A Memorable Moment

This is a true account as recorded in the Police Log of Sarasota, Florida...

An elderly Florida lady did her shopping and, upon returning to her car, found four males in the act of leaving with her vehicle. She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her voice, "I have a gun, and I know how to use it! Get out of the car!" The four men didn't wait for a second invitation. They got out and ran like mad.

The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into the driver's seat. She was so shaken that she could not get her key into the ignition. She tried and tried, and then it dawned on her why...for the same reason she did not understand why there was a football, a Frisbee and two 12 packs of beer in the front seat!

A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces farther down. She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police station to report her mistake. The sergeant to whom she told the story couldn't stop laughing. He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale men were reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair, and carrying a large handgun.

No charges were filed.

If you're going to have a Senior Moment, make it a memorable one!

The turtles were nestled all snug in their beds...

Here's a picture of Little George. We haven't seen him since the Monday before Thanksgiving. Little George, Grumpy and Grace have all snuggled in for the winter and appear to be hibernating. We saw Grace and Grumpy on Thanksgiving day when I moved around a little dirt where they had dug in. Grace even came out from her spot and dug into another one. Little George is dug in way down deep (I'm thinking he may be directly under Grumpy by an inch or so), so we did not see him on Thanksgiving day. Don't know if they are having visions of sugar plumbs dance in their heads, but hope they're doing OK so we can see them again this Spring.

Flying Imams and the First Muslim US Representative

Was it an orchestrated stunt? Click on the picture to enlarge so you can read it. Click on the title to this post to read the entire story.

Oops!

An American Airlines flight was brought to an unexpected stop Monday due to an excess of gas … and not the kind used for fuel.

A woman on board a flight bound for Dallas/Fort Worth apparently struck several matches in an attempt to hide a flatulent faux pas, reported the Tennessean.

The flight was brought in for an emergency landing after passengers reported a burning smell. After investigators began questioning people, the woman admitted to striking the matches while trying to hide her "body odor." She is from the Dallas area and reportedly has a medical condition.

When reports of the smells were heard, the plane landed in Nashville and all passengers and crew members were brought off board. Bomb-sniffing dogs were then called to the scene and they tracked down the used matches.

The flight took off again after the incident, but the woman was not allowed back on board. American Airlines has reportedly banned her for a long time. Although it is illegal to strike a match on a plane, the woman was not charged with any crime.

Story here.

Did You Blog It, Daddy?

Before going to bed tonight, our proud little tooth-puller asked me if I had blogged about her feat last night. I told her no, but I would tonight. So here it is...a picture of Amanda's missing tooth (bottom row, just right of center). But this one is special...it is the first one she pulled all by herself.

The tooth has been loose for a while and Amanda was determined to pull it herself. Brooke was out with friends last night when the tooth got real loose. Amanda showed it to me and then started crying, "please don't tell Mommy!" (literally crying). A note of explanation: I do NOT pull teeth, for some reason it grosses me out. I did not like loosing teeth as a kid because I thought it was gross. So Brooke has been the tooth puller at our house. There was that one time I had to hold Amanda down on the ground, but Brooke did the actual tooth pulling.

No before you put two and two together (the duct tape picture from a couple days ago and the whole pinning your child down thing), let me explain. Amanda usually wiggles her tooth until it is bleeding real good (like she did last night) and then just stalls and will not pull it out. She wiggles it, cries, whines and stays up late playing with it, but she will not do the deed. Finally we cannot take it anymore and Brooke yanks the thing out.

Last night, Amanda wiggled it around and I put her to bed because I knew she would not pull it. Two minutes after praying with her and coming back to my office, she was out of bed showing me her bleeding tooth (where she had begun wiggling it right after I left her room). Short version, I got the pliers out and "convinced" her it would be to her benefit to pull her own tooth. Three minutes later she came running to me to show me her accomplishment! Mommy brought the dollar home to put under her pillow. (Actually, she didn't go get a dollar...she bummed one off one of her friends. But you didn't hear that from me).

Six teeth down and I don't remember how many to go.

