Cox Communication: "Screw Congress - Screw Neutrailty"

Silicon Valley Watcher reported a few days ago that Cox Communications has already b egan their assault against their customers to keep a tight grip on their personal revenue streams at the expense of their customers.

If you are currently living under a rock and do not know what I am talking about start with this video.



Secondly find out more and get enraged at It's Our Net or Save The Net.

If you are still unconvinced, read this open letter from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.

Today is the DAY... The House will vote TODAY!

Thanx Chris Cree

Why Bother????

So it is time for yet another rant about my church and their ongoing disdain for families with young children. Our church has offically closed the nursery and canceled all preschool classes for Sunday morning, and then canceled all youth classes on Wednesday. This to have a muddled down useless program that is supposed to resemble a family Bible Study. YUCK!!!

The kicker to this though that we are still told we need to help in the nursery duringer worship assembly. The question is WHY BOTHER coming??? We might as well just stop going since we are supposed to go and just be with our kids.

Please understand, I am a full supporter of Family Bible study model for a church program. However that needs to be done for our schoolage children not our preschool. Designing a program that serves the fractured lifestyle of our schoolage - sports -scouts -music -over commited families is a great idea. Throwing babies and toddlers into the mix, because it's easier than actually getting a volunteer to play n the nursery with them is ludacris. The evidence of how stupid this really is will become evident when our youth minister and his wife return with their 1 month old newborn, that we are supposed to believe needs to be a part of this.

We will NEVER get another new young family with this!!!

I would 100% leave NOW myself if I did not believe in the benevolent and service work we are doing this summer. I think that the work at the track is about the coolest ministry I have had the chance to be a part of at any church.

Anyway...Tell me whatyou think... am I off bse here?

Andrew Petersen's Doxology (Romans 11)

Well until the lawyers come by and make me take this down: I am posting the sheet music for an a'capella arangement of Andrew Petersen's Doxology. It is a wonderful amazing song that should be sung regularly in worship.

Oh, the depth of the riches

Of the wisdom and knowledge of God

How unsearchable His judgments

How untraceable his paths

Who knows the mind of our God?

Who can bring counsel to Him?

Who has given to God that God should repay?

For from Him, through Him, to Him is everything

The Power Point Slides are about 7 Megs so it will take a second to download. To hear the song you will need to goto Andrew Peterson's website and buy Appendix A.

No Wheat

My Brother, My Daughter, and myself all suffer from wheat intolerance officially known as Celiac. I have been living wheat free off and on for about 5 years. I am currently in a very bad place physically from my continuing abuse of this disorder.

I have once again cut all ceral grains out of my diet and fully resumed a gluten free diet. Add this to my chocolate boycott, and I am running out of foods to eat :-)

Please pray for me, that I will be faithful in avoiding these foods that are destroying my body.

Yorkies having Babies

I wanted to let my fellow Yorkies know that Mike and Michelle Parker and Karen (Harvey) Smith have both had new birth's.

I will link to Karen's site if I get one.

Sawyer Parker was born on Wednesday and Brady Smith was born on Thursday.

Our God is An Awesome God!

3 Months and Our third will arrive!!!

Social Hazard

Our theme this weekend at camp is Social Hazard and the director's theme verse is Romans 12:2. As I have been working on comitting this verse to memory and working on my talk for Sunday night to summarize and conclude the weekend. There is no verse that gives a better "How-To" than this passage from Isaiah.

"Quit your worship charades.
I can't stand your trivial religious games:
Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings—
meetings, meetings, meetings—I can't stand one more!
Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them!
You've worn me out!
I'm sick of your religion, religion, religion,
while you go right on sinning.
When you put on your next prayer-performance,
I'll be looking the other way.
No matter how long or loud or often you pray,
I'll not be listening.
And do you know why? Because you've been tearing
people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.
Go home and wash up.
Clean up your act.

"Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings
so I don't have to look at them any longer.
Say no to wrong.
Learn to do good.
Work for justice.
Help the down-and-out.
Stand up for the homeless.
Go to bat for the defenseless.
Isaiah 1:13-17;"

I was inspired by Wicky's MySpace page to create the graphic at the bottom for the T-shirt I will wear while I speak Sunday night.



Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12:2

I Am Green Lantern

Your results:
You are Green Lantern

Green Lantern 95% Spider-Man 90% Hulk 65% Iron Man 60% Supergirl 55% Wonder Woman 50% Catwoman 45% Batman 45% Superman 40% The Flash 35% Robin 32%

Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

A New Masculinty

At a mens retreat this weekend, I spoke on New Masculinty. It was a wonderful retreat and a great lesson to remind myself of the goals I shoudl be pursiung. I have uploaded the PDF of my sermon if you are intrested.

I's Like To Thank The Academy...

I'd like to thank the Academy...

So it is with GREAT PRIDE that I let you know that I have been upgraded from contender to WINNER... in the Marko caption contest!!!

dude -- you won!

tell me what YS book you want, and give me a mailing address, and i'll have it sent out to you.

marko

Mark Oestreicher

President

Youth Specialties

I'd be remiss if I did not mention that I know I am loser to be excited about this. However usually it is a VERY SMALL population of people who find my sense of humor funny.

...Oh Oh Oh! And Of Course God! Woo Hoo!!!!

I could've been a contender.

"You don't understand! I could've had class. I could've been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am."

Youth Specialties boss Marko had Painting In Need Of A Caption contest up on his blog.

I have entered several of his caption contest before and have never made the contender list. However this time I did. Check out the post... and the contenders list!

I must say I am truly a bum, to be this proud!!!

A Network Computer

I imagine the idea of putting a computer in the hands of every foreman would appeal to ANY IT guy. I think at $150 it bears some appeal to the bean counters as well. I have already ordered my first K-Oss Thin Client computer, and plan on ordering more soon if they allow us to truly have real world data submission from our field employees. This will be Awesome!!!

God Is Good...All The Time

I want to thank all of you are praying for my mom. It has been a nerve wracking week, and I imagine that is MUCH more true for her and my dad, than for us kids who are getting the information second hand through them.

On Tuesday, when she was supposed to learn the details of the stoke, she was told the Cat Scan results were never sent from the hospital to the Neurosurgeon, and it seemed she had been prescribed the wrong course of action for the diagnosis of the stoke.

In spite of this she FEELS great. I believe that in response to the prayers offered on her behalf she was healed, and the action by the ER doctors, though seemingly incompetent, was irrelevant thanks to the power and blood of the great physician.

Please continue to pray for her ongoing recovery, and I will update again when I know more.

Nextel Usage Report

I Manage a 120 phone Nextel account. Anyone who is in my shoes understands the trouble my previous statement carries with it. Nextel billing is unacceptably poor, and nearly impossible to read and detail out. Nextel does offer a program called "Smart CD+" that has a few included reports, but these reports are as difficult to read as the bill itself.

A Nextel Bill is printed with a minutes used column that can be VERY decieving. This column totals all minutes used for the month, with no regard for special programs you may have contained in your contract. Items like "Free Nights and Weekends" and "Free Mobile to Mobile" are not accounted for, and all used minutes end up in this dump. When you try to read the detail on a Nextel bill you can not since only charged calls have their detail printed, yet the minutes column totals for ALL minutes.

I however have written a report, that we have been using for several months now, and I have tweaked it for general usage. This report uses the included database each month from the smart CD and shows a summary of only "CHARGEABLE" minutes for each phone. I sent this file over to my Nextel reps so they could use it with their customers, and I am posting it here on my blog as well.

Written is Crystal Reports 9, this report demonstrated to us as a company that we were paying for over 70,000 minutes when in reality, less that 30,000 minutes of our total usage was billed minutes. Using this report with the Smart CD+ data will save us as a company tens of thousands of dollars a year.

I would encourage any Nextel Administrators to download this file and follow the instructions included in the archive for using your monthly Smart CD data.

My Mother's Stroke

I am at a loss for words as I type this post. My dad called me about an hour ago, to let me know that he was at the hospital with my mother, that she had a stroke.

I am overwhelmed as I ask you to join with me in prayer for the healing I believe the Lord is already sending. Our heavenly father is the great physician and I have full faith in his power to heal.

Inspired By... The Bible Experience

Mark O from Youth Specialties had a link to Inspired By... The Bible Experience on his blog post today. This is a large scale, high quality production featuring top names in today's entertainment field.

I love Max McLean's "Listners Bible" and have it on my Napster. However based on the audio sample up on their site, I definitely think I will be switching to the their recording of the word.