Just a couple quick hits…

• Big Family…
  I realized for the first time tonight that we really are a big family. Oh, there’ve been times where I “knew” that… but when I had to move two tables together tonight at Wendy’s just for our family… I finally understood the bigness of our not-yet-completed family. 🙂
• Kirstie Is Cute…
  See, we have this 2.5 yr old daughter who is just super adorably cute. I think that with most everything she does, but one thing I must share with you (and when I re-read this in a few years, with me…)

  The problem is… I can’t remember it. 🙂 I’ll post another quickie when I finally remember it. 🙂

• Apple Camp with Ian
  Apple Retail stores are holding Apple Camps for kids 8-12 this week and next week all across the nation. Ian will be partaking of two session – this past Wednesday was an iMovie Camp, and next Thursday will be iWeb. He loved it! Scored some free stuff, made a fun movie… was awesome. Can’t wait till next Thursday!
• Alex is musical…
  We definitely know that Alex is musical. The other day, he came around the corner and just says to Jen, “Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” Jen, astonished (and equally puzzled) asked what he meant, and he broke into VBS song from a couple weeks back in Virginia. Funny thing is, Jen liked that song, but couldn’t remember it. Well, weeks later, Alex did, and so we’ve been singing the song (it’s an echo song, so we just follow his lead) over and over for the past couple days now. 🙂

Sorry… no recollection of the specific cute Kirstie story. I promise… it will come back, and I’ll post it here. 🙂

Till then, check out a couple new links:

BWD-Graphics, iWeb Style
WeTheCampbells.net (personal photos and movies site)

I saw this on Chris’ blog. It takes longer than I thought, but is interestingly accurate in many ways…

• I’d let you know that my “church book” shipped on Thursday, and will likely arrive at my house on Monday! The printer said they look awesome, and I’m inclined to agree… 🙂 Even better, I am hopeful that the content will be an encouragement, and a help to people who are tired of organized religion, but don’t know any other way to “do church”.
• I am gaining lots of knowledge from my Apple Sales Training courses. The Apple Business Agent thing is going great, but I haven’t had time to even tell anyone that I can help them with their Apple and computer needs… I think I have told about 6 people.
• It’s almost time for the Buffalo Bills Review!! I need to redesign the site before our first show in early August…
• I’d love to send out a basic e-news… but that will have to wait till after this trip…
• Our yard needs some serious attention. I just want to finish what we started in May…
• Oh! I still need to put up the bookstore… 🙂

That’s some of what I’d do if I had the time…

I was looking at something on my Dashboard, and noticed my weather widget said that we’re going to be in the NINETIES the next four days! Argh! From torrential downpours to sweltering heat waves.

I thought I liked NY weather? 🙂

One more thing on all this flooding… I have been talking about the probably at least 1000 gallons of water in our basement, right? Well, our neighbors get water in their basement pretty much every time it rains. When talking with Amy yesterday she said that the water was up to the BOTTOM STEP. That is several inches obviously, and they have a MUCH larger basement than we do… The job was way too big, especially since she had to take a much bigger ShopVac up the stairs to dump (I was eventually dumping in the old sink that’s in our basement.

Just crazy.

Amy, if you’re reading this, what’s the progress report? Is it starting to go away on its own like ours?

Well, I don’t know if you could actually say dry… but surprisingly, there was no standing water in the basement this morning. When we went to bed last night, tons more water had come in across that lowest about 1/5th of our basement. What could we do? It wasn’t raining… the ground was just completely saturated.

So, I did leave the dehumidifier on, and to my surprise this morning, there were more dry patches across the floor, and no standing water!!

Where does the water go? 🙂

Well, it’s been a fascinating 15 hours or so. We’ll see what the next 24 holds.

Went back down for a couple more hours tonight. Slower pace, but got most of the water cleaned up. 27 more load of 5 gallon buckets so.. 135 gallons. Total 910 gallons. That’s just nuts!

Very little standing water remains. I think there’s a bit more coming in. I’ll get it tomorrow. I left the dehumidifier on… do you think that will help?

🙂

If you live around here, chances are you are wet. Since last night it has been pouring. I mean seriously, super-heavy downpours. Dumpings. Tons and tons of water dropped on our house.

Well, the floodgates finally opened.

At about 3:45, I noticed it was still raining really hard outside, and there was a persistent thought in my head that I should go down and check on the basement, and start vacuuming stuff up with the ShopVac. It was fine the last time I had checked, but I just thought I should go.

When I got down there, just a bit more water had seeped into our one trouble spot in the corner. But, since I was there, I started getting the water out of the carpet. I sucked water out of the rugs for about 12-15 min or so, till the container filled up. I took it out to dump it and it was SUPER DUPER POURING. Like never before. Tons of rain. So, I jumped out in it and dumped the contents of the ShopVac. Jen and the kids had also just come home. So they came to see what was going on.

When I went back down, the floodgates seriously let loose.

All of a sudden from the opposite direction, a massive amount of water (compared to the NONE that was there only moments ago!) start flooding toward me. Before I know it, the container is full again! That started an insane couple hours. From 4:00pm till about 5:05pm, I was emptying one 5-gallon container per MINUTE.

You may be thinking that at 5:05pm, it slowed down and everything stopped. WRONG. From 5:05pm to about 5:50pm, I was emptying 5-gallons about every 45 seconds!!!!!! OH MY GOODNESS!! Add to that all the towels we were putting down, wringing out, and then dropping in the washer for a quick spin cycle. Add to that the mop and other bucket I was doing during the 20 seconds it took to fill the ShopVac.

Add all that, and my back sorta hurts.

From 5:50-6:10pm, it slowed back down to about 5-gallons every 90 seconds, and things have finally slowed a bit. At least the water is all in one place. About 1/5 of our basement is under about 1 inch of water. But it’s not raining, and the puddle is not expanding.

So let’s review the numbers.

3:45-4:00pm — 5 gallons emptied on 1 trip.

4:00-5:05pm — 5 gallons/min = 300 gallons emptied on 60 trips.

5:05-5:50pm — 5 gallons/45 sec = 10/1.5 min = 20/3min = 400 gallons emptied on 80 trips.

5:50-6:10pm — 5 gallons/90 sec = 10/3 min = about 70 gallons emptied on 14 trips.

All together that is 775 gallons emptied on 155 trips to the sink to dump.

My back hurts now.

We’ll have to go down later and finish cleaning up, but we got everything moved, and I’d say 775 more gallons would have made a bit more of a mess. So, altogether, was certainly worth it.

I sure hope it stops raining…

It’s a beautiful thing when a daughter invites her Daddy to join her for a cup of pretend tea in her own little pretend world. I think that has begun in our house now. Kirsten, my two-year-old daughter invited her Daddy to come pretend with her after lunch today. But, perhaps my obsessions were revealed a bit by the pretend world she created and invited me into.

Instead of a cup of tea with her dolls, Kirstie invited Daddy to come join her at her “Pretend Apple Store” for a few games at the kids’ table.

Classic. 🙂

Retail: $14.95
Greg’sHead Price: $12.88

(limited quantity!)

The Life In The Rearview Mirror books arrived yesterday! Yippee!!! The Here’s The Church books should arrive early next week. I’ll have an official Greg’s Head bookstore up online soon after that. I will even be getting some extra copies of A Journey Shared (the book I published last year), so I’ll have the full complement here in stock. (All at reduced prices!) 🙂

So, if you can’t wait till the store is open… you can click the link above and purchase a copy or two today!

Thanks! 🙂