Today was COLD in Charleston, and it had the bloggers beyond the usual suspects talking about the weather:

it’s not the temperature so much (it’s almost 30 degrees, which is fine with me) as it is the wind. riding to campus (and right now) the wind chill is around 18 degrees – because the wind is running a constant 10-12 miles per hour with gusts up to 32.

Becky even had to wear long underwear to work!

Cold weather never stops our local bloggers, though.

Brian reports in from the February sneaker preview at Suite Sole.

Greg gives us an update on how the team he was coaching performed at the Charlie Post Classic.

Seventeen people started the training. Fifteen finished. Twelve finished the race. Two of the three were injured in the last week and the third unexpectedly had to travel on the day of  the race.

Everybody did great. Everyone who started finished feeling good and we had three PRs in the Speedsters group.

I love how bloggers are always looking out for each other:

Patrick gives us some friendly reminders.  The folks from the Upper King St. Design District will get you a February discount at Spa Adagio.  And last but, most certainly not least, Ian alerts us to Free Beer!

Usually we focus on the writing, but images are a huge part of what bloggers do.

A few local and a few out of town bloggers got together last week for a photowalk of the Ravenel Bridge.  Ian, Jared, and Eugene posted some picures.  This one is Eugene’s:

Leigh Webber takes pictures professionally, so it’s no surprise she can make pictures of her family dogs into works of art:

Joan of Charleston Daily Photo can always be relied on to find the beauty of the Lowcountry in the oddest places:

Chad put together an amazing set of images with the textures of a Lowcountry Salt Marsh.

Mama Grizzly gives us a Wordless Wednesday:

Chuck brings us a picture of underwater crosswalks as he ponders what to shoot for the next themed Show & Tell at the monthly Photography Meetup:

Howard called out that Charleston was ranked as the #1 city once again by Southern Living Magazine.  It didn’t say so anywhere in the article, but I’m pretty sure it was because of our active blogger community.  Here’s what we’ve all been up to:

Geoff made a big breakthrough in his improv performance, by being born (again?) in a Walmart.  I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, you probably just have to watch the video.

Local chef Sean Brock will be participating in the Naples Wine Festival.

At MURPHY 24p (still can’t figure out what that stands for), we can find suggestions for a less stressful week.

Patrick ponders the slow decline of daytime soap operas:

Would you miss the soaps if they vanished?  Do you have a favorite one?  Or would you celebrate their demise with total joy?

In the political arena, we see a well deserved told-you-so in reference to the bailout.

Babbie has still has some questions for the Charleston County School District.

And that’s only a small sample, we such great things going on here, it’s no wonder we’re #1!

It’s a beautiful day here in the Lowcountry.  The warm weather has returned, and it brings smiles with it.  It’s a bit disorienting when I’m reading blog posts about snow, but I’ll just roll with it.

Heather and I are both going to be out of town, but do not fear, Eugene has taken up the banner, and is organizing a Meetup for next week.  He is proposing Sesame Burger and Beer.

Ian posted a short summary and some pictures from the Muddy Waters Acoustic Music night on Wednesday.  If you’re upset you missed it, there’s another one coming up in early February!  Also coming up on the calendar is a poetry reading at the East Bay Meeting house by Katherine Williams, highly recommended by The Microbial Laboratory.

In college basketball news, the University of South Carolina beat Florida 70 – 69 in one of the most exciting finishes I’ve seen in a long time.  I can’t describe it, you’ll have to check it out for yourself.

We have two entries today in the “Intriguing Things I May Have to Investigate Further” category.  The first is Jared’s rundown of the recent Identi.ca redesign and new features.  I like the idea of integrated group support, especially if there’s already a CHS group forming!  On the opposite end of the technology spectrum is a Kitchen Garden program offered by Legare Farms.  It’s an interesting extension of the idea of Community Supported Agriculture, and I’m very interested to see how the program works out:

For $750, Legare will help you establish your own Kitchen Garden by bringing a 4-by-8 raised cedar bed to your yard and planting it with the vegetables of your choice. They’ll even maintain it throughout the season, for an extra price. You can buy as many beds as you’d like. They only require full sun. Once you get set up, they’ll even come back every year and replant your garden for you.

I know that most of my roundups are usually of the lighthearted and irreverent type, but my last update here is serious.  I was very upset to see that one of our local bloggers was inundated with negative and threatening comments to the point that she is taking her blog out of the public eye.  I don’t know anything about the content of that post or the comments, but I think there are two lessons we all need to be reminded of here.  The first, is that you need to remember that if your posts are public, there are going to be people who disagree with you, and they may not all act reasonably.  Don’t ever let your life online endanger your real life and family!  The other thing to remember is that no matter how much a post upsets you, try to be civil in your comments.  No matter how much we disagree, neither side gains when one side is simply chased out of the discussion.

Now go out and enjoy your weekend!

Well, it’s Monday, which means it’s time to head back to work, and reflect on what happened this weekend.

Nikki braved the unusually cold (for Charleston) weather to attend a night time bike ride fundraiser.

The Stuckey family took a trip to the SC Aquarium.

The Music and Oysters for Wildlife benefit was this weekend.

Mike commemorates a broken water main with a poem.

