by Greg

Food Fest II

Food Fest II
As promised, Food Fest II took place this weekend, and the following is a brief recap of the day’s events.

The first eaters arrived around 11:00am, and much of the food was on the table, ready to be eaten! We had chips and salsa, chips and homemade Celery Seed Dip (a hit!), fresh sliced watermelon, deviled eggs, our favorite recipe potato salad, and Skyline was simmering in the crock pot! There was a big pitcher of fresh-brewed sweet tea, and some chocolate chocolate chip cookies, and I’m pretty sure there were a few other things I am forgetting!

We realized we were a tad low on the Frank’s Red Hot, so after a quick trip to the store by the Chis, the next bunch of eaters arrived and we were ready to go! I threw some burgers and hot dogs (including some Zweigles!) on the grill and we started to eating! And it really never stopped!

Shortly after the burgers and dogs were done, the deep fryer arrived (borrowed from a friend) and we got ready to cook up the wings. We did take a slight break after the first food barrage, but that was filled by snacking on all of the above, including the additions of a fun apple salad and brownies cooked in a cast-iron skillet by the second group of eaters.

We played some board games, video games, and mostly hung out and talked (all while eating of course!) There was some napping, too! 🙂 More eaters came throughout the day, including our next door neighbors. I think I counted a total of twenty peoples coming through and joining Food Fest II.

No ice cream this year, but National Ice Cream Month officially starts tomorrow. So, get ready! Thirty-one straight days of ice cream! Food Fest never stops!

Plans for Food Fest III are already underway. Check back here at GregsHead.net for details! 🙂

by Greg

Unofficial Star Trek Movie

This weekend I discovered an unofficial Star Trek movie, which was released over the internet, officially completing this month. It’s a three part series which you can watch online, produced by Renegade Studios, and actually has many familiar Star Trek actors in it, some even playing their familiar Star Trek roles.

The movie is called Of Gods and Men and was directed by Tim Russ, who played Tuvoc on Star Trek: Voyager. The story was written by two Star Trek: Deep Space Nine writers as well.

Even though you can tell it’s done on a much smaller budget, I have enjoyed what I’ve seen so far (about half way through) and wanted to spread the word. It was done, according to a wikipedia article as a “’40th anniversary gift’ from Star Trek actors to their fans” in 2006.

by Greg

NFL in Thirty-Seven

NFL FootballI checked my countdown calendar widget today and folks, believe it or not, there are only THIRTY SEVEN DAYS until NFL football begins with the Hall of Fame (pre-season) game!!! 37!!! Whoopeee!! Seriously. Can’t wait.

And the best part? I think my Bills have a very solid team to begin the year! Lots of optimism here in Western New York. Check out what I have been writing in the off-season at our Buffalo Bills Review Articles page.

Bring on NFL football!!!

by Greg

What I Know Right Now

Recently I have been trying to figure out what it is that I like to do. I have plenty to do, but in trying to simplify I have been taking inventory of what I both like to do, and do well.

Here’s what I have so far:

  • I love people. I am a people person through and through.
  • Hosting. Probably goes along with the above, but I love having people at my house, and I love serving them.
  • Food. I love to cook/bake, and from every response I’ve ever gotten from others, it would seem I’m quite good at it.
  • Writing. Really, I love to write. I think and communicate best through writing. In general, I just love words.

I’m pretty good at the design work that I do. And I’m pretty helpful to people re: computer stuff. I can also sing and play the guitar/piano pretty well. There’s some more, but that list seems to be pretty accurate.

So… a restaurant? Coffee house? Bed & Breakfast? Maybe just somehow become independently wealthy so that I can do all those things above just for fun?

… that would be cool…

This post is mostly for me, just to look back on and see what I was thinking in June of 2008. But, if you have any thoughts… you know what to do.

by Greg

The Intricacy Of Us

I recently watched a Discovery Channel show titled 2057: Future Car or something like that. It’s more than just about the cars of the future. Really it’s about life 50 years from now. Projected by scientists and theorists who feel they are on the current cutting edge of technology and such sciences.

A good portion of the show was both fascinating and scary. It relates to the post below actually. The vision the makers of this show have of the future is a very, very “connected” future. Every aspect of life is interconnected to the others via a centralized network. Everything is known about everyone. The idea is that this makes life much safer, better, but… really? I think not. Maybe that helped me want to “disconnect” (see the previous entry).

Cars that automatically correct errors of human drivers, clothes that report your vitals to doctors every three minutes or so, cameras and GPS systems tracking everyone everywhere. Yikes.

Scariness aside, one segment that caught my attention was the part about robots. The documentary makers made no excuses in saying that robots are not ready for everyday use just yet. They are really hard to make work. There has been great progress, but it has been very slow-going, and very difficult. The interesting part to me was when they were trying to just get a humanoid robot to walk, the creators said, “It’s incredible how sophisticated the human body is, even just the balance it takes to take a step.”

How incredible we are! All these brilliant minds have spent years trying to make a machine that can do what a two year old can do! Amazing. It was fun to watch. I don’t doubt that we will progress and make something that can mimic human life more and more… but God has already done that! Holy cow. He’s just amazing, and I am blown away right now at his design, creativity, and his handiwork in general.

To think that there is no Designer, seems to me you are either just not seeing what I am seeing, or denying it, or maybe just stubborn. And I’m just talking about the intricacies of the human body and how it all works together. I don’t know the complete process of how we came into being, but I have no doubt just from what I have observed that we have quite intricately & skillfully been designed.

I’m not trying to start any arguments here, but as always comments/thoughts are welcome. It was just another moment today when I thought, “How can anyone think this is a sequence of events begun by random chance?” I think some might credit a universal “Life Force” rather than a being (God), but it seems the prevailing scientific thought precludes the possibility of a Designer… and that just seems so crazy to me.

I love that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are just amazing.

by Greg

Too Much

The word of the day in the Campbell home is “busy.” It’s been the word for many days, many weeks, and even many months. We know some of the causes (one being that we have five children, one of whom is an infant) but we just keep scratching our heads when we look at what life is now, and think about what it used to be. How did we get here?

I left the house this morning to take a quick trip to the library to return a DVD. My plan was to drive, but when I stepped out the door, I realized I had left my keys inside. I debated for a few moments whether to go and retrieve them, or to just go for the walk to the library I had originally wanted to take. (I had reasoned that feeling short for time, it would be better to just drive.) I eventually decided to just walk, as the circumstances seemed to dictate.

On my walk (which was begun at a hurried pace) I was greeted by our 4-year-old neighbor girl from her window where she was eating breakfast. I said hello with a smile, but kept on going. As I turned the corner, I was greeted by several more people just enjoying a nice morning sit on their porches. I began thinking, “Man… I wish I could do that…”

As I got to the library, I saw that they have placed a couple rocking chairs on the front porch. All I wanted to do when I saw them was sit in them with a nice book, and maybe a cold iced tea. Don’t you? Why is there no time to just sit, relax, and enjoy some quiet time? Is it just me?

I don’t think that it is.

These thoughts have been bothering me for a good long while now. We continue to feel rushed almost every day of our lives. Whether it’s just taking care of the kids, or me trying to balance work for around fifty different clients, or any of the various other endeavors I have undertaken (my Buffalo Bills website, or this blog, among others)… there’s always something to do. It can even be fun, relaxing stuff like home projects, just playing games, and/or visiting with friends and family, etc.

There’s just always a lot to do.

We have been pretty social of late. Whether visiting friends or family locally, or semi-locally (we have family about 90 minutes away) or even chatting with friends online or over Facebook, there are plenty of people to keep in touch with. It’s amazing because, no matter how many people we get to spend time with, there are three more we didn’t get to. So crazy!

When I saw the rocking chairs today, I just wanted to go back to a time when there was no internet. Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love the internet. I think it’s just incredible. Instant information and communication right in your home. Really incredible. But I harken back to the days when the information you got was by word of mouth (so it traveled a bit slower) and the communication you had was with people within walking distance, or perhaps a horse-back ride’s distance. Much simpler times.

I think I am longing for that. For simplicity. Are you? Do you feel like you are stretched incredibly thin? We do not have a cell phone (just an emergency one) because we don’t really want to be accessible everywhere we are. But almost everyone else is. You can reach them anytime, anywhere. They are always “connected.” If not by regular phone calls, then by text messaging over the phone. The iPhone sure looks like a fun toy to me – seriously, amazing device – but I am not certain I want to be “connected” everywhere I go…

I scan the bookshelves in my house and just long for a free afternoon to sit and read and soak in and think along with other thinkers. I long to just relax and enjoy a quiet read. I long to just sit, really. Not always be doing. I am always doing. Even if it’s just fun.

