place of nathan.

Give me five options and ask me to choose. chances are, i will choose none.

Give me one option, done well, and i will take the one option almost every time.

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Did you know there is a simple way to make people stop sending you junk mail?

I get very little junk mail any more (1-2 pieces per month–mostly from my bank). About two years ago, i opted out of these mailing lists via the only official opt-opt list for ALL Equifax, Experian, Innovis and TransUnion.
This opt-out covers both credit and insurance companies.

I was a little worried about it at first because it required me to enter my Social Security Number, but man…it worked like a charm. It took about six weeks, but all those pesky, multiple daily offers are know longer showing up. i like.

Check out the official opt-out page here: OptOutPreScreen.
(if you found this helpful, you could always buy me a book, hehe)

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Seth Godin posted a really great blog today about getting to Yes.

I think i’ve spent too much of my time worrying about the peeps who are “No” people. People who are always “No” people. Seth also posted about “No” people this morning as well.

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Nearly six months ago, I posted about an addiction I had.
Although i no longer needed them, I could not stop wearing my eyeglasses. I had worn them every day for about 14 years.
This weekend, I was wearing my prescription sunglasses, and forgot to grab my regular glasses as we went to church Saturday night, so i went without my glasses.
On Sunday, I decided to wear my sunglasses and see if i could do without them. I did.
About 30 times a day, literally, i think about pushing my glasses back up my face. It’s kind of annoying not having that weight on my nose.

But I am now glasses-less.

I suppose now i need to change the photo on my top banner, eh?

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This week at New Hope I finally had the opportunity to introduce some simplification to our structure for how we schedule events.
Previously, this were the steps an event planner had to do (more or less)
1. Talk to Person 1 to see if the date is okay (if yes, they got final approval at this point)
2. Talk to Person 2 (Pastor in charge) to see if the event is okay
3. Fill out paperwork and turn it in to Person 1. (but if not done, it’s okay, your event was already approved in step one!)
4. Talk to Person 3 for setup (optional)
5. Talk to Person 4 for communications (optional)
6. Talk to Person 5 for accounting assistance (optional)

Now, this is the new structure:
1. Fill out paperwork (two pages–second page is for optional services) and turn it in to anyone in the office.

Simple, eh? Although it is much, much more simple for our volunteers, it does put some extra work on the office staff, but the structures benefits are huge:
1. It is simple for our extremely valuable, unpaid event planners
2. ALL our staff now has complete access to the whole master church calendar.
3. Support services (like communications, accounting, setup) now get job assignments from one place (the system) instead of every event planner via phone, or hand-written note, or E-mail, or face-to-face. Meaning, less opportunities to drop the ball. In other words, I no longer have 30 different bosses telling me what to do. They submit it to the system, and the system tells me what’s up. Hallelujah! That has been a thorn in my side for my more than six years in my current position. Hallelujah! I can hear the angels now.

Are there things in your structures you can improve on? Maybe you could be more efficient running errands, as Carma mentioned yesterday. Think outside the box. It doesn’t have to be like it always was just because that’s the way it always was.

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I am not going to buy gasoline today.

I imagine by now you’ve heard about all the hoopla about not buying any gasoline today on May 15. The thought is that by not purchasing gasoline on one day, it hurts the oil industry. So instead, everyone who would normally get gas today either bought it yesterday or will buy it tomorrow.
You see, although we can hurt the industry for one day, their three-day sales are exactly what they should be. We did nothing to change anything.
It is simple supply and demand. If we don’t buy it today, tomorrow the gas companies could raise prices and show us who is boss…

But for me, I am not going to buy gasoline today. I walked in to work today. I’ve never walked in to work before. I’ve worked here more than six years and lived in my house for more than five, and I’ve never walked to work. Today, I did. Today, I’m not using any gasoline. I did not use any of my gasoline supply.

Today, in our culture, the only reason anyone would walk to work is because they can’t afford it, or they lost their drivers license. Nobody walks for fun. Nobody walks for health.

Perhaps today you could walk to the store, or walk to a friends…if not, you might as well go ahead and buy gasoline today.

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One Step Jackpot: Adopt a Slogan like “Give ‘Til Feels Good”
Once you’ve done that, people will do the rest for you. You’ll likely never reach anyone who isn’t already a Christian, because you’ve just reinforced one of the chiefest complaints of those who aren’t following Christ–the Church is only after my money.

Balance: Yes, there is truth to that statement, and it’s certainly true for the core people of your church. And while there is truth, there is a benefit to understanding the mindset of those who aren’t attending a church. You can’t treat them just like you want to be treated! They are spiritually immature, and can’t grasp a concept like “Give ‘Til Feels Good” (They hear “We Want All Your Money!”)

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On our way back home to Indiana, Emily and I drove past a most interesting courthouse in Greensburg, Indiana.

Although the architecture in Madison was really great to look at, consisting of various styles from Federal to Greek Revival, this courthouse is, i suppose, of the hillbilly period. Click the image for a better view, if you’re having a hard time figuring out what i’m referring to…

Further on down the road in Anderson, Indiana, Emily and I decided to stop by Rax Roast Beef, which I learned about following a previous post, when Perry (the owner) mentioned he was still operating a Rax Roast Beef restaurant in Anderson.

