Every once and awhile I will sit back and think about all the things in life that I'm thankful for...things that make me smile and instantly put me in a good mood......the obvious ones always come to mind first...Kevin, Kaeden, Quinton, my family, my friends, my health, technology........ I thought I would share a few of the others with the rest of the blogging world....
1. sunshine
2. peanut butter (love it!)
3. the stars (when i get to see them)
4. turning on the radio in the car & my favorite song is playing
5. the smell of fresh flowers
6. green tea ice blendeds (thank you coffee bean!)
7. seattle's best coffee (decaf at the moment)
8. my food processor (cause it's the coolest)
9. my pink-pod (it says me2 on the back)
10. flatulence (because who doesn't laugh or smile instantly when someone farts)
There are so many other things that make me smile and things that I'm thankful for. You'll have to stay tuned for more...right now I've got to watch part 1 of the season finale of Top Chef!...ah another thing that makes me smile...watching Top Chef.
:-)
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Timewarner better like baseball (angry post reader beware)
One...I am posting this because...people seem to have forgotten about blogs and what they are for. There has been a serious decrease in posts among the/our blog community. C'mon people life isn't THAT busy or boring that there is no time or topic to post about. Does anyone even read posts anymore? My lovely wife posted information about her going back to work...something that is very important to her. And no one commented. She was almost in tears....locked herself in our room, and would not cook or feed the family...the house was in shambles. We were all falling apart. NAH...just kidding, she fed the boys at least.and Two, I am posting this because I am temporarily angry with Timewarner Cable. :-)
All I have to say is, I hope for damn sure, Timewarner Cable removes their head that is firmly planted in their rectal area, and announces that TBS HD will be available for the MLB Post Season next week. First of all, what brainiac thought up this contract??? TBS for POST SEASON???? C'mon, TBS wasn't even a clear broadcast when everyone was still viewing it on standard definition sets. Now they are carrying the post season? And to make it even worse, they have that annoying pop culture whiney sell-out Dane Cook doing the promos. (side note - Dane Cook is the Dave Matthew's Band of Comedy...meaning, he is famous only because college kids are a bit too inebriated and hung over to realize what good entertainment is.)
Anywhoo, By default I am sure everyone in the Atlanta/South Eastern States get it in HD. But now the rest of the US has to wait patiently until the rest of the cable/satellite carriers figure out the contracts and rights to carry it.
Some markets, I have heard have received the TBS HD already...one of them being Boston. They probably got it to them so those fans can watch the collapse in crisp visual quality like in previous years.
So I patiently wait...hoping for some good news. Because it is going to be very difficult to watch the post season, if it's broadcast in standard definition, on an HD set.
Ok, now I will have my morning cup of coffee....maybe if i wrote this after the first few sips, I wouldn't have been so irate.
KEEP BLOGGING PEOPLE!!! :-)
love to all.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Phanfare for the Common Man
There comes a time in every man's life, where he finds something better...something more suited to his needs, a better all around woman. It has been a fun experience together, Picasa. For the time we spent as partners, you filled my every need. At that time you were very innovative. You offered for free, what many charged for. And even though you were designed for another platform, you worked decently with me and my Mac. With a touch of help from third parties, we were able to co-exist and work seamlessly to share many of my photographs with family and friends.
However, as time progressed, there were many things I wish you could do. Things that others were beginning to do and offer, so easily...yearly galleries, sub-folders, video upload from a mac, mac support, the list goes on. Over time I noticed more, the lack of support we mac users received. You just were not giving me what I needed. You are great at what you do, and there are a few things (embedded slide shows, integration with my blog) I will not be able to do with this new 'woman', but the pros most certainly out weigh the cons. So...as much as it might hurt you....I must move on.
This new 'thing' I speak of is PHANFARE. For this time being, she is everything I need...to share my photos and videos with friends and family.
So now, I share with everyone.. our new picture gallery site.
KEVIN & TRACY'S ALBUMS
The galleries go all the way back to 2002. ENJOY!
However, as time progressed, there were many things I wish you could do. Things that others were beginning to do and offer, so easily...yearly galleries, sub-folders, video upload from a mac, mac support, the list goes on. Over time I noticed more, the lack of support we mac users received. You just were not giving me what I needed. You are great at what you do, and there are a few things (embedded slide shows, integration with my blog) I will not be able to do with this new 'woman', but the pros most certainly out weigh the cons. So...as much as it might hurt you....I must move on.
This new 'thing' I speak of is PHANFARE. For this time being, she is everything I need...to share my photos and videos with friends and family.
So now, I share with everyone.. our new picture gallery site.
KEVIN & TRACY'S ALBUMS
The galleries go all the way back to 2002. ENJOY!
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
I'm such a mother worker!
