I am so glad that OLN (yes, the Outdoor Life Network) is carrying the NHL playoffs!!! It’s been so great to watch playoff hockey again. But even better than good playoff hockey is your team advancing in the playoffs!!!

The Sabres won their first round series tonight in game six by a 7-1 margin!!! Whoa!! They won 8-2 in game two. They can obviously score, and having seen a couple games now, I can attest to their potential. They look great!!

Looking forward to the next round. They take on the Ottawa Senators, the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference. Should be quite a challenge, but they look up to it!

Go Sabres!!

Read the Full Article:
Sabres Rout Flyers to Win Series in 6

This is too funny! I was laughing out loud every time! Had to share. 🙂

My favorites are “Restarting”, and “WSJ”.

Apple – Get a Mac – Watch The TV Ads

I have been monkeying with a new idea for the layout of GregsHead.net, and thought I had it just fine… however, blogger does something strange once the page is published. It adds code dynamically. This is not bad, except that the preview they give me (above) looks just fine. The live version does not.

Sorry about that. But, it is completely functional, so you can use the links above to go places. I’ll have the book page up soon so y’all can pre-order if you like! More to come on that…

For now, gotta get to some other projects!!! 🙂

We continue to read through Matthew, the boys and I, and this morning’s very short story had a gem I wanted to share. We only read about two paragraphs or so a day. Enough to get a story to talk about together. And today’s was your run-of-the-mill miracle (if there could be such a thing), but there was a short phrase that even our seven-year-old picked up on that must be heard and understood. It is the thing I so often will miss, and the thing that so clearly reveals the heart of our Father.

As Jesus came down the mountain, he was followed by large crowds. Suddenly a man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus. He said, “Lord, you have the power to make me well, if only you wanted to.” Jesus put his hand on the man and said, “I want to! Now you are well.” At once the man’s leprosy disappeared. (Matthew 8:1-3)

The part that I so often miss is that Jesus wants to. I am the man who has a sickness, or a problem, or something I can not handle on my own. I come to Jesus and kneel before him, knowing he is more than capable of handling my problems. He is far greater than anything that could trouble me. But the issue is not knowing his greatness, it’s understanding his willingness.

I’m like the leprous man who says, “If you want to…” So often my lack of faith is not in the power or ability of God. Rather, if I lack faith, it is my lack of faith in his willingness or desire to help me. Who am I to deserve such favor with God? Why would he want to help me?

Jesus’ response is incredible. Simple. And so full of what I am learning is the heart of our Father.

“I want to!”

We will often quote from the first chapter in Ephesians where it talks about God’s plan to redeem us. To give his own life for us, so that through Jesus we would be holy and blameless, without fault in God’s eyes. The plan involved pain, suffering and even death. And yet, before anything was created, God cooked up this scheme and Paul says that it “gave him great pleasure.”

For me, this is key. God does not love us because he has to. (Being Love, he could conceivably love us out of duty, or obligation.) Instead, he loves us because he wants to. How amazing.

I hope you hear Jesus’ words today, and the next time you are speaking with him about something that troubles you. Try not to worry about whether or not it’s important to him, or if he even wants to help you, or listen. I think we already have his answer from this story in Matthew.

His answer is, “I want to!”

Three years ago today God blessed us with a house. We have had two more children since then, a new van, a few new computers, and so many great friends here. Thank you God for three years. May there be many more in this place, or wherever you lead us. Thanks for loving us and letting us love other people like you have loved us.

Just wanted to celebrate with you three years in our Big Yellow House. 🙂

Apr 25, 2003-Apr 25, 2006

If you give, you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, and running over. Whatever measure you use in giving – large or small – it will be used to measure what is given back to you.”

Luke 6:38

I lived those words today. I’d like to tell you the story.

If you’re recall my story from yesterday, I had quite an eventful day that was nothing like I had planned it to be. And, at the end of the day, I spoke with some friends about wanting to help them with their current tight financial situation. They agreed, so this morning I was speaking with them about how much to give. I thought last night that we could probably give a couple hundred dollars, based on what we currently had in our bank account, and that was a pretty cool start. It was not more than ten minutes before I called last night that they had spent over $200 on a part for their water heater that had just died. Very cool.

Well, this morning, I offered several price options, much like an auctioneer… $200? $225? Do I hear $250? Ha! That was funny. But I wasn’t sure what would help, so I just asked. When my friend said $200 will be fine, something told me that wasn’t quite enough. So, before I gave up, I said, “How about $230?” The response to that was, “Why did you say that?” And before I could say much more, my friend revealed that they had two bills due this week, one for $119 and another for $111. $230!! Ha! Awesome!!!

So, we were both amazed, and I was about to go get the checkbook when the phone rang.

