Almost Everyday in 2006

Are They Gone?

2006-05-03T10:04:00.000-04:00

"Hey... are they gone yet?"

"Yeah. Looks like it. I think that scheme of yours worked."

"Brilliant! Pretend like I forgot about this page... get people to stop checking it so often, and then I can really talk about the juicy stuff!"

"Good thinking, Boss!"

"I am a genius..."

[Posted from The Phoenix (Coffee House) in Canandaigua, NY.]

Sorry... This is Cheesy...

2006-04-25T22:12:00.000-04:00

I know, I know... but the events of the day are mostly detailed in another cool story, like yesterday.

Please visit my other blog.

More here soon... :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

This Will Explain Today At Least...

2006-04-24T18:36:00.000-04:00

http://www.gregshead.net/2006/04/what-do-you-have-for-me-today-god.html

More to come from the weekend's events! It was GREAT!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE on the PowerBook in Palmyra, NY.]

Two For One!

2006-04-21T12:37:00.000-04:00

Ha!!! Four days, 0 posts. One day, TWO POSTS! Nice.

Just needed to add a URL correction to the previous post. Please change the GregsAmazon.com bookmark that you made (if you did) to search.gregshead.net. I found out that it's a breech of my agreement with Amazon to use their name in any URL I have. :-) Oops!!

Well, it's been corrected, so please visit search.gregshead.net for all your online shopping needs. :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

That Kinda Week...

2006-04-21T10:56:00.000-04:00

I guess you have figured out by now that it's been an interesting week. My prolonged absence here kinda gives that away. Most of it has been due to a bunch of work needing to be done this week (deadlines), but we're always pretty busy just having six people in the house! :-)

But the cool thing today is, I slept in till almost 10:30!!! The kids went to Grandma & Grandpa's house last night! We'll meet up with them there on Saturday morning. We were exhausted last night after they left, and Julia was having a really hard day, so last night I was not really able to enjoy the fullness of this gift from my mother-in-law. But today? Today I am enjoying the fullness!!! :-) I feel rested for the first time in a long time.

I told Jen that lots of businesses have "Casual Fridays", but I think I will implement "Sleep-in Fridays" for my business. ;-)

So today we're enjoying the quiet, and will have a nice evening out (with Julia) :-)

The rest of the week has been full of working on websites. I have several new clients this week. That's great! It's kind of overwhelming, as I have mentioned before, but it's really great. I am grateful to God for the constant influx of new stuff.

We also had a nice visit from some old friends, the Hochbrueckners. They brought us dinner and spent the evening at our house. It's always great to spend time with them. Unfortunately our kids were less than well behaved. But, overall, was a very nice evening.

I continue to import video from VHS to digital format. We're really loving our little Mac Mini home entertainment system! It's nice to have all our video accessible at the touch of a button. I've also been converting VHS to DVD this week for my parents (several home videos and such). That's been fun on several levels, as I have gotten to watch portions of these nostalgic videos while importing or editing. :-) Even made a couple copies for us, too. :-)

OK, you may have noticed that I am in a pretty good mood today (lots of smileys) :-) I need to get on to two big projects today.

OH! One more project I just completed... you can read about it here. Basically, it's a way you can start your shopping at Amazon, and I will be credited a commission for your purchase! Pretty cool, I think. :-)

Last night, while talking with Jen, we figured that GregsAmazon.com was easier to remember, so we'll be moving the site there. In fact, amazon.gregshead.net will redirect you to the new URL right now.

So, that's the past week in a very small nutshell.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

The Weekend Past

2006-04-17T17:30:00.000-04:00

There's just really no chance of me getting to the computer to blog on the weekends. I just have to accept that. :-)

Saturday was pretty busy... lots of errands to run, and then in the evening I began my ProCare training at the apple store. That was fun. :-)

We woke up on Sunday to an easter basket per person and a houseful of chocolate eggs! The kids had fun hunting eggs, and then we had a nice breakfast --- Waffles! We watched the VeggieTales Easter DVD, and then we all sorta napped in the afternoon. (Except the boys, who watched another VeggieTales DVD while Dad slept...) Then we went out and cleaned up the yard in the evening. That was fun. Just dad and the boys. Raking up sticks and leaves... there's a big pile of that stuff out by the road waiting to be taken away now! :-)

Today I had a few meetings with clients, and got some good work done on several projects. Work is certainly busy these days!

I am also having fun converting all our VHS tapes to digital video. (Apple's iPod format, for playback on our Mac Mini home entertainment system.) The past couple days I have been doing VeggieTales tapes for the kids :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

More To The Story

2006-04-14T12:01:00.000-04:00

I figured I have a bit of a breather right now, so I will elaborate on a couple recent stories.

Meeting Jim Kelly
So, we were all excited about the chance to go meet Jim Kelly, until our van died. It was already a busy day, and that just added to it. We were all quite frustrated, and then we did not have a van to get to the mall to see Jim. That was another frustration.

Well, as you know, our neighbors loaned us their vehicle, cause they're awesome like that, and we did get to go.

What you don't know is that while we were waiting in line (which was really very short, by the way!) we were talking with a few folks about Hunters Hope and just the Buffalo Bills in general. It was cool. I gave a Buffalo Bills Review business card to one of the guys helping out there.

All was going well until it was our turn to go talk with Jim, and Kirsten decided she didn't want to go. The boys and Julia and I began moving up to where Jim was, and Jen was trying to convince Kirstie to come with us. For whatever reason, she picked that moment to not comply, and when Jen grabbed hold of her hand to bring her up there, she fell down. This caused great cries of anguish to gush from her tiny mouth. She really didn't hurt herself, she was just already mad, and then the fall sent her over the edge. Now no one can hear anything but a screaming 2-yr-old, and Jim is trying to be nice, talking with the boys, high-fiving them and such. But I'm thinking... oh my. What great timing. :-(

I pick her up, still crying, and go up to say hello to Jim. I was looking forward to that, too. Kirstie was wearing a little Jim Kelly jersey, so we wanted to show it to him, and perhaps have him sign it. But she's still crying. Jim is looking slightly annoyed. He says, "You want me to sign it?" referring to Kirstie's jersey, and I said, "Yeah! That would be great!" At this point, as someone is writing on her back, Kirstie takes a break from her tirade. That was nice.

I took advantage of that to tell Jim about our podcast, and ask if he'd be willing to come on our show sometime. "If I have the time." Was his initial response. I mentioned that it's a podcast, and we've had some other players on there. I said he should go check it out and listen to the interviews, to see what we're asking him to do. I handed him the business card and he said, "I don't even know how to turn a computer on." He did laugh, but it also seemed like, "Please get the crying baby out of here... move along now..."

That was dissapointing. Strange timing for the little Kirstie incident. I came back after the rest of the family was in the Apple Store and talked with the head of Jim's foundation. I felt a lot better about the whole thing after that. And, hopefully we'll get to talk with Jim in the future. We'll see.

Van Trouble
We thought it was the alternator, not charging the battery. It turned out to be the battery. That was nice. A pretty easy and cheap repair. It was nice that Jen managed to get to that auto repair place, too. Pretty lucky... *wink, wink* :-) She had asked God to get her home, or somewhere else, if he had a cooler story in mind. So, perhaps that was it, or perhaps we've made a new friend? Whatever the coolness of it, I'm glad it worked out the way it did. :-)

Today many of my clients are off, so I am getting a bit more work done! I am completely amazed at the sheer volume of new work that has come in this week. I can't wait to see how I can keep up!! :-) I am grateful to God for his provision, and at the same time overwhelmed and amazed. Very cool.

OK... gotta get back to work! We're heading to our friends' house tonight for a DUKE FEST!!! We're going to watch some Dukes of Hazzard, and play the Dukes card game, and probably play with the little matchbox cars we have (The General Lee, Boss Hogg's car, Rosco's car, and Cooter's truck.) Should be a fun night! :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

It's Here

2006-04-12T15:34:00.000-04:00

I waited outside until around 3:00pm, and my wait was finally rewarded with my new iMac G5 2.1Ghz 20" computer!!! Wow!!! It's amazing. It's big, but it's small. It's only 2" thick, but the screen is enormous and beautiful! Just amazing.

So, I spent the ENTIRE day (until 3am... so, 12 hours!) moving the old computer, setting everything up on the network, etc. I installed software, transfered files. Oh! The firewire HD came back yesterday as well. LaCie replaced it for me. That was nice of them. So, I got that up and running, and have everything synced up and ready to back up every day again. That's nice.

I have two copies of every file - sometimes more. Won't lose data again!

Now as for the computer... it's a hum dinger! And, since it came with a monitor.. I am currently employing my somewhat suspect older computer as a video editing studio. My G3 will still be my audio studio. So we're hooked up here!!!

It was fun putting everything together. Then this morning I had a meeting with a client, then went over to some friends' house to help them put together an iPhoto book of their 12 week old son! :-)

--=-=---=--
The blog ended abruptly yesterday, as several things happened
-=-=-=----=-

The afternoon was a bit hectic as our friends were over for lunch, and then Jen took the troops (Well, just the boys, actually) to Salvation Army for their big Wednesday sale. When she tried to start up the van, it didn't. So, after getting a jump from Leah who was with her, she did go a little farther, ending up in stalling out at an auto repair shop! Leah brought her and the boys home from there.

Long, long story short, the place that the van stalled ended up fixing it for us, and I found out today (the 13th) that it was just a dead battery.

That put a damper on our evening though, as the repair was going to cost us money we didn't want to spend, and we were supposed to go up to the mall to meet Jim Kelly! He was there signing autographs.

Well, our awesome neighbors let us borrow their van, and we got to go meet him. It was nice. He signed lots of our stuff. I talked real briefly with him about our bills podcast too. We'll see where that goes.

After the Jim Kelly thing, we hung out at the Apple Store for the rest of the evening. Also got to pick up our photos from Sears. So, it turned out to be a nice night. :-)

Here we are today, and I still feel like I'm just trying to catch up!

More later perhaps...

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Movie Night!

2006-04-11T10:33:00.000-04:00

We went to see our first movie as a family of six last night! Actually, it was Kirstie's first theater movie, also. We don't go to the theater very much... :-)

Monday nights at this theater in Brighton are 50 cent nights! So we all got in for $2.50!!! (They very kindly did not charge us for Julia's ticket.) But, since we spent so little on the tickets, I thought it would be fun to get some popcorn and stuff! Well, the best deal by far is the tub o' corn. It was $5.75. Ouch. And then, you can't have popcorn without a drink (well, I can.. but that's cause I'm weird...) so, I got one large drink for the whole family, $3.25. Ouch again. And, when I was a kid, I always got Milk Duds whenever we went to a movie, so... I figured I'd splurge and get some Milk Duds. $3.25. Ow.

$2.50 for the movie. $12.25 for the snacks. Hmmm. Clever marketing scheme.

But, they do offer a refill of the popcorn tub for only $.25! So, we did take advantage of that, thanks to our super popcorn-eating little boys! We didn't eat very much of the refill... but we brought it home! :-)

We had a lot of fun. Watched Curious George, and the kids all loved it. We'll have to do that again, perhaps without the snacks next time.

Today I await the arrival of my new desktop computer. You'd think I wouldn't be excited, but actually, I have not had a new desktop since Christmas of 2000. That's a long time ago. :-) So I'm excited. In fact, I started writing this from the front porch! I've set up a temporary office out there while I wait for Mr. FedEx. :-) I had to come in to get my power cord (low battery) and some tea (cause I like it).

Time to go back outside! It's a beautiful day!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE (and the front porch) in Palmyra, NY.]

Monday, Monday

2006-04-10T12:16:00.000-04:00

Whoa. It sure is hard to get started on Mondays! Not so much because I'm tired from the weekend or whatever... just that there is so much to do!!!

Let's do a quick weekend recap:

Saturday April 8th:
Saturday's highlight was a visit from Grandma Walker! She came over for a few hours in the afternoon. That was fun. :-) Then in the evening, we went out to see a friend perform at a local coffee house. We hadn't seen him or his family in a while, so it was nice to catch up with them. :-)

Sunday April 9th:
After sleeping in a bit (thanks to some tired chitlins) we got busy! It was a very nice day, so we played outside - a lot! In fact, I got a sunburn!! (I know it was at BEST in the low 50s, but there was still a lot of sun!) Our oldest niece, Karis (20), came over for a visit. She got to tell us that she was accepted at Wheaton College and will be heading there in the fall! Nice! After Karis went home, we actually went out to her house! We did some errands and then stopped by Jen's brother's house for a while! That was very nice, since we very rarely get to see them - even though they only live about 25 minutes away from us.

After we put the kids to bed last night, we watched Pirates Of Silicon Valley, a movie about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and the start of the computer revolution. Interesting. Told kinda like a documentary. We both thought it was really cool.

Funniest line of the movie was when Steve Jobs realized that Bill Gates had stolen their operating system, and branded it as their own, he confronted him in a losing battle. With nothing more to say, Jobs said to Gates as Gates was leaving, "You know we're better than you. Our stuff is better." To which Gates replied, "You don't GET IT! That doesn't matter!!!"

That is just too funny! And very true. Both guys were right. Apple is way better, but that doesn't matter. And Gates has proven that. You don't actually need to have any original thinking or even a decent product. You just have to create demand for your product, and then meet the demand.

Fascinating movie.

And now we get to Monday. It's been a day of answering emails, making lists, and setting up appointments for the week! That's so crazy. It always feels more productive when I can actually get right into design work on Monday mornings, but often that doesn't happen. :-)

There's your weekend recap... more later.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Missing Days

2006-04-07T22:12:00.000-04:00

If I miss a day recently, it's because it was packed FAR TOO FULL of craziness for me to even get a chance to write about it!!! So, here are the past two days.

APRIL 6th
Thursday morning I don't recall anything totally out of the ordinary. The day went pretty OK, until the afternoon. Oh yeah. Jen had something scheduled where she needed to leave some kids with me, and I had some pretty big, intense projects I was working on, so it was not looking that great, but I really wanted to keep as many kids as possible so she could enjoy herself. It was a homeschool clothes trading event. Things she really loves. So, I really wanted her to do it.

So she took Ian (7) and Julia (3 weeks) and I kept a sleeping Kirstie (2) and a computer playing Alex (4). Alex did OK, except that he was in my office, and I got to hear about every shot he made in Gopher Golf, or every accomplishment in any other game he was playing. That was slightly better than when he went downstairs to play on his computer, though. Because then there were just long moments of silence. Alex knows how to get in some pretty good trouble, so silence is not usually good. :-) So, I had to frequently check to make sure all was OK.

About an hour and half before Jen got home, Kirstie woke up. I let her play in her room with Alex for about 30 min, then went to get her. (Remember, I'm working on some intense, and more difficult than usual projects while all of this is going on...) So I got Kirstie out of her crib, and thinking Jen would be home in about 30 minutes said, "Daddy still has to work, you play this computer while Alex plays his." (We have a lot of computers.) She said, "Uh huh..." So all was good. I instructed Alex to make sure Kirstie didn't leave. I was not too excited about his slow head non while his eyes did not part from the Backyard Basketball game, but I had some things I really needed to get done in the office... so I left them.

Not too much later, Kirstie comes ambling up the stairs with her Nuk, and slowly peeked around the corner with a cute little wave saying, "Hi Daddy!" :-) She wanders around a bit before getting into EVERYTHING she should not be getting into in Daddy's office... so I pick her up and take her back downstairs. We do that a few more times before she finally decides to stay down on the second floor with Alex. She kept shutting the door to my office so I could not hear them, so I would go down and open it again.

(Remember, I have some intense, more difficult than usual projects that I am working on...)

Finally, after about 10 minutes of quiet, I notice that there has been 10 minutes of quiet. That's not a good thing with a four and two year old on the loose. So I call downstairs... no answer. I walk downstairs... Alex is playing his computer, Kirstie is I forget where, but not where she should have been.

Needless to say, when Jen got home at five, I was quite relieved.

Unfortunately, I was not done yet, nor did I feel like I was making any progress at all. I ended up emailing the client after another hour trying to make it work and said, "It's not going to work." So, the afternoon had a very incomplete, almost wasted feel to it.

I think Alex and Kirstie had fun, though. :-)

We had a nice breakfast meal for dinner. Pancakes, eggs, meats and all the good stuff. Was nice. I like it when Jen cooks. :-)

APRIL 7th
The day began at 8am, when my alarm was supposed to go off, but I beat it to awakeness. I woke up about one minute before it went off. I had a meeting with a client this morning up at the local coffee house at nine, so I was up to get my shower and get some things in order before taking off.

As I stepped into the shower that had been running for about a minute or so, I noticed that my foot was really not warm at all in the running water. I checked with my hand... definitely not warm. So I turned the faucet all the way to hot. Definitely not warm. Argh. I figured one of the kids had bumped the hot water heater thermostat again. So, I got dressed again and went down to the basement to turn the thermostat back up again.

Have I mentioned how much I don't like early mornings?

