Running on Limited Time

October 26th is just around the bend and it’s going to be a HUGE day for me.  Since July I have been training to run the Marine Corp Marathon in Washington DC..my first ever attempt at running a marathon. Now, I didn’t know much about Marathons when my sister Rachel (NYC) asked me back in May to join her for this adventure.  Basically, I just knew a marathon is a long, long, distance.  Over the past couple of months I’ve learned a thing or two about running:  the benefits, the dangers, proper eating habits, the 17-18 mile wall, complex vs. simple carbohydrates, GU, the Nike+ system (awesome) and the importance of getting yourself the right pair of shoes. There is an entire running world out there and it’s good to be part of it (at least until the marathon is over).

On September 21st my sister Rae came down and we ran the Philadelphia Distance Run sponsored by ING Direct.  It was a half-marathon, 13. 1 miles.  The weather was gorgeous, sunny with a slight breeze, the fans were great, and every mile a live band was playing on the street.  The timing was also perfect - just about a month out from our big 26.2 mile marathon.   We ran great and met our goal of running the half in under the 2 hour mark.  It was a real confidence booster for us - we both are excited for the big run. Here is a shot of us after the finish line, holding up our Liberty Bell Medals.

Just after the Philly Half my knee was really starting to bother me.  Sometimes your shoes can be the source of aches and pains.  As a general rule, you’re supposed to get new running shoes every 500 miles since they begin to lose their ability to support you properly.  In my training I haven’t come close to the 500 mark. Even so, at about mile 11 on the half those shoes started to feel like sheets of cardboard strapped to the bottom of my feet.  It took about 4 days for my right knee to feel normal again.  So, for the big run this month I got some new kicks…the Nike Moto 6.  I’m going on one more long run this weekend before I taper down and I’ll be breaking those in.

Good times:  For the Marine Corp Marathon Rae and I will be surrounded by the love of our family members…about 15 of them :)  We’re getting shirts made up, buying noise-makers (aaahh ooohga horns), and going out the night before for a huge carbo-loading pasta dinner at a fine italian restaurant.  Not only have I learned about the sport of running/racing.  I’ve also learned that life really is similar to running a marathon.  You need to pace yourself, know your limits, respect your body, and enjoy the adventure - even though it’s tough sometimes.  Wish me luck friends!!!

jRei

*Live Radio Interview and *TOP 40

Hi everyone. John here.  So last Friday, while driving to a bonfire, I turned on the radio in my truck. And, alas it happened. I am the very last of all the REILLY members to experience this, but I actually heard REILLY on the radio. It was a nice lil’ surprise and after about 90 seconds or so I kinda dorked out - but for just a brief moment.

90.3 WJTL (Lancaster, Pa.) played Track 8 from “Let June Decide” – a song called “Come to Me”. For the past few weeks I’d been hoping to catch us on the air since “Cry for You” is on their daily rotation. Turns out that we’ve been steadily climbing their weekly Top 40 chart.

Here’s a screen shot of this week’s Top 40 List.

TW – represents the standing for “This Week”

LW – represents the standing “Last Week”

WKS – represent how many total weeks the artist/song has been on the Top 40 chart.

Click to Enlarge Image - REILLY is #19

Due to the success of “Cry for You” WJTL is conducting and On-Air Interview with me TONIGHT -October 7th at 9PM. Be sure to dial in for the interview at 90.3FM or online at www.wjtl.com

-jRei

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October 9, 2008

If you missed this interview you can listen to it online here:  http://www.wjtl.com/WJTLcasts/

The interview is split into 4 segments.

Home on the Range

Hey everyone!

Let me just start by saying I have never been so glad to see my own couch! Kind of a strange thing to say? Well, when you’ve been in a sterile hospital bed for a few days staring at a white wall, home is a very welcoming place.

So much for an ‘uneventful’ pregnancy. Over the last couple of weeks, my left leg has swelled up — only my left leg, and just above the knee — to ridiculous proportions, making it all but impossible to sleep, eat or walk. Last week, I went for scans of my veins, which came up clear. The doctors subsequently told me that I would likely have to live this way for the remaining 7 weeks of my pregnancy.

One week later, I called them back, telling them that I needed something MUCH stronger for the pain… hoping that they would do something - anything - to fix me. I went into the doctor’s office on Monday morning. He took one look at my leg and said, “you’re not going home. I’m admitting you to the hospital.” Thank God for the prudence of that doctor! Over the next few hours, the scans found multiple blood clots in my upper left leg. They immediately started me on blood-thinners (shots, 2x a day!) They monitored me around the clock, even waking me up every few hours during the night to check my (and the baby’s) vitals.

