Lots more seems to go wrong.

Last night, while trying to delete an Audio Book borrowed from the Library that I had loaded into iTunes for listening on the iPod… I deleted my entire iTunes library.

Over 4000 songs. 21 GB. In the trash.

Good thing is, that’s where they were. In my trash (you Windows people call it the “Recycle Bin”…)

So, with some creative use of the backup copy i have on the laptop, and those files that I imported back into iTunes (which took HOURS)… I was done recreating our iTunes library (and re-updating our iPod) by 3:30am.

Nice.

Just for fun, I added our Amazon wishlists to the side bar over there –> Click through if you’d like. It’s a fun idea I heard a podcaster use to allow people to donate to the website/show, that was more fun than just donating money…

(you don’t have to buy anything… but, it is Christmas…)

😉

Stay tuned… next week we might finally be able to breath again!

There’s a strange thing that seems to happen to us. Especially regarding our music. No matter how good the circumstances may seem, God always provides the same amount of money. The same amount of sales. Whether it’s 2 people or 2000. Whether our product advertisements reach hundreds or tens of thousands. It’s always the same.

A slow trickle, that’s just enough to keep us interested.

It’s really interesting, and has been brought to the forefront again by a scheme a friend of ours worked up just this week. Our friend, Jeff, runs the site StudyLight.org. It’s a great reference tool for Bible study and just life as a Christian in general. Good stuff.

So, often he will IM me and have me check certain features for him as a Mac user. Often, the sessions are somewhat frustrating as his code displays just fine on a Windows machine, but not correctly on my Mac. (I understand the frustration, just the other way around.) But, Jeff always solves it. He’s great.

This week, I guess he got tired of waiting for me to check it, cause he offered to give me thousands of dollars of advertisement space on his site in exchange for me buying him a Mac mini. 🙂 Haha. It’s still pretty funny. I told him, while a fine idea, in theory, we’d never sell enough to cover the cost of a mac mini. (they start at $499) He said he was offering more value than that, and if we only sold about 75 CDs, we’d break even. I maintained my position (based on my past experience with how God provides for us) that we would not sell even that many.

Jeff’s website gets 2 million hits per month. That’s a lot. And, they all might be interested in new Christmas music. So, he was up to the challenge.

He changed his offer to, 3 free banners, and a text link ad, and a tiered price scale. If we sell 100 CDs, we get him the standard mac mini. If we sell 120, the next one, and so on. We worked out a deal that is incredibly in our favor, and would theoretically (with such exposure) surely land him a Mac mini.

Still, I told him, that’s not how God has done it for us so far…

So today, with over 10,000 impressions (times that the ad has been displayed) and about 150 click-throughs to our page… and yet NO SALES… Jeff continues to improve the “chances”. He posted a message to the forum, letting over 18,000 people know that they could support StudyLight by simply buying a CD. So, now he is also endorsing the product to these 2 million hits per month. Seems good, right?

That just isn’t how God does things for us. 🙂

I told Jen today, Jeff is fighting God on this one. We’ll see who wins. 🙂

Here are some other fun examples of our amazing track record:

• We are featured on TheGodJourney.com. They use our music for their show intro, bumper music, and outro. They have talked about the music on a couple shows, and a link to our site is posted on their home page.

  SALES SO FAR: none that I know of…

• This week our song, Joy To The World was featured on The MacCast. Great endorsement of the song by the host, 11,000 plus listeners, links straight to our song in iTunes and our webpage.

  SALES SO FAR: Two.

• Last Christmas, we did a show for 6000 to 10000 people in a sports arena, where the theme was Christmas, and we had a brand new Christmas CD, lots of help selling them, AND we played Christmas music LIVE for 45 min of EVERY HOUR that weekend, and played our CD when we weren’t actually playing live, and they piped the sound through the arena’s sound system! Great set up!

  SALES SO FAR: About 50 CDs (including all four of our CDs.)

• I have been advertising our CD again to the basic mailing list, just to remind them we have that. About 300 addresses or so. Messages sent about once a week during December.

  SALES SO FAR: 2 CDs.

