Tag / Fun

by Greg

NFL Realignment?

This past week, the boys and I discovered a feature in Madden 08 that allows me to see my proposed divisional alignment for the NFL in “action”.

Using the “Franchise” feature, you can actually realign the divisions however you want to. I saw my golden opportunity to watch an NFL season unfold with rivalries like Buffalo-Cleveland, Buffalo-Pittsburgh, Baltimore-Washington, KC-St. Louis, and even Dallas-Houston.

Why wouldn’t divisions comprised of teams from cities that are actually in the same general region make more sense that a division where Miami and Buffalo are rivals, or the Dallas Cowboys play in the East, or St. Louis, Phoenix, and Seattle are all play each other twice?

I actually wrote a letter to Paul Tagliabue back when the league added Jacksonville and Carolina, suggesting to him that the old AFL and NFL allegiances were not as important as a division alignment that made geographical sense – and would create different (maybe better?) rivalries.

My favorite division is the Great Lakes division (or, I nick-named it the “Bus League”) which is home to Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit and Pittsburgh. Those cities are all really close to each other, meaning fans from every team could travel to all the away games! There is a sense of rivalry already on the rare occasions that Buffalo plays Cleveland… I’d imagine it would be the same if you throw Detroit in the mix, too.

Just for fun, here’s the list of what my NFL would look like with the current 32 teams in the league. Maybe some day we’ll get there…

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Northeast: Chicago, New England (Boston), NY Giants, NY Jets
Coastal: Baltimore, Carolina, Philadelphia, Washington
Southeast: Atlanta, Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa Bay
Great Lakes (Midwest): Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Heartland (Midwest): Cincinnati, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Tennessee
South: Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, St. Louis
North: Denver, Green Bay, Minnesota, Seattle
West Coast: Arizona, Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco

by Greg

Dryer Sheets

I needed to do a couple loads of laundry tonight, so I was a little disappointed when I went downstairs and found some laundry sort of “in process”. (Note: our 7 year old does most of our laundry, and usually pretty well. But, well… he’s seven. Nuff said.) For some reason this time he had left a small load of partially dried clothes in the dryer. Very strange.

As I was inspecting the scene, I noticed that we also were out of dryer sheets. I checked with Jen and sure enough, there were no more. Not too bad… clothes just wouldn’t smell quite as nice.

I went back upstairs to do a couple more things then went down to get the now fully dried load from the dryer and move the one I just washed into the dryer when…

I saw a dryer sheet. Right there on the ground in front of the dryer!

My first thought was, “Wow! Neat. A dryer sheet!” My second thought was, “Whoa. Wonder if God put that there? It wasn’t there before…” My third thought was, “Does God give you dryer sheets?” 🙂

Those are my thoughts. Not sure if the tiny piece of scented cloth was divinely placed but… I’m grateful.

And I’ll be smelling a little better, too.

by Greg

Kids Shows @ iTunes

I just spotted an ad on the iTunes store homepage today… something about $0.99 kids shows. Intrigued, I clicked through to find this page, full of not only current shows which are near and dear to the hearts of our kids (Fetch with Ruff Ruffman, Dora, Oswald, etc.) but also awesomely old shows like The Electric Company, Fraggle Rock, the Smurfs… nice!!!

Not sure how much money we can allot for such a thing at the moment, but… pretty fun that you can get that stuff at iTunes now, and at a discount, no less! Fun stuff from my childhood. May just have to introduce a new generation to them…

[Editor’s Note: When I first published this, I accidentally posted a link to this page at iTunes… and while that page (a list of all of our recorded music you can purchase from iTunes) is a fantastic page… it was not the one I intended to send you to. 🙂 Link above has been corrected…]

by Greg

Scary Dream!

IE 8 for Mac?This morning, just before I woke up… I was still in a bit of a dream state. Everything seemed normal. I was talking with someone, and they wanted to show me something on their computer. It was a Mac, of course. (Just like in the movies, my dreams have a disproportionate amount of Macs to computers running Windows…)

But then…

The owner of the nice Mac clicked on a strange menu near the top right of the screen that just said “Internet” – and when they did… they selected “Browse Internet” (or something like that) from the menu and…

(Insert scary music…)

INTERNET EXPLORER 8 … FOR THE MAC CAME UP!!!

