After 7+ years, I’m putting ScalpEm.com into “Archive Mode” and, for all intents and purposes, closing the site. No new content will be added in the future. After many years of blogging about the Noles, it’s time for me to move on to other formats. Where can you find me in the future? You can find me on Twitter. It lets me interact with all of you, in 140 characters at a time and provides some of the best real time news and conversation anywhere.

As you have probably noticed, posting frequency slowed down a lot since October of 2009. Why? My priorities in life, my outlook on life and what’s important to me changed. There are other projects and ideas that I’d like to work on. So, it’s time for me to move on to those other items on my life’s agenda.

With that in mind, I didn’t want to stop posting without an explanation. I thank the many readers that stopped by over the years. I appreciate all of you very, very much. I thank the regular contributors here, specifically, Bill From Tampa and Jordi Scrubbings (you can find Mike Lortz at JordiScrubbings.com), both of whom added a great deal of content throughout the 7 years of ScalpEm.com. I’d also like to thank the many sports bloggers out there. I enjoyed watching the blogging community grow and getting to know all of you a bit. Of course, thank you to the readers and those of you that left comments. It was always a good feeling to know that a person took the time to read what I wrote. Last, but definitely not least, thanks to my “investors” aka Mom & Dad. Your support of my project was always greatly appreciated.

All comments on the posts are officially closed. Also, the ScalpEm family of domains are for sale. If you are interested in purchasing the ScalpEm domains (com, net, org, biz, info, mobi, us) or need to contact me you may use the contact form (link above) or email me directly. If you want to follow me on Twitter, where I still chat about our beloved Seminoles, you can find me at http://twitter.com/ScalpEmOfficial.

Thank you very much for 7 fun years! This is a very happy day for me! Go Noles!

And so it is under this historical precedent that I am sad to announce that this is my last post at ScalpEm.com. I haven’t visited this cave much recently, so I figured it was time I took my remaining rocks, spearheads, and caveman clubs and officially moved out.

This is a sad departure, for sure.

I started blogging in late 2006. During my first few months, I was the definition of a novice blogger without a clue what I was doing. Although I started writing about current events, I quickly migrated to sports. Among my first posts were an opinion piece on Jeff Bowden, a look back at Nigel Dixon, and a comparison of Bobby Bowden with Babe Ruth.

http://theserioustip.blogspot.com/2006/09/5-good-reasons-jeff-bowden-is-ok.html

http://theserioustip.blogspot.com/2006/11/life-and-times-of-big-jelly.html

http://theserioustip.blogspot.com/2006/11/saint-bobby-and-babe.html

(I still think the latter two are quite good. Go check them out.)

To this day I still don’t know how, but somehow those early articles were picked up by The Daily Chop, Bill from Tampa’s great curation of FSU news. After I found out who was sending dozens of more viewers my way, I would email Bill from Tampa and send him anything I wrote on the Noles.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/daily_chop/

Then, on November 6, 2006, I actually received a comment from one of the new FSU readers.

“ NoleCC said: Cool blog. I’ll be keeping especially close attention to any Mets posts. Glad to see
we have that in common along with the ‘Noles!”

I had no idea who “NoleCC” was. So to find out who this mysterious fellow was, down the rabbit hole I plunged. I followed a link, then another, and then other, and finally ended up on ScalpEm.com. Along with Andrew Carter’s Chopping Block (how fitting that he just left as well), ScalpEm.com became one of my go-to blogs on the Noles. But unlike the Chopping Block, ScalpEm featured an intelligent and responsive comment section that I could share ideas with. And as NoleCC introduced himself to my blog via my comment section, I began to introduce myself to his.

After two years of reading and commenting, I finally mustered the gumption to ask NoleCC if I could guest cameo on ScalpEm. NoleCC’s answer was not only a resounding “Yes”, but he also told me I could post whenever I wanted. And on November 17, 2008, I wrote my first blog for ScalpEm.com.

http://www.scalpem.com/blog/2008/11/17/will-the-bad-economy-mean-a-quicker-end-for-bobby-
bowden/

Over the last few years, I’ve really appreciated the opportunity to write at ScalpEm.com. I like to think I’ve done some of my best work here. My personal favorites are my recent posts on M&Ms, my various dissections of the Seminole Boosters, and my comparison of the Florida college football scene with post-
World War I geopolitics.

(Actually, that WWI geopolitics post is one of my favorite pieces, here or anywhere.)

http://www.scalpem.com/blog/2010/09/11/florida-college-football-and-the-age-of-empires/

But now it’s time to say good-bye to ScalpEm.com. Even though my posting frequency has dropped in
the last year, I’m gonna miss it. It was my outlet to talk all things Seminoles.

But those of you who still want to read my work, I’m still at my personal blog
(www.jordiscrubbings.com), I’m writing about the Tampa Bay Rays at www.RaysIndex.com, and Minor
League Baseball at www.BusLeaguesBaseball.com. I am also on Twitter at @JordiScrubbings and on
Facebook at www.Facebook.com/ScrubbingsJordi. On top of all that, I’m also doing stand-up comedy in
the Central Florida area, with my next show in Ocala on May 6th and 7th. Details on my site.

