Reviews Galore

tv, wine, music, and a razor. 3 of these go very nicely with one another. and, surprisingly, music held its own as i was watching tv with a couple glasses of wine shaving my stubble. :)

so you think you can dance finale:
i believe the voters got it right - joshua was the strongest dancer and seemed to excel with every genre of dance that was given to him. the final show was excellent, with a good old fashioned breakdance competition as the special event of the evening. i did pretty good with my picks, too. when they narrowed it down to the top 20, i chose the 2 i thought would be in the final - twitch and will. will was in the top 6 before he was voted off, and twitch made it to the final 2.


ledson medocino county chardonnay:

this wine is fantastic! it doesn't have the typical buttery flavor of most chardonnays. it is very light and has a little fruit taste to it, but not too sweet. this is one of our favorites and is perfect to drink while hanging out on the front porch late on a crisp summer evening. if you're wondering what to pair it with, i would say food. there is a drawback to this wine, though - you can only buy it online from the winery and there is a shipping charge. the winery website is http://www.ledson.com/. we've had many other wines from this winery and they have all been impeccable. you'll see more reviews from this winery in the coming weeks.

itunes:

we have 3706 songs on our itunes. i'm now listening to the rock folder, which contains 1550 songs and approximately 220 artists and is set to shuffle. in the 26 songs that i've heard so far, 5 have been elvis songs and 4 have been dave matthews. that's not much of a shuffle. i wish was a better way to monitor this. there is smart shuffle setting that you can set to change the likelihood of hearing sequential songs by the same artist of from the same album, and i've got that set to the "least likely" position. as i'm writing this, bruce springsteen song number 4 just started. there is a simple fix to this issue, but i really don't feel like continually going back to itunes to hit the skip button.

gillete fusion power:

i've been shaving with the gillete mach 3 turbo razor for years now, and have been very satisfied with the shave it provides. lately, i've been intrigued with the new gillete fusion power razor. it's a 5 blade razor that is powered by a aaa battery, giving the razor blade an oscillation while your shaving. gillete claims this oscillation leads to superlative comfort and closeness. i waited to find a coupon for the razor before i purchased it, and found one a couple weeks ago for $4.00 off (more than half off at target), so i purchased it and have used it about 5 times so far. for my money, the mach 3 turbo is just as good. i can't feel a difference between the 2 while i'm shaving, and i don't feel a difference in the closeness of the shave either. the mach 3 turbo blades are not as expensive as the fusion blades. all in all, i don't think the gimmicky, battery powered, 5 blade razor gives me a different shave than the mach 3 turbo, so i'll be sticking with the mach 3. everyone's face is different, though, so if you think the fusion would be right for you, let me know and you can have mine.

a few recent pics

Even Better Than Sliced Bread

in the last post, i mentioned that i have a flip video ultra video recorder and thought it was awesome, recommending that you should run out and purchase one asap. well, it just got infinitely better. earlier this week, while surfing on the flip video website to provide you with the price of the model, i came across an accessory that i had to have - an underwater case! it is made only for the flip video ultra and is somewhat hard to find. luckily, the local circuit city had one in stock, so i picked it up and broke it out last night while charlie was swimming in the pool. i love it! it was $50 and well worth every penny (i think). check out the video posted below. the video appears a little pixelated because of the upload to the web, but when viewing it from the original file, it is clear as a bell.

life in the raynor household

it's been a busy 2 weeks since joey was born and i haven't had a whole lot of time at the pc, so i plan on making up for lost time with this post. joey was born on a monday and we were home by lunchtime that wednesday. from wednesday through the weekend, we had many visitors come by the house to introduce themselves to joey. nancy flanigan, my brother, and a neighbor all brought us dinners that were delicious and because there were so many leftovers, we ate well for the last 2 weeks. my mother plans on getting in on the action this week by making us a scrumptious turkey/chicken meatloaf. once that is done, i guess we'll have to start making our own dinner again. ;)

before joey was born, kim decided she wanted to breast feed him. while at the hospital, joey took to breastfeeding very well. there were a couple instances where kim would need the help of one of the nurses to get joey eating, but everything was going along smoothly. there was a ton of pressure to breastfeed from many of the nurses and even kim's midwife, but i continued to let kim know that i was behind whatever decision she wanted to make regarding the nutrition of our baby. she wanted to continue to breastfeed until it was time to put him on a bottle. a day after we got home from the hospital, we ended breastfeeding and went to the bottle, and things were perfect. joey didn't want to have anything to do with breastfeeding once we got home and instead of going through the stress we went through with trying to breastfeed charlie, we switched over to the bottle. we also use room temperature water to make his bottles, which is a switch from when we would give charlie his bottles. charlie's bottles had to be warm, and that posed many logistical problems, so with joey, we went out and bought a case of water from costco and keep the water bottles on the counter at room temp. this makes it much easier to feed joey. he's a great sleeper, waking only 1 time a night to eat, and then falls right back to sleep when he's done. he goes to sleep around 10:30ish, wakes up about 3:00 in the morn to feed, and then is back to sleep until around 7:30. he rarely cries, except a couple times when he was starving, but we couldn't get to his bottle because we were in the car going someplace, and the one time when the tip of his finger got pinched in the shoulder strap clip of his car seat, which, by the way, will never be discussed again. charlie loves his little brother. he sings lullabies to him at night (using his own words) and is always giving him hugs and kisses. he helps us with diaper changing and anything else that he might be able to do for his little brother. it's a wonderful thing to watch and be a part of.

and since we're talking about charlie, here's a little story that i thought was very cute. every night, i put him in bed and tuck him in and we say our prayers - "now i lay me down to sleep, angels at my head and feet. in the morning when i wake, i pray the lord my hand to take." the other night, we got finished with our prayers, and charlie told me he didn't want the lord to take his hand because then he wouldn't be able to grab anything. i didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but i explained to him that he wasn't really going to take his hands, he was just going to make sure that he got through the day safe. apparently that explanation was satisfactory because he was asleep very soon after.

my brother, sister in law, and niece got me an awesome gift for my birthday in June - a flip video. if you haven't seen one of these yet, you need to go out and get one as soon as you can. they are fantastic. it's a digital video recorder the size of a cell phone that can records 60 minutes of video in color. it has a built in usb attachment that makes downloading these videos to your pc or laptop easy, and the quality is excellent. according to the flip video website, www.theflip.com, the price of the 60 minute flip ultra (my recorder) is $149.99. you can get them at target, walmart, best buy, sears, amazon, etc. they are really cool. i've posted a video of joey just a few minutes after he was born.

finally, now that kim is no longer pregnant, i will begin doing some wine reviews. for the most part, i held off on drinking wine while kim was pregnant, but now that she can join me for a glass or 2, i will post some reviews of some of the wines we like and dislike. look for the first review coming very soon!