So what makes Kathy socialest diva I know, well she was given the title by Duke Long who saw at her at a recent conference in Indy.  She’s embraced the title of Social Media Diva and she really deserves it.  Why’s that?  Well anyone who is on any of the social networks probably sees her all over the place (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Blogging, etc.) On top of seeing her online, she’s also all over the place at the other networking events in the area.

Are you still missing her?  Do you want to know more about those networks I mentioned earlier? Well then you are in luck because Kathy does training and teach classes on social media so you can pick her brain for all the juicy bits.

People in Northwest Indiana aren’t the only people who recognize this.  As well Kathy was voted the “Social Media Dame of the Year” at the Indiana Inaugural Social Media Summit in Indy late last year.  This was voted on by everyone in Indiana.  First she conquered NWI, next was the whole state, so only the world is left.  You should really come out and meet up with her some time at one of the #nwiteetups, but it not you can always find her at her Social Media Marketing Training website, or you can talk to her about social media on Twitter.

Now is this site only about saving you money on insurance, no. But it still is nice to not have to pay for a free service like this. Also, Aaron is a great resource to help educate you about the choices when it comes to your insurance needs.

If you want to hook up with Aaron sometime you should come out and join us at one of the tweetups, fill out his contact form for a quote, or you can follow him on for insurance info on twitter. Either way he’s a good guy to know in the area because he can help take care of your needs.

The Mad Mortgage Machine in his natural habitat

While most coins have only 2 sides, the coin with Dave Woodson on it has way more then that.  On one side Dave is a Indiana FHA mortgage guy who knows pretty much everything you need to know about them.  On his blog he is always breaking down the latest mortgage rates and regulations so that you can also have a better understanding.  I think it’s more he’s just showing off how on the ball he is with all this, but I don’t blame him for that because I would too. 

As well, Dave is helping run the local NWITweetups.  He’s helped line up businesses to host and as well is helping run the website.

On top of just spewing info at you that he wants, he’s also opened himself up to your questions that he will answer in his mailbag section.

And if you thought that was a lot, he’s now also doing a podcast about mortgages.  I recently helped him get that all straightened out and it’s now up and going.

Overall Dave’s a pretty busy guy, but he’s always available to answer your questions and loves to BS on places like Twitter.  You can also run into him by stalking him on Foursquare where he is the Mayor of everywhere.

On his blog he talks about a lot of varying topics going on in the legal world.  He recently had an interesting article on Nicolas Sord who is up on homicide charges.  He also talks about those annoying Robo-callers and how the goverment is trying to stop them with legislation.

On top of that he also looks at non-legal issues related to being a lawyer.  He recently posted a piece on the marketing side of being a lawyer.  There are lots of great things to be learned here.

As with Chris, I look forward to seeing and meeting with a bunch of people at the next #nwitweetup which will be at BW3’s in Portage on Jan 20th.

For me he is a great person to talk to because he has a lot of experience doing freelance work so he has a wealth of information I can steal…. I mean borrow.  He also has a nice little blog he has put together talking about a wide variety of topics from music to going green.

If you have a chance you should try to meet up with him at any of our local networking events because he is a great person to get to know for his wealth of knowledge that is all over the place.  But really if you are looking for some in Northwest Indiana that is a music producer you can’t go wrong with Josh.

Well this is the first of the cast of characters I’ve met at the local tweetups, and there are a bunch more great ones I’ll be talking about here soon.

Had a post I wrote last year in January still sitting as a draft and will probably put it up this January.

Overall getting ready to build the smoker i have been wanting to.  Got a nice 1/4 inch steel tube that will be perfect for the main portion.  Still looking for a for the burner portion but that will come.  As well going to pick up an Arduino to help regulate the temp with fans.  Hopefully that will be finished up this summer for some fun times.  If I get that running well then it will probably be time to take a Competition class so I can learn get prepared for giving that a shot, but we will see.

On the Fireworks front, hoping to pick up some nice things this year and finish up some nice racks with the tubes I got last year.  As well will probably use the Arduino on a project related to the firing side of all that.  We will see though.  My mom saw some fireworks related Christmas decorations that she would like to get/have me make.  Being that the ones I found online were pretty expensive I thought why not give trying to make some a shot.  Again the Arduino will come in handy for this.  :)  Will need to find some cheap lights in these after Christmas sale to play with.  Have some other interesting ideas in relation to this as well but those will have to wait for next year.

So what’s getting me back into writing about this?  Well been doing some more social networking for work stuff and getting inspired by those blogging peeps to actually try to keep up with some sort of schedule, even if it’s bi-weekly.  While writing about what I’m doing is always still going to be the main focus, I plan to try and keep my ear to the ground and at least comment on other things going on with both BBQ and fireworks.

As well I plan to talk about some local breweries that are springing up all over Northwest Indiana.  Brews are definitely something that go hand in hand with BBQ.

I will be writing a few articles up about some other local Social Media peeps that have gotten me back interested.

As well from a conversation I had on twitter with a few peeps, I picked up @bbqtweetup and bbqtweetup.com because I think actually having meetups to share and talk about BBQ would be great. While others wanted to have one this January, I’m not sure if I’m ready for that quite yet but next January I think it will be one.  I’m shooting for first one this summer, hopefully with the new smoker completed.

Well here is to a more productive next year.  :)

Unfortunately it’s been a crazy summer so I haven’t been able to put the time towards this I had hoped to.  Still haven’t even changed out the default template yet. 

On a positive note I made som Pulled Pork this weekend that turned out pretty good, decent smoke ring on though I didn’t have time to let the rub really sit on it before cooking though the outside was still quite tasty.  I wish I took some pics of it but eating was all that was on my mind when it finally was done so it was demolished pretty quickly.  I have some left over that I plan to throw in a Brunswick stew that I love making.  I’ll have to put my recipe for that out here in the future.

Also need to get back to work on my smoker ideas but those are probably still farther off till I have some time to really lay out the end goals with that.

Well, hope to have more soon.