Andrew Bindernagel takes his ice cream very seriously.

It’s not about eating. The PR Newswire customer content services specialist in Cleveland is into creating.

Bindernagel even went to Penn State’s week-long, intensive “Ice Cream College,” which has been attended by the likes of ice cream icons Ben, Jerry, and Jeni. Bindernagel’s goal is simple: Someday, he’d like to launch his own business.

“There’s something gratifying about seeing people become happy just from eating ice cream,” said Bindernagel, 30. “There’s something really fun about that.”

So why ice cream? Bindernagel literally might have his parents to thank for that.

Four years ago, his folks asked him what he wanted for his birthday. His answer: An ice cream maker. Assuming he’d never use it, his parents refused to purchase one. So Bindernagel picked one up and spent the next six months making huge quantities of ice cream to spite them, he said.

Before long, he was hooked.

A little more than a year ago, ice cream even played a part in his wedding to PR Newswire senior customer content specialist Kerry Noonan. The couple didn’t want a wedding cake. They chose cupcakes and Bindernagel’s homemade ice cream.

Bindernagel says he’s a Midwest guy at heart. He grew up in Cleveland and went to a Jesuit high school. He attended Fordham University in New York and majored in communications and media studies, with a minor in English. He also received a certificate in peace and justice studies. He graduated in 2005.

He landed at PR Newswire in 2007.

Bindernagel’s day starts at 6 a.m. on the multimedia desk, and he gets things organized for the team. The majority of his day is spent processing multimedia content that’s inserted into press releases. He also handles client questions and requests related to PR Newswire’s multimedia products.

“It’s really fast paced,” he said, mentioning the team aims to turn around multimedia components for press releases within minutes. “We’re never really doing one thing for very long.”

The PR Newswire Cleveland office houses a big chunk of the company’s employees, from sales to editorial to product support.

When work is over, Bindernagel goes back to his hobby, putting recipes together to create something awesome. In fact, he prefers more complex recipes beyond just milk, cream, and sugar.

“One little mess up can ruin an entire ice cream mix,” he says, mentioning his go-to secret ingredient is booze.

And his favorite ice cream flavor? Cookies and cream. Or, as Bindernagel makes it – cookies and Irish cream.

Christine Cube is a media relations manager for PR Newswire and freelance writer. You can follow her @cpcube.

Parents: Do you find yourself spending the majority of your time in your car driving around your city dropping and picking up kids from various practices, events, and appointments? It's a question Jeff Stephens asks this on his blog, Crazy Dad Life. There, he aims to help you with tackling the above. I like this blog because it's informative and well written. "You’ll hear how to survive the madness and navigate your daily family chaos," he says. "At the same time, I’ll provide tools and strategies to help you orchestrate your busy family lives, while balancing successful careers, and also finding some time to get online, get social, and join the parent community. Sounds like a lot, but it can be done, and it’s a great adventure." Read the full post on PR Newswire for Bloggers here.

Don't make the mistake of calling Chilli & Chocolate a Belfast food blog.  Its writers -- Kelly and Niall, a couple of dedicated food lovers in Northern Ireland -- stress that all food is fair game for coverage.  The blog is a "vehicle for sharing our passion for all things food-related: recipes, restaurant and wine reviews, cookbook recommendations, food experiences, ideas, and inspirations," the writers say. "Anything and everything will end up here, and from every corner of the world ... as long as it tastes good!" The blog was created in Nov. 2008 as a place for the duo to document their food lives: From dinner to restaurants to visit and wine recommendations. It features recipes and restaurant and wine reviews.  Check out this recipe for Irish potato bread. Read the full post here.

Tnooz is a travel blog that deals with how technology impacts the industry. When you think about it, technology is sort of crucial to travel. Unless, of course, you're walking. Today, apps and hybrid engines and a host of other technological advancements have made travel about as easy as it's ever been. That's where Tnooz comes in. This site offers tips to tech-savvy travelers. For example, the site outlines more than a dozen online resources and applications for travelers.  It also covers the travel tech industry from a business and investor perspective. Take this piece on which travel company Yahoo should buy.  But it's not all business over at Tnooz. Lighter fare includes this piece on a walking app that aggregates community data on walkable streets. Read the full post here.

