August 2009 - Page 2 of 3 - Angry Julie Monday

Just Spotted and The OC Blogger Awards

August 20, 2009

Last night I attended “Just Spotted’s” OC Blog Awards Party. This was their first annual awards. I was nominated for “Favorite Local Micro-Blogger” and oh my gosh, I won. I would like to thank all my fans for voting for little ole’ me!!!! You rock!!!

I’m so glad that I was able to meet so many people that I’ve only spoken with through the computer. My favorite person to meet was Debbie from Dippin’ Dots. I chatted with Debbie on Twitter for awhile now. And ironically, I’ve never even tried Dippin’ Dots. Well hello, I love me some dots now. I tried the rainbow ice. I’m trying to be dairy free right now. The rainbow ice hit the spot.

I also met awesome people like Hollie from the Anaheim Hilton, Carolyn from @OCRealtress, @sbonnin and some many other people that my ADD keeps me from remembering. So “HI” to everyone!!!

One of the most awesome parts of the night was the photo booth provided by Capital Photo Booths. I wish I would have tried more poses. I took these photos at the beginning and then forgot to go back. When I got to my car later that night, Kristin had left a set of her photos on my car window. I giggled.

I just want to give a HUGE Thank You to Coleen and Kelly for putting on this event. I know that it takes a lot of work to put on an event with this many people. There is hours of hours of time spent behind the scenes, and both of these women have children to raise too. So I thank them!!

And here’s a list of all of the winners! Everyone is really a winner just to get nominated though!!!

The 2009 “You’ve Just Been Spotted” Orange County Blog Awards Reader’s Choice goes to…
Most Creative Site: Made
Best Food or Cooking Site: Fast Food Maven
Fabulous Lifestyle & Design Site: Sadie Olive
Great Shopping & Style Site: Boutiquing.com
Site with most Beautiful “Eye Candy”: Kamee June
Best “Kid & Family Friendly” Site: Tiny Oranges
Favorite Local Blog: Alive in Wonderland
Top “Local News”: Seal Beach Daily
Favorite Local Micro-Blogger: AngryJulie
The Runner’s Up (otherwise known as Editor’s Choice) are…
Most Creative Site: This Mama Makes Stuff
Best Food or Cooking Site: Picky Palate
Fabulous Lifestyle & Design Site: Peace, Love and Momminess
Great Shopping & Style Site: Popshopology
Site with most Beautiful “Eye Candy”: Tara Whitney
Best “Kid & Family Friendly” Site: Double the Adventure
Favorite Local Blog: Twenty Four at Heart
Top “Local News”: Daily Pilot
Favorite Local Micro-Blogger: YelpOC

Filed Under: Blogging, Orange County 19 Comments

How Social Media Impacts Me

August 19, 2009

I was surfing my one of my parenting forums today, because that’s what I do. I have several sites that I check daily. I may not post as often on them, but I do check them. One of the women posted this link to this You Tube video about Social Media.

That statistics that they gave were quite amazing. I use most of these sites/applications daily, but I never really thought about the number of people that do. My parents are just starting to see the trend also. My mom and dad kept asking me to teach them. It’s quite frustrating, as my mom can barely use her e-mail. I’ve tried, but they just don’t get it.

This is a part of my daily life. The people and sites that I connect with online, are just as much as a part of my real life as my co-workers, family, and neighbors. I actually like some of my online connections better. I have genuine bonds with these people through my computer and Blackberry. I have even taken the time to meet some of them.

My husband does not use social media as much as I do. Yet, he’s in a pretty technical business. I think one of the main factors is that he doesn’t have a smart phone, which was his own decision. But yet, once again, I got the plea at dinner last night.

“We should really get iPhones. It’s amazing the things that you can do with them”.

The video I posted above was done by the people from Socialnomics, a Social Media Blog. I have never visited this site before. I will be bookmarking and subscribing to it now.

Here are some of the Social Media statistics that they posted on their site.

*Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
*If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia
*Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama
*54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
*78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
*24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us

And if you don’t know what Social Media is? You do. Because you are reading this blog right now, which is a part of Social Media.

