My First Instructable

I decided to install a Hot Water Heater Timer on our water heater in our house and I have always wanted to do an instructable over at instructables.com, it is a great website to see how to make, fix or build something. They literally have thousands of instructables. So I decided to do both, here is a link to my Hot Water Heater Timer instructable. The cool news is within two days of doing it I got an email that it was a featured instructable on the home page. There is a pic below showing that (look at the left column under Featured, under the DIY Squid Hat, lol), I thought that was pretty awesome.

Basically here is what it does. It allows you to turn off the power to your electric hot water heater during hours of non-use automatically. The cool thing is that if you have a typical 40 gallon HWH you should be able to still get a few showers out if it even if it is during the time that it is scheduled to be off. We were able to cut out 16 hours, yes, 66% of our electric from our HWH that runs almost constant. Currently I have it scheduled to be on from 2a-5a for morning showers then from 9a-2p for washing clothes, dishes, etc. This is our winter schedule then it will change in the summer for off-peak hours. We are being green!

All the details, costs, etc. is available at the link above. Husbands, here is a way to make your wife see you as a man that cares about money, energy, and show her that you know a little somethin somethin. Best of all, is if you know nothing about electric or wiring you can get step by step instructions on the site.

So here is my question for you, what can you do to be green? To be responsible?

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Text Messages and Holidays

I got a couple dozen texts wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving, what nice people out there. I began to realize every holiday I get dozens of texts and I rarely reply. The main reason I never reply is because of the impersonal text. There are two sides to this, it would take way too long for all my friends to send out individual texts and I understand the easiness of doing it all at once. But I also understand that it feels so impersonal because it really isn't to me. I thank all those people who feel compelled to text me, don't stop, I just may not return the favor ;). Maybe I am selfish, maybe I am not.

Think about how this applies to business advertising or church advertising and marketing. We pump so much information to people who don't necessarily want it. TV commercials use interruption advertising. Many feeds are opt-in advertising which is one of the best kinds, it allows the user to opt-in and opt-out whenever they want to. The television programmers don't care if you are into the show or not. Why do we pay for cable if we are still forced to watch commercials. Doesn't commercials pay for the TV show? Then again if I am paying for cable television should't that opt me out of commercials?

I love all you text messagers who take the time to send me a text on the holidays and forgive me for not texting back. Am I alone in this? What do you feel?

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The American Culture Shift: Thanksgiving

It is amazing to see the cultural shift in America from Thanksgiving Thursday to Greedy Black Friday. Up until midnight we are still celebrating what we are thankful for, midnight plus one minute all has changed! Black Friday references to over 20 different historical events, but is most popular for it being the most popular day of shopping and representing the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. This Christmas shopping season is huge among retailers, this is the day that they will open up as early as 4a (Kohls and Mervyn's) and have loss leaders that many times is an item that is sold at below it's value so that the store loses money in order to get the greedy shopper in their doors to buy more. But "Shaun you are being a bigot, we are saving money and therefore stewarding what God has given us." So right you are, but at least be honest with yourself, our mindset has changed.

Americans narcissistic attitude of greedy indulgence till your stomach is so full is the annual American Culture Shift. We over indulge with food on Thanksgiving Day then overindulge in spending the following day. Sure, Black Friday represents that the stores are no longer in the red and can show a clear upturn in their income... for what? At the risk of the consumers going into the red and piling on the credit card debt. Please let us not overlook the true meaning of Thanksgiving, what a day to celebrate. We spend 364 days a year overindulging then take a brief moment out of our schedule on Thanksgiving to be thankful for those 364 days. Clean water, jeans (multiple pairs), house, clothes, food, fast food, cars, fast cars, iPod, iPhone, cable TV, DVR, Big Screen, Stainless Steel appliances, Macs/PCs, Blackberries, pool tables, bikes, quads, laptops, air conditioning, gaming systems, and of course bling, we are in the land of plenty. Maybe you can sit back for a moment and be thankful. What about the bigger things in life, family, breath, health, free will, safety, compassion, empathy/sympathy, emotions, humor, laughter; you know the things that really count that are not able to be purchased but are part of every human, part of every eikon.

This year I want to be simply... THANKFUL!

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TXT MSG THAT MEANS SOMETHING!

I got a text message from one of our Lifegroup leaders and she sent out a text to all her students and I was fortunate enough to get included in it. She said:

Thought for the day: Relationships aren't built by sitting together but by serving together. Be in prayer for your cause.

That was a great challenge. Are we trying to just have relationships or trying to build relationships. Think of the value of something that you invested in. Listen to the difference between the value of these two statements; I have a house, or I built my home. We take pride in what we build. The value comes from the work that you put into it. Don't just be a part of something, create something, be a change agent.

