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.

Which Would You Rather Have...

...a PS3 or a lifetime supply of tacos from Taco Bell? If you would be willing to trade in your PS3, Taco Bell will give you $12,500 in Taco Bell Bucks. That's enough Bucks to get approximately 20,000 tacos which comes to one a day for about 54 years. Don't wait too long...you only have until December 1st to decide, and the offer is only good for the first person to take them up on the offer. Click the picture to read the whole story.

A Good Show

Here I am, sitting at my computer, listening to smooth jazz on Sky.fm while a french vanilla candle burns in my office. That is how I like to relax (either sitting at the computer or reading a good book). I am on vacation for a week, and this is what I pictured myself doing, so I am happy. It happens to be about four and a half hours later than I expected to be doing this, but that's OK.

A group from the church made plans to see The Rockettes tonight at Nokia Theatre. I never had a desire to go, but Brooke was wanting to go. At one point, she asked for tickets for her birthday, but we worked out something else. But then somebody at church offered us tickets (all three of us). Brooke explained I was not too interested, but she and Amanda would love to go. So I intended to stay home by myself tonight with a candle burning and smooth jazz in the background. That changed when I had to fill in as bus driver last minute.

So I went to see The Rockettes with Brooke, Amanda and about 13 other people from church, and I've got to tell you, it was a good show. I really enjoyed the "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers". But since I wasn't that excited about the program when I first got there, my original plan was to head out during the last scene and pull the bus around to pick up everybody at the front doors after the show was over.

That was before I saw what Scene 12 was going to be. It was called 'The Living Nativity and was described in the stagebill like this: "The presentation of 'The Living Nativity' upholds a tradition begun by St. Francis of Assisi in 1223, and has been a revered part of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular since 1933." Wow, what looked to be a pretty outspoken, public presentation of the true meaning of Christmas...how could I miss that? And WOW, it was impressive! It was definitely my favorite scene of the night and it was incredible to sit there and hear Scripture read and the real Christmas story presented. There was a lot of applause afterwards. It made thankful that not all of America has become so open-minded that their brains have fallen out. That once scene alone made the whole night worth the trip.

It was a good show.

Broke Back Deer Camp

The guys were all at deer camp. They had to bunk two to a room. No one wanted to room with Daryl because he snored so badly. They decided it wasn't fair to make one of them stay with him the whole time, so they voted to take turns.

The first guy slept with Daryl and comes to breakfast the next morning with his hair a mess and his eyes all bloodshot.

They said, "Man, what happened to you?" He said, "Daryl snored so loudly, I just sat up and watched him all night."

The next night it was a different guy's turn. In the morning, same thing--hair all standing up, eyes all blood-shot. They said, "Man, what happened to you? You look awful!" He said, "Man, that Daryl shakes the roof. I watched him all night."

The third night was Frank's turn. Frank was a big burly ex-football player; a man's man. The next morning he came to breakfast bright eyed and bushy tailed. "Good morning," he said.

They couldn't believe it! They said, "Man, what happened?" He said, "Well, we got ready for bed. I went and tucked Daryl into bed and kissed him good night. He sat up and watched me all night long."

I Love My Job

A friend asked me tonight how my day was. My reply was what it often is when people ask, "Keeping busy. Not too much exciting going on." That's how I like it...always enough to do (for today AND tomorrow) and nothing too crazy going on.

I suppose my friend was asking about my life in general, but I was thinking about my job when I answered. I love my job. Here are a few reasons why:

• This picture, for instance. Pastor David took it (a LONG time ago). He also happens to be the same one who "edited" it so nicely. It's nice to have a boss who is fun. I like the fact that I can laugh with Pastor, play racquetball with him and even exchange paint balls (and the bruises that go with them). He's never had to say, "You do what I say because I'm the boss." He leads by example and is easy to follow. No matter how much I grow spiritually or in my job, he's always growing too, so I can always look up to him.
• Our staff makes a great team. Different personalities, different gifts, one goal...to serve our church and reach people for Christ. Eva, who cleans the church, is the picture of steadfastness and a great example of standing firm in the midst of some of the worst stuff life can throw your way. Shaun, our youth pastor, is a great friend who has taught me a lot about what it means to love people. If you need help, Shaun will do anything to help you (even to his own hurt). Tammy is our church secretary and definitely one of the hardest workers on staff. Her job requires her to be involved in most every aspect of what goes on at the church, but when something needs to be done outside of her official job duties, nobody has to tell her what to do...she just jumps in and helps get it done. Stan is an associate pastor who will be planting his own church in just a few months. I enjoy having a friend like him I can be real with....about my personal life and the personal struggles in ministry. And then there's my other friend, Brad, who is our worship leader. I don't feel called to a speaking/traveling ministry, but if I ever did that, I would want to take Brad with me. He's anointed, he's real, he can make me laugh and he can take something simple and make me go "hhmmmmm" thinking about it much deeper than I would have before. Our newest staff member is Jason, and it's pretty cool working with him because he grew up in youth group when I was youth pastor. He is our audio/visual guy and he does a great job, but it's awesome getting to watch him step into ministry opportunities and grow in those areas as well. He has a real heart and passion for God that challenges and encourages me. And then there is our children's director, Brooke. She loves kids, loves having fun, loves making people happy and loves using exclamation marks whenever she writes anything!!!! She's just a bubbly, happy person who wants to make everybody else happy. And did I mention how cute she is? I hope you don't think it's inappropriate for me to say that...or think that it's inappropriate that I sneak over to her office and steal a quick kiss from time to time. (She's my wife if you didn't know.)
• OK, my list is getting too long now. Brooke will accuse me of writing a book and Jason will not have time to read my whole post. I will end with this one last thing I like about my job. I like the fact that I have new opportunities to learn and grow. I don't like too much "adventure" in my life, but I like a challenge and an opportunity to grow. I don't so much like the things I learn while putting in my first toilet by myself and stuff like that, but I do appreciate the opportunities to grow working with people, taking on new responsibilities and learning how to improve on the things I am already doing. Staying busy and having a chance to grow...I like that.

So I'll quit here for now. I thank the Lord for my job and cannot think of anyplace else I would rather be going to work tomorrow or any other people I would rather be working with.

Mainstream Media Jihad Against Israel

Mainstream media jihad against Israel

Why John McCain is Not Good for Conservatives

Short version: because he is NOT a conservative, he and his pals have under-minded President Bush and now he is playing the chameleon and trying to look like a conservative in his 2008 run for the White House. Click picture for the full story.

Why Do We Treat China As A Friend?

The Washington Post reports that a Chinese submarine secretly stalked the USS Kitty Hawk battle group surfacing close enough to show it could have fired it's torpedoes successfully on the aircraft carrier. Click the photo above to read the whole story. This is just of MANY, MANY, MANY reasons why it is not a good idea for the U.S. to continue pretending that China is a friend.

Playing House

As soon as Amanda saw this computer box sitting around, she thought "play house". She asked Daddy for some help, and this is what we came up with. Mommy later helped "paint it" with some pink polka dots (literally).