Christine Cube is a media relations manager with PR Newswire and freelance writer. You can follow her at @cpcube or see what's happening over at @PRN4Bloggers.

Blog Notes is a weekly helping of blogs recently reviewed on PR Newswire for Bloggers. Would you like your blog reviewed? Tweet to PR Newswire media relations manager Christine Cube at @PRN4Bloggers.

In the spirit of graduation season, I dug for some great education blogs. One that particularly appealed to me was Surviving a Teacher's Salary. Who doesn't love a great teacher? I still remember my favorites.  Surviving a Teacher's Salary is a blog written by Crystal, who thinks "outside of the box to solve life’s problems." She happily introduces her family, including her pig, Ms. Ellie Mae. The blog features hot deals, crafts and activities, product reviews, travel and entertainment, grants and contests, and teacher resources. A recent blog post is DIY dog house made with wooden pallets. Read the full post on PR Newswire for Bloggers here.

Environmental Leader keeps corporate executives informed about energy, environmental, and sustainability news. It covers energy efficiency, emissions, carbon finance, facilities, supply chain, and smart grid. The energy efficiency space on the site, for example, features articles about companies "that efficiently use both conventional energy and renewable energy sources – such as solar and wind power." Environmental Leader has columns, news, videos, whitepapers, and webinars. Folks who follow the site also can sign up for a daily newsletter. I like this site because it’s incredibly newsy. Read the full post here.

SpanglishBaby is for the many parents out there raising their children to be both bilingual and bicultural. The blog is the brainchild of Latina moms and best friends since college, Ana L. Flores and Roxana A. Soto. The two found there were very little online resources for the growth of bilingual and bicultural families. So they launched SpanglishBaby. The site is broken down into several categories, including SB finds, the culture of food, bicultural vida, cultural travel, and books & libros. Spanglish Baby represents a true growth market. It's a unique market, sure. But it's still parents trying to raise their children as best they can, relying on the help and resources of others in the community. In any language that makes a lot of sense. Read the full post here.

Christine Cube is a media relations manager with PR Newswire and freelance writer. You can follow her at @cpcube or see what's happening over at @PRN4Bloggers.

Blog Notes is a weekly helping of blogs recently reviewed on PR Newswire for Bloggers. Would you like your blog reviewed? Tweet to PR Newswire Media Relations Manager Christine Cube at @PRN4Bloggers.

After celebrating moms a little more than a week ago, I figured it was time to look into The Mod Mommy. The blog is the work of Courtney Buteau, a "super-charged mom," who takes care of young family and Lhasa Poo. Buteau is a TV journalist in Providence, R.I. According to the blog, she takes pride in "knowing the latest about pop culture, food and parenting trends. She has a strong passion for these topics and is excited to share her tips and knowledge with mod mommies everywhere." The Mod Mommy covers parenting chitchat, product reviews, and recipes. A recent and fun post features homemade Play-Doh creations made with flour, salt, water, and food coloring. Read the full post on PR Newswire for Bloggers here.

TreeHugger is a site dedicated to "driving sustainability mainstream." It covers a lot of territory, including technology, design, transportation, science, business, living, and energy. At TreeHugger, you can find a "one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information." A recent post includes hairy skyscraper to collect energy through piezo-electric straws. It's about a Stockholm-based architecture firm that's proposing to fit a tower there with millions of energy-collecting "straws." Another popular post is particularly heartbreaking: Three male fish, the last of their kind, must find a mate or else go extinct. That's just sad; you're obviously pulling for this beautiful fish to continue on. Read the full post here.

