A Trip to the Getty Villa

While Matthew's parents are here visiting for a long weekend, they just one request! They wanted to go to the Getty Museum. While the actual museum has changed quite a bit since the last time I was there (14 years) we had a really nice time! We went to what is now called the Getty Villa and is home to all of J. Paul Getty's Roman and Greek antiquities. Here are just a few of pictures I took while on our outing!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

A Southern Apology!

I know, I know, it has been weeks since I last blogged. I just seem to loose track of time. Actually the last two weeks I was traveling and let's face it, the last thing I want to do is be behind the computer screen! So I am sorry it has been so long and will do better to stay on top of this!

Our business trips were successful and we even got to do a little bit of sight-seeing and fun activities on both trips. The first trip was to Little Rock Arkansas and our second trip was to Savannah Georgia. The plan for the next few months will be to travel 2 out of the 4 weeks to visit our customers. Currently I am traveling with our other Regional Sales Manager and it has been very pleasant! We work well together and so far haven't killed each other in our travels, even if he is a horrible driver!!

While in Little Rock we did take in a single A Minor League baseball game. We watch the Little Rock Travelers play against the Springfield Cardinals. In fact it was one of the farm team for the Angels, which kind of made Matthew a bit jealous! (although I did bring him a shot glass and baseball hat with the team name and logo on them!!)

This was actually my second trip to Savannah but last time we were there our schedule was pretty tight and it didn't allow for any sight-seeing or eating at a really nice restaurant! However this time we had some extra time and that was nice. On our first night there we drove into downtown Savannah and ate dinner at the Shrimp Factory on the riverfront! Food was absolutely delicious and they are pretty well known for their peach daiquiri! (Yes I had one!) On our second day there, after our meeting was finished, we drove over to Hilton Head, SC and Tybee Island to look around. We ended up eating dinner at Uncle Bubba's Oyster House (Paula Dean's brother's place.) The food was fabulous and I even tried the house special chargrilled oysters. We sat outside on the back deck and found that the restaurant is home to about 6 cats. They hang out around the place and will even sit at your feet if you feed them. The weather was actually really nice and not what was predicted by the weatherman! I could definitely spend a lot more time in downtown Savannah the next time I am there! There is so much history and some great buildings and Victorian homes. So with that being said, enjoy the slideshow!

On the road again...

So this week I was officially launched into my new role as regional sales manager and am currently on my first trip for the year. Never mind that we found out last minute that we needed to be in Little Rock this week (like last Friday) but it never fails as we had an extra passenger. Yes, Murphy decided to grace us with his presence this week.

Our flight left beautiful Southern California at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday. We were scheduled to have a brief visit, albeit 34 minutes, in Houston and then on to Little Rock. We left OC on time, but somewhere in the take-off the Houston terminal informed the pilots that our flight was rescheduled to land at 2:20 p.m. not 2:10 p.m. (now if you are paying attention this means 24 minutes to get to the next gate/flight!) So we finally land in Houston which is very cloudy, raining, etc. We landed early and arrived at 2:00 p.m. so now we are back up to 44 minute window. I can work with this. I knew we had to change terminals and this would be sufficient time to get to the connecting flight. Anyway during our actually landing there was this terrible screeching sound around the tires/brakes and about 100 yards from the gate our plane died. Yep, died! Here is where we got the first hint that things may not so well after all. We waited for 15 minutes on the tarmac for the electric carts to hook up to the plane and tow us the rest of the way in. The it took awhile to unload from the plane. I was off the plane first, so I headed to nearest counter to confirm our gate assignment and directions to the tram/shuttle to other terminals. By the time Mike was off the plane it was 2:24 p.m. (our connecting flight started boarding at 2:12 for a 2:47 departure). So we were off and running. Never mind that the drop-off point for the new terminal is the farthest place for the gate we needed, we hustled and got to the gate. The only problem, it was for a Guadalajara flight. Now we were in a pickle. We are looking all over for our gate. The screens are showing we are in the right place and the flight is on-time. So Mike, my co-worker steps up to the next gate over and asks the gentleman about our flight and was simply informed it had been cancelled. Hmmmm!!! (Why couldn't the lady that confirmed our gate assignment have shared this information??)

