My neighborhood, East Nashville, feels like the perfect microcosm of America

What is the perfect microcosm of America? The place you bring a visitor that would let them sample the diverse qualities of a big place in a small, visitable place. Think Epcot World Showcase in Disneyworld.

In a big city, but not in a Big city
If I were in New York or DC; those cities' importance and personalities would dominate at the expense of the rest of the country.




In a city, but in a village within the city
East Nashville has the proximity to the city (jobs, stadium, venues, restaurants, services); but the Cumberland river creates an enclosed community that causes daily life for East Nashvillians to stay more local.

The schools are bad
Perfect example for America.

Captures the religious flavor of the whole country
Nashville will give you the ache of "Christless Christianity"-- the bad feeling you have when christians seem to be everywhere, and are less compassionate and reasonable than secularists and atheists.

All four seasons
Los Angeles would be too consistently sunny, and Chicago cold too long. In Nashville each season has it's right place and comes at the right time.

The poverty is hard
America has a large class of people who rely on the state for support. Poverty really sucks, and it's here in East Nashville.

The "blue state" village within a "red state"
Red State = Only Alabama and Alaska voted more strongly for McCain than Tennessee.
Blue State = When I was in a church meeting in East Nashville, we introduced ourselves by name and home state. The most popular home state, by far, was California. Then Michigan, Tennessee and Ohio.

East Nashville has both flavors of American zeal-- red, white and blue patriotism; and "Yes we can!" Obama optimism.

Conclusion
I thought of this post idea as I was imagining living in other countries, and became thankful to God for where I do live and how it captures the diverse American experience in a small visitable place.

What is the Bible School of Awesomeness?

The Bible School of Awesomeness is our vision for a part-time Christian school.

The ministry is to serve the parents, supporting them to raise their children in the Lord. The goal is that their children would grow up to have deep taste buds for the glory of God and that they would find a satisfaction in Jesus Christ.

The method for doing this is somewhat like a home-school co-op.

The details and timing aren't clear, but we've had this vision for a couple years.

An inspiration from the scriptures

"And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the LORD had one for Israel."

But something happened.

"And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel."

It looks like the generation that experienced his salvation, received his word, and saw the mighty works didn't teach their children. Every aspect of the children's lives were terrible.

Summary

I don't know when or if the Bible School of Awesomeness will come to pass, but we already have a great love for children and want to help parents be supported and encouraged to transmit a great love for God to them.

Shai Linne -- Jesus is Alive

Nero is dead, Constantine is dead. Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun are dead. Alexander the Great is dead- however. Jesus is Alive.

Our sewer overflowed into our backyard

This is story of a one day adventure, and what we did to fix it (in case you are Googling this page and our experience might help you)

10am: I found that a piece of solid waste (poop) was floating at the top of our sewer drain! That's not good. And other people have spent thousands of dollars fixing problems such as these.

I asked our neighbors, the Wards, what I should do. They own a plumbing company, so they were very helpful. He told me to try to manually unclog the open sewer access pipe.

What's abnormal about our situation is that our sewer drain access pipe wasn't covered. It should be covered.

11am: I start breaking up the clog in the drain. I loosen part of the clog and 20 gallons of human waste came out! It was so much I wondered for a moment if the city's sewer wasn't backing up into my home.

Water continued to flow out of the access pipe for another 20 minutes. We had a lot backed up.

12pm: Call for a plumber, but no one was available until later.

Here's what we did that worked

We went to Home Depot. The plumbing aisle guy guided us to tool rental, and we got a 100-ft "electric snake". It cost about $60 after tax, insurance and some gloves for 4 hours (only $20 more for 24 hour rental).

The machine twists a metal-pronged head as you feed it down the drain, breaking up clogs. It was totally awesome.

This is an image of what was clogging the drain. My theory is that it was a) hardened grease, b) a chemical/biological reaction that formed a styrofoam-like substance, c) couch cushions. One of my motivations for posting this is that I had a hard time Googling for other images/stories of drains getting clogged with a substance like this.

So in conclusion:

Is your sewer drain stopped up?

You may be in big trouble and have to have professionals remove and replace your entire drain.

But perhaps you can unclog the problem yourself. You'll need

an electric snake

gloves (layer vinyl/latex gloves under leather gloves)

a power cord to reach your backyard

and you need to

1. open the sewer access in the backyard
2. feed the electric snake into the sewer drain (hope it goes the right way, we had trouble with it going towards the house when we needed away)
3. perhaps your situation is that you have to feed the electric snake into the sewer drain for your house. Do more research, but you may need to remove your toilet and start feeding the electric snake for that point.
4. feed the electric snake down the drain while giving little pulses on the foot petal that controls the rotation of the cable
5. repeat a few times, then call a plumber/rooter company if you fail.
6. pray in the name of Jesus Christ. This is what worked for me! Thank you Lord.
7. cover the access drain back.

At the end: a clean drain! It worked!