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Pregnancy: Update at 17 Weeks

December 15, 2011 By 3 Comments

Yesterday was a huge day for Donna and I in that we found out what we are having. In my mind I already knew that we were having a little girl but just needed to hear it from someone wearing scrubs or a lab coat to believe it. Needless to say we are both so excited about our baby girl. We have had a name picked out for either sex for a long time now, our choice for a girl has always been Shelby Mae (both of our grandmothers middle names are Mae, so this wasn’t a hard one at all).

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!!!

Filed Under: Faith / Family Tagged With:

Powersite Real Estate CMS (Deprecated)

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It doesn’t seem like that long ago that it seemed like a practical idea to hand code custom solutions for clients using PHP/MySQL from scratch or onto of light frameworks as opposed to just extending CMS (Content Management Solutions), but in reality it has been a long time and I’m just getting old. Several years ago I worked with several Real Estate Companies as well as developers around the country to put together my own database driven content management system for Real Estate Companies to manage their online inventory of properties, integrate their existing IDX MLS data, and create custom HTML pages on the fly. Looking back it was a pretty robust solution for it’s time and quiet honestly it was pretty nice.

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…

Filed Under: Real Estate Solutions, Web Development Tagged With: , , , , ,

Shop the Arkansas Dream Center Mall

December 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I have had several people ask me how they can get involved w/ helping needy Children in Central Arkansas have a Merry Christmas. Of course I always point everyone to our website at The One, Inc., where we are currently helping roundup coats for several hundred kids that need them. Something else Donna and I are very active in helping with is the Arkansas Dream Center, we’re hoping to touch the lives of thousands of families in Arkansas this Christmas season by providing those in need with a holiday experience they can enjoy. This requires the help of everyone at New Life, along with churches and organizations across the state partnering together to gather gifts and donations for those in need. Please take a few minutes to browse the gift options below and pick out which gifts you would like to provide for a family who would enjoy it. Place that gift in your cart and check out and we’ll take care of the rest. Thanks for participating in making the lives of thousands of people statewide just a bit brighter this holiday season.

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

Filed Under: Cotton Recommends, Current Projects, Faith / Family, Homelessness Tagged With: , , , ,

Wimpy’s Combos – Photoshoot

December 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I met our manager, Greg, at Wimpy’s this morning to take some high-resolution photos for use on our new menuboards. I was a bit concerned how everything was going to turn out because a) it was 7am and I’m not alert until 11am or so, and b) I haven’t shot anything w/ my Pentax K100d in so long that I was afraid I might forget how to use it.

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…

Filed Under: Cotton Recommends, Current Projects Tagged With:

Support the Arkansas Dream Center

December 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I have people ask me all the time how they can get involved or support our non-profit, The One, Inc., or The Arkansas Dream Center. The truth is that there are hundreds of ways you can help out, the best way is to visit both of the websites for these organizations because they both have updated lists of current needs for anyone looking to help out. If you are familiar w/ The One and ARDreamCenter, you probably already know that both of these organizations do a lot of great work! This time of year we could really use your support financially in order to make an impact in our community.

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.

 

Filed Under: Cotton Recommends, Homelessness Tagged With: , , , ,

Facebook Acquires Gowalla…

December 2, 2011 By 2 Comments

The story was broken this evening on CNNMoney that Facebook had purchased Gowalla, I actually got a heads up this morning that this might be going down soon. I’m pretty mixed on this.  It’s no great secret that I was a huge Gowalla fan in the early days of location based services and geosocial but the latest evolution of the Gowalla product really drained me pretty bad and just like most of my friends I stopped using it altogether. I would have personally liked to have seen Gowalla go back to what they were in the beginning that had all of us on fire about the app but I think once the new release rolled out they were pretty much committed at that point.

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…

Filed Under: Social Media / Web 2.0 Tagged With: , ,

Pregnancy: Update at 16 Weeks

December 2, 2011 By 1 Comment

This has by far been the best week of our pregnancy for me because I am finally starting to relax a little bit. I’m not following my wife into the women’s restroom while we are out in public to make sure everything is okay (okay, I haven’t actually done that but I was close a few times). The problems that I mentioned in my week 14 blog post that Donna was experiencing are no more! I’m pretty sure prayer knocked those out of the park! Our Urologist was very cool and spent a lot of time w/ us going over possible scenarios that might have been the root cause but at the end of the day he was very honest and said that he had no clue why she had the problems but that they were no more!!

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!!!

Filed Under: Faith / Family Tagged With: