I’ve been writing for the past several days about our experience purchasing a home from IndieDwell in Boise. You can read all the previous parts of the story here:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

This is primarily an exercise in catharsis. I’ve mostly held in all my thoughts about it since we bought the home in 2020. It would serve as a caution to any prospective IndieDwell customers, but the company is no longer doing business in the same way at all. They don’t use containers any more and they don’t work directly with homeowners.

So, as I wrap this up, I am sometimes asked (usually by my local contractor John) if I’m glad that we did what we did.

Yes and no.

I’m confident that going with IndieDwell was a mistake. It has become clear to me that they did not have the appropriate people and systems in place to successfully complete my project so far away from their home base in Boise. I hope they learned a lot about their own weaknesses through the process and were able to improve their business through my feedback.

It also seems clear to me that we signed on with IndieDwell right when they were reconsidering their whole business model. This was unfortunate for us because they didn’t have the time or the motivation to really serve us as clients. They were shifting to a model where we wouldn’t even qualify as clients, so our needs didn’t register very high for them.

However, I am really still glad that we downsized our home. Going from 2400 square feet to 960 square feet has been a real adjustment, but it has brought our family closer together in ways that a larger home would not have fostered. We are challenged when it comes to entertaining and hosting large groups - we are still working through the best ways to do that in our home - but having to make decisions about how much clothing we have, how many toys or electronics or books we keep, and to really be thoughtful about the process of bringing new things into our home has been a really positive exercise and spiritual discipline.

Living closer to the downtown core of Coeur d’Alene has also been really nice. We are able to walk and bike places that we had to drive to in our last home, and while we don’t take advantage of that as much as we could, it’s a nice option.

Hindsight is 20/20, but if I had to do it over again, I think I’d work with our local contractor to design a very similar, 1000-1200 square foot home that we could stick build. I would have run natural gas to our home for hot water and heating as well instead of relying solely on electric power. The process would have taken longer, but I don’t think it would have been much more expensive - and I would have enjoyed participating in the construction process. Our home is one of the means that God is using for our sanctification, and for that I am grateful.

The last section of the story of our broken IndieDwell home focused on the flooring. This final section is about the heating and cooling system. IndieDwell doesn’t really feature that heavily in this part of the story. Our problems, while stemming from our choice to hire them to build our home, are not really their problem. The only thing that I can say about them is that we were told early on that we should expect to pay about $50/mo in electricity for our incredibly energy-efficient home. Last year we paid an average of over $200/mo. The bill was north of $400 in the coldest parts of the year. There are multiple reasons for that (we built an out building that is heated, we have an electric snow melt system) but I installed sensors on all our electrical circuits to monitor exactly what each appliance draws. Even when I remove all the extras, our home is far less efficient that we’d hoped.

We have a Samsung mini-split air source heat pump as our primary (really sole) source of heating and cooling. There are a couple backup electric coil heaters in the walls, but we never use them. The HVAC system consists of a condenser that sits on our patio connected by coolant lines to a head unit in the dining room and one in each of the bedrooms.

You may recall from the second post in this series that our HVAC contractor was hired under the assumption that he would be making some connections and filling the system with coolant. That’s what we were told to communicate to him by IndieDwell. The reality was all of the equipment was still in boxes when the house arrived. Our contractor had to mount the interior units, he had to tear up the drywall to get the connections made in the walls (which I had to come back and repair), install the outdoor unit on a stand that wasn’t included and program the system to function correctly.

He made a comment at one point that he’d never installed a Samsung system before - but they were all basically the same. Cue ominous music.

He struggled for about a week to get the thing working in between all his other jobs. He hadn’t budgeted time for us because he didn’t think he needed to. The whole system just didn’t end up working very well. We fought with it over our first winter - it would blow cold air and kept the house at about 62 degrees off and on. The bedroom units seemed to work better - but they were heating small spaces.

Our HVAC guy decided there was a leak. He came back over the course of several months to look for the leak, but never seemed to have the right equipment for it. He would drive the wrong truck or have left his equipment at another job. He refilled our system a few times, which made the whole thing work great for a few days, and then the problems would come back.

He would spend some time tinkering with it, scratch his head and say he’d never seen anything like it, talk to Samsung tech support, and eventually give up. He really didn’t know what he was doing, so after awhile I realized I was going to have to start paying someone to get the thing fixed.

It was July of 2022 when the air conditioner just quit altogether. It was hot. We called Bill’s Heating to come take a look at it. They confirmed that it was not working right and they got the outdoor unit to flash an error code that the technical manual said meant “Call Tech Support.” They told me if I wanted to have them do that, they would have to come back later and it would be $125/hr to sit on the phone with Samsung and figure it out. I didn’t really have much of an option at that point so on July 14 they came back and worked with Samsung to diagnose the problem for 2 hours. The notes on the invoice read:

Working on this Samsung mini split, 1 head isn’t cooling and the other 2 are. Called tech support and ran through a bunch of tests. Tried switching valve body from another circuit to see if living room would cool. Nothing happened. Tech support said we have a bad EEV on the outdoor unit. Unit is a samsung and and can only order parts online.

Our unit was still under warranty for parts, so I called Bill’s to ask about getting that process started. The woman who answered the phone said that they didn’t work with Samsung and could not get parts for warranty work. I had spoken to Samsung already about this and was told that there was a local distributor in town that would sell Samsung parts for warranty work. The woman on the phone said that they would not buy them from that distributor. Since their preferred distributor did not carry them, they refused to purchase them. When I asked how I was supposed to proceed, I was told to find a vendor that would do warranty work on Samsung. When I asked why Bill’s was willing to charge me $250 to diagnose a problem they were unwilling to fix, she didn’t have much to say.

So I began my quest for a Samsung authorized service provider. There is one guy in Spokane. Airforce One Heating and Cooling. I called him at least 6 times and he never returned my messages. I then called Samsung and they tried to help me find someone by suggesting that I call Airforce One Heating and Cooling in Spokane. After that they suggested that I call their distributor in Coeur d’Alene, Keller Supply, for recommendations. All three of Keller Supply’s recommendations told me that they didn’t work on Samsung equipment. I then called the Keller Supply in Spokane and they referred me to a guy in Spirit Lake who said he thought he knew a guy.

He put me in touch with Rob. Rob had been a missionary in Uganda for the last 10 years doing construction and maintenance for an organization I was aware of called Far Reaching Ministries. He was home on furlough and was working as an HVAC tech. Apparently there are a lot of Samsung mini-splits in Uganda.