So where does that bring me to? I haven’t officially decided yet, but I think I might be approaching a cease and desist of some sort. Temporary, as far as I can tell now, but still quite complete. Complete meaning, whatever I choose to cease and desist, I really will.

It could be any number of things. Facebook. Instant Messaging. Reading blogs. Reading other websites. Watching DVDs. Playing vintage video games. Playing Facebook word games. 🙂 Perhaps even blogging. (Though, probably not. Blogging is usually a great and necessary outlet for me when I finally get a chance to “take in” again.) I might even set aside a certain time of the day to read/reply to emails. That takes up a lot of time, too. I get emails every five minutes or so. And I usually read them right away. Whatever it is, I think I might start the C & D as early as Monday.

Should be an interesting experiment.

Would love to hear from anyone reading this who feels the same way. Are we too connected? Too much to do. Too many possibilities, informationally, entertainment-wise, relationally, etc? Or, am I overreacting, and perhaps a relic from a time long gone? Your thoughts are invited. Post below.

This weekend, I will be pondering all of this very much.

Hopefully not too much. 😉

[NOTE: Further proof that I am too busy? I began this post at 9:22 this morning. Distraction after distraction has kept me from finishing it. Argh.]

by Greg

Nacho Libre

So, I am not a fan of silly movies generally, but our friends talked enough about the movie Nacho Libre (and how much they loved it) that I eventually decided to watch it. Jen even did… mostly. 🙂 We watched it with them again this past weekend (at least, highlights of it) and it’s just hilarious. Silly. But hilarious. 🙂

Here’s a few good clips I found on YouTube 🙂

Encarnacion

Little Hug, Big Kiss

Fantastic

by Greg

A Subtle Difference

In a conversation with a friend yesterday regarding home schooling, I described our thinking on the matter in a way I don’t think I have previously.

You may recall from previous posts here that to us, home school is not school at home, but more a philosophy… a way of educating. It’s learning from every moment of life, rather than a more structured “this is school time” approach. It works well for us, and we have no intention (as far as we can see now) of changing the way we train/educate our children.

Some folks we know take a more “year by year” approach. Sometimes it’s based on the thought, “I’m not sure how long we (or I) can do this…” But others see participating in government schools as a “part of life” and see more benefit than detriment, especially when their kids are older.

What I realized yesterday – as the words came out of my mouth – was that for us, our kids’ “education” is not as much about schooling as it is about parenting. We “home school” (differently than most people we know) because we feel we are in the best position to train our kids how to live. There are many factors, but overall, it’s the way we parent, not just an “educational” choice.

So, for as far as we can see, we’ll keep doing it this way. You certainly can’t know what tomorrow will bring, but what we know now is that we love doing life together as a family, and learning and training as we go.

by Greg

12-21-12

Mayan CalendarFor some reason the topic of the world ending in 2012 came up in a conversation with a friend yesterday. So, I decided to look it up online and found a History Channel documentary from a couple years ago called Doomsday 2012: The End of Days.

It was pretty interesting stuff… There are several strange coincidences involving not on the Mayan calendar predicting the end of time on Dec 21, 2012, but a Chinese ancient book and a few other things. Even a computer program designed to predict the stock market has predicted major catastrophes accurately, and seems to predict the biggest one in the year 2012. There is even some astronomical event (the earth and sun will be perfectly aligned with the center of the Milky Way galaxy… which might be bad…) which supposedly only happens every 25,000 years or so.

That’s a pretty rare occurrence.

Jesus said we won’t know when the end is coming. I believe him. But all this stuff is quite fascinating, and I can’t wait till December 21st, 2012. 🙂 It will be funny when/if that’s just a normal day…

by Greg

Ads

You may have noticed that there is now a little rotating ad banner here at GregsHead.net? That was added (not all that easily!) yesterday to give the site a slightly new appearance, and to allow you – the reader – a chance to both find some great services we recommend, and support GregsHead at the same time.

The advertisers in the rotation will pay a commission on any sales generated after their ad is clicked. I personally picked all of these ads, and do use their services (and can recommend them). So, if you’d like to help out… click the link and check out what they have to offer.

Much appreciated.