Category / Personal

by Greg

What I’m Reading (and Watching)

[FLOWPLAYER=/video/ReadingWatching.mp4,590,395]

I have been reading a lot lately. As much as time allows. Before, after, and in between managing all of my website clients as well as six children and time with Jen… plus friends and family… it doesn’t seem to add up to much! But today, when I updated the list of what I’m reading, going to read, and have read… I can understand why I hardly can find time to post here!

In case you have missed it, I added a tab a few months ago in the top navigation of this website titled “Currently Reading/Watching”. When you click that it takes you to a separate website (which you can access directly by going to reading.gregshead.net) that displays all of the books I am reading, or want to read. It’s fairly extensive, but also fairly easy to navigate.

The little video above is a fun way to “show” you how to get there. (And how to navigate once you do go there).

The bonus part is, if you find any of those books interesting, and decide to purchase them from Amazon, I will receive a commission on anything you purchase (even other things you add to your cart from Amazon with the same order). So you find some good new books, and Amazon contributes to the GregsHead.net fund! (It’s not a very large commission, but every bit counts!) 🙂

If you have any recommendations for books to add to my “In The Queue” section, please let me know. Always open to suggestions!

Happy reading!

by Greg

Little Smiles Along the Way

Hey.

It’s been a good while since I’ve gotten to sit down here and write out a thought or two as they pass through my head. (This site is called “Greg’s Head” after all, so it should live up to its name every now and again…) I don’t really feel that I have the time to sit and do so now—dishes to wash, kitchen to clean, work to do—but I almost feel I really can’t not.

(Nice double negative there.)

Tonight I noticed something on our bathroom sink. It was a shriveling up leaf that our daughter, Kirsten, had harvested not too long ago. It was likely discovered on a walk with Dad and some of her siblings. She found it interesting, and, as is her wont, she “collected” it. (It makes me smile even as I write this down to think of her various “collections”. She’s quite good at it!)

Something in me recognized that this is the stuff of life. Not the bills I am constantly juggling. (Definitely not the Bills who play football… yikes!) Not the job that I do, nor the every day schedule of life.

But within that daily framework come these moments. These pieces of who we really are. The times we stop to notice things, to enjoy the things that we really enjoy. And tonight, even though my precious daughter Kirstie is 100 miles away from me at her Grandma’s house… the beauty of her innocent love for life refreshed my spirit a bit, and has placed a recurring smile on my face.

Whether it’s a leaf, or a piece of pavement from the never-ending road construction in front of our house, or a nut, or a cool bug, or a stick, or any other sort of thing she fancies that I, or most other busy older people would consider no different than what we through in our trash bins … it signifies something deeper. Purer. The essence of life.

God built this place for us. He made it for us, and us for it. Too often we get caught up in the stuff that we’ve built (or that is building us) and we lose sight of the simple “treasures” that are around us. They can be as simple and ordinary—and, in most tangible ways, meaningless—as the leaf sitting on my bathroom sink…

Or, they can be as profoundly amazing as the daughter God made from me who reminds me to smile along the way. (And gives me plenty of smiles along the way, too.)

Thanks, Kirsten. And I hope you are smiling about something wonderful tonight.

by Greg

Seven Years of Published Words

Sometimes I like dates. Dates are fun. Remembering the date of birth of people you love. Celebrating the date of special events along your path of life thus far, whatever they may be. I even like to celebrate weird holidays like, Flag Day (Jun 14), Canada Day (Jul 1), Boxing Day (Dec 26), and Three King’s Day (Jan 6).

Dates are fun.

Today’s date is August 26th. Somehow this date sticks in my head as a fun day to celebrate. It was the day I first posted to this blog. 🙂

That may not seem significant, but to me, a writer at heart (and in deed?) it seems a day worth celebrating.

Life may be busy these days—no, life is busy these days—and the content may be flowing a bit more slowly at GregsHead.net, but there have been a few posts or articles worth reading again.

So what better way to celebrate the passing of another year of published words than to read those published words? Below are a few posts from the past year that, if you have the time, might be worth a second (or third, or fourth) read.

Enjoy, and thanks for reading along these seven years and counting.

