Jen and I will be watching this via Hulu.com tonight, so I thought I’d share here… in case you haven’t yet experienced Psych. It’s definitely our favorite current TV show! (You’ll love it more if you are around our age… tons of hilarious and random references to 80s pop culture.) 🙂
Hulu – Psych: You Can’t Handle This Episode – Watch the full episode now..
Following up on yesterday’s recommended Hulu show … they announced today that there is a slew of NFL content now available on their site. They even have their own channel there!
This is great news, and I hope to see more. Perhaps next season NFL GameDay will be there as well? (Come on, NFL!)
Until then, we in the Campbell home will be watching some great NFL games from the past, including some video from when our team was actually good, too! 🙂
Enjoy!
Last night as we were closing down for the night in the Campbell home, I shut off the light and said aloud, “I guess I can turn this off now. I always turn our front and back lights on, in case anyone wants to stop by for a visit. Never seems to work, though, does it?” The other Campbells around me agreed.
This is something I have been lamenting for quite a while. (Note: I chose the word “lament” because I don’t mean complain. I mean lament.) Our American busyness has nearly eliminated face-to-face, unplanned interaction with our neighbors.
Yes, we do see each other. We even get together now and again with friends. We Campbells really enjoy spending time with a couple different families who both live about a 45-minute drive from our house! (Definitely hard to “drop by” there.) We even see our friends who live within walking distance of our home, but usually in passing as we both continue with our to-do lists.
I actually completely understand. We’re some of the least busy people that I know, yet, with all of the very young people in our house, everyday life is full enough to allow us very little “down time” in our days. Now add to that every social, athletic, spiritual, community, academic, and assorted other schedules (for every person in the family) and most of us have lives so chock-full that we don’t really get to just “drop by” anymore.
Partly our culture is to blame. We are very individualistic. It’s the “American way” to the core. It starts with the notion that you can (and should?) be responsible for yourself, earn your living, and have a you-can-do-it mentality. (Note: that seems to be slowly eroding with passing generations, though. Current trend seems to be more toward allowing others to be responsible for your living … but I digress…) Wherever it starts, it certainly continues to the point that we rarely even see our neighbors, let alone interact with them.
And so we text. We “Facebook”. We email. (Does anyone besides me still email?) All ways to stay connected despite our disconnected lives.
Sure, we see each other. Most of our busyness is with other people. We are together in our busyness. But moments of just dropping by for a visit—at least from my vantage point—are a relic from another era.
It’s OK to move on, for sure. Everything changes. But have we lost too much? It’s amazing to me sometimes that I really don’t know most of the people around me. (Note: I intend no accusation or placement of blame by any of these comments, merely stating observations. If anything, I can actually take much of the “blame” for this. I could perhaps make more of an effort to just “drop by” for a visit … but am often feeling too overloaded myself!)
Perhaps it’s a winter thing. We do see our neighbors more in the summertime. Perhaps it’s just a “me” thing? (Do you fraternize with your neighbors more than we do?) Perhaps it is a cultural thing that just won’t go away any time soon.
For now, I’ll still leave the lights on.
As I mentioned a while back, I’ve been reading through Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth. (1 Corinthians.) I’m trying to do it in bigger chunks to get a broader perspective of what Paul is talking about in this letter. It’s one that has always slightly baffled me. Paul (a life-long rule keeper) speaks tirelessly of God’s grace in other letters (to the Romans, Ephesians, Galatians…) but in his letters to the Corinthians, he seems to just be laying down rule after rule to “keep… or else.”
I still haven’t found a chunk of time to read it all at once, but I read chapters 1-10 today, and noted a theme running through that section. Paul does indeed speak of the freedom of the believer (via God’s grace through our connection with Jesus) but moreover, he speaks of our freedom to not be free.
Specifically, in what we’ve deemed “chapter eight”, Paul uses the example of eating meat that was sacrificed to idols. We don’t come upon such a circumstance very often these days, but that was a major deal then. He basically says that, of course, the meat is fine to eat (neither it, nor the demons to whom it was offered have any power) but the greater issue is the heart of other believers who think that it does.
In other words, it’s not about what we do… it’s who we do it to, or do it for.
Sure, we have the freedom from religious (and perhaps in particular, superstitious) practices, as we know God is not persuaded by any of those … but if by exercising that freedom we lead another believer to sin against their own conscience (another fascinating concept… that “sin” is arbitrary, relative, or subjective?) then we have done a greater injustice than that person’s “sin.”