Filed Under: Blogging 10 Comments

Planes of Fame Air Museum

August 19, 2009

Last Sunday, the boys in my household *Angry Husband and Angry Toddler” took a little trip to Chino. What’s in Chino? Well there’s an air museum called “Planes of Fame Air Museum”. Planes of Fame is an independently operated aviation museum dedicated to collecting, restoring, and preserving air crafts and memorabilia for educational benefit.

Angry Husband’s BFF, Eric, told him about this museum. Eric went with Angry Husband and Angry Toddler. What was Angry Julie doing? Julie was sleeping on the couch, and then she went to work later that afternoon. Don’t be jealous. I love touring the sites with the best of them. But walking around a tarmac in Chino, in the summer, not my idea of fun. Think hot, melting sun.

Angry Toddler fell in love when he entered the museum. This love was not any type of aircraft. Oh yes, it was a vending machine. He declared to the hubs, “my favorite”.

Angry Husband said that Angry Toddler fit nicely in this B-17 Ball Turret. What the heck is a Ball Turret? A Ball Turret is a space on the bottom of a B-17 where a gunner stayed for approximately five to ten hours with temperatures averaging 50 below. No thanks. Plus the space was really small, according to Angry Husband.

YEE-Haw, This is the bomb. Angry Toddler was riding a bomb, umm Rodeo Style?

But yes, it is an Air Museum, so you probably want to see some air crafts, right? Here they are:

Angry Husband took like 200 photos that day. I know you want to see more. Check out my Flickr Account for the rest.

Filed Under: Parenting 8 Comments

MADMEN Season 3

August 16, 2009

{click picture to make it bigger and easier to read}

Tonight is the Season Premiere of MADMEN. I’ve been anticipating this forever!!! This is the 3rd Season. I actually watched the first two seasons on itunes. Yep, you can buy both seasons there, if you want to catch up on this fantastic show.

I started watching Seasons 1 & 2 again last week. I wanted to refresh my memory of what happened. This is one of those shows where you can watch it over and over again. I see new things every time I watch it.

My favorite thing about the show is the costumes. I really love the way that they dress. I wish I could frolic around in some of the outfits that the women wear on the show.

But what is MADMEN about? Here’s an excerpt from the official site:

Set in 1960s New York, the sexy, stylized and provocative AMC drama Mad Men follows the lives of the ruthlessly competitive men and women of Madison Avenue advertising, an ego-driven world where key players make an art of the sell.

Returning for its second season, the Golden Globe®-winning series for Best TV drama and actor will continue to blur the lines between truth and lies, perception and reality. The world of Mad Men is moving in a new direction — can Sterling Cooper keep up? Meanwhile the private life of Don Draper becomes complicated in a new way. What is the cost of his secret identity?
Created, executive produced and written by Weiner, this drama series stars Jon Hamm (We Were Soldiers), Elisabeth Moss (The West Wing), Vincent Kartheiser (Angel), John Slattery (Desperate Housewives), Christina Hendricks (Kevin Hill), and January Jones (We Are Marshall) along with guest star (and stage/screen legend) Robert Morse (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying). Michael Gladis (Third Watch), Aaron Staton (The Nanny Diaries), Rich Sommer (The Devil Wears Prada), and Bryan Batt (La Cage Aux Folles“) round out the cast.

The Premise: The series revolves around the conflicted world of Don Draper (Hamm), the biggest ad man (and ladies man) in the business, and his colleagues at the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency. As Don makes the plays in the boardroom and the bedroom, he struggles to stay a step ahead of the rapidly changing times and the young executives nipping at his heels. The series also depicts authentically the roles of men and women in this era while exploring the true human nature beneath the guise of 1960s traditional family values.

Here’s some MADMEN links for you to enjoy:

Official MADMEN Site on AMC
MADMEN Yourself
Official MADMEN Blog on AMC
Basket of Kisses-Fansite

Oh, and MADMEN premiers tonight on AMC at 10pm/9c. It is on Sundays.

Check your local cable channels for the exact channel for AMC.

