonsense (I’m guilty myself) but what else have I missed out on? I decided it was time to checked my stats.

As of right now I have 1,250 followers, I’m following 987 back and I’m on 112 lists. Those 112 lists can be summed up in the following categories: beer, hockey, Pittsburgh.  If I were to die right now that is how I could be summed up in 3 words. I love craft beer, I love hockey and I love Pittsburgh.

The most popular question I get from people obsessed with Facebook is “Why do you tweet?”  I gave it some though and here’s the deal on how/why I use Twitter. I’m connected to every user. Because of tags such as “craftbeer” I have been introduced to a community of people that I may have never had the chance to meet besides the degrees of separation on FB. I use Twitter because it’s about the conversation. Over the past day I finally started watching the #craftbeer tag on Twitter with TweetDeck and have met some incredible bloggers, fans from all over the world and a few brewers.  I’m able to buy and sell hockey tickets and chat with other Pens fans during games. I have been invited to events I may not have known about before and helped plan a few of my own. All in under 140 characters. I can ask questions and people, while sometimes smartasses, answer. I can get traffic updates from not just the networks but from people out on the roads.

From the 1250 I’m not following 263. Odds have it you’re selling me a service I don’t want, you’re a spammer or I really have no clue what your deal is. Now there is the margin of error since Twitter is notorious from un-following people without warning and if you’re one of those let me know.

So now I’m reaching out to you. If you’re in the rest of the 987 and read this blog (which hopefully you do because you follow me on twitter and obviously wanna get to know me ) leave me a comment. I can say that I know MAYBE 2/5 of you personally from beer events or social media but if we’ve never met before I want you to say hi. If you wanna keep it personal then shoot me a message on my contact form.  Spoon wants know who you are! If you’re in the Pittsburgh area and want to meet others check out Pittsburgh tweetup!

I should probably tweet this…

You’re seeing that correctly. In what could be labeled as our worst kept secret ever, we grace the pages of the March 2010 issue of Pittsburgh Magazine. I was flattered when I first learned that Jonathan Wander wanted to talk to me about the show and since it was around Podcamp Pittsburgh time I figured he was a curious fan. That’s when I found out about his intentions to write the article which left me stunned. We’re talkin USA scores with 26 seconds left in regulation of gold medal game Canadian stunned. I’ve done many interviews with beer trade magazines but never with anyone outside that realm and I honestly didn’t know how their readers would take to us.  We do carry an explicit tag but also we’re genuine on there and not some corporate bullshit. People tell me they dig that so that has to put some odds in our favor. This past January Jonathan and I talked over the phone for a solid 2 hours about the show, my life, growing up in Erie and followed it with a photo shoot at Bocktown on a Sunday afternoon. The rest was up to his creative hands.

The article is incredible and I admit, when I first saw it in print at Giant Eagle, I blushed.  Oh hell I was glowing. Only a few select people know how much work I really put into this show behind the scenes and to see it on a stage like Pittsburgh Magazine just blows my mind, even more than when we appeared in national publication DRAFT. In a way it seems like the show was validated. When you hit local there’s something even more meaningful about it. Now if someone back in my hometown of Erie calls, oh lord I’ll never shut up.

The magazine will be seen by over 250,000 readers in 10 counties (Erie included). If you can’t find it at your local Giant Eagle, Borders or Barnes & Noble you can read the online version here

Thankfully with the show I have been able to develop skills that I never thought twice about and it turned into getting my butt employed. Should I Drink That has treated me well and with the plans that I have in mind for this year, should make the experience even more amazing.

Creatively I know where I want this to go and how the whole process should flow. Does it happen that way? Hell no. In fact getting an episode of SIDT together is a huge pain in the ass but one I like to have. When we started it was “lets go to the store and see what we can buy” and now there is a dry erase board that I plan out the next few shows on. Multicolored markers too cause I’m spiffy like that. I think once Studio B is purchased and wired I’ll have a better understanding of what it is I want but until then we’re going with what’s worked.

I want to thank everyone who has supported the show.  When I was starting college I wanted to get into radio and that dream was quickly shot down by my fam. Then again they also said I would never make a living in computers and look how that turned out  Without you, my kickass friends, I would never have moved forward with long lost dream and this thing would have been over with years ago.

Thanks everyone!

cheers!

July
Began the month with recording at the BeerDependence Day celebration at Bocktown. Attended the Penguins Stanley Cup DVD Release Party. Started a contracting job at EDMC that would become the longest month of my life and that’s all I’m going to say. Enjoyed my first ever bowl of Pho. Rocked the Beer on the Bay festival in Erie which the videos are epic and may never be released. End the month being interviewed by KDKA for the Craft Beer Summit.

August
Won a 2009 Mustang! Bees invade our bathroom (landlord still has yet to remove the dead bodies). I got a full-time job in social media/web dev that has turned out to be freaking cool plus I’m on a rockstar team. Threatened Lushie with divorce after she gets rid of the Back to the Future marathon channels.

September
Attended “Best of the Burgh” at the Warhol with sickpuppy, PittGirl, Woy and Rachel. Go big time and hosted Beer School at the Cabaret downtown to a sold out crowd. Teaspoon hits 17lbs.

