December 2007

Monthly Archive

Life Lesson from Pumping Gasoline

Posted by on 21 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: my life., thoughts on god., thoughts on life.

Every morning, Emily and I leave for work at the same time. I have a one-minute commute, or a seven-minute walk (I am not walking through the winter though), and Emily has a 35-40 minute commute.

Needless to say, Emily uses much more gasoline in her car than I do in mine. I try to do most of her gasoline fill-ups, but sometimes she gets gas in Fort Wayne without letting me know she needs gas.

This morning on the way to work, Emily needed gas, so we stopped at our local S & S Express, and I pumped gas for her. I went in to pay as Emily drove off. The young lady behind the counter said, ‘You always pump gas for her, don’t you?’
I said, ‘Not always, but I do try to.’
‘I think that’s so cute,’ she said.
‘Sometimes she gets it without asking me, but when it’s cold outside, I especially like getting it for her.’
‘I think it’s so cute you two get along so well.’

As I left, those words stuck with me…’you two get along so well.’

I think that is key to making any marriage work. You have to do what the other person wants, even when you don’t want to. I don’t particularly enjoy standing out in 20-degree weather pumping gasoline, but when I do it instead of my wife, I am making a sacrifice for her, and she knows it. I gladly make that sacrifice for my wife.
She doesn’t like pumping gas ever, and when she can get a replacement to do it for her, she is indebted to her replacement, and she serves me well.

The thing is, this is just like what Jesus did for us–he was the replacement sacrifice for all we deserve for our screw ups and mess ups. Jesus made a sacrifice for us, do we serve him well?

Merry Christmas to All…

Posted by on 20 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: my life., thoughts on life.

My dad recently posted a Merry Christmas message I believe everyone should read.

Enjoy the days leading up to Christmas everyone! Remember it’s not about consumerism, it’s about Christ.

Customer Service Rant

Posted by on 19 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: my life.

So I’m working with a local company I haven’t dealt with in about four years. They were supposed to have the item ready for me to pickup last Friday.

Friday afternoon, they called to let me know they had a problem and needed to “sort it out over the weekend” and would call me on Monday.

Monday came and went, no phone call. So I called right before I was to leave work at 4:15. The lady said she would check and call me “right back.”
She left me a voicemail at 6:30, asking me to call “first thing” when I got in on Tuesday.

Thinking this was good news, I called at 8:15 on Tuesday and was told they would be ready that afternoon, and they would call when ready. I never heard anything, so I called yesterday at 4, and was told they weren’t ready yet, but they said they had “a few” done and we could pick up if we wanted. I said I would just wait until they were all done and ready for pickup.

Today (Wednesday) with a pressing deadline, I called to see “about how many” “a few” was to see if it would be beneficial to pickup. So I was put on hold, then three minutes later, she picked up and told me she would call me “right back.”
That was an hour ago. I’m still waiting for my call “right back.”

This is horrible customer service people. Don’t promise things you can’t or won’t do (like calling ‘right back’ if you mean hours later). I understand things happen, but when I repeatedly am told, ‘not done yet, we’ll call you in a few hours when they’re done’ over the course of several days, this is just annoying.

Anyway, this is horrible. It’s been four years since I’ve used this company, and it will be much, much longer than that until I ever even consider using them again.

Most Popular Post

Posted by on 19 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: my life., Tech Stuff.

On my sidebar, I have a section called ‘Most Popular Posts,’ which lists the most popular posts. ‘Popular’ is determined by a complex mathematical formula (which I won’t bore you with the details).

Ever since I installed the Popularity Plugin I’m using, my scientific evidence for speaking in tongues? has been top of the list. WAY on top of the list. Nothing was even close.

Until now…
My post Joomla! forums hit 100,000 users is quickly catching up. Very quickly, actually.
Interesting thing is, the Joomla! forums surpassing 100,000 is old news–the post is from April. In late November, the Joomla! forums topped 150,000 forum members, and at the time of this writing is currently 154,413 members. Also note Joomla! project lead Johan Janssens left the only comment on that post…

Old news sells, apparently.

Sliding Controllably

Posted by on 18 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: my life., thoughts on life.

The past few days in our ten inches of snow, I’ve been thinking about my car and driving. I drive a rear-wheel drive mustang, and in snowy/icy conditions, driving can be both fun and dangerous. I need to slow down and drive carefully.

Many people have sworn off rear-wheel drive vehicles because they slide so much easier than a front-wheel drive vehicle, and that is true.

However, a rear-wheel drive vehicles is much easier to control through a slide than a front-wheel drive.

Did you get that? The vehicle which slides more, slides controllably. The vehicle which slides less, slides uncontrollably.

Which would you rather have–more controllable slides, or fewer uncontrollable?

Is there anything we can apply to our walk with Jesus as we consider slides?

Winter Weather Website

Posted by on 17 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: New Hope stuff.

Last week, I posted about New Hope’s website getting all-time high traffic due to last weekend’s icy weather.

Well, this week the website set all new records, BIG TIME records, yet again!

  • Traffic was up 469% from the previous week’s daily average (which includes last week’s previous all-time high)
  • Traffic was 127% higher than last week’s all-time high.
  • 40% of all traffic was returning visitors, 60% of traffic checked only once.