Wednesday afternoon I was released from the hospital, still not really walking, but with the promise that if could learn to give myself two shots per day, the swelling would gradually decrease to the point where I will feel completely back to normal (besides the whole pregnancy thing). God is so merciful to me! The baby is doing fine, they expect that the clots will erode and resolve themselves over time… I just can’t get injured (!), and I’m a little nervous about delivery. But the doctors tell me that they will take me off of the blood thinners temporarily, and I will be just fine. :)

Not sure yet if I’ll be at the show on Saturday, but I’ll be back soon! Each day I feel a little better!

Noele

At the hospital

Getting to know you

Hey peeps

Sitting here at my dining room table, aka my office, hoping to share with you what’s happening with us.  Well we just returned from Michigan for a show at Central Michigan University and SpringHill Music Festival.  Good times.  especially when you travel in an groovy old RV.  Michigan was a blast… rain or shine.  We zip lined, played some shows, ran in rain, and lived it up with the fine folks there.  We miss you already!

******

I’ve been meaning to share some videos that our good friend Ed at WJTL 90.3 FM (Lancaster, PA) has posted about Reilly.  (By the way, our song Cry for You is #24 on the top 40 playlist and rising!!) To introduce this next segment, i figure it be best to have Ed do it himself…

“The odd thing about being a video editor is how I get close to people who aren’t even aware it’s happening.

Whether it’s an artist or someone in the community, they may come in to the station or we may be out at a concert, someone else interviews them while I film the goings-on. After that I take the footage back to the office and literally spend hours and hours editing the interview. After a bit I start to get the sense that I really know who these people are. I pore over their every word and gesture, looking for the best angle and what-have-you, dialing in on their anecdotes, and suddenly I’ve spent all of this quality time with them. It’s like they’re hanging out with ME and not the pesky interviewer! I feel like we’re best buds and as far as they know, I’m Biff the anonymous camera guy (when, in reality, I’m the anonymous camera guy Ed).

It’s a very one-way relationship I have going on with these people.

Recently I’ve been forging a false friendship with my new favorite band, Reilly. John Reilly and Dan Huie hung out with us backstage at the Purple Door festival and they were a lot of fun. Their interview was incredible in that I was able to turn it into five different videos: a legitimate meet-the-band type interview, and four funny vignettes that give a little insight into their quirky sense of humor.

They’re all available on the station’s YouTube site. As of this writing, I haven’t posted the final two short films…I’m saving the other two to sprinkle in throughout the next couple of weeks. And, if you don’t wanna go all the way over to YouTube, you can watch the videos here.

First, the short funny ones:”

“and now the regular interview…”

THANKS ED for your help in helping people get to know Reilly (and wonder why in the world Noele would ever marry Dan… we’ll chalk that one up to God’s mysterious sovereignty and sense of humor)!

Have a great weekend folks!

Dan & Noele at the US Open yesterday

We made our own Evian commercials yesterday at the US Open… judge for yourself whose is better. Dan’s shot:

…or Noele’s retaliation. (She cracks up at one point, because she was making fun of me for saying ‘Evian’ wrong, and she did the same thing.)

Labor Day

Hi everyone, Noele here. This is my first blog… ever.

As today is LABOR DAY, Dan mentioned that it might be appropriate for me to write today’s blog, being as I am 29 1/2 weeks pregnant. For the majority of the population that doesn’t speak weeks, that’s about 6 1/2 months. So I decided to give it a shot.

We’ve been busy - the band has played a ton of shows this summer, some of them further away than we’ve ever played before (thank you Michigan, Illinois & Indiana!). And lifting sound equipment and bending over my belly to plug things in is getting to be a little more trying than it once was. :) But through it all, I really have no right or reason to complain, because I have been blessed (at least, so far) with a remarkably complication-free pregnancy. Sure, I crash after a gig, but I can still run around stage and even climb a two foot high first-place platform to take a solo (our little spoof on the Beiijing olympics).

According to the updates that I get in my email, our little baby is officially now old enough to exercise her lungs and breathe in the air of the outside world, and I read that she can even cough, blink and dream (!?) by now. I hope she doesn’t come too early, but it is reassuring that she’d probably be all right if she did.

One of the popular current topics of discussion within the band is the baby’s name. John thinks that “Ginger” would be best, but I can’t get past the red-headed movie star from Gilligan’s island.

Any ideas?

back soon,

Noele

Radiohead…

NBC Performance

We’ve uploaded our NBC 10! performance onto youtube for all to see.  Watching this video brings back some great memories on 8/7/08.  On that morning, we pulled up to the studio around 7:30 AM.  We loaded all our gear through the garage and walked through a bunch of desks and A/V equipment. This is where they did alot of editing of the show. 

