RE: Blogging

What I have noticed over my five years of blogging is that blogging is very much about the moment. If I try to get to something later, maybe even get a few paragraphs into a draft version here, it never happens. Or, if it could, it doesn't seem relevant anymore. (To either reader or writer.)

That's one reason why this blog has been so silent lately. It's not that there are not things to comment on, or discuss... it's just that there is never enough time to sit down and post something "in the moment". I really thought there would be more here as I am taking several days off in a row, but there has not been. My days used to freer somehow, and I was already sitting at my computer... so posting to the blog in a sort of "stream of consciousness" way was very natural. Not so any more!

I have thoughts on the whole political race. Actually, much of what I think of senator Obama remains true. Read here and here if you are interested. (Posts from March and April of this year.) I have been working on our Buffalo Bills Show. Super fun stuff going on there! And I would love to share more stories from our family... always learn a lot from interaction with my kids!

I could also tell you about the crazy environmental "humans are bad" speech we got at the aquarium yesterday during the sea lion show...

But... at least... not right now.

So, from experience... never. You'll have to hear that one from me in person. :-)

The blog will roll on. Life will shift again, and there will be moments to jump into the e-stream of consciousness. There are still plenty of thoughts from Greg's Head... but the "moments" to share them have been fewer and much farther between!

Stay tuned...

Five Years of Blogging

Believe it or not, I have been at this "blogging" thing for five years now. Today. August 26th, 2003 was my first post, and now almost 1400 posts later, I'm still at it. (Albeit, quite infrequently this past month or two!) I love this avenue to share thoughts, start discussions, share links and information, and even post photos and family news to the world wide web of internets. I imagine I'll be doing this for another 5 years at least... unless of course this is true. :-)

Over five years I have shared the stories of not one, not two, but three additions to our family, I have told a few funny stories from the many children who inhabit our home (like this one, and this one, and this one) and even shared the emotions of times of very difficult loss, and the aftermath of that.

We have an amazing God, and I have loved sharing so many thoughts on life with him, as he leads me along, helping me know him more, so I can trust him more - rather than keep trying to trust in myself more. I even made that one of the main tabs above, Life With God.

Thanks for visiting GregsHead.net over the past five years. Blogging is a conversation. It's a conversation starter, and the beauty of it is that you can actually respond inline to the conversation. Add your comments below anything I publish here. I love that. Life is a journey, that's meant to be shared. (Oh yeah! I also have published three books along the way! A Journey Shared, Life in the Rearview Mirror, and There's The Steeple... Here's The Church.

This post is getting longer than I thought it would, but that's because I am trying to cover five years worth of stuff in a few short paragraphs! If you'd like to read more, you can actually access the archive directory directly right here. Just click on any month from the previous 5 years and you'll see all the posts from that month.

Thanks again for joining me for the past five years (or however long you've been here). Once life settles down for me (and I can figure out where to focus my energies) I should have the time and energy to share my thoughts here again, and continue the conversations.

Looking forward to that.

A Picture of 54,000 Words

I followed a link to a pretty fun site yesterday. It's called Wordle, and lets you take any text, or URL, or feed from any site and make a random word picture from the text that you give it. Very fun, actually!

I did a couple more images. First, when I just took the text and pasted it in, the biggest word was "just". Ha! Guess I just say that a lot... ;-) So, here's the JUST version. And, I took the "Life With God" posts and made this image from that.

I also discovered that I have written approximately 54,800 words in the year 2008. (That's to my GregsHead.net blog alone, does not include all my other sites!) I have ... a lot to say.

Anyone can do it... with any text. Jen made some with the names of our family. :-) Go try it out for yourself...

Wordle.net

Ads

You may have noticed that there is now a little rotating ad banner here at GregsHead.net? That was added (not all that easily!) yesterday to give the site a slightly new appearance, and to allow you - the reader - a chance to both find some great services we recommend, and support GregsHead at the same time.

