Tag / Funny Stories

by Greg

The Boys Room

Tonight I took my daughters to the bathroom while we were out for dinner. On the way down the bathroom hall, our five year old said somewhat sheepishly, “Do we have to go in the boys room, Dad?”

I was a bit surprised by her sudden awareness that we would be using the “boys room”, she hadn’t cared before… but I replied, “Yes, Kirstie. We have to go in there ’cause I’m a boy!”

We went in and headed to the one stall – all three of us – and as she got ready to use it, she seemed really hesitant. I made sure all was properly cleaned and then she asked, “Dad, can you please cover it up?” She has this thing about automatically flushing toilets. It really, really bothers her. So, I knew what she was talking about once she asked and said, “Sure, no problem.”

I dutifully covered it up while she did her thing, when she revealed a bit to me about her earlier question. “That’s why I don’t like the boys room, Dad. They have the toilets that flush themselves!”

“Yeah, some places do,” I said. “But, those are in the girls room, too.” (I actually don’t know that, I suppose, but, just assumed.)

“No they aren’t!” She insisted. “They’re only in the boys rooms!!!” That made me chuckle a bit. 🙂

She was pretty serious about this though, so I believed her, and then was sad for the gender that I represent. I thought about it and realized that if it is true, it shows that guys can’t be trusted to remember to flush the toilet!!! (This does hold true in our own home… the boys (NOT ME) do often forget to pull the handle…) Do we really need the toilet to remember for us???

So after a funny little insight from my five year old daughter, I’d like to implore those of the male persuasion to think a tiny bit about the people coming after them, and just flush the toilet. (Unless of course, the facility you are using has already given up on you, and the toilet does its own flushing… then I guess you’re off the hook.

🙂

by Greg

Santa Claus to the Rescue!

SantaWe went out tonight to a cool old, historic house (Sonnenberg Gardens) to hear our friends Steph and Robert perform some Christmas music. Met up with some other friends there, too. Was a very nice night.

But the best part was definitely when a poor concert goer got stuck in the bathroom. The door was a bit tricky. You had to lift it up as you pushed on the handle, or it just wouldn’t open. The lady inside did not know that, nor did anyone on the outside trying to help her.

After a few minutes, a most unlikely rescuer finally came to her aid. Was it the janitor? Was it a locksmith? Was it another member of the staff?

Nope. It was Santa!!

(Santa was there in full costume tonight, and he was the one who knew the door trick!)

by Greg

Electrical Problems

You may have heard that the Buffalo Bills game last Sunday was blacked out a few times thanks to some balloons getting caught in the electrical wires outside the stadium. The entire stadium lost power half an hour before the game, and then once more in the second quarter of the game. Everything was shut down. No one was allowed into the stadium (because they couldn’t electronically scan tickets at the gates) and there were no clocks, referee announcements, score boards, advertisements… there wasn’t even a TV broadcast!!!

Yes, folks, the NFL was brought to its knees by a rubbery, plasticky, child’s toy.

It was quite entertaining. 🙂

But prior to that more well-known electrical issue… there was one right here in the Campbell home.

Just before our friends were leaving for most of a week for a mini-vacation in Mexico, and leaving their two-year-old son (for the first time ever, no less) with us for that time, the electrical wiring in my attic office went haywire. There was no puff of smoke, no sizzling, no bad smells, no strange sounds. The lights just… went off.

I checked breakers, I looked in outlets, I looked in switches… all to no avail. The power would not come back on. Even had my much more savvy neighbor come take a look and what we found confused us even more! There was clearly an issue that required some more knowledgeable electrician help.

Thankfully, despite the fact that I didn’t even have time to call an electrician to come look at it… our house (with the extra two-year-old friend in it, whose parents were probably at least a little concerned with the electrical predicament we were in) did NOT burn down to the ground. That was cool.

When my neighbor came over, we took apart everything in the office. Light covers and light bulbs, light switches, moved furniture, and removed outlet covers. Since I was going to have someone come look at it, we left it that way. Well… after several days of operating in the (mostly) dark, I got fed up with the office being a shambles, so I started putting everything back together. I figured, once we get someone to come look at it… we’ll just take it apart again.

As I was replacing part of the light fixture… the lights came on. 🙂 I tested it a couple times and realized that I had discovered the source of the problem!! I got some tools from my neighbor and indeed, the loose wire had been found!!! Yippee!!!

Jen (I found out later) had asked God that day to help us find a solution to that problem that didn’t cost us any money, and hopefully, before our house burned down. He did! 🙂

So, for a fleeting moment, I felt quite accomplished in the field of electrical wiring. I actually found and fixed an electrical problem… all on my own! That is a rare moment indeed!

Not sure what’s with all the electrical difficulties, but they did make for two pretty interesting days/stories…

Hope the power is on where you are. (Of course, it would need to be if you’re reading this… so I guess it is!) 🙂

by Greg

The Sabres are Double Awesome

I just posted a more detailed article on our Buffalo Bills site, but thought I’d share the condensed version here for those who might not care about the game’s details…

Last night the Sabres played a pretty tough team on the road. Minnesota was 4-0-0, and they are a great defensive team. Buffalo is good at scoring, but it was going to be difficult to win no matter how well they played, so I said to the rest of the family before the game started, “If we win tonight, we are awesome!”

Well, it started well. We got the first goal, and finished the first period up 1-0! I was getting excited! Maybe we were awesome! BUT… it went downhill in the second period. (For you non-hockey folk… there are three 20-minute periods in a hockey game.) The Sabres were down 2-1 after the second, and after our goalie basically put the puck in OUR net in the third period, we were trailing 3-1 to a team who doesn’t lose when they are ahead in the final period.

