Well, since elephant went online I don’t have much of a staff anymore…so when I have meetings or events to attend, or I get to/gotta walk my dog for a coupla hours, elephant more or less shuts down. So I’ve been remiss, the last few days, in blogging. An update:

This Friday marks the end of bidding for tables at Chefs up Front—a glorious, fun celebration where nearly all of the best, most generous Boulder Chefs donate their scrumptuous services to you and your table of guests…and all the dough goes to a very, very good cause, so good a cause that any and all negative karma will be permanently erased/St. Peter will have a welcoming ceremony at the Pearly Gates for you. Takes place at St. Julien Hotel. Yours truly has been asked to MC—a fun job until the auction starts, and then it’s all bidness—gotta raise money for the children, hey?

Bidding closes this Friday, Boulder!

CHEFS UP FRONT BOULDER 2009

Don’t miss the 5th annual Boulder Chefs Up Front to benefit Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline Colorado.

Sunday, May 31
St. Julien Hotel & Spa
Boulder, Colorado

Don’t miss this opportunity to take part in the Chefs Up Front event.

Go to www.ofl.org/colorado TODAY to bid on your favorite chef!

The online auction only runs through Friday, May 1. Be sure to check back often to watch your bid.

Chefs on the auction block include Hosea Rosenberg of Jax Fish House (“Top Chef” Season Five winner), John Platt of Q’s, Matthew Jansen of Radda, Laurent Mechin of Jill’s, Radek Cerny of L’Atelier, Eric Skokan of Black Cat, Tony Hessel of Brasserie 1010/The Med, Ian Clark of Centro Latin Kitchen, Travis Messervey of Restaurant 4580, Bradford Heap/Kevin Kidd of Colterra/Terra on Pearl, Tim Payne of Terroir, and Corey Buck of John’s Restaurant.

High bidders will enjoy a luxury event, hosted by Waylon Lewis of ElephantJournal.com, at the tableside of their chosen chef. The evening includes a cocktail reception with The Happy Noodle House, live entertainment, and silent and live auctions, anchored by an unforgettable, irreplaceable gourmet display of Boulder’s finest culinary offerings.

This event is not to be missed!

TO LEARN MORE AND BID

Visit www.ofl.org/colorado

Auction continues through May 1st.

All proceeds benefit Operation Frontline and ending childhood hunger in Boulder County.

When I was a child, my mom raised me solo, worked two jobs, and we were still occasionally on food stamps, and sometimes went on the popcorn/rice diet. l remember thinking one time, standing in our living room, boy I wish some rich person would give my mom $1000, that would make all the difference for her. While things are great now, those of us in lovely Boulder often I think forget that there’s still a lot of great peeps in our community who are vulnerable, living on the edge of making it…or not making it. It’s events like Chefs up Front and organizations like Operation Frontline that—with our generosity—can make the difference for our fellow Boulder citizens who need it most.

Early yesterday morning, I took my Masi and biked out to 75th street, and South Boulder Road, and visited Gaiam’s newish campus. Got lunch, talked twitter with the real-live-human being behind @gaiam (I’m @elephantjournal, just named Top Ten Green Tweeter in the whole wide world by Shea Gunther of MNN, which gave my morale a month-long boost. I followed that with a post on Top 10 Yoga Twitter Tweeters—the first attempt that I know of to gather, harness…yoke…the yoga community in Twitland).

I was at Gaiam to meet with Ted Ning, Mr. Lifestyles-of-Health-and-Sustainability [LOHAS] himself, and we discussed ways to work together to help LOHAS conference this June sell out for the third straight year. LOHAS is where the best and the greenest organizations and individuals gather at St. Julien Hotel. Last year I interviewed Summer Rayne Oakes, the good folks at Planet Green, Graham Hill (founder of treehugger.com, the biggest green web site) and many others. After talking with Ted, and the gent behind @gaiam, and Adriane Little (who blogs for us on occasion), longtime supporter/pal Bill Giebler of Real Goods, longtime email penpal Andrea Mather, and Siona of Zaadz-now-Gaia (who modeled in our last ecofashion show) and all-things-web-guru Everett Sizemore…

…I ran into so-tall-he-makes-me-feel-short-and-I’m-6-3 bald mysterious genius multi-kazillionaire visionary founder of Gaiam, Jirka Rsavy. Jirka, a white-cat-less,

wholesome version of a Bond villain

…who aims to take over the world, is one of Boulder’s towering entrepreneurs, a man who sold his Corporate Express and built Gaiam, the largest wellness business in the world, with his earnings.