Incredible People – William Wilberforce
Desegmentation
No Strings Attached
Feeling Loved, and Lovable
The (True) Fundamental Transformation of America
Blessed Are Those Who Want Everyone To Be Treated Right

(There are more, of course… but I’m going to stop with my list. If you’d like to see more, use the Related Posts feature at the end of every post. It’s a pretty nifty little tool!)

by Greg

Slow Down

Council of Dads - Bruce FeilerI just finished reading the book you see here, The Council of Dads, and would definitely recommend it. Overall it was a moving, and compelling story written by an author who found out he had very aggressive bone cancer—and mostly all he could think of was his twin 3-year-old girls, and that they might be without a daddy.

Bruce Feiler wrote the book (perhaps it’s books, actually) Walking The Bible, where he literally walks through the places where the events of the Bible take place. He did several “walking” books, so it was ironic (sadly ironic) that he was stricken with bone cancer in his left leg.

He dubbed the subsequent chemotherapy and surgery and rehabilitation “The Lost Year” (for obvious reasons) and chronicled it in this book. The title comes from an idea he had early on to provide a “Dad” for his daughters, should he not survive the disease. It was a pretty interesting idea, with amazing results. Made me wonder whom my “council of Dads” would be if similar circumstances were thrust upon me. It ended up being a revealing look at relationships, what matters most in life, and how we are shaped by everyone around us—some we have special connections to, and have a special impact on us.

In one of his last chapters—in a letter he wrote to friends and family—he explained that one of the most important lessons he’d learned through the “Lost Year” was, “Don’t be in a hurry. Slow down.”

That’s a lesson I’ve learned along the way, but it seems I can never get enough reminders to put it into practice.

Feiler said that in the 1840s, when walking was just becoming a source of recreation, the French would take their pets for a walk to help them set a good pace: their pet turtles! How great is that? Then, as they went at their turtle’s pace, they could interact much more with the surroundings.

We modern Americans (and probably many other cultures) definitely tend to miss the journey. We all are aiming so hard for our destinations, and keeping our schedules that we miss the people and the “little things” along the way.

I love to walk, too. Most for that reason, I think. When you walk, you see and experience so much more. The slowing down allows you to share stories with the people walking with you. It just allows time to live.

There is much to do in life. And sometimes you can’t slow down. But I’d say a lot of what we think we need to do can wait. And should wait. It should wait so we can live life as it’s meant to be lived, and experience and enjoy the important things. Bruce Feiler learned that by means of a horrible disease and the equally awful treatment. But I think from what he’s written in his book, he’d prefer we learn without the pain. That we’d slow down not because we were forced to by illness, but because we choose to not miss any moments of this life God has given us.

It’s a good book. Read it if you get a chance. But even better, make sure you’re slowing down enough to live life today.

Maybe buy a pet turtle. 🙂

by Greg

Do A Great Job, Not Just An ‘OK’ Job

This afternoon, what started out as some outside playing time, turned into the great deforestation project of 2010. While the boys and I were tossing the football around, Grandpa decided to climb up on top of their fifth-wheel camper and clear off some things. Well, that reminded me of a few low-hanging tree branches I had wanted to cut down. One thing led to another and before we knew it, all five of us were deep into an hour or two of some pretty intense yard work!

First, I cut down the branches I wanted to bring down. The boys thought that was fun and helped remove the limbs I brought down. I spied a few more that I wanted to cut, so I did that. My dad suggested a few more that could use trimming… and then while our neighbor was outside with us, I saw/remembered a dead tree that needed to be cut down with a chainsaw. It just so happens our neighbor has a chainsaw! 🙂 (And it just so happens my Dad is quite experienced with such implements, having his own tree cutting business a few decades ago.)

So… it was on.

We even got the neighbor on the other side of our property involved. It was a deforestation party! We brought that tree down, and a couple other fairly large branches that were hanging over the house next to our property (from a tree on our property). It was definitely a good bit of work, but quite fun.

I was pretty impressed that all three of the oldest kids were not just being helpful, but even happy to be helping, enjoying themselves. Once the cutting was done the yard was pretty full of felled limbs, branches, twigs, walnuts, leaves, and other clutter. There was a good deal more work to do.

I spotted a bunch of smaller branches strewn across our driveway that had fallen from the branches being dragged to the big pile, and decided to offer some encouragement to the helpful young workers.

“Now be sure to get all of these smaller branches, too guys. It’s a bit more work, but let’s make sure we do it. Let’s make sure we do a great job, not just an ‘OK’ job.”

