Year / 2007

by Greg

Ducks Take The Cup

For those of you following along with all of my previous Sabres’ posts…

Last night was Game Five of the Stanley Cup Finals, and with the Anaheim Ducks leading 3 games to 1, it was rather shocking to see the game end with a 6-2 victory for the Ducks! It seems Ottawa, who had a very good season – certainly played fantastically against our Sabres!!! – and deserved to be in the finals, would have put up a bit more of a fight?

It was Anaheim’s series from the start.

So, we let the boys stay up last night for the whole game. Anticipating the conclusion of the NHL season. We were right, and it was fun to see all those guys toting around the most prized trophy in all of sports. Only one Anaheim player has ever been there before. Scott Neidermeyer has won 4 cups, actually (including this one). But everyone else, including his brother Rob, was experiencing the moment for the first time. It was fun to watch. 🙂

The only part that wasn’t fun was, as a Sabres’ fan, thinking, “This should be Chris Drury, and Danny Briere, and Max Afinogenov, and Ryan Miller, and Thomas Vanek…” But, it was not. Maybe we’ll get to stay up late to see that scene next season? Probably not with all of those same names, unfortunately 🙁

With the clinching of the Stanly Cup, the Ducks have ended the 2006-2007 NHL season. I miss it already! 🙁 But it’s not long till they lace up their skates again and the fast-paced action starts circling ice rinks near you.

For now, it’s time to focus on BILLS FOOTBALL! Whoohooo!! 🙂

by Greg

Report From The Home Office…

I absolutely love that I can work from home. It’s fantastic. I can regularly see my kiddos… take breaks and be with my family… I have access to everything I need at home (or at the office, I suppose)…

But man are there days it’s hard to get stuff done!!!

Today I have:

  • played basketball (that was before office hours)
  • read the Bible with the boys
  • started dinner (in the crockpot)
  • helped the window/door installer guy a bit
  • made a trip to the post office, and later, a second trip to the bank
  • made lunch for la familia (jen was not feeling up to it today… usually that’s her gig)
  • tried to arrange a birthday dinner/party for a friend
  • and oh yeah… did complete one graphic design job today, and delivered the final product to my client

But man is it hard to stay focused sometimes!! 🙂

I’m back in the office, and trying to get a few more projects completed today. But it’s already 4:09!!! Where do the days go???

(Oh yeah… read above…) 🙂

by Greg

Errands of Grace?

This morning I had to head out for a few quick errands, which turned out to be at least three opportunities to connect with people I know around town. None are “good friends”, but I do have a connecting point with all of them.

I was heading up to the post office to grab a few checks that I expected had arrived from a couple different clients. I was by default going to drive, but then I remembered I like to walk when I’m just headed to the post office, and the bank. But I thought, “Today I need to drive… just because it’s faster.” So, I headed out the driving door and got in my van to drive off.

First stop was the PO. As I was walking in, a Bookseller friend was heading out. I wasn’t sure she was going to see me, but I watched her, waiting for a chance to say hello. She seemed in a hurry, so I was going to let her notice me. She did catch a glimpse of me, and so I waved a hello to her. That seemed to break up her rush a bit, so I went over to say hello. We chatted about the things she’s dealing with right now (she’s closing down her bookstore) and a few other things. She asked how we’re doing, and I couldn’t help but bring up money, as once again that is the pressing issue in the front of my mind. She offered a few encouraging (and sympathetic) thoughts, and we parted ways with a smile. I was glad we had a chance to connect, even if only for a few brief moments.

I went in to check the box, and unfortunately, no checks. I would have been more disappointed, but I was still glad to have had the chance to have a chat with our Bookseller friend.

Heading out the door, I noticed she was just leaving, and as she did, she slowed and motioned through her window, “No checks?” I shook my head, and she again motioned in empathy, “Sorry… that’s too bad…” I smiled, and we went about the business of the day.

But I wasn’t done yet. I did have one check to deposit from the day before. So, off to the bank I went.

