I was thinking today… I bet that you – no matter how much you may read this blog – may not know the following three things about me…
Betcha didn’t know.
A friend passed this along recently, and I just watched it again. Wanted to share with you. It’s old I think, so you may have seen it. He’s quite good at all the impressions he does here, but I really love his Bill Clinton! What he says, and his facial expressions! Hilarious! Thanks Chris 🙂
You probably do not need to be reminded of this, but today is the one fun day every year where the day, the month, and the year all match. This one happens to also be the first day of the summer olympics, happening this time in China. It’s also the tenth wedding anniversary of some good friends of ours.
And, it’s just a Friday.
The numbers on the calendar don’t really matter, but I just thought it was fun, and wanted to post it. 🙂
So enjoy your 08.08.08. Maybe a game of Crazy Eights is in order? Maybe play the old Beatles’ tune “Eight Days a Week” and catch an episode of Eight is Enough on DVD afterwards? Start it at 08:08:08pm local time! Got any other ideas? Leave ’em below!
All kinds of people come into the Apple store. I get to meet and talk with people of all ages, backgrounds, and nationalities. That’s a pretty fun part of the job, actually.
A couple days ago, I got to meet a few guys that were even more fun to chat with, being a long-time (big) Buffalo Bills fan.
I was working in the iPhone section, and a couple guys came up to check out the phones. One of them was studying it, so I offered to answer any questions, and began chatting with him.
The weird thing was, his friend looked a LOT like Ashton Youboty from the Buffalo Bills. I took a couple glances, but kept thinking, “Nah… he’s too young… too small. But it sure looks like him… Maybe a brother?”
As I was talking with Ashton-look-a-like’s friend, another guy from the store came up and said, “So you guys from Ohio State?” They were both wearing OSU garb, so it was a valid question. The guy is a Purdue grad, so it was a Big Ten thing… I didn’t bring up my MSU affiliation, as I was trying to be helpful with the iPhone, not play on long-standing college rivalries, which are an important part of life amongst Big Ten schools… 🙂
The guy who was checking out the iPhone said they did attend OSU, and they played football there. That of course intrigued me, as I knew that Ashton Youboty played football at OSU. Now I was pretty certain this was Ashton’s brother or something. Well, as I was going to ask, he left to go check out something else, but I asked his friend… and sure enough, it WAS Youboty, and the guy checking out the iPhone was another young Bills player, Dustin Fox!
After he revealed his “secret identity” I paused for a moment, then said, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but… I just… thought you’d be bigger.”
He laughed and said, somewhat sheepishly, “Everybody does…”
We chatted a bit. Dustin said he’s the “team techie” and I showed him around to a few other toys in the store. They left and I was glad to have gotten to meet two of the (well, really just one) Buffalo Bills!
But the night was not over.
Much later in the night, I looked up at the big board that shows the names of people with appointments at the Genius bar, where we offer tech support on our products. One of the names on the board was Ashton Y. Now… there could be another person named Ashton. And perhaps even another Ashton with a last name starting with the letter Y. But, the likelihood of Ashton Youboty and this other potential Ashton Y. being in the same Apple store on the same night… not very likely. 🙂
So, apparently, Ashton was coming back.
And indeed… not long before closing time, Ashton (but not Dustin) and maybe four other friends strolled into the store. I was still manning the iPhone station, so I greeted them and helped one guy out, giving him an overview of what the iPhone does. Since they all came in together, I figured they were all Bills players, but honestly, I did not recognize any of them. Except Ashton, who was sitting at the Genius bar, getting some help from the Geniuses.
Well, as we were finishing up (it was just about closing time) the store cleared out – except for our Buffalo Bills friends – and I was no longer needing to stay at my station, so… I went over and introduced myself to Ashton. (Who, at this point, was just sitting at the Genius bar, waiting for something.)
“So, you’re Ashton Youboty,” I began. He nodded. “I just wanted to come say hello. I’m a big Bills fan, and your friend Dustin said you who you were when you guys were in here before.” I told him the story of how I thought they’d be bigger, and he said, “Man, I am bigger. I’m fat! The coaches want me to lose weight!” Then he added with emphasis, “It’s hard to lose weight!” Ha! He didn’t look like he needed to, but I’m sure his coaches know what they’re talking about. 🙂
After wrapping up a few other things, I had a moment to say hello to the other guys. I made sure that there were not other customers in the store, and that they (the Bills players) were not busy being Apple customers, and I finally got to say hello.
“So are you guys all Bills players?” I asked.
“Yeah.” (Their unified, hushed reply was a little less forthcoming than I had hoped…)
“Well, I have two boys at home, and they will want to know who I got to meet tonight, so… what are your names?”
The guy immediately to my right said, “Jabari.” I actually didn’t quite hear him, so I asked him to repeat and when I understood him that time I said, “Jabari Greer! Nice to meet you.” Ashton was next to Jabari, and then we went around the circle of guys and they all introduced themselves as I shook their hands.
“Reggie.”
“Reggie….” I said in a leading tone.
“Corner.” He smiled when he said it. Some of these guys are not really that outgoing… 🙂
“Reggie Corner! Nice to meet you.” (It really was. This was fun!)