As I said it I thought, Hey… that’s what I always try to say to them, in many more words! I remember my Dad saying, “Do it right the first time,” and so I have repeated that a time or two. Or ten. Or fifty. But really the heart of what I’m wanting to say is to just always do your best. Never cut corners. Never settle for less.

Do a great job, not just an ‘OK’ job.

I don’t think that’s common. At least, not in our current American culture. Do you? Do you see people around you doing everything with excellence. Trying to do their job (or really, anything they do) with greatness, not just the minimum effort and results? Perhaps it’s our educational system that passes “satisfactory” as the standard, or just a natural cycle of a society. Not sure, but I am hoping that such an attitude toward anything we undertake will be how we Campbells are known.

Today that worked pretty well. 🙂

What things are part of your family identity? We have a few others. And there are some that we are still working on passing along/training into our kids. It will be interesting to see what our efforts—and maybe even more so, the unintentional stuff we are passing along—looks like in our kids and their families down the road. Till then we’ll keep reaching for the great, not just the OK.

by Greg

Ten Rules To Live By – Thomas Jefferson

Saw this on a friend’s blog today and had to repost here. If ever there was an intelligent, wise man… well most of them seemed to live in the late 18th century! Thomas Jefferson being chief among them. You may remember I posted here awhile ago that I found a collection of Jefferson’s writings in one book (Thomas Jefferson: In his own words) … it really is fantastic.

So, here are your 10 rules to live by, from Thomas Jefferson:

1. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend your money before you have earned it.
4. Never buy what you don’t want because it is cheap.
5. Pride costs more than hunger, thirst and cold.
6. We seldom repent of having eaten too little.
7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8. How much pain the evils have cost us that never happened.
9. Take things always by the smooth handle.
10. When angry, count ten before you speak, if very angry, count a hundred.

by Greg

Oh Where Is My Hairbrush?

Emma CarolineI’ve been without a hair brush for a few days now. It first disappeared following a bath night for the kids when it was being passed around freely amongst the various heads in our household: predominantly the female heads, led by our two-year-old, Emma.

As I watched her wield the brush both for her own hair and that of her siblings, I knew that night that it would manage to disappear somehow… and I was right.

If you’ve seen VeggieTales, you know that Larry the Cucumber once had a similar problem. This time, however, I was fairly certain that my hairbrush had not been given to “The Peach” by Bob the Tomato …

I searched all the spots where it might have ended up: the girls’ room, the hallway outside their room, downstairs in a couple key locations, and everywhere in between. But in all of my searching, I did not find the brush!

Tonight in a moment of (mostly mock) frustration I complained to the girls at their bed time, “Wherrrrre is that brush?!? Why can I not FIND it?!”

Without much hesitation, and with an amazing matter-of-factness in her terse response, Emma said, “It’s in the van.”

The certainty in her voice made me question her for probably a total of 0.7 seconds.

(Which for an android, is an eternity…)

I smiled, and resolved to check the van later for the missing hair brush.

After the rest of the evening’s activities, only moments before writing these words, I decided to check up on Emma’s declaration. I opened the back door which had been locked for the night and ventured out in the rain to sift through the contents of the back of our van.

I filtered through the stuff immediately around Emma’s seat, and then, with a recommendation from Jen, I checked the third row seats … and there it was!

Just like Emma said it would be.

by Greg

Unexpected Fun at Swift’s Landing Park

Swift's Landing Park

Following some errands yesterday (which mostly didn’t go as planned, since, due to a much later start to our excursion, everything was closing on us!) on a lovely, nearly-summer’s night with a beautiful sunset, I decided that we should finish off the day with a visit to a local park.

It’s a small county park that features lots of grass, lots of picnic tables, and a few creeks running through and around it. There’s a baseball backstop which we have employed a time or two. And the train tracks which run through our town are just across the creek, so we’ve been known to spend an evening or two sitting on the bank of the creek watching for trains. (The kids—and Dad—love it!)

Last night, thanks to the recommendation of a friend who heads up this group, we headed to the other end of the park to see some “waterfalls”. Now, these are not regular, natural waterfalls, but spillover from the Erie Canal. However… there is water… falling… and so, we enjoyed seeing the waterfalls!

