Year / 2007

by Greg

Stuff I (Wish I Could Say I) Am Reading

We have been noticing lately that there is just WAY TOO MUCH good stuff to do in your free time. So, I have a bunch of books that I have started, and am currently “working on”, but that’s when I’m not watching the stuff we’ve TiVoed, or catching up on podcasts, or playing some vintage Sega or Nintendo (usually a season game with the current Sabres in NHL ’96, or the 1991 Buffalo Bills in Tecmo Super Bowl!!!)

OR, posting stuff to my blog. 🙂 (Or reading other blogs and news sites!)

WOW. There is a lot.

So, just for fun, I thought I’d post here the books that I (wish I could say I) am reading. 🙂

iWoz
An auto-biography by the tech guy who launched the computer revolution by making the first Apple computer way back in 1976. Steve Jobs gets the credit, but he was mainly the business guy. Woz was the creative, techy guy. So far, it’s a good read.
The Starfish and The Spider
The subtitle is “The unstoppable power of leaderless organizations.” It was discussed on a recent edition of the God Journey podcast, and sounded interesting. So far it is. They’re talking about Napster and the like so far. Several parallels to the Church, I am told. I do look forward to reading this one.
Marv Levy: Where Else Would You Rather Be?
Great stories from a great coach of my favorite team! What could be better??!?
The Game of My Life
This book features stories of games of tons of former Buffalo Bills. It’s a great read. The boys love it too! We’re nearly done with this one, but it’s still in the “to read” place…. 🙂
Bulletproof Web Design
These two books are things I would like to read to help with my web design business… recommended by a friend, and a podcast respectively.
CSS: The Missing Manual
The Story of The Bible
Per another conversation on the God Journey, I thought it would be neat to read this old bible we have. It’s not verse and chapters… it’s just a story. Taken from the text of the Bible. I would love to read through the whole story again that way. Haven’t actually picked this one up yet… just… got it off the shelf. 😉
Hidden Treasures in an Urban Jungle, by Chris Irwin Hidden Treasures in an Urban Jungle
A friend of mine wrote this one, and it has been on the top of my pile of books to read for quite a while. I’m sure they are great stories from his time in Ecuador. (Over a decade, so… probably lots of great stories of stuff God is doing.) 🙂

So… you can click on any of those books and check them out for yourself. Maybe you can let me know how they are… as you might get to them before me!!! 🙂

by Greg

Sabres!

Sabres vs Islanders

This Thursday night the Sabres will be hosting the NY Islanders to start the NHL playoffs! We can’t wait!!! The regular season was sort of a formality for the Sabres. Their presence in the post season was pretty much a given. The best part this year is that all of the injured players have healed, and are back – apparently in great shape and ready to go!

You can’t predict a sweep, but, in this case we almost can. The Isles did beat Buffalo once this season in 4 tries. And it is the NHL playoffs…. anything can happen.

But not this time.

I think I will go out on the proverbial limb here and predict that Sabres advance to round two in just four games. The Islanders are coached by a former Sabres coach, who did not leave on the best terms. They also have our former star player, Miroslav Satan (pronounced “Shuh-tan”). But…

4-0.

We’ll see. I think the next round could be more interesting. We will most likely (barring big upsets) be playing either Ottawa or Pittsburgh. Both teams are significant steps up from the NYI and will definitely be more of a challenge.

This is our year for the Cup though. There may be some challenging games, or series, but I will be surprised if we’re not at least in the Finals as the Eastern Conference Champs.

And it all starts in two days!!!

by Greg

NEStopia

NEStopia, Nintendo NES emulator for Mac OS XWhile reading an article on some Mac software releases and such, I happened upon a link to a Nintendo NES Emultaor for Mac OS X!!! I checked it out, and it was super easy to install and I found a game that will run on it that I have been wanting to find for a LONG time (Since I had it over a decade ago. Or two??)

A LOT of yesterday was spent playing Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. 🙂

Now I think I have the boys hooked too. Good stuff.