The advertisers in the rotation will pay a commission on any sales generated after their ad is clicked. I personally picked all of these ads, and do use their services (and can recommend them). So, if you'd like to help out... click the link and check out what they have to offer.

Much appreciated.

[Things That Are Weird] Wiper Fluid Containers

Does anyone else wonder why windshield wiper fluid is sold in a container/amount that is only slightly more than fits in your empty windshield wiper fluid dispenser in your vehicle? I have never understood this. And I don't believe I ever will.

I will often just hand a container like this to the nearest person in the parking lot and say, "Have some wiper fluid!" (It is usually received well...) :-)

If it were a lot more, then I would understand. But it's just a little bit too much. Very, very strange.

I think I'll keep this as a recurring theme here at GregsHead.net. Stay tuned for more Things That Are Weird.

This Day in (GregHead.net) History

An idea popped into my head today. (Yes, that would be GregsHead...) I thought, I wonder what things I have blogged about on this day in my four-plus years of blogging? So, I set out to discover what was in the archives for January 25th.

To my suprise, excluding entries from this January 25th (today) there was only one other entry. And it was about my Jen. :-)

I did also discover that there were a few cool things from January 24th here at GregsHead.net. At the top of the list would have to be 1/24/04... that's the birthday of the new blog with the oft-mentioned URL --- GregsHead.net! January 24th is not the beginning of my blogging, but the birthday of GregsHead.net. Neat.

Besides that I found a couple interesting posts worth re-reading from that same year. Well, at least one is. One is just interesting in light of the Super Bowl match up coming up in a week and a couple days. (I wasn't happy about it then, either...)

The one I'd love for you to re-read though is the one titled, "I Call You Friends." Very neat reminder of our relationship with God.

So, take a trip with me... back in time...

I Call You Friends
A Winning Attitude?

Willow Creek Repents?

I saw a quick post by a friend today linking to an article about Willow Creek perhaps "repenting" of it's church/business model?

I don’t think it's that groundbreaking, as it seems WCCC is just going in a different "business" direction, but it's still pretty interesting to see them find that the super elaborate programs aren't all that helpful in people walking daily with Jesus. (Admittedly, I scanned the article quickly … will read again later, but I think that was a major part of it.)

"The Show" as I like to call it (not necessarily derisively) has been the main focus of the American church for so long… would be interesting to see such a key player in that take a different direction. (Again, I think they’ll just figure out another way to make a business model of life with Jesus, but… that's just me)

Here are a couple of articles I have posted here in the past that may be relevant:
The Important
Quantifiable

Looking (Linking?) Back

What a week! I'm sitting here on my porch with a nice hot cup of tea, at one in the morning, following an hour of trying to restore the network here in my house... have I mentioned before that I have four routers on my network for six or seven computers? Yeah... I need an IT department...) and I finally feel relaxed. :-)

It's been that kind of week. I actually don't think I took any sort of real break today. I know I didn't eat anything until dinner. That was kinda crazy... I just couldn't stop. Too much to do. At least, that's how it felt.

I mentioned earlier this week that the blog has been silent not because there's nothing to say, nothing to share... just simply because there was no time where I could sit down and share. Here's a quick overview of the past while for the Campbell family...

Work
Some people still have no idea what I do, but if you look at our income taxes, you can see that the majority of our money comes through my web design business. Just a couple weeks ago that picked up again big time! I got a few new clients (The Center For Body Wellness, First Church of Christ Binghamton (still their old site), and I'm working on a brochure for Angel Eyes Security), and lots of new work for current clients (Houston Nutraceuticals, The Scarlet Thread, Orient Express Band, Christian Way Farm, and Project URGE) and some stuff that I have not gotten started on yet for other existing clients (In House Graphics, Cross Creek Church, and Aussie Hill Alpacas.)