Serve your friends. Serve your neighbors. Serve complete strangers. Here is one, serve your enemies. It is a simple thought but a very powerful one.

Today, who are you going to serve? What relationship are you going to build?

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My Abilities Are Gone?!?

On this Monday night's TV show, Heroes, the individuals with powers lost them as they experienced an eclipse. Here were a couple notes of interest:

• An interesting thought was the people without the powers were actually stronger because they live normally without powers, they are practiced daily.
• The heroes have only practiced their powers but forgot their carnal strengths/weaknesses.

BUT...

• What happens when you, a speaker, can no longer speak with your voice? Will you still have a platform?
  
• If you are an athlete and can no longer walk do you still have a sport and fans?
  
• If you as a creative suffers a brain injury on your frontal cortex on the right side and your ability to create and dream goes away then can you still imagine in color and be able to paint masterpieces?

What happens when we lose our powers, the talents and items that make us strong? Just an interesting thought I had, do you have any thoughts? What's your backup plan?

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IH82LSE

Yet another license plate as I drive through life. I have wrote one other post a while back on another license plate that is interesting, you can read it, it is HVNCNW8. This license plate happened to be on a C300 Sport Sedan Mercedes Benz, but a few years older, new they are priced at a low $33,775, that does includes transportation and handling charges but not taxes, title registration or tags, smile.

Let's talk a little more about this. I am competitive, sometimes too competitive. I am the type that will go too far, run too fast, throw too hard, etc. This typically leaves me VERY exhausted and a few times in this past year out of breathe and wheezing, nurse Kathy told me I have sports asthma after I was out of commission for about 45 minutes this past summer at Youth Camp. Nothing is worse than having to walk off the court with your head down knowing you can't finish. Lack of strength, lack of breath, lack of motivation, simply the lack of something... this holds so many athletes back from reaching their potential, their best. How true is this for the Christian that has a lack of motivation, breath, strength, or anything else that holds him back from reaching his world, changing his world, impacting his world; the way 12 ordinary guys did 2,000 years ago. Creatives stop their creativity because lack of vision, lack of dreams, lack of sketching on their whiteboards of life. Pastors stop leading because lack of strength, lack of vision, lack of support, lack of encouragement. We lose because we lack.

There are so many excuses/reasons for this... LACK.

Proverbs 5:23 NIV - He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.

This past week I had given our interns a quote to dissect and we spent about an hour chewing on this and breaking it up. The quote is:

"Structure demands discipline, without it is chaos."

After we discussed it I had them write a one-page reflection journal to turn in this past Thursday. They got it! Each of the 6 seemed to really be able to grapple it and unserstand the depth and see how it can help them in college/ministry/causes/etc.

This is one simple straightforward quote, not many words but enough words that can put so much finishing in our life. Living with this simple concept apparent in our life, in all our decisions, can cause us to complete so many things in life and keep us from loosing out. As Proverbs says, we will die because of our lack of discipline, which will eventually lead us to major mistakes. Chaos breeds mistakes:folly! In order to make mistakes infertile, to destroy the ability to birth life of mistakes in our life, we must begin to bring discipline to the forefront of our minds and our decision making process. When we lack that ability we fail; we lose out on being great. We settle for being good and sell out for being great. Scott Gibbons in his book, Carry-On, said...

"Good things become bad things when they keep us from the great things."

The New Testament is scattered with passages of Paul referring to our life like a race and talking about not losing. He says things like keep pressing on, look forward, run with a pace, keep your eye on the prize, don't give up, run hard. These are not the words of the average, the bleak, the almosts, these are the words of athletes and the determined.

Do you have the heart of a champion, the heart of a lion, the heart of one who wants nothing out of life other than becoming the greatest that God can enable you to become? Quit lacking. I said it before in a post called Twitterranked and Self-Branding:

"Anyone doing anything better than you is providing you the resources, strategies, and ideas for you to be better than you already are." - Me

Allow me to be a little direct. Quit giving opportunity to lack, you have no excuses. Piggyback off the wins/experiences/failures of others, learn what they did(n't) do, spend time with them and ask them questions. Be intentional about your discipline. As you begin to find ways in your life to bring discipline into it you will see the chaos of loss begin to become impotent.

Have a passion that says IH82LSE!

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MADE Week 3

This is week 3 of RMCC's series based off the MTV show Made where Pastor Jeff will be discussing what is our purpose in life. We will be hitting several areas, lifegroups, where real life happens, worship encounters, where we get to experience God, and volunteer teams, where we get to serve the body and people of our community. Join us as I get to coach Cougar McSangston on life and how to get made into what God has him to be.

I got to coach Cougar about stewardship and how it applied to his life, talents, time, money and resources. He is growing and learning. Two more weeks and he should be Made more into the image that God has for him.

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