stellargirl returns

all about the beer

Last night, P'unk Ave hosted another fantastic Junto.  This month's topic was Free Beer. And yes, there was plenty of free beer!  In bottles we had the Chris Matta wheat brew, and from Grain Star Brewery, a nice keg of luscious porter. 

The panel discussion centered around the Open Source movement.  The 3 panelists included: Howard Ross (homebrewer and web developer), Robert Hall (Adobe Community Expert and Flash master), and Tom Boutell (Open Source maniac).  The moderators were Kelani Nichole and Alex Gilbert. The panel discussion focused on the Open Source movement vs. proprietary software development and wandered into the maze of patents (a future Junto) and even touched on recipes: from the very microbrews we were drinking to food recipes.  Engaging conversation all around.  If you couldn't make it last night, check out this photoset on Flickr.

If you are now feeling crazy thirsty for some beer, you're in luck! A new Two Guys on Beer episode came out today!  Drink up!

springtime fun

The last few weeks have been action packed with spring activities.  I just posted a heap of new photos on flickr but here's the rundown of the new sets:
(click on a photo to launch the set)



National Mechanics Brunch Tasting
Our friends at National Mechanics were kind enough to extend an invite via Twitter to come taste their new brunch menu before it officially launched.  We sampled a few different varieties of Bloody Marys, omelets filled with many different fresh and delicious ingredients, sweet french toast with yummy strawberry sauce, and many other savory goodies.  If you're looking for a new place to check out brunch in Old City, be sure to hit up National.

 


Junto: Creative Communities
The monthly Junto event for May centered around Creative Communities.  The panel featured 3 pioneers in different creative communities: Olive Prince of Susan Hess Modern Dance, Sara Selepouchin (aka girlscantell) of Etsy Teams, and John Freeborn of Space 1026. Read a great summary of the event (and sign up to be on the email list) on the Junto blog.

 


Fork You Live at Foster's
Dips and dippers indeed! Scott and Marisa whipped up a delicious array of yummy dips including hummus, mango & tomatillo salsa, and an amaaaaaazing basil / sundried tomato / pepperoncini / cheeeeese concoction.  Keep your eye on forkyou.tv to see this latest episode as well as get the recipes.

Annual Twin Birthday Bash
I've been friends with Michael and Andrew since the early days of college, so I've been lucky enough to celebrate quite a few birthdays with them over the years. A lot has changed in those years: wives, houses, new cats and cars... but it's nice to drop in on a very tight knit group of friends and throw back a few.. we even got to enjoy an authentic Carvel Fudgie the Whale cake! Yum!

 


Headhouse Square Farmer's Market
Yesterday was a perfect spring day for checking out the Headhouse Square Farmer's Market, seeing live bluegrass music, and hanging with some really awesome women (including lola!).  It truly was an unexpectedly perfect afternoon!

Hope you're all enjoying Spring!

feeling likeminded?

This Friday July 20th marks the kickoff of a new type of networking here in Philly - likemind!

Here is the skinny on likemind:

who: people like you.

what: an opportunity to enjoy coffee and conversation.

why: because drinking good coffee with likeminded people is fun.

We'll be meeting at 8am at Benna's Cafe, located on the NW corner of 8th & Wharton in South Philly. Your hosts for this event are the illustrious Geoff Dimasi and Alex Hillman. I'll be there with my camera and most likely indulging in the rare treat of caffeine. Expect wall bouncing.

she's baaaaaaaaaaack!

Wow! I don't even know where to start! I can't even believe that it's been 2 weeks without internet at home!  As I mentioned previously, it was kind of nice at first to be free from the trappings of the interweb: i.e. countless hours wasted on things like reading the craigslist missed connections, browsing through hundreds of shoes at zappos.com, or reading Perez Hilton. What I really started to miss was being able to manage all of my personal data through my google apps, reading all of my blogs (particularly those I have set aside in the "smart thinking" folder in bloglines), and properly communicating with friends via email, blogging, etc. 

So after a massive struggle with several high speed internet providers, one cancellation and one new membership later, I am now completely plugged in once again.  You'd think that being online all day at work would be enough, and it can be enough, but let's face it... this is web 2.0 people.  This is a 24/7 existence.  Sad, but true.

But enough about me!  Tonight was my first night at Junto, a local web networking event held at P'unk Avenue in South Philly.  Our guest speaker was Annie Heckenberger who is organizing BlogPhiladelphia, a very awesome event coming to our humble town this summer.  It was great to meet some new faces that I have already been twittering with, and to share ideas and excitement about our "unconference" coming this summer.

Lots of neat stuff brewin' in this here town... stay tuned.