Thanks again all of you who read my work. I really appreciate it. It was an honor and a pleasure. Thank
you, Bill From Tampa, for finding my blog and introducing me to a vibrant FSU blogosphere. And thanks
most of all to NoleCC for having me here and for the last seven years making ScalpEm one of the best
places to talk Seminoles.

Go Noles.

(NoleCC’s Note: A big thanks to Jordi for contributing here over the years! Check him out at his various online locations and in Tampa doing stand up if you get the chance!!!)

• Random photo posts – From time to time I see a shirt that is just too ugly to carry the Garnet and Gold or a weird item at a store or a weird fan. I’ve just never had a good way to grab my cell phone and post a picture. Tumblr lets me do that easily. So if I have a random photo I’d like to share with you guys, I’ll post it to the Tumblr site.
• Audio posts – I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do yet with my audio posts. Perhaps I’ll introduce you to the 1 minute or less pregame and postgame thoughts.
• Other random crap that I don’t want to save for a full post – There are plenty of times that I read a quote or see a clip of something that I’d like to share with my FSU friends, but it never fit my vision for a post here on the site. Tumblr is how I plan to do that too.

Bookmark that Tumblr link above (it’s integrated with the site here) or feel free to check in at http://scalpem.tumblr.com/ more often as we head into the 2010 FSU Football season.

• For quite a while I’ve thought about closing up shop here for various reasons. The last year of my life vastly changed my outlook about what is important to me and what isn’t important. With that said, I always love the Seminoles so following my school will always have some level of importance in my life.
• So what’s happening? I’m not putting the site into archive mode. However, there will not be as ambitious of a posting schedule here as there was in the past. This is likely the last year that I will be a season ticket holder for FSU football and I’d like to enjoy it with out my own imposed feeling of obligation to upload photos and immediately write about the game. I just want to be a fan and watch the games without lugging the camera or taking notes.
• I’m focusing on quality over quantity. Tomahawk Nation does it particularly well (although they have a ton of quick hitting quantity too, but it’s segregated nicely), in the sense that they aren’t always first but they are almost always the most thorough. They don’t take part in the two paragraph crap out there that I see too often in sports blogging. Sure,I can be the 8th guy to weigh in on something, but I’d rather not be a part of the noise.
• As for that senseless stuff there’s a great forum for that called Twitter. You can follow me on Twitter where I’ll post some of the off the wall short thoughts I have about the Noles.
• This will continue to be a place that is dedicated to talking about Seminole Softball. I had high hopes for the Tallahassee Democrat, but now that they’ve moved to a subscription model the free sources of news about the team are once again very limited.
• I thank you all for reading and I hope that you continue to check in a couple of times per week, especially when the season gets rolling, the Jimbotron Fan Confidence Meter polls weekly and On The Warpath makes the occasional return.

Melancholy

noun

Changes To Check Out:

• Check out the menu / navigation bar at the top, there are lots of goodies up there.
• Authors for ScalpEm.com have their own page, with a short Bio and listing of all articles they’ve contributed to the site.
• Commenting Guidelines are listed under the About menu above.
• I’m in the process of expanding the FSU Traditions menu. Check it out under About.
• A new Full Archive page is available.
• The sidebar should be much, much cleaner and clearer.
• I’ve added a link to join the Coaches Clubs at Seminole Boosters.
• Only post excerpts are on the front page, so if you don’t want to read it, you don’t have to scroll through the whole thing anymore.

Everything else should be the same. If it’s not, or if something is broken, please let me know in a comment here or an email. I appreciate it! And keep an eye out for more improvements in the future!

I never include this website in my semi-sorta-annual rankings. Why? Well because if I didn’t vote for myself, what message would that send? On top of that, I’m the only vote in the ranking, so it doesn’t seem fair to include my own site. In place of a ranking, let’s talk a little bit about the past season for the oldest (if anyone can predate 2004 as a site besides Warchant which didn’t have blogs then let me know and I’ll retract the oldest title) FSU blog out there, ScalpEm.com.

<Start Mushy Touchy Feely Article>

It was a tough year in many respects. There were unexpected offers for selling the site, merging the site, closing down the site, or giving up the site. It was an interesting and exciting start to the season. But after the first month, I didn’t provide the kind of insight that I had hoped when the football season started. My own personal life kinda sorta interfered with that (thank you softball-to-the-face). But, I WOULD like to thank everyone that helped me out. Thanks to Tomahawk Nation, I appreciate all of the links this past year. Thank you writers! Specifically, I want to thank Bill From Tampa and Jordi Scrubbings for keeping some posts flowing. I’d like to thank the folks that participated in the open ended threads while I was out. I’d also like to thank Block-C.com‘s Chili, who helped keep an eye on the site a couple of times this past year. I would also like to thank the ACC blog community (and others I’m surely leaving out) for sending their thoughts and prayers via whatever way they could. I really appreciate it. Thank you to everyone out there on Twitter (follow me or tell your friends about me). Before 2009 I never saw the point of Twitter, but many of you in the community provide tons of great stuff in 140 characters or less. That’s pretty awesome.

