Month: March 2008

  • Plumbing Fun!

    plumberThe last couple of weeks we had some water in our basement. Not altogether unusual for a 140 year old house, but enough to be concerned about. Yesterday, our plumber friend came over to have a look at it. He ran his massive snake machine all over the place and that didn’t clear out the problem. (Though he did get rid of some pesky roots from our 100 foot tall sycamore in the front yard.)

    So he did a little digging (literally) and discover the source of the problem. There is a key elbow where the new PVC piping linked up with the ancient clay piping. The actual elbow was completely gone. All that was there was an elbow of soil which somehow managed to get most of the waste water down the drain while leaving some of it under our house. Yuck.

    Long story short, he’ll be back today to finalize the job.  He’ll be re-routing some of our drains and fixing a few other mistakes the previous owner made. All told, it could have been a lot worse. It’s bad… but when you live in an old house like this… there are going to be a lot of previous owner mistakes to undo to get stuff done right by the pros.

  • Managing an Online Community: Flames are bad

    big flamesA couple days ago I talked about how an online community had gotten under my skin. To be honest, the only reason I ever went to the site was to read the 40+ comments they had made about the baptism video we released last year. What type of site was this? Well, it doesn’t seem to be open to “anyone.” It seems to be open to people from a hyper-conservative branch of a denomination. In other words… they are militant about their specific denomination.

    Here’s the fact. I commented once and that was plenty. Then I got a nice email encouraging me to come back and state my opinions on baptism.  Since he was so polite, I decided I would go for it… I’ll talk to anyone! I logged back in and posted a couple of paragraphs about what I believe about baptism as well as stating my personal opinion that there are many acceptable forms of baptism within Christianity and I don’t personally have a problem with their position on infant baptism. I thought I was building a bridge…

    That’s when the floodgates opened up and the flames began. The straw has broken and I won’t go back when a member told me to “man up” and defend every person in the world who believes in believer baptism. So there were 30ish militant people wanting a debate with me, just a guy with a busy schedule.

    Here’s why I am talking about this. As a manager of an online community this is a worst case scenario.  When I cried foul… “Hey, I’m getting flamed here!” a moderator actually posted that I wasn’t getting flamed, it was a discussion. As someone who moderates at YMX I know that some people are just sensitive. That’s not me, I’ve got thick skin. But what did happen is that a new member got scared off by a bunch of jerks. Now, I’m telling you about it. Which is the worst thing that can happen to an online community. One negative story negates 100 positive ones, maybe more.

    You can’t have stories like this. One is too many. You must treat new members to an online community with respect. Attacking a new member is death to an online community… as the one I’m writing about will.

  • Goodbye Sirius and Texas Roadhouse

    Today I sold some stocks. There were a couple of dogs in my otherwise solid performing portfolio.

    I had been a huge fan of Sirius and backed up my personal enthusiasm with investments from my IRA. After a couple of years of listening to the promises of long awaited profit and the ever present merger with XM Satellite I have decided we’ve waited long enough. While satellite radio is cool for those who travel a lot my guy tells me that the satellite radio fad is quickly fading. And unless they unleash low-cost TV and internet, there doesn’t seem to be any hope of explosive growth without undergoing much more R&D and launching more satellites… meaning they’d have to go into more debt!

    We also had been fans of Texas Roadhouse. We like the food. We like the prices. My issue is that the business model doesn’t seem to represent who I am.  While they are a nice chain I’m just not seeing enough out of them to want to keep investing in them. And apparently with recent performance on the markets, my feelings are not unique.

    This market is all about value.  And a satellite radio company mired in debt and a not-so-unique food chain represent two things, to me, which consumers will easily cut out of their family budgets. So I’ll be investing the proceeds from these sales into companies who better represent my own convictions for profiting in a value-driven economy. After all, it’s not like people stopped spending money.

  • 3 Posts to Read at Tim’s Blog

    I’m a big fan of Tim’s blog. I have a soft spot in my heart for Granger Community Church as they are doing big things in my hometown. But beyond the “movie theater church” I like Tim because he is a highly effective leader… the type of long-term-leader I want to be at Romeo. I need to figure out an excuse to go home so I can see if I can beg a meeting to pick his brain. Here are 3 posts to get you introduced to Tim’s blog.

    1. Why is Easter so Early this year?
    2. Huge Local Impact (you have no idea how much this warms my heart!)
    3. 3 Multi-site locations announced (back to their movie theater roots)

  • Forward through Time

    Two thoughts on this.

    1. I’ve never done drugs. But for some reason I’d be willing to bet this would be a stoner’s dream.
    2. There is a spiritual metaphor here, just don’t know what it is just yet.

  • Jesus and the Empty Tomb

    This was a video from our service today. We shot this at Roth Muir. For those not in Romeo this is one of the two funeral homes in town. It was the perfect location for this short video as it drove home our point perfectly.

    Services went great today. I’ll probably say more later. But everything from the music to the message to the baptisms made for a very strong Easter Sunday in Romeo.

  • An Ode to Peeps

    I actually like the candy covered marshmallow goodness. They are strangely addicting and I am certain that they somehow properly reflect the serious nature of Easter. This video is dedicated the the millions of peeps who have given their lives at the hands of middle schoolers armed with boredom and a microwave.

    Fear of Flight from Orin Zebest on Vimeo.

  • Saturday Tunes

    saturday tunesEver wonder what pastor’s do on the Saturday before Easter? I can’t speak for Bob but I know I’m finalizing a lot of little details for Easter. At 10:00 I’m headed over to the church for band practice. I’ve got 90% of the stuff done, but I need to finalize all of the baptism videos. (Shot all but one yesterday) So from now until then I’ll be relaxing, listening to some tunes.

    Here are the next 10 songs rocking my ear drums. As always, this is totally random and my ratings are included.

    1. Piazza, New York Catcher by Belle & Sabastian *****
    2. One by U2 *****
    3. Unveil by Jeff Deyo **
    4. Eye of the Tiger by Survivor *****
    5. Not to Us by Chris Tomlin ****
    6. Thou Swell by Natalie Cole ****
    7. What Do I Know of Holy by Addison Road ****
    8. 18th Symphony, e flat major by J.S. Bach ****
    9. Nothing Gold Can Stay by Jason Harwell ****
    10. People by Jon McLaughlin ****

    I’d love to see what your next 10 are! Saturday is a good day for sharing.

  • Sunday’s Comin’

    Anyone who was at the service last night will remember this video. (Totally digging the subwoofer on this one) I blushed when a couple of people assumed that I made the video… I wish! Here it is.

    By the way, if you are somehow on the bubble about the service tommorow… it’s going to be worth it! 7 kids have chosen to follow Jesus and get baptized, including our daughter Megan. It’s going to be awesome!

  • Dipping Day

    easter eggsThink about this, you you are an egg, today is dipping day. Millions and perhaps billions of eggs will be boiled, cooled, then dipped in some sort of dye.

    Sure, Easter eggs themselves have pagan roots… but Christianity is a religion that redemptively uses other culturally relevant traditions and customs all the time.

    Enjoy the tradition. I know our kids will.