So now I can play vintage (1987) video games on my Macs!!! Classic.

by Greg

Easter Means Chocolate

Esther Price Chocolate Easter Eggs from Dayton, OH
I know, I know. Easter is NOT about the chocolate, or the Bunny, or the eggs and whatever else our society has decided to commercialize. BUT…

I really do like chocoalte. Especially Esther Price chocolate!!!

Ever since I can remember, the Easter Bunny has brought the eggs you see above to my house… hiding some for the children to find and just putting lots more in everyone’s easter baskets. This year was no exception. It’s definitely one of my favorite parts of the Easter season. 🙂

We had a nice day on Sunday. The kids woke up around 9 or so, and we went to see what the EB had left us, and of course had fun scouring our house for eggs. I think we found most of them. 🙂 After that we had (yes, this is for real…) DONUTS for breakfast!!! We found a great deal on them the night before. TOPS has them for $2.75/dozen after 7pm! Bonus!

After donuts, we watched The Miracle Maker. It’s a clay-mation movie from 2000 that was really well done. We haven’t ever watched the whole thing, but it was a great way to remember the Easter story.

The rest of the day is a chocolatey blur, but I do know Jen’s family came over for a short visit. Grandma & Grandpa, Uncle Andy and Dylan came to visit. It was nice. 🙂

Hope you had a great Easter, and are enjoying LOTS of chocolate goodies this week!

by Greg

Three In One

This morning the boys were in my office to read the Bible, and we got talking about one particular line we read.

Soon after this, Jesus was going through towns and villages, telling the good news about God’s kingdom.

Luke 8:1

So many times we take the good news out of the “good news”! I told the boys that sometimes we make knowing Jesus about knowing what not to do, or what to do, instead of the greatness of a God who loves us. The story we read yesterday was about the woman who came and poured expensive perfume on Jesus, and was crying on his feet, wiping away the tears with her hair. Jesus told the astonished “holy dude” who was with him that someone who is forgiven much will celebrate that forgiveness much more! That’s the good news! God’s love and forgiveness are available to all!

Somewhere in the conversation we started talking about how the good news is that we get to be close with God, like he’s our Dad. And then I said, “And Jesus is like a brother, which is cool.” The brothers smiled. “And Jesus, who is God, who is also the Father, is like our Dad, which is cool.” I started losing them here. “And then God is spirit, too… and that’s like, you!” I was sort of confusing myself, but stick with me here… “It’s like God can be so close that he is inside us, where only you can be. No one else can be inside you except you… and God (the Spirit) who lives inside of us.”

At this point Ian said, “Yeah, he can get inside through our ears! Or, our nose! Unless… if we have a cold.” 🙂

(That was awesome.)

But I thought that was pretty neat. God in his three persons is as close as a brother, as a father, and even as ourselves as the Spirit, living inside us. I hadn’t ever though of that before. But we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, he is actually inside us. Our relationship with him is that intimate. No one else can be there. Just God.

Neat.

No super-amazing conclusion from all of this, just thought it was interesting enough to share. And, the line from Ian was classic. 🙂

Happy Easter, everyone.

Go Sabres! 🙂

by Greg

Down To The Wire

Daniel Briere of the Eastern Conference Champion Buffalo SabresWith only two games remaining, the Sabres are tied for the top record in the NHL, and well in command for earning the President’s Trophy for the team that finishes the season at the top of the league. Detroit is the only team who can catch the Sabres, and they only have one game left. With a win, the Sabres can guarantee at least a tie in points with the Red Wings and a better W/L record with at least 53 wins. (Detroit can only get to 50 wins if they win their final game.)

Buffalo should have a good chance to do that in either or both games this weekend as they face the Washington Capitals and the Philadelphia Flyers. Both teams are currently out of the playoffs, and dwelling at or near the bottom of the league.

The Sabres have never won the President’s Trophy, so it would be an historic accomplishment, but they all say they are not focused on that. They do know that having home ice advantage throughout the playoffs is definitely a plus.

So look for the Sabes to finish the season with TWO more wins, winning the President’s Tropy, and top spot in the NHL in 2007, outright with 115 points, and a 54-21-7 record.