Today was my official "first day back to work." For those of you that didn't know...yes, I am back to work on a part-time basis just a few days a month. I am doing the same thing I was before...sales & marketing for upscale hotels.....working for an LA based company, JH Hotels. I prepared my clothes the night before, woke up extra early to get ready, my hubby made me coffee to go, kissed my boys on the cheek (all 3 of them), and left for the day. It was strange at first to leave my boys but then I turned on the radio and enjoyed my 55 minute ride in traffic listening to the radio and drinking my coffee. I was greeted with enthusiasm by all my former clients when I walked into their offices. One particular office jumped out of their chairs and started clapping in joy that I was back to work. The receptionist in one office announced me over the loudspeaker by saying "Tracy Riepl is baaaaaaaaaaaaaack!" Obviously this made my head a tiny bit bigger...thankfully the doorways are big in the offices I visit. :-) Needless to say I had a great first day back and on the way home a song by Whitney Houston came on the radio... "I'm Every Woman." ..... twas quite the liberating song for me and all I could think about was getting home to my boys.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
One Thousand!!!
One thousand visits to our blog! AMAZING! you really do like us! you really do!!!
of course about 700 of those visits are probably me checking and re-checking the site when I am creating a new post.
None-the-less...the counter's not at "0".
See the counter (at bottom of page) WAS actually at 1000 when i started creating this post...then checking re-checking and then going back to add the image above its now somehwere at 1010. Gah, who knows if ANY ONE visits this site :-).
Saturday, September 1, 2007
"Friday Night (No) Lights"
shall i do a play by play or just give a brief synopsis of the events of friday night? hmmm.....
As you might be able to tell from the post title, we were with out power here late friday night into saturday morning. The power outage was due to the over and increased use of air conditioners in the 115-120 degree heat here in LA....especially here in the west valley.
We were cautioned on thursday by authorities for every one to cut down on power between the hours of 4pm and 6pm to conserve and avoid power outages. Surprisingly every one did so and there were no outages...The news reported that the Dpt of water & power was actually surprised, that the requests were met and the demands for power were kept low. Well, I guess the good people of LA thought the same request didn't apply for friday, an even HOTTER day. So, sure enough around 4:15pm.....CLICK.....everything goes out. the air shuts off...my studio goes silent right in the middle of work (for some reason, my expensive backup power unit failed to kick in). At first it wasn't a full power outage, it was a brown out...so a lot of electronics in the house were buzzing and clicking on half power. So we went around the house unplugging everything we could so nothing would get damaged. And if anything was going to get the little bit of power coming in, we wanted it to be the fridge.
So...being that i had plenty of work to get done...i was kinda ticked that I wouldnt be able to do so. So we sat and hung out and I said...look at the bright side...."it happened late in the day and it's only going to get cooler as the sun goes down". Boy was that a statement I wish i could take back. At the time of the outage it was 100 or so degrees outside. Thinking that opening any doors with in that first hour or two would let in the extreme heat...we opted to keep the doors closed and keep the cool air that was in the house, in as long as possible. Well...that didn't last too long AT ALL....before we knew it, it was getting pretty darn stuffy in the house. So we started opening all windows and doors....we wanted to make sure the boys had a cool room to sleep in that night. Preparing them for bed we just left them in their diapers...opened up their windows and hoped the 'not so hot breeze' that was outside would keep the house some what comfortable. Well shortly after laying them to sleep...the power went completely out, not that the little we had was usable anyway. Oh yeah, and that slight breeze i told you about...gone! We can tell the boys were not too comfortable because through out the early evening they were fussy and sweaty.....we felt horrible that we could do nothing, short of packing everything up and going to a motel. We thought, if we could get them to sleep, we could tough it out.
Tracy became concerned about the many many many ounces of frozen breast milk that sit in the freezer. So instead of wasting all that hard earned pumped gold...we decided to locate a freezer that was currently being powered. We called our friends Tim and Janet (who live in Burbank w/ power) told them our predicament and they were extremely kind to let us use their 2nd freezer, as a temporary home for the liquid gold, my boys call food. They were also kind and offered for us to sleep there, but i declined saying the boys were sleeping already, and if they can stick it out....so can we. At 8:45 I took off for burbank and was back in 40min to sit in the 90degree sauna we called home that night. We hung out for a little bit and i gave in and wanted to go to bed, just to take the heat off my mind, as I was growing more and more irritated with the situation. Since the windows were wide open in the boys room we thought it would be nice in this situation if one of us slept on the floor in the room with them. Tracy opted to do so. Lucky for her...it was the 'lesser of the hot rooms'. I on the other hand slept in the hotter room. Didn't get much sleep...either of us. Tracy, getting up frequently to nurse and console, me tossing, turning, sweating, tossing, sweating....and finally taking a cold shower at 12am to help...well it didn't help. IT WAS COMPLETELY UNBEARABLE!!!! I fell asleep chanting to myself "the power will be back on in the morning, the power will be back on in the morning" the good ol' "Secret" method...even though i don't buy that stuff...i figured, what the heck.