We got to the last guy around the half circle, who said, “Jon Corto.” I heard him just fine, but I asked him to repeat it, because I had never heard of Jon Corto, and I know my Bills! So I probed a bit further, asking what position he played, and where he was from… still no luck.
As I was probing, Jabari said, “Well, tell us who you are!” So, I laughed and introduced myself. “My name’s Greg… Campbell. Actually, I have a Bills show…”
“Really?!” said Jabari, “Here in Rochester?”
I explained the Buffalo Bills Review, and actually, I thought I remembered that Jabari had been in the running for – or possibly won – an award from our show this past season, but that turned out to not be true. I did let him know that though, and he said, “I’m gonna have to check that out!”
In explaining the show, I mentioned that I grew up in Buffalo, and that’s how I became a big Bills fan. That’s when Jon asked where I was from in Buffalo. Turns out he is from Orchard Park – where the Bills play! So I talked with him a bit about that, how cool it is that he is from there and now playing for the Bills! Kinda living vicariously through that for a moment… 🙂
They didn’t stay much longer, but it was very cool to meet them all and chat a bit about Bills football, even the Buffalo Bills Review. When I started working at the Apple Store, never imagined that I’d get to meet five Buffalo Bills in one night! Was definitely a fun experience.
Wonder who will be coming in today?
It’s probably not even accurate, but tonight while I was playing a game of Monopoly with my nine-year-old son, Ian, I couldn’t help but notice how the game paralleled life – and how I did not like that.
First off, it was just a really fun night. We call them OK Nights. (One Kid Nights.) It’s been Ian’s turn for a while, but as my prolonged silences here at GregsHead.net demonstrate, there is not much time for, well, anything these days. Not much time, and not much money. Which factored into the decision to do Ian’s OK Night in our basement. (That, and the huge thunderstorms that were wreaking havoc on our entire area tonight…) It all worked out, as Ian loves the game Monopoly (and so do I!) and we shared a nice pot of tea while we played together.
Ian even learned how to find 10% of something tonight. Bonus home school lesson!
But my lesson was in the crazy notion that to make money you have to have money. It’s true in life, and in Monopoly, and vice versa.
Poor Ian had me on the ropes. He had Boardwalk and Park Place with 3 houses on each. I managed to find my piece on Boardwalk shortly following his new construction project, and owed him $1400! That’s a lot for Monopoly! I had to mortgage several properties, and spend all my cash, but I managed to stay in the game. A few lucky rolls, and I had enough cash to stick around long enough for Ian to land on one of my expensive properties. But somehow, that was his undoing.
He also stuck around for a while, but no matter what we tried to do, he just couldn’t dig out of the hole that the first big hotel stay got him into. The problem started to become that in order to pay his debts, he had to get rid of all the stuff that could make him money. So in essence, he was getting rid of any chance he had to win, even though he was still in the game.
I, on the other hand, kept collecting Ian’s money… and then, since my cash stash was growing larger, I invested in more houses. I even bought a mortgaged monopoly from Ian… paid the bank, built houses, and cashed in again on Ian. It was too easy. As I cruised effortlessly around the board (because of my cushy abundance of wealth) Ian fretted every roll of the dice.
It was so crazy to see how it really does “take money to make money.” I really couldn’t believe it. But it was true. Somehow, but a bit of strategy, and admittedly, a bit of luck, I managed to make the first amount of money, and then from there wise investing made the money earn money for me.
Right now my problem seems to be what Ian’s problem was. Debt and other ongoing expenses keep me in a position of not having any vehicles to earn income. If I do, it seems to be just a little, and then it goes right back out to someone else. That’s a frustrating place to be.
So, I have not figured out in the real world how to take the next step to get just enough money to start making money from having money… but maybe some day.
Perhaps I should just play a few more games of Monopoly with Ian? 🙂
I followed a link to a pretty fun site yesterday. It’s called Wordle, and lets you take any text, or URL, or feed from any site and make a random word picture from the text that you give it. Very fun, actually!
I did a couple more images. First, when I just took the text and pasted it in, the biggest word was “just”. Ha! Guess I just say that a lot… 😉 So, here’s the JUST version. And, I took the “Life With God” posts and made this image from that.
I also discovered that I have written approximately 54,800 words in the year 2008. (That’s to my GregsHead.net blog alone, does not include all my other sites!) I have … a lot to say.
Anyone can do it… with any text. Jen made some with the names of our family. 🙂 Go try it out for yourself…
My friend Hannah told me a joke this week, and I keep remembering it (and using the key phrase from it) so, I figured it needed to be shared here…
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Tank.”
“Tank who?”
“You’re welcome!”
I just gotta say… Our tomatoes are doing so great! We have gotten a small sampling of the cherry tomatoes so far – and they just taste fantastic. There’s nothing finer than homegrown tomatoes!
And, oddly enough, I really like the smell of the tomato plants, too… 🙂
Just like last year, the good folks at the Turkey Hill Ice Cream blog are posting fun ice cream related stories to their blog every day during July – National Ice Cream Month. I’m not sure what the exact prizes are, but I know they pick commenters randomly and award prizes all month long. Fun stuff! So, stop by and read about ice cream, comment, and maybe get some prizes! Great ice cream, great fun!
And again, happy national ice cream month! 🙂
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! 🙂