Long story short...Murphy was lonely and wanted to travel with us!!! We were delayed in Houston-Bush International Airport until 9:15 p.m. and didn't arrive in Little Rock until 10:30 p.m. only to discover that Mike's suitcase wasn't on our flight. Luckily it arrived on an earlier flight but never mind the poor customer service that we received from Continental who made us wait at the counter for 40 minutes before anyone came to help us. Some excuse about setting a plane up for flight tomorrow...who knows. We arrived at the Hotel and were checked in by 11:30 p.m. (I will pass over the fact that for the last 20 minutes of the flight,I was actually sick!)

Don't you just love traveling???

A "Cheesy" Night

Matthew and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary in style. We decided to do something completely different and go for fondue. I don’t how many of you have experienced fondue but let me tell you it is wonderful and a lot of fun! Our destination for the evening was a restaurant in the Brea area called “The Melting Pot”. Our reservations were for 6:30 p.m. and we arrived a little early. So to pass the time, Matthew and I walked up and down Birch Street Promenade. If it wasn’t for the fact that we actually had reservations, (I think Matthew would have headed straight into the Edwards Theater to see the advance premier of “Iron Man” that he has been talking about none stopped for weeks), never the less I managed to drag him away from the theater and we arrived at the restaurant. As soon as we arrived we were greeted by two lovely hostesses who wished us “Happy Anniversary”. We were escorted to our table where they had placed a white rose and card for us. How cool is that!

Onto the menu, the fondue experience is one that can be simply enjoyed if one can understand the menu. I was glad we had our waitress there to explain things. They have several options available to you but we eventually selected the “Big Night Out”. The Melting Pot believes the complete fondue experience should be experience in four-courses. They are very flexible in that you can pick any cheese course, salad course and dessert course and substitute them in place of what they have already selected. We began with the cheese course which they prepare for you at your table. The first course was our Caribbean Cheese Fondue which is Gouda and Gran Queso cheeses blended with garlic, sweet and spicy Peppadew peppers, topped off with scallions and a lime zest. They serve this course with refillable bowls of bread/ chips, fresh cut veggies and apples.


The second course is salad, Matthew stayed with the Caribbean theme and had the tropical salad and I chose a spinach salad.


The third course was the entrée which again is prepared for you at your table. They bring at the pot with a broth already in it and then add the seasonings depending on the cooking style you chose at the beginning. In our case we again stayed with the Caribbean theme and chose Mojo Style. For our entree we selected the Fondue Fusion which had: Lobster Tail, Filet Mignon Medallion, Jerk Seasoned Sirloin, Vanilla Rum Chicken, Marinated Pork Tenderloin, Zesty Pepper Shrimp, Butternut Squash Ravioli and Fresh Vegetables. You cook everything in the pot at your leisure and then dip into the 8 different sauces they bring. Everything was a tasted wonderful and we saved the Lobster for last.


The final course is the chocolate fondue. You may choose your own chocolate creation or one of the nine that they have created. We selected the flaming turtle with dark chocolate. It is served with strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, rice krispy treats, brownie bites, pound cake bites and cheese cake bites. The whole thing was heavenly! The only bad thing is that it came to an end!


The evening was a lovely experience but I think Matthew and I would both say that the four course experience is simply too much. We were both so full by the end! Next time we go it will be just for the cheese fondue or chocolate fondue experience!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

"The Princess" vs "Just One of the Guys"

Lately, some of my female co-workers and I have been having a debate on how I am treated by the male co-workers in my office. The topic came up as they have been inquiring on how I am adjusting to my new office space. For those of you don't know I moved into a new office space back in February. Our sales and engineering depts had outgrown our current location thus the search for additional space began. We were lucky to find some office space in one of the neighboring buildings and we are renting out their second floor. I now share this new office space with 7 other men! So as you can imagine at times it is not the most pleasant of environments. Don't get me wrong, I like each them on an individual basis but collectively as a group they can be a bit much. And yes, we all have to share the same bathroom! Let me just say, that somedays I will make a special trip to the main building just to use the Women's restroom!

