God does not respond to talkers,
He responds to doers.

- Pastor Phil Hunt, May 2002

Ahhh!

No, nobody's sick...it's just the men of the Hurt household relaxing on a Sunday afternoon
(most pictures on this blog can be enlarged by clicking on them)

More Alabama Pictures

Here's a couple pictures (click to enlarge) of our last geocaching adventure in Alabama with cousins David and Hannah. Click on the photo album below to view the rest of the pictures from our trip.

Hurt Christmas 2006

Something to be Said for a Sense Of Anticipation

We drove back from Alabama yesterday...an 11-12 hour drive depending on stops. I couldn't help but notice that the sense of anticipation we had when we were leaving Texas for Alabama was not there. We are very glad to be home, but the trip home is just not the same as the trip there.

And as we were taking down the Christmas tree today, I commented to Brooke, "This is not near as much fun as putting it up with the Christmas music is playing and all." I couldn't help but notice that the sense of anticipation we had putting up the Christmas decorations was not there as we took them down.

I was thinking about this a bit more as I carried the Christmas tree into the garage for storage. I'm very glad I live under the New Testament covenant as opposed to the Old, but I got a new perspective today. I never much thought about the ANTICIPATION the Old Testament saints lived under. What must it have felt like for Simeon and the wise men as they saw thousands of years of prophecy fulfilled right before their eyes!

I don't guess any of this is too profound, but I gained a new perspective coming back from Christmas vacation and putting away Christmas decorations. There is something to be said for a sense of anticipation.

Dr. Walter Williams Perspective on Racial Profiling

"... Racial profiling controversy is nothing new. For a number of years, black Americans have made charges of racial profiling by police and store personnel who might give them extra scrutiny. Clever phrases have emerged, such as "driving while black" and now "flying while Muslim," but they don't help much in terms of understanding. Let's apply some economic analysis to the issue.
God, or some other omniscient being, would never racially profile. Why? Since He is all-knowing, He'd know who is and is not a terrorist or a criminal. We humans are not all-knowing. While a god would have perfect and complete information about everything, we humans have less than perfect and incomplete information. That means we must use substitutes such as guesses and hunches for certain kinds of information. It turns out that some physical attributes are highly correlated with other attributes that are less easily, or more costly, observed..." Read the rest of the article here.

You May Not Believe This, But...

...I believe the stories about rats in the sewers in New York City now. And I also believe the story about the lady who found the boa constrictor in her toilet bowl.

No, I did not take a picture, but I can show you the evidence double-bagged in the dumpster if you don't believe me. We came home from our trip to Alabama and have been home for about 4 hours. I just got around to going into the bathroom in my office. We always leave the lid down on the toilets (because Boo thinks it is just a giant water bowl), so when I lifted the lid 5 minutes ago, it's the first time it's been up in over a week. As you might imagine, I was a bit startled to see a dead rat floating in my toilet! I'm glad he was dead, but I don't think I want to know how he got there. Ugghh!

Anyway, just thought I'd share that (true) story with you. I guess I can see two positives from this: 1) the rat is no longer here, 2) hopefully this was what was making the chewing noise Brooke was hearing at night before we left!

Enjoy the story...Brooke may make me take this down when she reads it!!!

This Is How It Happened

What could be more innocent than a child opening a Christmas present? (Hint: it depends on what's inside the box)

This was really her mother's idea!

When you're an artist, you absolutely MUST let your creative flair be seen

And this is what happens when you cross being Daddy to an artistic little girl and husband to a Mommy who has a mischievous streak!

Geocaching With David

When we were in town last time, I introduced my niece and nephew to geocaching. My nephew David really like it so, when Amanda and cousin Hannah spent the day at Hannah's house, David and I went on a 21 cache, 6 hour cache run. Here are the highlights.

Turban, Yes; Santa Hat, No

Short version: a kid gets on the school bus, sees his bus driver, Kenneth Mott, wearing a Santa hat and gets "offended" because he doesn't believe in Santa Claud. Mr. Mott is told to loose the hat.