Rob got to work on the problem and quickly found out that there was a bad sensor telling the unit that it was overheating so it would shut off. It was not overheating - the sensor needed replacing. Rob just removed the sensor and everything started to work great. He said that it would be fine like that while he ordered the part, which arrived on August 17th (happy anniversary Joanna) and he installed it the next week (because we were out of town celebrating our anniversary). He charged us something silly like $100 for his time. He was very kind and generous.

But now it’s winter again and our house is cold. The bedrooms still work fine, but the living room just stops working at night and ends up about 62 degrees in the morning. I reached out to Rob again in November and he was traveling. I circled back in January and he was still traveling. I asked him if he could recommend someone else and he could not.

So, in February of 2023, we have a nearly new Samsung mini-split system that might just be programmed wrong or have a small leak or need a different sensor….but no one in a 250 mile radius of our house is willing or able to service it. I’m actually considering having a local company come in and replace the whole system with a different brand that I could actually get service on. Turns out there are 4 Samsung repair guys in Boise.

North Idaho’s Most Unwanted

I’ll spend one more post wrapping up our IndieDwell experience with my overall thoughts.

By the fall of 2021 I had made peace with the poor workmanship that was displayed in the warranty repair work on our home. At least everything was “fixed.” That was until December of 2021, when our Shaw Luxury Vinyl Plank flooring began to peel apart. It was no longer a problem with the subfloor and the seams, it was a problem with the way the planks were constructed.

I knew at this point we were past the IndieDwell warranty, however, we were still within warranty for the floor itself and I rightly guessed that IndieDwell would have to be a part of that process. So I emailed Scott Flynn again on December 17th. Unfortunately he was no longer with the company. I reached out again to the CEO Christina on LinkedIn and she didn’t respond. I ended up filling out the contact form on the website and got a response from Pete Gombert on January 4th.

January 4th sock snagger.

January 6th broken plank.

Pete reminded me that the home was out of warranty and I reminded him that the flooring they replaced was less than a year old and he might be able to get the manufacturer involved on my behalf. He got back to me on January 13th and told me I needed to register the floor on Shaw’s site and initiate a warranty claim there. I did that…and waited.

Pete got back with me on January 24th asking if I’d heard anything from Shaw, which I hadn’t.

Pete got back to me again on January 30th with the news that this was IndieDwell’s first warranty claim and they were having to go through a process with Shaw as well. Pete was also going out of town to celebrate his 50th birthday (Happy birthday Pete!)

On January 31st I was asked to submit the square footage of the damage, my address, the invoice number (didn’t have that) and the installation date as well as the process we used to maintain the floor (a Libman mop with a water/vinegar solution)

On February 22nd I heard from Pete that Shaw was going to send an independent inspector to review the floor. The inspector had actually scheduled their visit a few days prior. They were an elderly couple, I would guess late 70s, who by the looks of their equipment had been inspecting floors since they were newlyweds. They took pictures, rubbed the floor with Q-tips, and laid a straight edge over it and shined a flashlight through any gaps they saw. They were very nice.

I waited some more, until I reached out to Pete again on March 23rd. He assumed that Shaw had moved on to working directly with me. Shaw had not done this. But by April 13th Pete had been informed that Shaw was going to pay the full replacement cost of the damaged floor. I was to get a quote from a local contractor, submit it to IndieDwell who would submit it to Shaw, who would approve it and cut me a check so that I could pay the contractor to do the work. Easy as pie.

The contractor, a great guy named Chris Anderson with 345 Aesthetic Construction, came out and gave me an estimate of $650 for the repair. I forwarded it to IndieDwell on April 18th. They approved the bid on April 21st but needed a W9 from the vendor, which I got and sent to IndieDwell to send to Shaw on April 22nd.

It was May 6th when I reached out next wondering when I should expect the check from Shaw. Pete thought that the contractor should be getting the check directly (as Shaw did ask for his W9). I let Chris know to expect it and let me know when he got it.

When there was no check by May 22nd, I reached out to Pete again. He was told by the Shaw rep that it was being cut that very day! How fortuitous! The contractor should see it early the following week.

By June 7th, there was still no check. Pete got back with Shaw and they said, yes, it was processed on June 8th and we should see it any day. By June 29th, after several more emails, the check was still missing.

On July 16th I was beginning to be concerned that my contractor was not being honest with me. That he had received the check and cashed it without telling me. He came recommended by a trusted friend though, so I was hoping that wasn’t the case. I suggested to Pete that Shaw find out if the check had been cashed, and if not to cancel it and just send it directly to me. Shaw got back on the 19th of July saying yes, the check had been cashed. I got back with Chris and asked about it - he said he didn’t have it.

Then Pete came back with the answer: After all of the back and forth and W9 from the contractor and address verification, Shaw sent the check directly to IndieDwell and their accounting team just deposited it. The IndieDwell controller, on July 20th, mailed out a new check, finally, directly to me. I got back with Chris after receiving it on July 25th and scheduled him to come out in the next several weeks to make the repair. That was scheduled, and completed, on August 4th. It only took a full 8 months to get done.

Unfortunately, if you remember the less-than-stellar trim carpentry job the IndieDwell team did when they repaired our flooring in the spring of 2021, the way the cabinet toe kicks were installed proved impossible to remove without breaking. Chris did this to get the flooring replaced with the intention of finding replacement toe kicks and making that repair. He was however met with the same predicament that both IndieDwell and I was - no one in North Idaho carries that particular product. So he just didn’t come back and left us without toe kicks on our cabinets. Something for the honey-do list.

Not for kicking.

That brings us to today, February of 2023, when our new flooring is peeling once again in other areas around the house. I’m confident we have no further recourse with either IndieDwell or Shaw and will just have to deal with a sub-par product until we can afford to replace the whole thing sometime down the road.

That would be the end of the story of our frustrating home if it weren’t for the HVAC system.

The people at IndieDwell had been great up to this point. Super nice, very accommodating of our needs, especially since they were 8 hours away in Boise. They drove up in August of 2020 to make some punch list repairs on our new home. The most difficult were some places where the floating vinyl plank floor was flexing and coming apart at the seems in high-traffic areas. When they came up they used a combination of self-leveling floor leveler and a mixture of shims and scraps of flooring to create a lever surface for the flooring to sit on above the OSB subfloor. Unfortunately this did not ultimately solve the problem.

I reconnected with IndieDwell and heard from Scott Flynn, one of the founders of IndieDwell (who it doesn’t look like is with the company any longer) that:

We discovered the incorrect underlayment was used in the manufacturing of your home, relative to the flooring manufacturer's installation guidelines.  

We are therefore going to remove and replace all of the underlayment with the required product plus replace your entire finished floor.  We plan to be there the first week of April to complete the job.  We expect it to take 5 days and will need your help in coordinating the efforts of moving furniture.