Eugene wrote a scientific paper on the possible methods for cooking #meatwaffles.  I wonder if he used his beloved calculator for any of the analysis.  An excerpt:

The mini #meatwaffles made in this manner did not differ in taste to their non-#meatwaffle counterparts, but did have a nice brown and crispy seared exterior. Because of the wells created by the waffle iron, the ratio of seared exterior to #meatwaffle size is significantly greater than that for the non-#meatwaffle counterpart

It was also a big weekend in the NFL, with the NFC and AFC championships held on Sunday.  The Arizona Cardinals defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 32-25.  The Eagles nearly made an amazing second half comeback, but now Philadelphia fans are moving on to baseball season.  The Pittsburgh Steelers outlasted the Baltimore Ravens 23-14, in a pretty punishing game.  Jared held a Super Bowl Pre-pre-pregame show to discuss the outcome of the weekend.

Now get to work!

Two blogs that were recently added to the blogroll that we missed in yesterday’s post:

My Gun Culture
the lighter side of serious business

Digital Blade
your local tech support company

Some things going on in the Lowcountry you might want to be aware of.

Registration has opened up for the Leopold Education Project at the Audubon Center.

The Leopold Education Project is an innovative, interdisciplinary, critical thinking, conservation and environmental education curriculum based on the classic writings of the renowned conservationist, Aldo Leopold. The Leopold Education Project teaches the public about humanity’s ties to the natural environment in the effort to conserve and protect the earth’s natural resources.

The Charleston Angler has put out their schedule of Seminars, Schools, and Events for early 2009.  They also note that the Charleston Boat Show is coming up.

Hugging the Coast has put together a list of Food Festivals and Gourmet Events South Carolina.

If you’re looking for a Staycation (Stay-at-home-vacation), Patrick Properties can recommend the perfect place.

A leash law was passed in Charleston.

Heather gives us a tutorial on how to deal with a Boston Butt.  No, that’s not a euphemism for losing weight!  I eat enough barbecue, I should probably try this recipe out.

And in a shameless attempt to boost the appeal of my roundups, I’ll mention the pictures of Brutus, the new  Blue Ion puppy.

The weekend approaches, here are a few things from the blogroll to help you get through the Friday afternoon doldrums:

Pat points out a few things from the blog reader that helped pass the morning.

Some Charleston folks made the news.  Broadcaster Earl Cox got a very up close and personal taste of what is happening in Gaza right now when a Kassam rocket hit near enough to knock him down.  Shep Fairey created a new poster for the Obama Inauguration.

I very much enjoyed this image of the New Year’s Eve Meatball Drop down at Woody’s on Folly Beach.

Katherine at Paint Charleston Daily posted a great charcoal sketch of a mossy live oak.

Stephanie over at the City Paper unearthed a gold mine of deals and specials at local restaurants.

And if those aren’t enough to get you through the end of your workday, you can dig through Jared’s analysis of the alternatives to Twitter.  It should keep you busy for a while.  Yes, the first commenter is actually one the guys who built Identi.ca!

Now go have a great weekend!

Heather warned me that if I didn’t cover the sports blogging, it wouldn’t get covered.  It’s been a busy season for fans of most sports, but the biggest topic here in the Lowcountry is NCAA Football Bowl games.

The two South Carolina teams that reached bowl games didn’t fare too well.  USC lost to Iowa 31-10.  As Lori put it:

Today was the Big Day: USC played against Iowa in the Outback Bowl. I use the term “played” loosely, because I’m not even sure the Gamecocks even showed up.

Clemson put up a bit of a fight, but in the end, they lost to Nebraska 26-21.  The big question now is whether or not CJ Spiller will be back next year.

Last night was the Fiesta Bowl, with Texas pulling out a victory over Ohio State in the last 16 seconds of the game.  Mike was brave enough to watch the game in a basement with fans from both sides of the contest:

Great game last night. Big thanks to DW for letting us set up shop at his place – the best neutral ground watching spot around. Almost as entertaining as the game was observing the two fans.

Thursday it will all wrap up with the BCS Championship, Florida vs. Oklahoma.  Bill is impressed at Florida quarterback Tim Tebow’s ability to avoid getting caught up in the trash talking.  The Go To Team will be there shooting some HD footage.

Other games that made the blogroll were the Utah defeat of Alabama, and Kentucky topping East Carolina.

For those who watch the pros, the NFL playoffs started this past weekend.  The Carolina Panthers fans were pretty quiet, probably because they earned a bye in the first round.  In the meantime, we have an Eagles fan, a Miami fan, and more who should be keeping the blogroll busy.

Our usually vocal Chargers fan was strangely silent about the first round of the playoffs, so I’m going to see what I can do about inspiring a post:

2008 was a big year for Lowcountry Bloggers, largely because it was our only year so far!  I know that everyone and their brother puts out a year in review post, but I am totally going to take advantage of the easy post once a year

It all started on July 30th, with a roundup of posts about the opening of the Apple Store on King Street.

Since that day, there have been 144 posts.

We had 6259 visits to the site, and 10,828 page views.

As of today, we have 393 blogs on the blogroll.

There were 8 blogger meetups.  I am not going to speculate at the number of beers consumed during those meetups.

Our most popular post was Heather’s coverage of the Grand Opening of the Google data center.

The single biggest source of traffic is actually FriendFeed, which generates 11.2% of our site visits.

We have 48 subscribers to our RSS feed.

We have earned $2.84 in Google Adsense revenue.

Overall, I think that I speak for both of us when I say that Lowcountry Bloggers has been a great experience so far.  I have had lots of fun, met really interesting people, and I learn so much everytime I do a blog roundup, it’s kind of crazy.  I am very excited to see what 2009 has in store for us!