I really do miss posting here… but I really am posting elsewhere. Been a busy week working on other people’s websites. I’ll be posting samples soon on my sample page at bwd-graphics.com.

Also:

• Check out my daily journal at everyday06.blogspot.com.
• And, today I started a weekly column at my Bills’ site. BuffaloBillsReview.com.

Check out that stuff if you’d like. I’m hoping to work on my next book a bit tomorrow. Will be sorting through the material to include there. If I get ambitious, I might even get to post some thoughts I have been saving up for this blog page…

IF I get ambitious…

Happy weekend! 🙂

Sage 1: “Go on back to your ship and play with your molecular micro scanner.”

Sage 2: “You’ve tried all that already, but it didn’t work. Kes didn’t get better.”

Captain: “No, she didn’t.”

Sage 2: “Why not?”

Captain: “The doctor couldn’t explain it.”

Sage 2: “So an inexplicable, miraculous, non-recovery?”

Captain: “We haven’t found the reason yet.”

Sage 2: “But of course you will. You’ll find all the answers eventually, with enough time, and study, and the right sort of tools. That’s what you believe, isn’t it, as a scientist?”

Sage 1: “Be honest…”

Captain: “Yes, that’s what I have always believed.”

Sage 3: “Even when her science fails right before her eyes, she still has full confidence in it. Now there’s a leap of faith.”

Tonight I watched an episode of Star Trek: Voyager that we have seen a couple times before. It’s called “Sacred Ground”, and the main premise is challenging the supremacy of science in the world of Star Trek.

If you have seen the show, you are aware that everything has a rational explanation. Just as the line above says, given enough time, and study, and the right tools, the answer will always be discovered. Granted, this is TV, but I believe the world of star trek is an extension of modern scientific thought. If we keep working at it, we’ll eventually “understand” it.

Voyager deals with spirituality more than most Star Trek series. There are native American rituals, Vulcan meditation, and several episodes dealing with stories and encounters about the afterlife. But this episode is rather intriguing because, in the end, they do “figure out” the science behind the “miracle” that happens, but the Captain has been challenged enough in her line of thinking to reconsider the “truth” that is possessed by such a “knowledge” of the “facts”.

I have been wanting to write a post here titled “Illusion”, and may do so soon. Several things over the past month or so have reminded me of what an illusion we create for ourselves. The illusion of routine, control, and normalcy. I have written before about how nothing is guaranteed in life. Not a thing. But if we lived afraid of that, we wouldn’t really live. So, I understand, the illusion is necessary to a point. But this show reminded me that so many of us cling to the illusion.

The line, “Even when her science fails right before her eyes, she still has full confidence in it. Now there’s a leap of faith.” was particularly astonishing coming from a show that ordinarily exalts science. But how true it is. I’d say that’s even true of what most people would call religion. There are “facts” that might “disprove” religious beliefs, and yet the adherents hold fast to them, despite the “evidence”. That is definitely a “leap of faith”.

The question is, who are we willing to trust? Or what? Do we trust the tangible “evidence” we see in front of us, and the theories we have constructed in our heads? Or, shall we trust a benevolent deity who has revealed himself through personal encounters throughout history, and through a seamless document that was written over millennia by dozens of authors, and finally, by becoming a man himself?

What we see can be an illusion. Just a notion that such things are constant. Yes, God has designed uniformity and regularity and order into his creation (which I believe is evidence that it can not have randomly come about). But the only constant is him. Not some belief about him. Not a set of principles we have drawn from his teachings. Just, him.

When your science – your illusion – fails right before your eyes, don’t cling to it. Instead, learn to trust the One who is beyond the illusion.

These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. – Col 2:17

For a fun, relatively parallel story, click here.

This was worth posting on both blogs. In case you didn’t know, I have another blog. Below is the post from Monday, Jan 30th.

My Computer Had A Heart Attack
by Greg Campbell – everyday06.blogspot.com

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, that’s 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.]

I have been quite noticeably absent from this blog. Perhaps not as noticeably to you, but I have definitely noticed. I miss it, and hope to return to a place where I can take 15-20 minutes, or even most of an hour, and post my continuing thoughts on random things to this page.

