Category / Personal

by Greg

I’m Such A Baby

Tonight I was noticing just how much I am like our one- and two-year-old children. Now, for the most part I’ve learned to control my responses a bit more (not to mention my excellent potty-trained record) but watching them tonight—and in particular, the way I, their father, interacted with them—I realized just how much I am being the whiny, impatient, uninformed, short-sighted baby.

That’s exactly what you’d expect from a baby, right? The poor creatures can’t talk… they can’t do most things for themselves… they’re at our mercy! So, pretty often then are frustrated to the point of tears (along with kicking and screaming sometimes) and, well, that’s kinda how I felt tonight.

As I was bathing our 1-year-old son, he kept resisting me in various ways. He wanted to hold a toy a certain way at a certain time, but I need to bathe him and so he just had to wait for a bit till he could have it again. But, in his impatient short-sightedness … he cried. Then, once that was over, all was fine. Then while rinsing him off he was crying because the water was going over his face … but again, if he could just think of the bigger picture … he’d save himself the trouble of crying and all that fussing about his (very) temporary discomfort, since he’d be thinking of the great clean, warm, comfy feeling he was about to have in about 3-5 minutes.

After that, the same pattern ensued when we were drying off. He was cold, he was wet … and in the process of trying to fix that, he had cried as I dried him off and dressed him. Again, all was better in the end, but he didn’t like the “getting there” part. And then when we waited for his cup of milk to warm in the microwave—a routine he is quite familiar with—he only whimpered and complained about the wait. I want my milk now!!!

Aren’t we like that? I am. I was tonight. (Maybe am?) I reconciled our finances tonight and we are so far behind at the moment, and besides that we’re excitedly pursuing another opportunity it seems God is leading us toward … but it’s still out of our reach. And our bills are piling up, while income seems to only be trickling in. Ugh. All I can see is that I’m cold, wet, and there’s soap in my eyes. I’m missing the part where my Dad loves me, and he’s taking care of me.

There’s a lot to the idea of living in the moment. It’s important to be where you are, or you might miss it. But sometimes, I admit, just like my two babies … I am way too in the moment. I forget how God has been with us through everything along the way up till now, and I forget that he moves much slower than me. Just like Cameron wants me to get his milk ready in an instant … it doesn’t work that way! It takes time.

God moves like that. He sees the whole picture, and he’s working all things for our good. I do forget that sometimes…

I guess I can be such a baby.

By the way, the photo above is from the end of a photo shoot with all our kids (credit Lindsay Karl), and Cam was very done! We weren’t ramming his head into that tree branch or anything like that… 🙂

by Greg

AZ Representative Shot, “Bullets” Still Flying

I am praying for us tonight.

I have been asking God for some extra specific guidance and bringing him a few more specific requests this week for us, meaning the Campbell family. We are on a very interesting ride at the moment… but that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m sure you have heard by now that a young man opened fire on a small political event in the state of Arizona. Representative Gabrielle Giffords was appearing at a local SafeWay grocery store and she, along with many others, was hit by one of the bullets. Reports earlier said she had been killed, but as of right now, she is still alive, and they actually do expect her to recover.

The question is … will we?

The political debates in our country are ridiculous. I’ve written about it here before, we’re not listening to each other. (See also, “The (True) Fundamental Transformation of America“.) We’re slinging the SAME accusations at each other. We can not both be right! But … in a way, we are.

The point is, the games have to stop. We are all people. We’re not Democrats, Republicans, Tea Party-ers, Libertarians, Communists, or Socialists. We’re people. Yes, we are all Americans, and it’s good to have something we can unite on … but I say that, in the end, should be that we are people.

We are neighbors.

But unfortunately, we’re not. “We” are right, and “they” are wrong. “They” are crazy. It doesn’t matter what the issue, or which side of it you are on… “we” are right, and “they” are dangerously wacko.

It’s only because we are labeling people, and treating them as that objectified concept rather than finding what we do have in common and starting from there. That is certainly much easier than really trying to understand someone who thinks differently than you, and then trying to build on what you do have in common.

But which is better? I think that’s an easy answer.

So tonight, accusations fly. On all sides, of course. I found this blog post from The Telegraph that seems to encapsulate the majority of the accusations (as well as the facts). Well-linked, too.

And that’s why I’m asking God to cool heads.