I first discovered Scene Asia while researching art blogs, and I must say The Wall Street Journal's take on life and style in Asia is pretty amazing. There's just so much to see on here: arts and culture, fashion, food and drink, homes, people, travel, and wealth. According to the blog, Scene Asia "delivers a behind-the-scenes look at the region's dynamic culture, including Q&As with filmmakers, artists and chefs, news on arts and entertainment, and a spotlight on the most striking homes from Goa to the Gold Coast." One of my personal favorite recent posts include this dizzyingly vertical look at Hong Kong. Or this look at India's greatest architect, Charles Correa. Read the full post here.

It all began with a hashtag built around the conversation of public relations. It was simple enough: #prbreakfastclub and then shortened to #prbc. Eventually, PR Breakfast Club was born. Today, PR Breakfast Club is a place where folks talk shop: work, news, and things affecting the PR and marketing industry. It's open to anyone, especially those who share a penchant for social media. "Members of the PR Breakfast Club can’t really be defined beyond that," the blog says. "It’s a hashtag, it’s a conversation, it’s a group of flaks that are on Twitter, it’s a chance to vent, to catch up with friends near and far, and to start the day off right." You can find a list of the site's founders and authors here. Read the full post here.

Christine Cube is a media relations manager with PR Newswire and freelance writer. You can follow her at @cpcube or see what's happening over at @PRN4Bloggers.

They’re made with Stevia, coconut milk, rice protein, and pure cocoa. For the uninitiated, pure cocoa has not been processed, so you get all the benefits of the cocoa, including super high antioxidents and very few carbs.

See, when PR Newswire photography supervisor Evans-Ludderodt isn’t behind her camera, you can find her in the kitchen.  Food is her creative outlet.

“I cook everything organic,” Evans-Ludderodt said, adding that she “grew up in the people’s republic of Cambridge [Mass.], where there was a Whole Foods there before Whole Foods was even popular.”

Her foodie-ness began in childhood. Evans-Ludderodt wasn’t exposed to a lot of food preservatives or added sugar. She’s also always had an adventurous palate, gravitating toward different cuisines and eager to try new foods.

Roughly a year ago, she went all-organic with her meats and hasn’t looked back.

“When we use pesticides and then consume these foods, it hurts our bodies a little bit too,” she said. “A lot of things have so many pesticides. It puts wear and tear on your body because you’re fighting off something constantly. Since I went organic, I have a lot more energy and I feel better.”

How she landed in professional photography happened a lot like her food journey: She tried everything.

Evans-Ludderodt attended the Massachusetts College of Art, where she discovered she loved all things creative. She took wood sculpture, small metals, fashion, photography, video, glass blowing and regular sculpture. She loved it all and by the end of the year, she still couldn’t declare a major.

“I think of myself as a visual problem solver,” she said. “I picked photography because I thought it was the most egalitarian of the arts. It was mass produced, and it hung on its own merit. It was more ‘for the people art.’”

So after graduating, Evans-Ludderodt moved to Washington, D.C., worked in a studio, and eventually moved on to PR Newswire. That was a little more than six years ago.

Today, Evans-Ludderodt oversees the 400 freelance photographers worldwide who work with PR Newswire. She considers herself blessed to have such a creative job.

“It’s really an art to match the photographer to the shoot,” she said. “The majority of projects are long term projects that happen in many different cities. I love it when a client can show me what they want. Once I get an idea what they’re looking for, I match them with a photographer for a shoot.”

When shooting photos herself, Evans-Ludderodt said her favorite shots are portraits. To her, portraits are a “quick story condensed into one second.”

“In one image, you’re capturing the person and you’re using cultural and visual cues. Colors, body language, and their environment all are significant,” Evans-Ludderodt said. “It’s visual communication.”

Christine Cube is a media relations manager for PR Newswire and freelance writer. You can follow her @cpcube.

Blog Notes is a weekly helping of blogs recently reviewed on PR Newswire for Bloggers. Would you like your blog reviewed? Tweet to PR Newswire media relations manager Christine Cube at @PRN4Bloggers.