I think it all still boils down to, “Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.” (Steven Curtis Chapman‘s paraphrase of Micah 6:8.) 🙂
We do have freedom. Life in Jesus is freedom. Freedom from sin, guilt, shame, and even “religious rules” and obligations. But our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose to not be free—to love—for the benefit of everyone around us.
More thoughts to come from this letter, I’m sure.
It’s really unbelievable when in the world of professional sports, one team can totally dominate another, game after game, season after season.
Unless you are a fan of a Buffalo pro sports team.
No, I am not speaking of the incredible streak that the New England Patriots are still enjoying against our Buffalo Bills… though that is a pretty frustrating one for we Buffalo fans. Tonight I’m befuddled by the way the blue and gold managed to post another ‘L’ in the standings after sixty minutes versus their current (and long-time) nemesis: the Ottawa Senators.
The Sens have won 8 straight against the Sabres, and their dominance has extended to the post season in recent years, with their last meeting being a win in only five games against the President Trophy winning Sabres of 2006-2007. (I believe that was the highest point total in Sabres’ history that year.)
From what we’ve heard, it was a hard-fought game. They got the first two goals, then the Sabres scored two goals in 27 seconds to tie it up … then the Sens scored in the last minute of the game to get the win, 4-2. (Empty netter added at the end.)
Oh, I forgot to mention… all four goals were scored by Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza, each with two. (All that was missing was two more from Dany Heatley, who now plays for San Jose.) Those two continued their strange dominance of the Sabres.
The Sabres are really having a very good season. They have a great goalie, who is having a good year. They have just enough scoring from the right players (but could certainly use more…) And for a while they had quite a lead in their division.
They just better hope that they don’t face the Senators in round one of the playoffs.
We decided, sort of last-minute, to head out to one of our favorite places last night (Leo’s Pizza) and take advantage of the kids eat free Tuesday special ( …we have a lot of kids!!) We also got to drop by and celebrate a birthday with some friends, so it was a fun night out!
But the bonus for the night was, just after we were served our food by the guy who runs the place. He has taken a liking to our family, especially our cute kids. As he served the pizza he said to the boys, “As soon as you’re done, I have a ‘special mission’ for you, so let me know when you’re done.” We didn’t have any idea what he meant, but couldn’t wait to find out!
Once they were ready, the boys—and Kirsten—went over to “report for duty” … and that’s when the fun began!
They were outfitted with aprons (Kirsten’s needed a bit of help as she’s still a bit short…) 🙂 and then they proceeded back to the kitchen. He showed them around a bit and then got out a ball of dough for Ian to pound, Alex added the sauce, Kirstie added the cheese, and they all chose and added their own toppings! They threw the pizza in the oven and got to take home their first made-by-themselves pizza! 🙂 It was really cute, and so fun!
Click the picture of our little pizza chefs above to see the larger version (though, it’s a bit fuzzy since it was just from a cell phone). We already liked Leo’s Pizza, but I think we might like it even a bit more, now!
Steven Curtis Chapman has always been one of my favorite songwriters. At least, “always” since I began listening to music that would be labeled “Christian” in my late teens. (Holy cow, that seems so long ago…) For whatever reason—for many reasons—his music and his lyrics really connect with me. (And I with them?) I was talking about this with Jen last night and was realizing the perhaps a key part of it is that he and I think on the same things, and think similarly on those things. And how he says it must also resonate with me as well. (Plus, the music is great, well-done, excellent, too.)
Sometime last week I decided to listen to an album of his—the album in the box at the top of this post. Often when we play music in our house, we make full use of the “shuffle” feature on our iPod and let the tiny musical device be our DJ as it selects from any of our 4000 or so songs, making for a very nice eclectic mix of styles. But after hearing one of Steven’s songs, I thought it would be fun to actually listen through a whole album.
I was right.
If you own This Moment, I would like to recommend that you pull it out now (or queue it up) and have a good listen. If you don’t yet own the album, BUY IT! Really. It’s very worth it. Not only is the music fun, excellent, and fairly diverse (style-wise) … the theme of the album is what we all really need to hear and know.
You are being loved. You ought to hear his version of Amazing Grace. It’s crazy things that love will make you do. There’s a wonder in the here in now, right there in front of you. Don’t miss the miracle of the moment.
I contemplated actually posting thoughts on each of his songs here individually, and perhaps someday I may, but for now, I’d really rather you have a listen yourself. He does such a great job of capturing the truth of how much our father loves us (including, I think, through a song about loving every moment of his daughter’s life, being her Dad—Cinderella.)
