Like modern-day heroes the Schmucker family of Lancaster, Pennsylvania travel to the Rio Grande Valley or South Florida every February at their own expense, in their own 4X4 F150 utility truck, and with their own tools to voluntarily assist the impoverished families of both areas in realizing the American dream of home ownership by building from the ground up the entire frame and roof of a Proyecto Azteca or Habitat for Humanity home.

The Schmucker are not carpenters or builders by trade, but entrepreneurs in the hotel and restaurant business in their native Pennsylvania, who since 1991 have been taking time out from their business to volunteer their time to Habitat for Humanity in both the Valley and Immokalee, Florida, another migrant farm worker community. “The reward for us is just in being able to help other people,” said Pauley Schmucker.

“We believe that we are very fortunate and believe that we should do something for those that are less fortunate,” his son Lee added.

“We are also happy to be part of the Texas sun in the wintertime,” laughed his brother John. “We do have a slightly ulterior motive.”

Note the misspelling of “Schmucker.” A neat story though. If you watch the video, you’ll catch my Grandpa and Grandma.

So for me, one of the most shocking images, at least in so far as being familiar to me, is the following. I’m also guessing this will become one of the iconic images of this disaster:

While there, we stayed at Mennonite Central Committee’s house, which, if I remember correctly, is in the Saint-Georges neighborhood, although my memory could be completely off there. All of MCC’s staff are apparently safe.  MCC is a phenomenal organization that operates with one of the lowest overheads of any relief agency in the world. If you’re considering donating, consider giving to MCC:

Today, MCC committed $100,000 U.S. or $103,420 Cdn. for immediate needs. International Program Department Director Ron Flaming anticipates a response of at least $1 million U.S. or $1.03 Cdn. over multiple years. MCC is appealing for donations to fund these efforts.

MCC workers in Haiti include nine people from Colombia, the Netherlands and the United States; seven Haitian program staff members; and additional support staff. All program staff located in Port-au-Prince, the capital, are accounted for. Although the communications infrastructure in Haiti has been disrupted, staff members were able to send a message via the U.S. embassy. All MCC staff members who have been in touch report seeing bodies in the streets, according to Daryl Yoder-Bontrager, MCC Latin America and the Caribbean director. MCC is working to contact staff outside Port-au-Prince.

I lived for 3 months during college in the Dominican Republic, 6 weeks of which I was 6 miles from the border of Haiti in a small farming community of which about half the village was Haitian. Haiti’s suffered some of the worst that humanity has to offer, over and over again, but continues to survive. Right now, they need our help.

You can also text HAITI to 90999 to give $10 through your cell phone bill.

Some random thoughts from my trip so far:

• Driving alone is “me time” — it’s some of my best time for thinking and processing. Here’s an example of what goes through my head when I’m driving: as I was driving from Goshen to Columbus, Ohio, I passed by some of the lushest farmland in the country. Miles upon miles of soy beans, corn, wheat, etc. And it struck me: in my lifetime, when we’ve moved to a non-oil-based economy, food will be the in demand commodity, the oil of the future, which will turn our current world order upside-down. Think about it: most of the oil rich countries right now are located in deserts or very cold places where you can’t grow a lot of food. Many of them have large populations and have grown wealthy because of oil. But within my lifetime, that oil will become worth very little and their economies will collapse. And they’ll need to continue importing the entirety of their food supplies. We’ll be fine here in the U.S., as we’ll have all the food we can eat and tons to export, IF, of course, we can move away from a carbon-based agriculture and economy, which I have no doubt we can do.
• I just had three scoops of ice cream of these flavors: goat cheese and roasted red cherries, red beet with lemon and poppy seed, and cucumber honeydew with cayenne ice cream from Jeni’s, a local ice cream shop. I had no idea that such ice cream existed. It was truly amazing.
• I’m working on a theory about the re-centering of neighborhoods into the middle of the digital generation’s life (I consider that to be my generation). It’s related to point number one above. But I need more driving time to figure it out. It has something to do with the fact that, in my lifetime, people will/are moving into denser living environments away from the suburbs fueled by a carbon-based economy. And these people, as the digital generation ages, are increasingly tech savvy and have much different expectations of access to information, accountability of information, democracy, etc. than my grandparents do. Imagine designing software without needing to make it pass the Grandma Test. Hmmm.
• Columbus, Ohio, developed around a large, walking-based university campus with lots of greenspace. Indianapolis developed around a large, commuter-based university campus with lots of parking lots. They’re two cities identical in population but very different in connectedness and feel. Except out in the ‘burbs, there they’re pretty much the same. And they both have large low-income areas too.