I was very surprised how many things brought back memories–the separate menu board out by the waiting area corral. The drinking fountain by the condiments. the raised seating area. the location of the trash receptacle. It was all very fun to sit and soak in the memories. The raised seating area was only two steps up–i thought i remember it being much higher–like, five or six steps up–but i suppose to a kid it would seem much higher. Emily and I did eat our lunch sitting in the raised area. i was like a kid in a candy store!
As we were waiting, i saw a photo of Perry, and so was looking for him. I saw him once, he came toward the front to make some fries, i think, but then quickly disappeared. I thought about asking for him so i could speak with him briefly, but it was about 12:15 and they were getting hammered. Perhaps another time…

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Clifty Falls Inn, where Emily and I stayed during our vacation, is located just a short drive (5 minutes) from downtown Madison, Ind.
Madison is a city set on the Ohio River–It was a Boom Town of the riverboat era. Once the transportation focus shifted from riverboat to railroad, Madison was pretty much left untouched.
Now, 150 years later, Madison is very much the same city it was in the mid-1800’s. Downtown is full of all kinds of shops, small bankfronts, a movie theater, hair salons/barber shops, restaurants, a bike shop, a furniture store, knick-knack shops, coffee shops, ice cream shop, a hardware store, a pharmacy–you name it, it was there downtown.
When Emily and I arrived in Madison, we walked down second street admiring the architecture of the community. The style of homes were not like anything we see here. Most of the homes were great examples of the Federalist style (please don’t ask how i know this…). Many of those homes were absolutely HUGE. i would guess 4,000 sq. ft. for many of them. Most of the larger homes had been split into multi-home units–we saw a few units with six mailboxes out front!
Madison was a great city to look at and i would recommend it.

On Wednesday, Emily and I visited historic Stream Cliff Farm. I say historic for two reasons: one, it is Indiana’s oldest herb farm and two, General John Hunt Morgan and his raiders (Morgan’s Raiders) stopped by Stream Cliff during the Civil War. (although it wasn’t an Herb Farm at that time). We also had a wonderful lunch at the Sprigs and Twigs Tea Room. I had never been at a tea room before, so that was a treat. It was also interesting sitting next to a table of 12 Red Hat Ladies.

Tomorrow, I will share three photos about our experience driving home. We had a good trip home. it was fun!

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On Tuesday of our vacation, we planned on taking a hike. I don’t think we either one knew exactly what to expect, and i think we both were fairly surprised.
In all, we hiked 11 miles in five hours. I carried a backpack, which was a very good thing. in the backpack we took water, lunch and a couple snacks. It was nice to be continually lightening the load by drinking the water…
As we started from the Clifty Inn, we went downhill…like a steep grade. Emily described the grade as ‘that reminds me of my sister’s driveway,’ which is located on top of a hill in Brown County.
Once we got to the bottom of the hill, we set foot in Clifty Creek. Trail 2 at Clifty Falls State Park follows the Clifty Creek Creekbed up to the main Clifty Falls. The creekbed was all rock. Very little of it was flat. Because it was so rocky, the hike was pretty slow.
In the summer and fall, the creek is pretty low, and the falls meager, but the week prior to our visit, the rain had be hardy, and the creek was flowing at a pretty decent pace. If you’re familiar with Cedar Creek in the DeKalb County area, Clifty Creek contained about 1/4 as much water.
As we took off up Clifty Creek, we thought we would be able to walk the four miles up the creek (without a paddle) without getting our feet wet. We slowly stepped from stone to stone, from side to side. It was very slow-going. Finally we determined it was useless and started wadding. That made it go much quicker.
When we arrived at the main Clifty Falls, we had to climb up a ladder and walk down a walkway, and then there it was–the most beautiful falls i have ever seen. We had an amazing view of Clifty Falls. (i forgot to get a couple photos of this–i will add tonight if i can remember).
In all, over the course of 11 miles and five hours, we saw a grand total of ONE couple. That was it. It was pretty nice to be secluded and alone, things quiet. At the end of the hike, we had to walk up the steep incline which we initially walked down. That was pretty rough. I think we spent the night at our Inn playing dominoes in the hotel’s lobby/gameroom.

Tomorrow in part 3, i will talk about the cool city of Madison, Indiana and also a tea room we visited.

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Last weekend Emily and I had a wonderful vacation at Clifty Falls State Park in Madison, Ind.
The state park is full of loads of waterfalls (as the name suggests). Some of the waterfalls are rather small, like the one pictured here, but there are four major falls at the park with over 60′ vertical drop. The main Clifty Falls has a 72′ drop.
The park and city of Madison were both very empty while we were there, and we liked it. We celebrated our second wedding anniversary on Monday of our vacation–we were planning on going out to eat, but when we got there, we figured out that pretty much the entire city of Madison shuts down on Monday. about half the city is shut down on Tuesday, and the city rocks Wednesday - Sunday. Such is a tourist city, i suppose.
So Monday night we had our anniversary dinner at the only restaurant we could find open anywhere–an Italian place at a golf course. When we arrived, there was one other table there. They soon left. We sat on a screened-in porch, and it was a beautiful evening. After we got our meal–which was a very good meal–we waited for our server to check on us. And waited. Then, the chef closed some windows so we couldn’t see inside. And then we waited some more. About 30 minutes later, the chef and our server emerged from a side room together, and the server checked on us. We got to giggling about what those two were doing together–they were either smoking a joint or having an affair, as best as we could hypothesize.

The state park contains the remnants of a defunt railroad, the Madison and Indianapolis Railroad, which includes extensive grading work (it’s very hilly there about 1/2 mile off the Ohio River) and a tunnel. At the left, you can see a photo of me entering the 600′ long, 7′ high tunnel. At right, here i am at the other side. We had a lot of fun walking around the park and looking at the falls.

In tomorrow’s installment of the vacation review, i will talk about our 11-mile, 5-hour hike, partly on one of the most rugged trails (rated ‘Extremely Rugged’) in all of the Indiana State Parks.

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