Whew! And the crazy part is, I'm sure I forgot a few! (By the way, if you clicked on all those links, you should get a prize. I'm not sure who you'll get it from, but you should get one.) :-)

Add to that all of the hosting accounts that I must regularly maintain (email problems, hosting questions, domain renewals, hosting invoices, technical support, and the list continues) as well as my OWN sites I need to maintain (GregsApples.com and BuffaloBillsReview.com get the majority of my attention. Though, my blog does get updated now and then. My web design site is horribly neglected, however. I did post a few links to the ol' Link-O page I maintain this past week...

Apple Sales
ON TOP OF ALL THAT... I have about a dozen peoples and/or businesses who are maybe at step 3 out of 5 in the purchase process for a new Mac. (OK, yes... I made that up. I just mean they are all pretty close!) So I've been doing a lot of research, communication, and question answering there. Even sent out a newsletter last week. :-)

If you're interested in a new computer, or even an iPod or AppleTV... stop by my store! Or, shoot me an e-mail. I can probably help you out.

Buffalo Bills Review
In talking with a few friends this week, I realized that some folks don't know that I - along with my partners in crime Dave Drake, John Dupra, and Dre Smith - am something of an international celebrity. :-) OK, not entirely, but we have found a small bit of success with our little show, now in its third season. It's a fun hour of Bills fans talking Bills football. We have guests on now and again, including some current Bills players like Brian Moorman the Pro Bowl punter. The team is 0-3 this year, but that hasn't stopped our downloads, and iTunes ranking from continuing to rise. Guess we're doing something right. :-)

And, it's tons of fun. :-)

Well, as I said, we must be doing something right, because all of a sudden we have had three websites contact us to purchase ads on our website! That's great! The site is finally not only paying for itself, but even making a little money. (Just a little, mind you... but it's a start!) I've been busy the last couple weeks setting up our various advertisers as well. (And of course, keeping up with all the latest Bills news. Anyone aware of all the insane injuries the Bills have sustained through only three weeks this year?? It's just nuts!)

Family
AS IF that all was not enough... we still have four kids to take care of, and boy do they need taking care of! :-) Hehe... :-)

One good thing, family-wise, has been that Jen & I have been trying to get one night (or even daytime) out per week. We have an awesome babysitter, and we try to take full advantage of that. :-)

Facebook
Oh, and I mentioned this before, but I must say I am enjoying the wonder that is Facebook. I have reconnected with - and stayed connected with - so many folks through that site over just about a month's time. Very cool. Almost too addicting, though!

MONK!
Oh yeah... the other thing that has taken some of my time over the past several weeks... we're Monk junkies! We're most of the way through season four now, and looking forward to seasons five and six! We are getting them on DVD from our library system! AWESOME! Free Monk! :-) The show is hilarious (we think) and such a breath of fresh air compared to just about EVERY other current TV show. Even though it's about a homicide detective, it's not over the edge as far as graphic grossness. The language is tolerable. It's just nicer on the soul. And, it's funny. :-) (Plus, it has revealed the OCD in me. I find myself straightening things all the time, and cleaning things... pretty funny.) :-)

Man. No wonder I never post anything here anymore. :-)

Running Out

Lately I have been running several things dry. First it was my own body, falling asleep during a BILLS GAME almost instantly, with no recollection of the "nodding off" part. Just complete, immediate shut down. Then today I had a couple more incidents...

First, on returning from our friends house, the van started acting like it was running out of gas. I checked our gauge, and we should have been fine, according to that. However, our gauge is broken, so we use the computer in the van that helps you figure out gas used, and since I had only filled up with about 15 gallons the previous time, we were in fact empty, without me knowing it.

We ran out of gas right in the middle of an intersection, but made it through OK. We stopped right in front of a house, so I went to see if they could just give us enough gas to get to a pretty nearby gas station. They could, and they did... and we were on our way. Putting 25 gallons of gas in our van when we did reach the fueling station. :-)

Then just now, I was typing a quick post for the Buffalo Bills Review site, and my laptop just instantly shut down. Turns out the battery was low, but the warning did not kick in. So, I forgot to keep checking the remaining batter, and it just shut everything down. (Thankfully, blogger does a good job of auto-saving everything, and I didn't have much more to type ;-)

Well, now that I have told the story, I better shut this computer down, and lay down before I just fall asleep right here and now! Fewer sudden shut downs, or drying up of the fuel would be better....