The only person at fault here is the one who pulled the trigger. It’s not the books he said were his favorites (Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto) nor is it any “commentators and blogs” that he read. It’s not the Tea Party, nor the Republicans, nor the Democrats. It is one man, alone. (At least, so far it seems he was acting alone.)

But those who get to say what is really happening (the political voices, and the press) seem to be saying that the “heated political environment” has led to this. (And the worst accusations leverage the fact that she had a “D” in front of her name to blame the opposing “R” party and their constituents. Yikes.)

I really don’t have much to say except that if we just keep doing this “us” vs. “them” thing, we’re in big trouble.

Maybe we already are.

For now, I’m going to be praying.

by Greg

Twenty Ten

We’re showing our age tonight.

We went to a New Year’s Eve party at a friend’s house, but with babies, decided to leave by 9pm or so. Came home and after laying the babies down for the night, broke out the party food at home only to find that most of us weren’t really hungry…We had been snacking on party food since 7pm!

Now it’s quarter till midnight—the Big Moment—and I’m doing the dishes and cleaning up from our “party”, our nearly-teenaged and nearly-double-digit-aged are playing a video game, and the other five Campbells are sleeping!

What a way to celebrate the calendar flip! 🙂

But, I thought I’d take these last ten minutes of the last page of Twenty-Ten’s calendar and remember a few things from this year.

There were no babies born to our family in 2010, but there were some other inspirational moments. I was motivated to read again this year (may have started in 2009) and from that reading I was inspired by the lives of William Wilberforce, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Bruce Feiler, and of course, Jesus. (And his Narnian counterpart, Aslan.) The writing of C.S. Lewis and was also challenging and inspirational to me, and we also enjoyed Charles Dickens’ classic, Oliver Twist. I can’t wait to be inspired by more great lives lived in the year to come.

We have repeatedly come to the end of days exhausted by caring for two babies, resolving conflicts, training all six kids in righteousness, and dealing with the ever-present financial pressures of life. But when it’s time to reflect, all that really matters is that Cameron James and Emma Caroline are two of the most amazing people in the world, and they are in our family; there are no seven other people that I’d rather share my every day with than the six kids and perfect wife God has given me; and we just looked at the numbers again today and saw that God gave us exactly what we needed to pay all our bills and have food in our bellies every day.

All in all, Twenty Ten was another great year.

And whatever comes in 2011, we know that God will go there with us. That’s really all that matters.

It’s 11:59… bring it on.

by Greg

American Values

At the ReValue America lecture we hosted last weekend, one of the themes was of course, “Values”.

During the presentation, the speaker—Dr. Shanon Brooks—took a moment to ask everyone there what some “American values” were. Various words were quickly offered: Honor. Courage. Bravery. Love. Friendship. Hard work/work ethic. Faith. Charity/Generosity. Probably about 20 or 30 were mentioned within a 30 second span. It was a fairly easy exercise for the 130 or so in attendance.

After a good number had been spoken, Dr. Brooks said, “Those are all great, and I think we’re all in agreement that those are all values that we hold as Americans. But—and this never fails, anywhere I ask this—there were a few that we did not mention. Why didn’t anyone mention mathematics, or grammar, or physics, or anything like that? We focus so much of our attention in our education systems to such things, but they aren’t mentioned as our core values?”

It was a fantastic illustration (in my opinion) of our educational focus being quite askew. We have an enormous system in place to train up generations of Americans in the “fundamentals”, but we are not passing along our values. Values are, well, what we value. So according to our education system, we value skills rather than the things we say are our “values” (as above).

Don’t get me wrong… I don’t think the public education system really can pass along values very well, so I don’t think we should all of a sudden change to a more character-based education system in the government schools. It won’t work. (Simply because of the setting, the environment.) Character and values should be passed along to children by their parents. Clearly there are problems with that in our society as there are so many homes without parents in the plural … it gets very confused and confusing.

I guess that’s why Dr. Brooks feels we really need to “ReValue” America.

At the very least, we need to figure out what it means to get an education, and what sort of education we want. Do we just want to learn skills (that we don’t even consider American values) or do we want a more well-rounded, full education, including the “why” of what we learn. And what to do with what we’ve learned. Based on our values.

Which is it?