When I reached the water heater, I noticed that the thermostat was on the correct setting. That was bad. So, in my still sleepy stupor, I got down on the floor to check the pilot light. Out. Argh. I went upstairs to get some matches, and attempted to re-light the pilot. No luck. I dismantled the front of the water heater a bit more and checked in there... definitely out. So, I got a few more tools, and read the instructions on the side of the tank and tried to get it started. No luck. Three times. No luck. "Bad thermal coupler..." I thought to myself, being the true handyman that I am.

Turns out, I was right... but that's for later in the day.

So, it's now 8:30am, and I still have not showered, nor was I going to it seemed. I left the water tank undone, and made a mental note to return to that mess later in the day. I ate some breakfast on my way back upstairs to get dressed, and then got my laptop and headed out the door at 8:50am.

My client was already at the coffee shop at about 8:53am when I got there. He bought me a chai. That was cool. We chatted about our various endeavors and families and then got to business. He's a very busy guy, so at one point he had to excuse himself to join a conference call meeting on his cell phone! That was funny. So, I just chatted with the coffee house folks. They know me well. (I like coffee houses.)

After our meeting, I headed across the street to pick up the chairs I had dropped off at the furniture store on Monday. They were not able to repair them, but I was going to save the one that had not been broken. Well, it was broken. Argh. No chairs to claim. A piece of Walker family history... lost. That was too bad, but kind of expected. So, I chatted with them about future furniture purchases, and after pondering the staggering figures for a moment, said I'd have to do that at a later date.

As I headed out the door, I thought... "Dude, I could do a webpage for them in exchange for some furniture..." :-) So I went back in and proposed the idea. It was very well received, so we'll see what comes of that.

So at 11am, I already have new business for an old client, a new project for that same old client, and a potential new client. We're doing pretty well today...

I headed to the grocery to get a few things for tonight's dinner with friends. Went in and quickly got what I needed. That all went very well. Nothing spectacular to report there.

Got home and relayed the days happenings up to that point to Jen. Everything seemed to be pretty OK with the family, so I headed upstairs to take care of some more business that I needed to cover that morning. BUT, before I could do that, I had to get TWO packages ready to mail back. TWO things I had purchased recently were not the right things. Not what I wanted at least (my fault...) so I had to package them up to send back. Things to print, people to call... done, and ready to go.

I think I spent actually all day on the phone.

As I was calling people, sending things back... I got the crazy idea that because of the new Boot Camp software for Intel Macs, I should return my iMac G5 that I just ordered last week, and get an Intel iMac, since I now had Adobe Creative Suite 2. Long story, but... I got the iMac G5, even though it's the older computer, because the new Intel based iMacs do not support the older Mac software (OS 9). ALL of my web design software (the Adobe Design Collection) is OS 9 still. SO... I had to get the G5. BUT NOW, since I had the CS2 (OS X) version, I could get an Intel one... AND, I could test pages in Windows with the cool Boot Camp feature - that only works on an Intel Mac.

All of that made sense, so I called Apple and got a return authorization from them for the iMac G5. Too bad, but a good move overall.

Not even a couple hours later, I realized that the software I would use the most on the Intel Mac was the Adobe stuff, which is NOT Universal yet (which means it would run very slowly on the Intel Mac, since it is not written to be used on an Intel processor. Kind of confusing, but you can check out apple.com/rosetta for more on what I am talking about.)

So I call Apple up again and say, "Uh... Hi. I'd like to cancel my SECOND order today and uncancel my first cancel." No can do. Already shipped. So, they issue a RMA. Now there are TWO iMacs heading my way. I spent an hour probably calling several friends whom I knew were thinking of purchasing a Mac to see if they wanted to purchase one of these computers instead of sending it back to the Apple store. No luck. Looks like I'm sending one back.

Too bad. :-)

So in the midst of all this, I'm working on two other clients sites while three new potential jobs came in via a few phone calls today. It was a CRAZY day.

In the middle of all THAT, I was making bread for our dinner tonight!!! I made two loaves of French bread to use in French toast! Oh my!!!!! It was fantastic.

At 5pm or so, I headed downstairs to start prepping to make dinner tonight. We were doing another breakfast meal. This time, custom-to-order omelets and the extra cool french toast! Wow was it good! ALL of it!!! Our friends came over with their baby boy at about 7pm and we had a nice evening talking while taking care of 5 small people. :-) It was nice. We showed off our new toy, the Mac Mini. It was a fun night.

After cleaning up, we got the kids in bed and I came up to write this.

The end. For now.

:-)

More, much more... later.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

4-5-6

2006-04-05T10:45:00.000-04:00

Today is the 5th of April in the year 2006. 4-5-6. Neat.

The Mac Mini continues to be awesome. :-) We had fun playing with it last night, and the kids have enjoyed using it so far as well.

The crazyiest thing about the past 7 days or so? I have purchased two computers. Yes, 2. T-W-O. The Mac Mini which we had been planning for, and now a 20" iMac G5... which we had not been planning for. I was going to upgrade to a G5 tower because of the recent issues with my computer, when I noticed that for about $400 less, I could get the same computer (less processor power, and expandability, but more hard drive space and a 20" flat panel screen!) Seemed like a good deal to me - less money for a computer that should do just fine for several years (and will be a significant improvement over the current one, like, it won't just randomly shut off...

So, I bought it.

So now we have lots of computers in the house. I mean lots.

But each has a purpose. Well, mostly at least.

I played basketball this morning - two weeks after the big ankle sprain. Well, I didn't play - but I did go shoot around. That was nice.

Gotta get some web projects done today. More later...

[Posted from the Living Room on the PowerBook in Palmyra, NY.]

I Always Lose Track When A Computer Shows Up...

2006-04-04T21:50:00.000-04:00

Well it finally got here, and so I have been setting up a new member of the family. NO, we didn't have another baby... we got a new computer. :-)

Our Mac Mini came. Nuff said. Monday night was spent returning the TV we just got for a similarly priced (I mean within a few cents) one that had better connectors for our Mini. We also stopped at the Apple Store and KMart for some cables and connectors. By late Mon night we were in business!

Mostly. Today I spent a good chunk of time getting all the computers in snyc with each other. It's a fun little system. Perhaps I will detail it here sometime.

We watched the Knight Rider (our first Season purchase from iTunes) tonight. The Mac Mini is cool!

I worked on my books some more this afternoon. Got both covers done. Just waiting on the books to be proof read by my proof readers, and then I will submit to the publisher! Well, after I do the final layout! We're getting there...

Time for a snack...

[Posted from Jen's eMac in our Kitchen in Palmyra, NY.]

Weekend Review

2006-04-02T18:29:00.000-04:00

I forget where I left off, so, here's the whole weekend in review.

Friday we had to recover from a CRAZY Thursday. We were out late. Kids were tired. I was tired. And so was my ankle. I think it was Thursday morning that I woke up thinking, "Wow, that feels pretty good..." and then Friday morning when I wondered where the aspirin was. So Friday was a recovery day in many ways.

It was also a very frustrating day with the computer. It looks like I might be replacing my main computer after all. We had mostly decided not to, since we were planning to "upgrade" our van (to the bigger model, for the bigger family). Looks like we might have to do both.

While the strange power issue is happening with the old G4, I am experiencing a frustrating issue with the LaCie hard drive I bought. It just quit working. Right after I transfered a bunch of old files to an archives folder on there (and subsequently deleted them from my other hard drive. Ugh.) So, that's been annoying too since I am now using the PowerBook as an emergency back up, which limits its capacity. I am still hopeful I can salvage some of the data from that external drive. I will be calling LaCie in the morning.

So, yesterday was great also! We woke up to a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Walker! They came and we made and ate a late breakfast! It was a very nice time. I worked on my two books then while they hung out with the family. I completed the rough drafts of both books, so it was a very productive afternoon.

In the evening, we called up our friends the LaBarges and they came over around 9pm or so. They are late night folks!! :-) We hung out for a while and played a new game - LRC? (Left Right Center?) Fun dice and chips game. Quick and brainless. They hung around till 1am (on the new time, we set our clocks ahead just before they left) :-) They're great. :-)

This morning we all slept in till 10:30!!! Even Julia slept until 6:00 I think! So it was a pretty restful night on the night we lost an hour. That was nice.

We went for a walk after our late breakfast and ended up staying out for a couple hours I think! We walked first to the bank to get some cash. Then we went to the candy shop to visit our friends (the owners) the Thomases. We picked up some goodies (for us, as well as a gift or two) and then headed up to the coffee house for a few special treats while we played LRC. CLR? LCR? Whatever. We had a blast.

Afterwards we walked across the street to the furniture store. We need new kitchen table chairs. They are seriously falling apart. They were closed, but there were some people in the office, so we knocked. Turned out to be a guy we knew from Cross Creek (a local church). He let us in to shop if we'd like. That was nice. We found out they can probably fix our chairs, so we're going to go that (cheaper) route first (before buying a new table/chairs.) We'll take the chairs up tomorrow morning.

We spent the rest of the afternoon watching Superman IV, and eating Skyline Chili and just enjoying a nice relaxing day off. Might go outside again before the sun goes down. Nice day today.

Now I am posting a few blog thoughts while the boys play some Nintendo NES games. I'm glad they like those. :-)

More later...

[Posted from the BASEMENT on the PowerBook in Palmyra, NY.]

Computer Trouble Again?!

2006-03-31T22:03:00.000-05:00

You'd think I had a Windows computer or something!! (Just kidding.)

Remember that issue I had a little while ago, where my computer just shut down with no warning? Well, it came back. Yesterday, and then two times again today!!! Last time we attributed it to a possible faulty hard drive. I lost an old drive that had been making some noise. But, apparently (since that drive is gone now) that was not the case. My next best guess now is a problem in the power chain. The power supply, the logic board, or something like that. Whatever it is, it's annoying. BUT, it is VERY VERY COOL that I did not lose anything on the main hard drive in the computer.

So, I have been spending lots of hours rebuilding files and things that I lose when the computer shuts down. That's been my past two days.

That, and:

1) We got the kids photos at Sears Portrait studio last night
2) We went to the Apple store on both ends of that photo shoot :-)
3) Kids did great, so they got a treat. After the Apple store closed, we stopped at Friendly's on the way out for some ice cream. :-)

4) Slept in today (Cause I was up late last night watching Kingdom Of Heaven. Pretty good movie. Just crazy. Lots of killing. Over religious places and fervor. Crazy.)
5) Took Julia to the doctor today. New doctor place. That was fun.

We had a nice dinner, then Jen went to Staples to get ink cartridges. The four kids and I watched an A-Team with some ice cream. :-) Then we went to bed.

More tomorrow...

[Posted from the PowerBook in our bedroom in Palmyra, NY.]

Kids! Lots of Kids!

2006-03-30T10:48:00.000-05:00

Last night I got a call - around 4:15pm or so - from a friend who has three daughters. His youngest was having some trouble with an ear infection or two, and he needed to take her to the hospital. He wondered if we could take his other two daughters for the night, and I said we certainly could.

So, at 5:30 or so, the two girls arrive, having already eaten dinner. (At 5:30, we haven't even really thought about what we'll even be making for dinner...) :-) So now there are 6 kids in our house. Fun! We all got to having a good time, and Mrs. Campbell was going to head outside to play with everyone while I got dinner ready.

As I was about to do that, the phone rang. It was another friend from a couple blocks over who wanted to bring us some clothes for our kids. Very cool. So, she was going to head over with three of her four kids. In the mean time, our next door neighbors came outside, and their two kids joined our 5 who were outside (Julia was sleeping.) So, once the other friends arrived, we had 8 kids and 5 adults in our tiny little back yard! :-)

Fun! :-)

It was a nice night. And, our ear-infected little friend was ok as well. They got her some stronger medicine, and hopefully that will help.

Also yesterday I had some fun with an old Sega NHL Hockey game. You can create players in that game, so for a while I have had myself in the game - my created NHL persona is quite a player, really - and a friend from high school (Kevyn Adams) who really does play in the NHL (currently for the Carolina Hurricanes). (I enhanced his abilities a bit as well.) :-) Well, I got the crazy idea to reassmble the old Sabres teams I remember. So, I made trades to get Pierre Turgeon, Benoit Hogue, Christian Ruutu, Uwe Kruup, Phil Housley and a few other players who all formerly donned the Blue and Gold. Even cooler than that, I created players who had retired by 1996, when that game was made. I created guys like Mike Ramsey, Mike Foligno, Rick Vaive. Cool! So, after the kids went to bed, I had some fun playing with that for a while. :-)

The ankle continues to improve. I took some aspirin before bed last night and I'd say the swelling has significantly gone down. That's good.

I also just finished editing the content for the second book. I plan to write another chapter, and an introduction and some closing remarks. But other than that it's done! We're getting there!

Now I have to get to some other stuff.

More later...

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Apple, Ankle, Another Angle

2006-03-29T15:18:00.000-05:00

Just a quick update for the everydayness of this blog.

I got word yesterday that the Apple store does not need my limited availability. :-) While that was sad in a way, it's also probably really good. I don't have the time for it right now, but I was going to suck it up cause I know I'd love it, and there's a great employee discount! :-)

My ankle is less bruised today, but still BIG. And big means it don't bend just right. And that means it's uncomfortable. And actually, right now it's sorta painful. So I am taking a break to elevate it while I work on my book.

I have mentioned my books. One is complete, and has been proof-read once, and is in the hands of the master proof reader now, our sister-in-law Connie. She is a master grammatician. So, I'm kinda scared to get it back, but it will be very well written once I make her suggested corrections. :-) My other book is going to be slightly more controversial... or not. I can't figure it out. It's essentially presenting the church from another angle. One that we all agree is true, but don't necessarily live out. I feel like people won't really disagree with what I am saying in the books, but will probably say they don't come to the same conclusions. But see... that's the different angle. I think we have a disconnect that we're not even noticing.

You'll have to read my book to know what I'm talking about. :-)

It will be called (Something like) "There's The Steeple... Here's The Church: Selected Thoughts on the Various Manifestations of The Church"

Something like that.

Stay tuned...

[Posted from the PowerBook in my comfy chair in the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Almost Lunch Time

2006-03-28T12:50:00.000-05:00

I forgot how much stuff I do.

It was kinda nice for a little while to think that all I had to do was be a Dad. Now, don't get me wrong... there were times where I thought, "AAAAHHHHH!!!!!", or something to that effect. It can be overwhelming to take care of three tiny people all day long. With no breaks. Definitely. But it was nice to not be all of the things listed in my Newsvine header.

I got through all my emails yesterday. That was really cool. Had about 65 I needed to reply to. (That was already thinned out each night during the two weeks. The 65 were ones that took some time to reply to.) Got that done, and now today I have been making lists in between uploading and moving and renaming files for our Buffalo Bills podcast. There have been issues with the host over there, so I decided to move ALL of the shows to my basicmm.com host. It can handle it much better. So... thats done.

But that's where I'm noticing... the lists I am making continue to be quite spread out. Buffalo Bills Review, various web clients, my books, basic stuff, etc, etc. And don't forget that I applied for ANOTHER job at the Apple Store. Whoopeee! :-) Ha. I guess I just can't sit still, eh?

Well, it's time for lunch now. The afternoon will be filled with actually getting stuff done now! (Not just making lists or answering emails.) :-)

More tomorrow.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

March, In A Nutshell

2006-03-27T11:30:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try and pick this up again. And, in order to do that, I figure a recap is in order.