After setting up our equipment, we ran a soundcheck at 9:15 AM on stage.  (The room is always alot smaller than what you see on TV.  On TV, it looks like a giant auditorium, but not true in real life. )   We did soundchecks, went well, and then did a Dress Rehearsal for a couple reasons.  1) to give the soundman and cameramen an idea of our song and movements and 2) to record “teasers” of our performance to show during commercial breaks.  I always wondered how Saturday NIght Live was able to show clips of the bands playing on their show if it was taped live… now I know. 

So we did that a couple times, then we were ushered back stage, and on our way back bumped into Paul Sorvino. He’s a mighty actor with alot of great movies on his resume. Pretty iconic face.  Really nice guy, tall towering figure.  He was the Juliet’s dad in Romeo&Juliet.  I started reciting a solliloquy to him. 

As the show was being recorded, we were getting our make up… well some of us did… i’ll let you figure out who did.  We moved into backstage positions a segment before our performance and as soon as they went to commercial, we got on stage, setup, and that’s where the video starts off…

**Shout outs to Bill Henley, Lori Wilson (2 uber cool hosts), Gabriel, Jami, Jess, and everyone else at NBC!  Check out behind the scene pics at our FLICKR site ->>>>>>

Featured on WJTL Tonight…FM 90.3

Hey Friends!

Here is an email Kyle (REILLY drummer) sent us…(I left the typos in for you -  you know, for added affect

“My mom just called to let me know they advertised Reilly on the radio and at 9pm tonight they are airing “ermerging music” featuring several artists.  She said it was going to be Reilly & steven curtis chapman but I’m not sure how it works…Anyhow, check out their playlist for tonight!  You’re all prob on the way to practice  or will be soon but I thought I’d send this out…”
 
We have to tune in around 9/9:15pm!”  

WJTL 90.3 FM

Time	Song	Artist	Album
09:55PM	Whispers in the Dark (acoustic)	Skillet	Comatose Deluxe Edition 2007
09:47PM	Clouds	After Edmund	Hello 2007
09:43PM	Above All Else	Article One	Colors and Sounds 2008
09:39PM	Flood (New Rain)	Jars Of Clay	Closer EP 2008
09:35PM	Streets Of Gold	NeedtoBreathe	The Heat 2008
09:31PM	Born Again	Third Day	Revelation 2008
09:27PM	You Have What I Need	Hawk Nelson	…Is My Friend! 2008
09:24PM	Turn On The Lights	Sanctus Real	We Need Each Other 2008
09:13PM	Cry For You	Reilly	Let June Decide 2007
09:08PM	Desert Song (live)	Hillsong	This Is Our God 2008
09:04PM	A New Hallelujah	Michael W. Smith	A New Hallelujah 2008

SO.,. tonight we’ll be pausing our rehearsal (for Purple Door this Friday!) in order to tune in.  Although we’ve been getting some airplay on various Radio Stations…we’ve never actually been together while a song has been played.  Wanna tune in with us?  

John

Opening Ceremonies!

In commemoration of the Olympic Ceremony, I am sporting 

A) my Gold and Silver Medals that I won at the 1992 Summer games for Figure Skating… OR

B) the medals that I stole from my 8 year old cousin Crystal who won them in an International Badminton Championship)…

Actually, as today is the opening ceremony of the Olympics, and the Olympics being in China, there’s alot of excitement about the significance of today’s date.  Growing up as a Chinese American, you know alot about the Chinese culture’s superstition.  Must wear red at weddings. White at funerals. Joy, and Luck, and the Joy Luck Club.  How about the number 8?

In Cantonese, the word “eight” is pronounced “faat.” It sounds a lot like the beginning of Cantonese phrase “faat hai,” which means “to earn money.” Cantonese speakers say that coincidence makes 888 about the luckiest trio of digits in Chinese culture.

And Friday, on Aug. 8, 2008, at 8:08 p.m. in Beijing, the Olympic Games will begin in China.

Pretty interesting.  I guess that’s why people think i’m so “FAAT!”. hhaha.. eh…  But seriously I am proud of my heritage and customs that make me who I am.  I love the nuances of the Chinese people and how they think and feel.  Personally I don’t put much faith into the superstitious beliefs, but I also don’t chide my parents when they bring up having pink sheets on my bed (a little too much information…).  What I do know is that my God’s sovereign and in control and I am not.  He ultimately overrides in what numbers, colors, or pink sheets have to say :)   

Dan

P.S. FOR ALL YOU HOMETOWN PHILLY, NJ, MD, DE, NY fans, we will see you TONIGHT.  Tickets are available at the DOOR!  DO NOT MISS OUT ON THIS!!!!!!!!