Summers are made up of good friends, good food, and warm late nights.

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?

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!

So at the risk of being redundant, here are some tips that you may or may not have heard already.

1. 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.
2. 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!
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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)
6. 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.

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.

• Moved back to NYC
• Went back to school
• Decided that I was fat (I really was) and went vegan in an effort to lose weight and get healthy.
• Went to SXSW, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times
• Had an emotional break down (I tried to keep it together in this video, but I was falling apart here)
• Got my dream job
• The job and I went our separate ways (and while it still makes me sad, it was for the best)
• Had the best summer of my life volunteering at the Brooklyn Park Boathouse.
• Reorganized my life priorities
• Learned a lot about health and food
• Started a food blog

2010 was a great year, I learned a lot about myself  and met some of my goals. I lost a total of 30 lbs (still not exactly where I want to be, but it’s a big improvement) Here are some of my goals for 2011:

• Learn to run. This past year I started running to help with the weight loss, but I’m not very good at it. This year I want to be able to call myself a runner.
• Travel more. While I travel quite a lot, there is a lot of this country that I haven’t seen. Growing up in NYC you tend to ignore the rest of the country, but this year I really want to see the US.
• Go to culinary school. I am hoping to be able to attend 105degrees academy in the summer of 2011.
• Hit my goal weight. While it would be nice to do this by my birthday at the end of February, I would like to hit my target of losing 50 lbs this year. Then I can finally post my before picture alongside my after.
• Take more pictures. Photography is my first love and it was my first career. I truly miss it and I am going to make an effort to take more photos in 2011, not sure where that will lead me, but it will be an adventure.
• Do what makes me happy, even if it’s scary. To often I put myself into a box, thinking I can only do one thing, or have one career. But I have lots of interests, and there is a ton of stuff I want to do. I am going to enjoy everything I do this year.

I am grateful to everyone who has supported me this year. Laughed with me, cried with me, told me that everything would be ok. I love you all. Let’s do this new year thing!

But when you build a community, you also need to see how it reacts to changes that you make. When I started blogging about health and food, those posts never got nearly as much positive feedback from the community as the posts I would write about iPhone apps, or my geek gift guide. Just because my personal interests shifted, I can’t expect the entire community I built to be interested in it too.

So even though this is my personal blog, I feel that the content has lost direction and I would really like to re-focus it. I will continue to write about technology, geeky things, and online communities here on Random Sarah.

However, writing about food, health and my diet is something that I have a growing interest in and while I won’t write about it here on Random Sarah anymore, I am pleased to announce that I am started a food blog called Eat Raw. I wanted to start from scratch and build a community there that is interested in learning more about raw foods, and health in general. I have different goals for Eat Raw now then goals I had when I started Random Sarah. Some of my goals are the become a featured publisher on FoodBuzz, to grow a community that is interested in Raw Foods, and possibly attend a Raw Foods culinary school and see where that takes me.

These are all things that I would love to happen, but it will take hard work and dedication to the community for it to grow. But I wanted to let all of my Random Sarah readers know about my new endeavor into the world of food blogging and to let you know that I will continue to bring you the same Random Sarah content here that you are used to.

Thank you again for supporting me and reading Random Sarah.

What is one food you thought you’d miss when you went vegan, but don’t? Cheese! I love cheese, but I honestly don’t miss it. It becomes a non issue after a while.

What is a food or dish you wouldn’t touch as a child, but enjoy now? Salad. When I was growing up salad consisted of romaine lettuce with dressing on it. I was never really fond of how boring it was. I didn’t discover all the amazing things I could put in salads until much later.

What vegan dish or food you feel like you “should” like, but don’t? Scrambled tofu. I love it in restaurants, but I can’t seem to get into making it at home.

What beverage do you consume the most of on any given day? Water! I really do drink a lot of water.

What dish are you “famous” for making or bringing to gatherings? Guacamole! Everyone loves my guac! It’s great to bring to parties because it’s such a crowd pleaser and it’s 100% vegan!

Do you have any self-imposed food rules (like no food touching on the plate or no nuts in sweets)? Hmm, the only thing I can think of is that I no longer drink caffeine.

What’s one food or dish you tend to eat too much of when you have it in your home? Bagels. If they are in the house I will eat them even though I know I shouldn’t.

What ingredient or food do you prefer to make yourself despite it being widely available prepackaged? Tomato Sauce. I recently discovered the amazingness that is homemade tomato sauce.