March 12: We were sent home from the hospital (at our request) on Sunday afternoon, and had a nice day at home with the grandparents. Jen's parents and my parents were there to meet the baby and help out however they could. It was a great first day with Julia at home! But, we were tired at the end of it for sure!
March 13: Our niece Sammy's birthday (she's 14 today, and her cousin Julia is 2 days) :-) It was my first day of being fully responsible for three kids, a recovering wife and a house that really needed some help. Somehow we made it through - even with several errands to run. We even made our regular trip to the library... just, later than we hoped to! :-) Alex got to join the pre-school reading group that night. We were tired at the end of that day.
March 14: Ian had a piano lesson. The days are beginning to blur together. They are all a jumbled mess of kids, meals, laundry, taking meals up to Jen in bed and various and sundry errands. We also had some visits from friends, to see the new baby. I was tired at the end of this day.
March 15: I did not play basketball as I usually do on this Wednesday. I was too tired, and didn't really want to leave Jen alone with all the kids, even if they were all sleeping. So, I didn't go. But the kids and I went up to the gym after we all had breakfast. That was fun. We called Mr. Stupin to wish him a happy birthday, but found out that Mar 15 was the day he picked for JULIA to be born. Her birthday, not his. That was funny. We are also enjoying the new walkie talkies we got for easier communication with Mom. :-) It was a nice day, but I was pretty tired at the end of it.
March 16: My Dad's birthday. On his birthdays he's 25 years older than whatever I am. We called and wished him a happy birthday. Sent him a cool Amazon gift certificate too. We're so "e". :-) I really don't remember anything else about that day. I think we were just trying to survive still. :-) I do know that at the end of the day, I was quite tired.
March 17: St Patty's Day! We all wore green! It was great! Michigan State played their first (and last) tournament game that night. We watched on our neighbor's laptop, since it wasn't on TV, nor were they smart enough to use a CROSS PLATFORM VIDEO FORMAT. (That angered me.) It was also the first day Chill and Grill (our favorite local eatery) opened - so we went up there for lunch. It was Julia's first offcial outing. And, ours as a family of six. I got the one-pound hamburger. With everything. Wondrous. Such a great day. As I recall, though... I was still quite tired at the end of it. See, what I did that entire week was, take care of kids all day, then clean the house and do dishes, laundry, check my work emails, and other stuff I needed to do from about 11pm till 2 or 3 am. That made me tired.
March 18: Saturday. We did mostly the same routine... wake up, read the bible with the boys, get everyone dressed, get breakfast, clean up after breakfast, do some morning activity, a few household chores, get ready for lunch, eat lunch, clean up after lunch, do some quick thing before Kirstie takes a nap, me and the boys do something while Kirstie naps (it might have been a Superman movie - we watched Superman I, II, and III over the past week), get kirstie up, do something fun with everyone, get dinner ready, eat dinner, clean up after dinner, do some fun evening activity (sometimes Jen and Julia would join us at this point), 9pm head upstairs to get ready for bed (which might include bathtime/computer time), I'd get Kirstie dressed for bed, read her a book, then the boys and I would read something together, pray together, then I leave their room at 10pm. After that, I would check email for the day, answer anything I needed to, and then clean up the house before going to bed to do it again the next day! Crazy, eh?
March 19: According to my financial records, we went to Wegmans this day. Out shopping as a family. And since we were out near lunch time... we also ate at McDonalds. As I recall, that was fairly enjoyable. :-) Nothing really spectacular other than that on this day. I do recall that at the end of the day, I was tired. :-)
March 20: A friend of ours offered to take our kids while I got to take Jen out for lunch (along with Julia, of course) and get her out of her mom role for a time. That was nice. Except I was sick. Real bad. (That phrase made me think of Mr T for some reason...) We did have a nice lunch (other than that) at Wegmans Cafe. They have great subs. After lunch we got the kids, and went up to the Apple Store for fun. Kirstie had been asking to go all week. I'M SERIOUS. Every time we would go near our coats or shoes, she'd point outside and excitedly say, "APPLE!!!" She really likes the Apple Store. :-) So we went, and then came home and spent the rest of the day recovering from so much activity! Oh... we did get out to Chill and Grill, too, though. :-) I was VERY tired at the end of this day (I was also sick, so that's probably why I added the "very".)
March 21: Ian had another piano lesson this day. I was recovering from being sick. The two middle kids were sick. Not too bad, but definitely "off their game". I'm not really sure when but, somewhere in these two weeks, Chris and the Stupin girls came over for Skyline and the new VeggieTales video - I think it was this night. We'll just say it was. I went to bed that night not as tired as other nights - but still tired.
March 22: Ouch. I went to play basketball at 8am on this day and... sprained my ankle. Real bad. I pity the fool. It was quite swollen. And painful. So, I went to the hospital with the boys to see if it was broken. Not broken. That was good. But, it still hurt. Since we were in Canandaigua at the hospital, and it was lunch time, we went to Taco Bell to get some food (we don't have one close to us). And since we were there, we went to Aldis to get some groceries (we don't have one close to us.) That was quite a site. Dad with a freshly sprained ankle hobbling through the grocery store, loading up the cart and trying to verbally restrain to small boys. Spent the rest of the day icing it and elevating it. We watched a Superman movie. Actually, I think that's when we watched the first one. I slept for some ... no... most of it. :-) I was tired. OH! Funny part of the day was our friends were to bring us dinner - which was good timing with the ankle injury - but they FORGOT! Ha! :-) They ended up bringing it out (and I think making it!) late that night! It was quite alright... we had lots of other food... but it was definitely a funny story! :-)
March 23: A recovery day. An errand day. A full day. We also bought a new TV. It went in our living room. The TV that was there went up to our bedroom. The TV that was there went down to our basement, where the Nintendo NES and Sega Genesis systems are. That was a lot of stairs and carrying on a bum ankle. Jen thought I was dumb. (Perhaps I was, but it was a fun project.) :-) Our babysitter and friend Kristin Anderson brought us dinner that she cooked. She's 14 I think. Very nice. And... as I recall... I was quite tired at the end of that day.
March 24: My sister and her family came to visit. They have three girls who are 4 years old and younger. Needless to say, it was chaotic. But, we had a great time. Went to our local pizzeria with them - all 11 of us. Quite overwhelming, I am sure. And loud! Argh! :-) They left about 8pm, and I was tired, so we did not go to the hockey game I was hoping to go to with the kids. Instead, I took the three older kids to the local coffee shop - Coffee Creek. Nice place. We got some hot chocolate and chocolate chai and played Pass The Pigs and the Dukes of Hazzard card game. We had a blast. Then we went to sleep. :-)
March 25: Grandma Walker came over to make lots of food, and bring lots of food and she even kept the three older kids so Jen and I could go out shopping for MORE food. Oh my. It was a very nice day though. We watched some basketball and ate chicken pot pie. My ankle also continued to improve. I was also starting to get sad that my days with the kids would soon end. I think I was less tired at the end of this day.
March 26: Jen's brother Andy and family came to visit from Buffalo. They bought us pizza and wings (and a sub for Jen.) We watched some hoops and just chatted. Aunt Connie loves little babies, so she just held the baby. :-) We had a great time again, and when that was done, I recorded a Buffalo Bills Review. So I was up kinda late already - and decided to spend my last day away from the office by watching Pirates Of The Carribean, which I had borrowed weeks ago from a friend, but had not yet seen. Fun movie. But at the end of the day...

I was tired. :-)

So, now you're caught up... and I'll try and do this daily as was my original plan. When I came up with this idea, I wasn't counting on the COMPLETE change of life that the new baby (And me taking time to be Mr Mom) would have on me. It was all quite nice though - so, I'm not complaining. :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Whoa... This Is Quite a Glitch

2006-03-16T02:46:00.000-05:00

Well...

Not sure this can be called the "Everyday" blog anymore, eh?

I might get back to posting here, but can't hardly keep up with one blog these days. I am being Mr. Mom. Check out the main blog for a few more details.

[Posted from the Living Room couch on the PowerBook in Palmyra, NY.]

Julia Gayle

2006-03-11T13:14:00.000-05:00

All that you need to know about today is here.

[Posted from Crosswinds in Canandaigua, NY.]

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are!

2006-03-10T15:52:00.000-05:00

Still no baby. Jen's getting tired of telling people that I think. :-)

We went to the doctor today. A little progress, but not much. Doc says no way she's letting Jen go past next week though (the real due date is 3/17). I'd say we'll go here in the next couple days. But what do I know? :-)

Working on my book still. Actually, after careful thought, it is now TWO books. :-) Two 150-200 page books is better than one 350 page book, according to most experts. (I made that last part up.) So, one book will be much like my last one, A Journey Shared. We'll call that one Life In The Rear-View Mirror. The other book will be focused on the church, and what we have been pondering in that arena over the past year. No title just yet. Some ideas, but nothing solid.

Got to finish a few web things... who knows, might be going to the hospital today? (You can always hope...)

:-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

No Baby Yet (is there any other appropriate title?)

2006-03-09T13:53:00.000-05:00

Really, I think that might be most of what we are thinking about at the moment in the Campbell household. :-)

So, no baby yet, but it's coming soon. I am taking some time today to try and finish my rough draft of the next book, and if I can do that, then the baby can come. Maybe that's what he's been waiting for... :-)

I slept in a bit today, in part due to some advice from my Dad, and in part due to two different dreams that I had last night that just made me question my recent priorities. So, I slept until the rest of the family awoke, and then went to work. It was nice.

We have been following with some interest a few evolution/creation debates at Newsvine, and now the response on a parenting forum to the EzzoTruth.com site that I was able to help get online. I am just fascinated at how people are so eager to squash opposing view points? Crazy. I posted an article to newsvine about that today. Check it out at my newsvine column.

I have to get working on my book!

More later...

[Posted from Coffee Creek in Palmyra, NY.]

Toe Surgery

2006-03-08T08:27:00.000-05:00

Well, I don't know if it qualifies for "surgery" but, yesterday I had a section of my toe nail removed from the big toe on my left foot. About an 1/8" section! I had an ingrown toe nail that had gotten quite irritated and now infected, and I could not reach it, so I found a podiatrist, and he injected me with some numbing stuff and in just about a minute, had removed all of the stuff casusing me toe pain.

He wrapped it up in a bandage, and gave me instructions for toe care over the next week or so (involving lots of soaking in cool water mixed with vinegar) and we were off. (In fact, as I type this to you, my foot is in cool water with vinegar...) :-)

We had a little less than an hour before the next appointment (wtih our dentist) so the boys and I headed over to the gym at Crosswinds to run around and play with the balls real quick. Our friend John Gallagher was there, so he and I chatted while the boys were busy being athletic. (Ian was hitting several of his shots from the free throw line... quite impressive!)

We headed out and got to the dentist at just the right time, and got our teeth cleaned - good as new! And then, as is our custom, we picked up the Velasquez girls (this time Ellie got to come, too) and headed to McDonalds for a Dentist Day lunch. :-) Let me tell you... this started when it was two older kids (Ian and Hannah), but now that it's me versus four kids, including a 3 and 4 year old... that's a different dynamic! :-) But it was fun! We're already looking forward to our date in September. :-)

The rest of the day seems like a blur for some reason. I am still inexplicably tired. Really. I have tried to get some sleep, but I am just worn out by the end of the days these days. (And I don't mean MY end of the days. I mean by 9:00 or 10:00pm!! I usually press on, but I am already tired by then.)

I continue to do analog to digital conversions. I did a couple more movies yesterday, and simultaneously, I have been converting the Preparation For Parenting audio tape series from the Ezzos to a digital format for our iPod on my G3. I told Jen yesterday that I could be regularly employing about 5 computers upstairs. I use two for web and graphic design (one to create, one to test) and one for video conversion, one for audio conversion, and I could probably use a Windows box for checking certain web pages I design (for compatibility with those of you who insist on using Internet Explorer for Windows XP. It is quite flawed, I tell you. Please check out FireFox. You will be much happier. (Even if you didn't know you weren't happy now.)

So, we don't have the money at the moment to get another computer, but I could definitely put it to work if we did. :-)

I think my foot has sufficiently soaked. Time to take a shower and start the day.

[Posted from the PowerBook in our Kitchen in Palmyra, NY.]

Absence

2006-03-07T07:57:00.000-05:00

I think the unprecedented absence from this blog should give you some insight into this season of our life. BUSY. And tired. Normal life continues to go on while Jen slows way down - growing more and more weary of carrying the baby on the inside - and I grow more and more weary from trying to prepare for taking two weeks off when the baby arrives. What I do is cram that two weeks worth of stuff into the week or two prior to the birth of the new baby. So, I end up living twice as many weeks in the short time leading up to the baby's arrival.

Not sure that's a smart thing to do.

But, the family needs me more, so I am doing a good deal more of the house work (though Jen is hangin in there! she just can't do a lot of it anymore!) The kids are a bit restless as Mom is no fun to play with anymore. :-) (Nor is it easy for her to help keep them disciplined during the day, so they do get a bit unruly...) And that's just added on top of my normal work load, and now I have taken on my book project (I am making progress there!)

Like I said... the absence in the blog world is a good indication of the activity in the real world. :-)

So today we're going to get fixed up. First, I have an appointment with a podiatrist to fix my toe. It's a "simple procedure" they assure me, but we'll see about that! Second, the boys and I have another dentist teeth cleaning appointment. We actually look forward to those. The boys love it, and I tolerate it. Then we take the Velasquez girls out for lunch at McDonalds after our appointment! (That's the fun part) :-)

So, I won't get to my office till about 1:30 today! That's not really going to help anything at all....

No baby yet - but we're only 10 days away from the due date, so we're really, REALLY close!! :-) :-)

OK, gotta go wake up the kiddos.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Books and Babies, and Books about Babies

2006-03-05T21:58:00.000-05:00

It's been a crazy long weekend!! I've been pulling some really late nighters working on my book. I am about half-way through the rough draft! That's really good! At this point, I am just checking everything to be sure it's the way I wanted to say it and stuff. I really am enjoying this, it's just hard because I am either giving up sleep, or time with my family - which at this point, Jen really needs, cause she's just focused on getting that baby out.

So I did a bunch of household things today too. Besides the meals today, which is a normal part of my weekends, at least, I also did a few loads of laundry, and much-needed vacuuming of the floor, as well as a few loads of dishes. Our dishwasher is still not quite right. I tried a few more tricks tonight with that. We'll see how it does with the end of the day dishes.

No baby yet. We're still waiting. But I fully expect the baby sometime this week. We'll keep you informed.

I was able to finally publish the EzzoTruth.com website. We had finished the main layout back in July, and I put a link on my main blog to that page, but it has taken this long to make sure the info was correct and that every piece was in place. It's really sad that there is so much really hateful, mean-spirited words thrown around on the internet at the Ezzos. We have really enjoyed their parenting tapes, and they also seem like nice people. I think the saddest thing to me is that a lot of the daggers are thrown by fellow believers. :-( That's just sad. So, hopefully this site that my client put together will be a balancing voice, and a source of a different perspective on the Babywise and Growing Kids God's Way material than is currently available on the internet. Unfortunately, they are going to be blasted by the critics as well, but at least there is a good amount of accurate info on the Ezzos and their material on the site they created. That will be good.

I will do a bit more on the book tonight, but my goal of having the rough draft by the end of the weekend was a bit ambitious I suppose. :-)

And tomorrow morning, it's back to the regular grind. :-)

We'll see how that goes, as it seems like Jen is needing my help more and more these days.

[Posted from Jen's eMac in our Kitchen in Palmyra, NY.]

Slow Down!

2006-03-04T22:01:00.000-05:00

I feel like I should listen to myself sometimes. I know that I am trying to do too much right now. I know that my family needs me more than usual. I know that I really just need to sleep. But, I also know that I am not going to. Last night, my body took over, and I woke up at nearly 5am, still ready to work on my book! Ha! I just fell asleep! That was funny.

I am still working on my book. We are still waiting for the baby. The kids are still waiting to get their mom back. We're still waiting on the baby. Many of my clients are still waiting for me to do more work for them. Jen made dinner tonight (which was great) but in general, I also provide meals and take care of much of the household duties these days. (Have I mentioned we're waiting for a baby?)

So, I'm tired. Worn out. Fried. And yet, weighed down by all the stuff I have to - and want to - do.

I should just go to sleep, but, I won't.

I missed yesterday, so here's a recap of the past two days...

After the doctor's appointment Friday afternoon, I took Jen to her favorite restaurant pretty nearby there. I told her it was her "last meal" (out, at least) before the baby. :-) That was very nice. No kids, just me and Jen. Then we had Carne Mechada (the Venezuelan national dish) for dinner. Another of Jen's faves. (She had a great food day!) :-) We went to the mall in the evening to just walk around and get that baby out. That was nice. Saw some folks there we had not seen in a while. Was fun to meet up with them by chance.

We also went to the Apple store, of course.

Oh, fun story... my two year old daughter knows good stuff when she sees it! We were heading to the Apple store, and as we were approaching the hallway where the store is, Kirstie blurts out, "Ap-pullllllll!!!" Ha! And then she starts putting her hands up in the air and shrugging her shoulders - her sign language for, "Where is it??" He he. We do make many trips there, and apparently, Kirstie likes it! :-)

Today we all slept in a bit, but I worked on some clients' websites as well as putting my book together. I am finished with the first section. Only about six or seven more to go. :-) Actually, it's really coming along, and I will be doing a lot more work on it tonight.

No signs of baby yet, but it's coming soon. I'm sure we'll post something about that here when s/he arrives. :-)

[Posted from the PowerBook on the big couch in our living room in Palmyra, NY.]

No Baby Yet

2006-03-02T22:35:00.000-05:00

Well, both Jen's and my predicted dates for the baby's arrival have come and gone. (Well, technically, since Jen predicted the 2nd and it's only 10:30pm, she still has a chance, but I'm not counting on it.) :-) The baby is still hanging in there, so if you want to put in your guess, the odds are getting better that you'll be right. :-)

Aside from waiting for the baby, I continue to make progress on the book. I actually took a little time to work on that today as well (I have just been doing it from about midnight till 3 or 4am for the most part) so that was cool and different. I'm still on pace to finish the rough draft by the end of this weekend.

We went grocery shopping tonight. It was nice to do that as a family. Kirstie was a bit out of sorts... just ... cranky. But when we got back we put her in bed and the rest of us watched another A-Team. :-) :-) (Thanks, iTunes!!) :-)

Going to make Carne Mechada for tomorrow. The meat simmers overnight. Mmmmmmm.