My understand was that Shaw would not warranty their product if it was installed over OSB, only plywood. That didn’t make sense to me, but IndieDwell’s solution was that they would tear out our entire finished floor and subfloor and replace all of it in the space of 5 days. Which week of 2021? Easter week!

Our church was holding a big joint Easter service with 3 other local churches for our first Easter since we missed the celebration during COVID. I was slated to preach to over 400 people that day, and we would be staying in an AirBNB all that week because our home would be a construction zone.

Oh well. It is what it is, right? The work needed done, and IndieDwell was doing the right thing to honor the warranty and take care of the work.

IndieDwell paid for our AirBnB, but in an attempt to save money they decided that they could do the work one room at a time, and in conjunction with storage space in our 10x16’ shed, they would just tetris our furniture around. A little more work for them, but it saved them money, so we were ok with it. We did what we could to load as much of our furniture into the shed before we left for the AirBnB and gave them a spare key.

Joanna and I came back to the house on the evening of the Monday that they began working to pick up a couple of things that we forgot for the week - once again, the team at IndieDwell was just really great. Super nice guys. They were hard at work on the project. We went back to the house a few times during the week, to pick up things and make sure packages got put inside. They 3 guys on the team really exemplified the kindheartedness that I had come to expect from the company.

When we returned to the house that Sunday night (with plans to pick up a new puppy the next morning by the way - different story) we were immediately disappointed. I was able to touch base with Zach, the foreman, before they left to share some of my concerns. One of his comments was telling. He said the guys they sent him up with were brand new and hadn’t really done construction before. I sent the following email to Scott:

Hey Scott,

I'm writing to provide some feedback on the floor replacement that your team did for us last week. First off, again, your crew is great. Zach and the other guys were really courteous and professional. Joanna and I had to return to the house a couple times to get some things and they were really great to interact with. Joanna said they even offered to move some heavy packages that we received for her. I'm also really grateful that they gave up their Easter to finish their work. We were out of the AirBNB on Friday, but we had plans to stay with friends on Saturday anyway so it wasn't a problem finding lodging for that extra day. They are excellent representatives of the heart of your company.

After spending a few days at home though, I feel like there are a few things that I would like to share that I think could make the experience better the next time as well as a few areas that I think came up a little short.

1) I talked to Zach about him sending up some transitions and cabinet base that match our finishes. They did the best they could to find something locally, but as you can see in pictures 01, 20 and 17 they don't quite match. I can install the correct material as long as you can ship it up.

2) The crew left this very nice Dewalt multitool in our crawlspace (picture 15). Let me know how best to get that back to you. I'm assuming the intention was to cut out our floor register that provides return air for the ERV. Unfortunately they didn't do that. You can see the hallway in picture 09 where there should be a vent. I recut the hole (used the dewalt!) and it's all good now.

3) The decision to keep most of our furniture in the house and move it as the crew worked made sense to me. It saves money on renting a storage POD or something. However, the team also made the decision to bring their saw inside the house. You can see in pictures 03, 04 and 05 the construction dust. It was all over everything. Zach did offer to find a cleaning service to take care of this for us, but we were coming home Sunday night right as they were leaving and had no option but to move right back in. We worked late into the evening Sunday and most of Monday to clean up. I get that it's hard to be efficient and clean at the same time in construction. I would recommend arranging to have the furniture completely removed and budgeting time for a cleaning service in the future. You can also see the debri in our crawlspace in picture 06, the general state of the floor in 07 and the paint drips on our couch in 16. Joanna was able to get the drips out of the couch, so no harm there. It looked like maybe the brush had been washed but not really thoroughly...the drips were real watery and the paint came out of the upholstery just fine.

4) Our dishwasher would not close because the clip was reattached over the top of the old screw (picture 08). After I fixed this my wife also ran the dishwasher 3 times before we realized that the water hadn't been turned back on. I should have thought to check that sooner.

5) What I am most concerned with at this point is the floor itself. There are still areas where it flexes when we walk on it and there is an area in our bedroom where it squeaks now. Neither of these things are a problem for us as long as it doesn't fail again, but I thought you should know. I am disappointed though by the places where someone clearly mismeasured a cut and either didn't fix it or tried to hide it with brown caulk. I've installed a floating floor 3 or 4 times and I feel like this result is pretty unfortunate. See pictures 10, 11, 12, and 13 for examples of this.

Overall I again want to stress how thankful I am that you have committed to taking care of this problem for us. When we told our friends that you were replacing our whole floor and putting us up for the week they couldn't believe it. I can't say I'm not frustrated though that my new house feels so worn out in its finishes already. Thanks for taking the time to read my feedback. I hope it's read in the spirit that it is offered as helpful and not overly critical or petty. Let me know if you have any questions for me, when to expect that replacement material and also how best to get the multitool back to you.

It’s always my intention to be gracious, and I hope that was communicated in the email, but we were very underwhelmed by the quality of the work that was done to fix the floor in our home. The main reason I felt compelled to write this series of blog posts is because I still see these things every day in my nearly brand new house and am often frustrated by them. Some pictures:

Closet Trim

It’s a nice sticker. They could have also removed that side panel inside of running base all around it.

Closet Trim

Paint the trim? No?

Dust

More Dust

So Much Dust

Conditioned Crawl Space

This dust will make it into the house.

Flat, but dirty floor

Dishwasher

This one screw does an awful lot.

Not pictured: air return vent.

Found: Expensive Tool

This was in the crawl space right under where the air return should have been cut.

Trim

This is kind of trim carpentry…

Measure twice....

Or just cover the hole with brown caulk.

Close Enough?

Something something, horseshoes, something hand grenades…

So MUCH brown caulk...

Caulking works between boards too!

Couch

We ended up getting the paint stains out.

Transitions

Not the same color.

Trim

Refer to what?

Trim

Some violence with this one.

Trim

You gotta caulk over those nail holes so no one sees ‘em.

Trim

Just a hairline fracture, nothing to worry about.

This is where things start to go downhill with IndieDwell. Scott responded the next time thanking me for the email on April 9th. He was going to get back to me ASAP. He did not. I reached out again on April 26th letting him know that I had received a reimbursement check for the AirBnB (thanks for that!) and I asked him how he would like me to get their Dewalt multitool back to them.

Scott emailed back suggesting that I mail the tool back to their office and thanked me for being such an awesome client. It was at this point I began to regret being such an awesome client. I paid to have the tool shipped down to Boise and waited for those appropriate trim pieces I was promised. I asked about them on May 10th with no response. Again on June 3rd. At that time I was told that

unfortunately we are temporarily shut down and will not be able to fulfil our obligation of supplying you with the transition strips.