What ingredient or food is worth spending the extra money to get “the good stuff”? Olive Oil and Raw Coconut Oil. I use olive oil almost every day. You should have 2 kinds in your home, the good stuff (for salad dressings and other uses where it won’t be heated) and the not-as-good stuff (for cooking). I use the coconut oil on my skin, it’s seriously the best moisturizer and it doesn’t contain any chemicals.

Are you much of a snacker? What are your favorite snacks? I am a huge snacker, but I try to keep it under control. My favorites are brown rice chips, cereal, and stove popped pop corn.

What are your favorite vegan pizza toppings? I want the pizza to have a lot of sauce, then olives and basil. I like to keep it simple.

What is your favorite vegetable? Fruit? Wow, I don’t know if I can answer this one. If I had to chose I would say that my favorite vegetable is kale for juicing and string beans for eating. Fruit is hard, but probably fresh strawberries in the summer and apples in the fall.

What is the best salad dressing? Olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper! I put it on everything.

What is your favorite thing to put on toasted bread? Take really crusty toasted bread, rub a clove of garlic on it, then rub a ripe tomato on it, and finally drizzle with a little olive oil and sea salt.

What kind of soup do you most often turn to on a chilly day or when you aren’t feeling your best? Either plain homemade vegetable broth, or miso soup.

What is your favorite cupcake flavor? Frosting flavor? Chocolate and chocolate!

What is your favorite kind of cookie? Oatmeal Raisin.

What is your most-loved “weeknight meal”? Rice and beans.

What is one dish or food you enjoy, but can’t get anyone else in your household to eat? I usually can get my mom to try just about anything.

How long, in total, do you spend in the kitchen on an average day? Probably about 3 hours.

While I do feel much better, I’m still at an unhealthy weight for my height. I realized that losing the next 25 lbs is going to be much harder than the first 25. So I decided that I was going to have to shake things up again in order to get the weight off and really get into shape. So a few months ago I started swimming again. I was a competitive swimmer in high school but I hadn’t been back in the water in some time. It was good to start swimming again but I needed to do more if I was really going to kick my body into shape.

Working out alone is hard! When you are on a sports team or you have a personal trainer, you always have someone pushing you to work harder. But when you work out alone it can be difficult to push yourself. I decided that I needed a goal, something to work toward, that would help me push harder in my workouts.

I’ve decided to train for a triathlon (I know it sounds crazy to me too). Just a short one, the sprint distance. It’s a .5 mile swim, a 13 mile bike ride, and a 3 mile run. I’m not a biker and I’m certainly not a runner, so hopefully this training will be good for me. I’ve been using RunKeeper on my iPhone to keep track of my walks, runs and bike rides. It’s encouraging to see stats on my workouts, and it helps to keep me motivated to push harder.

I’ll keep you updated on my progress as I train. I don’t have an actual race in mind yet, I’m just training to condition myself toward that goal.

I knew about the article the day it came out but I had decided not to read it. The entire topic of “women in tech” just tends to upset me. Not because I think there are too few women, but because as a women I want to be good in the field I work in, not just good among to women in that field. I don’t like to make generalized statements about a gender in a certain field.

That being said, after reading Jolie O’Dell’s post today entitled “Why We Don’t Need More Women In Tech… Yet” I agree with her point.

This dubiously accurate nomenclature of “women in tech” places the entry-level PR girl at a startup in the same monolithic group as 50-year-old engineer at IBM. This is unfair to the women who do real technology work; it’s doubly unfair to women as a gender, as it smashes the “tech” label onto anything related to the Internet. Does having 50 male engineers and 50 PR women at tech companies mean we’ve achieved gender equality? Hardly, but it does make it more difficult to correct the true imbalance: There are not enough women doing real technology work.

The whole article is a great read.

I have often been referred to by others as a “women in tech” and frankly the title makes me uncomfortable because in my opinion, I’m not! It would be MUCH more accurate to refer to myself as someone in media or communications, not technology. I studied Media Studies, not Computer Science. While I have worked for tech companies in the past, it was always in a media, marketing, or community capacity.

I enjoy technology, but I’m not out there creating it. Not one day goes by where I don’t wish that my coding skills were better (or that I had any to begin with) but presently it’s not my goal. I applaud those that are doing real technology work and those like Jolie who have been inspired to go back to school for computer science. I can’t wait to see the amazing technology that they produce.

At the end of the day I hope that these discussions and opinions encourage everyone (regardless of gender) to go out there and be innovative! While there may be more room for women in technology, there is always more room for innovation.