Snowed In…

Posted by on 16 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: my life.

This morning, I woke up at 7 a.m., and started scooping out the driveway, which was covered with about 10″ of snow.
Emily and I were scheduled to play on worship team this morning, with a sound check scheduled for 8:30 a.m.
We cancelled our 9 a.m. worship celebration, so our sound check was pushed back to 10 a.m.

After about 90 minutes of shoveling, we canceled the 10:30 a.m. worship celebration as well, so I came inside and took a break. Ever since then, I have been shoveling for about 30 minutes, and taking a 30-45 minute break, then repeating…
And I’m still not done. I have it good enough we could get both cars out if we needed to (and I hope we don’t need to!).
I still have about 3/4 of the turn-around to clear out, and then the sidewalks as well. I think I have one or two more outings before I’m finished.
And then, of course, there is the drifting…I am going to have at least 30 minutes tomorrow morning before we can get out. But that’s much better than the 4 hours of scooping today!

A Choice When it Comes to Trimming the Cedars.

Posted by on 12 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: my life.

Sad day on the Diehl homestead.

I just got off the phone with a guy who was contracted by NIPSCO (my expensive electric company) to get my cedar trees off of the neighboring power lines. It is all at no cost to me, but I had only two choices:
1. Top off the five cedar trees, which will remove the top 25% of each of the cedar trees.
2. Cut the five cedar trees down completely.

I had wondered when this day would come. Although I thought I would be offered the choice to just trim up one side of the trees which actually may touch the power lines, but no, that wasn’t one of my available options.

I really can’t stand the look of a trimmed up tree. It just doesn’t make sense to me why anyone would want to do that. It looks horrible, and although it keeps the tree alive and the lines free, it is ascetically putrid. Cutting the top of the trees off the lines was not an option, as I would hate looking at them every day.

So, I had to choose to cut them down.

Sad day on the Diehl homestead. The complete look of the approach to the homestead is about to change.

So, in the spirit of my eternal optimism, here are the good things to note about this project:
1. No more heavy shade underneath the trees, so that’s good for my lawn in the long run.
2a. I get to plant new trees. I want to plant at least five new trees next spring to replace these. I plan on planting something out front, but I’m not sure what yet. I know I’ll need something small which isn’t illegal to plant underneath power lines, but I’m not sure what. Perhaps some nice flowering dogwoods. Perhaps a pear tree out front under the lines.
2b. I am excited to renew my efforts to plant new trees. When I first moved in, I had considered planting a handful of trees around the house, but I just never got around to it. So, now I will be motivated to plant the trees to redefine the tree pattern of our home.
3. Free good-smelling firewood.
4. Free haul-away of the brush (yeah, I know, the town would provide this anyway).

Anyway, it’s still a sad day at the Diehl homestead. Once the trees are removed, I’ll be sure to post some before-and-after photos.

Winter Weather Driving People to the Web.

Posted by on 12 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Communications, Tech Stuff.

This past weekend, the winter weather outside was simply horrible!

When I arrived at New Hope at 8:25 a.m., the weather wasn’t too bad. It was freezing rain a bit, but nothing too bad. At 9:30, I walked outside to find 1/4″ ice on my car, and the sidewalks very slick from ice.

The freezing rain continued to worsen as the morning progressed.

Off and on over the past two months, we have told our people at New Hope they can find out if we cancel a service by logging on to NewHope.in or calling in to the office and listen to the recorded greeting, and I honestly wondered what the response rate would be to our driving people to the website.
Well, on Sunday, our website traffic was up 450% of the daily average for the previous 30 days. In fact, traffic was more than twice as high as our highest day of traffic ever, which was a peak from an invite drive we did earlier this year.

So…driving people to the website worked. I was very thrilled to know people respond when we drive them to the website.
Yes! I would like to move toward driving people more to the web for even more information, and I think our gathered data confirms people are willing to go to the web for their info…

Did any of my readers here log on to check the status this weekend?

Waterloo Oath of Office

Posted by on 11 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Town Council

Over lunch break, I stopped by the Waterloo Town Hall and took my Oath of Office. It was nothing spectacular. Just Renata, our Cleark-Treasurer and myself. I raised my right hand and repeated the Oath of Office after her, and then signed it.

That was it. But now I can officially take the office of Waterloo Town Council At-Large (my official office) on January 1, 2008. (State law mandates the oath is taken sometime between the election and the first day of office.) Until then, you can continue to call me Councilmember-Elect Diehl.

The Shortcut that Isn’t a Shortcut

Posted by on 11 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: my life., thoughts on god., thoughts on life.

This morning I was thinking about my issues last night in getting my WiFi Router to work properly.

You see, I knew what I needed to do the whole time, but I thought I could figure it out by changing a setting on the notebook.
I knew what needed to be done, but I thought I could do it better myself. Turns out, I was wrong.

I think often in our own walk with Jesus, deep down we know what our next step should be, but we don’t like it, so we try to find a different route. The thing is–there often isn’t a second route. When we face a bridge, there’s only one way to cross it, and we need to do what needs to be done–no gallivanting around will get you across the bridge you face.

Next time you find yourself in a place in your walk with Jesus where you know the next step you need to take, just do it. Don’t waste your time trying to find a way around it–just do it.

I’m talking to myself here.

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