More than enjoyed, Alex was ecstatic! He was at the lead of our train of people, and when he caught the first glimpse of the rather long/wide “waterfalls” he squealed, “Whoa!! Come here!!! Look at these!!!!” I love seeing my kids excited. I think it’s one of my favorite things. 🙂

So we crossed a pretty cool-looking bridge to the other side where Alex was seeing these exciting waterfalls, and observed all that there was to observe for a while. After a few minutes, we observed a beaver! He swam out from one of the banks, heading up the creek where the path ahead of us went.

Always the explorers, the older three kids (followed by their younger sister, number four) ran up the path to see if they could see Mr. Beaver up there. Sure enough, there was another bridge where they could watch him swimming right to them! Mom & Dad and the babies finally caught up and watched as Mr. Beaver swam up as close as I’ve ever seen a beaver… just under the bridge there was a small “island” that he came up on for a moment… then he swam back where he came from! Funny!

So, if you’re in Wayne County, NY, and want to explore a new park … we recommend Swift’s Landing on the east side of Palmyra. Actually, it’s on the Canalway Trail which goes along the Erie Canal for… well, I have no idea how far. Perhaps this website will tell us? (Looks like it goes from Buffalo to Albany! Wow!)

As it has been in the past, and maybe even more now, the Canalway Trail and the parks it connects us to will be much frequented by the Campbells this summer!

by Greg

FIFA World Cup 2010: Vuvuzelas!

If you have been watching any of the World Cup so far this month (perhaps even if you haven’t) you know that the word of the tournament so far is: Vuvuzela.

Now, I am no fan of the constant, buzzing drone that provides the soundtrack to every minute of every match… nor am I so completely anti-Vuvuzela. (First of all, it’s a pretty fun word, and probably lexically reminds me of one of my previous homes.)

If you watch the video above, and read the linked page … well, you’ll see that even though it might be slightly annoying—enough to want to ban it—it’s not all bad. It has certainly given the entire world something to talk about!

There’s even an iPhone app!

So, if it really bothers you, just turn down your sound and root on your country in silence. Or… you could just buy your own?

by Greg

The Real Hues Are Delicate

Oliver Twist - Charles DickensNot sure if you have read the Charles Dickens work Oliver Twist, or, if you have that it has been recent enough that you would recall the plot in any detail. The boys and I are almost three quarters of the way through it, and rapt by the story of this gentle young boy’s circumstantially unfortunate life. (Though at this point of the novel, things have “picked up a bit”) It’s been a very interesting look into the specific time in history, the people of England, and on a larger scale, human nature in general, all levels of good and bad.

We read the following paragraph last night, and it struck me as an interesting observation on how we perceive the world around us. It follows another traumatic period for Oliver, where he was sure he would lose to disease one of the only people who were ever kind to him, and she especially so. After she recovered, these were Oliver’s (and the author/narrator’s) thoughts:

Oliver rose next morning in better heart, and went about his usual early occupations with more hope and pleasure than he had known for many days. The birds were once more hung out, to sing, in their old places; and the sweetest wild flowers that could be found, were once more gathered to gladden Rose with their beauty. The melancholy which had seemed to the sad eyes of the anxious boy to hang, for days past, over every object, beautiful as all were, was dispelled by magic. The dew seemed to sparkle more brightly on the green leaves; the air to rustle among them with a sweeter music; and the sky itself to look more blue and bright. Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercises, even over the appearance of external objects. Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.

The lines I emphasized were the ones that we also highlighted last night after reading them. It’s interesting to think that the world we perceive around us is more a creation of our own heart and mind and eyes than it is “reality”. (Philosophically of course, it’s difficult to then distinguish what is “reality” and what is, in fact, our reality. Whether “real” or not, it is all that we can perceive, although it is possible to change based on our change of heart and mind, I suppose.)

It reminds me a bit of what Jesus said, as told by Luke:

“No one lights a lamp, then hides it in a drawer. It’s put on a lamp stand so those entering the room have light to see where they’re going. Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body. If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning, so you don’t get musty and murky. Keep your life as well-lighted as your best-lighted room.”

Luke 11:33-36 MSG

You’ve heard of rose-colored glasses. Much the same idea. The world is as we see it, and we see it as our current condition allows us to see it. Fascinating to me that we are both affected by our surroundings and circumstances, and equally able to “affect” them, even if only in our own perception of them.

May you see the real, delicate hues of your world more clearly today.