Tag / GregsHead.net

by Greg

Looking (Linking?) Back

What a week! I’m sitting here on my porch with a nice hot cup of tea, at one in the morning, following an hour of trying to restore the network here in my house… have I mentioned before that I have four routers on my network for six or seven computers? Yeah… I need an IT department…) and I finally feel relaxed. 🙂

It’s been that kind of week. I actually don’t think I took any sort of real break today. I know I didn’t eat anything until dinner. That was kinda crazy… I just couldn’t stop. Too much to do. At least, that’s how it felt.

I mentioned earlier this week that the blog has been silent not because there’s nothing to say, nothing to share… just simply because there was no time where I could sit down and share. Here’s a quick overview of the past while for the Campbell family…

Work
Some people still have no idea what I do, but if you look at our income taxes, you can see that the majority of our money comes through my web design business. Just a couple weeks ago that picked up again big time! I got a few new clients (The Center For Body Wellness, First Church of Christ Binghamton (still their old site), and I’m working on a brochure for Angel Eyes Security), and lots of new work for current clients (Houston Nutraceuticals, The Scarlet Thread, Orient Express Band, Christian Way Farm, and Project URGE) and some stuff that I have not gotten started on yet for other existing clients (In House Graphics, Cross Creek Church, and Aussie Hill Alpacas.)

Whew! And the crazy part is, I’m sure I forgot a few! (By the way, if you clicked on all those links, you should get a prize. I’m not sure who you’ll get it from, but you should get one.) 🙂

Add to that all of the hosting accounts that I must regularly maintain (email problems, hosting questions, domain renewals, hosting invoices, technical support, and the list continues) as well as my OWN sites I need to maintain (GregsApples.com and BuffaloBillsReview.com get the majority of my attention. Though, my blog does get updated now and then. My web design site is horribly neglected, however. I did post a few links to the ol’ Link-O page I maintain this past week…

Apple Sales
ON TOP OF ALL THAT… I have about a dozen peoples and/or businesses who are maybe at step 3 out of 5 in the purchase process for a new Mac. (OK, yes… I made that up. I just mean they are all pretty close!) So I’ve been doing a lot of research, communication, and question answering there. Even sent out a newsletter last week. 🙂

If you’re interested in a new computer, or even an iPod or AppleTV… stop by my store! Or, shoot me an e-mail. I can probably help you out.

Buffalo Bills Review
In talking with a few friends this week, I realized that some folks don’t know that I – along with my partners in crime Dave Drake, John Dupra, and Dre Smith – am something of an international celebrity. 🙂 OK, not entirely, but we have found a small bit of success with our little show, now in its third season. It’s a fun hour of Bills fans talking Bills football. We have guests on now and again, including some current Bills players like Brian Moorman the Pro Bowl punter. The team is 0-3 this year, but that hasn’t stopped our downloads, and iTunes ranking from continuing to rise. Guess we’re doing something right. 🙂

And, it’s tons of fun. 🙂

Well, as I said, we must be doing something right, because all of a sudden we have had three websites contact us to purchase ads on our website! That’s great! The site is finally not only paying for itself, but even making a little money. (Just a little, mind you… but it’s a start!) I’ve been busy the last couple weeks setting up our various advertisers as well. (And of course, keeping up with all the latest Bills news. Anyone aware of all the insane injuries the Bills have sustained through only three weeks this year?? It’s just nuts!)

Family
AS IF that all was not enough… we still have four kids to take care of, and boy do they need taking care of! 🙂 Hehe… 🙂

One good thing, family-wise, has been that Jen & I have been trying to get one night (or even daytime) out per week. We have an awesome babysitter, and we try to take full advantage of that. 🙂

Facebook
Oh, and I mentioned this before, but I must say I am enjoying the wonder that is Facebook. I have reconnected with – and stayed connected with – so many folks through that site over just about a month’s time. Very cool. Almost too addicting, though!

MONK!
Oh yeah… the other thing that has taken some of my time over the past several weeks… we’re Monk junkies! We’re most of the way through season four now, and looking forward to seasons five and six! We are getting them on DVD from our library system! AWESOME! Free Monk! 🙂 The show is hilarious (we think) and such a breath of fresh air compared to just about EVERY other current TV show. Even though it’s about a homicide detective, it’s not over the edge as far as graphic grossness. The language is tolerable. It’s just nicer on the soul. And, it’s funny. 🙂 (Plus, it has revealed the OCD in me. I find myself straightening things all the time, and cleaning things… pretty funny.) 🙂

Man. No wonder I never post anything here anymore. 🙂

by Greg

Running Out

GasLately I have been running several things dry. First it was my own body, falling asleep during a BILLS GAME almost instantly, with no recollection of the “nodding off” part. Just complete, immediate shut down. Then today I had a couple more incidents…

First, on returning from our friends house, the van started acting like it was running out of gas. I checked our gauge, and we should have been fine, according to that. However, our gauge is broken, so we use the computer in the van that helps you figure out gas used, and since I had only filled up with about 15 gallons the previous time, we were in fact empty, without me knowing it.