Schooling Sully

Boo does not put up with such nonsense, but Sully is just good-natured and lets Amanda torture him as seen here. I believe he is the student, as as you can see from his paw in Amanda's hand, the teacher is helping him finish his homework.

An Absolute MUST Read

I know some of my regular readers (OK, I have 2 that might count at "regulars", so don't laugh so hard) are not all that excited about my "political postings", but I ask you to read this article (The Faking Imams) about the six imams who were kicked off the US Airways flight.. The article contains a link to the official police report and an eye witness report. The article is eye-opening to say the least.

• They were not asked to leave simply because they were Muslims (there were other Muslims on the flight who were not given further scrutiny)
• Their prayers were not "normal" Muslim prayers
• Enough people on the plane were nervous about the actions of these six men that the passengers APPLAUDED the crew once the men were taken off the plane

You can read the rest yourself...please do. This incident is being used to try and stop common sense security measures at our airports. I will not comment further for those of you who are not into the "political posts", but please read this article.

Note: I had to try SEVERAL times to get the page to load. Probably thanks to the Drudge Report, lots of people are finding this site right now.

What Can I Do To Make Your Flight More Uncomfortable?

If Ann Coulter is too "over the top" for you, don't click on her picture to read her take on the six imams kicked off the US Airways flight.

Side note: wow...Ann Coulter should run for the most hated political commentator on the planet...it was really hard to find an image of her (I use Google image search) that was not Photoshopped into something mean or nasty. We know Ms. Coulter doesn't claim to be tolerant. Isn't it the people doing all of the Photoshopping who espouse "tolerance"? What's up with that?

Mr. 300

The weather people are saying it is supposed to start raining tomorrow and then a cold front is moving in. I figured since that might happen I should get out tonight and find my 300th geocache while I could do so without freezing. This one was in a park and in the woods. I discovered there are more thorns at night than during the day, but other than that it wasn't too hard.

I will commemorate find #400, and for find #500, I am hoping to have all of the people who I have introduced to geocacing in the picture with me. Gotta love it.

How the Imams Terrorized an Airliner

Read the Washington Times article for yourself on the suspicious activity of the imams on the U.S. Airways flight. Not quite the same white-washed story the mainline news media ran the day after.

Where Else But in Texas?

This is called a "microcache" or "micro" for short. Actually, this little cache is even smaller than a typical micro...and I found two of these today! I went out this afternoon in pursuit of cache find #300 and had to stop early because I found seven...my next one is #300 and I did not want to find it by myself. I've got to get GeoPunkin and Punkin's Momma out with me this week to find the next one.

As you can tell from the picture, I was out in my shirt sleeves this afternoon. Where else but in Texas can you geocache the Sunday after Thanksgiving in shirt sleeves, car window rolled down with Christmas music playing on the radio? Gotta love it!

Turkey Shoot

For those who have the want to but can't really shoot your own Thanksgiving bird. Click the picture to go huntin'.

Let The Celebration Begin

9:19 AM
Yes, I know it is Thanksgiving (and I'm thankful for it), but at the Hurt house, there is another celebration going on...it's Brooke's birthday!!!!! (This is a picture from her birthday last year)

Since today is Thanksgiving, we're also celebrating her birthday tomorrow. Rather than have a whole bunch of birthday posts, I'll just keep adding to this one today and tomorrow.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROOKIE!

Here's how the birthday girl was awakened today:

• Phone call from friend Meagan
  
• Phone call from Daddy (he used a calling card to call, it showed up "No Name, No Number" on the caller ID so we didn't answer...and this was his happy birthday greeting)
  

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10:18 AM - Amanda's birthday present to Mommy

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7:03 PM - Guess who got the first bite of birthday cake...Boo!

Better Off Just Feeding the Ducks

Here's a picture of me feeding the ducks at the park with Amanda today. It was better day for feeding ducks than it was for geocaching. Here's my log from our third DNF (Did Not Find) today:

OK, I'm starting to develop a complex trying to find your caches! But then it may not be your cache this time...it was just not a good day for me.