You can purchase them at Home Depot or Lowes.

I would later realize that they were in the process of completely changing their business model. They would no longer be selling to homeowners, only developers, and they would no longer be building with containers - they would build their houses from fabricated steel (I think). Scott was the “Chief Impact Officer” for the company at the time. His decision to just stop trying to help us with our home definitely made an impact.

IndieDwell had a new CEO, Christina Ortiz Bluth, who is no longer listed as an officer. I didn’t have her contact information, so I reached out on LinkedIn. I copied and pasted my correspondence with Scott and sent a Dropbox link to all the pictures. I ended my message with this:

I recognize that a single homeowner is not your company’s target market at this point in your corporate life and that my concerns are probably a very small thing for you. I do feel like you need to know though that we were really excited about getting our home. Everything from the sustainability of containers, to the fact that you were an Idaho business, your B-Corp status and the modern design aesthetic. At this point however, I regret purchasing this home from you. Our home is only a year old and the poor workmanship in our floor reminds me of how frustrated I have been with this whole process.

I truly hope that the restructure and redesign of your manufacturing process is fruitful. Affordable housing is something our state and our country desperately need and my wife and I will be glad to see your future growth if you can provide it in a way that honors the people that will live in your houses. I hope IndieDwell is able to be more committed to excellence in serving future customers than you have shown yourselves to be to us.

Christina responded 5 days later that she had just run across the message on her phone. She wanted to acknowledge it and told me that it deserved a more thorough response which she would give later that week. She never responded.

So, in June of 2021, a year after we moved in to our home, it seemed like our relationship with IndieDwell was over - and I was questioning whether or not my determination to be gracious was the right move. I think it probably was, but I was definitely feel taken advantage of. At least our flooring issue was fixed. Right? That would be incorrect.

We were finally able to move into our new home. The 3 person crew from IndieDwell that had been living in an AirBnB in North Idaho for a month finally went home. There was a punch list though, so they were coming back. I sent the Punch List on June 30th. It was as follows:

• Master Bathroom Shower Not Caulked: Top of insert

• Master Bathroom Door Installed Incorrectly: Hinge side bow, top and right side rubbing, strikeplate misaligned

• Flooring gives in multiple places: comes apart in hall way

• Southern Container is unlevel: Inclined toward the interior - Approximately 1" over 4ft

• Master Bathroom Mirror: Should there be one?

• Master Bedroom Closet Panel: Needs Replaced

• Master Bathroom Cabinet Broken and Puttied Over: Bottom Front Left

• Master Bedroom Screen Missing

• Dishwasher Cabinet Front Chipped

• Bottom Corner Cabinet in Kitchen: No shelves

• Top Corner Cabinet in Kitchen: No rear support

• Missing Pegs For Cabinets

• Main Bathroom Shower Valve installed backwards

• Main Bathroom Medicine Cabinet Shelf Peg holes not aligned: Shelves won’t install flat

• Oven drawer is bent and does not close correctly

• Front outside electrical outlet and 2 outlets in 2nd bedroom not working

• Mini-Split Wall Controller Not Installed

• Mini-Split Handheld Remote Cradles Missing

• Large disk lights flicker over Kitchen sink and in both baths

Most of these things were very minor. A couple were dealt with by the electrician and the HVAC contractor, and a couple of things I just fixed myself. However, for some of them materials needed to be delivered and/or work had to be done, so they scheduled to have a crew come up the week of August 10th. That’s right near our wedding anniversary so we decided to take a trip to the coast and let them do their thing.

We came back to most of the remaining issues fixed. There was one significant issue though: the flooring.

Our whole house was covered in a nice Shaw vinyl click-lock flooring, but there were several places that it didn’t feel firm - it was “squishy.” It was as if the subfloor was not level and the flooring would flex in the dip in the subfloor beneath. The crew from IndieDwell came in and replaced some of the flooring in the areas where the containers came together and, as I would find out later, just added a bunch of shims and scraps of flooring in order to firm it up. As you might expect, this didn’t solve the problem for long. The floor continue to flex under the pressure caused by four sets of feet and an uneven subfloor and over the next several months began to split.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t our only flooring problem. I was working on building bunk beds for our girls, but in the meantime they had their twin mattresses on the floor. Something one day led us to pick up and move the mattresses and we found mold growing underneath. Our high-end vinyl plank flooring, with all the manufactured texture of real wood, made it impossible to remove the mold from the floor without completely damaging it. So I began to take up the flooring in order to replace it.

Long, grainy petri dishes.

When I found below was that the subfloor was covered in mold. Probably from the water damage from before we got the roof on. I scrubbed and painted over the mold with KILZ and prepped the subfloor to be covered with new flooring, which IndieDwell was kind enough to send me for free. However, when the 2 boxes arrived, they didn’t work. Shaw had increased the width of the product by about an 1/8th of an inch since our home was built (4 months earlier) and their new product wasn’t compatible with the old version.

I was told that this was a problem that was surfacing on another IndieDwell project, some college dorms they were building, so they were good about getting to the bottom of it. They were finally able to track down a couple boxes of the correct flooring which they sent me in September.

That didn’t stop the rest of the flooring issues though, which continued to get worse as time went on. Which is a story for our next installment.

It was the end of May when our home arrived on 3 trailers from Boise. You can read about what led up to this purchase here. There was a lot to do, and just the week prior I had been made aware of several things that I wasn’t ready for.

There was a list of subcontractors required to finish off the home. My contractor and I were tasked with lining them up: they were an electrician, an HVAC guy, a plumber, a painter, and a cleaning service to go through the house before occupancy. The major miscommunication here was that all of these contractors were to be paid by IndieDwell as part of their scope of work. I missed that little detail somewhere, and as we were on a tight budget, I thought I’d need to handle the plumbing, painting and cleaning myself. Additionally, I had hired an HVAC guy to “make the final connections in the system” which is what I was told needed to be done. While the coolant lines were already run through the home when it was delivered, all of the HVAC equipment was still in boxes and my HVAC contractor hadn’t planned to be at my home for the amount of time it took to do all of that installation work. But more about HVAC later.

Our house didn’t come with a roof, and as the building market was in overdrive in the summer of 2020, my contractor couldn’t get a framing crew interested in bidding such a small job. So I decided to do it myself. I’d never built a roof before. I had lots of help. I think there were probably 20 different friends of mine working on it with me, including the recently retired head of our church network who rode his motorcycle from western Washington to help me for a couple days.