So that’s my random thoughts for the day, Yury, thanks for the critique.

Ultimately, Mindy and I went our separate ways, and we sold our client list and moved on to other things. This photo is from our third Everblue office here in Goshen, in the editing room. I remember thinking, when the photographer told me to lean on top of the monitor, “this is dumb.” I still think that:

As an adult, it takes me a long time to finish books…I think it’s partially because I read a lot online and don’t feel like reading much once I get home. I also really don’t enjoy reading “business books” — I just don’t. I prefer sci-fi/fiction and memoirs to any sort of businessy book. I think it’s because book reading is an escape for me, like when I was a kid, when reading was this whole other imaginative world I entered.

But I do still get through a book now and then. This week, I finished Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s a businessy book that I actually didn’t mind, I think because it’s based so much in numbers and data, the analysis of which  fascinate me. Gladwell’s whole point is that, especially in American culture, we have this belief in the “rags to riches” outliers, like the Bill Gates/Steve Jobs, sports stars, Hollywood actors, business tycoons, etc. But really it’s a myth — family and cultural background, practice and simple timing play a much bigger role, family playing the biggest role, he argues, in who we become than any sort of magical luck factor or stroke of genius. It’s a great read that I connected with in many ways.

I just started Gang Leader for a Day. I’ll report back when I’m done.

Hi,
I am interested in the 37″ display, and thanks for providing the prices. Most of the other annoying website do not clearly state what they are trying to sell!

From the start, I’ve wanted to be as transparent as possible about pricing. In the digital sign industry, it turns out, this is a big differentiator, as everyone has a contact form or phone number to call to get pricing info and it takes a song and dance to get what you need. For small networks (1-20 signs) a lot of places won’t even return your call.

I know this because we’ve done quite a bit of research on our competitors’ pricing and it is like pulling teeth. We have pricing info for 22 of our competitors that we haven’t signed NDAs or anything for — I’m tempted to publish it all online in a nice, searchable format, although that would probably result in a maelstrom of angry emails and cease and desist letters headed my way. I don’t see the benefit to doing so. There’s no need to cause waves unnecessarily.

Although…it would be fun… Have I ever mentioned that I played in the activist crowds in my early college years? (Featured at right is a poster I created for a meeting I helped organize on my college campus.) I went to a couple big protests and such, which quickly turned me off to that worldview and way of creating change, it’s not for me. But left me with the desire to disrupt the status quo.

Well, actually, that desire is probably more genetic/cultural than bred by college activism. A dose of Mennonite/anabaptism + a pinch of entrepreneurial drive + a mischievous gene or two = a slightly-over-developed desire to disrupt the status quo.

Ok, wow, this blog post just got a lot better. I was digging through my computer archives for a photo of Eric-the-college-protestor. Unfortunately, I was in college pre-affordable-digital-cameras/social media photo-sharing, so I don’t have a lot of photos of myself at protests. However, I did find several gems. One is an outline I wrote about Goshen College, where I was attending at the time, entitled “Goshen College > Goshen, Inc.?” It’s essentially all about how I saw my college becoming a “giant corporation,” with concentration of power, corporate structure, centralization, no living wage, etc. ALL SUPREMELY EVIL THINGS in my mind at the time.