Evidence

Here's a little bit of evidence that I have been unable to get to my blog very much this past week or so...

Yesterday, August 26th, went by without me noticing even once that it was the fourth anniversary of my blog's existence! :-) I had been looking ahead to that date all month, planning to say something about it... but... welll....

I didn't remember.

Sorry, blog! (Can you say sorry to a blog?) :-)

More to come soon... I'm working on the Buffalo Bills Review right now. Fun show this week! Maybe the most fun ever! :-) Even added some "out takes" to the end of this show. :-)

Fun stuff.

So, happy bloggiversary to GregsHead.net. Four years in the books. Or, on the web. Or something. :-)

Bloggifying

Every once in a while... the blog gets all backed up. I have about 5 or 6 blogs in the queue... at various stages of completion. It's been a full week of working on various things (like an interview with Brian Moorman for the Buffalo Bills Review tonight) and now working on a video project for some friends. They just got back from a trip to the Dominican Republic. Plus there are a few new jobs I am setting up, as well as still trying to sell our trailer.

Stay tuned... there will be a content explosion sometime soon at GregsHead.net...

Just thought I'd warn you. ;-)

Might As Well Face It

90%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

you're addicted to blogs...

Various Endeavors

There's been a bunch of randomness this week. Things are in a "down time", or a "lull" in the web design world, so I have been taking advantage of that by working on some other projects that I ordinarily would not be able to give time to. Some of those include:

• Trailer Refurbishment
  We decided to sell our basic trailer, since we have not used it (except as storage for our musical things) since February of 2005!! It is still in decent condition, and should sell for a decent price. I had to replace the thing on the front that raises and lowers it. The handle had snapped off, so the whole thing needed to be replaced. And since I was doing that, I ended up painting the whole front hitch assembly part. And the fiberglass top that had faded. My neighbor has been helping as well, and he helped re-fasten the loose light on the left side. I'm even taking off and cleaning/painting the tires! It's been a bigger job than I thought it would be... but the trailer is going to look nice very soon!
  
  If anyone is interested in a 6 x 10 cargo trailer in very good condition, please let me know. I'll be putting it on CraigsList.com as soon as it's ready (very soon, once it stops RAINING!) so let me know before that. Just click the e-mail me links (top, and right column).
  
  
• Blog Updates
  As mentioned recently, I have also been updating the right column of this site. Adding links to my various websites and just cleaning things up a bit.
  
  
• Buffalo Bills Review
  The Bills season is upon us! Training camp starts in less than a WEEK! So I have been updating our website (BuffaloBillsReview.com) as well as doing a bunch of other behind the scenes things. We even decided to make some "staff" t-shirts (which I might make available to the general public later). We'll wear them on visits to training camp, and pre-season games... a little advertising ploy... ;-) I'll have a link up on the Bills Review site soon with a photo of the shirt, and maybe a link to order some.
  
  
• There's The Steeple... Here's The Church Audiobook Podcast
  I have also had time to get a little ahead in the audiobook recording. Been posting chapters/episodes weekly. You can download them at gregshead.net/church or, just go straight to iTunes. This week's chapter is actually part two of last week's "A Bigger View of Church". Includes an article by Wayne Jacobsen titled, "Living in the Relational Church".
  
  
• Selling Tickets
  One of the updates I made to our Buffalo Bills Review site was to add some "sponsors" down the right side. OK, they're not really sponsors... but I am an affiliate of some sort for most of them, so when people click on banners those and use their services, we will receive a commission of some sort. Pretty neat!
  