• StudyLight.org features our CD with free giant banners, text link, forum post and an email sent to almost 20,000 addresses. AND, for a reduced price! (Only $11.95).

  SALES SO FAR: None.

OK. I am sure you get the point.

And at concerts it’s the same! Whether 10 or 100 people show up, we sell between 2 and 7 CDs. 🙂 It’s just too funny! (Sometimes it’s not funny at the moment… but as I type this… it’s funny.)

I’ll have to let you know what happens with the studylight thing by the end of our month of advertising. I hope I can tell you about huge orders, paying for some great Apple equipment for my friend Jeff… but I am not counting on that. Based on our experiences so far, for whatever reason, it seems like God would like us to stay at this level of income. 🙂

We’ll keep you updated.

Till then, if you’d like to help Jeff out, you can. And get yourself some cheaper Christmas music: basicmm.com/studylight.

(of course, you can get our CD for full price at our e-store or, you can download it at iTunes also, if you are so inclined. The full price option helps us out more… if you’re into that sort of thing.) 🙂

(I am not certain why I wrote those last two paragraphs, in light of the rest of this post…) 🙂

I was thinking today (as I have been on occasion for a while now) about what it is I would really like to do with my life (at least, currently).

I have many abilities, and interests… and I do enjoy what I do these days with my time, and for income purposes. (And some not for income) 🙂 I love the creative part of what I do with the web and graphic design. I love working with computers and programming languages (HTML). And, as far as the music goes, I do enoy singing and playing, especially with my wife by my side. And the kids are growing up quite musical as well. 🙂 I even love the Buffalo Bills show we do weekly. It’s great!

I have always wanted to own and operate a restaurant. A nice family establishment, with a regular clientele. I would get to be with people, and cook. Two things I love to do.

I would love to somehow have a business where I could hook people up with some great stuff from Apple computer. I have a website, but that’s just a portal for Amazon. Not the same. So far, I am not very motivated to pursue that one, but I know I would enjoy it.

But mostly, I have always wanted to write. And specifically about stuff that matters. I pursued sports journalism for a time in my freshman/sophomore years of college… but, that was not the subject matter that captured my heart. I love sports, but… not enough to spend my life writing about them.

So, this blog has happened. And my book. But so far, those have not been even close to something that could support me. So, I continue to write, almost as though I can’t not write.

But it might be even more than writing. See, this morning, as I was contemplating the various facets of my life in the shower (as I am wont to do) I realized that I also love just conversing with people on the deeper things of life. Listening to, and adding thoughts as necessary to conversations with friends, or even people I don’t know that well yet.

That’s when I thought that perhaps what I really am, or want to be, is a philosopher. I love to think deeply on life (again, I almost can’t not do it) and I love to converse about that whether in person or in print with others who are interested.

So, perhaps I should be (or already am?) a philosopher.

Anyone know how much that pays? 🙂

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Now, I don’t really have a store… but I have a website, that links to all of the products you might need for an iPod or an Apple computer purchase. Amazon is great (they sell my book and our CDs, too) 🙂 – they have great prices, and right now, they even offer rebates on every Apple computer available right now.

So, if you’re in the market… I can help. And, if you purchase through my website, Amazon gives me a commission for the sale (even if you buy something else!) so, you’re helping support GregsHead.net! 🙂

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I think I may have written this before, but it bears saying again after yesterday’s blog about Agendas. I sure don’t like games. People who try to manipulate others by their words or actions…. that really bothers me. I just want straight up, honest relating to each other.

We play games at work. With our co-workers, and especially with our bosses. We play games in dating relationships. We play games at school. We play games “at church”. We are constantly playing little games to manipulate our relationships with others to work in our favor.

What it comes down to, I think, is that we are not content in ourselves. We are not secure enough in who we are, that we must constantly create and present a persona that is “more acceptable” to the people we do life with. We try to meet the expectations that we expect are expected of us. It’s such a crazy loop to which we all (myself included) fall victim.