October
Hosted 2 sessions at Podcamp Pittsburgh 4. Should I Drink That passed 500,000 download mark. Pens start defending the Stanley Cup. Revised Google Maps errors. Celebrate 4 years of marriage with Lushie. Lay the smackdown on poor fact checking by the Post gazette about Erie. Teaspoon goes pumpkin farming.

November
I blogged the whole month. Seriously. Bought a X-box. Teaspoon’s first Thanksgiving. Wonders of fatherhood and a kid who grows like a weed. Craft Beer Dinner with Lew Bryson, Education on the Pittsburgh Potty. Making your own Bacon. BEER AT GIANT EAGLE! Yinz Bowl 2.o

December
Still living it for 5 more hours. Remembering dad on his anniversary. Hosted a Christmas beer sampling at Bocktown. Saw KISS in concert. Teaspoon’s first Christmas. Finished the school year with a 3.65GPA. SNOW!

So what do I have to look forward to in 2010?  Come back tomorrow and find out!

I have to admit that this has been the most life changing year of my life. Some good, some bad and some mind blowing kickass. Here’s a quick recap as I reflect before tonight’s festivities start. I’m splitting this up into 2 sections because lets be honest, no one will scroll through 12 months.

January
Reflected on the first beer I EVER drank and yes, I kept the bottle. Prepare for the end of my 10+ year employment at ForeSystems/Marconi/Ericsson. Bitched about the weather and yinzers inability to drive in snow plus dumb ass snow removal by my neighbors. Both of those still hold true today. Got ready for an unbelievable run to the Super Bowl

February
Steelers won the Super Bowl and became the first ever 6 time champ thus giving every knock off t-shirt maker starry eyes at the potential of “6 pack” shirts. Punxy Phil said 6 more weeks of winter. I was officially laid off, was interviewed for a Post Gazette story on unemployment moments after i was laid off (that never was published), Pens started to turn it around and the biggest shock of them all… Teaspoon arrived 2 months early making me the happiest and most terrified dad. Came in at 4.1lb, dropped to 3.2lb and would leave at 5 in March.

March
It was the month of Teaspoon. Lushie and I spent every minute we could at the Mercy NICU while he got healthy in an incubator. 28 days later he came home. Also witnessed the stupidity of some Hill District parents who think its a hotel in there and the joke that is unemployment system in PA.

April
Went to my first ever Rugby match and got addicted to watching Claire and the girls kick ass. Missed my first opening day of Pirates baseball since 1984 (watched it on TV with Teaspoon and started a new tradition with my boy). Bought a Wii. Enjoyed the greatest comeback in Pens Playoff hockey that I have witnessed as the Pens turned the series around with 1 fight and the Max Talbot shhhhhhh! Saw Beer Wars the Movie with hundreds of other craft beer fans around the world and baked an incredible beer ham for Easter.

May
Should I Drink That turned 3. Pens defeated Washington and Carolina to earn a second trip to the Stanley Cup Finals for a 2nd year. Bought a Blackberry. Joined Sadie’s Soldiers and took some Great Strides. KDKA reads my “tweet of the day” which I WISH they would bring back. The great personalized jersey debate. Meatshield welcomed his first child (i swear it was the year for kids to be born) and we had a cookout with some family. Bowling league ended and we were the undisputed champs.

June
Teaspoon’s first trip to the ER. Coming out of golf retirement after 3.5 year for a day with Yinz Teamer’s Woy, Lokay and Shireman at Cranberry Highlands. The Clarks release Restless Days after 5 years. Pens win the Stanley Cup in 7 games vs Detroit. Pittsburgh floods… again. Unemployed Utensil makes his first appearance as a way to help me get through not working. My first Father’s day and Pirates waste of talent Ian Snell cant take negative people.

up next… July through December.

The first week of December is always tough for me. Correction, it’s fucking tough. 3 years ago as I type this we were burying my dad and I think that its this anniversary that I’m having the most issues with it. Not because I’m going all mental or anything along those lines but its more of the anger phase. I think of everything that has happened over the last year and that he wasn’t around for it. Most importantly he never got to hold his grandson whom I know would be spoiled beyond belief. I guess I’m more upset that Teaspoon won’t get to know him but the ironic thing, I think he does. I wont go into details and freak all yinz out but I know dad is around. I can fell when he’s in the room and even creepier, I can smell his cologne. So even with my anger comes some peace. Teaspoon has a guardian angel and there is no one else better for the job.

Quite a few key life events happened this week that I’ll share and why I usually drop off the world for a bit.

• December 5, 1998 – Moved from Erie to Pittsburgh and into my first solo apt in beautiful South Oakland. damn smelly hippies.
• December 5, 2006 –  Dad has massive heart attack while snow blowing for 3 hours so the shut-ins could get visitors. Rushed to ER and put on life support.
• December 6, 2006 – Dad officially passes around 7:21am. My world becomes simply a huge can of wtf
• December 7, 1998 – Started my first day at FORE Systems. I expected it to be a 3 month internship, not 10 years of employment
• December 9, 2006 – Dad is buried on a day of freezing cold temps and a majestic snowfall. Ceremony concluded with military gun salute and mom is presented with an American Flag.

It was also during this week in 2005 that I first toyed with the idea of starting this new thing called a podcast. I wouldn’t record anything until Jan 20, 2006 in what became the first recording of Father Spoon. We all know what happened from there…