Everything would have been ok I think except that after the house arrived on May 27th, we needed to remove its temporary protective tarp roof in order to fit the trusses on. And on Sunday, May 31st, it rained. A lot. The seams between the containers hadn’t been sealed yet so there were gallons and gallons of water in our crawlspace that had poured down the walls and through the floor of the our house. It was a mess. We used commercial fans and shop vacs to clean it up. Unfortunately, later in the year we found mold throughout the subfloor in the girls bedroom. But more on the subfloor later.

We had the roof all done and watertight by June 6th. Longer than a crew would have taken, but it didn’t rain again until we were done…and there wasn’t a crew to do it, so there you go. It was a really stressful week and a half. If I had known what I learned in that week and a half, so many more things would have gone more smoothly. Most of it didn’t cost us money, other than an extension at our rental house because the timeline went so long, but lots of wasted time that I could have prevented had I known better what to plan for. By the time I was aware that IndieDwell was covering the cost of all those subs, I was begging anyone I could find to come do the work at the last minute. The plumber did an ok job, the HVAC was stressed (more about that later), the painter was confused about the process and we could never get the cleaning company to show up.

The lack of communication did cost me some money though. The plans we received called for a series of 18” and 24” long steel anchors welded to plates that would sit flush with the foundation wall and that the containers would be welded to on site. along the side and in all the corners.

Fictional building materials.

I happened to notice this at some point early on and thought I would get ahead of the process. I would need to purchase the anchors, have the plates fabricated, and hire a welder to weld them before I could give the things to the foundation crew to set in the wet concrete when they poured the foundation. So I went down to our local fasteners store and showed the clerk what I needed. He laughed at me. He said the length and diameter of anchors that I required did not exist. However, after looking into it, he found a source somewhere on the east coast that would make them and ship them. It would take 6 weeks and these steel rods cost me $1500.

This was just the cost of building an unconventional house. Except when the home was delivered, they had with them a revised plan set that noted that the ridiculous anchors were unnecessary and much smaller and more readily available parts could be used. I would have likely saved over $1,000 had they sent me current plans. That was frustrating to learn.

Overall the crew that came up with IndieDwell, as well as all the office staff that I corresponded with in Boise, were great. Super nice, friendly people that seemed to really care about the success of the project. We got our occupancy on June 25th, almost a month after the house arrived. It was a difficult process, but it was worth it we thought. Just a few punch list items and everything would be done. More about that next time.

The little modern container house that could.

I woke up this morning feeling compelled to write down the story of our current home. It’s a complicated story, but as I continue to struggle with some aspects of it, I think the catharsis of writing will be helpful.

We bought a home in 2015 that would be a major remodel. I didn’t know anything about home improvement and spent a lot of time on youtube learning. It was a really rewarding experience. Unfortunately, we ended up putting more money into the project that we could afford to pay for, and by the middle of 2018 we were struggling financially.

There were many parts of our family life that we felt needed to be streamlined and simplified. Joanna and I had been reading and learning about the tiny house movement - we weren’t ready for that, but thought it would be wise to significantly downsize from our 2400sqft house. We wanted to live closer to downtown, so we bought a small, infill lot in midtown Coeur d’Alene and began planning for a home.

The lot, unfilled.

We looked at many different options for money-saving, smallish houses (mostly in the 1000sqft range) with 2 bedrooms. We needed space for ourselves and our two daughters, and while we were committed to small, we didn’t want to be in a 300sqft tiny home.

This led us down the road of prefab, modular construction. Lots of options there, but at some point we came across a company called IndieDwell. In October of 2018 they were building single-family homes in their factory in Boise out of used shipping containers. They offered a 960sqft, 2 bedroom, 2 bath home for about $125,000 (plus the cost of a foundation and site work). I spoke with Pete Gombert, who is their Executive Chairman as of the time of this writing, and he told me that they would be able to sell us one of their homes and ship it to Coeur d’Alene. We didn’t have the land yet, so we working on purchasing that into the summer of 2019.

I reached out and made an appointment to tour their facility and model home in Boise that July. We are about 8 hours from Boise in Coeur d’Alene, so it was an excuse for Joanna and I to get away for a weekend.

In what turned out to be a sign of things to come, they forgot about our appointment. We showed up and no one there knew anything about us. We waited around for about 30 minutes until a couple of their executives arrived to show us around the model and answer questions.

We loved what we heard. The homes were environmentally friendly due to their recycled shells, they were super energy efficient (our electric bills should average $50/mo they said), the finishes were modern in their aesthetics, the floor plan was just what we were looking for, and they were a certified B Corp, which checked a lot of boxes for ethical business. We were sold. We put $1,000 down on July 15th, 2019 with the knowledge that it would be a full year before they could build our home (they were very busy). In the mean time we sold our house, moved into a rented space and waited.

It was October of 2019 when we got to pick out our finishes - siding, flooring, appliance colors, paint. Not super custom but all really nice looking options. We were excited about the house. We made another payment of about $25,000 and waited.

We worked through the process of preparing for our home to be delivered into the spring of 2020. Everything was going great until the beginning of March, when, well…

Covid didn’t really hold up the project that much, but as we got closer to delivery, I realize now that the communication between the site supervisor and me and my local contractor wasn’t that great. They had never installed a home this far from Boise and, as I would find out later, they weren’t going to sell to individual homeowners moving forward. They were in the process of radically changing their business model, and I think we were sort of the last dregs of the old one that needed mopped up.

After the home arrived, there were some challenging hangups because of that failure of communication. I’ll save that for the next post. For now, take a look at how cool it was to have our house craned into place.

I have two hoodies that I wear all the time. They are light-weight, slim fit, zip-up hoodies. They are exactly the same except one is blue and one is gray. They go over a tee shirt. If they are both in the laundry I have a little bit of a crisis in the morning. I have a few other semi-warm pieces of middle-layer clothing, but deciding which one to wear stresses me out.

I want to get a couple more of these hoodies so that I’m not so burdened with indecision in the mornings. Unfortunately I can’t find them anymore. Slim-fit styles are no longer in fashion. This is challenging for me because slim is the only fit that I fit into. Everything else is like a bag of carrots with only one carrot left in it. Alas, the world has changed.

In the story of Epimenides of Crete, Epimenides, who is a shepherd, wanders into a cave and in a precursor to Rip Van Winkle, falls asleep for 50 years. When he wakes up, the world has changed.

We all agreed that 2020 was not worth counting in the grand scheme of things. We needed a do-over. 2021 didn’t serve us well in that regard. It was more of a 2020 The Sequel than a 2020 reboot. Consequently, in some ways, I feel like I’ve spent the last 2 years in that cave. The world appeared to me a certain way in 2019, and now, on the cusp of 2022, it seems like a different place.

