by Greg

Flip Flop

I am a late night person. I love it, always have, and don’t really get into the morning thing. Mornings for me start around 9am.

Somewhere near the beginning of the Buffalo Bills Review season I began moving toward a VERY late night schedule. I would stay up till 4 or even 5am at times to finish editing and publishing our show and website on a weekly basis, and that got me to a regular bedtime around 3am. That’s pretty late. And shifted everything on me. Days seemed sorta rushed if I was trying to have any evening with my family after work. We don’t mind it being kind of later, but it’s been later than I like for sure.

So this week, following the final show of the year, I am trying to shift to an earlier schedule. Would like to get back to walking in the morning before I come up to the office. And get started on stuff here by 8:30 or so. We’ll see how it goes. Pretty well this morning. Only 10:30am now, and have made some organizational process that would usually take me till noon. So, that’s good!

Hopefully my bedtime will get back to a more normal 1am or so. We’ll see…

by Greg

Ian the Creator

Ian Campbell - Creator
I think I mentioned something about our oldest son Ian around Christmas as he was busy making gifts for all of his loved ones. I know I mentioned my awesome iMac and iPod that he made for me. (See photo here, I’ll still try and get a full-size photo of it.)

Ian Campbell - CreatorWell, tonight as I was heading upstairs to bed, I noticed not only the awesome iPod that Ian made for me, but also the tool hanger that he had spent several days working on for his most creative craftsman relative, Grandpa Tom. (Unfortunately, Grandpa Tom left his present at our house when Ian had taken it to “his” workshop for a few modifications after first giving Grandpa the gift.)

It just made me smile. Ian has been so creative that way recently. Besides the gifts for me and my dad, Ian has made lots of great things for his siblings. So cute! He, along with his good friend Hannah, made an entire XBox system for his XBox-loving brother, Alex. It’s great! XBox, games, controllers… even a TV! He also hand crafted some “life-size” construction paper dolls for Uncle Scott & Aunt Leah for their anniversary. (Uncle Scott was quite impressed with the tie he is wearing… thinks Ian has a future in clothing design!)

The best part about all of it is that he initiates it. It’s totally from his heart, and from his own hands. I just love it! So cool to see him wanting so much to show his love for family that he labors for hours and even days to make something with, as I said, his own hands. I don’t think I know many nine year olds who initiate that.

I’ll see if I can scrounge up a few of the creations and put a few photos up here so his work can be more widely appreciated. Keep an eye and an ear out for the name Ian Campbell. Could be a world-famous designer some day… 🙂

by Greg

Bad Water

It would seem that our little wind storm a few days back did more than knock down tree limbs, knock out power, and darken a 9-year-old’s birthday plans. I heard through the rumor mill yesterday, and confirmed by public notice today that we have potentially sickening drinking water in our little town here!

(That could explain Jen’s sickness yesterday, I suppose…)

So, this is my public service announcement for the day, I suppose. If you live in (or near?) Palmyra, NY… BOIL THE WATER!

JUST IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING…. This ended by the end of the next day. So, you don’t have to keep boiling your water anymore… 🙂

by Greg

Lesson Learned?

I was observing my three-year-old daughter and her one-year-old sister today as they tried to play together. They were just a few feet in front of me, and truthfully, it was not going well.

Julia, the younger, was taking things from Kirstie, the older, and this was not a welcome action. Kirstie was just whining about it, and then taking matters into her own hand, retrieving what had been taken. Of course, this only exacerbated the situation, so I decided to step in.

“Kirstie,” I said in my most parental, instructional tone of voice, “That is just not going to work. You can’t whine, and you can’t just take the blocks back from her. How would you like it if she did that to you? This is a good chance for you to practice ‘Treat others the way you want to be treated.’ Why don’t you ask her for what you want, instead of just take it?”

She followed my instructions and her younger sister gladly gave up her blocks (which were stolen in the first place…) and everyone was smiling. For about two seconds. That’s when older sister decided to just take some more of what younger sister had. This resulted in very loud, shrill screaming.

Again… not going to fly with Dad.

Since this didn’t seem to be getting through, so I said to the perpetrator Julia, “Julia, why don’t you show Kirstie what it feels like. Take that yellow block on the top of her tower.” Julia was happy to oblige. She reached over and grabbed three blocks from the top of Kirsten’s tower. (She was probably pretty amazed I was letting her do this!)

Once the blocks were safely in Julia’s possession, I asked Kirstie, “Now how do you feel?”

To my surprise, the first response came from Julia who said, “Good!”

Haha! That was too funny. Kind of ruined the moment, and taught the wrong lesson, but… at least we know that when you’re allowed to do whatever you want… it feels good. 🙂

by Greg

Just Lucky, I Guess

Last night we celebrated Ian’s birthday. His birthday falls on Christmas day, so it has been our practice to set up a day in January to celebrate Ian, and nothing else. Well, he wanted to invite our friends the Velasquezes to join us for a night at Chuck E Cheese’s in a town about 35 min to the west of us. Would work out perfect as that is where Mr. V (we call him Uncle Scott) works. I was to bring a cake that I made, and we would play games, eat cake, and celebrate Ian.