That was one of the questions/challenges presented in the ReValue America lecture … if you can get out to any of the remaining ones here in NY State this week, please do. It will be well worth your time. If not, visit their website for information on other opportunities across the US.

by Greg

Amazon.com: Subscribe & Save

Amazon.com's Subscribe & Save

My wife recently discovered a great program that Amazon.com offers it’s users called Subscribe & Save. It not only offers a decent discount on the regular Amazon.com price (which is already usually discounted from retail price), it also allows you to have items you regularly purchase automatically delivered to you at that reduced price. (And somehow Jen arranged for a 3-month trial of their shipping upgrade service, Amazon Prime, so everything is shipped for free!)

Not every item at Amazon is eligible for this Subscribe & Save service, but I happened to noticed on Monday that it does apply to Big Train Chai, of which I happen to be a very big fan.

I did the math on what I usually order, and what was offered for the Subscribe & Save service, and it was rather shocking: for $16.47 (the current Subscribe & Save price), I got about twice the amount of chai that I would usually get from Amazon for $18! Crazy!

Big Train Vanilla Chai - 1.9lb containerThen I did a bit more of the math…

  • (2) 1.9 lb cans of Big Train Vanilla Chai = (25) 16oz drinks = $16.47
  • (3) 12 oz bags of Big Train Vanilla Chai = (15) 16oz drinks = $18
  • (1) 12 oz bag of Big Train Vanilla Chai (from any retail store) = (5) 16oz drinks = $10
  • (1) 16 oz cup of Big Train Vanilla Chai (prepared, at a coffee shop) = $4.25

So, with Subscribe & Save I end up saving 86% on what it would cost me to buy 25 cups of chai at my favorite coffee shop.

I guess their service is quite appropriately named!

We Campbells highly recommend checking into it for the stuff you buy regularly. We are now “Subscribe(d) and Sav(ing)” on chai, and diapers! Have a look and see if you can find a great deal for yourself!

Subscribe & Save

by Greg

Currently: ReValue America Lecture Tour

ReValue America - NY - Self, Marriage, Family, Community.This past weekend, Jen & I were hosts to one stop on the ReValue America lecture series tour. Dr. Shanon Brooks is giving a series of free, two-hour lectures across NY State (as well as California, Colorado, and his home state of Utah, I believe) intended to inspire a new generation of American Founders.

And inspire he does.

There were about 130 people at our event on Saturday night. And nearly everyone that I spoke to there left feeling inspired to educate themselves both in regards to the foundations of our country—its forms of government, the documents that were created by its founders, and the people who were its founders—and the people, books and other classic works and thinking that formed the foundation of these “founders” lives, and their values. In essence, to get for ourselves, the same education that these people—ordinary people, just like us—had and drew from to establish the most free nation in the history of mankind.

(That’s a pretty lofty goal, don’t you say?)

Even more lofty, perhaps, is Brooks’ goal to get a library of books (I think it’s 5 or 6 books) into one million American homes. The books are about American government and foundational principals and education. (We’ve read a couple of them, and they are good reads presenting some challenging and worthy ideas.)

There are a few remaining dates on this part of the tour, which will end this Sunday night in Rochester, NY. If you visit the ReValue NY website (revalueny.com) you can see a schedule of the remaining lectures. If you live in NY State and can attend one, we do feel it is very much worth the time and effort.

You may just be inspired.

The follow up to this event is more intensive. Dr. Brooks will be leading interested participants in much more in-depth constitutional studies, American history, and then other great classic works which were the foundations of our own founding documents (Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Federalist Papers, etc.) You’ll read/study on your own and then attend a monthly lecture day with other fellow students. He calls this series the Foundations of Liberty course. (There is no official “credit” given for this course, only the education you receive from reading and studying these things together.)

Over the next couple days I will be posting a few thoughts inspired by the event we attended. Till then, I wanted to be sure to let you know this is happening, in case you might be able to attend and be inspired to educate yourself and to preserve freedom and virtues for yourself, your family, your community, and even our country. Are there other ways to do that? Of course! But this is one way to spend two hours that I am nearly certain will accomplish that end.

So click the link and head out to a lecture near you!

For further information:

by Greg

Facebook Is Trying To Help

Facebook EventsThis morning when I brought up Facebook to check on a couple things (no, I do not have a Farmville farm or anything else like that…) I saw the list to the left at the top right of the page.