2021 was hard. I felt like I was on shaky ground, confused by competing voices that all claimed my allegiance as the sole arbiters of truth. I lost friends. Painfully. There were plenty of good things, but as I look back on them they feel like life-giving gulps of air sucked in while struggling to stay afloat in a raging river. I’m grateful for their generous presence, but I’m not sure they did much to get me out of the torrent.

In many ways 2020 and 2021 were years of excess. Too much Netflix, too much social media, too much toilet paper. Too much anxiety, too much hatred, too much death. Maybe it’s because the week in between Christmas and New Years feels pregnant with new possibility, but I think 2022 needs to be a year of throwing off the excesses, simplifying and getting back to work.

I’ve been working on simplifying my life in a lot of areas for a couple of years. I want a few more identical hoodies so that I can streamline my wardrobe further. What should I wear today? A tee shirt and a hoodie. Think of all the brainpower I can save with that life hack.

2022 is a different world than the one we left in 2019. I suspect it’s more about our perception of it than the reality, but no matter: it seems different. We all pivoted in March of 2020 into a posture of just figuring out the new reality that was forced on us. I’m not sure if that reality is going to change in 2022, but I think I have to. Even if we go to war with Russia, or COVID-22 mutates six more times, or Kanye and Marilyn Manson headline at the Dove Awards, I need to make sure I am walking on the “ancient paths.” There is a version of me, the most real human version, mature in Christ, that I need to get closer to this year. I doubt this is the year that I actually meet that person, but if Jesus has anything to say about it, the fuzzy figure off in the distance will get a little clearer in my field of vision.

I hope he’s wearing a slim-fit hoodie.

I wrote this post in February of 2012 during a season in which my views on music were being personally challenged by members of the church I was on staff at. This post was the way that I chose to process that critique and when it went public it hurt the people that I was in dialog with: even though it doesn’t mention them personally they felt like I was broadcasting the disagreement behind their back. So, I took it down. I realized recently that it was still in my drafts folder and have decided that there has been enough time and space from that situation to publish it with a clean conscience.

Disagreements over art in the Christian world are interesting.  What makes good art, what kinds of art should we let influence us, and how exactly does art influence us? The most interesting perspective to me is that of the artist.  I follow a lot of Christian musicians on Twitter, and I think without exception, they have all at one point or another made a comment about art in the mainstream environment.  "Xxx's new album is great!" "Going to see Xxx in concert tonight, can't wait!" "You have to check out Xxx's new single." etc.  The fact is, people who want to make great art seek out great art to influence them wherever they can find it.  In my experience, the worldview of the artist, in general, doesn't really factor in to whether or not a musician values another musician’s musical contributions.

The interesting thing about the best of our "Christian" versions of art is that it rips off the music, from the mainstream, that has gone before it.  I don't mean that in a bad way.  That's the way art works.  It grows, it evolves, but it's one person building on the genius of another.  If our Christian artists were so concerned about mainstream art as some of their fans are, I guarantee their music would be much less appealing.

Art is a free market commodity.  Any time there is a cap placed on it, it suffers.  This is akin to monopoly in the corporate world.  When there is only one manufacturer of a given product, that manufacturer has very little motivation to make his product better.  When a direct competitor springs up, both companies fight for the same customers, and the quality of the product goes up (or the price goes down).  Art works the same way.  In an environment with little or no competition, there is little reason to improve.

This plays out personally (if I'm the best singer in the church, why would I take voice lessons?) as well as in the larger market place.  If the Christian consumer simply purchases music with a fish on the label, and the Christian artist is accepted as contributing positively to the medium if they simply bring praise to God in their lyrics, the art is stagnant.  However, if Christian artists and consumers of art are all present in the same market as the rest of the world, consumers will learn to distinguish good art from bad, and artists will be forced to make the best art possible to earn the support of the consumer.

Like I mentioned earlier, that's what most quality Christian artists do.  They learn and grow from the larger art world, not the somewhat ingrown Christian bubble.  When I was younger, before I began to realize this, it used to bother me that my favorite Christian artists named "secular" artists as influences.  Some of my favorite Christian bands listened to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Queen.  I have since come to realize that the very reason I enjoy these artists' music is because they allowed themselves to be shaped by the greats of the 60s and 70s.  Had they cited these guys as influences, I probably would not have been listening to their music in the first place.

So, I guess the point of this post is, if you want good Christian music in the world in which we live, you have to accept that your favorite Christian artists glean from the culture at large.  If they didn't, it wouldn't be too long before everyone was tired of listening to it.

I am reading Augustine’s Confessions. I have read about it, excerpts from it, for many years, but I picked up Sarah Ruden’s translation at Powell’s in Portland earlier this month and have made it my first book of 2022.

In book 2, Augustine spends a lot of time digging into a story from when he was 15 years old. He and some friends snuck onto someone’s property at night and stole a bunch of pears from a pear tree. They then ran around town throwing the pears at various things, including pigs.

What is interesting to me is that Augustine is so thoughtful about this incident with the pears. He interrogates his emotional state, his motives, questions whether or not he would have stolen the pears without his friends around (he concludes no) and tries to work out how his illicit desire for the thrill of theft connects to and provides a lessor substitute for his God-given desire for God himself.

My world doesn’t require me to spend much if any time in self-reflection. I have many options for entertainment that will gladly keep me from looking at my own heart at all. I wonder how much the natural boredom of earlier eras is responsible for providing the fertile ground for self-reflection.

It seems to me that the person in 2022 that would seek to live their life in any way like Augustine, at least when it comes to opportunity for self-reflection, needs to make time for boredom and prevent themselves from immediately reaching for electronic entertainment whenever there is a moment’s silence.

Also, Augustine needed to get better taste in fruit. Pears are not worth the effort.

I’m not sure if I will have the time or stamina to consistently write in this space in the coming year, but I think I’m going to put it down as a goal.

I’m not sure what sort of writing I will focus on, but here’s what’s on my mind this morning:

An oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked person:

Dread of God has no effect on him.

For with his flattering opinion of himself, he does not discover and hate his iniquity.

- Psalm 36:1-2

It’s important for me to have a realistic view of myself. Some very kind people, who are gifts to God’s church, are especially good at taking Romans 12:10 seriously. These people frequently remind me of my gifts. I grew up in an environment where taking compliments was discouraged. Giving compliments was too, so it wasn’t much of a problem.

I’ve learned to thank others for the ways that they show me honor, but Psalm 36:2 is a reminder that a man that believes his own press can become blind to his sin. When I believe that I am awesome I’m not likely to take the time to allow God to “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.”

I need to be in the habit of “discovering” my iniquity so that I can hate it. The assumption there is that it needs discovering. It lives deep inside my heart and soul and it’s only by the sometimes painful work of God, to claw at my scales and pierce my flesh like Aslan does to Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, that I will be able to find those things that exist deep within me that need to be exhumed and repented of.