At 6:15 AM I woke up to the sound of birds chirping their melodies, christmas bells, and angels singing...or that's what the sound of electricity kicking back on sounded like to me at that point in time. I shot out of bed like it was christmas morning and I was 5 years old. turning on lights as if it was a miracle from the heavens. I checked the thermostat at which point I wondered why we were so hot during the evening....the temperature dropped all the way to a cool 86 degrees. HAH! well needless to say the A/C has been cranking all day and is still not down to 80 degrees and it is now 10pm on saturday. But it's a cool 80 as opposed to no A/C and it being a hot 100.
I told tracy if it happens again....we are finding a cool place to spend the day and evening. I will not subject the boys to something like this ever again if I can control it.
As you might be able to tell from the post title, we were with out power here late friday night into saturday morning. The power outage was due to the over and increased use of air conditioners in the 115-120 degree heat here in LA....especially here in the west valley.
We were cautioned on thursday by authorities for every one to cut down on power between the hours of 4pm and 6pm to conserve and avoid power outages. Surprisingly every one did so and there were no outages...The news reported that the Dpt of water & power was actually surprised, that the requests were met and the demands for power were kept low. Well, I guess the good people of LA thought the same request didn't apply for friday, an even HOTTER day. So, sure enough around 4:15pm.....CLICK.....everything goes out. the air shuts off...my studio goes silent right in the middle of work (for some reason, my expensive backup power unit failed to kick in). At first it wasn't a full power outage, it was a brown out...so a lot of electronics in the house were buzzing and clicking on half power. So we went around the house unplugging everything we could so nothing would get damaged. And if anything was going to get the little bit of power coming in, we wanted it to be the fridge.
So...being that i had plenty of work to get done...i was kinda ticked that I wouldnt be able to do so. So we sat and hung out and I said...look at the bright side...."it happened late in the day and it's only going to get cooler as the sun goes down". Boy was that a statement I wish i could take back. At the time of the outage it was 100 or so degrees outside. Thinking that opening any doors with in that first hour or two would let in the extreme heat...we opted to keep the doors closed and keep the cool air that was in the house, in as long as possible. Well...that didn't last too long AT ALL....before we knew it, it was getting pretty darn stuffy in the house. So we started opening all windows and doors....we wanted to make sure the boys had a cool room to sleep in that night. Preparing them for bed we just left them in their diapers...opened up their windows and hoped the 'not so hot breeze' that was outside would keep the house some what comfortable. Well shortly after laying them to sleep...the power went completely out, not that the little we had was usable anyway. Oh yeah, and that slight breeze i told you about...gone! We can tell the boys were not too comfortable because through out the early evening they were fussy and sweaty.....we felt horrible that we could do nothing, short of packing everything up and going to a motel. We thought, if we could get them to sleep, we could tough it out.
Tracy became concerned about the many many many ounces of frozen breast milk that sit in the freezer. So instead of wasting all that hard earned pumped gold...we decided to locate a freezer that was currently being powered. We called our friends Tim and Janet (who live in Burbank w/ power) told them our predicament and they were extremely kind to let us use their 2nd freezer, as a temporary home for the liquid gold, my boys call food. They were also kind and offered for us to sleep there, but i declined saying the boys were sleeping already, and if they can stick it out....so can we. At 8:45 I took off for burbank and was back in 40min to sit in the 90degree sauna we called home that night. We hung out for a little bit and i gave in and wanted to go to bed, just to take the heat off my mind, as I was growing more and more irritated with the situation. Since the windows were wide open in the boys room we thought it would be nice in this situation if one of us slept on the floor in the room with them. Tracy opted to do so. Lucky for her...it was the 'lesser of the hot rooms'. I on the other hand slept in the hotter room. Didn't get much sleep...either of us. Tracy, getting up frequently to nurse and console, me tossing, turning, sweating, tossing, sweating....and finally taking a cold shower at 12am to help...well it didn't help. IT WAS COMPLETELY UNBEARABLE!!!! I fell asleep chanting to myself "the power will be back on in the morning, the power will be back on in the morning" the good ol' "Secret" method...even though i don't buy that stuff...i figured, what the heck.
At 6:15 AM I woke up to the sound of birds chirping their melodies, christmas bells, and angels singing...or that's what the sound of electricity kicking back on sounded like to me at that point in time. I shot out of bed like it was christmas morning and I was 5 years old. turning on lights as if it was a miracle from the heavens. I checked the thermostat at which point I wondered why we were so hot during the evening....the temperature dropped all the way to a cool 86 degrees. HAH! well needless to say the A/C has been cranking all day and is still not down to 80 degrees and it is now 10pm on saturday. But it's a cool 80 as opposed to no A/C and it being a hot 100.
I told tracy if it happens again....we are finding a cool place to spend the day and evening. I will not subject the boys to something like this ever again if I can control it.
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