First of all, went to a lot of work to hide a very creative cache yesterday only to find out I hid it almost on top of an existing cache! My pocket queries did not show unknown cache types, so I did not know the cache was there. Thought I'd go ahead and log the cache that was there while removing my cache and could not find it. STRIKE ONE.

Anyway, once I checked unknown cache types, this cache came up. I've never done a puzzle cache, but thought I'd give it a try. (To be honest, I did hesitate because you have gotten the better of me a few times in the past!) But I looked at the puzzle and got the first part (the pictures) without too much trouble. Once I got to the posted location, GeoPunkin and I were totally lost on the decoding key. Saw nothing that would help us. I will keep this one the car and try again when we are there another time and I don't have such a defeatest attitude. :) STRIKE TWO.

Then I took GeoPunkin with me to try to find a third cache (not one of yours) that I could not find on my own earlier this week. STRIKE THREE!

So we fed some ducks and came home. Will have to try again later. Thanks for your caches...they certainly keep me humble!

Does that thing on his head mean he graduated with honors?

Now THAT Was a Lot of Fun

In real life, it was the front tire on the driver's side.

Around 6:30pm tonight, we were just finishing up a Little Ceasar's pizza when Brooke noticed lights in the little half driveway at the other end of our front yard. We looked out the window and a lady was on the phone. I went out to see if everything was OK or if she needed help.

Well, she had a blowout and did need help. When I say blowout, that's what I mean. The tire had two HUGE holes on the whitewall area. The lady had nobody to help her, so I volunteered to change the tire. Wow...didn't realize what a big job that was going to be. For Jason's sake, I'll give you the SHORT version.

• The car was on a downhill slant toward the driver's side
• I looked hard to find a place on the frame of the SUV to place the jack. I found a spot I thought would work and jacked it up as far as I could. Not high enough.
• Put 2x4 under jack so it would jack up higher. Still not high enough to put spare on.
  
• Found out place I had put the jack was NOT a part off the frame. Bent up some stuff under there, but fortunately nothing of importance.
• Tried to jack it up from the front. This time, the jack slipped and I thought the still-raised jack was going to ram through something as the truck came back to the ground.
• Lady called Roadside Assistance on her cell (she already pays monthly for the service, so it would be a "free" visit). She was told another hour wait.
  
• Moved jack to the front of the car. Still not high enough.
• Moved jack and tried again. Finally, it looked high enough to get the old tire off and the full-size spare on.
• OH....MY....GOODNESS. Thought I was going to throw out my back trying to loosen those lug nuts. I have NEVER seen anything tightened so tight. We were both praying I could break them loose. Finally did.
  
• Tire off, new tire on, vehicle back on ground. Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention I was praying the whole time that the thing would not fall off the jack crushing me and hurting the SUV.
• Hour and fifteen minutes later the {thankful} lady was on her way home.

Now THAT was a lot of fun!

A Little Reading for Rangel and Kerry

Heritage Foundation research shows that average education in the US armed forces is actually slightly HIGHER than that of the general population. Just an FYI for Rangel and Kerry who are so concerned that our military is made up of uneducated people who had no other choice but to enlist. You, along with Rangel and Kerry, can read the whole thing here.

Addicting Little Game

You are piloting a missile through a number of tunnels and you move your mouse to control the missile. I wish they put a dot on the screen so you could tell where you were going, but I suppose it is more "realistic" (?) this way. These little circle things seen in the picture above kill me (literally).
Click on the picture to be taken to the game's page.

Muy Frustrating!

This is a picture of Wee Willy. He is a geocaching dog and he asked his owner, Hikeaday, to send this picture to GeoPunkin. GeoPunkin had seen pictures of Wee Willy in the geocaching.com logs and wanted to meet him, so Hikeaday brought him by the house when doing a nearby cache one day. GeoPunkin has been a Wee Willy fan ever since.

With Hikeaday's help, Wee Willy has hidden a number of caches in the area and they are always a lot of fun to do because he puts a lot of thought into them. Some people (like me, at times) just throw some sort of container out there and post it as a cache. Wee Willy's caches are well hidden and well thought out.