Psalm 36 goes on to praise Yahweh for his faithful love. It it weren’t for this reality the process of digging up my sin would be unbearable. Fortunately, the one helping me dig loves me more than I can even understand.

This post is primarily for my own sake in collecting the following information in one place. We’ve been studying various parts of the book of Revelation over the last several weeks at church and I am becoming more and more convinced that it is difficult to be certain about whatever theological system you hold to when it comes to the eschatology. Dr. Michael Heiser seems to share the same conviction. Several years ago he wrote 15 part series entitled Why an Obsession with Eschatology is a Waste of Time. It’s in 15 parts on his website so I wanted to link to it here. It’s a really interesting read with links to many deep-dive articles along the way…if you’re interested in this sort of thing.

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 1

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 2

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 3

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 4

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 5

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 6

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 7

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 8

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 9

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 10

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 11

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 12

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 13

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 14

Why An Obsession With Eschatology Is A Waste Of Time, Part 15

I just finished reading Dr. James Dobson’s July newsletter detailing his White House tour of a border outpost in McAllen, Texas. I find the views that he shares to be really frustrating.

Dobson starts off by detailing pretty horrific conditions that thousands of men, women and children are dealing with. He points out that the vast majority of detainees are fleeing Central American countries and turning themselves in to border patrol. (He doesn’t mention it in his article but I believe this is called “seeking asylum.”) Dobson is grieved over the situation, even telling one of the men in detention that “God loves him…[and] I love him too.”

Then he offers a solution to his readers: support the president’s border wall so that these people can’t get into the country anymore. Setting aside the idea that the wall is largely ineffective if these people are turning themselves in to border patrol and not sneaking in through the desert, I have some real concerns about this.

As someone who has sworn their ultimate allegiance to Jesus Christ, I just can’t understand how Dobson can claim to be “profoundly grieved over the misery of thousands of people” in one sentence and then proceed to say that because they are “illiterate and unhealthy” and have “no marketable skills” we need to shut them out of the country so that they don’t “overwhelm our culture.” Jesus had a lot to say about “loving your neighbor” and even “loving your enemy.” His prime example of this was the story of the Good Samaritan. It’s a story of extreme compassion and material care for a true enemy. After telling his audience about the unsolicited compassion the Samaritan man had for his enemy, Jesus says “go and do likewise.” This is the way we are supposed to live as followers of Jesus. Dobson says that “we have met a worldwide wave of poverty that will take us down if we don't deal with it.” I agree. The way Jesus’ people deal with poverty is by giving away their riches, opening up their homes and seeing the outsider as one that Jesus loves, an image bearer of God, and worthy of our support. Obviously this crisis is much too large for a single person to remedy, or even a single church. It’s a problem that requires that will of a society to meet effectively.

Do I think that we could formulate a comprehensive national policy on border enforcement, immigration and care for the refugee that honors Jesus mandate of care for the least, protects our nation from foreign threats and effectively assimilates immigrants into US society? I do. I’ve always thought that the United States is the greatest country in the world and that we can do anything we put our minds to. We won WWII, we put human beings on the moon. We could figure this out if we wanted to. I think the unfortunate reality is that politicians of both parties will continue to use this issue and the lives of the people that are affected by it as pawns in their petty games to win votes and demean and belittle their political opponents. It’s a complicated problem that most of us in this country don’t have the data or the means to solve. However, I just can’t square the clear directives of the one I believe to be the King of the Universe with the idea that the solution to this humanitarian crisis is to wall it off so we don’t have to deal with it.

I started my new job last Friday. It's been 2 days of work so far. Here are some observations:

1) I forgot how hard it is to enter in to a new environment and absorb all of the information required to function in that environment. Thankfully everyone's picture is next to their name in all of the intra-office communication software. There are so many processes that I'm unfamiliar with and the feeling of totally not knowing how to navigate is something I haven't felt in a long time.

2) The main reason I left my old job was to find more time in my schedule. It was really hard to do that. I already miss it on some level. However, in the space of 2 work days and one weekend, I already feel like a major burden has been lifted. There is nothing at my new job that I need to spend mental energy on, there is no one that I am responsible for working while I'm away from the office...I just go there for 8 hours and work. It's really freeing.

3) I don't think I've ever done so much concentrated video editing before. I've never really been in a position where most all of my 8 hour day was devoted to actually sitting in front of Premiere and cutting footage together. I'm excited to get faster at it with practice.

4) Related to #1, it's interesting viewing an environment and group of people that I really don't know at all. Everyone seems really nice, but so far I have no attachments whatsoever. If I get fired tomorrow (not that I want to get fired tomorrow) I would mourn the loss of job but can't say that I would mourn the loss of relationship. I know that's something that's built with time, but it's just strange to feel disconnected at my workplace. It's been a long time since I've felt that.

That's all for now.

Today is my last day of work at The Salvation Army Kroc Center. In 2012 I started a tradition of making a music video celebrating staff members that left the Kroc. Today I was gifted one of those produced by my staff.

It features a bunch of Kroc staff as well as many of the clients that I've worked with over the years. I'm super honored by that.

Today is my 36th birthday.

Sometimes when I tell people how old I am they shudder at how close I am to the grave. Most of the time though, people remind me of how young I am, how much of my life is before me and how much I have yet to learn.

I think both of those reactions are probably somewhat true.

I look back on my late teens, twenties and early thirties and think of all the things that I have accomplished...and all the things that I didn't accomplish. I don't regret the major choices I've made in my 36 years but I often wonder how my life would have gone had I taken a different path.

I think about the opportunity that I had to go to Hillsdale College in Michigan for my undergraduate studies when I was 16. My parents felt that it would be unwise to send their 16 year old to college in Michigan. They were probably right. I wonder though about the path that decision would have set my life on.

My decision to marry at 20 also shaped my life significantly. My marriage is absolutely fantastic, and Joanna and I have worked hard to make it that way. One of the major motivations to start our childcare business with my parents in 2003 was her love for children and training in early childhood education. Our time at The Cottage has been a significant positive factor in any financial success that we have had since that time.

Looking for a part time morning job at The soon-to-open Salvation Army Kroc Center was also a turning point for me. Nine years later I have earned a position at the highest leadership level there, The Salvation Army paid for a substantial portion of my graduate studies, I learned a whole new set of skills (film making) and my leaders there have fueled the fire of pastoral ministry inside me to the point that I have finally stepped out to plant a church.

After thinking about all of my life that is over, it's comforting to hear the counsel of older friends and acquaintances that life is just beginning. In many ways I know that that is true.

