Category Archives: family

Updates and Gallery Go Bye-Bye

Posted by on February 10, 2012 Comments Off

Website

I am probably going to start posting more geeky things to this blog now. I have some PHP related experiments that I wanted to provide to the community. I might post more of my lego creations as well, like this mini-modular city.

I am finally taking the old image gallery offline. I know that very few people actually looked at my family pictures, so it is not a big loss anyway. Since wordpress has its own way of storing images with posts, I’ll just use that.

I updated WordPress and accidentally deleted the wp-content folder so I lost all the pictures I had been uploading here. Ugh. I made a copy of the database but not that folder. *sigh*

I have been toying with moving this site to an Amazon Micro-instance. It has resided on the server of a friend for over 9 years now. I’ll post something if I actually get up the nerve to make the jump.

Life

In our lives, the biggest thing is that we have switched churches. December was our last month worshipping at CCPC. I am still officially the webmaster for their site so hopefully someone will step up to lead that charge. Our departure was for numerous reasons: distance (35 miles), not part of the community, … One of the biggest reasons though was our Senior Pastor being asked to leave. As my shepherding the body was closely tied to his leadership, we decided that it was time for us to leave as well. As I was the only Ruling Elder at the time, it was an extremely difficult decision for our family.

Many people asked if I felt a sense of relief leaving, like a weight coming off my shoulders. Alas, that is not the case. After worshipping at CCPC for 5 years, and being an Elder for 3, it was a sad occasion. I served diligently to teach, train, and shepherd. In the process we made a lot of precious friendships that will be difficult to maintain. Although I started three rounds of Elder and Deacon training, the end result was only one of each. The church has only one new Ruling Elder and has just started their pastoral search process, so it felt like there was so much more to do. But I realized several things in the process. There will always be to much to do. I can only do so much with the people who will listen and follow. No time is a good time to leave.

We are now getting to know people at Shady Grove PCA which is a mere 10 minutes away from our house. The first Sunday we worshipped there felt like coming home for some reason. It is a new chapter in our life, and we are looking forward to what God is going to do.

 

Early Snow

Posted by on October 29, 2011 Comments Off

Child 1:

Child 2:It’s snowing, it’s snowing, it’s snowing!

I wish there was more snow.

 

Wiggin out

Posted by on October 27, 2011 Comments Off

My daughter brought home Ender’s Game from the school library without me mentioning it previously. Total win.

Unfortunately the book is rather violent and filled with expletives.

Demise, Rumors of

Posted by on April 24, 2011 Comments Off

Greatly exaggerated, as someone once said.

As some of you got wind of from Camille’s facebook post, yes I did go to the hospital on Friday night and stayed there about 20hr. Xray, CT scans, blood work, and a stress test later and they say I (internally) look much better than the average for my age. Despite my best attempts to consume large quantities of Five Guys burgers (there is one open in Ithaca too!), even my cholesterol levels are good.

My stay at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital was a pleasant one. The nursing staff and doctors were all pleasant to talk to. The place was clean and fairly quiet. I have only very tiny dots on both arms from the needles, so they do a very good job drawing blood. Alas, I did not have the ability to experience the hospital food as I needed to fast the whole time due to the constant blood samples that were being drawn. I must say though, it smelled really good.

I am doing better. Doctors couldn’t find anything wrong so either the timing of the tests was too late or they are unable to pick up what my body is trying to say. I can’t complain about that even though I still have an occasional chest pain. I don’t think this was stress related (though I am under a very large amount of stress) because the symptoms don’t match my previous experiences with stress and panic. It isn’t heartburn either. I know what that feels like too. Neither of those would also explain why my lips would turn blue.

So, this is one of life’s mysteries, and my family is very glad to have me back in the house. Thank you everyone for your prayers.

Greg and Jeff Go To California

Posted by on January 31, 2011 Comments Off

Just got back from SFO and MacWorld 2011 yesterday. I happened to catch one of the very last flights out of Baltimore before the storm hit last Wednesday. While I flew, my wife spent an equal 5 hours driving home in the snow.

Before the conference started, Jeff and I went for a hike to Pier 14 where I made the above panoramic. It was the only nice day there with clear skies and a high of 54F. The rest of the time was cold and wet. Unfortunately my tendonitis flared up in both knees and my right hip, reducing our ability to explore SF.
It was a good time to hang out with my brother and continue our plans of world domination. Gravett Island was solidy under our control by the end. Unfortunately, we had less time than I had hoped. He had to man the Shedworx booth a good portion of the time, and I went to some of the seminars. The other developers at his company were fun to get to know. There was one Greg and two Craigs, all from Australia, making conversations confusing at times.

All in all I felt that MacWorldExpo was not worthwhile for a web application developer like myself. Most events focused on audio & video. One of the key conference talks I went for was cancelled. I counted 13 expo booths selling iPhone cases. There was very little free stuff, unlike OSCON, ZendCon, and phpTek. On the bright side, CultofMac featured my brother and I at the top of their MacWorld Day 3 post. Their managing editor, Traci, was very nice to talk to, albeit briefly. Next year Shedworx should pay us to come out and be Booth Studs.

As a note: I do not work for Shedworx, I just happened to be hanging out at their booth because I had already wandered the expo hall five times.

Sermon 9: Proclaiming Well

Posted by on January 23, 2011 Comments Off

On January 16th I was honored to be able to present a sermon on evangelism and how Christians do a better job telling others about Apple products than the Savior of their souls. If I take stock, I am usually more excited about some new tech gadget, or a sports team, or a movie. How about you? The sermon was modeled on the previous weeks sermon by Pastor Paul Jeon on how our prayer life is reflective of our relationship with God.

And yes, I am going to MacWorld.

TG10

Posted by on November 25, 2010 Comments Off

A very Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

This year I was in charge of dessert. Mmmm… Pumpkin cake. Anne was a very good helper mixing the batter.

Kitchen Math & Pi Day

Posted by on March 14, 2010 Comments Off

Pi Are Squared.

I had a fun time trying to explain the concept of Pi to my daughter. Not sure it took. If she remembers 3.14 tomorrow I will consider it a success.

Special thanks to Jennifer Hampton for the pun.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Posted by on December 31, 2009 Comments Off

Another year comes to an end, but in many respects it is just another day. For all the resolutions that people make (lose weight, read more, spend more time with kids, have more fun, …) do our resolutions get in the way of the true resolution we need to make? Can we set aside these (usually “good”) things that control our lives and make sure Christ takes primacy? Are we willing to daily live for the glory of God? Not an easy “resolution”. Why not try some of these resolutions to start with.

edit: here is another good read on resolutions.

Sixes and 22s

Posted by on December 20, 2009 Comments Off

We managed to locate six candles in the drawer to celebrate Andrew’s 6th birthday. He was very excited, and especially liked the brontosaurus from Poppy. Camille made an awesome cake from scratch. We were all very impressed.

The kids got an extra birthday surprise when the #snowpocalypse began. We got a total of about 22 inches of snow, for which they were very grateful. We stayed inside on Saturday to just enjoy some time playing games and resting.
With everything being closed and canceled, including church, we decided to go outside and have some fun. Sledding was a bit rough to start with in all the powder, but it got better quickly. Then I began the process of digging out the cars, and digging in one snow car. We shall see how long the plows leave it alone.
The kids don’t know it yet, but I started carving out the inside of the snow car to make them a fort. School is canceled tomorrow so I need to do something with them.