But as I was ready to pull out of the driveway I remembered a conversation I had previously had in my head (presumably with God) about a little coffee house in town…

I have visited there only maybe two times – three at most. Often I will think of it, when she is closed. This morning I had thought of dropping in for a chai, but dismissed it as my little addiction – for which we needn’t spend any money, that we don’t currently have. But as soon as I dismissed it, another thought entered my mind. Often, when I think of something out of my normal or planned line of thinking, it is a prompting from God that is not necessarily about the “thing” I am thinking about. I chuckled, and conceded that perhaps God had something more than a cup of chai for me this morning.

So, sitting at the end of the post office driveway with a smile, I decided I would stop by and see what that cup of chai might bring.

I pulled up to the parking lot, and noticed balloons blowing in the breeze at the door of the coffee house. As I got closer, the sign said, “Come celebrate our 1st Anniversary!” So I walked in and said, “Happy anniversary!” The owner thanked me, but seemed… preoccupied. We exchanged a bit of small talk about her menu and such. I placed my order for chai. “I don’t have any large cups,” she said, obviously frustrated, “I could give you two small cups and you could do a double-fisted drinking thing?” I smiled, and said that one small cup would be just fine.

I believe I asked her how her first year was, but I don’t remember exactly what I asked. Whatever it was, it was the right thing to ask. She began pouring out emotions of the day, perhaps recent weeks or months… perhaps even the whole first year. Overall, she is tired… and not seeing the fruit of her labor. So I, being an outsider, was able to see some good things, and remind her of those. And reluctantly she admitted them.

One of her most recent frustrations was that whole large cups thing. She just hadn’t had the time to get them, and it seemed that EVERYONE needed them. So I said with a smile, “Well, I’m glad to have a small cup of chai.” 🙂 She smiled, and thanked me, and I left as another customer was coming in. Hopefully I was an encouragement to her this morning, and the rest of the day might be a bit lighter.

I guess I did go for a bit more than a chai. 🙂

Well, now it was off to the bank, with my one tiny check. At least I did have something to deposit, even if it was small. I filled out the deposit slip, and got in line, and went right up to this morning’s teller. She was friendly, as always. I have spoken with her many times before. She’s a fellow believer, and on the worship team at her church, so we have had several conversations about our music ministry – which is what the check was written to. That prompted her to ask how that was going… so I explained our current “hibernation”, and how God is leading that. So then she asked about CDs, if we had any. I explained that we had 5 currently, and she said she would very much like to get one. So, I left saying I would bring one by next time.

As I headed to the van I remembered… they’re in our VAN. 🙂 So, I grabbed one of each, and headed back in to see which one she would like. Generally, I just give them to people. I’m a really bad businessman. I admit it. 🙂 But today, I didn’t think that was the right thing to do. So I debated loaning them to her, then she could buy the one(s) that she liked? Seemed too much pressure. I could just show them all to her, then give her one? Nah… I’d figure it out when the time came.

The time came. She was free, so I went up and showed her all the CDs, explaining what each one contained. One of them was our demo CD that I had planned to just give to her. Then she said, “Well, I’ll definitely take the free one, and I’d like to buy this one.” She asked how much, and I told her. She handed over a ten dollar bill and I was on my way.

I got back in my van just smiling at the morning’s errands. I hadn’t gotten the money from my clients that I went out for, but I had the chance to connect (more than a “hello”) with three people, sharing a bit of what God is doing for me and for them. (Even if they don’t credit him.) And I even came home with more cash, though I had bought a cup of chai that I “shouldn’t have”.

I’d say all that was worth my cup of chai.

by Greg

Microsoft Surface & The iPhone

Microsoft Surface
Microsoft announced last week a revolutionary “new” interface for computing. I really wanted to comment on it last week, but with a very shortened week, did not find the time to do so. A friend posted a link on his site, reminding me to comment… so, thanks Steve. 🙂

This really looks phenomenal. It’s a real interface. No mouse… no keyboard. You just use your hands. You can even have multiple touch points. It’s fantastic.

And looks A LOT like the iPhone.

When the iPhone was announced (and demoed) in January, Steve Jobs said they had filed LOTS (he said a number, but I forget what it was) of patents for this phone, and that they would be enforcing them vigorously. And after seeing the Surface demo online last week… I can see now why he said that. 🙂

Microsoft claims they have been working on this project for five years. I believe Apple claimed a similar time frame for the iPhone. It will be quite interesting to see what happens here… 🙂

So, if you’d like to check it out… it really does look fantastic. (Link below…) I love the way you can set stuff on top of it and it automatically recognizes it as a device to read or save to! Fantastic.