All we need to do is be real. We’re all in the same boat. On the same sea. Just tryin’ to get from here to there. (Lyrics from a song I wrote…) But it’s true. We don’t have to pretend to be something we’re “supposed to be”. Just be you. You are great the way God made you to be. Your flaws are weaknesses in you that allow more room for His greatness. Let him fill it, and know that you are not the only flawed person on the planet. I am. You are. We are.

I despise the agendas we have for the people in our lives because it’s another form of game playing. It’s focused on us, and our perceived needs (or even, what we perceive others to need) instead of honest relationships with people. It’s hiding behind a “purpose” because perhaps we’re uncomfortable being completely raw and open, and available. It’s not easy, but I keep thinking that the fruit from such a lifestyle is so much sweeter.

We don’t need to play games with each other. Just be who you are. Period.

Today I was celebrated. 🙂 It is my 31st birthday today. My wife and my children planned all sorts of fun things for me: you know… gifts, cake (cupcakes, actually), and special activities in the evening. And, on top of all that, the theme of the day was the Dukes of Hazzard! It was great!

Just wanted to say that I love my family. All of my great kids, and especially my wife. 🙂 Thanks for my great day, Jen. I love you! 🙂

The other day I was reading something about caroling in the newspaper. It was a little article in the local paper about being ready for carolers, and how to best welcome them, should they visit your home. But, then there was another little piece on how to organize a caroling party.

And I thought, “That would be fun!”

I started to think about what it would take to get something like that going, and who would be willing to do such a thing. There would be many details to coordinate, so that everyone could participate and enjoy themselves thoroughly.

And I thought, “I guess that’s a good thing about the ‘church’…”

But then it occurred to me, that while we can manage and organize groups of people in institutional settings, we also are quite good at attaching some sort of agenda to the proceedings.

If indeed a church were to organize a christmas caroling party, you can almost bet that there would be some sort of ulterior motive along with the “holiday cheer”. Be it a smile, and a nice catch phrase, “God loves you, and so do we at First Church on the Corner!” or, perhaps more aggressive interrogations… uh… conversations… about where/if the resident of the domicile “goes to church.” Or, there is always the standard “Gospel Tracts.”

Nice.

It’s not just in caroling. Christians are not welcomed into peoples’ lives because they have an agenda. Whether getting people to church or to heaven, there is an agenda. In everything we do! From the obviously planned “Bring a Friend Day”, to the more subtle “game nights”, or “open gym” or any of the webs we disguise as social events – everything we do is for some alternate, “higher” purpose. We can’t just enjoy life together!

Come on people. Just be real. Just be you, and relate to people as you are. Don’t try to get them to be something else, or do something you think they need to. Let God and them sort out what they will DO… you just love them, hang out with them… just be real.

Oh, that frustrates me so much. And the sad thing is, some of you, my fellow believers, who are reading this will say that I am overblowing this… that not everyone has an “agenda”. No? I do beg to differ. It is in every piece of corporate life, and then what we call “outreach”. Our love is selfishly motivated to see results in people that we think they should produce.

How sad.

So, I may still get some friends together to walk around our neighborhood and sing. But that’s all we’ll be doing. Just, having fun singing. Not “building community”. Not “reaching lost people with the ‘Love of Jesus'”. Just, being a community. Having fun, living life together. No agendas.

Just… life.

I found this article last night, on the Think Secret website. They are a site dedicated to news related to Apple computer and especially rumor news.

This article is not a press release, but often TS has some good inside information. So, this is pretty cool! I actually submitted this idea to Apple last year (to which I got an email from Apple’s legal team, choc full of legalese…) 🙂 I think the Mini is designed to sit in your entertainment center. To be the Digital Entertainment Hub for the American home. It’s perfect!

Now, my idea included Apple working out a deal where they had some sort of store like the iTunes Music store where you could purchase not just individual TV shows, but also movies, AND, best of all, individual cable channels! Buy by the channel. Seems very iTunes-ish. Very on-demand. Very cool. Then you build in this DVR thing, and you’re set. With Apple’s great software interface, and cool looking hardware… everyone will be wanting these!

It’s Apple’s next iPod. Seriously.

Read the article…

Always like to pass along fun diversions as I come upon them…

Click here to play