I had to smile as I thought of the stereotypical guy who can’t remember his own anniversary … and I think that might be what my own anniversary is doing in the list of upcoming events. (Believe it or not, I actually already knew that my anniversary is this Monday…) 😉 I wonder if this event (your own anniversary) is also shown for a woman’s Facebook account? I’ll have to check out Jen’s account…

Facebook is pretty handy for “remembering” friends’ birthdays, but then, if you just see it on Facebook, is it really remembering? (No… it’s not.)

The fact that my anniversary was on the list of upcoming important dates was both humorous and slightly sad as it’s one more thing that we are not using our own brains to do anymore. The more we “improve” technology it seems the less we actually use our own brains (or bodies). We can’t get anywhere without using a GPS, we can’t know anything without Google, and we also have no idea where our food comes from. (But that’s for another post.)

So thanks, Facebook. I know you’re trying to help, but maybe we need it to say something like, “Do you know what’s coming up in a week or so?” 🙂 (And maybe we just need to “unplug” in general… but again, that’s for another post…)

by Greg

Lessons in Futility (from the Buffalo Bills)

We all know the numbers. 10 years with no playoffs. 4 games with no wins. 1 starting quarterback benched after two weeks, then just dumped on the street after three weeks. And of course, the biggest number of all is, 50 years, 0 Lombardi trophies*.

There are only 8 teams out of 32 in the NFL that have a losing record. Four of those teams are 0-4, including the Buffalo Bills. But when you look at this list of teams that either haven’t won a game, or have only won one, you tell me if you see any team that has looked more hopeless than the Bills through four games:

Cleveland: 1-3
Oakland: 1-3
Dallas: 1-2
Minnesota: 1-2
Carolina: 0-4
Detroit: 0-4
San Francisco: 0-4

You can’t, can you. Only perhaps the Carolina Panthers have managed to be quite as toothless and inept as the Bills. The one game where we had a fairly decent showing, we lost to our nemesis, the New England Patriots… maybe just because we are trying for a perfect season? No wins?!

Certainly Dallas and Minnesota do not belong on this list, and I’m sure they will remedy that. As for the other 0-4 teams, Detroit has literally been in every single game right down to the end, and had at least one (the opening weekend game) practically stolen from them when the refs decided to call a play by the book rather than by their eyes. (That was a TD!) San Francisco has been almost as inept, but yesterday they lost a game they were leading most of the way on a last-second, long FG.

And, if you look at the net points for each team (meaning, points against subtracted from points for) the Bills rank dead last at -64. Ouch. (The other 0-4 teams are San Fran -51, Carolina -41, and Detroit -24.)

I think it’s fairly obvious that the Bills are “on the clock”.

(Though perhaps Carolina and San Fran might be able to wrestle that position away from them…)

So what accounts for this meteoric … drop? I mean, for the last four seasons the Bills have at least gotten 6 or 7 wins. We were loving our mediocrity here in Buffalo. But now, we are quite possibly the worst team in the NFL! What has changed?

The only real “excuse” I have for the Bills is the new defensive scheme. It’s well known that the Bills shifted to a 3-4 defense this offseason, and it’s also quite obvious that they have not quite fully “shifted” as yet. Last season the Bills’ defense was one of the top takeaway teams (especially interceptions), and the #2 overall pass defense. This season, they are the #28 defense overall (thanks to still being #12 against the pass) and they have not only 0 INTs, but only 1 takeaway. ONE. In four games!

And the only reason that they are #12 in passing yards allowed per game is that they are dead last in rush defense, allowing teams an average of 174 yards per game on the ground. When you can get 174 yards rushing, you don’t really need to pass! (And, more evidence of their defensive futility, the Bills rank second-to-last in sacks with 4 for the entire season so far. Only the Cincinnati Bengals are worse.)

My family moved to Buffalo in 1986. The same year Marv Levy was hired by the Bills. The year after they drafted Bruce Smith and Andre Reed. The year Jim Kelly decided to join the team. (He was drafted in 1983, but didn’t play for them till 1986.) Then we met some friends who were big fans of the team. None of our family were football fans (or even any sport fans) … but one day in 1988 we were offered the chance to join those friends at a live NFL football game, and that endeared us to the football club from Buffalo from that moment on.

(The game? It was a 9-6 OT win over the New York Jets by which the Bills claimed the division title as a result of their then 11-1 record! It was exciting, electrifying—very wet… rained all day—and as I said, endeared us to this team from then on.)

