Big Sky Blog

Montana author Laura Munson is holding a fun barn-themed contest! Check it out:

I’m holding a contest here on my blog from now until September 12.
To enter the contest, simply send in your best shot at naming the above barn in the comment section here on this post. Is it a celebrity? A concept? A country? A kind of sandwich? Let your common sense go and dream a little. It’s good for you.
The winner WINS A SIGNED FIRST EDITION copy of my book THIS IS NOT THE STORY YOU THINK IT IS. This contest will be judged by a team of highly skilled professional out-of-the-box thinkers: my two kids.
Additional opportunity for the extra outside-of-the-boxers: A signed book will also be sent to the person who sends in the best original barn photo and name…

There’s lots of pictures of other barns from across Montana, too!

The husband and wife team at Glacier County Honey are doing it right. They’ve got a website, an active blog, and are engaged on Twitter.

From the About page: “Welcome! We are tickled pink that you’ve stumbled across our little blog. We are the Glacier County Honey Company, Greg and Courtney Fullerton, a pair of commercial beekeepers who live on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, just south of Canada, and just east of Glacier National Park.”

Go say hi to this neat couple/business!

A new media outlet seems to be off to a good start in Montana: the Montana Watchdog. According to the website: “It is a branch of the Montana Policy Institute, a nonpartisan policy research center and an associate member of the Montana Newspaper Association.” Be sure to follow them on Twitter and/or Facebook, too.
UPDATE: looks like the folks at Montana Watchdog are on Governor Schweitzer’s radar!

This blog and this domain (www.BigSkyBlog.com) are for sale. If you’re interested, send me an e-mail: davidmsc @ hotmail.com.

Montana Gael is devoted to “Poetry, art, and news about the Montana Irish diaspora, with literary musings, a Celtic events calendar, and other brilliant links.” With Montana’s long & celebrated history of all things Irish, this is bound to be a great blog!

Kirsten In Montana features the tagline “Dropping out of corporate America and dropping back into life.” Montana seems like the right place to do that.

Just a reminder: there’s a whole lotta bloggers here in Montana; here’s the current roster of all of the Big Sky Bloggers that I know of! Please let me know of anyone that I have missed, and keep me posted of new bloggers. If you ever run out of blogs to read, come on over here and just start clicking!

Got an e-mail from Montana author and blogger TL Hines, and his new project sure sounds intriguing – especially to fellow bloggers, I suspect:

My new book, THE UNSEEN, is about a loner who hides in unexpected places. So to help roll out the project, it’s time to hide reminders about the book in unexpected places.

I’m calling it the Unseen Pages Project, and here’s how it works. I’m disassembling one complete copy of the book, and I’d like to hide every one of those pages–192 in all–across the United States and Canada. Bookmarks attached to each page direct people to my web site, inviting them to leave a comment about the page, where they found it, where they left it for someone else to find, or whatever. The page that gets passed around most–that is, the page that gets the most comments–wins prizes for each and every person who found it. If you’re a fan of the BookCrossing site, it’s kinda like that, except we’re hiding individual pages instead of entire books. (I explain why at my site, along with more details.)

Which brings me to you. I hope you…will be interested in hiding two or three pages in their first hiding places. You’ll get a link to your own site or blog for each page you hide, as well as chances to win prizes, and my eternal gratitude. And I hope it’s something fun for all of us.

Unseen Pages Project information

If you live in or near Helena, Montana, I’ll be doing a library program at the Lewis & Clark Public Library this Thursday, September 18th, at 7:00 pm. We’ll be discussing writing, the publication process, tiddlywinks, and anything else that comes up. I’ll also be doing other library programs in October and November across Montana (and maybe a few other places in the Rocky Mountain West), so stay tuned for details.

I hope you’ll be part of the Unseen Pages Project. I hope you’ll read the new book and let me know what you think. If nothing else, I hope you’ll drop a quick note to say “hi.” As always, thanks for taking the journey with me.

TL Hines

Seems like a pretty cool project – and the book sounds like a good read, too! Best of luck with the project, TL!

The Billings Gazette has set up a blog for the delegates to the Democratic National Convention to post about what goes on during their stay in the Mile High City.

Depending on which side of the aisle you lean towards it may be interesting or nauseating.

I’m looking forward to seeing if any Montana GOP delegates will be willing to blog about their experiences in Minneapolis.

Just did some “pruning” of the Big Sky Blogroll – removing deleted or inactive blogs. The general rule on what qualifies as “inactive” is usually six months or longer without an entry. Others have been deleted by the owners, and therefore removed from the blogroll. Thanks to Randy at the Billings Free Press for helping me out! But on a more positive note, there are some recent additions to the roster; here’s a few of them:

- Manly Thoughts: yep, genuine manly thoughts from the manly man behind the Manly Man Candle Company. There – did I work the word “man” in enough?

- The Travels of Nancy Chalmers: including some great pix!
-
Eat/Drink Great Falls: from Epicuria comes an honest account of her culinary adventures in Great Falls.

- Problem Bear: among the recent topics are paper wasps, Seeley Lake, and poetry.

- Running On Empty: the near-daily journal of a runner, with occasional pix.

- Livingston Weekly: find out what’s going on in (duh) Livingston!

As always, please let me know of any new blogs in Montana…and remember, the Big Sky Blogroll is always open if you’re looking for some “Last, Best Place” blogging!

Attention, residents of the Magic City! There is a new community blog devoted to all things BILLINGS called the Billings Free Press.

This is a blog dedicated to the greatest city in Montana. Some would say the only city in Montana but I’m not one of them…I’ll be the first to admit that Billings may not be perfect but it IS the best city in the best state in the greatest country in the world. A little jingoism never hurts. Does it?

Nope – nothing wrong with civic pride! The Billings Free Press is just getting started, with entries about movies filmed in/around Billings and Pictograph State Park. The creator of the site is none other than SFO Randy, one of the true grey-beard veterans of the Big Sky Blogosphere. If you’re interested in contributing, check out the About Page. Keep an eye on this new blog — I predict very good things!