Even though it was just 10 years ago, I’ve changed a lot. A LOT. Wow.

The second gem you can read below: an op-ed I wrote in December of 2000 about a protest trip I helped organize to the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). I contacted the military and scheduled a trip for our group onto the Fort the day before the big protest to hear their side of the story and actually dialogue, something that ruffled the feathers of the protest organizers, as it got media coverage and took away from their.

Man. Even when I was being an activist I was being disruptive…against the disruptors. I guess I can’t get enough. Good thing I’m in the startup business…

My op-ed follows below the fold.

School of the Americas Op Ed
Eric Kanagy

I don’t consider myself a protest kind of guy. I watched and read media coverage of recent demonstrations in Seattle, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Los Angeles with some skepticism about motives and methods. But I do have my moments.

In November 1999, I committed a federal crime, with 5,000 other protestors, by illegally crossing onto the Fort Benning, Ga., property—an act punishable with a $5,000 fine and six months in jail. We were calling for the closure of the U.S. Army School of the Americas.

Students at Goshen (Ind.) College, where I am a junior, have participated in the Fort Benning demonstration since 1997. For a decade, the annual rally organized by the School of the Americas Watch group has included a nonviolent vigil and a symbolic funeral procession onto the military base, attempting to grab the attention of the nation, the media and politicians who hold the purse strings for this government-funded program. Conversation with the “enemy” is not part of the plan.

I had heard the stories about the place the SOA Watch calls the “School of Assassins.” Latin American graduates, including several dictators, have been charged with applying the school’s teachings to the raping, maiming and killing of indigenous people in their home countries in recent decades, including the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the 1981 slaughter of hundreds civilians in El Mozote, El Salvador. In September 1996, the Pentagon acknowledged that the SOA had used training manuals advocating torture, extortion and assassination.

As a Mennonite and a pacifist, I can neither accept nor condone these actions. But something about this portrayal of the SOA really bugged me—it seemed the rallies revolved around emotions associated with horrible things that happened more than a decade ago. The line bordering the school’s property was a good three miles from the actual buildings. The line dividing protestors and school officials felt even wider.

Yelling at the SOA and committing civil disobedience year after year has brought about some much-needed changes in the course materials and the administrative structure of the school, which is changing its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. But questions nagged at me, even as I chanted and sang protest songs in 1999: Who and what was I really shouting about? Where was I directing those shouts? At their roots, how did my actions differ from the violence and disruption that accompanied other demonstrations?

It seemed there should be other ways to work for change; ways in which we take the time to truly understand the other side. Shouldn’t real dialogue—listening, not just yelling—be a part of any protest?

This year, I wanted to hear the other side of the story—the side the SOA Watch did not represent. Before we left Indiana, I called an SOA representative to set up some time inside the base for our entire group. The school official seemed surprised to hear from a protestor, We expected a basic tour of the grounds, but received much more.

Our welcome came from the school’s commandant, Col. Glenn Weidner, who began a discussion that included professors, military personnel and Latin American students, not to mention many of their family members—quite a bit more than a five-cent tour.

The conversation between the military representatives and 50 college and high school students lasted more than four hours and touched on religious beliefs, just war theory, Mennonite ideas about pacifism, Jesus’ teachings and the role and philosophy of our military after the Cold War. There we were: a group of anti-war, anti-SOA protesters sitting with military personnel from all over this hemisphere, talking to each other and, perhaps more importantly, actually listening. The miracle still amazes me.

I left the School of the Americas with a deeper understanding of its role and philosophy. The school is a real institution with real people who have real views. SOA leaders believe that spreading democracy by its means throughout Latin America is a vital role that it can and must fulfill.

The SOA was no longer purely evil in my mind. It was, well, real.

The next day, I sang, chanted, and yelled for the closure of the SOA. Despite our cordial conversation and diligent debate, my fundamental opposition to the military institution and the ideals it is built upon remains. There are nonviolent, effective alternatives to the use of force. Too often, those alternatives are ignored in favor of rapid justification of the taking of human life as a means to an end.