Well, the funny thing is…

As we were on our way there, we went through an intersection where the traffic light was out. “Oh my goodness…” All of a sudden, the days events all came together in my head… We had some serious wind (remember? we might get blown up?) and power was out all over the nearby areas – just not ours. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind until just then that…

You guessed it. The only block without power in the entire area we were going to was the block where Chuck E. Cheese’s resides. Nice.

Well, we decided to head back to our friends’ house and eat cake and play games there. Ended up being a fun night, just a huge waste of gas and time I guess. Again… nice.

Next time… call ahead. 🙂

by Greg

Presidential Campaign Speech

I was listening to Glenn Beck’s radio show yesterday (for some reason, his show is more interesting/entertaining when there is a presidential election coming up… we listened every day almost last election cycle, and then… hardly at all after that…) and he was talking about the New Hampshire primaries. He was fed up with how every candidate says the same thing in their public speeches, and mostly says nothing! So he said, “If that’s all it takes… I think I could run for president!

Click the play button here below to listen to just that clip. Of course, you can get the full shows at his website, www.glennbeck.com. (That just seems like the right thing to do, since I’m posting his audio to my blog…) 🙂

Enjoy! I think it’s hilarious 🙂

(The best part is “little Sally Muckenfuch”!) 🙂

by Greg

SLOW Internet

SLOW internet!
Just so you can commiserate … (or, laugh at me…) the above is what I was dealing with today. I would tend to believe the numbers below the graphic. It was disastrously slow. I mean, WAY slower than any dialup I ever had! I should have plugged in the phone line! 🙂

(Except… we have VOIP!!!!)

So… with a big day of remote server work I had lined up, the wind storm and other factors did not make this the best of days.

However, tonight we will celebrate our son Ian with a CAKE, and a trip to CHUCK E. CHEESE with our friends the Vs! Fun! 🙂

Much better than dealing with slow internet!!

by Greg

Programmed Community

I came across a blog post that addressed some issues that have recently been in the forefront again for me. One paragraph that stood out to me said:

In the mega-church mindset, programs give opportunity for relationship to happen, but don’t assure that it can be found there. The relationships lives inside of programs. Once the program is over, the relationship is over. Once we no longer were involved in those programs there was no longer any reason to maintain the relationship.

We have also found this to be true personally, as well as anecdotally. I think this is one of the biggest shortcomings of the social organizations we call “churches”. They create a false idea of relationship. Relationship is not just being in the same room as other people, or even just having shared experiences. Those are sort of by-products of a relationship. But a real friendship goes farther than that, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually. 🙁

Click the link above to read the rest of the post. Good stuff. Feel free to comment there, or add your thoughts back here. The link will open in a different window. I want to say I wonder if you have experienced the same thing, but I guess I don’t have to wonder. I am certain that you have.

And that’s OK, but is it the best? Isn’t there a better way than programmed community? To me it seems that there is.

by Greg

"I’m Gonna Blow Up!"

It’s a very blustery day here in Western New York state. Many limbs are down, power is out, all sorts of crazy things. My niece has power back now where she is at in Buffalo area, but she told me a few trees are down at her house – including one on their house! Yikes!

Well, as I was battening down the hatches this morning, I remembered another time we were in some seriously powerful winds. It was the spring of 2002, and we were out in Colorado, north of Denver. We were introduced to a chinook. These very strong, constant winds blow over the Rockies in the late winter/early spring and we weren’t prepared for the intensity of them!

As we left the hotel where we were staying that morning, little Ian (who had just turned three) was doing his best to keep his feet on the ground! He was very concerned, and just blurted out, “I’m gonna blow up!!!”

Well, as you can imagine, first we laughed … then we helped the lad stay connected to the Earth. He was very glad for big, heavy parents that day. 🙂

It’s similar today, just not as sustained.

Let’s hope we don’t blow up today! 🙂

by Greg

Hugger

This blog is quite random sometimes, and tonight it feels particularly so. It is very appropriately titled, so I think I shall just leave it at that.

A few times recently I have found myself explaining my “hug policy”, so I thought I’d try and do that here – if for nothing more than it should make for interesting reading when I am going back through these in a year or two or five. 🙂

We have taken a “love languages” test many times through the years with the parenting course Growing Kids God’s Way. I have scored super high every time in the “Physical touch and closeness” category. There are 5 love languages, and I think 5 questions on the test, and when you add up the points, I think that one is usually about a 21-23 for me, out of a possible 25. And, thought tests are not always entirely accurate, this one is.

I like hugs. 🙂

So I was saying recently to a few various and random friends (and family) that my general thought is, I wait until 1) the person I am greeting or leaving demonstrates that they too are a hugger or 2) I know the person well enough that I already know they are a hugger. (This may explain why I usually greet you with a hug, or don’t…) 🙂

For now, I plan to keep to that general rule of thumb… so if you are a hugger, your hugs are welcome and I’ll hug you back. If you’re not… I’ll return your firm handshake 🙂

Just thought I’d get that out there.

Now I think I’m gonna go give Jen a big hug…

🙂