I think this really might be the year Buffalo FINALLY wins a Championship!!!

(I’m not counting the Bills AFL Championships, or the Bandits MILL Championships… I mean the Big Four major sports. So close in the Super Bowls… and yet… SO FAR.) 🙂

by Greg

Various Things

  • Kirsten joined us for reading the Bible today (usually it’s just Dad & the boys…) and in today’s story, Jesus was going to have dinner with one of the Pharisee’s named Simon. Well, we had just been talking about how we’d like to go to Wendy’s for dinner, so I said, “Maybe they went to Wendy’s!” The kids all thought that was cool, but the next line said, “So they went to his house for dinner.” I said, “Oh, I guess not Wendy’s. They went to his house. So, they probably had Skyline.” Kirstie replied, “Like us!!!” 🙂 (Which, though I’m 100% certain they did not have Skyline, got across the point that they were peoples just like us.) 🙂
  • Jen wants to make resurrection rolls. That’s awesome. 🙂
  • The Buffalo Bills schedule comes out today (along with the rest of the NFL). It will be announced at 4pm on the NFL Network (which we DO NOT get!!!) and around the same time on the Buffalo Bills website.
  • The Buffalo Sabres have three games to go, and are 1 point behind the Detroit Red Wings for the best overall record in the NHL. Detroit only has 2 games left, so the Sabres are definitely in the driver’s seat. And with games against Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia, they stand a very good chance of winning all of those. Tonight’s game is against Boston, whome the Sabres have a 5-0-2 record against this season! Go Sabres! We could have home ice through the whole playoffs!
  • My wife loves to give gifts. Today I opened my drawers to get my clothes for the day and found an Almond Joy (one of my favorites) on top of my shirts and some travel cups for hot drinks that I enjoy on top of my socks. A fun surprise to begin the day.
  • Mac sales of late have been going at a pretty good clip. At least interest has increased. I am getting calls/emails from folks I don’t even know 🙂 Pretty fun. I love hooking people up with Macs! And the bonus is, now I also get paid by Apple to do it! It’s not a lot, but it’s definitely a nice bonus! Lemme know if you need one… 🙂
  • We are Bills season ticket holders once again! It’s a pretty expensive endeavor for us to go to Bills games (tack on another $50 to even $100 on game day for gas, tolls, parking, food, etc.) so a friend reminded us of the wonder of StubHub. It’s a site where you can buy (and sell!) tickets of all sorts. He’s pretty sure we can cover the cost of our tickets to a game or two we want to go to, by selling the games we don’t want to (or, can’t as it were) go to. SO… we have four seats in the Family section, 225 I believe. See ya there! 🙂 (Guess we’ll find out today WHEN we’ll be going to these games!!!)
  • Jen also surprised me by getting a baby sitter and “taking me” to El Pacifico for dinner last night. It’s our new favorite place. She and I can eat for $15-20 and it’s AWESOME, authentic, Mexican food. Great stuff!
by Greg

One More Alex Story

Alex reminded me before lunch today that I am the “Kingdom of the family. Because you’re the tallest.” He’s pretty sure I’m in charge. I told him that I am not… Jesus is the King of our family, and we listen to him. Then he told me, “Well, you’re the king of us, the kids.” And I said, “For a little while. I get to try and show you the best way to live, as best I know how.”

Then I continued, “But, later on, when you’re old like me, then you get to make your own decisions…”

“Yeah! I can do anything I want!” he interrupted.

“Yes, based on hopefully the good foundation that I have given you, so you can make wise choices.” I continued, “Then when you’re old, I won’t be your “king” anymore. But hopefully, you can be my friend.”

That made him smile. A few moments later he started dreaming about this adult relationship with Dad. He said, “Maybe I’ll get married… and we’ll live in the house next to the Toneses (our next door neighbors). And of course you’ll be my friend… cause I used to be your son!!!“

At that point, I assured him that he’ll still be my son, I just won’t be his “king”. 🙂

Then he concluded with, “And I’ll come visit you every day!”

Alex is too cute. 🙂