The days are long these days, but that's a good thing. God continues to provide web work for me. This is certainly where he wants me at the moment. So, I'm just trying to keep up and enjoy the ride. :-)

Lots of smileys today. :-)

Oh, we went over to the Velasquez home last night, and spent the evening with them. That was nice. We also had a nice dinner out at a favorite eating establishment of ours - Leonardo's Pizza! They have the "Beat The Clock" deal where you pay the time you call. From 5 till 8. If you call at 5:09, you pay $5.09 (plus tax and toppings). Good deal! :-) So, the five of us enjoyed a nice meal out, and then a fun evening with the Vs.

All for now... more tomorrow...

[Posted from the PowerBook on our couch in Palmyra, NY.]

Another Day

2006-03-01T11:26:00.000-05:00

My head is spinning. I came down from a day in the office yesterday, and I literally felt like I was spinning.

This is the first opportunity I have gotten (taken?) to write to this blog today. There are about a thousand things I need to/want to do in a day it seems. I know I am certainly feeling a bit more pressure as Jen grows ever larger. I am having to help more with the house and kids - and I really don't mind at all. I love to help, and I want to. But I think it's making me feel all spinny.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. (Aside from the spinning.) Kirstie turned two. We celebrated with presents, a birthday poster, a cool cherry-chocolate cake (it was great!) and a fun night at the community center just running around with lots of balls. (Kirstie liked the yellow one, which she callled, "Blue-eeee") :-)

It was definitely a fun night.

I worked on my book a bit last night. It's coming together. I am probably too optimistically hopeful that I will have a rough draft by the end of this coming weekend. Once I have that, I'll send it to a few folks who can check for errors. Then I'll correct them and send the book off to the publisher! Yippee!!!

I also sent in a resumé and application to Apple yesterday. :-) I'm not really looking for a job. (Read those first two paragraphs again.) But I really keep thinking that it would be so cool to work even just one day a week at the Apple store. :-) There was an opening posted on their site, so I figured... why not. :-) Even as a part-time employee, I get a discount! Whoohooo! :-) They even give me a discount for a select few friends and family! Nice.

So today is a super full day, and I really need to get back to it, but I can't shake this super strong desire to blog out some thoughts today. I think I will do that, and then grab lunch a do a little longer afternoon shift.

Oh yeah... ball with Scott, Steve, and Alex was a blast this morning. We are getting much more competitive these past few outings. We all leave with a little less blood, and the intensity is quite fun, actually. :-) Scott and I won two of three games today. Nice.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Another Bills Monday - and Kirstie Rae's Birthday!

2006-02-28T09:04:00.000-05:00

Due to some scheduling confusion, the Bills Review that we were supposed to tape on Saturday night, ended up being recorded last night between 9:30 and 10:30pm. A fun time was had by all. Except, this was almost back to the regular season schedule for me. That's when I would rise early on Monday to tackle my 9 to 5 job, and then spend a hurried evening of fun with the family until heading back to the office from 9 to 5 again (pm to am, this time). Those were really long days. In fact, it was two days in one. So, when I would get up on Tuesday morning at 9am, It felt like Wednesday!

Today feels like Wednesday.

It's my fault this time though. Our show was a bit shorter, and I was also very efficient this time, so I was actually done with everything by 1am. That's good. But then I had some other things to clean up, and since I was in work mode I finished a few other things, and before I knew it, it was 2am.

Then I was hungry.

So, I went downstairs, and brought the laptop to read or something while I ate. Instead, I ended up watching a free TV show I got from the iTunes Music Store. (They are offering the pilot episode of a new TV show, Conviction, for free... a pretty cool idea that I think will catch on.) So... I went to bed at around 3am.

But, I still wasn't tired. So I laid there. And laid there. Who knows when I finally got to sleep.... but it doesn't feel like it was that long ago. :-)

Yesterday was a typical Monday... got up pretty early to get a jump on the week. All was fairly normal. Got a few new clients. Finishing up some current jobs. Good day. Then I made a nice chicken/pasta dinner - which was strangely a hit, even with the kids. And then we did our Monday night routine - a visit to the library! :-)

We got back just in time to squeeze in the last A-Team episode on the DVD we have, and then you know the rest. (If you forget, just skip back up to the top.)

Today is Kirsten's birthday!!! She's two today. That's one of the projects I stayed up working on. (A nice birthday poster for her - a family tradition.)

Happy Birthday, Kirstie Rae!!! :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Sundays Are Not Computer Days

2006-02-27T10:25:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it's the new job - where every day is spent facing this lovely CRT Monitor? Maybe it's just that I am better at making my day off really a day off? Maybe it's that to go to my office now, it's an intentional trip up at least two flights of stairs?

Whatever it is, it's not very easy for me to get to the computer for even a short blog on Sundays! :-)

Oh well.

I'm still doing a MOSTLY every day in 2006 blog here. And that's good.

Yesterday - though computer free - was excellent, as usual. A nice full day of rest and family time. We slept in again - though the boys were much more ready to get up than Mom and Dad. :-) (That could be because Dad was up till 4am the night before working on his book, I suppose...)

We actually didn't leave the house at all yesterday. We cleaned up a bit, played some games, watched a DOUBLE-HEADER of the A-Team and just hung out together. It was mostly nice. (Sometimes little boys get a bit rambunctious in such a situation near the end of the day, after a few donuts... but, other than that...)

I did stay up late on Saturday working on my book. In fact, I completed the initial selection of material to include. That was good. Now I will organize that, then go through and make changes that need to be made. Then I will proof it. Then I will send it off to a couple people to proof again... It's a fairly long process, but it's worth it. There's a lot of great stuff in this book. Looking forward to making it available to peoples.

We were also supposed to record the Buffalo Bills Review last night - well, really on SATURDAY night - but there were scheduling issues, so we will do that tonight.

Today is looking like a fairly normal Monday, so... need to get back to it!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Not What I Expected

2006-02-25T18:10:00.000-05:00

This is my first chance to sit down and write today! Ha! Crazy. And I don't even have time now.

Yesterday was great. I am really learning to love Fridays. Everyone else seems to relax (as gauged by my incoming phone calls and emails) and I can catch up on stuff I missed through the week. Very cool. Then in the evening, I feel all caught up and relaxed --- usually. This was one of those. That was nice.

As for today... It has been... interesting.

Please visit my regular blog for the story from today. It was... unexpected. :-)

More tomorrow...

[Posted from Jen's Computer in OUR KITCHEN in Palmyra, NY.]

Catching Up, and Jesse James' Birthday

2006-02-24T07:54:00.000-05:00

I posted something here last night, but it was hardly a helpful account of the previous days' events. :-) So, I thought I'd try to catch up this morning.

Wednesday the kids did come home just before noon. Alex very excitedly came all the way up to my office to show me his new hand-held, electronic football game. :-) He's an excitable kind of guy. I love that. :-) Grandma's back was hurting for some reason, so Grandpa unexpectedly came along - which was nice. They helped around the house, played with the kids, and I'm sure Jen loved having her parents here all day. She loves them. :-)

We had a nice dinner together that Mom (Grandma) made, (which was nice!) and after they left I think we played a game together, or maybe just watched the Olympics. I can't recall. It was almost bedtime anyway.. so we did something fun, and then went to BED!

Yesterday was a really hard day for me in the office. I am still trying to learn how to handle customer support. I have mentioned some of my struggles before... no need for detail now. Sometimes it's hard to please everyone. I'm trying to learn a healthy and respectful balance between trying to do that, and keeping my sanity (and guarding my time for other clients). So it was a hard day.

But we had a great evening. We had no plans, so we just kept it a family, stay-at-home night! I made dinner, then we played some video games (Alex had been asking to play his new games with me since he got back home on Wednesday). After that, we finally got another A-Team disc in the mail yesterday (from NetFlix!) and capped a great evening watching one of those - all five (six?) of us on Mom & Dad's bed :-)

It was a fun night.

Another full day today. Starts off with another RunDown over at the BuffaloBillsReview. Gotta go!

OH! But before I do... Today is Jesse James' birthday! He's 18 today! Happy Birthday!!!

(That would be, Jesse James.... Walker... our nephew.) :-)

[Posted from the PowerBook at the KITCHEN TABLE in Palmyra, NY.]

Wow! I forgot!

2006-02-23T21:12:00.000-05:00

Well, what a day!

I forgot all day, I think, to post my daily blog here! It started out early, I was up at 7:11, I believe, and did some toe surgery (I will not go into any further detail) and then tested out my latest VHS-to-DVD ... and ended up watching most of the movie! Remember The Titans is a great movie.

Dude. I have no energy to do this right now. Long crazy day.

I'll try and add some more tomorrow.

[Posted from the PowerBook in our bedroom in Palmyra, NY.]

Wednesdays

2006-02-22T09:29:00.000-05:00

Wednesday is the one day of the week that I always wake up early. There are other days on occasion, when I have extra work to do, or if we are leaving on a trip or something - but I can always count on a good groggy morning on Wednesdays.

And for some reason, I still look forward to them. :-)

I just got back from playing a great game of basketball with Scott and Steve. We were short a few guys today, so we just played a little one-on-one-on-one. That's not my favorite, cause I'm not the best one on two player... :-) but it was still a good workout, and a great time. And for some reason today, I was hitting my shots. That always makes it more fun. :-) Today was quite injurious however. I have a nice laceration on my left hand, and I bent two joints (finger and ankle) the way they are not supposed to bend. As far as I know, that's all the damage I took...

It's after 9:35 now, and I still need to get a shower, and get started on my day. The kids are coming back (with Grandma) today! It's been a nice break, but I am looking forward to seeing them again. (Though I do enjoy the quiet) :-) The quiet will be here one day again. This is the season for life and noise. That's fer sure.

We spent our quiet day yesterday (Jen) working on taxes and (Me) working in the office. I have been copying our old VHS tapes to digital formats on the PowerBook here while working on my other computer. That's been fun. Completed two so far. About 100 to go. :-)

In the evening, we went to visit Paul and Laura, who recently had a baby, then had dinner with Scott and Leah, who less recently had a baby. Was nice to visit with adult friends without our kids. :-) We finished the evening with a quick trip to WalMart - for diapers! Ha! Ironic.

Well, on to today...

[Posted from the PowerBook in our Living Room in Palmyra, NY.]

It's So Quiet...

2006-02-21T09:24:00.000-05:00

The kids are gone. We got home last night, exhausted from a fun evening over in Buffalo, and we just went straight to bed and crashed. And we noticed... it was quiet. Super quiet. Weirdly quiet. But, kinda nicely quiet. :-)

We had a nice dinner at Spilios with the Drakes. We went to high school with Dave, and have kept in touch since, but now they live closer than ever, and that's the first time in the 3 months they've been around that we've been able to hang out at all! 90 miles is still a good distance. It was a great night though. They are in a similar place to us, sorting through all of the things we've ever thought about what "church" looks like, and trying to follow God's lead best we can. It was nice to chat with them about the things we've been learning.

We did watch an episode of Voyager last night, but I think I fell asleep at the end. :-)

Today should be interesting. I have no idea what Jen is going to do! :-) Mostly, she takes care of kids ALL DAY LONG. No kids today. Hope she enjoys it.

Me? It's another full day in the office. Time to get started! :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Birthday Day

2006-02-20T15:35:00.000-05:00

I mentioned on my other blog that today is the birthday of FOUR friends of ours. That's pretty odd, I think. But cool. Two of those friends were even born in the same year! They're like... twins or something.

None of our immediate family here were born today, though. So, we're living a pretty typical Monday. :-)

I am noticing now that I do a Monday-Friday job that Mondays are... nuts! First, I have tons of emails to wade through from the weekend, with either new business or follow ups on old stuff. Then, I get phone call after phone call (with IMs and new emails on top of those) with new business for the week. I can't even get started on anything, cause I'm answering the phone, and call-waiting, and voicemail, just getting the list of what I need to do this week!! Craazy!

But, that's good. I am thankful for the work God continues to send my way. And I am learning to operate in this crazy world.

No wonder nobody likes Mondays! :-)

Tonight we're going over to Buffalo to drop the kids off at Grandma's house for a couple days! Nice! And we'll be going out for dinner with some friends who fairly recently moved back to that area. Looking forward to both of those things.

For now, I must continue working on the big list my clients have given me today!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

The Weekend

2006-02-19T22:24:00.000-05:00

Oh my goodness. Aren't you supposed to feel rested after a weekend???? :-) Not this one. My head is feeling verrrry tired right now. Let's get this weekend chronicled so I can GO TO BED! :-)

I can't actually remember everything we did yesterday, but I am certain it involved lots of laundry. In between making skyline and some bread for a family birthday party, and doing a little work in the office... I also did SIX LOADS of LAUNDRY. Wow. Now tonight I have been sorting and folding all of that. Insane!

The party was great though. It was a nice relaxed evening. And, we had taco dip and skyline! (Two of the world's greatest foods!) We sang happy birthday in four part harmony to the three birthday kids who were there. (Three were absent) We ate cake. And lots of skyline. A wonderful evening.

Oh! And, we stayed up till 11pm (the boys too!) watching another A-Team! Ha! It was great! But because of that, we didn't wake up till around 10am... and Kirstie not till around 11am!!! Wow! We didn't eat breakfast until noon!!! Crazy. But a nice relaxed morning. We played a game of Lego Creator until time to head to a friend's birthday party. She's one. :-) There were about 40 people in that house!!! Nuts! But again, a lot of fun. Nice to spend a little time with lots of people (though I defintely prefer the more intimate settings... say, no more than 20 people...) ;-)

After the birthday party, it was off to the Apple Store for a little fun while Mom tried on some maternity things. She has made a little money on Amazon.com that she wanted to spend on a few articles of clothing. And, me and the boys love the Apple store! :-) (So does Kirstie... "Apple" was one of her first words!)

We went home to some more Skyline, and then laundry folding.

Now, feeling quite weary, I must sleep, so as to do this whole thing over again.

Monday, here I come!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Skyline Birthday Party!

2006-02-18T12:16:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not, this is actually "first thing" this morning. :-) We slept in today (as is our custom on weekend days) and had breakfast around 10 or 10:30... oatmeal! Dad's special blends. I do love to cook for my family. There's just a bit of (self-applied) pressure today as I have a ba-gillion things to do.

But, this is one of them, so here goes.. :-)

Yesterday morning seems like forever ago, but it started off rather early again, and as I mentioned in yesterday's post, I was awoken by THE WIND. Crazy. All day it blew and knocked stuff down. Our house and the trees around it are mostly still standing. So, that's good I guess. :-) I did have to do some recovery missions though. I think I found everything.

The pace of my web work slowed a bit yesterday. That was nice. I was able to catch up on some emails and follow up phone calls. It's funny. When these few big, demanding jobs were complete, it seemed like all I was doing Friday was lining up next week's big demanding jobs! It never ends! :-)

And, admittedly... that's a good thing.

I finished up in the office around six or so, and then came down and spent a little time with the family before making dinner. We had hamburgers and french fries! Alex's comment was, "Whoa, Dad! How did you make THAT?!?!" :-) That was cute. Glad he likes it.

After dinner, Kirstie and I (and later, Ian) took some fudge around to a few friends. I made an ENORMOUS amount yesterday, so we wanted to share. :-) That was fun!

Then, we topped the evening off with a rousing game of Uno Attack and then we watched an episode of the A-Team after Kirstie went to bed. We stay up a bit later on Fridays. :-)

A nice evening. A nice day.

And today, we are having most of the Walker family over to celebrate extended family birthdays. Along with, of course, Kirstie's birthday!!! I'm making Skyline Chili and home made bread, and some other goodies. Will be a nice evening.

More later...

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Windy

2006-02-17T08:12:00.000-05:00

I was actually awoken today by the wind. That doesn't happen every day, ya know. :-) We had some serious wind around here. Just crazy weather in general. It was 60º at midnight, and now it's around 30 degrees, and will be around 10ºF by tonight!!! There's a strong front coming through, causing wind gusts of around 60 mph. So far our house is OK, but I had to go around the yard(s) and pick up some things we had on our deck. :-) I think I got everything.

We'll see how the rest of the morning goes. Supposed to be strong winds till 1pm or so.

We got to hand out with some family we don't get to spend much time with last night. The Andersons came over for dinner and to hang out for a while. Matt & Lorie Anderson adopted Jen's brother Jeff's kids after he died. So they are our adopted family :-) It was nice to hang out with them. We had a big breakfast dinner.

Other than that, it was another long, slighty frustrating (just because of who I am, most likely) day full of work that was mostly done, but never complete. It is nice when we can wrap stuff up and complete it. :-) But I was up at 6am yesterday, and worked till about 4 or so, at which point I just stopped, and tended to my GregsHead.net blog. I needed to do that. For me. It was nice.

I was so tired last night though, that I fell asleep before 11:30 while we were watching our nightly Star Trek Voyager episode. :-) Been a long week.

Well, I get to write a column for the Buffalo Bills Review, and then back to work!

[Posted from the KITCHEN TABLE while eating BREAKFAST in Palmyra, NY.]

Early In The Morning

2006-02-16T07:17:00.000-05:00

"Beeep... Beeeep... BEEEEEEP!"

