On being raw

As many of you know, I consider myself a raw foodist. But, you also know that I'm not dogmatic, and sometimes I eat cooked foods (mmmmm cereal!). I eat what I love. I eat the food that excites me. I eat beautiful food, because eating beautiful food makes me feel more beautiful. 9 out of 10 times, that means that I'm eating food that has not been cooked.

It turns out that this is a very common sentiment among raw foodists (which isn't suprising, if you think about it!). Here are two great blog posts on "being 100%" that really reflect my own thoughts on "being 100% raw":

• We Like it Raw: The trap of 100%
  
• Raw Food, right now: Reaction to the 100% Trap

A LOT of friends and acquiantances as me for guidance on going raw, and I would like to reiterate: Going raw is about adding, not taking away. Add more beautiful, fresh delicious, living, non- cooked food to your diet, and little by little the other stuff will go away.

DJ Raeo

I walked into Robin's house to pick up Billie, and he was in the middle of a video shoot. Light streamed into the bedroom, and Matt was in full camouflage, hiding his identity from the camera that was capturing his artwork as it was created.

What struck me most was the music... I heard it first in my gut, my body picking up on it before my ears... Turns out they were listening to a friend of Matt's named DJ Raeo, and his April 2006 mix. This mix is phenomenal... keeps moving at just the right pace, yet isn't intrusive, and then certain moments crescendo, or drop deep, either way, you are just sort of left with your mouth open like "noooo way.. that was siiiiick"

I actually can't wait to dance to it. and do yoga to it.

Check out DJ Raeo's April 2006 mix, and several of his other mixes, for free at: http://raeo.net/

For fab freelancing friends: a few super helpful resources!

I get warm fuzzies when I think about the incredibly creative folks I am lucky enough to know, each of whom are at various stages of their freelancing/ consulting career.

Below are a few blogs/ websites that I find particularly useful for freelancers, particularly those in the visual arts and multimedia:

• DoshDosh
• Life Dev
• Freelance switch
  
• Chris Brogan

Freelance switch is particularly resourceful if you are looking for tools, Dosh Dosh for portfolio and creative career management, Chris Brogan for self promotion and Life Dev is just general useful.

Am I missing any? If so, include in the comments section!

On Sale: beautiful, bountiful basil plants at Trader Joes

Trader Joe's (at least the one near georgetown) is selling basil plants for $2.99 each. They have an abundance of them, I already picked up 3!

Events: George Pelicanos tonight... This weekend is going to be *fabulous*

First of all, tonight is DC institution George Pelicanos reading at Bus Boys in Poets.

Lots of fun, fabulous ways to spend time this weekend:

• Arts on Foot (featuring wines of argentina, among other things!)
• Kennedy Center Open House
• Chuck Brown at the Kennedy Center
• Adams Morgan Day

Whose going to what?

****UPDATE****

Apparently, I totally underestimated the number of festivals this weekend: Check out the GOG's round up!

Social networking for freelancers

Another great post from web worker daily discussing the value of social networking for Entreprenuers and freelancers, and highlighting a new network called LimeExchange.

Here is an excerpt:

"A few weeks ago, LimeExchange launched its online outsourcing marketplace to the world. The service is essentially a social network for freelancers, service providers and entrepreneurs that helps service providers matchmake themselves to buyers looking to outsource activities within those service categories.

Though marketplace services such as Guru and eLance have ably served freelancers and web workers for some time, LimeExchange seeks to differentiate itself from its predecessors by moving service marketplaces beyond simple matchmaking of buyers and sellers, to eBay-like reputation and feedback metrics that help users understand the prior reputability of their collaborators." (Click here to read the rest of the article)

I know several of you are freelancers and/or entreprenuers, what has been your experience?

as promised-- excel tips (round 1)

In truth, the inspiration for this blog was to disseminate the nuggets of excel wisdom I'm gaining in my excel modeling class. Here are the new tips from last night:

• F2 will highlight the inputs of any given formula
• ctrl~ will show all of the formulas (very very very very very very useful)
  
• F4 will freeze a cell (put in the $ signs, rather than you having to do it manually)
• =SLN will do straight line depreciation

Feel free to share some of yours if you have any!

very useful: web based tools for editing collaboratively

No doubt the web has made collaboration easier, but its still easy to get lost in the world of email attachments. There are several web- based tools for collaborating, that take much of the confusion and "who edited what when" out of the process. Web Worker Daily, another favorite read of mine, highlighted them in a great blog post today. Here is an excerpt:

"Working on the Web means that it’s easy to reach out to collaborators - but what then? If you actually need to work on the web with other people (as opposed to just communicating with clients and suppliers via the web), you’ll need some tool support. Take the common problem of needing to jointly edit a document, for example. In the old days (say, five years ago) most of us would do this by emailing drafts back and forth, perhaps using something like Microsoft Word’s revision marks feature to indicate who did what.

But these days, you’re not limited to such primitive serial workflows. Thanks to the web, there are a batch of ways that you can edit a document together with another person - or more than one person - to quickly home in on a final draft. There are three main groups of solution to this problem, each with their own features and drawbacks.

1. Use a Collaborative Web Editor - Web services like Google Documents and Zoho Writer have document sharing built right in. On the plus side, this means a very low barrier to entry: anyone can get an account on these services easily. There’s no requirement for users to have a common operating system, either, which is useful if your collaboration needs span multiple platforms. The downside? Although you get a visual indication that another user is editing, you won’t actually see their changes until they save the document. In the worst case, this can mean simply losing your changes in a “last save wins” situation of multiple edits. Google Documents does maintain a revision history, so you can always go back and see who typed what..." (click here to read more)

Blog post on a balanced life

This post, titled "Balance Life through Mental Portfolio" is yet another example of why I am such a fan of Donald Latumahina and his blog, Life Optimizer.

Here is an excerpt:

" Looking at my life, one major cause is the unbalance state of our mental portfolio.

Let’s compare it with investing. In investing, you have an investment portfolio which comprises of many types of investments. Your portfolio may consist of large-cap stocks, small-cap stocks, bonds, and other types of investment. It becomes unbalanced when one (or two) type of investments become disproportionately high. Let’s say that 90% of your portfolio consists of small-cap stocks. In such a situation, the performance of your portfolio is very much determined by the performance of small-cap stocks. If they perform well, your entire portfolio will perform well. But if they aren’t, your entire portfolio will suffer.

In investing, such an unbalanced portfolio is not recommended. Why? Because a single bad event could ruin your portfolio. That’s why one important advice is not to put all your eggs in one basket. You should diversify your portfolio. For example, if you have four types of investment, you may aim to own 25% of each. This way, when something bad happens to one type of investment, the rest of the portfolio can act as a cushion that minimizes the impact. Your investment will have much more stable performance this way..." (read the rest here)

Dancing Under the Stars at Kennedy Center

Sounds fun- Anyone going?

Dance the night away on the Kennedy Center's South Plaza Stage:

• Sept. 6: Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band
• Sept. 13: Chuck Brown
• Sept. 27: Bio Ritmo

The point

I created this blog as a method of disseminating the events, websites, articles and blog posts I find interesting without imposing all of it on your inbox. Consider it more of a consolidator and less of a blog.

Yours,

Alexis