The Cotton Club

Episodes

• Morning Update from Kansas…

  5/21/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  I sure wish I could say when we would be heading back to Arkansas but we really don’t know yet, we are still holding out hope for Wednesday morning… This is the third night since we’ve had Spencer that he went to bed before we did and got up after us, I guess he has [...]

• More Photos of Baby Spencer..

  5/20/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  This is a quick picasa photo gallery that I put together w/ photos that we have taken of Baby Spencer since we were awarded custody. I’m pretty sure we will be adding to this for the remainder of this week so feel free to check back in for updates… Click here to see the full [...]

• Addendum: God’s Timing is Incredible…

  5/18/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  Psalm 30:5 – For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning For the last few weeks we’ve been reflecting a lot on the loss of our baby girl and praying to God for something to “just happen” in [...]

• Breaking News: I’m Going to Get My Boy!!!

  5/17/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  Donna and I are heading out of state this evening so we can be present at a custody hearing for our soon-to-be baby boy tomorrow! I’m sure that a lot of you already know “our story” and how hard it’s been for us to have children. Well a couple of months ago someone saw my [...]

• My Evernote Addiction…

  4/28/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  I know that there are a lot of people that will read this post that have been Evernote fans for as long as I have if not longer, but I think it’s important to point out those applications like Evernote, that literally change our lives. I have no idea how my life functioned before Evernote. [...]

• My Recurring Noodling Nightmare…

  4/26/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  Okay, so the other night my wife and I were watching one of my favorite television shows, River Monsters w/ Jeremy Wade, and in that particular episode Jeremy was in Oklahoma “noodling” for Catfish. Needless to say I was intrigued, because there’s absolutely no way that I would ever go “noodling” but it was very [...]

• Merchant Services / Free POS Solution

  4/26/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  My partners and I have had a lot going on recently and since I haven’t blogged in a long time I figured I would throw a post up about a new service that we provide that a lot of people may not even know about. Long story short, no one carries cash anymore, most transactions [...]

• He’s Gone… Remembering Levon Helm

  4/19/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  Now I don’t mind choppin’ wood, and I don’t care if the money’s no good Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest But they should never have taken the very best! I’ve known about Levon’s failing health for a few days now after receiving a text message from my Mom while I [...]

• Prayers for Levon Helm

  4/18/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  I first learned about Levon’s situation the other day but have been hesitant to say a lot about it until today because his family and friends have been being very tight-lipped about it. Today his wife Sandy and daughter Amy posted a message on his website letting everyone know that Levon was in the last [...]

• Register for Barcamp Conway!

  4/5/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  This year is flying by way too fast, it’s already time to start thinking about Barcamp Conway! This years event is going to be held at the University of Central Arkansas Business College, probably my favorite venue for events like this –definitely the most impressive / high-tech.  The event date is set for June 2, [...]

• Project Glass by Google! Holy Cow!!

  4/5/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  I was fascinated by the iPhone the first time I saw it, since then nothing has really impressed me until today when I saw the new Project Glass from Google. Okay, I’ll admit I thought the iPad was pretty cool too when I saw it, but then it sunk in, it’s a bigger iPhone, duh. [...]

• Precious Metals: Start Stacking Silver…

  4/2/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  As the value of the US Dollar continues to weaken, market prices for precious metals like Gold, Silver, and Platinum will go through the ceiling, this is pretty much Economics 101. Gold and Silver have always been seen as a hedge against inflation, and w/ gasoline heading to $5 this summer I’m pretty sure we [...]

• Made by Few Conference Recap…

  4/1/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  I can’t believe that it took me an entire week to finally sit down and blog about the Made by Few Conference that took place last weekend in Little Rock. Pleth was pleased to be one of the sponsors for this years event and most of our team from all three offices were able to [...]

• Pleth Website Redesign!!!

  2/15/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  I have had so many things going on lately that I haven’t had time to brag on our team at Pleth for doing an amazing job on our new website redesign! I honestly can’t remember how long this project has been in the works because every time the guys would get some free time to [...]

• Thoughts on KONY 2012

  2/8/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  You will no doubt hear about KONY 2012 soon. KONY 2012 is a film and campaign by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice. This non-profit organization is receiving a lot of heat from the [...]

• The Gift of Shelby Mae…

  1/17/2012

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]

• Pregnancy: Update at 17 Weeks

  12/15/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]

• Powersite Real Estate CMS (Deprecated)

  12/13/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]

• Shop the Arkansas Dream Center Mall

  12/11/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]

• Wimpy’s Combos – Photoshoot

  12/10/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]

• Support the Arkansas Dream Center

  12/9/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]

• Facebook Acquires Gowalla…

  12/3/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]

• Pregnancy: Update at 16 Weeks

  12/2/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]

• Pregnancy: Update at 14 Weeks

  11/23/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  This past week has probably been the most stressful week so far during our pregnancy. I have had to take Donna to the Emergency Room two nights in a row because she couldn’t urinate. This has been the weirdest thing in that she has no problems at all going during the day but in the [...]

• Thoughts on Joe Paterno

  11/10/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]

• Pregnancy: Thoughts at Week 12

  11/10/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  Given our past problems w/ miscarriage early in our 3 past pregnancies, making it to the end of our first trimester (week 12) is a goal that my wife and I were really looking forward to because everything we have read on the topic says that the risk of miscarriage drops dramatically after the first [...]

• Movie Review: Courageous

  11/1/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  The other night for “date night” I took my wife to see ‘Courageous‘ after a close friend, Lynn Wheeler, recommended we see it. I’m just going to say it now, this was probably the most moving film I have seen in a long time. The entire theater was packed w/ people who by the end [...]