I thought it would be cool to let you know what sorts of things I have been up to lately, though. I have not just slipped into a coma or anything like that…

• Web Design
  This is primarily what I have been doing. From minor, behind-the-scenes sort of repairs and upgrades to several sites, to completely new designs and sites… I have been busy. Some of the latest sites are: Walkers Four Seasons (a recreational vehicles dealer), and a couple more you can’t see yet, since the clients aren’t making them public yet. (CheetahVision.com and EzzoTruth.com. Both could launch as early as this week.)
• Newsvine
  This is a new thing, that I just discovered last week, and was just approved for today. It will essentially be another blog, but with connections. It’s a news aggregator site, but with it’s own writers. Me. I will be one, with my own column with original posts, as well as links to other news I find worth reading. The link (once public) will be gregshead.newsvine.com. Should be pretty cool.
• A New CD?
  Today I spent a good deal of time refining our CD listings at CDBaby.com because they just finished processing our latest CD offering, PCTC 2005: Live at the Forum. Now, yes, we released that last year. So, no, it’s not really new. But, this CD at CDBaby is an EP version. It’s the 4 songs from that disc that we have full rights to. That way, through CDBaby, we can list them on iTunes and all the other digital music services. 🙂 We wanted to be able to offer those songs as well, and I finally came up with a way to do it! Stop by our CDBaby Page and click through to the new disc. There are a few bonuses at CDBaby with our music, so click around and read all our pages. You can even leave a review if you’d like. 🙂
• Everyday06.blogspot.com
  Many of you are aware that I have been chronicling my everyday activities on my other blog (linked right above the latest entry on this page, and in my links in the sidebar). That has been interesting, but the real fun of that will be next year reading through all of that again. Will be fun to re-live it.
• A New Book
  I’m sure there’s more, but probably the most fun thing I have been working on is my new book. Nearly one year after I published A Journey Shared, I am working on book #2 – currently titled, Life In The Rear-View Mirror. Still finalizing the subtitle. It’s been really fun putting it together. Reading through the blog archives, and seeing the themes that arise through months of writing. God was definitely teaching me things in specific areas of life last year. I am praying that this book, as I assemble and make them available in that format, will be an encouragement in this year to whomever God gets them to.

I know there’s more, but at the moment, I need to get to work on some other tasks related to my previous blog tonight. I’ll get back to a more normal rate here at GregsHead.net. Sooner than later, I hope.

I had to post this here, since my Newsvine page is not available to the public yet. (See Other Stuff I’ve Been Doing…) I’ll add links to that when it is publci. But for now, here is the article I posted there last night, after telling my story on my other two blogs.

(It is getting rather complicated, isn’t it?) 🙂

================
PALMYRA, NY – I consider myself a pretty avid computer user. Knowledgeable beyond your 9 to 5 office cubicle user, and definitely more passion for the machines that populate my home and office. I am the type of computer user who gets excited when rumors come over the wire about the next innovations coming out of Cupertino, CA.

I admit it. I am an Mac-aholic.

But tonight, Apple proved again why they have my complete loyalty. A few months ago, we were having trouble with our 3G iPod battery life. The charges were lasting only 2 hours, and sometimes only around one hour. That doesn’t cut it. So, having heard of the iPod battery replacement program, we took a stroll (techincally, a drive…) down to our local Apple Retail Store and inquired within.

After a brief conversation with the on-duty Genius, and a little bit of paper work to fill out, we left the store with a $69 iPod replacement – for free! Due to a kind and generous Apple Genius, we didn’t even have to pay the minimal fee for replacing our iPod.

Let me put this in different words. We came in with an iPod that worked just fine, it’s only detractor being the weakened battery that had gotten that way due to hours upon hours of use and re-use. We left the store with not only a BRAND NEW iPod, but it was also FREE.

Now THAT’s customer service.

But it does not end there. Oh no. That was a couple months ago. The Apple Retail store came through again tonight in a big way.

Tonight, as I was happily employing the full capabilities of my PowerMac G4 with Dual 500Mhz processors (yes, I’ve had it quite a while), a power surge of yet unknown origins caused my computer to just instantly shut off. Completely. Zap. Off.

“That’s bad…” I thought.

After a little bit of computer CPR, I realized I needed some outside help, and made a quick call to Mac 911. (The local Apple store.) It took persistence on my part, but I was able to schedule an appointment with the Genius on duty forty minutes from the time I called. And, long story short, we made it to the store, and we were able to diagnose one of two hard drives was fried – the other (my start-up volume) was still in tact… sort of.

For an hour and a half, Mr. Genius worked on my computer, running several repair programs to try and resuscitate the ailing hard drives. Alas, the smaller back up drive was flat lined, and headed for hard drive heaven. And the prognosis was not good for the start up drive. The catalog B tree was something er other. I think.

But here’s the best part.

Not only were the Mac guys super friendly with this not easy to fix problem thrust upon them at the end of their long days. Not only were the employees cordial and fun to talk with, being fellow Mac enthusiasts themselves. Besides all that, I found out about Apple Pro Care.

While my computer was undergoing surgical procedures, I got a quick lesson in Photoshop layer masking from the Creative Consultant. Again, for free. He showed me a hands-on example of how to separate a subject from a difficult background. And even better than that quick lesson? He offered to do it every week.