  Anyhoo, one of them is StubHub.com. It's a ticket reselling marketplace. So, you have tickets, you can offer them up for sale. You want tickets - to about ANYTHING - you can find them there! We purchased Bills season tickets and have been selling the ones to games we won't be going to. It actually has worked out to make our tickets to the games we're going to a bit cheaper! Fantastic! So, most of the ones we have listed are gone, but there are a few left! Head over to my Buffalo Bills Review site and check out StubHub.com! (Our tickets are in section 225, if you want those...) ;-)
  
  
• Making Ice Cream!
  I've kind of mentioned this already, but man, we've made more ice cream this summer than ever! Last night's vanilla turned out awesome! The strawberry not as much, but it was still pretty good! The consistency is absolutely the hardest thing to master. I'm getting better, but still have much room for improvement. Oh well... guess I have to make more ice cream.... :-)

The one thing I keep feeling the urge to do but have not taken the time to do yet is to work on our One Man, One Woman book. Several things recently have reminded me of the very cool lessons in trusting God contained in that book (that is not yet written). I think it may be time to flesh it out a bit more. I have more on trusting (or not trusting) God... but that's for another upcoming post to GregsHead.net. Stay tuned...

Till then... time for some more odd jobs! :-)

GregsHead.net Updates

If you haven't noticed, I have made a few more slight modifications to the blog lately. After adding the main category tabs at the top of the page, which allow for neat sorting by theme, I have also been cleaning up the sidebar. I added links to all of my various websites (appropriately titled, "Greg's Websites") and I also added a link to the podcasted audiobook of my book There's The Steeple... Here's The Church. If you haven't checked that out yet, there's a good deal of audio up there now. I believe about 4 segments worth (about 30-40 min). More to come on that.

I also cleaned up a few of the links, and added a few more. AND, at the bottom, there are several places you can click through to get fun/valuable services for you (Apple computers & iPods, Amazon, Netflix, web hosting, spam blocking, etc) and those places give me a commission for the sale. Nifty way to support Greg's Head.

I will continue to tag older articles for better sorting with the tabs above. Who knows, the tabs may change a bit as I do. So stay tuned there.

For now, have a go at that sidebar content. (That was for the late Steve Irwin...) :-)

Lurkers

You know who you are. You are the ones who read this blog regularly. Perhaps even stopping by daily. You know the ins and outs of life in the Campbell home - and even crazier, life in GregsHead. But even though the link below invites you to comment... you never do.

You... are the Lurker.

So tonight, as a CD Release Party for some friends of ours I met a guy who might fit that category. He recognized me from various things our family were wearing. :-) Things I have mentioned here on the blog. Turns out he's a friend of another friend, and has been reading the blog for a while. But I can't recall (m)any comments from Shane... ;-)

So here's my invitation to anyone out there who has been reading this blog but not had a reason, urge, or any other compulsion to add their two cents (or even just say hello) to GregsHead.net. If you've left a comment before, you're welcome to here as well, but this post is for anyone and everyone who might fit the Lurker bill. This is your chance to come out of the shadows!

:-)

If you still don't want to comment... that will be just fine. Glad you're reading along. :-)

Audiobook Update

Installment #2 was just posted over at the There's The Steeple... Here's The Church podcast. It is available through iTunes, so that might be the best way to follow along if you'd like. There's a link to subscribe under "feeds" in the right-hand column on that site.

This week's chapter (chapter one) is called, "Redefining Church". I probably won't advertise too much more on this blog, so hop on over and bookmark, or subscribe, or whatever you need to do if you're interested. :-)

Approaching One Thousand

Recently I have been monitoring my post count. The dashboard in Blogger tells me how many different posts I have published to my blog. Currently, I stand at 997, and this will be 998. That's a lot of posts. Quite a fence that would make... ;-)

Well I have been thinking about what would be worthy material for post #1000. I just think if numbers mean anything at all (which, I know... they really don't) then I didn't want a link to some Steve Jobs quote about the iPhone to be post #1000. :-)

What could measure up to such a lofty number? I ran many things through my head, and actually got a bunch of nothing. I couldn't even begin to think what I could write about that would bear that proud tag. Until today.

Today I remembered that I have been telling people now and again that I will someday write the story of how God brought Ian into the world. It's fantastic, and has God written allll over it. We have retold the story several times over the years, when there was time to do it justice. But I have never gotten it all written out. Chronicled for the ages.

