Hi everyone. It’s the weekend. How nice is that? Let’s hope most of the snow that’s expected this weekend stays south. Of course, I’ll be driving in from Cleveland today.

What are you doing this weekend? How helping others by donating some blood. Starting this morning, the first two people who go the Community Blood Bank on Peach Street and mention ErieBlogs.com will get 4 tickets to Peak N Peek. Seriously. That’s a pretty nice value in exchange for a few minutes of your time. Thanks to Dan at the Blood Bank and the Peak for their help with this.

In case you missed it, former Erie Times-News editorial page editor and writer Bryan Oberle has stared blogging here. You can read his first post here. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this.

The Pennsylvania Lottery will celebrate the addition of the Mega Millions® game with a statewide bus tour with stops scheduled at 15 Lottery retail locations starting Saturday, Feb. 6. The tour rolls into the Millcreek Mall on Saturday, February 20 from 2 to 4 p.m. There will be giveaways, including free MegaMillions tickets. Powerball = stunned. Have you played the Mega Millions yet?

Think things are bad here in Erie? Harrisburg, the capital city of our fair commonwealth, is considering filing bankrupcy. I didn’t know a city could declare that. The city is $68 million in the hole. Even with a possible bankrupcy, the city will still raise taxes and sell off assets. The problem is the city hasn’t been paying its bills. Do you think scumbag debt collectors call them night and day?

The Erie County Recycling Program’s (ECRP) Convenience Center will
open on March 6th for the first of sixteen scheduled collection days during 2010. Events scheduled in 2009 collected over 242,000 pounds of materials from 1,298 residents. On average, each participant disposed of 187 pounds of waste materials. The Recycling Convenience Center will be open from 9:00am to 2:00pm the second and fourth Saturdays of each month from March thru October. The ECRP has contracted with ECS&R of Cochranton, PA to provide collection, transportation, and recycling services for the e-waste and hhw materials dropped off at the site. The program is only open to Erie County residents and pre-registration is mandatory before visiting the Convenience Center. To register, residents must call 1-866-815-0016 to secure a timeslot during one of the scheduled events. A $20.00 co-pay will be applied for the first 125 pounds of material collected. An additional fee of $.50 cents per pound will be charged thereafter. Cash, Check, and Credit Cards will be accepted on site.

Sports

Gannon’s Brittany Tabron (Canton, Ohio/Canton Central Catholic) and Tiffany Crocker (Dublin, Ohio/Dublin Coffman) have been named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District 2 teams released Thursday afternoon. Tabron was named to the second team while Crocker landed a spot on the third team.

Events

Hamot for Women will host its 4th Annual Wear Red Event at the Erie Sheraton Bayfront Hotel. This FREE event will focus on heart health awareness geared specifically to women. The program will be held on Friday, February 5, 2010 from 10 a.m. – 3p.m.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Shanna Kirschner will present a talk titled “Islamist Parties and Social Welfare” on Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 6 p.m. in Room 105A of 400 N. Main St. (the former Oddfellows Building) on the Allegheny College campus. The talk, which is free and open to the public, is part of a lecture series on Islam by Kirschner and Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies Vika Gardner.

As part of the current exhibit Making It Better: Folk Arts in Pennsylvania Today Losang Samten, a former monk and Tibetan Mandala writer, is installing an intricate sand painting at the Erie Art Museum. Visitors may watch him work Thursday, February 4 and Friday, February 5 from 11am – 5pm. The Museum will host a free Q&A session on Thursday from 5 – 5:30. The Museum will host a free workshop with Losang Samten on Saturday, February 6 from 10 – 11am.