Apple iPhone Ads - June 29th
In related news… Apple announced today that iPhone will be released to the public on June 29th. They also released some ads. Neat stuff.

Technology is pretty cool!

But of course… Apple’s is just a tad better. (And Microsoft is a LOT better at copying it…) 😉

LINKS:
microsoft surface
apple iphone ads

by Greg

What A Day!

Today began rather early, for a Sunday.

I woke up at about 8:30 or so… and everyone was sleeping, but I wanted to get up for two reasons. First, I needed to mow, and I knew it was going to be HOT… so the earlier the better! Second, our neighbors were shipping out at 9:30, and I wanted to be there to say good bye. 🙂

So, I got up, threw on some grubs, grabbed the iPod, and headed out to mow at about 8:45. (If you know me, you know how insane that is.)

I got the back yard done just as our neighbors emerged to pack their van to leave. They loaded up very fast… said a quick good bye (they were VERY excited about this trip! I think they have been packed for three months…) and drove off. I got back to my mowing – and sweating… – and finished a bit before ten o’clock.

I came inside a bit confused. So many possibilities for the day… but which to do? I needed to seed many parts of our yard. I had a few flower beds to spruce up. I needed to clean out our van. Bad. And beyond that, I had a few fun ideas, like going to visit a nearby waterfall! Or, going to lunch with Jen’s brother and family, and some other friends before spending a little time at the Apple Store in the mall (and other shopping errands). SO MUCH TO DO… SO LITTLE TIME.

After a brief – albeit heated – conversation with Jen, I settled on just cleaning out one flower bed (out front) and calling it a day on the work side of things. It just felt like it needed to be a family day.

After cleaning up, and just hanging out with Jen for a while (that was SO GREAT!) we checked out that lunch plan with friends and family. Found out that wasn’t going to be just what we though it would be so… we decided on plan B for lunch. Reheated burgers and hot dogs from yesterday’s party! Whoohoo! 🙂 I did make fresh home-made french fries, though…

As we were eating our lunch, I heard a pretty rare knock at the door. I quickly jumped up to see who it was, and was a bit surprised to find our neighbor, Mrs. Button, standing there with a smile on her face. I opened the door and invited her in. After a brief chat she asked if I might help her move a couch into her apartment. “Absolutely!” I said.

And the adventure began.

Since my neighbor, Matt, was gone, I needed to find another capable young man to assist me in this furniture moving. I knocked on the door of one such person … but to no avail. They were gone for the day. Then I tried the other side of our house… but alas, no response to my knock. I called up a friend who loves to help with stuff like this. He was headed out the door for a business trip. So I walked up a couple houses to another neighbor’s house to see if he might be able to help.

Petr came to the door and after a brief reintroduction (we have had many more chats with his wife than with him… so I decided to introduce myself again) he said he could certainly help. Yes! Finally someone is available!

I went back to tell Mrs. Button that she would have her couch in about 15 minutes or so, and ended up spending most of that 15 minutes talking with her about all sorts of stuff. She seems a bit lonely. She was happy to talk about anything and everytihng. And I was happy to listen. 🙂

Petr was now available, so we began moving the couch from two houses down to Mrs. Button’s apartment. It was around 90ºF, and VERY humid, so after 5 steps we were both sweathing profusely. And, Mrs. Button is … “a collector”. 🙂 Her apartment was quite full. Even more full than my Grandma, who is famous for being a pack rat. 🙂 So we re-arranged, jostled, and squeezed in this fairly large couch.

When our work was done, we said good bye to Mrs. Button, and headed to our homes. Petr stayed a bit at our yard – tossing the football with our boys – and just chatting about what he does, what we do. We haven’t gotten to do that in four years of living just around the corner from each other. It was very nice.

As we were chatting, Mr. Anderson drives up with his two girls. I excuse myself from the football-tossing conversation to say hello to the Anderson clan. Petr says good bye, and we pick up a chat about computers, kids, and ice cream with Mr. Anderson and company. Turns out I should be able to help them with a Mac purchase. And… after comparing schedules, we figured out that we would be able to take their girls to Chill & Grill for some ice cream later that evening. (We had been wanting to do that as an extra thank you for being awesome baby sitters for us!) 🙂

We said good bye, and as I walked back to our house, I said to Jen sitting on the porch… “I feel like a neighbor!” 🙂 What a great day of connecting with all of the people around us… helping each other out, and just enjoying each other’s company!!!