Well post number one thousand will be about Ian Jeffrey Campbell, our first-born son... and how he truly was "God's gracious gift".

Two Ears, Two Eyes... One Mouth

I realized today that one of the main reasons I don't post all the articles/thoughts that I want to here at GregsHead.net is because I spend close to twice as much time reading other blogs as I do posting to my own! And not just blogs, as you can see from some of my posts, I have really been enjoying some documentaries/movies about space travel - specifically the trips to the moon in the sixties. And then there are podcasts I enjoy listening to, or watching. And then of course, there is Star Trek! Add in a good book or two, and of course, conversations with my wife, or friends...

You've heard it said that God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we could listen twice as much as we talk. Good advice, and I think I really heed that. :-) Thing is... I don't sleep so I take a LOT in... and even HALF of what I take in is still a LOT to give out!!! Ha!!

Going along with that ears/mouth quote, and trying to apply it to my blog, I was going to say God gave us two eyes (to read) and two hands to type (no, that's equal...) and ten fingers to type (no, that doesn't work...) and one computer to type on? No...

So it loses something in the translation... but I think you get what I'm saying... ;-)

New Tabs & Jesus

Hi folks. It's going to be pretty busy work-wise around here this week. I'll post to the blog when I get a chance, but I think I might mostly be doing some clean up and re-organizing. :-) You'll notice the new tabs just above the main content of the pages... I thought I would take advantage of the automatic page links generated by the labeling system. I tried to select the main categories of most of my posts. Stay tuned... they should start to make more sense as we go forward.

One quick thought for tonight, before I hit the hay...

As I was creating the labels index page, I was going through each label I have created, and in the middle were a bunch of names. Ian, Jen, Jesus, Julia, Kirsten. As I typed those names it struck me that it was easy and natural to include Jesus as a family name. :-) He is part of our family. I love that our kids know that. They talk to him like that. Just like we do.

We didn't plan to have an I, J, J & K string of names... it just worked out that way. But it's pretty neat that Jesus is right in the middle of us. :-) (Actually, my name starts with G... so we just need to get an H in there somewhere...) :-) (Who knows what happened with Alex! I don't think we're going to fill in the alphabet between him and me!) :-)

So, enjoy the tabs. Do a little exploring perhaps... and hopefully this will help tailor your reading experience. Lemme know what you think if you're so inclined. Comment away! :-)

Tumblr

So, I visit LOTS of websites throughout a week's time... Often I will post links here (and I will continue to) but I have heard of a site called Tumblr which seems perfect for posting links to cool sites I come across. I decided to start an account where I will (mostly) share good web/design tools and resource sites. So, the address corresponds with that...

bwd.tumblr.com

So.. not much there yet, but more will follow I'm sure. Bookmark it for future reference. There's also a feed, if you know what to do with that...

Search Terms

Every once in a while, I check the stats page for my blog here... and usually find some interesting things. I found an old friend, and a few more links to other friends' websites. I see which pages (besides the main page) are viewed most (#1, #2, #3...)

But perhaps the most comical (and sometimes informative?) thing has to be the search terms people use to find my site. The list below is the top search phrases people usedthis month, and then clicked over to my site. Yes... the NUMBER ONE SEARCH PHRASE that brought people from Google (or wherever) to my site was... George McFly. :-) Haha. Here's the list...

1. george mcfly
   
2. greg campbell
   
3. greg head
   
4. scary jesus
   
5. poo song
   
6. amy carder life blog
   
7. jamie feick married
   
8. greg campbell animal rights
   
9. gregory breeze
   
10. the bible is weird

There were a few others in the complete list... several dealing with this website that caused quite a stir not too long ago. And a long-lost friend of my cousin, Kara, also found HER through my website... with a search for her name. Pretty neato.

Anyway... I thought #1 and #8 were funny enough to publish here. The internet is a pretty amusing thing at times. :-)