• Houston Nutt: Deja Vu in Oxford

  10/24/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  This past weekend my wife and I rendezvoused w/ my parents at the farm and headed to Oxford, Mississippi bright and early Saturday morning to see the Razorbacks do battle w/ the Ole Miss Rebels. Needless to say we went thinking that we were going to quickly do work on the Rebels. That simply wasn’t [...]

• Breaking News: We’re Having a Baby!!!

  10/21/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  It’s no secret that my wife and I have wanted to have children for a long time now. Having tried on our own for the better part of our 6 year marriage and enduring months of expensive fertility treatments, out of pocket surgeries, and three painful miscarriages we had decided to pursue another route recently [...]

• My Ongoing Battle w/ ADHD

  10/21/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  In honor of ADHD awareness week (more)I thought I would do this post for those that may know very little about Attention Deficit Disorder. Over the years I have been very public about the fact that I have ADHD. This is something we didn’t discover until I was in my late 20′s / early thirties [...]

• New Caricature! What do you think?

  10/18/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  My friend, Tim Langley at YouBlether.com, floored me this morning when he sent this caricature of me over Skype this morning! What an awesome job! The inside joke on this is that I rarely ever wear a tie, it takes someone usually either dying or getting married for me to put on a tie. My [...]

• Thoughts on Dan Wheldon

  10/17/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  As far as motorsports go I’ve never been as big of an Indy Car fan as I am a NASCAR fan for obvious reasons, but I do have a few drivers in the Indy league that I have always liked and admired, Dan Wheldon was one. I wasn’t home watching the race today like I [...]

• Thoughts on “Operation Delta Blues”

  10/16/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  I have had a few people ask me recently what happened in my hometown of Helena-West Helena that brought national news attention, especially since my interview this week on Fox16 News. Operation Delta Blues, as it was titled by the United States Attorney Generals Office, consisted of simultaneous raids on 70+ individuals that were carried [...]

• Fox16 – Operation Delta Blues (Updated)

  10/13/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  The other night I couldn’t sleep because of a neck injury so I wandered into my office in the middle of the night and started reading some of the news stories from earlier in the day where Operation Delta Blues went down in my hometown was one of the largest drug and racketeering cases ever [...]

• Rant: Innovation -vs- What Works

  10/11/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  I tweeted something today that had been on my mind for a few weeks: 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 [...]

• RIP Steve Jobs

  10/6/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]

• Apple Whois Information

  10/4/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  I saw a tweet today talking about why Apple’s website was down. Someone checked their whois and this is what was found: 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

• Launched: Shane Henry & Associates

  9/27/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  Today I launched a project for my friend Shane Henry. Shane has a law firm here in Conway and specializes in Social Security / Disability, Adoption, Business Law, Estate Planning, and several other services.  Shane’s website was built upon WordPress and uses the Genesis Framework. Click on the screenshot above to visit Shane’s website…  Related [...]

• Houston, We Have Another Problem…

  9/23/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  Yeah, I’ll be the first to admit I still hold an unhealthy grudge toward Houston Nutt for a host of obvious reasons and I delight in watching his football world fall apart. This week I read a post by Aaron Torres where he went into great detail as to why this year will likely be [...]

• The Toadsuck Toe Sucker!

  9/17/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]

• Social Media Ministry Management Tips

  9/14/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  I recently was asked to assist with the management of social media for one of the fastest growing churches in the United States. I am still in the discovery process of what all social media strategies and presences they have in place right now but it hasn’t taken me long to figure out that they [...]

• Facebook’s Public Figure Limitations

  9/13/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  I have been talking with some people lately that are considered “Public Figures” on Facebook because they have reached that magic number over 5000 friends and were forced to either stop taking friend requests or to convert their profiles over to “Public Figures”. Let me start out by saying that for most people that fall [...]

• What Advice Do You Have For Teens Concerning Social Media?

  9/13/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  A while back I was asked by a good friend who is in leadership at a church in Little Rock to come speak to his youth group about social media. I am real excited about this opportunity because this is one of those rare occasions where what I do professionally intersects somewhat with my personal [...]

• Exciting Enhancements for Gowalla

  9/12/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  It’s not a big secret that I am a Gowalla fan-boy, have been for a long time now. I see the value of geosocial as an industry insider and a business owner, companies like Gowalla and Foursquare have been leading this charge along with Facebook, who recently announced they were dropping their emphasis on Places, [...]

• Thoughts on Influence Marketing

  9/12/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  Brands have used “influencers” for as long as I can remember to promote their products, just think back a few years to when Michael Jordan was at the top of his game and quite possibly the most popular athlete in the world, Nike signed him to a contract to endorse their brand and to release [...]

• Remembering 9/11

  9/11/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  Just like many of you, I won’t ever forget where I was on 9/11. I was in Fairfield Bay, Arkansas watching CNN in my office as the second plane flew into the World Trade Center. I can remember the very moment the second plane crashed into the building right there on my television screen coming [...]

• Memphis Heat: The Story of Memphis Wrasslin’

  9/10/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]

• Consider Partnering w/ The One, Inc.

  9/9/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  I am one of the co-founders and board members for The One, Inc., we operate The Van that has been featured on K-LOVE radio, Sync Weekly, and just about every television and radio station in Central Arkansas. Our primary focus is outreach and support through demonstration of Christ’s love to those in dire need of [...]

• Arkansas Adoption Solutions (Beta)

  9/7/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  A while back I blogged that I was working on a side project w/ attorney and friend, Shane Henry, called My Arkansas Adoption. The purpose for this project is primarily to provide resources to birth mothers who might be considering adoption and to recruit adoptive parents, like my wife and I, a resource to connect [...]

• WordPress Menu Support for Older Themes

  9/6/2011

  Download

  Duration: Not Available

  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 [...]