Made From Scratch: Village Inn on Leadership & Rebuilding Community

📘 EPISODE SUMMARY

On Episode 263 of the Glue-OOM, The Plague goes virtual with Village Inn — Iowa State physics grad, former Ironwood Site Q, and now a two-time flag planter in Colorado Springs. He traces how a tornado-cleanup carpool EH reshaped his life, opens up about mistaking familiarity for community back in Omaha, and explains how moving 600 miles with zero safety net forced him into the intentionality he'd been coasting past for years.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

✅ The Carpool EH — 45 minutes in a car with his boss after Blair tornado cleanup, and a casual "Monday, 5:30, I'll be there"

✅ "Probably Not" — the two words from his M that made him never miss a Monday for a year

✅ The Naming — Hipster's beatdown, nearly splashing merlot, and the π tattoo that made him Village Inn in four seconds

✅ Drawing the Driving Circle — close enough to get home in a day, far enough that nobody shows up unannounced

✅ The Real Hook — watching men lay it all on the line in COT and bust each other's chops five minutes later

✅ Best Shape By Accident — posting 5-6 days a week purely to make friends

✅ The Pit — the wide net of hometown familiarity that gave him the perception of community and killed his intentionality

✅ Ninety-Nine Percent — crediting his M for nearly all his pre-F3 emotional maturity

✅ Webb, Age 5 — his 2.0's F3 name, because Spider-Man was all they could get out of the shy guy

✅ Work In Its Place — 100% WFH, full house, and a little girl at his desk asking if he's almost done

✅ Grandpa's Standard — a man of the people who "would donate every second and dollar he had"

✅ The Site Q Ambush — a month after swearing he'd never get that involved

✅ The Colossus Con — how he tricked his best friend into a Co-Q term

✅ Valhalla & Blood Moon — planting, naming, and passing off two flags in Colorado Springs

KEY QUOTES

🗣️ "I think F3 grabbed me because I had never, or very rarely, been able to talk to other men openly."

😂 "A lot of these guys can just lay it all out on the line, and then five minutes later they're still busting my balls."

🏋️ "I am near the best shape of my life purely because I started going five, six days a week to make friends."

🕸️ "Having that wide net made us not intentional about building a strong close group."

❤️ "I credit my wife for ninety-nine percent of my emotional maturity prior to finding F3."

💼 "Your work pays for your life — it isn't your life."

🙏 "I think that is where I find God: doing the acts that he would want."

🚪 "The worst case scenario is they say no."

🧩 "As soon as I allowed myself to embrace all three aspects is when I felt the most whole within the group — and honestly, within my life."

🪨 "Holding on to your own rock through everything and knowing who you are."

CHAPTERS

00:00 🚗 Kotters & The Carpool EH: Blair Tornado and "Probably Not"

02:39 🥧 First Post at Ironwood & The Pi Tattoo That Named Him

04:59 🗺️ Council Bluffs to Colorado Springs: Drawing the Driving Circle

07:14 🗣️ The Real Hook: Men Who Could Actually Talk

11:56 🕸️ The Pit: The Safety Net That Wasn't Community

13:55 ☕ Six Months to Coffeeteria: Skipping the Second F

15:20 ❤️ The M, The 2.0s & Borrowed Emotional Maturity

19:01 👨‍👦 Fathers, Father Figures & The Adoptive Mentor

23:19 💼 Work In Its Place: "Daddy, Are You Almost Done?"

27:09 🙏 Faith Through Service & Grandpa's Standard

32:13 🏴 The Site Q He Swore He'd Never Be & The Colossus Con

38:31 ⛰️ Jump In: Advice, Valhalla & Blood Moon

42:28 🪨 Steady In The Storm: Prayer Request, NAMO & The Call Sign