We ran out of gas right in the middle of an intersection, but made it through OK. We stopped right in front of a house, so I went to see if they could just give us enough gas to get to a pretty nearby gas station. They could, and they did… and we were on our way. Putting 25 gallons of gas in our van when we did reach the fueling station. 🙂

Then just now, I was typing a quick post for the Buffalo Bills Review site, and my laptop just instantly shut down. Turns out the battery was low, but the warning did not kick in. So, I forgot to keep checking the remaining batter, and it just shut everything down. (Thankfully, blogger does a good job of auto-saving everything, and I didn’t have much more to type 😉

Well, now that I have told the story, I better shut this computer down, and lay down before I just fall asleep right here and now! Fewer sudden shut downs, or drying up of the fuel would be better….

by Greg

Evidence

Here’s a little bit of evidence that I have been unable to get to my blog very much this past week or so…

Yesterday, August 26th, went by without me noticing even once that it was the fourth anniversary of my blog’s existence! 🙂 I had been looking ahead to that date all month, planning to say something about it… but… welll….

I didn’t remember.

Sorry, blog! (Can you say sorry to a blog?) 🙂

More to come soon… I’m working on the Buffalo Bills Review right now. Fun show this week! Maybe the most fun ever! 🙂 Even added some “out takes” to the end of this show. 🙂

Fun stuff.

So, happy bloggiversary to GregsHead.net. Four years in the books. Or, on the web. Or something. 🙂

by Greg

Bloggifying

Every once in a while… the blog gets all backed up. I have about 5 or 6 blogs in the queue… at various stages of completion. It’s been a full week of working on various things (like an interview with Brian Moorman for the Buffalo Bills Review tonight) and now working on a video project for some friends. They just got back from a trip to the Dominican Republic. Plus there are a few new jobs I am setting up, as well as still trying to sell our trailer.

Stay tuned… there will be a content explosion sometime soon at GregsHead.net…

Just thought I’d warn you. 😉

by Greg

Various Endeavors

There’s been a bunch of randomness this week. Things are in a “down time”, or a “lull” in the web design world, so I have been taking advantage of that by working on some other projects that I ordinarily would not be able to give time to. Some of those include:

  • Trailer Refurbishment
    We decided to sell our basic trailer, since we have not used it (except as storage for our musical things) since February of 2005!! It is still in decent condition, and should sell for a decent price. I had to replace the thing on the front that raises and lowers it. The handle had snapped off, so the whole thing needed to be replaced. And since I was doing that, I ended up painting the whole front hitch assembly part. And the fiberglass top that had faded. My neighbor has been helping as well, and he helped re-fasten the loose light on the left side. I’m even taking off and cleaning/painting the tires! It’s been a bigger job than I thought it would be… but the trailer is going to look nice very soon!

    If anyone is interested in a 6 x 10 cargo trailer in very good condition, please let me know. I’ll be putting it on CraigsList.com as soon as it’s ready (very soon, once it stops RAINING!) so let me know before that. Just click the e-mail me links (top, and right column).

  • Blog Updates
    As mentioned recently, I have also been updating the right column of this site. Adding links to my various websites and just cleaning things up a bit.
  • Buffalo Bills Review
    The Bills season is upon us! Training camp starts in less than a WEEK! So I have been updating our website (BuffaloBillsReview.com) as well as doing a bunch of other behind the scenes things. We even decided to make some “staff” t-shirts (which I might make available to the general public later). We’ll wear them on visits to training camp, and pre-season games… a little advertising ploy… 😉 I’ll have a link up on the Bills Review site soon with a photo of the shirt, and maybe a link to order some.
  • There’s The Steeple… Here’s The Church Audiobook Podcast
    I have also had time to get a little ahead in the audiobook recording. Been posting chapters/episodes weekly. You can download them at gregshead.net/church or, just go straight to iTunes. This week’s chapter is actually part two of last week’s “A Bigger View of Church”. Includes an article by Wayne Jacobsen titled, “Living in the Relational Church”.
  • Selling Tickets
    One of the updates I made to our Buffalo Bills Review site was to add some “sponsors” down the right side. OK, they’re not really sponsors… but I am an affiliate of some sort for most of them, so when people click on banners those and use their services, we will receive a commission of some sort. Pretty neat!