I will be taking a new job as a film editor at the end of the month. I haven't made a career move like this in my entire life. I expect that I will learn and grow in innumerable ways at byDesign Films just like I have grown everywhere else I have been planted.

Revelation Church continues to feel more "like a real church" every week. Wherever the people of God gather is a real church, but ministry seems more real as we gain momentum. I am excited to see what God does through this endeavor.

I'm usually fairly depressed on my birthday every year. I honestly think it's some sort of chemical imbalance that takes places every several months. Joanna is determined to make this birthday incredible...we are about ready to leave the house and begin her secret birthday plan.

I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure I will have a good time. But there is a gravity to a birthday, the reflection on years past and the anticipation of the time I have left, that always leaves me a little melancholy. There is a part of me that welcomes the melancholy, that would like to just be alone in the woods with my thoughts on my birthday.

There is another part of me though that is looking forward to drowning my thoughts with Iron Man, Captain America and their friends as they battle to save the universe from Thanos. I think I'll go with that.

Therapy.

About a year and a half ago I started telling the story of how we have this house and we are turning it into a completely different house, one piece at a time.

My first goal in remodeling our house was to accomplish a recommendation from our home inspector: replace the old galvanized water pipes with pex. The basement was finished so that meant tearing out the ceiling in order to get to the pipes. So that's what I did.

Note: toilet not from ceiling.

Ceiling on patio.

Over the course of a couple of weeks I sawed and hammered and ripped and tore hundreds and hundreds of pounds of old finished ceiling and walls apart to get to a bunch of rusty pipes.

There was so much old duct work in the way of the water pipes that I tore that out too. When I was done, the ceiling was empty and we had neither drinking water nor an HVAC system. I installed new water pipes immediately.

Beauty and wonder.

It was July, so I had some time to figure out the HVAC thing. I decided that since I had already torn apart the ceiling that it would be a good idea to install a radiant floor heating system. I still maintain that this was a good idea, but it was a lot of hard work. Thankfully my retired parents had nothing to do so they did most of the work for me. Thanks mom and dad!

We put that in the ceiling.

That's what occupied much of my free time through that first summer. I'll show you some pictures of dirt in my next house post.

Here's a thought that leans a tad philosophical. 

Do you ever have moments where you think about an action that you need to perform that you can't really imagine performing but which you know you have performed countless times in the past?

The most major example that I can think of is sleeping. Most nights I am gifted with the ability to effortlessly fall asleep moments after the lights go out. However, there are occasions where I can't sleep. I lie in bed thinking about sleeping and while I know that I sleep every night and have for almost every night of my time on this planet, I just can't imagine what I need to do to accomplish sleep in that moment.

The situation that I am thinking of though is a bit different. It's being in a hot shower. There are many times in my life when I am taking a hot shower and it is delightful. The quiet, the hot water, the steam. Goodness. It's at those times that I know that I have reached down, turned off the water and exited every single shower I've ever taken, but in that moment, I just can't imagine that that is true. What could possibly motivate me to leave the shower? It's awesome.

In the past, running out of hot water was a quick way to be driven from the shower. However, for the last 3 years we've owned a tankless water heater and our hot showers can potentially last forever. The pull to never leave the shower is strong. I may give in to the temptation someday and never be heard from again.

Realistically, I have only ever had 4 jobs.

The summer after I turned 15, I got a job at JB's in Coeur d'Alene washing dishes. I enjoyed it mostly. I spent most of my paycheck on all the beef stroganoff that I ordered during my meal breaks. It was delicious. I quit after 3 months because I wasn't comfortable with all of the pornography that the cooks posted in the break room. Also one of the waitresses was constantly talking about how much her boyfriend appreciated her tongue ring.  

In May of 1998 I got a job making burritos at Qdoba. It wasn't called Qdoba though, it was called Z-Teca. A couple years in the restaurant was sued by Azteca and changed its name. I ate a lot of burritos there. So many burritos. I worked there for 5 years. I was General Manager when I left.

I quit to open a childcare center called The Cottage with my new wife and my parents. She has a background in early childhood education and my parents are entrepreneurs par excellence. I had restaurant experience. I quit my job knowing that I wouldn't be getting paid right away from this new business. We didn't take a salary for a year. I ran the kitchen mostly. I developed my macaroni and cheese recipe there. It's fantastic. We owned The Cottage for 5 years and sold it in 2008. 

In 2009 I didn't have a job (cause I sold it) and I was teaching music lessons in the afternoons. My wife said I was driving her crazy and needed to get a day job. I applied at The Salvation Army Kroc Center. They were having a job fair prior to their opening. I interviewed with Stacy Barney and got hired as a part time front desk attendant. 

On my first day of work, April 27th, 2009, I was offered a full time front desk lead position. Not because of anything I had done, just because the Kroc Center was exploding with popularity and it wasn't even open yet.

So at The Kroc I have been a Front Desk Attendant, Front Desk Lead, Theater Technician, Theater Coordinator, Congregational Life Manager, Worship Pastor, Theater Manager, Theater and Rentals Manager and Director of Hospitality and Client Media Services. I think that's all the titles. 9 titles in 9 years. That seems excessive. Since I took over the Kroc Café, I've really enjoyed being able to taste test all the menu items.

May 31st, 2018 will be my last day of work at The Salvation Army Kroc Center. I am leaving for a new job. A fifth job. I have taken a position as a Senior Editor for byDesign Films in Post Falls. I think I will learn a lot there and from what I know about the company it seems like fun. It's also a better schedule for my family and church responsibilities. 

Everyone at work wants to know if I'm either "excited" or "ok." I tell them that I am both excited and ok, but really I don't think I'm either. I'm not really one for excitement in general, and I don't think asking whether or not I'm "ok" will matter too much until the last week of May. Then I might not be "ok." We'll see.

So I wrote last Friday a bit about how I often get so numb to certain ideas that I assume that they aren't worth sharing when most often my audience has never heard those ideas before. This is another post about that.

Tonight I got to present for Film Alliance Northwest about The Kroc Center, where I work. I talked primarily about our audio/video recording services but I opened by showing them a video piece that we use in our employee onboarding that starts with a brief history of The Salvation Army, moves to the history of the first Kroc Center in San Diego, and finishes with the story of the creation of The Kroc Center in Coeur d'Alene. It's about 12 minutes long. I wrote it, shot it, edited it...blah blah blah. I have seen it SO many times. 

However, none of these people had seen it. I was reminded of how powerful the story of The Salvation Army is and how amazing it is that Coeur d'Alene was blessed with a Kroc Center, and all kinds of other really great things about the organization that I work for. It's a good reminder.