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Hello, and welcome to this edition of The Eleven, my monthly e-letter where I share news, thoughts and ideas for you to read, mull and possibly collaborate with me on. It's June in Oregon and another in a long series of rainy days. It's become almost comical how much rain we're having lately.
I had a great voting birthday party on my birthday, May 11th. We had many people over and even had a visit from Bob Stacey who is running for Metro President. Having a voting party is really something special and different. I socialize a lot with friends, and it's one of the only times where I get to discuss political events and candidates in a group setting. I love the voting parties, and hope the concept spreads.
Recently, I've been working with a personal coach and things are going well. I'm working on two tracks: improving my health and finding work/clients. On the former I've set a goal of losing 20 pounds by the end of the summer and so far I'm doing well by upping my gym visits and eating mainly when I'm hungry and not just to eat. On the job/clients front, I've been getting feedback on my resumes, sending them out, and also increasing the number of individual clients I see and starting to review my fee structure (ie, going from mostly free to charging people on a sliding scale of $40-90/hr.) for my social networking tutoring and support. I think I needed a little kick in the pants and the personal coaching is helping. I've also been out networking a lot more, lately through visits to Greendrinks, Springboard Innovation's forum, the Bus Project's Brew Ha Ha and other events and am finding I'm very comfortable meeting new people and exchanging ideas and networking.
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I spent the last two weekends in Seattle - the first at the Northwest Folklife festival and last weekend attending the Green Festival. Both weekends also included a healthy dose of "life on Beacon Hill" my old stomping ground in Seattle where my friends are still hard at work to make their neighborhood into something great. I get such a thrill to see all of the developments there - improvements to Jefferson Park, and various aspects of our neighborhood planning put into action. The neighborhood has a lot more active people than when I lived there, and their festival last weekend @ the community center showed that.
While attending the Green Festival I got a chance to get my undriving license. This consisted of walking up to a kiosk, paying a few dollars, making a pledge to drive less and then getting my picture taken and a new undriving license issued. It was a fun and theatrical way to "drive" the point home that we all need to figure out other ways to get around besides driving, and I'm trying to organize bringing the Undriving License station to Portland.
I also got to hear Amy Goodman speak. If you want to know what's really going on in the world outside of your house and City, tuning in to Democracy Now and hearing what Amy is reporting on is a sure way to get a fresh perspective that you will not get via mainstream news. Highly recommended!
My sunflower project went well this year. I handed and mailed out over 100 packs of sunflowers from local, organic farmers in nearby Banks, Oregon :) I've been packing up sunflower seeds and giving them away for many years, and it always brightens my day when someone tells me "that's exactly what I wanted" when I hand over a pack of seeds to them. If you got some seeds, I'd love to see picture of your sunflowers - and, please save your seeds and pass some on to others next year!
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I've been using Constant Contact for my e-mail newsletter for the past 2 years. If you're interested, they have a free trial for 60 days. If you have questions, I'd be glad to answer them.
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Client of the month
I thought I'd start a new section called "Client of the Month" to highlight the work I'm doing with someone and support their work. I'm working with local musician Hans Barklis who is a friend and former housemate to promote his music. Hans plays an incredible range of music which is suitable for weddings, house concerts, restaurants and just listening to :) Hans is working on a CD and also has music available on his website and his Myspace page. He also teaches music and yoga for a living and is an incredibly talented young man headed for greatness. He also has a big heart. |
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I hope your life is going well and that your days are filled with love and inspiration. There are so many interesting projects and ideas floating around these days, it's hard not to be moved by all the thinking going on - whether it's how to cap an oil spill or end an occupation, there's a lot of great work and leadership out there to be inspired by. And, I hope you're also stepping up and contributing as well.
For a better world,
Albert Kaufman
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