I think I actually woke up startled. Then was very happy this was just a dream. IE 8, not only running natively on a Mac, not only designed for a Mac, but… integrated into the OS?!?!? Yikes.

Must have eaten something pretty bad before bed last night…

by Greg

Macworld 2009: Some Pretty Cool Updates

Well, the keynote is over, and the announcements have been made (iLife ’09, iWork ’09, iWork.com, new 17″ MacBook Pro, and even a DRM-free iTunes!) And while there was no Steve… there were some pretty neat things.

Check out the extensive video tutorials for both iWork ’09 and iLife ’09. Some really amazing new features in iLife like face recognition, amazing integration of geo-tagging, and a greatly improved iMovie app.

No time to go in depth here, but definitely worth the upgrade. Both iWork and iLife are $30 off through April 20 with the purchase of a new Mac. And you can buy a Mac Box Set (Leopard, iLife 09, and iWork 09) for $169. (That’s a really good deal, actually.)

Come by my Apple store and check it out! 🙂

by Greg

Music Added to our Library in 2008

And, just for fun… been listening to our “Added in 2008” playlist the last could days. Here’s a sample of some of the music we added to our collection in the calendar year 2008. (Again, random order.)

  • Chris Tomlin: Hello Love
  • Santana: The Anthology
  • Wings: Wings Greatest
  • Derek Webb: The Ringing Bell
  • Chris Rice: Short Term Memories
  • Paul McCartney: Give My Regards to Broadstreet
  • Sixpence None The Richer: My Dear Machine EP
  • Derek Webb & Sandra McCracken: Ampersand
  • Alex Mejias: Alex Mejias
  • Michael Jackson: Thriller (with video!) 🙂
  • Watermark: The Purest Place
  • Sandra McCracken: Gravity | Love

And some other stuff, too. 🙂

by Greg

Year In Review: 2008

I know, this is a little late, but… on our trip down to visit family in Ohio, all seven of us compiled a list of the best things we could remember from 2008. (OK, maybe not too much from Emma…)

This is what we came up with: (in no particular order, except for the first one!) 🙂

  • Emma Caroline was born! – Mar 13, 2008

  • Started working for Apple – first selling computers, then training people to get more out of them

  • Jen started working for IBPS (in her spare) time) 😉

  • Ian turned 10!!!!

  • Celebrated 5 years of owning our house. (Well, 5 years of paying a mortgage anyway…)

  • The Vs Moved Away 🙁 (This was a pretty big event for us in 2008, too!)

  • Greg’s sister and family moved to Clarence – much closer!

  • Got our first membership to Strong Children’s Museum

  • Made the decision to completely stop using credit cards. So far so good.

  • Got a new computer!

  • (and Madden 08!) 😉 … seriously, that was a major part of 2008 for Alex, Ian … and Dad 😉

  • Went to a couple Bills games – Lions, Chargers

  • 4th season of Buffalo Bills Review: featured shows with Steve Christie, Jerry Sullivan, Donte Whitner, Tom Calderone, and added some Ball Burglar friends

  • Didn’t go to Ohio to visit family! Crazy!! (Did get there on 1/1/09… 😉

  • basic: sang with Scott & Leah at ABY Convention, but not much else! Was a quiet year!

  • Kirstie made friendship bread! 🙂

  • Enjoyed watching: Psych, Monk, and the BUFFALO SABRES

  • President Obama (not really a Campbell family thing, but was a big event from 2008…)

  • Leaped a Year! 🙂

  • Sabres weren’t in the playoffs, Bills weren’t either, but the UB BULLS ARE! 🙂

  • Boys played baseball and soccer!! (And were awesome!)

  • Went to our first Amerks game!!!

  • Watched the Summer Olympics: Diving, Running (Track & Field)

  • Kept various friends children for a few days at a time

And that was our 2008! 🙂