Copyblogger delivers audience-focused articles on online content marketing. It was launched Jan. 2006 by Brian Clark, a serial entrepreneur and former attorney and real estate broker. Copyblogger began as a one-man blog. Today, Copyblogger Media editorial team churns out content that has landed the site as a top marketing blog on Advertising Age's Power150 list. "Copyblogger has been teaching people how to create killer online content," the blog says. "Not bland corporate crap created to fill up a company webpage. Valuable information that attracts attention, drives traffic, and builds your business." I particularly identify with one popular post, 8 Strange Rituals of Productive Writers. The site also features several tutorials on copywriting, content marketing, SEO copywriting, email marketing, and landing pages, to name a few. Read the full post on PR Newswire for Bloggers here.

Looting Matters is a "discussion of the archaeological ethics surrounding the collecting of antiquities." I was first introduced to Looting Matters by a friend, who understands my love of history, culture, and old things. Looting Matters provides a fascinating glimpse that historical items that have surfaced and what their future holds. It's written by David Gill, professor of archaeological heritage and head of the division of humanities at University Campus Suffolk.  A recent post includes a piece about two Khmer statues being returned to Cambodia from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Another interesting post is about an upcoming lecture Gill will give exploring the "background to the donation of the "Disney collection" to the University of Cambridge, and the establishment of the Disney chair of archaeology." Read the full post here.

We all know that when it comes to real estate, it's all about location, location, location. This week, we're going to look at Brooklyn. Now, I've actually never visited, but I have many friends there. And the blog, Brownstoner, is an interesting place not only to see the real estate offerings in that fine part of New York, but also read about some of the "tangential topics that impact life inside and outside the home in Brooklyn." The blog features residential and commercial real estate news, development updates, and neighborhood news. The site boasts a marketplace with more than 3,000 real estate listings and 250 local businesses in Brooklyn. The Brownstoner was launched by Jonathan Butler in Oct. 2004, and it currently has more than 200,000 unique visitors and nearly two million page views a month. Read the full post here.

Christine Cube is a media relations manager with PR Newswire and freelance writer. You can follow her at @cpcube or see what's happening over at @PRN4Bloggers.

Blog Notes is a weekly helping of blogs recently reviewed on PR Newswire for Bloggers. Would you like your blog reviewed? Tweet to PR Newswire media relations manager Christine Cube at @PRN4Bloggers.

When it comes to politics and culture, Reason has "elbowed its way into the discussion." At least, that's what Columbia Journalism Review has to say about Reason. Reason comes in two forms: The online version and a monthly print magazine of "free minds and free markets." The print publication focuses on politics, culture, and ideas through news, analysis, and commentary. Online, Reason features articles and columns on current events, specifically on politics and culture. "Reason provides a refreshing alternative to right-wing and left-wing opinion magazines by making a principled case for liberty and individual choice in all areas of human activity," the site says, mentioning that Reason and Reason Online are editorially independent publications of the Reason Foundation. Gary S. Becker, Nobel laureate in economics, said Reason has excellent discussions of economic, political, and social issues. Read the full post on PR Newswire for Bloggers here.

While surfing the Internet this weekend, I stumbled across a recipe for peanut butter chocolate chip cookies … which led me to a recipe for Ethiopian-style beef stir fry … and a post about Willie Mays' birthday. Not a surprising turn of (online) events, except it was all one place, MarcusSamuelsson.com. Marcus Samuelsson was born in Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, and is now a top chef and restaurateur in New York City. His story is an intriguing one, and his mission is to create conversations about food, nutrition, culture, art, and design. Samuelsson's blog -- written with help from an editorial team -- marries food, culture, and community with a healthy twist. It’s a place where you can learn a new idea, a new perspective, or try a new recipe. Read the full post here.