Filed Under: Just Julie 4 Comments

Friday Fun: The Summer Fun Tag

August 15, 2009

I’m a total slacker and got busy yesterday. I was enjoying some “summer fun”. One Fabulous Mom tagged me with this little quiz that I thought I would share. So in reality, it’s Saturday Fun for me.

Favorite Summer Movie: Nothing really sticks out. I did like The Hangover

Favorite Summer Cocktail: Any kind of fruity margarita

Favorite Summer Song: Anything Reggae

Favorite Summer Meal: My new fav, Thai Delight from Sno on the Go (Thnx Kelly)

Favorite Summer Outfit: My leopard dress that I got from Nordstrom and wore to BlogHer.

Favorite Summer Reading: The Girls of Ames and all of my co-worker, Jen’s, magazines that she leaves me.

Favorite Summer Moment: The 3rd of July. What a crazy day it was with Stacey and the kiddos.

How about you? I would usually tag someone here, but we are all super busy, so feel free to tag yourself and do this little fun quiz.

The photo above is from San Clemente, CA. I took it while I was running yesterday. Ok, well I did stop to take the picture.

Filed Under: Just Julie 3 Comments

Bruised But Not Broken

August 14, 2009

On Monday, I blogged about my upcoming mountain bike ride with Carrie and Elise. I was excited and apprehensive about the adventure.

It had been a few years since I went mountain biking. We started off our trek last night in a place that was familiar to me. I had been mountain biking before at Irvine Regional Park, which is the lower portion of the ride. It all came back to me and I was able to navigate the trail. I never realized that this was really the beginning of the trail ride experience. The real experience, or epic adventure as we dubbed it, was up top in Santiago Oaks, or aka as The 3B’s (Three Bitches).

Carrie and Elise are pro mountain bikers compared to me. As we went up the first B, Angry Julie got off her bike and walked up. My legs were not trained for that incline, especially my calves. I could have turned around and gone to the bottom of the hill, but I sucked it up and carried forward. The girls patiently waited for me at the top of the mountain. We chatted, drank water, took pictures, and moved forward. I trekked up the rest of the ride slightly walking/riding my bike. Mostly walking though. We made it to the very top when we noticed that ooops, it was starting to get dark. We were not prepared for this. No bike lights, no head lamps, nada.

We attempted to go down the mountain. It was very sandy and rocky on the way down. We inched our way down, one step at a time. I hit some rough spots where my bike almost slid from underneath me, not good. I caught myself, and let the bike drop. We finally made it down to the very bottom of the mountainous area when we realized, oh no!! Why? Because it was dark outside, like after 8pm dark! My eyesight is not very good at night, plus we could barely see in front of us. Think {trees, bushes, things covering the trail, creatures}. Carrie entertained us with singing. I tried to make noises (mostly screaming caw caw caw). Carrie said, “Noooo you sound like a small animal. We need to be loud to scare off the mountain lions.” I then screamed, “Grrrrr”. I don’t think it helped much.

We finally made it out onto the roadway at Irvine Park. It was about 8:40pm. We started our adventure at 6. I think secretly we were all somewhat relieved that we made our way out. We got back to our cars and stripped off our gear. I started to nurse my wounds. I walked away with a tiny blister on my ankle, and some scratches on my elbows and knees. I hopped into Angry Husband’s truck and made my way home.

Within an hour, I was surprised with some wonderful pictures from Carrie. She rocks! Carrie and Elise were so awesome and patient with me. They are pretty terrific mountain bikers too.

I can’t wait for the next ride, and where I will be way more prepared!

P.S. All the photos were taken by Carrie. She was brave enough to carry her SLR with her!

Filed Under: Blogging, Just Julie, Orange County 9 Comments

Mountain Biking and Text Messages

August 11, 2009

(click photo to make larger)

I met some very cool people last week, when I attended the Orange County Startup Princess event. One of the women was Carrie from This Mama Makes Stuff. I got a message from Carrie on Twitter yesterday. She asked me if I wanted to go mountain biking with the girl’s on Wednesday night. I replied with yes, and that I would most likely be there, in a matter of words.