Then came the Super Bowls, and a few more years of good players and fun wins…

Then came the last decade. Bad GMs, bad coaches, bad players, bad decisions by management, bad teams, bad records… mad fans.

But we had never hit such a bottom as this. This year, it seems to me, we could very possibly not win a single game. 0-16. Only the second team to ever accomplish such a feat. Wow.

So the Bills press on in their quest for ultimate futility. This week, the Jacksonville Jaguars (and former starting QB, Trent Edwards**) come to town. Surprisingly, there is no favorite in this game. The Bills have been very big underdogs in all the games so far, but in this one, the game is a “pick” game. I’m guessing that will change by the time they play the game this Sunday!

For the Bills and Bills fans, we now focus our attention on the 2011 draft. With the #1 pick overall, we can hope to finally have a great player in Buffalo again? Will it be one of the highly-touted QBs? Likely. Or perhaps a hall-of-fame caliber left tackle? Perhaps. The last time the Bills had the #1 overall pick was in 1985, and that was used to select Bruce Smith. One can only hope…

Until then… we still watch. And groan. And hide our eyes at times. But cheer for the few moments of good plays. CJ Spiller is fun to watch. Sometimes Roscoe Parrish. And, we do have a good punter… 🙂

But really, the 2010 season is all about planning for 2011.

“The Buffalo Bills are on the clock.”

* These numbers are slightly unfair as the Lombardi trophy has not been awarded 50 times, and the Bills technically were champions of their league before the Super Bowl years. In 1964 and 1965 they were the AFL champions… and they were one game away from being the AFL’s first Super Bowl representative in 1966, but lost to the KC Chiefs.

** By “former”, we mean of course, only two weeks ago. That’s a very recent “former”.

by Greg

The Perfect Temperature

Several things are broken on our trusty family minivan. Some more important than others (like our gas gauge) and some we can do without (our rear windshield wiper, and air conditioning) and then tons of little things, mostly electrical.

Including the temperature gauge in the little computer/data center.

At times, it will tell us that it’s 20ºF outside when it’s really 80ºF or 90ºF! Gives us a good laugh any time we see it!

So tonight, the thermometer was showing 24ºF, and we all laughed at the thought of the air temperature being 24ºF on September 30th (and with our windows down, no less!)

And then I smiled a little as I thought of the crisp feel of the air when it really is 24ºF. It’s been a long time since we’ve felt that, but it’s coming again relatively soon. I can’t wait!

I said to the kids, “You know… I think my favorite temperature is the 20s. I love it when it’s in the 20s!”

Ian chimed in, “Yeah, the snow is really crunchy…”

“Right,” I continued, “That’s why it’s so great. It’s cold enough to really be cold!”

Then I remembered that I actually do like temperatures in the 50s, too. (60ºF is OK… but not anything much past six-zero.) The 50s are nice because it’s still nice and cool, but warm enough to be outside and do outside things (like play football, go for a walk, read a book, etc…)

So I guess I realized tonight that the perfect temps are the 20s, and the 50s. Everything else is either too hot… or not cold enough. (The 10s and 0s are also great, but they are not really bearable for long enough to actually enjoy…)

Fall is here! 50s are great! Bring on winter and the 20s!!!

by Greg

Book Sales Are Dangerous

Stack of BooksOur library has a book sale annually where they weed out their own collection as well as receive hundreds of donations from generous library users and other friends of the library. It goes on for quite a while after the official sale portion. The starting price is $1.00 for a hardcover book and $0.50 for a paperback. A very enticing price for a book lover, to be sure.

But the most dangerous time on our library’s book sale is about one week after the sale starts, they lower the price to $2/bag of books. And that’s when they hook both Jen and me. We can’t resist! And even our kids are getting into it now! Emma (our two-year-old daughter) and I were out on an “OK Night” (One-Kid Night) tonight and we stopped to have a look at the sale and came away with many more treasures filling another bag of books! (Many of which she picked out!)

I say another because well… we just got five bags last weekend!

You can’t beat a good book sale—nor can we resist it, apparently—but there quickly arises the issue of where to store all these books once you bring them home…

Time for more bookshelves!

If you’re a book lover, too, there are still hundreds of books left to browse! Come have a look.