I hope that 2010 is much better for our little site, and there is reason to believe that it will be. The Jimbo Fisher era is here, finally. There will be lots to write about, and although I desperately want to be a blatant homer right now, I’ll try to keep everything balanced. Our newest writer, Long-Distance Nole, is a great addition to the writing team.  Over the summer there should be some upgrades to the website, perhaps an upgrade to the ScalpEm.com Photo Album and there might even be a spin-off site that honors one of the best, and perhaps lesser-known traditions in college football (but we’ll see about that, it’s just a loose idea right now). All in all, I hope to keep delivering a fair view of the happenings around FSU Athletics. If you’re interested in writing for the site, contact me. Even if you’re looking to start your own blog about FSU, contact me too. I’m happy to help where I can with the technical knowledge of running your own site.

Finally, I’d like to thank the readers (and Twitter helped grow this I’m sure). ScalpEm.com grew 35% based on how many unique visitors come to the site. Those visitors loaded 17% more pages (3 million from visitors, 7 million if you include all of the crawlers out there) than in 2008. Considering the football coverage was sparse at best this past year, I’m very thankful that ANYBODY was reading! I never thought when the site started in 2004 that I would ever see that many pages loaded, or so many visitors would read things I wrote. I thank all of you for reading this site, participating in the comments and helping to spread the word about ScalpEm.com, the Seminoles and all things FSU.

I hope 2010 is a great year for us all!

<End Mushy Touchy Feely Article>

Twitter – I reluctantly started a Twitter account for ScalpEm.com this year. I must say that it’s paid off much more than I thought. Not only have I “met” some really awesome Seminole fans out there, but it also brought some new readers to the ScalpEm.com community. While I’d do this even if nobody was reading, it’s nice to know that there are others out there that enjoy a freebie site that tried to remain level headed. A big thank you to not only the Tweeps but the long time readers that help keep the site going!

Recruiting - It’s that time of year again. In related to Twitter news, I’ve been following Coach Coley on Twitter. I didn’t think it was possible to get motivated in 140 characters or less, but Coach Coley proved me wrong. FEAR THE SPEAR WITH SOME MORE CUBAN COFFEE!!!!!!

Site Rankings - I’ll eventually rank everyone again (after the Gator Bowl probably), but I’m just going to be flat out honest and tell you #1 now. While Tomahawk Nation drives me up a wall with some of their antics (What was with the turtle sex pictures?) they are the most on top of things site, and are mostly accurate with breaking news. Good job Bud & Company, you guys have rocketed from nowhere to being the most read Seminole blog out there and rightfully so. Now if I could just get an article in under 3000 words… ;-)

Urban Meyer - So I went ahead and said how much I respect Urban Meyer for stepping down and realizing the important things in life. Less than 24 hours later, he took it back and said he’ll be back to coach.

This is what I get for praising a Gator.

Gator Bowl – Have I mentioned how much I absolutely hate that the name of the game is the GATOR Bowl? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always felt it’s one of the best Non-BCS games out there. I’ve been to the game when the Noles beat up Virginia Tech behind a Chris Rix / Jeff Bowden led offense.  It’s a good time for sure, even if it’s a bit breezy and cold like it will be on Friday, but really can’t we just call it the Konica Bowl or something? Croc Bowl would be fine too. Heck with the way the defense played most of the year maybe Toilet Bowl would be more appropriate. I just wish it was ANYTHING other than the GATOR Bowl.

Posts to this site by me are on hold indefinitely. It might not be too long before I get back to regular posting, or it might be a while. It just depends on the next few days. What happened? Wednesday night I suffered injuries while playing softball. It would be easier to explain what I didn’t break, but the easiest what to put it, is that I broke my nose, cheek and cracked the eye socket bones around my right eye. I require surgery to the right side of my face to reconstruct the damaged bones. I should have that in a couple of days, after some of the current swelling subsides. The good news is that my right eye is okay at the moment, and that my long term prognosis should be good following surgery.

For those of you that have sent me your well wishes and prayers. Thank you so much. There are so many folks out there that I’ve never met in person, but that rushed to offer help and prayers… well I just was amazed and I’m very thankful for you all.

Regarding updates here, I’m sure there will be some new posts from folks like Jordi and Bill From Tampa like normal. My friend Sean might also contribute some updates. Otherwise, you may use this open thread to discuss the games and stuff while I’m out of commission. As for photos, reports from the game, etc., my goal is to make the N.C. State game on October 31, but we’ll see about that. Sadly, my 76 game home streak will come to an end with the GT game. Depending on how I feel, I might have some standard posts here, but again it just depends on how much I’m up and awake.

As always, thank you all for reading the site and for your support. I will update again when I can, and when I have some more news! Until then, Go Noles!!!