Blog

It's been a good run as the real estate wonk -- five years of blogging and even longer writing stories about the never-dull housing market -- but the time has come to pass the baton. Colleague Steve Kilar, who's been covering commercial real estate, is taking over residential as well. Which should make life easier for the poor souls who, in years past, were never sure which reporter to contact about mixed-use developments. It will also mean a broader array of real estate news and tidbits on both this blog and the @RealEstateWonk account on Twitter, which Steve is also taking over.

Unleashed is looking for its next owner (of sorts). Unleashed needs a freelance blogger who can write Baltimore-centric pet news items and features. You'll post about local pets and their people, animal issues (think pit bulls!), cat/dog shows, animal events, helpful tips, amazing images and viral videos. You'll work your social-media contacts to help drive traffic to the blog. And you can gush over your own animal(s) as well, as long as they're cute and/or lovable. Unleashed has standing features but plenty of opportunity for one-off posts; some postings appear in Sun print publications as well.

Want to know what's on the mind of the new superintendent of Baltimore County's public schools? Just follow his tweets, or his blogs, or, if you are an insider, his text messages. The open communication's style of Dallas Dance has been out there for everyone to read in his first month. He's already tweeted about everything fromU.S. Department of Educationgrants for Advanced Placement, to the teachers union and education articles he's found interesting. He's already tweeting about twice a day, and the school year hasn't begun.

Hello kiddies! First of all - if you're reading this thinking "Oh shoot! Did I miss the premiere of season three of 'The Walking Dead'?!" - no, don't panic. This is just a blog about the special season three preview that aired on AMC this weekend, culminating with Sunday night's episode of the "Talking Dead" panel show. Yup, I was that bored that I took the time to write a blog recapping a preview of a show that won't come back on the air for another three months.

You know the story about William Faulkner at the Oxford, Mississippi, post office, don't you? Sacked for sitting in the back reading the magazines instead of waiting on customers, he said, "Good, now I won't be at the beck and call of every son of a bitch that's got two cents. "  Well, when The Sun sent me off on my [cough] sabbatical [cough] in 2009 and I set up the blog at a new location, I decided that I no longer had to be at the beck and call of the Associated Press Stylebook . So I gladly adopted the Oxford comma and suited my own preferences in other matters.

All aboard! What are you doing this Thursday? It's nice to see an idea that percolated in the Baltimore Tech Facebook group months ago get birthed into reality this week. The "Geeks on a Train" event is about connecting Baltimore's tech community with other communities along the so-called Amtrak Corridor in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. [See my original blog post on it from back in November.] If you've got a day to ride the rails from DC to Boston, and meet entrepreneurs and techies in stops along the way, GOAT is for you. The Greater Baltimore Tech Council took the lead in organizing an itinerary for the trip, which you'll see here.

It's somewhat strange to write an introduction on a blog you've been contributing to for the past 10 months, yet here I am, doing the Internet equivalent to the awkward honk and wave.   But hey, better late than never, right?   The old Midnight Sun scribe, Erik Maza, has headed north to Women's Wear Daily and we raise our glass to him. Now, loyal Midnight Sun readers, you have me, a 25-year-old features reporter who lives in Canton and considers bar-hopping with friends a good night out.   A little more about me so my parents don't think I have a problem: I grew up in South Jersey, 30 minutes away from Atlantic City, in a tiny town called Hammonton (look for it in the first episode of “Boardwalk Empire”)

I'm not going to lie: Mother's Day has taken me by surprise this year. Maybe it's all the hoopla of returning to the office this week after maternity leave and getting this blog launched, but I'm definitely not ready. For the moms in my life, I'm sorry: Your presents have been ordered, but they won't be delivered in time for me to get them to you on Sunday. But you have my unending gratitude for all your love and support, especially through the challenges of the past year. And readers, thankfully, my colleagues have you covered.

During 37 years as a feature writer, sometime editor and longtime restaurant critic at the Sun, I had many proud moments and even a few awards. But I don't think anything pleased me as much as being named The Sun 's Best Blogger by the City Paper in the fall of 2007. A few months before, my editor had told me I would be joining the digital age. I would write a food and restaurant blog, to be called Dining@Large. I wasn't sure I knew what a blog was. Being a restaurant critic was a fabulous job, but I'd done it for a long time.

Having just spent a very busy weekend with adorable, 4-year-old twin girls who were visiting with my nephew, I was extremely interested in the sight-seeing tips from Jill Smokler, the Baltimore-based Scary Mommy blogger who recently released "Confessions of a Scary Mommy. " Smokler provided the Baltimore Sun with her Top Five best -- and worst -- places to take the kids . I missed all of them over the weekend, instead falling back on the National Aquarium , which I've found to be a very entertaining, if very expensive, spot for kids of all ages.