SAFUN

Last week I went to a “Girls” happy hour – I don’t do this often but need to! This happy hour was different. It involved a paintbrush and canvas and, yes, of course, wine. We started out at Bin555 Restaurant and Wine Bar located at the Shops of Artisan’s Alley. This was my first time visiting this area. They have cute little shops and restaurants. After a glass of wine, we went next door to  “Painting with a Twist.” It is an art studio with two classrooms.  The idea is simple: bring your girlfriends, some wine and get ready to paint. It is $35 per person and you are provided with an instructor and all the materials needed to make a piece of artwork. They allow you to bring in a picnic – we brought wine!

My cousin organized this girl’s night out and there were about ten of us ladies. We each had a place setting with a blank canvas, paint and paintbrushes. Our project was The Starry Night. Please note, you don’t have to be an artist! I don’t paint so I was a bit intimidated at first, however, the instructor takes you step by step and encourages you to make it your own. The Starry Night sounded like a project way over my head but after a glass of wine (and the understanding that this is not going to be graded), I became more comfortable. We of course had lots of laughs! I think it’s healthy to allow yourself to be creative whether it’s writing, painting, drawing, making pottery. Mine is writing and I usually keep my stuff very private.  So painting with friends over a glass of wine was definitely liberating.

I highly recommend Painting with a Twist for a night out with your girlfriends. I will certainly being going again. Here’s a photo I took on my iPhone.

If you read my last post, you’ll notice that #3 of the memories of our old office space at the Weston Centre was Lula’s. It’s a family owned and operated Mexican restaurant, a Racker favorite. Kens5 visited The Castle and reported on the new developments around The Castle (old Windsor park mall). Because Lula’s received so much business from Rackspace, they went ahead and opened a Lula’s right across the street from The Castle. Genius!  In this video, you’ll see Cloud Racker and good friend of Jason and I, Mike Ortiz. He is the enjoying some food at Lula’s. Neat.

We were blessed with a beautiful weekend in San Antonio. The Jefferson High School 4^th Annual Trick Treat & Trot 5K was a big success. My Uncle Paul is head basketball coach and teacher at Jefferson High School. He puts this event together every year to help raise money for the basketball team to attend a tournament in Washington DC.  As a graduate of Jefferson and coaching there for 20 years now, he does a lot for the school and the community. Many of his students have never had the opportunity to travel outside of San Antonio and they might never have that opportunity. Participating in a tournament in Washington DC gives them that opportunity and what greater place to go then our nation’s capital.

Former Mayor Ed Garza and Mayor Julian Castro, both Jefferson graduates, along with the Spurs Coyote and Silver Dancers all came out to support the event. It’s always great to see family, friends and neighbors come together to support our youth.

See all photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/safun/sets/72157622550148251/

Our fourth of July weekend was a quiet one. We finally had a weekend where we had no commitments. We caught up on sleep, did some damage at the clothing stores (well, mostly me) and finally went grocery shopping! We did check out the fireworks at Woodlawn Lake. We were messing with our camera, trying to get the right exposure. We don’t have a tripod so keeping still was a task. We are still learning.

We enjoyed the firework show. The crowd at Woodlawn Lake is very mixed. You have families trying to enjoy an American holiday but then you have a good amount of thugs wandering the parks looking for trouble. The SAPD did a great job with having their crew on every corner. We got there in time to see the show and left right after.

The best firework show I have been to was in Maryland. I was in high school and we took a family vacation with our cousins. We had to get on a bus that took us up into the hill countryside. We laid in the hills watching the show. It was pretty magical.

There’s something about watching fireworks with someone you love. The world seems to sit still and you get a chance to really appreciate all the little things.

I hope everyone had a great July 4th weekend with loved ones. Just in case you didn’t see fireworks, I caught video on my iPhone of the very last bit of the show.

I joined the San Antonio Social Media Club a few months back but hadn’t had the chance to attend an event yet. Today was my first breakfast event. It’s basically a meet and greet and then you will have a guest speaker to discuss a topic of interest. Today, Luis Sandoval (@pandaran) spoke about how to manage all your social media tools. This is key because there are so many platforms out there and it can be so overwhelming to try to keep up with everything. You don’t want to just join everything and simply have a presence but not be active, that defeats the purpose of social networking. They key is finding communities that give you the most bang for your buck. What are you trying to accomplish? Answering this question should help you find the communities you want to be a part of. Not everything is for everyone and it is imperative to recognize this or you will find yourself wasting your precious time messing with something that brings no value to you or others.

Following the speech, there is an open forum for Q&A. I noticed that people still struggle with understanding the purpose of Twitter. Companies don’t want their employees wasting time on these social media platforms. That is not a Twitter issue. That is a company culture issue. If you breed a bottom up culture, a culture where your customers are the star, a company where your employees feel like entrepreneurs – Twitter is an open door opportunity. Those companies that aren’t accepting Twitter are leaving that door closed because they are too scared to see what is on the other side. If you aren’t on Twitter, your competitors are.