That's what I woke up to this morning. I really don't like to wake up to alarm clocks. Not just because it's annoying to be jarred from blissful sleep by a tiny electronic (annoying) noise, but also, it's usually just too early! I think God made our bodies to wake up when they're done sleeping, not when our alarm clock says we are.

Starting off early this morning again, this time with no interruptions, and hoping to conquer... I mean... complete a couple of these accounts that seem to hang around, taunting me. :-) I do feel busier than ever - overwhelmed really. I just went to sleep last night almost in a daze. Oh, and I was back in the office from 9:30 till midnight. If I get a chance to, though, I'll tell the good side of this story on my main blog.

It was a nice day yesterday... basketball with four other friends in the morning. That was cool - two on two with a sub is nice for us old guys. Ha! I just remembered, the first guy to leave was the young 19 yr old guy! :-) After that, I worked in the office till time for a baby appointment. That went well. Baby is doing great. It's almost time to meet the little kiddo. Then we came home and I finished up in the office (till about 6), and came down to a nice dinner from Jen. Then I quickly went up to the Baptist church about a block from our house to record some songs for a friend (and one for our niece). :-) That went well, but we started 30 min late... so... I was a bit late getting home.

When I did, the Stupins (well, most of them) were in my house.... it was quite noisy with their kids and ours. :-) We got to hang out with Tracy a bit and then our neighbor, Amy stopped in and hung out for a while. By the time they left, we got the kids a quick snack and it was nearly bed time.

Long, full day.

Time to start this one.

[Posted from Jen's eMac in Palmyra, NY.]

Let's Try This Again...

2006-02-15T09:17:00.000-05:00

Blogger was down this morning, so first of all, it took 35 minutes before I could even get to the page to write the blog, and then it took another 10 minutes for it to tell me it couldn't publish due to a system error. Nice. Well, it's back up, so here was my previous post.

It took 35 minutes this morning for blogger to decide to cooperate. Now I don't really have time to write this post. :-(

I am headed off to play some basketball this morning. We finally have more than just two players, so it's a little more fun. :-)

We had a great day yesterday for V-day. I made little heart cards for everyone to find in the morning, and Jen did the same, except she stuffed hers with goodies :-) We went out for a special dinner at Athenias, a local family diner. Then I bought Jen a dozen donuts (she's been wanting those) for dessert.

We topped off the night with an episode of the A-Team. :-)

Gotta go! Almost time to start!

[Posted from the the PowerBook in our Living Room in Palmyra, NY.]

Happy Valentine's Day :-)

2006-02-14T09:57:00.000-05:00

Oops! It's the first day of trying this, and I almost forgot my own plan! :-)

Monday ended up being a fairly typical day: working on websites from 9 till 6 or so, and then making dinner for the family, heading out to the library and then a bit of shopping we needed to do. But, for some reason, the kids were quite rambunctious and in being so, lost their privelege of Monday library night. (That is a great family tradition, so that was a very sad thing...)

We went on to the Cingular store after picking up some books that we had reserved at the library and exchanged our regular cell phone plan for a new Go Phone plan. Basically, it's just a pay as you go card. You buy 100 minute cards for $25, and they last you 3 months. (Or less, if you use them up, I suppose.) We did get a new number in the process as well. It was a good move I think, even though I had to pay $120 to cancel our one year remaining on the contract!!! (That's two months of service, so, in 2.5 months, I will have saved enough to justify leaving the contract early. That contract thing is a pretty good deal for them cell phone companies...

Lastly, we headed to Wal*Mart to pick up a few things. There were many Valentine's Day shoppers there. We also spotted a few friends as well.

It was a nice relaxing evening, that ended pretty nicely - except for Kirsten confusing her bath for a toilet!!! That was gross, and will cause me to think twice about offering to give Kirstie a bath next time..... But, after that, it was a nice peaceful evening. Jen & I watched a Star Trek Voyager, and then I worked on my book after she went to sleep. I am about half-way through the initial process. It's coming together nicely, and should be a nice read once it is all put together. :-)

OK... time to get back to work!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Weird...

2006-02-13T10:34:00.000-05:00

Somehow, I just noticed that the Feb 4 post is gone. That was the one from our retreat in Montrose, PA. That's ... fascinating. I guess the gremlins got it.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Let's Try Something New

2006-02-13T10:27:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure this will actually work, but since I missed posting yesterday again (that's #2 for 2006) I wondered if I might start some routine by doing this "first thing" in the morning when I get to my computer. (Yes, you're right, the time is now after 10:00am... this is not actually first thing, but, it's close enough.)

Actually, it was not a question of first or last or anything yesterday. I just was only at my computer for about 5 minutes total yesterday. I was up very late Saturday night writing for my main blog site, and doing a few urgent things for a couple of my clients (my choice, not their request) and then Sunday was our family day. The only time I was on the computer, I was paying bills (about 11:00 at night) and then I browsed the Newsvine.com site, and posted an article there again.

If you'd like to check out the Newsvine site, just let me know. I can get you in on the Beta version, or you can just wait till it's open to the public.

Yesterday started off kind of slow... It was a week with not much sleep, so by Sunday, my body was dragging. In fact, I slept in till just after nine this morning! (I did feel a bit better today...) We had a nice breakfast, and then packed up to go do some shopping. We spent an HOUR at the grocery store because everyone and their brother was out yesterday at 1pm. It was nuts. Never seen that store so full. Then, we fought our way through the mall traffic for a fun visit to the Apple store, and it looked like Grand Opening day! We could barely fit in the store there were so many people there!!!

Amusing story from the Apple Store:

I happened to don my black Apple Eastview shirt that morning - not thinking we'd make a trip to the motherland - and it was quite warm in there, so I took off my coat. I was definitely conscious of the fact that with the staff wearing gray shirts that blended into the crowd a bit more, people would think I could answer their questions! While that was true, and in some cases, I think I know even more than some of the employees, I didn't think they would appreciate me offering folks advice. :-) I managed to avoid it most of the time, but once I stood up to go check something out, and instantly a man just started talking to me.

"Do you have a version for kids?" or, something like that? I don't know, it was kind of shocking, just starting right in like that. But my replay memory allowed me to sort of hear the question again, and I answered, "Well," I chuckled, "I don't actually work here..." A surprised, confused look washed over his face. "I know, it looks like I do... I got this shirt at their Grand Opening, sorry about that. But," I continued, "I do know a lot about this stuff..." and I proceeded to explain that Apple just recently offered a new 1GB iPod Nano that was a bit more affordable, and perhaps something he'd like to check out for his kids. And, they also lowered the price on the iPod Shuffle, making that an excellent option as well.

I should get a commission. :-)

He thanked me, and went up to check out the iPods.

That was too funny. :-)

So, we got home about 3:30 and quickly put the groceries away and made lunch for everyone. We ate lunch and then watched an episode of the A-Team as that was about all Mom and Dad could do at that point. :-) Once that was over, we started making dinner, and cleaning up. Our friends the Towners came over for dinner, and we had a great evening together. It's fun to share a meal and talk about life with folks. I think we're in pretty different places in our journey with our Father, but all of us have a longing to know him, and love to talk about what we are learning of and from him, so it was a perfect evening. Good pizza and chocolate cake, too. :-)

OK, I will switch to posting here first thing in the mornings starting tomorrow. Let's see how that goes. :-) I still can't guarantee posts on Sundays... going to have to figure out how to do that one when I'm not at the computer.......

:-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Five-Minute Version

2006-02-11T23:59:00.000-05:00

Ok, it's 11:55, so here is the five-minute version of today.

It's Saturday, so I slept in! We all did. I woke up at around 9:15 or so, and the house was still quiet. So, we just laid there in bed until we heard the first sounds of life. It was nice and relaxing.

Once everyone got up, I got to work on the song sets for tonight's concert, and while I was shuffling papers around, I watched the rest of the movie Cold Mountain, that I had not finished last night. (It's a long one!) It was good, just... a bit much in some areas. See my GregsHead blog for some reaction from the movie.

We watched some Olympics today in the afternoon, then played a rousing game of Lego Creator. A great game. We highly recommend if you have little ones (esp boys) in the house. :-)

At 5:15, Jen & I headed off to our concert. We have sung there before (Calvary Church in Newark, NY) but never when it was NOT Christmas. :-) Nice to do some of our other songs. Nice to not have the kids with us. :-) We spent time with some friends, sang our songs, and packed up to go home by 9:00pm.

We watched a bit more of the Olympics before kids bedtime, then Jen and I just relaxed while watching the Olympics in our room. She's asleep now, and I'm going to work on my book!

There ya have it! The day in under 5 minutes!

See ya tomorrow!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Making Progress and Microwaves

2006-02-10T23:42:00.000-05:00

It's the weekend!!! Will be the second weekend in a row where we are singing! Last weekend was the couples retreat in PA, and tomorrow we're singing for a couples (Valentines Day) dinner concert put on by a church nearby here. It will be fun. Kind of a long night for our babysitter! The program involves us and a drama team, as well as dinner and dessert.

Today's big news... we got our new MICROWAVE! The one we got for our wedding pretty much tuckered out, and it was time to replace it. I saw it come in so I went downstairs and set it up right away, and Jen made lunch in it! :-) Nice!!

(We don't usually make major purchases like this, so that was an exciting part of the day!)

The rest of the day was filled with IM conversations a plenty. With folks from literally all over the world! But inbetween all of that, I did manage to pretty much finish what I needed to this week on one major project I was working on. That was great. Nice to get it all up and working properly. That doesn't always happen. So, it's good when it does!

We spent the evening cleaning up the house after dinner, and reading some library books, and we even put together a puzzle of the US. It's a cartoon sorta map - and it's so big you have to put it together on the floor. It was fun! And then we told stories we remembered from each one of the states. (We've been in 43 for sure, not certain on a few of them, but, 43 makes for plenty of stories!) :-)

Oh, I also posted another RunDown at the Buffalo Bills site. That was one of my IM conversations today. A friend from a past life IMed today (not really past, that was just funny to say) and told me he was looking for Bills shows on iTunes, and found the highest rated one... and it was ours! Small world moment there. :-)

Hope to get more work done on the book tomorrow, before the concert that is. Friends are coming over Sunday evening. The Towners. It's always fun hanging out with them.

For now, I have 5 minutes till tomorrow, so I better get this published....

[Posted from the living room couch on the PowerBook in Palmyra, NY.]

Today Has Come and Gone

2006-02-09T23:50:00.000-05:00

Thursday, February 9th, 2006 has come and gone. It began early today (again) as I got up and finished a personal project I was working on. I made a nice little booklet (with help from my friends at Copy Central) for Jen - and for me to cook stuff for Jen) :-) I got up early, and sorted all the stuff to bring up to the copy shop for binding and laminating, and was back by about 9:40 or so. It was a nice day for a walk.

Got some good work done today. Jen made some great potato soup. She's definitely pregnant, cause she's doing some really weird stuff lately... like... cooking. :-) It was great! I enjoyed it immensely.

I made good progress on one website I have been working on. That was encouraging. Tomorrow will be a few more challenges. But I'm up to it.

Today is our nephew Dylan's birthday, so we called him and sang Happy Birthday. We also enjoyed some birthday cake in his honor. (He lives about an hour and a half away!) :-)

We watched an episode of the A-Team to close out our evening. :-) It's fun to watch old TV with my boys.

Had an interesting discussion with Ian. He has been a little scared lately about robbers breaking into our house, and other scary things. He has a very gentle spirit. I understood his fear, but we talked about how it can be silly to be afraid. We spend all our time worrying about what we're afraid of, and we don't really get to live life. God loves us, and he's in charge. I can't promise bad stuff won't happen, but I told Ian that God promises he'll be with us.

Those are cool moments.

Well, 10 minutes before February 10th. Time to call it a night.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Cheating... Sort Of

2006-02-08T22:57:00.000-05:00

Well, it took me all day, but I finally got it mostly done. :-)

Today was spent moving files, setting things up and not much else.

So, I'm going to kind of cheat and put a link here to what I wrote on the Greg's Head blog.

Click Here

That should give you an idea of what today entailed.

[Posted from the PowerBook while watching Star Trek Voyager in our bedroom in Palmyra, NY.]

Another Day, Another Hard Drive

2006-02-07T17:18:00.000-05:00

Well the big news today is that my new 500GB hard drive arrived. It's the LaCie Big Drive. Or something like that. 500GB, and almost portable. Pretty cool. Now I will have all of my files backed up. I was using this PowerBook to do that, sort of. Just manually. And, it only has an 80GB drive, so I couldn't back them all up.

Of course, this all comes after I lost my other 40GB of back up files. :-(

Oh well. We move on. Glad to have this new device.

It was funny... I saw that it required a signature (I thought) and, since I can't hear the front door very well, I was watching out the window if ever I thought I heard a truck. I never did. Finally, at around 3:30, I just checked out the front door, and it was sitting on my porch! Ha! Oh well, again. :-)

All of the files are currently being transfered. I am hoping the drive is not lost. All appears to be working, but I will do a complete wipe of the drive and reinstall everything.

As for the rest of stuff, I was an Apple support tech today. Several calls, IMs from friends who know I can help with that. :-) I love to, but sometimes I realize later that perhaps I need to make sure I do the other things I need to do as well :-) :-)

Looking forward to a nice evening with the family. Perhaps a shopping trip or two.

The evening is wide open! :-)

[Posted from the comfy chair in my HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

I Sure Can Pack A Lot Into One Day

2006-02-06T23:59:00.000-05:00

It was about five minutes till midnight last night when I remembered my Everyday blog again. I had thought of it several times through the day, but whatever I happened to be doing seemed more important than taking a break to write about what I was doing. :-) I knew I would get to it eventually.

Well, the day began at 8am, (early for me...) and proceeded through a huge maelstrom of e-mail. I finished going through and responding to all of that by the 11 o'clock hour somewhere. Then it was time to start in on the several open projects for the day. Some urgent, like some clean-up work from a couple hosting transfers. Those are never quite immaculate.

I came downstairs for a quick lunch, and catching up with Jen and the kids. Ian gave me a cool bracelet he made, which I wore the rest of the afternoon in the office. :-) And I completed a couple projects that were still open from the morning and before. Completing is nice. It's always nice to cross things off the list!

Jen made dinner last night! Like, not from a box, or from left overs! That's big news! And it was great! That was very cool and helpful, and awesome. We enjoyed a nice meal together, and then bundled up for our weekly Monday night trip to the library! It was in the 20s, so Jen and Kirstie went in the van, and the boys and I set out on foot on an arctic expedition, complete with perils such as the giant snow monster, wolves, and several bear traps along the way! (It was fun!) :-)

When we got back home, we aborted an attempt at watching an A-Team episode in favor of a game of Uno Attack! (A new favorite of the whole family!) We played a rousing game of that, which Ian won? Or Alex... I forget. But one of the boys did, and then everyone headed upstairs to get ready for bed.

Then I cleaned up, including our crazy turtle's tank!! It was disgusting! The water was very low (evaporation) and full of nasty green stuff! So, I did that, replaced his light bulb, and cleaned up the rest of the kitchen and gathered the trash to take out, took the trash out and emptied/loaded the dishwasher. Jen came back down as I was finishing, and I made her some french fries. (You know, where you slice up a potato and deep fry it. Not, grabbed a bag from the freezer and baked them!!) We sat and enjoyed those together, and just talked. It was nice.

We finally got upstairs around 11pm, which is when Alex woke up crying, needing to go to the bathroom. He made it, and all was well. About quarter after, we were watching an episode of Star Trek Voyager. That went all the way to 11:55pm.

That's when I said, I'll post this tomorrow. :-)

So, though the date says Feb 6, and that is when all of this happened... I did actually post this while eating breakfast at around 8:30am on Feb 7. :-)

[Posted from the Kitchen Table in Palmyra, NY.]

Super Bowl Sunday

2006-02-05T22:20:00.000-05:00

Oh my.

You know, I was actually looking forward to this game today. I had high hopes that this game would be a battle to the finish. Either team could win it. There would be good plays, and a few scores on both sides.

Boy was I wrong!

The game has just ended, and though Seattle had a "chance" at the end, there was no contest. It was one of the least exciting Super Bowls I have watched in a while. Poor play calling and clock management cost the Hawks, yes, but I think those were some of the worst calls by an officiating crew I have ever seen in the Super Bowl. Awful.

Well, congrats to Pittsburgh, and the Bus. I like Bettis. He's a good guy. Glad to see him win. And Cowher. And, the 6th seed winning the Super Bowl... that's pretty cool.

So, aside from the big game, we had a nice evening with the kids. Finished up our retreat this morning, and then had an AWESOME lunch (the food at this place was FANTASTIC!) and got home in time to order a pizza and wings and get the house ready for the kids and Grandma & Grandpa! They stayed to watch most of the first half, and then headed home. We were very grateful for their gift of a free, kidless weekend!!

Which brings up my last point.