And it wasn’t done!!!

A storm rolled in, so we thought it would be fun to play a game or two out on the front porch while listening to the thunder and rain. Turned out to be a bit of a dud, but the games were fun! And on one short break where we went in to get a snack, I realized that if I was going to make pizza for dinner… I better get started! Well, I also realized that it might be early enough to invite someone to join us for that home-made pizza dinner.

Why not our neighbors from around the corner? 🙂

We’ve tried a couple times to have a meal with them, but has never worked out with their schedule… but today was different! They could come!!! So I popped the pizza dough in the oven to rise, and we tried to finish our game before they came.

The next hour went quickly, and we saw them pop around the corner, and start heading for our house. I went in to get the pizza started and everyone began filing in. (They are a family of 6 also!) We made some great looking pizzas, had some great conversation, and really had a great time connecting with these new-ish friends. There are some fun connections. They have a son born just a few HOURS before Julia was. At the same hospital. And, they were due the same date as well. Crazy. Also, Petr’s wife was the daughter of a preacher man – just like my Jen. 🙂

So, we had a great meal with them… and then shared some ice cream sundaes that they brought along. It was a great evening shared with new friends.

As they were getting ready to go, we were too. Turns out… we weren’t done! We had made ice cream plans… remember?? 🙂

(Yes… we still went, even after having ice cream with Petr and his family…) 🙂

So, we headed up to the Baptist church to meet up with the Anderson girls. We were a tad early, but headed inside to see what was going on. They weren’t quite done, so we stalled a bit… until I felt almost “rude” just standing outside their building, not coming in to join them. So, Ian and I went in and sat down to listen. They were talking about big faith in God, like David vs. Goliath. One guy shared a story about how (at God’s leading) he was able to provide financial help to a family he knew – even though he was not in a financial position to do so – and how God gave that right back to him within a couple days! When they were done, I told a similar story of how God had done that for us! He’s so good when we trust him, and do what he leads us to do.

We headed out with our babysitters to Chill & Grill. The skies were ominous… rain was surely coming. But, we went (on foot) anyway.

It was a nice walk, filled with many foot races between several different runners. There were also multiple winners. Lots of fun. Mr. Anderson (baby sitters’ Dad) joined us after we were most of the way there, as he had noticed that the rain had begun, and well… he’s a good Dad. 🙂 He ended up driving everyone but me home. (I walked back in the rain, looking for a dropped baby shoe…) 🙂

The ice cream was great. The conversation and connecting with friends/neighbors was even better. What a great day of that!!!!

After finishing our game from earlier – which DAD won!!! – we showered up… then Mom & Dad watched a little TV… and then Mom headed to bed!

And then I wrote a blog or two. 🙂

Looong – but INCREDIBLY FUN – day. Thanks for sharing it with me on this virtual page. 🙂

by Greg

Duplication

Last night as I cleaned up after a little family birthday party for my mother-in-law, I was listening to a podcast. The regular hosts were having a chat with a guy from Australia who has been through a few crazy cycles with the institution of the church. I believe once he was “let go” from his job as a pastor… which served as a wake-up call that “the church” (meaning, the system… the programmed institution) as it was had some pretty major flaws. So, he and his family avoided such a setting for something like nine years?

After all that time, a little Baptist church asked him to be their pastor. The church was very traditional, very Baptist, and he of course said, “No thanks!” But God said, take it. So they did. And slowly over the next few years they, along with that whole group of believers, worked themselves out of that system until nothing was left of that group. They are all still in contact, but all felt that God was leading them to something different… perhaps more free that what they had before.

As I listened, I started to think, “Man! Maybe that’s what we should do! Could we do that??? Would I have the patience to go through helping a group of people de-structurize? But it sounds so cool! What a great story! I should try to do something like that….”