Anyway one of the lady's indicated that she would love to work in an office with just men because they would treat her like a princess and she assumed that was the same case with me. To which I replied. " Are kidding me, they don't treat me like a princess. In fact it is just the opposite. They treat me like I am "just one of the guys." Meaning that I am subject to their colorful language, off handed comments and sometimes crude sense of humor. Oh no there is definitely nothing "princess" about it.


I don't believe that any of the guys do intentionally (except for not putting down the toilet seat)and I don't feel uncomfortable in the environment. In fact most days I just let it roll. There are some advantages. When you work in an office full of women there tends to be more gossip and back-stabbing which I don't care for. You also have to be careful about who spend more time with because eventually someone's feelings will get hurt. I don't ever have to worry about that with the guys and that is refreshing! So in the end it I don't mind that I'm not the princess of the office and that they feel comfortable treating me as "one of the guys"! I also know that deep down they respect me for me and not just because I am a woman!

I.T.

So this week once again I have been living in I.T. Hell. You know most companies have an actual in-house IT dept that is usually managed by a reasonably intelligent person and will respond immediately to IT problems. Other companies are actually blessed not only to have an actual IT dept but also have additional people or a person on site who is intelligent enough to handle the lesser problems (thanks Matthew and Richard). Well not at my company, we have neither despite what one individual believes. Thus when we have IT problems we have to either wait for the next contracted visit, which currently takes place every two weeks, or we open a service ticket with the contract third-party (who tends to take their sweet time to answer the problem). Not to mention trying to get the service ticket open in the first place is about as bad as trying to pass the security check process get into to see the White House. Most times when I have a problem I have my beloved husband fix it!


So here it goes, if you will remember my work computers both crashed a couple months ago and had to be replaced with new ones. (Yeah me!) So a couple of weeks ago during our last contracted visit I asked the IT rep "shouldn't my laptop have anti-virus software?". To which he replied: "Yes, I loaded Symantec Anti-Virus". So when I got home that night I confirmed once again that there wasn't any such software on my computer. I then sent an email to the appropriate individual at my office stating that I needed to have anti-virus added to my laptop. The response was something like this..."Do you need that right now? It is really expensive to open a service ticket when we can wait two weeks for our next scheduled visit." Now I had to sit there a minute and think. (Hmmm, this is a company computer that is used on a daily basis and is frequently on the Internet. Can we really afford to wait to add anti-virus software?) So I replied, "Well you decide what you believe is appropriate at this time. It just needs to be done." Yep you guess it, I had to wait 2 weeks.


So fast forward to this week, Tuesdays are the days that we are scheduled to be visited by our IT rep. He usually arrives sometime around 9:00 a.m. and is gone by 12:00 noon. Well the morning flew by and I had realized that he had not made it to our office yet. So I called the individual in charge of our IT rep's action list to confirm that he was still coming. The response went something like this: "Yes your task is on the list however he won't get to it today and will try to call you and fix it remotely." As you can imagine I wasn't very thrilled with this idea especially since I had already waited for two weeks and was told it was too expensive to open a service ticket. I began to wonder, how come its okay for him to work on it remotely today but not two weeks ago! Mind you, when we were having this discussion it was 11:15 a.m. and the reason I was asking is that I was going to be away from my office and thus my laptop, to meet with a visiting customer. I got a little miffed and I guess it showed in my response, "What do you mean he won't take care of it today? This has gone on for too long as it is. It is not a smart thing to have a company computer in use without anti-virus software on it. This is for our company's protection. It would be my recommendation, that before he leaves in the next 45 minutes he finishes this task!" Well I guess this worked because the software was installed before he left.


