Summers are made up of good friends, good food, and warm late nights.
Summer BBQs
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Category Archives: personal
Bits of my weekend
This weekend was a mild one here in NYC, but it was a welcome change from the heat wave we had been having. On my way home friday I stopped by Whole Foods to pick up some veggies for the weekend, but I also treated myself and bought some peonies!
I’ve been wanting to experiment more with arranging flowers and peonies are my new favorite. They were just beautiful and fluffy in the store, I couldn’t resist. I’ll have to take a picture now that they’ve bloomed fully. They really fill out and you can see the flecks of pink inside the white buds.
On Saturday I spent the day on the east river, kayaking. Last summer I started volunteering at Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse and this summer I’m doing it again!
The boathouse runs out of Pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park and offers free kayaking to the public in the summer. The first day for this season in next saturday, June 11th. So this weekend some of the volunteers got together to get some more formal kayaking training. It was a lot of fun.
What did you do this weekend?
This is the story of the first time I met Gary Vaynerchuk
Today, Gary Vaynerchuk’s third book ‘The Thank You Economy‘ came out. And while I have not yet read the whole thing, I wanted to share a little story about Gary Vee that has a lot to do with the thank you economy and the kind of person that Gary is.
On May 12th, 2008, Gary appeared on the Late Show with Conan O’Brien. So he had a little party for the release of his book ’101 Wines that bring the Thunder’ and to watch the show.
Looking back on these photos I didn't even realize that AJ was there that night
When I first showed up to the small bar that the event was being held in I wasn’t sure I was in the right place. But my friend and I asked the hostess and she kindly informed us that there was a small group of people waiting for Gary in the front table.
Seeing as how we didn’t really know anyone else, we sat at another table and ordered a glass of wine. Soon more people began to show up but it wasn’t an overwhelming amount of people. After all, this was a very late event seeing as how the show aired at 12:30am.
Cheers!
Finally Gary arrived and he had brought with him cases of wine for everyone. This was still a very small event compared to other events of Gary’s that I’ve attended since but it was still very generous of him.
Before the show started Gary went around saying hello to everyone. When he came over to our table I introduced myself and Gary just looked at me and said “I know who you are”. I must have smiled from ear to ear because at the time I had only been video blogging for a few months but to think that Gary had seen my stuff was the biggest ego boost in the world (in a good way). It really validated what I had started doing and encouraged me to keep doing it.
This is a horrible photo of me but just deal with it ok 
Over these last few years Gary has been a big supporter and a huge mentor to me. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be where I am in my career right now if it wasn’t for him. So in the spirit of his new book, I wanted to say Thank You Gary!
SXSWi – What you probably already know
Every year around this time, approximately 14,000 geeks venture down to Austin, TX for South by Southwest Interactive. And every year, a good handful of those people write snarky blog posts about ‘what you need to know before you get to SXSW’. In fact, I myself wrote one just last year.
So at the risk of being redundant, here are some tips that you may or may not have heard already.
- I usually to say forget about the schedule. What I mean by that is don’t worry about making it to all the panels or all the parties. Just go with the flow, you’ll have more fun that way.
- But a certain amount of scheduling can be good. For example: If you really want to spend some quality time with people, put a meal on the books. Schedule time to meet up, sit down, and eat something. This way you will actually get to spend time with the people you want to see. I will be holding Ohours at SXSW for this very reason!
- If this is your first time going to SXSW If you are going to SXSW, you should fully expect to be worn out when it’s over. Make sure to drink lots of water and take extra vitamin C, to prevent getting really sick when you return home.
- You will walk….a lot! Everything is usually close to the convention center, but that’s going to mean a lot of walking for you. Be sure you are comfortable with what you are wearing.
- Enjoy the serendipity. South by can be a very serendipitous place. Crazy things happen, you end up in awesome conversations with amazing people, and when this happens just enjoy it and stay in the moment. You don’t need to take pictures and tweet while this is happening (let’s be serious, you can tweet about it later)
- Don’t forget to eat! It sounds silly, but with everything going on it can be very easy to forget to eat. My advice, schedule meetings around meals. This insures that you give yourself a brake, and get a chance to eat.
A little tip on what to eat at SXSW from your friendly vegan friend, Sarah Cooley (hey, that’s me!).
Remember to eat your veggies! At SXSW, there will be tons of free BBQ to partake of (in fact MapQuest will have a bus trip to Salt Lick BBQ) So I understand that it might be more difficult to fit veggies into your meals. But do your best to try and eat some greens at least once during the day. Trust me, you will feel better because of it!
I’m thinking of putting together a small casual vegan meetup at SXSW (vegans and non vegans welcome). If you would be interested, leave me a comment below. If there is enough interest we can figure out a time and day in Austin that works for everyone.
If you want to meet up in Austin, feel free to sign up for one of my Ohours slots. Or you can try more traditional methods of tracking people down at SXSW, but that usually doesn’t work.
Ever changing
Many of you have heard by now that on Monday I started a new job…at AOL. It’s been a crazy ride to get to this place, but I’m very happy in my new position and I’m excited for all the opportunities that it will bring.
My role at AOL will be an ever changing one. As we all know, the internet does’t like to stay still and we constantly have to adapt to the changing landscape of this world that we live in, but we do it because we love it! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…I love the internet! And AOL is the perfect place for me right now.
Many of you know that I am still in school, so hearing about my new position confused a lot of people. Just to clarify…I’m still in school, full time. I will be working at AOL 30 hours a week as a Social Media Consultant for the Marketing team at AOL media.
Finding a company that recognizes the talent in someone that is still in school and is willing to take a chance on them is hard to find! This position at AOL does one very important thing and that is, it allows me to be myself! I finally feel like I don’t have to hide the fact that I’m still a student or the fact that I have (and have had) a great career!
I don’t think any of this would be possible without the awesomeness that is Matthew Knell! Back in 2009 I wrote about him in my Good People Day post and I can’t think of any better words to sum up how grateful I am to have him as a friend and mentor!
Matt Knell. You were the first person to ever come up to me, already knowing who I was, at a Mashable event back last summer. It was one of the most flattering moments EVER. Since then you have become a great friend and provided me with some great advice over the past year. You have never stopped believing in me and pushing me to be the best person I can be.
I’m so excited to be an AOLer and continue to build communities online.