Early Summer 2012

We had the BEST time at Kure Beach last weekend.  The little place we stayed in was so cool and perfect, really nice.  It came with bikes for everyone - we rented a seat for Weebsie from the local bike shop and rode all around the Kure neighborhoods.  Devlyn was beside himself with joy.  The weather which was supposed to be awful was fabulous the entire 3 days.  The one brief rain shower we had produced one of the most incredible rainbows I've ever seen.  Other pics are tball, the biggest garden snail I've ever seen and other random early summer photos.  These pics are all jumbled up out of order b/c I downloaded them from a few different sources.  We can't wait for more vacation!!

Railhawks

Our hometown pro soccer team, the Carolina Railhawks played the LA Galaxy Tuesday night.  One of our clients is a big sponsor and our agency does work for the Railhawks so we got some good seats.  Of course, my soul purpose for going was to gawk at Becks!  Unfortuantely, he and another teammate were called back to LA to rest up so he didn't show up and I was forced to actually watch the game!  I have to say it was pretty exciting - we ended up beating them by one at the very end.  The boys had fun too : )

He's Elmo and He Knows It

Charles just found this on Youtube - holy funny!

Thursday Night Videos

Don't ever say we don't know how to entertain ourselvesm : )

Spring Photos II

Same photos from last night's email.  Some people had trouble viewing.  Need to keep everyone happy - we aim to please!

Spring Pics for My Mom

Photos

Some folks had trouble seeing photos that I sent out this week.  You should be able to see them here BUT they will probably not show in your email of this post.  You'll need to actually go to the blog to view the pics (I think).  If this doesn't work I don't know what else to do!

The Draper

Thanks to our new TV set-up (Netflix, HuluPlus and Playon only) Charles and I have been watching back to back seasons of Madmen - 2 or 3 episodes a night.  It's been SO much fun watching a show we already love straight through from beginning to end.  For those of you who aren't familiar, it's a show about Madison Ave. ad men and women set in the late 1950's early 60's.  The acting is superb, the writing even better and well...it has Don Draper - there's not much else to say : )  Give it a looksy and you'll instantly understand.  Don and Betty Draper are two of the main characters.  Don commutes into the city every day and when he's at home (which isn't very often), they lead a very Fairfield County, greater-NYC life.  A lot of quintessential 1950's suburban scenes.  Men were men and women were women - none of this cross-gender multi-tasking we're plagued by today.  It inspired me to invent a cocktail last weekend.  It was a beautiful spring day, late in the afternoon.  The boys were playing quietly to themselves (what!!?!) and Charles was outside mowing the lawn sans shirt.  I found myself muddling around the kitchen, very Betty Draper like, tossing dinner ideas around in my head and thinking that the wifely thing to do would be to mix up a refreshing Spring cocktail and bring it out to my dear, sweaty husband slaving over the lawn.  I mixed up some very strong Country Time lemonade, threw it over some ice, cut it with several healthy splashes of bourbon and added a juicy slice of blood orange as garnish.  I call it the Draper and we drank them all weekend : )

A Return to Crack

Some of you know that, lately, I’ve been on a personal quest to see just how cheap I can get.  So far it’s going well…I’ve canceled our cable television, our home phone, the Sunday paper and, lastly, my personal cell phone & data service with AT&T.  All in all, I chopped roughly $200 off our monthly bills.  Giving up my personal cell service, though, would mean parting with my longtime cell phone that countless people (business and personal) know.  Enter Google Voice.  For a $20 flat fee, Google Voice ported my 919-824-8458 number and canceled my cell service through AT&T.  For the record, I have no idea what “ported” means BUT I do know that within 24 hours I was able to logon to Google Voice via my computer and set it up so that anyone calling or texting to 919-824-8458 is immediately forwarded to my work phone.  It also automatically transcribes voicemails left on that number into texts and sends them to me.  It also has a cool feature that allows you to listen in on people leaving voicemails an decide if you need to take the call afterall.  I haven’t figured out how to do that yet but, hello, that’s pretty cool!  Did I mention this is a free service (Google Voice)?

OK.  Good.  All positives, right?  Now onto the crack.  That last change means I have to switch from using my beloved Blackberry to the dreaded, work issued iPhone.  I do not mean to sound ungrateful to have an iPhone from work.  My kids love it and I have to admit that, at first blush, I was excited to enter the app world and see what it’s all about.  Well, I HATE it.  I’ll tell anyone who will listen and trust me, not many people want to.  I’m still trying to figure out how Apple has brainwashed the world to believe that iPhones are intuitive and efficient.  I’ve worked myself around to the self-imposed and totally untested theory that most people who love iPhones must  not have ever used a Blackberry.  Aside from multiple, basic, glaring errors in function, most anything u can do on an iPhone, I can do 10x faster, more correctly AND with one hand while doing something else on a Blackberry.  I’m three weeks into my personal case study (sample size of 1) and I decided last night, that’s enough!  I can’t take it anymore – I’m going back to the Crackberry.  My HR director laughed at me this morning as I sat in her office begging her to please, please, please let me switch my company number over to my personal Blackberry.  She agreed and I am so very relieved.  I found this video on Crackberry.com today and had to smile.  I’ve heard nothing but rumors lately that RIM is going out of business or they’ve stopped production updating the Blackberry.  Well, it’s not true!  Crackberry Kevin sums up my sentiments exactly (while previewing the BB 10) in the linked video below.

“Blackberry is for people who have shit to do and want to get it done.”

Thank you Kevin and thank you Blackberry – I have lots of shit to do and love getting it done on my Crackberry!