It’s definitely not just this album, but for the moment, I am highly (as highly as I can) recommending this particular album—This Moment. If you have an hour where you can really take in the lyrics, do. The words flow from a real, living, deep relationship with our loving Father, and will hopefully remind you of just how loved you are as you listen.
You ought to see the smile you’re bringing to your Father’s face
You ought to hear him sing his version of Amazing Grace.
Are you ready for the winter olympics? It’s almost here! The Campbell household enjoys watching all of the olympic sporting events, but I am partial to the winter sports. (Perhaps because I like snow and cold?)
We’re excited to see the hockey, featuring all of the world’s best players (kind of like an extended NHL all-star game!) including Ian’s new favorite team, the Russians! 🙂 We watched the 80s movie, “Cool Runnings” (with John Candy, about the Jamaican bobsled team) so we’re excited to watch the bobsled event. Figure skating, speed skating, all the skiing events…
CURLING! (Need I say more???) 🙂
To prepare for the upcoming games we have been doing all sorts of olympic-related things. Watching “Cool Runnings” was one. Jen has picked up some books from the library. The boys used the rest of their Christmas money at Blockbuster to rent Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games! (Which we have found is quite entertaining! We highly recommend!)
AND, finally, once we discovered that NONE of the hockey games would be on regular NBC TV, we decided to “bite the bullet” and upgrade our cable for the month. (Ian also offered to chip in, since he has had a paper route since last year, and has some extra spending money. That was awesome.) 🙂 Even “awesomer” was the flyer we received in the mail the day we ordered the upgrade … the current promotion will cost us only $5 extra per month! Sweet.
So we are psyched. Looking forward to two weeks of winter sports fun. Go USA!
I do web design. All facets of web design. From the graphic design of a site, to the writing of code (in several different programming languages), to the configuring of servers and software, to the maintenance of said websites.
Today as I was going about my business, and after some positive interaction with my main hosting company, I decided to give them a bit of free advertising on my facebook business page. After all, from recent experiences with other hosting companies, this one deserved some free publicity. They’re top notch!
Well, as luck would have it…
Not a few hours after proclaiming their greatness, there was a glitch when fetching email. I submitted a support ticket, thinking nothing of it. But it got worse. And no reply from support. So, I checked again, and finally… my site was down. ALL of my sites were down. All of my clients’ sites were down.
Uh oh.
After a few quick back-and-forths with tech support, it became apparent that this was sadly a much bigger issue than I first imagined.
When there were some issues noticed by the tech support guy, who could not access the server, he initiated a system reboot. Unbeknownst to him, the (remote) servers were being rebooted already … somehow this all created the perfect storm and the entire system crashed and all data was lost … for everyone. Not just me, not just my clients, but everyone this company hosts.
Holy moly.
Well, that’s just never a good thing. But I found it quite ironic that on the day I chose to praise this company, their entire service goes kerplunk. 🙂 Ain’t that the way it goes?
However, true to my praise, they are now back up and running (this blog is evidence of that statement) and I and my clients are all much happier. (As is tech support, I’m certain.) All data was recovered, and all within about 5 or 6 hours of a total system crash.
Not bad. Not bad at all!
So, I’ll say it again. If you have a website, or hosting for a website (or just email) I would like to recommend a great web hosting company. eVerity Web Hosting & Domains has been trusted by Basic Web Design & Graphics for over 6 years now, and even with a minor (or major?) catastrophe … they came through with flying colors. You can click their link and manage your own hosting, or contact me, and I’ll do it for you.
*Sigh* … Next time, I may think twice before endorsing some service I really enjoy. It apparently can lead to complete chaos!
While cleaning up the girls’ room today, there came a point where we had to reach up high to get something. As I stretched, Julia, our 3-year-old, stated, “God could reach that. He’s super tall.”
“Yes, I suppose he could,” I agreed. “But he’s not really just… tall. He’s even bigger than that.”
“Yeah,” Kirstie chimed in, “He’s so big that the earth is just a speck to him!”
“Well, that’s right,” I said. “But he’s even so big that he’s just everywhere. There isn’t anywhere you can go that he isn’t. Isn’t that cool?”
They nodded in agreement, and we continued the clean up. After only a few moments of silence—during which the mental gears of the 3 and 5 year olds never stopped—the conversation continued:
“I wonder if God wears clothes.” (I think I may have laughed out loud at that one… at least chuckled.)
“I don’t know,” I admitted, “I guess he could… but he doesn’t really need clothes…”
“Well, if he did, he’d have realllllly big clothes!”
Yep. I guess he would.
Love the way tiny minds think!