    Anyhoo, one of them is StubHub.com. It’s a ticket reselling marketplace. So, you have tickets, you can offer them up for sale. You want tickets – to about ANYTHING – you can find them there! We purchased Bills season tickets and have been selling the ones to games we won’t be going to. It actually has worked out to make our tickets to the games we’re going to a bit cheaper! Fantastic! So, most of the ones we have listed are gone, but there are a few left! Head over to my Buffalo Bills Review site and check out StubHub.com! (Our tickets are in section 225, if you want those…) 😉

  • Making Ice Cream!
    I’ve kind of mentioned this already, but man, we’ve made more ice cream this summer than ever! Last night’s vanilla turned out awesome! The strawberry not as much, but it was still pretty good! The consistency is absolutely the hardest thing to master. I’m getting better, but still have much room for improvement. Oh well… guess I have to make more ice cream…. 🙂

The one thing I keep feeling the urge to do but have not taken the time to do yet is to work on our One Man, One Woman book. Several things recently have reminded me of the very cool lessons in trusting God contained in that book (that is not yet written). I think it may be time to flesh it out a bit more. I have more on trusting (or not trusting) God… but that’s for another upcoming post to GregsHead.net. Stay tuned…

Till then… time for some more odd jobs! 🙂

by Greg

GregsHead.net Updates

If you haven’t noticed, I have made a few more slight modifications to the blog lately. After adding the main category tabs at the top of the page, which allow for neat sorting by theme, I have also been cleaning up the sidebar. I added links to all of my various websites (appropriately titled, “Greg’s Websites”) and I also added a link to the podcasted audiobook of my book There’s The Steeple… Here’s The Church. If you haven’t checked that out yet, there’s a good deal of audio up there now. I believe about 4 segments worth (about 30-40 min). More to come on that.

I also cleaned up a few of the links, and added a few more. AND, at the bottom, there are several places you can click through to get fun/valuable services for you (Apple computers & iPods, Amazon, Netflix, web hosting, spam blocking, etc) and those places give me a commission for the sale. Nifty way to support Greg’s Head.

I will continue to tag older articles for better sorting with the tabs above. Who knows, the tabs may change a bit as I do. So stay tuned there.

For now, have a go at that sidebar content. (That was for the late Steve Irwin…) 🙂

by Greg

Lurkers

You know who you are. You are the ones who read this blog regularly. Perhaps even stopping by daily. You know the ins and outs of life in the Campbell home – and even crazier, life in GregsHead. But even though the link below invites you to comment… you never do.

You… are the Lurker.

So tonight, as a CD Release Party for some friends of ours I met a guy who might fit that category. He recognized me from various things our family were wearing. 🙂 Things I have mentioned here on the blog. Turns out he’s a friend of another friend, and has been reading the blog for a while. But I can’t recall (m)any comments from Shane… 😉

So here’s my invitation to anyone out there who has been reading this blog but not had a reason, urge, or any other compulsion to add their two cents (or even just say hello) to GregsHead.net. If you’ve left a comment before, you’re welcome to here as well, but this post is for anyone and everyone who might fit the Lurker bill. This is your chance to come out of the shadows!

🙂

If you still don’t want to comment… that will be just fine. Glad you’re reading along. 🙂

by Greg

Audiobook Update

There's The Steeple... Here's The Church - Audiobook!Installment #2 was just posted over at the There’s The Steeple… Here’s The Church podcast. It is available through iTunes, so that might be the best way to follow along if you’d like. There’s a link to subscribe under “feeds” in the right-hand column on that site.

This week’s chapter (chapter one) is called, “Redefining Church”. I probably won’t advertise too much more on this blog, so hop on over and bookmark, or subscribe, or whatever you need to do if you’re interested. 🙂

by Greg

Approaching One Thousand

Recently I have been monitoring my post count. The dashboard in Blogger tells me how many different posts I have published to my blog. Currently, I stand at 997, and this will be 998. That’s a lot of posts. Quite a fence that would make… 😉

Well I have been thinking about what would be worthy material for post #1000. I just think if numbers mean anything at all (which, I know… they really don’t) then I didn’t want a link to some Steve Jobs quote about the iPhone to be post #1000. 🙂

What could measure up to such a lofty number? I ran many things through my head, and actually got a bunch of nothing. I couldn’t even begin to think what I could write about that would bear that proud tag. Until today.

Today I remembered that I have been telling people now and again that I will someday write the story of how God brought Ian into the world. It’s fantastic, and has God written allll over it. We have retold the story several times over the years, when there was time to do it justice. But I have never gotten it all written out. Chronicled for the ages.

Well post number one thousand will be about Ian Jeffrey Campbell, our first-born son… and how he truly was “God’s gracious gift”.

by Greg

Two Ears, Two Eyes… One Mouth

I realized today that one of the main reasons I don’t post all the articles/thoughts that I want to here at GregsHead.net is because I spend close to twice as much time reading other blogs as I do posting to my own! And not just blogs, as you can see from some of my posts, I have really been enjoying some documentaries/movies about space travel – specifically the trips to the moon in the sixties. And then there are podcasts I enjoy listening to, or watching. And then of course, there is Star Trek! Add in a good book or two, and of course, conversations with my wife, or friends…

You’ve heard it said that God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we could listen twice as much as we talk. Good advice, and I think I really heed that. 🙂 Thing is… I don’t sleep so I take a LOT in… and even HALF of what I take in is still a LOT to give out!!! Ha!!

Going along with that ears/mouth quote, and trying to apply it to my blog, I was going to say God gave us two eyes (to read) and two hands to type (no, that’s equal…) and ten fingers to type (no, that doesn’t work…) and one computer to type on? No…

So it loses something in the translation… but I think you get what I’m saying… 😉