Standing outside the Fort Benning gate this November, I finally felt I had a real right to protest. I understood what I was opposing and I had talked with the people I disagreed with. When you know your adversaries personally, It becomes harder to find your screaming voice, but my new knowledge empowered me to stand up against philosophies or practices I could not support.

As I looked onto the base, my eyes linked with those of the lieutenant colonel who had set up our meeting. We both smiled and waved. At that moment, I saw him, in his standard issue camouflage army uniform, as few in the crowd of 10,000 saw him—not as the faceless enemy, but as a man who I both respect and vehemently disagree with.

Our conversations narrowed the three-mile gap between us, helping both of us see that we are similar people living in the same world regardless of which side of the line we stand.

This is, of course, disappointing. I would have loved to spend that money in the way our 75 page proposal laid out. However, if nothing else, the biggest lesson RedPost has taught me over the past two and a half years is to never count on anything until the money is in the bank. We haven’t been sitting around waiting for our $2m check to arrive.

The economy, or possibly just the spring weather, seems to be stirring the “potential customer pot” — we’ve gotten more sales calls in the past three weeks than in the past three months combined. And we’ve released a major upgrade to our whole app, 6 months in the making, improving how everything works together and preparing us for future software features. So no, we’re not sitting around counting daisies.

Was it worth the hours and hours we spent writing our proposal? Convincing 2 out of 3 reviewers our technology is a good investment means we were pretty close (but not 3/3). The process we went through did clarify for me the exact direction RedPost needs to take. And we fleshed it out — with lots of research, discussion, argument and general all-around contention. A good process to go through. So yes, I believe it was worth it. I mean, I tend to not feel a lot of regret in my life…do, learn, continue doing, that’s my philosophy.

Last night as my cousins and I were sitting around with my grandparents, we were learning a bit about our family history. Both my grandpa and grandma grew up Beachy Amish, which split from the Old Order Amish church in the early 1900s. A little Amish history (as best I know it, I’m not an expert here by any means): The Amish/Mennonite churches have split many times since their start in the 1600s over many issues, one of the most prominent being shunning, one of the causes of the initial split between the Mennonites and Amish.

My grandparents both grew up in the Beachy Amish church. Ok, this gets complicated. According to my grandma, Chris King (he was a preacher) broke off from the Old Order Amish church because they didn’t believe in shunning. They also started allowing electricity and indoor plumbing (but no radio) and allowing separate church buildings. John A Stoltzfus was also a preacher there and split off to form the Beachy church (grandma can’t remember what that split was over). My grandma’s father Dave grew up Old Order Amish. He then married Barbara, a Beachy Amish, which meant that Dave’s entire family had to shun him, being Old Order Amish. Instead of shunning Dave, the whole family decided to join the Beachy church (meaning they were shunned by all Old Order Amish friends, neighbors, etc.). They all attended Weavertown Amish Mennonite Church, pictured at left.

My grandpa’s parents (John and Anna) both grew up Old Order Amish. John left the Old Order church (grandpa doesn’t know why) but Anna stayed in the church, which meant she had to confess in front of the church every time they had a child, as it meant she wasn’t properly shunning her husband. Finally, when she had either Sara Ann or Levina, my great-grandmother Anna decided she had had enough and refused to confess in front of church, instead leaving the church and walking home. She then joined the Beachy Amish church with her husband.

In 1928 (the year my grandma was born), as some of the younger members of the Beachy church were buying cars, which was not allowed, and hiding them at neighbors or in barns, a bunch of the kids had to confess in front of church. The church members that day then voted (after the kids’ confession, of course) to allow ca

Now back to the title of this blog post. My great-great uncle Sam never left the Old Order church. He had to shun his brother because of this. Apparently, with shunning, you can still talk to each other, do business with each other (but you can’t hand money from hand to hand), but can’t sleep in the same bed as your wife or sit at the same table. In my grandpa’s words, “it’s a lot weird.”