How can my kids, whom I missed on so many occasions this weekend, and when I heard their voices across the street from our house tonight, made me jump up from my desk and run down to greet them - those same kids - how can they aggravate me so much? Their childish mistakes or demeanor. It's really insignificant in the scope of life, but it was so frustrating me tonight. Perhaps I was just tired. Tomorrow is another day.

Indeed.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE (YES!) in Palmyra, NY.]

Just In Case...

2006-02-03T12:56:00.000-05:00

We knew a family during my junior high and high school years whose last name was Case. I always thought it would be funny if they named a kid Justin. You know... like, Justin Case. Just - in - case. HA!!!

Dude. I'm funny.

So, we're on out way out the door for a weekend retreat in Montrose, PA. Just me and Jen. (And that baby she insists on carrying around...) We're the music for a couples retreat. Should be a nice time of relaxing, as well as fun to do our music together again. We don't do that much anymore.

I got up a 8am today (earlier than usual) and got myself and three kids ready and headed out to Buffalo by 9am! That was crazy. Everyone had their little bag of cereal, complete with their names written on it, and we watched fun movies on the laptop (plugged into the built-in viewer in the van) --- all the way to aunt Connie's house in Buffalo area! Fun!

But, I noticed as I was heading back here to Palmyra... I miss them already. :-( It will be a nice break to be just me and Jen for a weekend, but I do love my kids. I wanted to go back and get them. Grandma is glad I did not get them, though. :-) She loves them too.

OK... if we're lucky, I'll post something tomorrow here. If not, well, I'll survive. But, here's hoping there's internet at our weekend destination.

[Posted from the Kitchen Table in Palmyra, NY.]

The End Of The Week

2006-02-02T23:46:00.000-05:00

I have to stop these 4-day weeks. They're driving me crazy! :-)

And this one wasn't even four days. Wednesday was a very crazy day! Not much time in the office for me. But, all is well. It has been a good week, and I have been able to make some progress on several clients' accounts as well as some work on my book. I found a cool new publisher that I might just use this next time.

More on that later.

For now, I need to keep this brief cause we're leaving tomorrow for a trip to PA. We're singing for a couples' retreat this weekend. The kids are going to Grandma's house, so it will be a bit of a vacation for us too! At least for Jen. She's getting tired these days.

Lots of stress these days in the lives of some friends. I wish I could help more sometimes, but I know ultimately I can't help anyway. Only God brings peace. I am praying peace for all of them.

We'll try and post if we can this weekend. But I can't promise anything. :-) Who knows what the internet situation is at Montrose Bible Conference.

[Posted from the PowerBook in my bedroom in Palmyra, NY.]

Happy February

2006-02-01T17:52:00.000-05:00

It's now the second month of 2006. A lot happened in the first month. And, even better... there was a lot not happening!

(We're enjoying a much free-er schedule these days.)

For a funny story from last night, visit my other blog. We had a little confusion when trying to watch the president's speech online. :-) But after that was taken care of, we actually got to bed before 1 last night! Pretty amazing!

I went to bed early because I play basketball with friends on Wednesdays. It's great! Good excersize, and I enjoy playing basketball, and even better, it's before any of my family is awake. :-) They don't even know I'm gone. That's funny.

So, after b-ball, then a shower, then less than an hour of work, we headed out to a doctor's appointment for Jen and baby. All is great. Baby is doing quite well, and we're just about 34 weeks along. Very cool. We're looking forward to meeting Junior.

We stopped for a quick visit with some friends (who kept our boys during the dr visit) and got home for lunch around 1:00 or so. Whoa... the day was flying by and I felt like I hadn't even started!

I headed upstairs and tried to get some things done, but felt very unproductive today due to the crazy interruptions, and to several projects I kept trying to do requiring outside input before I could continue! Argh! So... I have made it through, but just not as I planned. I guess we'll tackle those other things tomorrow...

We're free tonight. Going to do haircuts. (For all the boys.) And we'll see what else Jen might have planned.

I hope the Dukes of Hazzard fits in there somewhere.... :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Today's Highlights

2006-01-31T22:16:00.000-05:00

I have been writing TOO MUCH today!

Spent the morning working on book options and the rest of the day was spent on an audio project for a local piano teacher friend.

At lunch time, we called my Grandma Campbell and wished her a happy birthday! She's 18 today she said. :-) (She's dyslexic, I thikn...) :-)

I have really been getting into the new news site I found, Newsvine.com. It's not open to the public yet, but if you are into internet news, and interactive at that... shoot me an email and I'll send you an invite. I can invite up to 20 people and so far I have invited five, I believe. :-)

After a quick dinner (SKYLINE!) we headed out for a walk to the library. But by the time I rounded up all the kids, it was almost time for the library to close, so we just headed up to the local coffee house! :-) I had brought along a Campbell favorite, "Pass the Pigs" to play with the kids when we got there. We finished up our evening by a visit to the grocery store, and then headed home for the regular bedtime routines.

Stop by my other blog for some more details from today and yesterday.

That's all for tonight! :-)

[Posted from our bedroom on the PowerBook in Palmyra, NY.]

My Computer Had A Heart Attack

2006-01-30T23:39:00.000-05:00

Well, I am not certain what caused it, or even if I am out of danger from any future occurrences, but tonight, my computer had a life-threatening heart attack.

My main office computer. The one with all of my files - and perhaps more importantly - all of my customers' files. I was in the middle of several tasks (importing a CD, editing a playlist, getting mail, downloading podcasts, and several other ongoing background tasks with my 15-20 open applications) when all of a sudden - click - it was gone. The whole thing just shut off. I figured some cable had come loose, and was slightly apprehensive at the condition of my computer, but I have never had a problem with sudden shut-downs before.

Then again, I have never had a sudden shut-down with so much going on.

So, I hurried around to the other side of my desk, ready to perform computer CPR. I checked the cables, and all were connected. I checked the power strip, and it was still on. In fact, the other devices attached to it were still on and functioning. Now I began to wonder if my computer (we'll call him "MacDaddy" from now on) was OK!

I unplugged the cord and reset the power strip. After inserting the plug again, I tried to turn it on. NO GO. Nothing. So, I thought, "OK... the strip has gone bad...", ignoring the fact that everything else on the strip was still completely operational. I moved MacDaddy's power supply cable to another outlet (on the same breaker) and tried again. Nothing. Ahh!! This was not looking good!!

For a moment I stared at all of the various cables and outlets and all, just wondering what in the world had just happened. No warning signs. No alerts. Just... gone. Finally, I just started taking all of the cables out of the back of MacDaddy and like a skilled medic carefully began moving him to another location in the house to attempt to revive him.

I carried him down two flights of stairs to a surprised wife and kids. "What are you doing?" asked my puzzled wife. "My computer had a heart attack!" I explained. I think she understood. She's good like that. She knows MacDaddy is more than just a computer... he's a friend of mine.

I plugged the cord into the outlet, then into MacDaddy, and crossing my fingers, I pressed the power button.

Nothing.

A deep sadness fell over me. But, this was no time for mourning. It was getting late and we needed to act quickly to save my friend in distress.

I leapt up and dialed Apple 911. (That would be the local Apple Genius Bar.) After punching digits through the phone tree, I got to a real person, and probably with a bit of urgency in my voice, explained, "I think my computer had a heart attack." The cool part was, the guy completely understood me. :-) He proceeded to tell me that the Genius on duty was super busy, and I should try back tomorrow.

But I did not give up.

"That's not going to be good enough. I need to use this computer and the files on it tomorrow morning. Can I just come in and wait till he's available?"

"You could make an appointment," he realized, "Just go to the website and schedule one for tonight if you can."

Awesome. So, I did. And I got the next one, only 40 minutes from then.

The family was ready to go, as our typical Monday routine is a great family night at the local library. We look forward to that weekly ritual. However, you can't plan for life's sudden tragedies, so my understanding family piled in the van, ready for a speedy trip to the Apple Store.

(We did stop by the library to return books, and get three pre-selected books for our oldest, book-reading son. He loves books. Almost as much as I love my computers, I think.)

As we were speeding down the road to the Apple store, I posited, "If a policeman pulled me over, do you think he'd believe that I was rushing my sick computer to the Apple Store?" She laughed. I think she finds me a little strange, even after living in the same house with me for over 8 years.

After a pretty uneventful trip, we arrived at the mall just a minute before MacDaddy's scheduled appointment. The boys and I jumped out of the van, and made a race of it. (Little boys like to race.) We hurried through the sneaky Eckerd entrance, and found our way to the Apple store. We headed straight for the genius bar, and quickly placed MacDaddy up on the surgery table.

I spotted my name up on the queue. "Hi. I'm Greg C." I said, pointing to my name displayed on the giant flat-screen monitors behind the Genius bar.

"Hi, Greg. I'll get the Genius right out here."

Thanks. I was like a worried parent. Wishing no one else was around, so that the Genius could focus only on my hurting computer. MacDaddy needs your help!

Soon enough, the Genius arrives, and begins diagnosing the problem as he listens to my account of the previous hour's events. The funny part of the night was, when he plugged it in, and hit the power button, it started right up. :-) He said that happens. When they are given a rest, it can reset and just power up again.

The bad part of the night came next.

For the next hour and a half, he tried in vain to restore the hard drive. One of two was completely lost (thankfully that was the drive I used to archive old files, none of the important ones were on there) and the other drive - the main start up disk - was critically injured. Numerous repair attempts by the Apple disk first aid program could not repair the Catalog B Tree something or other.

"Is that bad?" I asked.

"Yes." He appeared to be a man of few words.

He sent me on my way (since they were closing) with a few programs to try (that I happened to have) to repair and restore the messed up drive. The prognosis for the other drive was far more grim. "It's dead." Not words you want to hear from a Genius, thats for sure. And, though in shock, I left with most of my composure, hopeful that I could still resuscitate my old friend when we returned home.

It was a silent trip home. I was thinking about all the things I could try to get MacDaddy back to his old self again. When we arrived home, I went straight upstairs and plugged him in and loaded the DiskWarrior CD in the drive, ready to make the repairs. I knew it was going to work. Genius said it should!

As the computer booted up from the CD, I was only confident. I knew after a few short hours, MacDaddy would be good as new. A couple clicks and I was in the DiskWarrior program. There was the start up drive. Ready to be repaired. I clicked on repair, and it went through the initial procedures.

Then, a big nasty window with big bold font came up.

"This disk is toast." (That is a paraphrase, but, basically, that's what it said.)

I was not about to give up. I tried again. Same thing. And again. Same thing.

I WAS NOT going to lose this computer!

I had a hunch.

I went into the start up disk and attempted to boot my system in the older OS 9 software. MacDaddy is cool like that. He's Dual-Boot. So, I set him up to restart in OS 9, and hoped for the best.

When it shut down, I heard the wonderful Mac start up sound, and was greatly encouraged. This might just work, I told myself. Everything went according to plan, the system booted up in OS 9. I checked for a few of the files I knew were "in progress" when the heart attack first occurred. They were there. So, it looked as if the data was still all there. The problem was that pesky "B Tree".

I ran disk first aid again, and got the same results as at the Apple store. No results. I was definitely encouraged to find all of my data there, though.

So, I took a risk, and started it up in OS X. My regular operating system.

Shut down. Mac startup sound. Happy Apple in the middle of the screen. All was well. But, the process was taking much longer than normal. That didn't bother me yet, though. I had some trouble with that 40GB drive before. And sure enough, there was the circle with the line through it, meaning the drive was dead. Flat lined. Kaput.

No problem. The whirr of the other drive was promising. And, within a few minutes, I was looking at my familiar surroundings again! I had revived MacDaddy!!! I poked around, checking files and directories... all data seemed to be there.

But we're not out of the woods yet. Isn't it usually the second heart attack that kills you?

A Mac computer friend from Australia was online, so I asked him a few questions. Wanted to get a second opinion.

He confirmed what I was thinking. The drive was in critical condition, and I need to get all of the data on to another drive ASAP. We went through several options, and I asked many questions, but in the back of my head, I knew I was going to have to finally pull the trigger on something I've been needing to do for a while. My Aussie friend agreed it was a good idea. So...

I bought an external hard drive.

It will be here within seven days. At that point, assuming MacDaddy is still operational, I will transfer the contents of the 160GB drive to the new 500GB drive, and reinitialize the current hard drive, then do a transplant and the drive should be good as new. AND, I'll have everything backed up to the new firewire drive.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Let's hope MacDaddy can last that long on this failing hard drive!

So, that was my Monday night adventure. The rest of the day pales in comparison. Perhaps I will chronicle those events tomorrow. For now, I must work on a project that will free up space on this PowerBook, so that I can copy important client files to this hard drive, just in case!

I'll keep you posted on MacDaddy's status. Thanks for your concern.

[Posted from the the healthy PowerBook in Palmyra, NY.]

Sunday

2006-01-29T23:38:00.000-05:00

It's late, and I am tired after another great day off! But wanted to get the days events down here so I can remember it later. Perhaps. :-)

When we got up this morning, I decided to do something a little more fun for breakfast. I couldn't decide what to make, so I set up our kitchen like a little restaurant (complete with a menu and all!) We ended up picking French Toast, sausages and some cinnamon roll oatmeal for Ian. It was a lot of fun, and good food too! :-)

The rest of the morning, Jen and I worked on getting our taxes together for this year. We were also getting ready for a visit from Grandma and Grandpa (Jen's parents). They came over around 4pm or so, and we played some games and had Skyline Chili together! Grandma made a cake (Jen had been craving one of her mom's cake for a while!)

It was a nice full day! I might add more tomorrow, but for now... gotta go!

[Posted from the PowerBook in our bedroom in Palmyra, NY.]

Trying To Pretend It's January

2006-01-28T15:12:00.000-05:00

I am sitting in Coffee Creek again, working on my book for a few hours. I have a nice big cup of Raspberry Chai Latte. I even still have a sweatshirt on. But, the open windows and wide open door - not to mention the blinding sunlight - make it pretty hard to deny it's been a very strange January. :-)

Currently, the temperature in Palmyra, NY is 48ºF, with a high of 52ºF expected. That's nuts.

Today we were awoken by several telephone calls, and then the rather insistent pounding on our front door. It was slightly jarring as we were all sleeping, but I remembered that I still had my friend's laptop that we were supposed to get back to him yesterday! So, I got up and gave that to him. It was just after 9am, so I just figured I should stay up.

(Now, before you give me a big, HMMMPH! please remember that I did not hit the hay till after 3am. :-)

I read a bit through my Galatians writings. That was actually really cool. It was still quiet in the house, since everyone else was sleeping, and the content was pretty amazing as well. I don't mean my thoughts. I mean, Galatians 1-3 has some really incredible stuff in it!

After we ate breakfast, we went to pick out some carpet to put on our stairs. We found some stuff, and sometime in the next week or two, our friend Ed will install it for us! Pretty cool.

Then, when we got back, it was time to start on our TAXES!!! ARGH. That is just really no fun at all. Too much to keep track of. And we already do a pretty decent job of tracking all the sales and inventory and costs and such... it's just a really big job. And not one that we necessarily are looking forward to.

Though the return checks are pretty nice. :-)

So, now here I am getting to work on my book.

Guess I better get started. :-)

OH! One more fun note... iTunes just added the A-Team to their list fo TV shows you can purchase... so... we did. :-) Last night we purchased annd watched the first episode (which was actually a two parter) - and officially introduced our kids to Mr. T. :-)

More to come...

[Posted from COFFEE CREEK in Palmyra, NY.]

I'm Becoming So Normal

2006-01-27T16:01:00.000-05:00

Well... not really. :-)

I was just thinking, I have a job that I do Mondays to Friday, mostly 9 till 5 (sorta...) and I have crazy Mondays, and pretty relaxed Fridays that I enjoy, and look forward to. Then I have weekends free. That's so odd!

Today started off with some work on our Bills site, followed by a nice lunch with my wife - a "date" if you will - after which we played a quick game of Life (you know that game? We have a version from 1960!! How cool!) It was a nice break for us. Me to be with my wife, no kids and Jen to not have the kids. :-) We love our kids, but breaks are nice. Thanks to Tamar for watching our kiddos. :-)

The afternoon in the office has been full of little maintenance things, answering e-mails, little up-keep things for several different clients, and all sorts of little things. I am hoping to get through all the emails in my inbox before I leave the office for the weekend! (That's gonna be tough...)

Last night was a blast. We had friends over and shared the Venezuelan meal. We all ate WAY too much! But we had fun playing Apples to Apples (A cool new game) and just enjoyed hanging out together. They're fun folks. :-)

We are hoping to finish preparing our taxes this weekend, and I am hoping to get some work done on my book. Perhaps I will head up to the coffee house again. That was very productive last Saturday. Maybe that will work again. :-)

So, it's been a very normal week. How odd. :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

One Step At A Time

2006-01-26T17:30:00.000-05:00

I can't emphasize enough how much my personal week has been dominated by the overwhelming volume of work I have to do these days. That's actually a really good thing, and just five minutes ago, I had an extremely rewarding experience on one of the projects. I actually finished the whole thing in UNDER five minutes! (It could have been a daunting, hour-long project.)