Thinking he was too important (which he, in fact, is) to give me more than a wassup, I said whattup and prepared to bike off into the high noon sunset. Instead, he said come along and showed me their new TV studio, their photo room, all in a new building that was in the midst of getting xeriscaped. The whole while, I not-at-all shyly pitched him on giving me a talk show, a host job, finding ways to harness elephant’s energy and grassroots traction with Gaiam’s capabilities (you know, money, staff, connections). He smiled, nodded, and retreated to his subterranean lair.

He’s like a grown up, rich version of what I want to be: someone who lives the life (for all his multi millions, he lives, apparently, in a tiny little mountain cabin without running water), and works to change the world (and himself along the way) for the better. Please note: I’m too self-centric to brownnose; I actually mean all that—he’s an example for we benefit-minded entrepreneurs.

Biking back through the farms and open space that makes Boulder Boulder, I met with Cindy Carlisle (and Norman Murphy, and a few days ago Gordon Riggle, Will Toor, Rich Lopez and my campaign manager Elisabeth Patterson) re: whether I ought to run for City Council in the Fall. So far, everyone’s been sweet and supportive and asked savvy questions about why I might want to run—but it’s a heavy responsibility and one I want to approach slowly, responsibly, soberly. Speaking of drinking…

Boulder Chamber of Commerce’s 2140 networking for young professionals.

Next up, I attended my second 2140 (click here for a report on the first 2140 by the lovely, sharp Adriane) networking event. This one was on a perfect warm/cool Spring Day, on the rooftop of Bacaro. While I only could stay for a half hour, it was great to meet some of the more active, dynamic young business professionals (I mainly hung out in a circle of eight women friends of mine). Check out the next event—if you want to have fun, meet good people and make great connections, 2140 is where it’s at. The first event was huge, both have been in idyllic locations.

My friend Lisa took Redford, my Humane Society pooch and best friend, for a hike up and down Sanitas, a lovely hike that winds around our glorious red rock foothills that stand like a god-hewn castle over Boulder, freeing me up to…bike to…

Ignite Boulder

This was my third Ignite Boulder Tech gathering/party/free beer fest. Again hosted by Mr. Andrew Hyde, the renaissance man of Boulder Tech community, this was by far the largest—maybe 450 lined up at Chem 140 on the University of Colorado campus, getting free popcorn and bemoaning the already three empty kegs.

Ignite is a gathering of geeks—many of whom are gorgeous, stylee, and/or kajillionaires by the age of 12. While some of the presentations were serious (my favorite, by the lovely, flushed Lilly Justman [who I know very slightly from Farmers’ Market] focused on Peak Oil) the most popular are usually the funny ones, like Everything I need to Know I learned from Road House by Sam Breed, the hipster-with-heart who re-designed this here elephant journal web site a month back; or What to Do When your Mom Joins Facebook, which had me (literally) crying with laughter. One presenter, Laura, expertly hula hooped while talking about branding. One or two of the presentations were misses—neither serious nor funny, just…uh…wastes of time. Personally speaking, at least: I’m 34, getting old fast and don’t have time to waste. The younger tech geniuses in the audience still think they’re immortal, as I once did, and probably loved ’em all.

In any case—it’s the best funnest free event for Twitterheads in Boulder, and apparently last night was the biggest Ignite gathering in the country (Ignite gatherings happen all over, from Austin to East Coast to wherever else). 

After Ignite, I watched (or tried to) Top Gun over Jalino’s whole wheat crust pizza with kalamata olives with my longtime pal and Art District cofounder Lindsey Cash. Redford, at one point, tried to hump her. I was better behaved.

Finally, I woke this morning to see this write-up in Westword of next week’s Walk the Talk Show with Waylon Lewis, whoever he is, featuring: Micah Baldwin, Brad Feld, Jeffrey Kalmikoff of Threadless, Gwen Bell; Top Chef Hosea Rosenberg; yoga superstah John Friend (about to turn 50); Boulder Ballet, Paper Bird (top Colorado band, they alone sell out the Theater); Art District, Camren Von Davis, Mito Media, Green Drinks afterparty, Eco Expo... Get yer tix, they’re cheaper beforehand online at bouldertheater.com.

Next up, we got a table at the next Farmers’ Market, hitching a ride to Green Fest in Denver (the first) with longtime green biz colleague Josh Onysko (founder of Pangea Organics). At some point I’ll take a super hot bath and read the New Yorker and/or have a nervous breakdown—this whole creating a sold-out talk show out of thin air while being flat broke and selling ads for elephantjournal.com racket is getting old…thank god New Belgium, Yoga Journal, Sun Chips and prAna are supporting our fledgling site.