Then came the next problem. I tried to log into it before leaving for the day and couldn't. The system didn't recognize my user name and password or the domain I was trying to log into wasn't available. WHAT THE HECK.... I tried several times before calling to the main office to complain. Which in the end didn't help because the person in charge of the IT issues had left for the day and the backup no longer had access to call the IT rep or open a service ticket. Again WHAT THE HECK... I eventually gave up, turn the computer off and went home. Magically (and a bit on the frustrating side) I didn't have any further problems with the laptop once I got home. I booted the darn thing up and it worked just fine. Go figure! As my co-worker said, "It was your computer's special time of the month!"

I guess what I'm trying to say is that IT issues are real and sometimes can be expensive. I just wish that I could get them resolved in a timely manner and without the hassle that it has become today!

It's Cup Time, as in Stanley!!!

Yes folks, its the hockey playoffs and my beloved Avalanche have made it to the first round. It is the time of the year when the best of the best begin the hunt for the elusive Stanley Cup! I have been Avalanche fan since they first arrived in Colorado in 1995. In the team's first 10 years in Colorado they went to the playoffs 10 times, won the division title 8 times and won the Stanley Cup twice. I would say that is a very impression feat for an expansion team. By the way their first Stanley Cup win came their first year in Denver. I will have to admit though I have a bit frustrated with the team since 2001 and especially in last couple of years as they have been in a bit of a slump. From losing key players either by free agency or retirement including the best goalie in the NHL (sorry Giguere you don't have anything on Patrick Roy) or the 2004-2005 lockout season the Avs have simply not been the same team! However that all changed in February when we re-acquired Peter Forsberg and Adam Foote and turned our season around. Go Avs! In honor of the playoffs I decided to share some interesting facts about the Cup:

The Stanley Cup awarded annually to the NHL champion, is the most coveted club championship trophy in the world. Commonly referred to as The Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug. Unlike the trophies awarded by the other major professional sports, a new Stanley Cup is not made each year; Cup winners keep it until a new champion is crowned. The original bowl was made of silver and has a dimension of 7.28 inches in height and 11.42 inches in diameter. The current Stanley Cup is made of silver and nickel alloy. It has a height of 35.25 inches and weighs 34.5 lb. The Stanley Cup is the oldest professional sports trophy in North America. The original cup is now housed in the NHL Hall of Fame and a new cup has been made in it place. The players do not touch the cup until it has been presented to the winning team. The cup is first presented to the team captain who then hoists the trophy above their heads and take a lap around the ice rink. The cup is then passed to each player on the team who takes a turn around the rink. (facts, comments, etc courtesy of Wikipedia)

This year was also the first year I got to see the Avalanche live and in person. My Valentine's gift from Matthew this year was to see a Avalanche vs. Ducks game. It was awesome. Our seats were in a great location and there were a lot of Avs fans in the stadium. We had a lot of fun! Check out my slide show above! Good luck to the Avs in their quest for the Cup, let's bring it home!!!

I told you so...

I really the love the I told you so moment! You know that instance when you have been proven correct with regards to a statement, belief or feeling. I had one of those today! I have to admit it wasn't too difficult to gloat to everyone else about that moment because I couldn't really gloat to the person that created the incident. In this case the "Chicken Little" incident from yesterday! So as I was indulging in my "I told you so" moment I was reminded of how a fellow co-worker conducts himself in difficult situations. See this co-worker isn't just any co-worker he is the son of the owner and happens to sit on our Board of Directors for the company. He has been working with us for about 1.5 years. Each day I am amazed at the graciousness he displays in doing his job.