But, besides work, it's been a nice day so far, and I am looking forward to the evening. I put some meat in the crock pot last night so that I could make Pabellón Criollo. Everytime I make that, I must invite friends, so our friends the LaBarges are coming over tonight for the Pabellon, as well as arepas and something called tequeños! Mmmmm. That will be AWESOME!

The LaBarges are gamers, too, so perhaps we'll be playing some games tonight. :-)

Our friend, Ed, who lays carpet for folks, came over today (on his birthday) to measure our stairs so that we can put a little runner on them. There have been a few accidents of late, so, I guess it's time to put the carpet on there. I told Jen it's a little "new baby" gift. :-)

Speaking of Birthdays, this day's entry would not be complete without saying a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my Mom, Shirley Campbell.

Without her birthday, I'd have none. Right? :-)

Happy birthday, Mom! Hope you had a great one!

[Posted on the PowerBook from the soon-to-be-carpeted stairs in Palmyra, NY.]n

Prioritizing

2006-01-25T23:22:00.000-05:00

Today I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to prioritize. 14-15 open projects, all needing to be done... soon. I got a good bit of work done, but still feel swamped. I'll let you know when I can breathe again!

Speaking of that, got to do some heavy breathing, (more like gasping for air) trying to keep up with Scott while playing basketball at 8am this morning! That was fun.

Had a nice evening with the fam. Went grocery shopping, gave the baby a bath, and then played Uno Attack with Jen and boys. Nice night.

Now, gotta go, as my ice cream is melting!! :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Two Times In One Day?

2006-01-24T22:52:00.000-05:00

Well, since I missed yesterday, I figured I'd get two posts in one day here. :-)

We just got back from a FUN night with some of our closest friends. We celebrated Ian's birthday (since his real birthday is Christmas, we have a birthday party in January for him) by going bowling and a great dinner at Pizza Hut! And, all of that with his family and great friends!! A super night of fun.

I can't say the same for my day in the office. Wow. It was bad. Not bad. Kinda good. Just overwhelming. Way too much input (to quote Johnny #5.) My to do list grew WAY more today than I was able to whittle down. So, again, that's good. But my head was spinning. I play basketball at 8am tomorrow, then in the office not too long after that. Looking forward to tackling all those projects anew.

Now, instead of a Star Trek tonight, we're watching one of the Knight Riders we got from my parents! :-)

Fun!

More later...

[Posted from our living room couch in Palmyra, NY.]

Mission Failed?

2006-01-24T11:54:00.000-05:00

Well, only 23 days into the adventure, my mission failed.

My intention was to post even just a few sentences once every day in the calendar year of 2006. Yesterday came and went with nary a post.

I could have posted before I headed out to help some friends move in to their new home about a mile from us. OR, I could have posted when I got back from that and before I began baking some bread to take to some other friends who just got back from the hospital the day before with their brand new baby boy. But I didn't.

I could have likely posted a blog when I went upstairs to my office to sort through all of the stuff that had built up in the ol' INBOX before I had to go back downstairs and shape the bread for it's second rising stage. I did spend about 45 minutes reading through and answering e-mails. One of which determined how I would be spending a portion of my afternoon.

I could have just skipped lunch with my family so that I could have posted an account of the day here. That probably would have worked. Or, skipped out on finishing the bread as I watched the Buffalo Bills press conference on the laptop, so that I could report on it for the BBR website.

Oh! OR, I could have written something inbetween the article for the website and heading out again to help unload the second truck at our friends' house. Especially since, they didn't show up, and even after returning from a few errands, they still had not shown up! So, by about 4:15 or so, I returned home, and that's probably when I should have posted a blog here.

Then again, I could have posted after moving some furniture from the downstairs to the upstairs. Or even after taking a shower to clean up. OR, maybe while I was cooking the spaghetti for the meal we were bringing to our friends' house.

I did bring my laptop with us... So, I could have taken a moment and posted something from their house once we brought them their food... or, I could have even used their computer. But I definitely could have posted something during our dinner at Taco Bell - they have to have free Wi-Fi, don't they? Maybe I could have looked around for something before we went to visit some other friends who lived nearby. A coffee house or something?

Our friends live in the middle of nowhere.... but I know they have an internet connection. Probably should have posted something from their house - you know... just a quick 5-10 min or so.... either before we went out to feed their horse, or after the game of Dukes of Hazzard (a cool card game from my youth...) I could have fit it in there somewhere. Right?

Or, after the 40 minute ride home, before getting the kids in bed, or at least after that, before Jen and I started our Star Trek Voyager episode. I probably could have do it then. That was around 11:30pm. I still had time. I probably could have kept the dream alive at that point.

But I didn't.

:-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Does This Count?

2006-01-22T23:59:00.000-05:00

Hey. It's 1:41am on Sunday night, and I am about to head to bed, when I remembered my Everyday blog. Now, since this is still Sunday for me (despite what my computer clock is trying to tell me) I thought I would fudge the post time and stay on track for my one blog every day in 2006.

Thanks for allowing me such a freedom. ;-)

Today was great, as most day-offs have been recently. Our life (and perhaps me?) is much more relaxed these days, and I am so totally enjoying it. I wish Jen could enjoy it more. She's tired of being pregnant already. Only a few more weeks to go...

We had all sorts of great family fun today, and then had dinner with some friends we have not connected with in a long time. That was really cool. Very much enjoyed that. Afterwards, we came home to another episode from season three of the Dukes! (Yeeeeeehaaaa!!) Then, the boys and I played a little Sega Genesis before bed. :-) (Add to all of this sleeping in till almost 10am, pancake breakfast, and creating a program in BASIC for my TI-99/4a computer today... it was one super fun day!) :-)

But, definitely the coolest part of today was breaking out some old letters from family and friends. There were a few from my Mom from my freshman year of college. There were a few from friends over those same years of college. A couple were short, a few were a bit more in-depth - but all just very cool encouraging words. Words to save for a rainy day. (Though today was not rainy, it was still very nice to read them.)

Best part of that best part of the day? Reading through several letters from my best friend - and now wife of eight years 3 months and 4 days - together to end our day. It was great to remember some of the fun stuff we did together. It was even way cooler to remember how much I love her. And surprising to remember how much she loves me. I am quite a lucky guy to be her husband. :-) I am still amazed that God hooked us up. :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Coffee Houses

2006-01-21T15:31:00.000-05:00

I am sitting here in a nice comfy couch in an empty (mostly) coffee house about 3/4 of a mile from our house with almost complete silence around me, and I am feeling very thankful for my wife who let me come do this. :-)

There was a lot of commotion about the house today, between the kids, and new loud music playing, and Jen's nesting projects, so I asked if I could slip away to the local coffee shop for a few hours. She said yes. So, here I am.

It's a nice place. They make a good cup of chai. And they have free wi-fi. :-) It hasn't caught on very well yet, but hopefully after a little while people will start hanging out here.

It's a cool place for me. Nice relaxed environment. Great warm beverages (chai being my favorite) and of course, the free wireless access. That's nice too.

I'm here working on my next book for a while. Reading through the blog archives and selecting posts that might be worthy of a book. Stay tuned for details on the formation and publication of that next textual release.

We watched another episode of the Dukes of Hazzard last night after a pretty serious cleaning of our entire downstairs. Put away all the Christmas decorations and I finally vacuumed. :-) That was cool and relaxing. Then after everyone went to bed, I figured out a few tricks for navigating the refueling tunnels in the TI-99 game Parsec, and then hunkered down to watch the Fantastic Four movie. It was really better than I expected. Had me stiflling many a laugh as I watched on my laptop with Jen sleeping next to me. We might watch it with the boys later today.

For now, I must get back to my book compiling. :-)

And, my chai... :-)

[Posted from Coffee Creek in Palmyra, NY.]

Week's End

2006-01-20T17:49:00.000-05:00

Here I sit, in my nice comfortable easy chair (is that what you call it?), after a long day, a long week of pretty good days of work. Seriously. Except for a blip, (was it, yesterday?) I completed a good amount of what I was attempting to accomplish and there is plenty of new business to start on next week. Very good.

But I am still trying to figure out why I feel like I didn't accomplish anything? Why are there so many projects I feel I must do? Why are there so many fun things to work on, or to play at? Seriously...

It was a good day, though, and I am looking forward now to a good weekend. We'll be cleaning up around the house tonight and tomorrow, then hanging out with some friends on Sunday evening, eating and watching football together. That will be cool. I hope to work on my next book a bit tomorrow as well.

All in all, should be a nice week's end.

Oh hey, I posted the first article in a new feature over at the Buffalo Bills Review. Stop by and check it out if you are so inclined. It will be posted every Friday - likely in the morning.

Till tomorrow...

[Posted from my comfortable chair the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Sometimes, It's Not What You Expect

2006-01-19T22:17:00.000-05:00

Today was crazy.

We had a great time last night with our friends - except for Ian horsing around and putting a pretty deep hole in the side of his head. That was an adventure. But it was nice to hang out with friends all evening. Good chocolate waffles, too. :-)

But, today was crazy.

So far this week, I have been pretty efficient in the office, but today I didn't even get there till almost 11:00am!!! I slept in a bit (after not too much sleep earlier this week, I thought it best). Then I made dinner for tonight (Skyline Chili!!) and some bread for our friend who just had a baby. (His name is Lake.) And by the time I had done that, it was almost 11.

Then, most projects I was working on today were not cooperating. It was weird.

So, after a mostly unproductive day in the office, we headed out to meet the new baby. He was cool. Just... ya know.. a baby. :-) His full name is Lakeland Matias Jones. But they'll call him Lake. When Jen told Alex the baby was going to be called Lake, Alex said, "Lake?! That's like a river! He's a lake!" That was funny.

We returned home to eat dinner for ourselves - at 7:30pm!!! But, any time is a great time for SKYLINE!!!

And then, for the nightcap, Ian and I went to the local coffee house for some one-on-one time. That was very cool. I need to do that more often. I love him. :-) (It's cool that he loves chai, too!) :-)

Now, Jen just finished her shower, and we're going to watch Star Trek Voyager!

Night!

[Posted from the PowerBook in the BATHROOM in Palmyra, NY.]

Hit The Wall

2006-01-18T16:28:00.000-05:00

Whoa. I just hit the wall. Was going along just fine - completing some work on a project I have been working on for a while, talking with folks, getting stuff done... and then after one conversation with another client, I just crashed. Hard. So... I thought I'd head on over to blogger and catch up on what's goin' on...

Well, the keyboard saga continued this morning. I was attempting to check our bank balance online when I found out that the T key was sticking. Bad. It would not come back up. I tried to get it to work without taking the whole thing apart again (did you know there are 36 screws to remove when taking apart an apple keyboard? And that now, there are only 35? :-) I was unsuccessful, so I spent a few hours this morning scraping dried milk off a couple of keys on Jen's keyboard.

I hope that doesn't happen again...

I woke up this morning a little after 7:30 to go play basketball with Steve (which I do every Wednesday) and today, my friend Scott joined us for the excercise. It was defintely a good time, though I was feeling more out of shape than ever. I am definitely getting old!!

Today I continued working on a pretty involved project for a local RV reseller. It's coming together nicely, actually. It's nice when things come together nicely. :-)

Also, the friend I mentioned yesterday who is due to have a baby... she's having it as I type! Went in this morning, and the baby should be coming out within a few hours! That's cool. Even cooler is, we are due to have our baby not long after them! Soe we're getting close!!!

We're going over to Scott & Leah V's to hang out with them tonight. Getting the "Beat The Clock" deal at local pizzeria, Leonardo's, and sharing an evening together. Looking forward to it.

That was my Wednesday so far. It's only 4:30, though... so I imagine there will be plenty more Wednesday to come...

[Posted from the PowerBook in the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Waiting...

2006-01-17T19:48:00.000-05:00

I am sitting at Jen's computer in our kitchen, waiting for the rest of the family to return from some errands. The food I made is getting a little cold, but it will reheat. The quiet is certainly nice, but I look forward to their return.

In the meantime, why not catch up on today's events?

Surprisingly, I awoke at 8:10 or so, and felt awake as well. It's suprising since I was awake the night before till after 3am! Playing vintage video games, and working on various projects. Not sure exactly why - just wasn't tired. Still am not. Very strange.

Today was so great, though. Seriously. I made some good progress ona few current web projects, which is always nice, and I got to connect with lots of folks via e-mail, IM and the phone. I love that. That's what make a day good or bad many times. Not always, but often that can brighten an otherwise not so good day.

We went up to the library at lunch time. That was a break from our Monday night routine. We thought they were closed last night, but it turns out they were not. :-) Oh well. Made for a fun lunch time today. :-)

Tonight we'll visit with some friends, and tomorrow night, and Sunday night. It's a good week for reconnecting. Very cool!

And, the title of the blog... was talking with a friend of ours today who is very pregnant (due any day probably) and we were talking about waiting. She's waiting for a baby. They still don't know what they will name him. :-) So, they're waiting for that. I am waiting to buy a computer system that we really want. Another friend is waiting to see what his next employment will be. Waiting.

Waiting is not fun... but God can remind us that we need him more than ever when we have to wa...

Strange but true story... as I was typing that blog on my wife's computer, I noticed the space bar periodically not working. Eventually it stopped altogether. Then some other strange things started happening. I couldn't figure it out until I called Jen to find out when they would be home, and she said, "Oh, I spilled milk on the keyboard." She meant like the keyboard was floating in milk!!! Ha! For the last two paragraphs above, I was pasting in a space with the Command-V key sequence for EVERY space. That was really, really annoying. :-)

Well, unless it works after drying out overnight, looks like we're going to have to buy Jen that wireless keyboard we've been wanting...

We'll just have to WAIT and see... ;-)

[Posted from Jen's "milky" keyboard, then the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Two-Minute Blog

2006-01-16T23:58:00.000-05:00

When I began this, my intent was to blog once (at least) every day in the year 2006. Well, it's 11:58 and I have two minutes!

Grandma Walker came over today, and she and the kids (and Jen) spent the day sorting through some items she collected from her basement. Then they took the leftovers to a thrift store. She also made some great soup for lunch!!!

I had a great day in the office - able to get a lot done. That was good.

Spent a nice evening with the kids, making chocolate chip cookies for Jen and watchin the Knight Rider!!! The kids (and mom and dad!) love that show!!

That's all for today! More tomorrow...

:-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Sundays

2006-01-15T23:35:00.000-05:00

I sure love Sundays. :-) Today was another nice full day of fun with my family. These days, Sunday is that day.

We started off with pancakes for breakfast, followed by a little clean up of the house. I went up to a the Baptist church on the corner to help a friend record her piano students today (I just set up the system for her, so I could continue to enjoy my day off) :-)

When I got back, we watched an episode of the Dukes of Hazzard! That's a favorite in the Campbell house! :-) After a quick visit to Hazzard county, we set up to watch football. There were a couple great games on today! We caught most of the first one. Amazing. How could the Colts lose?!?

Later this evening, the kids and I went to WalMart to get some things while Mom got a break from the kids (and Dad, too, I guess...) :-) That was fun! We had a good time, and finished it off with a visit to our local McDonald's (with the great PLAYPLACE!) :-)

We got a fun little bonus when we stopped there. As we were getting our food, another family with three kids came in, and headed into the Play Place with us! We played for a while with them and found out that we live pretty close to each other. That was great! They might come out to a concert we're doing in February. That was a neat little bonus.

Now we're finishing off the evening watching an episode of Voyager. :-)

All for now... it's almost tomorrow!

[Posted from the Living Room Couch in Palmyra, NY.]

Gall Bladders and NFL Playoffs!

2006-01-14T17:43:00.000-05:00

In an e-mail from my Dad today, I was reminded to mention my sister's recent surgery. Yesterday morning, she had her gall bladder removed, and she got to go home with two grape-sized stones that were lodged in there! Crazy. Apparently this is something fairly common in women in general, but it has definitely been common in my extended family. Many of the ladies on my Mom's side of the family have had such a procedure performed on their bodies.

All is well, and she is recovering at home since yesterday afternoon.

I like all my organs where they are, thank you very much... :-)

We're watching the Seahawks play the Redskins this afternoon. Jen's feeling big and pregnant, so she's mostly just relaxing. I am getting some work done while we watch and the boys are enjoying some great football. It's fun that they all like it. Especially Alex. He has been counting down till kickoff all day long! :-)

The date went well last night. :-) We went to a coffee house for dinner, then to the mall to pay a visit (sans kids) to the Apple store!!! That was great. We also made a stop at JCPenny's for Jen to check out some post maternity under garments. That's always funny. There I was, just hanging out in the ladies underwear section while Jen was in the fitting room. That's when you know you've been married a long time, and you love your wife very much. :-) But after that we spent time at the Apple store and hung out on a couch sipping a Chai from Starbucks! Very nice evening.

I am already looking forward to the next one.

Today has been erratic. Jumping from task to task - mostly maintenance jobs on my various websites, including a new one I am working on. Will probably post a link here once that one is complete.