For a nominal $99/year, your local Apple store will provide you one-on-one personal training with one of their creative consultants in anything you’d like to learn. An hour a week. 52 hours per year. That’s a good amount of professional training for $99/year.

Apple pays attention to details. And, more than just being a detail, so far my experience with Apple has been that they pay attention to people. Of course there are exceptions, and I am sorry if you are an exception. But in general, I have not seen a company that works so hard at making sure you get what you pay for.

Again tonight, I was blown away by the experience I had at my local Apple store. I am definitely going to sign up for the ProCare thing, and once a week for the next year I’ll see again why Apple can count on my complete loyalty to their products and services.

For more information on Apple ProCare, go to:
http://www.apple.com/retail/procare/

To read the full story about my expereince at the Apple Store:
http://www.gregshead.net/2006/01/my-computer-had-heart-attack.html

I keep trying to think of people who could benefit from this… I figured I might try posting this here.

Here’s the deal. We have a cell phone. We don’t use it. We used to. But now we don’t. Our cell plan ($39.99/mo) gives us 450 daytime minutes, the balance of which “rolls over” to the next month for 12 months or until depleted. That’s a good deal, if you need to use a cell phone.

We don’t.

SO, we were going to just cancel our contract with Cingular, until we found out we could transfer that contract — INCLUDING the close to 3000 daytime minutes we now have built up!! Awesome!

Problem is, everyone we know has a cell phone. Or, if they don’t (Steve…) they don’t want one.

Do you? Or do you know someone? Once you assume our contract (which has maybe most of a year left on it) you would pay the $56-60/month (after fees and stuff) to have 450 daytime min/mo PLUS our bank of 3000 minutes. There is an $18 transfer fee, and you get to pick whatever number you want for the account – you won’t need to keep our cell number.

SO… if you’re interested, just e-mail me.

Here’s a link to an unsuccessful **CLOSED** auction for this on eBay. We did have a last minute buyer, but he was from India… and I never heard from him. Oh well.

eBay: Cingular Wireless **ACCOUNT** in Good Standing

Jen and I grabbed the laptop at about 10pm EST, finally able to watch the state of the union address. I figured by then it was probably over, and available somewhere on the internet. I did a quick search, and sure enough, at whitehouse.gov, I found a link to either the Windows Media version or Real Player. Being an Apple guy, I of course did not click the Windows Media option… 🙂

It started right up at the beginning of his speech! I was impressed. Either we have impeccable timing, or they had this thing like TiVo where, whenever you logged in, it started at the beginning! Very cool!

We listened as Bush covered the war in Iraq, the war on terror, the Patriot Act, and a strong economy due to tax cuts. All the right people were in the right places, but surprisingly, Condi Rice was absent while Colin Powell had a front row seat. We commented on that, but kept listening.

At one point, President Bush said it had been 28 months since September 2001. That’s when we both thought, “Huh??” Who writes these speeches???

The connection is fading now, and it’s not very easy to watch, so we head upstairs and try again. And to my chagrin, the Windows Media stream played better than the RealAudio one, so, I had to actually choose a Microsoft product!!! For shame!! But, we wanted to watch, so we plugged the laptop into our TV and popped WMP into full screen mode and sat back and listened again.

Powell was in the front row. Only twenty-eight months had passed since Sept. 2001 (we still couldn’t figure out how he got that one…) but we still thought nothing of these glitches.

Then, Bush said, last month, Libya gave up it’s weapons of mass destruction program.

HA!!!! HA HA HA!!!!! WE WERE WATCHING THE 2004 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS!!!!!!!!!

We had a good laugh, and turned off the TV. We’ll try again tomorrow.

🙂

To see the real 2006 State of the Union speech:
click here tomorrow.

I think I was up with the groundhog today. I could have either stayed up last night after midnight to get some extra stuff done in this short week we have (we’re doing our music for a retreat this weekend) or I could get up early today.

For some reason, I chose the latter.

The alarm went off 3 times before I actually got up, but I made it, and even ate breakfast, and was here in the office by 7am. That’s totally, completely insane.

But, I am getting work done on this project, and should complete it by 9:00, and then start my normal day, working on all the rest of the stuff I have to do.

Not bad. 🙂

Oh, by the way…

I think I saw my shadow.

We finally have some SNOW around here! It snowed all yesterday and last night and it’s still snowing. A couple inches out there on the ground. It has been the absolute craziest winter!!!

I like snow. I miss it. Glad to see it back.

The photo above was taked at a motel we stayed at two hours from here, after a concert in the middle of a huge blizzard! That was a funny night. Not many people came out for the concert (only those with 4 x 4s, I guess…) and we lost a wind-shield wiper – had to go to WalMart to get another. Lots of snow, but that was the last we have seen of it pretty much.

It’s February.

So, welcome back snow! Keep a’comin’!!!