My great-grandfather John (my grandpa’s dad) was good friends with his brother Sam and they joked around a lot and carried on. Sam once was getting behind on his farming and hired a man with a tractor to finish up the field work at night. The bishop found out and Sam had to confess in church, where, so the story goes, he said “Van ich failed hab, will ich bessa du” which is Pennsylvania Dutch for “If I have failed you Lord, I will do better.” The funny part being the “if” — but whether or not that’s what Sam actually said remains unknown (and irrelevant). According to the story, Sam said it was worth confessing as it got his fieldwork done.

It’s an honor to be here with my grandparents and get to hear these sorts of stories; it’s really fascinating to hear about these traditions and the Amish church that I grew out of. It seems so distant from the technology-filled world I live in today, but a lot of this happened just 100 years ago.

I’ll be blogging less this week as I enjoy manual labor and 80 degree weather. We’re headed to Mexico for lunch today :-)

There was just one bid, from All American Homes, a division of Coachmen. Overall, an interesting bid on the project, surprisingly very green-focused with 50% of energy generated by on-site reneweable resources, including a water turbine from the company we share office space with, Lucid Energy.

The disappointing part to me was that Coachmen handed off/punted on what could potentially be the most interesting parts of the project, including the 3 story abandoned Frederick Tool building and a portion of the 22 acres that’s right on Lincoln Ave. by the Farmer’s Market and river.

But hey, in a down economy, we got a bid! Maily, Coachmen is interested in putting their pre-fab homes, which are really nice, with lots of green features, onto ready-made property. Not exactly what the city was looking for, I believe, but a good start to the process.

Here’s a link to the PDF of the Coachmen proposal (it’s 35MB).

Row one (left to right): Burl Troyer, Jeremy Stutsman, David Schrock Shenk, Gina Leichty, Gretchen Morningstar, Grace Hunsberger, Earlene Nafziger, Eric Kanagy. Row two (left to right): David Daugherty, W. Earl Taylor, Jim Kroemer, Scott Woldruff, Virgil Snyder, Janette Yoder, Allan Kauffman, Tom Stark, David Swihart, Tim Near, J.C. Schrock, Brad Weirich, Jim McKee, Julia Gautsche. (Not pictured): Mike Huber, Myron Bontrager, Nick Keiffer, Tim Saylor

Pictured above is the 2009 Downtown Goshen, Inc. board (that’s me on the far right). I more or less started this non-profit two years ago, merging two other existing organizations to form it. I didn’t, of course, do it by myself, but I set the vision, pulled together the pieces, and led as president for the past 2 years.

As you can see above, we have a lot of people from many different backgrounds involved from business owners to residents to the mayor and chamber president to building owners/developers to people passionate about our little downtown. Lots of differing opinions, good ideas, bad ideas, contention, frustration, problem-solving, etc. — and we’re all at the same table.  It’s an energizing group of people and it’s been highly rewarding helping to grow and strengthen the organization.

This year, as I’m no longer president, I’m focusing on fundraising, attempting to double our budget from roughly $80,000 to $160,000. If we can do it in this economy, we know that we have the support of our community. We do SO MUCH with SO LITTLE, every dollar is well spent. But that’s the small-midwestern-town way, I suppose.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

Mornings when I wake up and feel that the impossible is truly impossible, I’ll keep this passage in mind. Congrats to Obama, now the hard work begins!

As I get more removed from the nitty gritty programming in my career, I forget that I’m a half-way decent programmer. But I am pretty darn good, thank you very much. Or maybe Perl just makes it really easy. Either way, I felt a good sense of accomplishment when my little script completed its task in under 3 hours.