Now, this morning, I actually again said to God, out loud, “What do you have for me today, God?” (You’d think I would learn…)

On the phone was our friend Garry, who is a guitar instructor. Garry also has a cool organization called Project Urge, and talked with me recently about re-doing his website. So, while I am continuing an IM chat with our other friends, Garry is asking me if I can teach guitar lessons for him today, and he wants to get started on the web stuff right away. At first I refused the invitation to teach, having never even taken a guitar lesson in my life! I figured I was not the right one for the job, and even IMed a few friends who were online to see if they wanted to do it! 🙂 No takers, and the more we talked, it seemed like this was something from God. So, I sheepishly accepted – all the while maintaining he has the wrong guy for the job.

By the end of the conversation we had tallied up the start up costs for the website and what he wanted to pay me for teaching the lessons. You guessed it. Well, actually maybe you didn’t. Did you guess $230? That was close. But remember what Jesus said above? “Your gift will return to you in full measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, and running over.” I gave $230 – which was the perfect amount for our friends – and in return, God gave me (only minutes later!!!) $349.83!!!!

Whoa!! I still can’t even really believe it.

The cool part is, I was not in any way giving to our friends in order to get some sort of blessing in return. We don’t expect anything from our friends, and I didn’t expect anything from God. I felt like he has given to us of late, and like he wanted us to share. And I was more than glad to, since so many have shared with us along the way. And as I gave, I also received!

Awesome!!!!!

I hope this little story is an encouragement to you. When I talk about having “a little extra right now”, I am not at all suggesting we have truck loads of cash. God has allowed us to pay all of our bills on time as of late, and even have a few hundred dollars in our bank account. Instead of holding on to that which I can not hold on to, I saw the extra money as a blessing God could give to someone else. I know that He who put that several hundred there could replenish that 100 times over. And he has. And he did.

The more you can let go, the more he can do. It’s really true. I have seen it happen so many times. And again today.

Awesome.

This weekend is a distant blur. I know it’s only Monday, but it seems like things we did just yesterday are several days removed. That’s because we packed it in. My sister was over in Buffalo for a wedding, and visiting family, so we also went to visit. And along with the many plans we made with her family, we had a fun evening with some friends from college (and their families), and the typical family gatherings with all of Jen’s family in the Buffalo area.

It was a great weekend! 🙂

On Sunday night, however, three of our four children were bawling at one point – all for different reasons – but also mostly because of sheer exhaustion. Ian, our oldest, was not crying, but he was growing frustrated with all of the crying. He’s a great helper, though! We got back home sometime after 9pm and proceeded to unload and get everyone ready for and into bed! That was top priority!

As we had finally gotten everyone in their proper night time location, I realized that the evening was only beginning for me. Monday was coming, and there were several things I still needed to do. I wanted to edit and post the latest Buffalo Bills Review that we recorded over the weekend, and I needed to pay our bills (ha! bills!) and I also wanted to send out the photos we had taken from the weekend via email to our family. It was quite a night.

I finished everything up and was in bed by 3:00am. I probably fell asleep by 3:30, and it seemed like about 5 minutes later it was time to get up to feed Julia. About 10am I finally got out of bed, still exhausted from the whole weekend, and went in to the bathroom for a shower. I hoped that would wake me up a bit!

As I was showering, I was processing the day. Thoughts of clients’ projects danced through my head. As I was building my list of to-do’s on my imaginary note pad I actually said outloud, “Well, what do you have for me today, God?” No sooner had those words escaped my lips that I let out an audible belly laugh! My next thought was, “I don’t have time for ‘What God has for me today’!!!” Then I laughed again! How silly… not having time for what God wants for me! That’s not mixed up priorities, is it? 🙂

So, I just smiled as I dried off and got dressed. I couldn’t wait to see what that was all about. What might God actually have for me today?

As the day began, I was going through the weekend’s emails and phone messages, beginning to prepare a list for the day, and I innocently began and instant message conversation with a friend who recently purchased an Intel iMac! I just wondered when the computer might come. From that, we ended up chatting for quite a while about some issues that have been bothering her and her husband for a while. From our own experience, perhaps I was able to share some things that were helpful to them where they are at now. That was cool.

After that I returned a phone call I had received over the weekend from some folks looking to get together with us. They have connected with Wayne Jacobsen, whom we have also connected with, and we have similar paths in life at the moment, so they hoped we could get together. I called them back, but only left a message.

As I continued through emails, I received another call from a friend who needed help with his website. I walked through some stuff with him, trying to trouble shoot the issue… we chatted and worked on that project for oh, half an hour or so? After we hung up I spent a little more time trying to resolve the issue for him still. But I was still trying to get through my emails and other administrivia for the day.

Lunch time… I go downstairs to eat with the family. I am surprisingly relaxed, even though my office day did not start till after 10:30am, and so far, I hadn’t really gotten much of anything done that I had expected to get done. Usually, that ruins my day, but I told Jen the story from the shower, and we both smiled at the change in perspective that it had already brought. Instead of worrying that I was not checking things off of my list, I was grateful to think that God was directing the seemingly “off-topic” events for the day.