Within 5 seconds after I thought all of that, I realized how silly I was. 🙂

What is this unquenchable drive to duplicate? Why is it that when we hear a story of some good thing that God did through another believer, it makes us think, “Ooo! I should do that too!” I realized that I was really just trying to do what the church has done with every current manifestation of itself (at least in this culture)… I was trying to DUPLICATE.

They spoke about this a bit later in the podcast I think. Or maybe that was just me, my thoughts, and God having a little chat in my head? For some reason we can’t help but try to capture again a moment, or a season, or whatever where we saw God do something incredible. It must somehow be able to be duplicated, right??

Not necessarily.

Yes, God seemed to have led them to take that pastorate… and yes, in my eyes, it turned out pretty great. But so far, God is not leading me to do that… so if I were to do that, it would most likely be (in some way) a big flop. I would be trying to copy – in my own effort – something that God had done somewhere else, but was not asking me to do. THERE’S the point. God leads, we follow. It’s not the other way around.

So, I’m not sure I can say that God is behind “Mega churches”, but I am saying that we probably shouldn’t be trying to copy every little thing they do. God wants to lead each of us, and even groups of us as the church wherever we are. He is our Shepherd, and we get to follow him … daily. So, if today he asks me to do something, and it works fantastically, is very “fruitful”, or whatever… tomorrow it’s not my job to go out and do it again. It’s my job to get up, listen to what he is asking me to do, and do that. It might be the same thing for another day, week…. maybe a year or two. OR, it might be something totally different. And that might be even harder! Who wants to leave something that’s going so well? (Just ask Brett Favre!)

I really don’t think formulas, systems, programs, methods, etc are helpful in the kingdom of God. From what I see in the Bible, and in the life of Jesus… he was not about that. He responded to each individual, and each situation, and each leading of God. Perhaps that’s what we could do too. Listen to where he wants ME to go, and just follow.

I don’t need to be making copies anymore.

by Greg

YouTube on AppleTV

YouTube coming to AppleTV
One more thing before I go…

Apple announced yesterday that coming this month there will be a new item on the main menu of your AppleTV. YouTube videos will be accessible right on your living room TV. 🙂 Pretty cool idea. You even have access to some dynamic content like your History, Most Watched videos, Most Recent videos posted, etc. And right on your TV.

Good job Apple. Click the photo above for a demo.

by Greg

Circles

Milky Way Galaxy
I watched a few PBS shows throughout the course of the day yesterday. Some of it was just listening, as I was working while listening to the audio on my laptop. You can watch many of the NOVA episodes online. Well, I happened to choose the Monster Of The Milky Way, and then later, The Elegant Universe.

The first show was about the discovery of some massive black holes at the centers of galaxies, including our own. I am fascinated by all things in space, so this was cool to learn about/see. Then I watched the Elegant Universe later at night, while getting some more work done in my office. It was a fascinating (and somewhat confusing!) look at the String Theory. I can’t even pretend to summarize it for you here, but the called it the “Theory of Everything” 🙂 The people they interviewed were pretty sure that if they can prove their theory, it will explain everything about our universe. 🙂

Overall, it was an attempt to understand the forces of gravity, electro-magnetic forces, time, and various “dimensions” of our universe. From super-huge galaxies, to sub-sub atomic particles. It’s theoretical in some ways still, but they were looking at the parts of the tiny parts that make up the parts of an atom i think. 🙂 Sparticles? Sparticus? Something like that. Just amazing stuff.

AND… here’s the weird thing I noticed…

God likes circles. Everything in the universe from the VERY VERY VERY small to the VERY VERY VEEEERY BIG… goes in circles. Electrons circle the nucleus of an atom. Those make up everything, right? So, that’s a lot of circles. Then let’s get bigger. A lot bigger. The earth spins. The moon circles the earth. The earth circles the sun. The sun circles the center of the milky way. The milky way is moving… not sure if it’s spinning… but… how could we tell? And everything else around what I just mentioned is ALSO SPINNING in some kind of CIRCLE.

Why did He make so many circles?

Anyway, it’s very cool that you can watch these programs online in their entirety. I don’t know how real such a theory is, but it’s fascinating to watch, and I love looking at the stuff that God made. It is awe inspiring every single time. From the way-too-tiny to the super big. And we probably don’t even know the half of it!

So click the links above if you’re interested. Perhaps you’ll be awed as well. 🙂