Found out today that The Six Podcast is back! check out http://www.thesixpodcast.com/

The following is a post from a blog that I read - From Jon Acuff (www.stuffchristianslike.net):

Easter is about grace. And when I think about grace, one of the things that stops me short of believing in it is shame. This post, written last year, is about shame and grace and the reason we’re not naked.

I don’t want to brag, but I’m pretty awesome at applying band-aids. And make no mistake, there is an art. Because if you go too quickly and peel them the wrong way, they stick to themselves and you end up with a wadded up useless mess instead of the Little Mermaid festooned bandage your daughter so desperately wants to apply to a boo boo that may in fact be 100% fictional.

Half of the injuries I treat at the Acuff house are invisible or simply wounds of sympathy. My oldest daughter will scrape her knee and my 3-year old, realizing the band aid box is open will say, “Yo dad, I’d like to get in on that too. What do you say we put one on, I don’t know, my ankle. Yeah, my ankle, let’s pretend that’s hurt.”

But sometimes the cuts are real, like the day my 5-year old got a scrape on her face playing in the front yard. I rushed in the house and returned with a princess bandage. As I bent down to apply it to her forehead, her eyes filled up with tears and she shrunk back from me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t want to wear that band-aid.” She replied.

“Why? You have a cut, you need a band-aid.” I said.

“I’ll look silly.” She answered.

Other than her sister and her mom, there was no one else in the yard. None of her friends were over, cars were not streaming passed our house and watching us play, the world was pretty empty at that moment. But for the first time I can remember, she felt shame. She had discovered shame. Somewhere, some how, this little 5 year old had learned to be afraid of looking silly. If I was smarter, if I had been better prepared for the transition from little toddler to little girl, I might have asked her this:

“Who told you that you were silly?”

I didn’t though. That question didn’t bloom in my head until much later and I didn’t understand it until I saw God ask a similar question in Genesis 3:11. To me, this is one of the saddest and most profoundly beautiful verses in the entire Bible. Adam and Eve have fallen. The apple is a core. The snake has spoken. The dream appears crushed. As they hide from God under clothes they’ve hastily sewn together, He appears and asks them a simple question:

“Who told you that you were naked?”

There is hurt in God’s voice as He asks this question, but there is also a deep sadness, the sense of a father holding a daughter that has for the first time ever, wrapped herself in shame.

Who told you that you were not enough?

Who told you that I didn’t love you?

Who told you that there was something outside of me you needed?

Who told you that you were ugly?

Who told you that your dream was foolish?

Who told you that you would never have a child?

Who told you that you would never be a father?

Who told you that you weren’t a good mother?

Who told you that without a job you aren’t worth anything?

Who told you that you’ll never know love again?

Who told you that this was all there is?

Who told you that you were naked?

I don’t know when you discovered shame. I don’t know when you discovered that there were

people that might think you are silly or dumb or not a good writer or a husband or a friend. I don’t know what lies you’ve been told by other people or maybe even by yourself.

But in response to what you are hearing from everyone else, God is still asking the question, “Who told you that you were naked?”

And He’s still asking us that question because we are not.

In Christ we are not worthless.

In Christ we are not hopeless.

In Christ we are not dumb or ugly or forgotten.

In Christ we are not naked.

Isaiah 61:10 it says:

For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness.

The world may try to tell you a thousand different things today. You might close this post and hear a million declarations of what you are or who you’ll always be, but know this.

As unbelievable as it sounds and as much as I never expected to type this sentence on this blog:

You are not naked.

Trash. It's a constant problem, at least the getting rid of it part. We seem to be having that problem here on our street. Our trash pickup service has so far refused to drive down our road to pick up our trash - because of safety issues. I've posted a video here to show that our road - although narrow, isn't hazardous.

Take a look http://4poiriers.com/videos/trash-collection

A shameless plug for a great technology website called My Digital Life - http://mydl.me/ by Scott Bourne. Catch him also on Macbreak Weekly and on his personal website http://scottbourne.com/ or on twitter http://twitter.com/ScottBourne

I put this up here at first because Scott is giving away a Drobo (www.Drobo.com) storage device, which I would love to have but after thinking about it, I do find the site to be informative.

So, take a look at http://www.mydl.me and at the http://www.drobo.com site for some really interesting technology.

The new house is wonderful but I have a lot of little things I need to take care of in addition to the unpacking etc... I can't wait for the warmer weather, which, down here means March :-)

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men at their meal at the diner every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20.'

Meals for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to eat his meal. So, the diner owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings). The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the diner, the men began to compare their savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20,' declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, 'but he got $10!'

'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!'

'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for the meal, so the nine sat down and had their meals without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start eating overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

So, the "journey" began on April 23rd 2008 when I was forced to move to Comcast digital voice from Vonage. The tech came and installed the all the needed equipment and the 2 phone lines - one which would eventually be my current home phone number.

The tech did an excellent job and was done in no time and I twittered it. I called Comcast the same day and let them know that it was done and that I wanted to port my number over from Vonage and I was connected to the third party transfer voice prompts which I answered and said yes I wanted this done. With that done I settled in for a wait - thinking it would be 15 days or so.

Cut to June 3rd, when I realized that, not only is my Comcast voicemail broken, but my phone number had not been transfered. I called and received a nice person telling me that they would contact the porting group and get this solved. I actually believed her.

I believe I called again before my 4 calls starting on the evening of June 13th. Here's how that went:

1st call: I asked the tech to find out what was going on with the porting - she said she would get the porting group on the line with us to figure it out. I was then put on hold and 1 minute later I was disconnected - please note I was calling from one of the Comcast phone lines.

2nd call: more frustrated, I asked to speak with a supervisor - I spent some time railing about my problem - I was put on hold so she could find out more and again, I was disconnected.

3rd. Call: called again, this time from my Vonage line, got a supervisor, went over the whole story yet again and received no help, no explanations and only a weak sorry. No "I'm really sorry and I'll make this a personal mission to make sure you get credited for the inconvenience" just more, we'll look into it. I would have even been a little happier if she had accepted blame for the problem. She also did not know why this was happening. Please note I did NOT get disconnected... hmmm coincidence?

4th call: Ok, I was done - I'm sitting there talking with my wife about how poor /non-existant their customer support is and I get a call from Stacey, a Comcast person in the porting department. She tells me they have no record of me going through the third party verification test back on April 23rd (So, this must be my fault, right?). She does see a note that says transfer number from Vonage but I guess that's too vague, so it was ignored.

I try to get her/Comcast to accept responsibility for this fiasco but again, that's not happening. "we don't know exactly what happened", is what I hear and have heard all night. I ask about being credited again and I am told, "I don't work in the billing department, but I can transfer you." - that's what I need, to argue with yet another Comcast employee that won't care or accept blame for their screw-up. I say, "no, I don't need the hassle, why can't you take care of this for me" - what follows is pretty much the same answer, in various forms. I give up.

She says I have to go though the 3rd party verification again. Fine, I'll do it again. I go through it again and hear the thanks for choosing Comcast at the end and want to shout at the phone.

The next day - June 14th, 2008, I get a call from a tech at comcast asking if I have an appointment for a phone problem - I tell him no, and the problem I have isn't with the physical phone equipment - it's just the porting of my phone number I'm having problems with. This guy, it turns out, is the same one who did the original install and is amazed that I'm still waiting for the port . Me too. Me too.

I've also sent an email to the Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, but don't expect to hear an answer because, when you're a monopoly like Comcast, your customers don't have to like you, they just don't have much of a choice.