After doing six Wee Willy caches on Monday, I was inspired to come up with a quality hide. There is a small memorial park about 2.5 miles from the house that I have been thinking about hiding a cache in for a number of months now. I never actually checked to see if there was already a cache there, but I didn't remember seeing one show up on the geocaching.com maps, so I headed out there with GeoPunkin Monday afternoon. I found the perfect spot! There is a fence that goes around the small park, and as I checked, I found the cap to once fence post was was loose so I "borrowed" the cap for the night, brought it home and created my cache.

I got a piece of string and glued it to the bottom of the cap. From the string, I suspended a medicine bottle (drilled hole through lid and tied a knot in the string to hold it). I also glued two stacks of pennies together to serve as a weight. Today, I went with Punkin's Momma, lowered the pill bottle down into the fence post and put the cap back on top of the post. Looked 100% natural, but if an observant/curious geocacher were to lift the cap, they would see the string and be able to get the cache.

So I recorded the coordinates, rushed home and filled out the info to hide another in my BINY In My Life series of caches. I filled out all of the necessary information and sent in my request to have the cache listed at geocaching.com. I was thrilled to get a response in just 10 minutes...until I saw it was a rejection! The form e-mail said my cache could not be listed because it was too close to another cache...within "0 feet" it said!!! I am not a newbie to geocaching, but this was definitely a newbie mistake. You ALWAYS check to see how close other caches are to the area where you want to hide your cache. If they are not at least 1/10th of a mile away (approx. 528 feet), you can't hide a cache in that location. I checked, and sure enough, there has been a cache in the park where I was trying to hide mine (not in the fence post, but in the exact same location), and it had been there for year! All of that work, and now I have to do disassemble my masterpiece tomorrow. Muy frustrating! (that's Texican)

Now I must not only find a new location for my cache, but I will probably have to find a whole new way to hide it creatively. I'll still have to use this idea someplace...it is just too cool not to.

Thanksgiving Divorce

A man in Phoenix calls his son in New York the day before Thanksgiving and says, "I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; forty-five years of misery is enough.

"Pop, what are you talking about?" the son screams.

We can't stand the sight of each other any longer," the father says. "We're sick of each other, and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Chicago and tell her."

Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone. "Like heck they're getting divorced," she shouts, "I'll take care of this," She calls Phoenix immediately, and screams at her father, "You are NOT getting divorced. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my brother back, and we'll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?" and hangs up.

The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife. "Okay," he says, "they're coming for Thanksgiving and paying their own way."

- Forwarded to me from Dawn Irons

Can You See The Look In His Eyes?

The resolution on this picture is not real high so I don't know if you can see the look in this guy's eyes, but it ain't friendly. I went goecaching by myself today trying to get the last 14 I need to reach 300 finds before Christmas. I found six of those today, and this park is where I was looking for number seven. I did not find the cache, but I thought I'd at least take a picture since the area was pretty. I saw some ducks and then I saw these geese. The ducks were skiddish and, since I only had my low-resolution camera phone to take pictures with, I opted for the geese figuring I could get closer to them for a picture. Well, this guy here didn't mind getting close! As a matter of fact, as soon as he saw me walking his way, he dropped his head low to the ground and charged me. Having seen a number of scared kids "attacked" by geese in the past, I knew I had to stand my ground or else risk being nipped.

I think this guy was genuinely surprised that I did not take off running. He stopped short and told me what he thought of me (at least that's what it sounded like...he did not sound happy). I took a picture and then turned to go home. As soon as I turned my back, this guy dropped his head and came running at me again. I quickly turned back to face him and he halted the charge. We did this a few more times, but each time it seemed he was getting closer. I tried walking backwards to leave, but that, too, emboldened him. Finally I was close enough to take this picture, and after that, I walked toward him until he got in the water so that I could retreat without risking a nip in the backside.

So I was six for seven today and am now just eight caches away from the 300 mark. I told GeoPunkin about this one and asked for her help, so on Wednesday we are taking bread for the ducks (NOT the geese) and will hunt for this one again and feed the ducks.