Wall St. Cheat Sheet is a financial news blog managed by brothers, Damien and Derek Hoffman. The site launched days after the market's most recent historic nosedive. (This was early 2009, when the Dow was in the 600s!) It was from those days of panic and worry that a voice of reason came up through the blogosphere. "We provide top insights specifically for investors, business professionals, and entrepreneurs," the blog says. "Wall St. Cheat Sheet also provides premium investment newsletters for serious investors in stocks, gold, commodities, and ETFs." Wall St. Cheat Sheet was named the No. 1 Social Media Influencer on Wall Street, according to Forbes. Follow @wallstCS on Twitter. Read the full post here.

Christine Cube is a media relations manager with PR Newswire and freelance writer. You can follow her at @cpcube or see what's happening over at @PRN4Bloggers.

When it comes to the "home of social TV," look no further than Lost Remote. I've actually been following Lost Remote for years. It has really good information about what's happening in the social TV world and things we can expect. The most recent post is a piece on HuffPost Live teaming up with Mark Cuban for a cable TV debut. Also on Lost Remote, you can find a social TV guide, charts, and a leaderboard with the top Twitter accounts. For example, Lost Remote lists the top network/cable TV journalists and top local TV stations on Twitter. Lost Remote is a product of WebMediaBrands. Other members of the WebMediaBrands family include Mediabistro, Inside Network, and SemanticWeb. Read the full post on PR Newswire for Bloggers here.

On this May Day, I checked out a Coupon Geek, who posted a dozen times already today on different deals. Good finds today include everything from Ball Park lean hot dogs to A-1 steak sauce and the Disney Carnival app on iTunes. This is all the work of blogger Jaycie, a wife and stay-at-home mom. Coupon Geek was born Aug. 2008. "I had been finding lots of great deals and wanted a place for my family and friends to read about them, too," Jaycie says in her blog. "While I do my best to learn to live a frugal lifestyle, I am still learning more and more each day on how to cut back on the things that aren’t so important and hinder our goal of a debt-free life." Coupon Geek's deals cover store, online, restaurant, kids-baby, pet, photo, organic, and the Chicago-area. The site also features info on freebies, coupons, giveaways, cooking and various stores. Read the full post here.

There are lots of ways to plan a wedding. But to keep it entirely eco-friendly? Well, that's just cool. Ecopolitan Bride, formerly My Eco Chic Wedding, is for folks who want to kick their eco-game up a notch without sacrificing elegance.  Ecopolitan Bride features posts tucked under a handful of categories: A Bride Idea, Contests & Events, Crafts, and Editor's Pick, to name a few. Looking for some simply brilliant eco-friendly wedding jewelry? How about some uniquely you cake toppers? And then there's thinking outside the box. Look beyond diamonds, for example, and go with what you love. It's a happy surprise that I followed my own eco-friendly route for my wedding a couple years ago. Read the full post here.

Christine Cube is a media relations manager with PR Newswire and freelance writer. You can follow her at @cpcube or see what's happening over at @PRN4Bloggers.

Blog Notes is a weekly helping of blogs recently reviewed on PR Newswire for Bloggers. Would you like your blog reviewed? Tweet to PR Newswire media relations manager Christine Cube at @PRN4Bloggers.

The garden is coming around. Spring is when I'm tinkering around in the garden -- mulching, planting trees and perennials, and scraping back flowerbeds trying to find flowers I'd forgotten.  I'm especially excited about a sea of tulips coming in, proving our hard work in November was not in vain.  So it's in this thread that I found myself poking around for a good garden blog. I discovered Red, White & Grew. This blog is the product of lifestyle blogger Pamela Price. Price launched the blog in 2008 with the mission to promote "the victory garden revival and other simple, soulful, and earth-friendly endeavors as patriotic acts in an age of uncertainty." A rough sketch of her editorial calendar is simple: spring (gardens and gardening), summer (homeschooling), fall (recipes), and winter (memoir). Here's a recent post called Coming Up Short in the Yard, where Price talks about some garden challenges they're facing this year. Read the full post on PR Newswire for Bloggers here.