*pats self on back*

There was an hour or so wait all morning, until a large group of Hispanic voters (about 80% of whom were first time voters) arrived and the line quickly grew to 2-3 hours. Voters continued to arrive and I’d inform them of the wait and hand out the registration forms. I also stretched the boundaries of my Spanish a bit (turns out I never really learned the Spanish words for vote, election, form, “check this box”, etc.) Along those lines, two questions from non-Hispanic early voters who arrived after the large group of Hispanics struck me:

• “Are alien residents allowed to vote here?”
• “Can people just walk up and vote? Don’t they have to be registered?”

I assured both the people that to vote, you must be both a citizen and registered to vote. And that everyone there to vote was a registered voter and American citizen. And that the voter registration official checking photo IDs would verify that fact. The underlying suggestion seems to be that Hispanic people are not legal citizens…just because they look Hispanic? Two points:

• Goshen is 25% Hispanic, the vast majority of whom are legal citizens. Not speaking English well does not disqualify you as a citizen, nor does being born outside of the U.S.
• Voter fraud is essentially non-existent…voter registration fraud happens slightly more, but is caught by election offices, especially in Indiana where a photo ID is now required to vote (upheld by the Supreme Court)

On another note, I didn’t appreciate the chair of the Elkhart County Republican Committee telling me I didn’t need to come back after lunch when I tould him an Obama volunteer had signed me up to work there today. I think he may have been joking? If he was, it was a poor joke. If he wasn’t, well, if they had called me to volunteer today I would have agreed as well. The fact they didn’t call me doesn’t bode well for their party, who is going to be hurting on Nov. 5 as the effects of a ground game on the Dem side that has done far more than the standard “strategy” of distributing yard signs and having Saturday morning breakfast fundraisers are apparent.

All of the drama aside (which I actually enjoy being in the thick of), it did impress me that over 500 of my fellow U.S. citizens took their voting rights serious enough that they were willing to wait up to 3 hours to vote. Regardless of who wins the presidential election, the level of involvement, volunteerism, and ethusiasm bodes well for our country being able to deal with the issues facing us right now.

IS IT TUESDAY YET?

I don’t really get the whole pro-anti-America-patriotism thing. I mean…it implies being critical makes you anti-American. When in my mind, criticizing combined with participating in the political process makes you a “real” American. Generally, I don’t care what people say, just leave me to do my thing and live my life and I’ll do the same for you (now I sound Libertarian).

However, a recent Elkhart Truth newspaper article got me steamed enough to write a letter to the editor. Here’s the part of the article that steamed me, it’s talking about Ron Holland, a local GOP volunteer:

This is the first year Holland has gotten involved with anything political. He doesn’t feel good about ties Democratic candidate Barack Obama is alleged to have had with Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright. And he feels McCain would bring important leadership experience and American values to the office, in part because of his military service.<

“I’m anxious for our country to be pro-American without question, and I know that John McCain is a true American,” Holland said.

I think it’s great Ron is volunteering (he’s at the middle table in the photo), working hard for something he believes in. However, I don’t get how working hard for what you believe in if it’s not what Ron believes in makes you anti-American, as he implies. Here’s my letter to the editor, which was published Thursday:

What makes someone anti-American?

In the Oct. 18 story “On the right…more excitement for GOP ticket,” GOP volunteer Ron Howard says, “I’m anxious for our country to be pro-American without question, and I know that John McCain is a true American.”

Other politicians and candidates have echoed the same sentiment, most notably Minnesota Rep. Bachmann, who called for widespread press inquiry into the pro- or anti-American-ness of members of Congress.

My question is, and one I’ve yet to find a good answer to, what is the criteria for being pro- or anti-American? Gov. Palin implied that certain places of the country are more pro-American than others. Is Elkhart County one of these places? Are certain towns within Elkhart more or less pro-American? Middlebury better than Nappanee? Elkhart better than Goshen?

I believe in an America where any kid can aspire to be president, whether they’re male or female; white, black, Hispanic, or Asian; gay or straight; single or married; Muslim, Catholic, Christian or Jew; live in San Francisco, Elkhart County, New York City or anywhere in between; and identify with the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green or any other party.