So, I changed my declaration. I said, “If we win now, we are DOUBLE awesome!” I really didn’t think they’d win… I just hoped we’d at least get one more goal to make it respectable.

Well… we did. And we got another. And in overtime… we WON!

And so…

The Sabres…

ARE DOUBLE AWESOME!!!! Whoohoo!! 🙂

by Greg

Tired

As you the readers of GregsHead may already know… I am busy. Busier, more stretched-thin, and just more tired than I can ever remember being. Maybe it’s just cause I’m getting old?

Maybe I’m still trying to do too much.

But last night, as I was reading the day’s emails, news, and various things around and about Facebook, I found myself being fed up. I felt fine overall, but I might describe the emotions I felt toward some emails, news headlines, Facebook status messages, and even just general life circumstances as “despair”. I was just tired of everything and wanted it all to go away and never come back. Inside I was shouting, “I just don’t want to deal with this anymore!!!!”

Then I had to chuckle. I thought it was pretty weird (and slightly humorous) how being tired can make you feel despondent like that. 🙂 I realized cognitively that was the case, I was just extremely over-tired. And, I did feel better this morning. But, I’m starting to feel the drag again tonight.

Probably something needs to change. I still haven’t figured out what. But every day I am tired. Every night I am more tired. I miss having fun. With my family, with friends. I miss relaxing. And even weirder, I end every day feeling un-finished. There may have been many great things that day, but there always seem to be so many more left unfinished.

So… kind of a funny story, but really a greater, overshadowing reality.

I’m tired!

by Greg

Feeling Old

Yesterday as I was walking through the mall on my lunch break at Apple, I was reminded again that I really am old. 🙂

Yes, I realize I am exaggerating a bit. Turning 34 soon does not in most circles qualify as old, but it seems that at the mall… it does!

First of all, most of my co-workers at the Apple store are all a good bit younger than me. It’s an interesting experience, actually. But, perhaps more on that later…

As I was walking from lunch back to my afternoon shift yesterday, I noticed that the mall was pretty empty, but there was a high concentration of young moms with very young kids. Then I noticed that these young moms… looked like kids themselves! Are moms of two and three year olds really that young??? Did we (Jen) look that young when Ian was only 2 or 3???

Probably. 🙂

Just a funny moment of realizing that, yeah… I am getting old!

by Greg

Now I Know What To Do

This morning, while I was checking email on the laptop and watching the kids play in my in-laws’ driveway, Kirstie stopped by to ask me a question.

“Dad, how do I stop if I’m going down a fast hill on my bike?”

Puzzled by the question I asked, “Well, what do you mean? Why do you want to know?”

“I just want to know what to do if I’m going down a fast hill and I can’t stop,” came the matter-of-fact reply.

“Well,” I began, “I guess if you try your brakes and they don’t work, then you would just try and get to the edge of the road and sort of lean over so you could fall off the bike on the side of the road. Or, if you could… maybe just jump off the bike.”

She was listening intently to all I was saying, and then when I stopped she just got back on her bike and began to ride away. About ten feet away she said a very cheerful and satisfied, “Thanks!”

I laughed and said, “For what?”

“Well,” she said, “Now I know what to do when I’m going down a fast hill on my bike!”

by Greg

Two Cuts, And A Pig-Man

Buffalo Sabres Old-SchoolAs I was putting Julia, our two-year-old, to bed last night, she was looking at my awesome, old-school Sabres shirt, with the vintage logo pasted on the front of it. She was touching it, exploring it, and without looking up she said to me, “Dad, you have two cuts.”

“Cuts? What do you mean?” I asked, looking down to see what she could mean.

“Like we have downstairs. Those are round. You have two cuts, right here.”

She continued.

“And you have a pig… man. Two cuts, and a pig man.”

Older sister Kirstie chimed in, “That’s a Buffalo. Right?”

No. I do believe that is two cuts and a pig-man. 🙂

by Greg

The Crying Wall

Earlier this week, after a big storm blew through, I noticed my wall was peeling! The paint on the 6-inch wall under my office window had bubbled up and was coming off! There was water under the paint somehow, so I tried to dry it off, but noticed it was still coming. I checked for leaks, but really couldn’t find any. It was just coming through the wall!

I peeled the paint off and tried to dry it up, and find the source. I figured it was the air conditioner, but there was nothing in on the unit itself, and nothing in the window track below it. The only “source” I could find was the bottom corner of the trim on the left side of the window. Somehow, the water was coming through the wood, and draining down into the drywall! It was beginning to erode away!

Later that day, I ventured out on the roof to see if I could find the source of the water. I could not. Nothing. Looked totally dry, and was covered by a roof above the window. It HAD to be coming from the a/c, but I couldn’t find any water on it either?!!?

A friend I was chatting with about this online said, “Maybe it’s one of those miracle walls.” Perhaps it was an appearance of the Blessed Virgin… but I couldn’t see her face in the wall… I considered perhaps demonic forces causing my wall to weep… but thought better of it.

But it was very confusing… 🙂

I finally decided to check the other side of the unit, and sure enough, it was wet on that side. Somehow the condensation was draining into the window track, through the wood trim, all the way to the other side. Tricky! I had not leaned the unit back enough, so a quick tilt did the trick.

I will need to plaster and paint now a bit. But, nothing too major.

But at least we figured out the source of the mysterious Crying Wall. 🙂

by Greg

English Class

Riding home from the long weekend in Buffalo, Jen & I were talking in the front seat about anything and everything. (It is a 90 minute ride.) At some point we got talking about technology, and specifically the iPhone (I think wished we could look something up on the internet) and I said, “Maybe we can get one when (I forget what the first part was) … and when there’s ubiquitous wi-fi.”

There was only a brief pause, and then I added, “Do you like it when I use big words like that?”

She replied, “Well, it makes me feel like I’m back in English class…”