Just for fun, here are my predictions for this weekend:
Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Indianapolis (how boring... all the home teams/favorites...)

[Posted from my LIVING ROOM COUCH in Palmyra, NY.]

Unseasonble Weather

2006-01-13T17:16:00.000-05:00

Now, ordinarily you would not find me talking about the weather. That's a topic for the longer moments of silence during a conversation with my Grandma Alta. (She likes to chat about the weather...) But given the circumstances, I figured it was a good piece to start off with in a daily journal about the days.

I am not certain at this time what the highest temperature was today, but I am typing this blog from my PORCH in a T-SHIRT on January 13th in Rochester, NY. Um... that's warm!!! My weather widget tells me it's 59ºF here in Palmyra. It's been warm like this for a while now. I woke up the other day, and the sun looked really weird. The light was coming from a strange angle or something. I couldn't figure it out until I realized, "Dummy! It's JANUARY and I am seeing THE SUN!!! We don't usually see the full-on sun in Western New York in January - unless it's shining off 3 feet of new snow!

So, besides the weather, I did catch up on a few things today. The website is back up, emails came through (giving me more to do) and the new loan process continues on pace. I got to go for a brief walk with my daughter up to the bank to deposit another check from AmeriQuest.

There was also Bills news today. The head coach, Mike Mularkey just up and resigned. Last week all was hunky-dory, but now he can't take it anymore. Very strange. Oh well.

But, by far, the best part of today is our great friends, the Stupins, will be watching all three of our outside-the-womb kids so that Jen and I can actually have a just-the-two-of-us date night! Yes!!! Can't wait. I'm taking her out to a fancy little coffee shop. :-) These dates seem fewer and farther between the more kids come along.

Soon enough, though, Ian will be baby-sitting age, and then we'll be out on the town all the time!! :-)

We'll see...

Anyway, that's the news from here. More later...

[Posted from OUR FRONT PORCH in Palmyra, NY.]

Woe Is Me :-(

2006-01-12T11:45:00.000-05:00

Today has not been a good day so far. I actually found out yesterday that my main business domain (bwd-graphics.com) had EXPIRED, and this time at no fault of my own. :-( That was sad enough, but so far today, I have not been able to contact my domain guy in any way to reinstate it. So, my business e-mails are going to oblivion, and now actually, ALL of my domains hosting are not loading!! :-( :-( :-(

On a more positive note, our debt consolidation loan through AmeriQuest has gone through, and we now have no credit card debt at all, and enough money in the bank to just pay the bills when they are due! Quite an extraordinary experience, let me say! We'll see how long that lasts... (The bill paying, not the credit cards! That should last for quite some time!!!)

This week has been great because there have not been a lot of extra things (despite what I wrote yesterday, it does appear that perhaps even by next week, there may be a bit of routine!) So, we're enjoying that.

Jen and the kids head out during the day for a little errand running, and even some thrifting, and then we usually have some fun family evening activity. Last night was a trip to Save-a-Lot for some ground beef (and other stuff) for dinner. We made tacos!!! (Even made som Taco Dip - my favorite!!!)

It was a fun night. :-)

Hopefully this domain thing will go through quickly, and I can report tomorrow that today was a "fun day" as well... :-{

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

My Week Days

2006-01-11T14:37:00.000-05:00

I am still trying to figure out what "normal" week is for me. I am almost certain there is no such thing! I thought after the holidays things might settle into some form of a routine, especially with the Buffalo Bills Review not being a weekly thing. That show was really messing with my body's schedule! :-) I was staying up every Monday night till 5:30am or later! Then, I would try to do the rest of the week like normal... that wasn't working.

So, last week was not normal due to returning from vacation with family - just getting life back in order here. Then, this week has been interrupted by a speaking engagement at the library in the middle of the day (Monday) and then the big Apple day yesterday. (A friend said it's like the guys who stay home from work to watch the NFL draft. Yeah... that's kinda like it.)

I am still trying to get back into a normal routine. I do take a lunch break everyday with the family. That's nice. Usually that is from 1pm-2pm. But between answering emails, phone calls, IMs and taking care of various personal things, it seems like it's kinda hard to get to the bigger items on my lists to do sometimes!!!

Oh, and I guess blogging does take a sec or two...

;-)

(My ultimate dream - I think? - would be to be able to "blog" or write or something all day long, and not have to worry about whether I was paid for that or not. That would be cool. But, until then... BACK TO WORK!)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Apple, New Services, and Dad

2006-01-10T15:28:00.000-05:00

Today was a big day for Apple computer! Every year at the MacWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco they reveal some amazing new techno-gadgetry over which every Apple enthusiast drools, slobbers and repeatedly breaks the 10th commandment. (That's the "Thou Shalt Not Covet" one...) :-)

You can read all about that one on my regular blog at GregsHead.net.

Since yesterday we have made many changes to our financial accounts. We took back our cable box, and downgraded to basic cable (first 19 channels), and we are in the process of downgrading our cell phone to a pay-as-you-go sorta thing. We also switched our land line from MCI to Vonage (the digital phone thing) and I cancelled our basic merchant account and began using another service to process credit card orders at our gigs.

All in all, we will save over $140/mo. On stuff we don't need anymore. That's really, really good.

Also in the news today, my Dad is once again under the knife. He messed himself up really badly in November (falling off a roof, while attached to a ladder) and has been recovering since then with pins in his foot. Today, they removed those. We should hear from Mom in a little bit with an update.

Much going on, but now I must get back to work!!

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Local Author...

2006-01-09T16:36:00.000-05:00

Today I got to speak to a small crowd of friends of the Palmyra library. (Really, that's the name of the group - Friend of the Library!) I was allowed to bring a guest, so I brought Ian along for fun! It was well received, and a good lunch too! Got to speak with several people who have lived far more than twice as much life as me. That is always fascinating. It was fun talking with them about blogs and internet publishing and distribution as well. Several of them will be hopping on their computers and reading my various blogs! How bout that?! :-)

After that, it's been a good day of getting many little detail things done. Working on my next book, changing some services we have to save money (lower cable service, cell phone, home phone, etc) and just plugging away at some more web work. All in all, has been a good, efficient day.

Also carried on a few interesting conversations via email and IM. Was a very full day!

Looking forward to our first Monday in a long time with no Bills show! Love doing it, but it's nice to know I don't have to work again tonight, and stay up till 5:30am doing that work!!!

More later...

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

What A Finish!

2006-01-08T22:16:00.000-05:00

I don't know how much you might follow football, but if you have been following the NFL at all this year, you have undoubtedly heard that the Bengals made the playoffs (even got to host a playoff game in Cincy) for the first time since 1990. That's 15 seasons. Fifteen. That's a lot. So, being a good Ohio boy (and with my Bills not in the playoffs) I had kinda latched on to them as "my" team this January.

It started off bad. And got worse.

On his first pass, the starting QB, Carson Palmer, completed a 60-something-yard pass, and tore his ACL in the process. See ya in training camp. Bad news. But, backup Jon Kitna faired well. Leading 17-7 at one point, and holding that lead at half time, I figured the Bengals could pull this one out.

I was wrong.

Twenty-four points later they had lost the game 31-17. Ouch.

So, I will pick another favorite or two, and continue to root for a substitute football team as the playoffs progress... anxiously awaiting next season, when the Bills return to power! We hope. :-)

As for the rest of the day, our friends could not come due to their 3 year old daughter's strep throat! Ouch! But, we had a nice morning anyway, and watched football for most of the day until our neighbor's birthday party at 6:30. We went over (across the driveway) and celebrated Matt & his brother Chris' 32nd birthday with the rest of their family and a few close friends. Nice to celebrate with them. They're great people. They made my Top 50 list on my other blog. :-)

So, next week is supposed to return to normal. Let's see how that actually turns out!!! :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Friends

2006-01-07T22:08:00.000-05:00

Well, I just finished switching the laundry for Jen, and I figured I would take a moment and recap the day.

A lot of today was spent visiting with some friends we rarely get to see. John & Jaime Towner and their son Aaron were over today for a waffle brunch and just some time catching up. It was a lot of fun (there were lots of kids to take care of) and Jaime brought some amazingly rich Chocolate Lime Cheesecake. Wow! :-)

After they left, we watched the first of two NFL games (the second is going on right now, so this post will be short!) and during the game, I made a call to some other friends we had not connected with in most of a year. They live near Jacksonville, FL, and through their friendship, we have become closet Jaguars fans. (Their whole family are HUGE Jags fans!) That, too was a great conversation about what God is doing in both of our lives. Nice to connect with people and hear the sorts of things God is doing.

During that call, we got another call from some other friends who are scheduled to come over for a late brunch tomorrow morning, saying that perhaps they might not come due to their daughter's tonsels being swollen! Sounds painful, but we are hoping to still get together with them tomorrow. They are going through a crazy, scary time with losing a job they have had for quite some time, and yet very peaceful and hopeful at what God is doing in all of this. Will be great to chat with them if we can tomorrow.

Friends are great. Sharing your hopes and your fears, learning from each other's... life is meant to be shared (or so says my book...) and we are blessed to be able to do that.

Speaking of sharing life, a verse from the Bible came to mind tonight...

A man's greatest treasure is his wife-- she is a gift from the LORD. (Proverbs 18:22)

I think that's true. Of all the great friends God has connected me with - she is the greatest. :-)

[Posted from my wife's computer in Palmyra, NY.]

Happy Three Kings Day!

2006-01-06T11:09:00.000-05:00

Today is Three Kings Day! Or, Epiphany, if you prefer. It's the day that many children around the world celebrate the "Three" kings who traveled a long distance to visit the baby Jesus, and bring him gifts. So, if you leave your shoes out by the door, or window, at night, the kings swing by and leave little gifts for you, too! Very nice.

So this morning, we woke up to shoes full of gifts and enjoyed a little holiday time together. It was fun as always. :-) The kids are still playing with the toys and I am up in my office trying to get all that started today :-)

One thing I noticed, and may have mentioned already, it sure is hard to get back in the swing of things after 1) a holiday or two and then 2) being on the road for over a week. We're still sorting, organizing and getting back into the swing of things. Last night we spent the evening cleaning up, organizing toys, and just getting life sorta back to normal at the Campbell home.

Our January is looking pretty open, which is exciting. Looking forward to either reconnecting with friends and family or, whatever God might have planned for our open schedule! Stay tuned here for details. :-)

More later...

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Long, Long Days

2006-01-05T14:52:00.000-05:00

The Buffalo Bills season is over. And, thankfully, so are my long, long days. Or, rather, nights.

Last night we recorded our last show and I edited and posted it by 5:00am this morning. So, I was up most of 24 hours since I was up before 9 the day before... I have done that for the entire football season once a week. That begins to wear on you after a while. :-)

We'll keep doing shows, but only once a month, and perhaps I'll edit in the daytime, instead of over night? We'll see. Looking forward to some innovative change next year to make it a little easier on my body!

For now, I attempt to get back into the world of web design.

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

In Addition...

2006-01-04T15:51:00.000-05:00

Jen went to the doctor today for a regular check up, and despite a spill down our top 4 basement stairs that left her with a couple nasty bruises... baby is doing JUST fine! That's great! We're getting closer to meeting this excitable little Campbell! (Jen says junior moves around a lot in there...) :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Getting Back To Work

2006-01-04T15:24:00.000-05:00

I always forget to plan buffer days when we return from any trips longer than a day away from home. I did it again. We got back late last night, and I was ready to hit the ground running this morning. I had a big list of what I was going to do today. I really thought I could do a bunch of it. But, all I have done today is get our finances in order, go through some more mail, catch up with e-mails, and basically get back in order so I can actually get something done ... tomorrow! Crazy!

It is great to be back home, though. We all slept quite well in our own beds last night. :-)

Today I am working on the season finale for our first year of doing the Buffalo Bills Review. We'll record tonight, and it will post tomorrow. We'll still do shows once a month for the offseason, but I am looking forward to the break. If you read my other blog you know that I do the Bills show over night on Mondays - I go to bed at 5:30am on Tuesday! That wears on you after a while...

So, the show concludes our first official season tomorrow! Stop by BuffaloBillsReview.com and take a listen! :-)

[Posted from the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Drivin'

2006-01-03T23:45:00.000-05:00

Today was a DRIVIN' DAY. We traveled from Spring Valley, OH to our home in Palmyra, NY in just under 10 hours! The amazing part of that feat is that one of us is pregnant, and three others are 7 years of age or younger! All in all, it was a good travel day, especially considering a few of us are sick, including our 22-month-old daughter, who was a trooper, despite a fairly miserable trip for her! Poor Kirstie! :-(

We did get to stop for lunch at one of our favorite Skyline Chili restaurants! It's just off of Polaris Parkway, off 71-N just north of Columbus, OH. We highly recommend them! Great prices (better than most other Skylines), great service, and just a fun Skyline!

It's great to be home. I am using my nice high-speed wireless network to download, and to transfer files back to the home computers! I have missed high-speed in the land of dial-up! My parents house is in the middle of nowhere and would cost mucho dinero to get a line run up to their house. So... they endure the trials of dial.

All of us will sleep very well in our own beds tonight. Kids are already asleep. Poor sick Kirstie was very happy to hit the hay in her own little bed! She was so cute! We love visiting with family, as I have mentioned, but there's just nothing like being HOME! :-)

More later...

G'Night! :-)

[Posted from the basicmm studio computer at the HOME OFFICE in Palmyra, NY.]

Family

2006-01-02T22:38:00.000-05:00

Well let me tell you, even though I loved most every bit of the past two days, I am tired! I am sitting here taking minutes to form each sentence! Crazy!

I can't capture everything here, I don't think, but, to continue with my experiment, I'd like to catch most of the big details. :-)

After I went to bed early on New Year's Day, we got back up at 7:00am! Argh. That was definitely something unique about this year. We noticed near the end of the day on Sunday that it really didn't even feel like New Year's Day! It sorta just felt like a normal Sunday. That was kinda sad...

Anyway, we left my parents' house at 8:00am with all three of our sleepy kids to go and set up for singing at both the 9:00 and 11:00am services at Crossview Christian Church (where my parents attend services). Except for a few technical glitches, it was an enjoyable time, which ended with a quick trip back to my parents' home to watch the Bills' game!!! We all got dressed up in our Bills' gear and readied our selves for a season-ending victory in New Jersey! (Playing the Jets).

My sister and her family were also in the house (she has three girls 4 yrs old and younger!) as well as Grammy & Grandpa and all our family. Needless to say, it was busy. And sometimes hard to catch the game. But, we managed, and had a blast! Only problem was, after the Bills took the lead late in the 4th quarter in a great back-and-forth game, the kickoff following that score was returned for a touchdown, and the JETS took the lead! Argh! So, the Bills lost 30-26, but, we still had a great time. :-)

For the rest of the day we hung out, played with kids, ate LOTS of food and enjoyed time together as the larger Campbell family. Fun. But again... tiring. At the end of the day, we watched the final NFL Primetime with my parents (via TiVo) and then caught the end of the final ESPN Sunday Night game. A little piece of history there.

Today we woke up around 9am to get a project done for my Dad (who is still recovering from a broken ankle and other breakages) and then headed down to Cincinnati to spend a bunch of today with my sister's family. :-) Fun. We had lunch at CiCi's Pizza (one of our faves) and played for an hour or so at their church building with lots of fun toys, and then went to check out the improvements to our old college campus with a quick self-guided (well, Tara-guided) tour of the new stuff.

We ended the day with dinner at Skyline Chili (the Price Hill restaurant, where it all began!) and then a trip back to Mom & Dad's for one more evening of fun with them. Packing tomorrow, then a long trip home.

Tune in tomorrow for all the exciting details! :-)

[Posted via DIAL UP! at my parents' house in Spring Valley, OH.]

Happy New Year

2006-01-01T00:34:00.000-05:00

You know, it's just funny... I do it every year, and every year I think, "This is so silly..." but here I am again, heading to bed after staying up to watch a ball drop! :-)

It's not the ball. It's not the tradition. It's not really even New Years. :-) Actually, all the strange traditions and the whole "everybody doing the same thing" thing aside - I love that everyone else stays up late with me!

I am definitely a late-nighter. So, midnight is early evening for me. That part is no trouble. But the ball, the toasts, the champagne, the kissing... sorry folks, that's too much uniformity for me. :-) :-) I mean, it's just a day we flip open a new calendar? Right?

I sound like I'm mad (perhaps?)... but I am not at all. Happy to be with my family, and looking forward to another year. Can't wait to do this again next year (yes, I am sure that I will!) and look back on this online journal of the year that was.

Thanks for joining me. :-)

[Posted via DIAL UP! at my parents' house in Spring Valley, OH.]

Everyday Happenings...

2005-12-09T11:52:00.000-05:00

I am going to try and post something every single day in 2006. Even if it's a bunch of nothing. An online daily experience. It may not be exciting for you, (or perhaps you will enjoy it, who knows) but it will be a cool memory lane sort of thing for me and the family.

First official post on Jan 1, 2006.