Oh, and the trail we are riding, “Three Bitches”.

I’m a little apprehensive and cautious about this whole “trail ride”. A few years ago, ok more than five, I had a mountain biking accident. I was riding the Whiting Ranch Trail with Angry Husband. I was coming down from a hill. I was going at a medium pace, and must have hit a rock or something. All I know is that all of the sudden I went over the handle bars of my bike and landed with the bike on top of me. It was a few minutes before Angry Husband discovered me at the bottom of the hill. He had taken a different route.

I could barely walk and thought that I broke my hip or something. I was scraped up, bruised, and in pain. I had him take me to the ER for tons of x-rays. Luckily, my hip was not broken and I would survive. My bike on the other hand, had a cracked fork, and bent pedals. My helmet was also cracked down the middle. I took my bike to REI for service. They had never seen a fork so damaged. I think it was a manufacturer’s defect in reality, and not the accident. Maybe my fork caused the accident, I don’t know.

I never really got on my bike after that. About six months ago, I thought maybe, I would start training for triathlons. I got my bike serviced and inspected. And there it sat, or actually hung in my garage rafters.

After tweeting Carrie, I had this texting conversation with Angry Husband. I was at work, hence the texting.

ME: Ok..I got invited to go mtn. biking wed night at 6. Am I ready?

AH: physically or psychologically?

ME: Both?

AH: lol, well your bike works fine..well it did 6 months ago when you had it tuned up. i will pull it down tonight or tomorrow and see if anything needs fixed..as for the mental aspect you are on your own..

ME: Yea, I prob need some new shorts as well.

AH: you should go for a test ride tomorrow day to get refreshed on the bike, so you don’t look like a total dumbass out there and fall on your face.

Well I went into the garage this morning. Angry Husband had not checked out my mountain bike. Fail. I wrangled it down and inspected it. Sigh. Both of my tires were flat. I could not locate the pump. So I walked with the bike about a mile to the gas station.

I then went on my ride. I did about 3-4 miles around my local area. My body was not used to riding a bicycle at all. I didn’t realize how bad my knees were from running. I’m a mess. I really need to stretch more. After riding, I worked on stretched out my legs/knees/body. I was also not used to the shifting.

Also, I will have to drive Angry Husband’s “angry truck” to the trail site. I don’t have a bike rack on my Tahoe. Sigh. My old car, I had a sweet rack.

Carrie said we would take breaks. I hope they have sympathy on me. I will have to strap my cellphone onto the front of the bike for “emergency purposes” aka “HELP!”.

Wish me luck tomorrow night!

Filed Under: Blogging, Just Julie, Orange County 10 Comments

Project Playhouse

August 10, 2009

Every year they set-up “Project Playhouse” at Fashion Island. Before we even had Angry Toddler we would go and check out the playhouses. Each year builders and designers come up with new and different ideas for these playhouses. They are out for display for six weeks and then they are auctioned off.

This year Project Playhouse is at the Irvine Spectrum, just north of Nordstrom. It opened up last weekend and will be there until September 12th.

Per their website:

“Project Playhouse debuted in 1992 and has become HomeAid Orange County’s signature fundraiser. In 18 years, the event has raised more than $5 million to help the organization fulfill its mission to build and maintain dignified housing where homeless families and individuals can rebuild their lives.”

Angry Toddler was being crazy on Saturday afternoon so I suggested to my mom that we take him over to Project Playhouse. It’s a $5 fee to enter the playhouse area, but it’s for charity. Angry Toddler loved all the playhouses and wanted to go in and play.

I would love for Angry Toddler to have a playhouse like these. Unfortunately, we have nowhere to even put one. Our backyard is tiny. In reality, my house is only a tad larger than these playhouses. We also bought some raffle tickets to win one of the houses. I have no idea where we would put the house if we “win” it. I told my mom she would have to buy a new house just to accommodate the playhouse.

But seriously, I think this is a great idea and I loved touring all the playhouses. There are such great unique ideas. I wish I would have had something like this to play in when I was little.

An Overall View of The Playhouses