After lunch I was able to work on one of the projects for the day. I was solving a little financial puzzle regarding billing issues for one of my client’s web hosting. I finally mostly got it, but needed to discuss it over the phone. So, that phone call finally happened, and there went another 30 minutes or so. Not because of the business issues… those went quickly. They have become my friends too, so we talked about the stuff they have been doing lately – with parents moving in with them and such. Busy! Nice to catch up over the phone.

After that, I had a couple quick business calls, but then our friends whom I mentioned before (whom we have not yet met, but called this weekend to see about getting together) called back. Having much in common, and never having connected before, we spoke for most of an hour perhaps? It was great, and I do look forward to getting to know them more, and sharing our respective journeys sometime in the near future. That was a very cool conversation.

By now, it is evident that the day will turn out very differently than I was planning in the shower, but it was making me smile more and more! I finished up my day in the office with another phone call to my friend with the website trouble. He had somehow fixed it, but didn’t know how. So, we chatted about technical stuff for a while, and also about a visit coming up this fall. Again, very cool.

And just before heading downstairs, I got to chat with some other friends who are dealing with some stressful financial issues at the moment. We are currently doing OK, so I kept thinking of the church described in Acts, where no one was in need because everyone shared everything. I felt like we could do the sharing at the moment, due to God’s financial generosity to us at the moment. So, we talked for a while, about money, and stuff, and how un-American it is to accept help from someone else when paying your bills. We have been mostly on the other side for our adult lives, so I completely understood that feeling. But I am glad we will be able to help. It’s nice to be on that side as well.

And in the end, my day was completely and totally different than I would have planned it. I have some work that I would have liked to do today. There may be a time crunch down the road from not getting to it today? Or, maybe not. Maybe if I can really wake up everyday and conciously, out loud say, “Well, what do you have for me today, God?” – maybe things will all fit better in my days? We’ll see.

For today, it still makes me smile to see how God directed my day. 🙂

The other day I was playing around with my new jam pack loops in Apple’s GarageBand software, and I ended up putting a whole song together. The whole process probably took 15-20 minutes! These are all pre-recorded loops that I just layer and copy into the various tracks in my little mixing board. The result is a fun little song. 🙂

Jen called it Julia’s Dance, since when we played it the first time, Julia started dancing to the music! That was pretty cute!

So, here’s the FREE song! 😉 Enjoy!

Julia’s Dance

Well, if you happened to check this page yesterday, you saw that I finally released my cool Amazon search page idea to the world. Amazon.GregsHead.net was a fairly easy to remember address (URL) that would help generate a little extra income for GregsHead publishing, and that was a good thing.

Well, as I was discussing the site with my wife, we thought, “Oooo! What if we just did, GregsAmazon.com,” (sorta like my GregsApples.com site, as well as this one, too I suppose…), “It would be really easy to remember, and even ends in “Amazon.com”.

So, I got the domain name, and set it all up late last night. But then I thought… why aren’t more people doing that…

So I checked the agreement I have with Amazon. 🙂

I am not allowed to use their name in any URL I use. So, GregsAmazon.com is RIGHT OUT!. But, so is Amazon.GregsHead.net. 🙁

SO… those links still work, but you’ll notice that they take you to a new page, which, I would like for you to use as the bookmark instead of those other links.

Search.GregsHead.net.

Same functionality, but it complies with the Amazon Associates agreement. 🙂

OK… now that I am in compliance… please do use the page. And feel free to pass along the more appropriate link. 🙂

search.gregshead.net.

I’ve been kickin’ this idea around for a while, and today finally decided to just make it happen. There had been several instances I had referred people to my Apple website to purchase things that Amazon would then credit me for with a little commission. But that seemed cumbersome, especially since they were not necessarily purchasing Apple products. (Sorta odd to go through an Apple website then…)

So, I came up with this:

http://amazon.gregshead.net

My suggestion, invitation, or even request? is that you would make that your Amazon homepage instead of just going to Amazon.com to do a search. From time to time I will put up products that Amazon sells that we recommend, or that might be the best deal there. But mostly, it’s just a portal. You go and type in the search box what you’re looking for at Amazon, and when you hit return, or click “Start My Search!”, it takes you right to your Amazon search results page. So, no extra step, just a cool first place to visit! 🙂

Whenever you purchase anything at Amazon after starting at amazon.gregshead.net, Amazon will give me a small commission (a percentage) from the total sale. Even if you buy something from another seller, or a used item or something. Pretty neat.

So, if you can do that, you’d be helping to support GregsHead Publishing. The two books are going to cost me around $3000 to print. That’s a good chunk of change. This portal will only generate a little bit of income, but it will still help. And, if you tell all of your friends… perhaps it could generate more! 🙂

So, that’s all for my commercial. Please bookmark that page today if you would. Here’s the link one more time:

amazon.gregshead.net (no “www”)

Thanks! 🙂