Over the last several months I have witnessed him in some difficult and frankly not nice situations with a couple of managers at our company. To the point I am simply baffled at their audacity to treat him, at times, as they do. He has shared with me on occasion some of the conversations that have taken place and I simply sit there with my jaw on the floor. How can these managers believe it is okay to treat or speak to the owner's son in such a manner. My co-worker could very easily play "the card" but hasn't ever done that! He works hard to keep the fine line between employee/owner straight. He hasn't crossed it ever. Today I was witness to another situation in which our GM was put out of sorts by a comment that was made by this co-worker. He was so put out that he made a point to pull my co-worker aside after the meeting to posture his title "I'm the General Manager...." At which point, I know that if I had been the one is my co-workers shoes and would have retorted with a comment "yeah well what's my last name" to drive home the point "I am the owner's son". Alas this didn't happen and I admire his strength of character to once again not play "the card".

It sure gives some food for thought on how I can conduct myself when faced with similar difficult situations with the same managers.

Working with Chicken Little

I work with Chicken Little. Do you? You know the one - "The Sky Is Falling" Chicken Little (idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent). Anyway, this particular individual called me today in a panic over a recent email we had received from one of our customers. The email is an action item list that came out of a technical meeting we had with them this week. Yes the list is long and we have very little time to respond but it isn't impossible and definitely not disastrous in any way! Yet this individual insisted that the entire Sales and Engineering teams re-arrange their schedules tomorrow in order to accommodate a meeting to review the said email/checklist. The funny thing is that our main engineer is the one who attended the meeting and I am sure as the sun he is working on it as I am blogging this notion.

I have lost count as to how many times this scenario has occurred and yet we manage to get everything done with plenty of time to spare despite this individual. Go figure!

The Spark and a 2x4

I recently chatted with a good friend of mine who has decided to re-enter the dating scene and came to me with some concerns after her date. Her concerns focused on the issue of "the spark", she was worried about whether or not they were clicking because she didn't feel the spark with him. Now mind you it was a first date and she has only know him for about 6 weeks. However it got me to thinking, how many times have people missed out on something great because they didn't feel "the spark" at the first meeting. So let me expand on this thought for just a moment.


When Matthew and I first met back in college, I would definitely say there were not any sparks happening between us. In fact, if someone had told me that we would get married, I would have laughed in their face. Matthew and I knew about each other and had common friends, but in fact were not friends ourselves. When we became reacquainted a couple of years later through a mutual friend and began to hang out there still weren't sparks. Actually, I would be safe to say that Matthew and I spent about 1 year or longer hanging out as friends with other friends before we had any real sparks fly between us. It was probably another 4 - 5 months before anyone acted on those sparks to change the nature of our friendship. Truth be told it would take a 2 x 4 to make it happen! Most of you know the story as we shared it at our wedding, but for those of you who don't know it or may have forgotten it, here it goes:


Matthew and I both had previous relationships that had ended in disaster or had never materialized because of a lack of interest on the other party. So neither one of us were going to make the first move when the sparks started to fly in our friendship. One night in early December we were having a discussion that broached the subject of letting another person know when you were interested in them. I finally asked the question: "If you aren't going to make the first move and you know she isn't going to make the first move then how are you going to know you're interested in each other?" Matthew's response was. "well I guess my friends are going to have to hit me over the head with a 2x4 and tell me that she's interested in me and I had better do something about it." A couple of weeks later after a weekend trip to go to Matthew's home church in Santa Maria for a dinner theater, I made the decision to let him know that I was definitely interested in something more than just friends. So when we got home from the trip my parting comment to him was, "if you happen to find a 2x4 on your way home tonight, hit yourself over the head!" and then it began!


I am a firm believer that a good marriage is based first on a good relationship as friends and second on love. "Sparks," or passion as some call it, will come and go. These types of feelings will change and grow as the relationship matures. When those feelings aren't there what else do you have to rely on? Friendship! You will want someone that you can just sit and have a conversation with, you will want someone who shares your hobbies and interests. Most of the married couples we know married their best friend. After all when we are much older how much passion can one really have and be able to act on it?


I believe that I gave her some very sound advice with regards to her concerns and reminded her that right now she just need to enjoy the dates! I am very excited for her and what opportunities are ahead for her with dating, and who knows the sparks just might even be there for her?