Finding a recipe or dinner idea online is so common these days that we take the convenience for granted. And if I'm trying to recall all the ingredients to a certain dish while shopping, the answer is accessible via the smartphone in my pocket. This weekend, I was looking for a springtime dish to have for dinner one night and take for lunch the next day. I went directly to 101 Cookbooks by Heidi Swanson. For years, I've followed her posts and enjoyed her inspirations for a sure-to-please meal or dessert. This blog has vegetarian recipes that spring out of Swanson's life -- inspired by friends and family, travels, and (of course) her cookbook collection. A recently-posted recipe for a buttermilk asparagus salad came together using "everything on the left-hand bottom shelf" of Swanson's refrigerator. While I'm sure her refrigerator is better-stocked than mine, it was exactly what I was looking for. Read the full post here.

GameSkinny is a place to "discover, create, and elevate the voice of your gaming community." There, you'll find new, reviews, tips, culture, and a big "browse" section. You can look up just about anything -- by platform (XBox, Playstation, Nintendo, desktop or mobile), genre (action, family, indie, etc.), or game.  GameSkinny is an interesting place. Posts are written by gamers for gamers. And, it's always looking for more folks to write.  It asks: "Wondering why you should spend your precious time posting on GameSkinny? Here's why: Publishing great stuff online isn't hard anymore. Being heard is." Read the full post here.

Christine Cube is a media relations manager with PR Newswire and freelance writer. You can follow her at @cpcube or see what's happening over at @PRN4Bloggers.

You could call Larry Grady a news junkie, and you wouldn’t be far off.

The online content manager with PR Newswire misses nothing: Grady tries to look over every single headline, even the ones that cross late in the evening or over the weekend.

Grady is responsible for highlighting the best and most newsworthy releases on PRNewswire.com and PR Newswire for Journalists. His hand-picked releases populate the slider on the public site, the news packages below the slider, and “Hot Topics” panel on the PRNJ home page. He also troubleshoots technical issues with PRNewswire.com and PRNJ.

“My favorite part of the day is just coming in the morning, when I have some time to look at what ran the night before,” Grady said. “We tend to get big things overnight and on the weekend.”

His news judgment is impeccable. Prior to coming to PR Newswire, Grady spent some time writing the headlines and stories for the Dow Jones News Service ticker.

That was 20 years ago.

Grady said some of the bigger news items that crossed the newswire in recent years included the 2012 Facebook IPO and Standard & Poor’s lowered rating of the federal government debt.

Grady just celebrated his 20th anniversary with PR Newswire last year. He started with the company managing member services before moving into the editorial department. Grady was already with PR Newswire at the mid-1990s launch of PR Newswire for Journalists, a media-only site that features releases, media advisories, photos, logos, and experts through ProfNet.

Over the years, PRNJ has changed quite a bit. At the start, the service had a fax-on-demand feature that offered journalists a menu of headlines and an 800-number to receive the full text of the story to their fax machine. Today, the same thing exists with a list of headlines emailed directly to journalists.

Grady works out of the Harborside, NJ office of PR Newswire. In addition to highlighting news releases, Grady manages the emails that come to PR Newswire from PRNJ. Emails run the gamut from troubleshooting to helping journalists with their individual profiles.

Not even the weather can stop Grady and the rest of the online team from doing their jobs.

During Hurricane Sandy last year, Grady, who lives in New Jersey, worked from home for two weeks.

“We were able to keep things updated and functioning,” he said.

Away from work, Grady enjoys music and books.

He’s begun to appreciate classical music a great deal since everything he liked in the 1980s -- REM, The Police, New Order -- “all were running out of steam in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s,” he said.

Grady also appreciates a good bottle of wine. His preference? Red, pinot noir especially.

He visits wineries with friends annually. The group visited wineries in France in 2007; Australia in 2009. Next on Grady’s list is a trip out to the wineries on Long Island, around the Hamptons.

Christine Cube is a media relations manager for PR Newswire and freelance writer. You can follow her @cpcube.