Does that make me anti-American? To believe that if a gay Asian-American Muslim Libertarian-leaning girl from Wakarusa wanted to, she could aspire to be president?

ERIC KANAGY
Goshen

I was going to list some of my online favorite responses (click on the feedback tab of the article to view all of them) but this one is simply my favorite. From the user calling themselves Infidel:” :

In Short, as Melanie Phillips said, this is the campaign where we learned a Marxisant radical who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshiped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters, is on the verge of becoming President of the United States. And apparently it’s considered impolite to say so.

According to his or her profile page, Infidel has posted over 5 times a day since joining the newspaper’s forums on Aug 8. I am glad that we have a country that allows him/her to anonymously express his/her anger and opinions 5 times a day.

However, I’ve already written my response to Infidel in the form of a letter to the editor which was published yesterday.

Quote from President Jim Brenneman:

“Outside rankings have their limitations, but they are part of being accountable so it’s satisfying to know that Goshen College stacks up well against peer private colleges as well as public universities that are much larger than Goshen,” Brenneman said. “I believe this high ranking demonstrates that Goshen College is providing an outstanding Christ-centered liberal arts education that emphasizes academic excellence as well as global citizenship and compassionate peacemaking.”

There we met Amos, an 88 year old Amishman. Amos is my grandpa’s mother’s dad’s (my great great grandfather Jonathan’s) nephew. Jonathan’s father, Gideon, was born in 1845 bought the farm that Jonathan (my great great grandfather, are you following along?) grew up on. Jonathan got married, bought another farm near Strasburg, and then eventually bought the farm in Bird-in-Hand that my grandfather grew up on, where my uncles now run a restaurant/motel business.

Some interesting family tidbits:

• several of my great-great relatives lived into their 100′s
• Amos, who we spoke with, had 14 kids…his son has 10 or so (it was hard to count them all)
• my great grandfather, Jonathan, was shunned from the Amish church because he didn’t get along well with the bishop of their church and wasn’t following the rules
• his wife, my great great grandmother, continued going to Amish church because she didn’t want to stop speaking with her mother, who was still Amish, but because her husband was shunned, she wasn’t allowed to sleep with him anymore
• the problem was, she kept having kids…so for her first two children, she had to repent for her sin (of childbearing) in front of the whole church, but by the third child (my great aunt Sara Ann) she released that having children wasn’t sinning and she refused to repent, at which point, she was shunned from the Amish church

I did snap a photo or two of my great great grandfather’s nephew, Amos, but seeing as he’s Amish and wouldn’t want me to have done so, I won’t post them.

I was definitely dreaming. And VERY focused on physical renovation, I mean, I had apparently priced out the cost of an all-glass conference room ($2,828.08). Ha. I love finding stuff like this, it helps me realize how much I’ve learned and changed in thinking since less than 2 years ago. That picture to the right is of the first prototype RedPost I built in my garage with an old laptop and an LCD that we’re still using today in our Signs.

So what was did I actually spend?

Let’s see, in February of 2007 (my true startup month) I spent…well, just look below. Of course, I didn’t start paying myself until much, much later. Just for kicks, here are my first 6 months:

Total Expenses (cost of sales included, on a cash basis):

• February 2007: $1,535.31
• March: $892.18
• April: $2,729.11
• May: $2,997.73 (the first month I started paying someone to work for me, half time)
• June: $21,251.39 (my first big inventory purchases)
• July: $8,537.31 (2 employees now)

Technically, I turned a profit in June of 2007, just 5 months after starting, if you account on an accrual basis. Not too shabby.

And really, WHAT WAS I THINKING? $27,354.28 to startup??? It’s just funny. As was our burn rate back then. Geez. If only my monthly expenses were $892.18 now!

It’s easy to dream big and write a nice business plan or make a nice spreadsheet. But when it comes down to actually spending your own, hard-earned/borrowed money, it becomes a lot harder to spend $27,354.28. I’m glad I learned that lesson. But am still able to dream.