Question: if Mr. Mott were wearing a turban, do you think he would have been required to remove it? (question raised by Rush Limbaugh)

Long version: click on the picture if you want to read the whole story

Caution: Breakable

There was a very gracious lady who was mailing an old family Bible to her brother in another part of the country. "Is there anything breakable in here?" asked the postal clerk.

"Only the Ten Commandments," answered the lady.

Lot's Wife

The Sunday school teacher was describing how Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt, when little Jason interrupted, "My Mommy looked back once, while she was driving," he announced triumphantly, "and she turned into a telephone pole!"

An Ear to the Ground

Vacationing in Arizona, a group of British tourists spot a cowboy lying on the road with his ear to the ground.

"What's going on?" they ask.

"Two horses -- one gray, one chestnut -- are pulling a wagon carrying two men," the cowboy says. "One man is wearing a red shirt, the other a black shirt. They're heading east."

"Wow!" says one of the tourists. "You can tell all that just by listening to the ground?"

"No," says the cowboy. "They just ran over me."

New Year Resolutions

Every year I resolve to lose weight and save money, but I always get them mixed up.

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer Gives Award to CAIR Extermist

Click photo to read the whole story

Updated: 12/30 - Click HERE to read where she rescinded the award.

Does This Mean I Should Clean More

We used to have Life Group at our house, so every Wednesday we did a "touch up" cleaning job on the house. Now that we don't have Life Group here each week...well, we don't "touch up" as much as we used to. Last time we had a Young Marrieds event here and cleaned the house for it, Amanda kept asking why we were doing so much cleaning. I tried to explain to her that it takes longer to clean for company when you don't do little bits each week, but I'm not sure how much she understood. She kept asking about it.

So today, I looked around in my office and decided I wanted to reorganize. I've been moving furniture, vacuuming, cleaning shelves, throwing stuff away, boxing stuff up, etc. Brooke just came and told me that Amanda asked, "Is Daddy cleaning because we are having company over?"

Does this mean I should clean more?

Merry Christmas, Aunt Judy

Here is a picture of one of the walls in Amanda's room. These are two bulletin boards she has just figured out how to use.

Amanda's Aunt Judy always sends a savings bond for Christmas. She also sent Amanda a card this year. When Brooke gave the card to Amanda, this is what Amanda did with it (you can click on the picture to make it larger).

Merry Christmas, Aunt Judy. You made Amanda Kay's day.

For All My Friends

For My Democrat Friends:

"Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere , and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher."



For My Republican Friends:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Superman No Longer Proud To Be American

Watched the new Superman movie tonight (first mistake). Did you catch the part at the beginning of the movie where he's flipping channels on the TV and one scene shows a Muslim in a war zone (no indication if they were supposed to be terrorist or victim). When I saw that I thought about one of the few things I remembered about Superman. Do you remember the three things Superman stood for?

• Truth
• Justice
• The American Way

I thought about the American way and how being pro-America isn't as popular as it was in Superman's heyday. Remember him standing in front of the big, waving, American flag?

Next question, did you see Superman standing in front of any waving American flags in the movie? Nope.

Last question: Did you catch what Perry White (editor of the Daily Planet) said when he was giving out Superman assignments to all of his staff upon Superman's return..."and find out if he still stands for truth, justice and all that stuff"! Hollywood can't even stand for a comic book character to pro-American. Can I "unwatch" the movie and boycott it?

59 and Pregnant

A woman went to the doctor's office, where she was seen by a young, new doctor. After about 4 minutes in the examination room, the doctor told her she was pregnant. She burst out, screaming as she ran down the hall.

An older doctor stopped her and asked what the problem was, and she told him her story. After listening, he had her sit down and relax in another room.

The doctor marched down the hallway to the back where the first doctor was and demanded, "What's the matter with you? Mrs. Terry is 59 years old, she has four grown children and seven grandchildren, and you told her she was pregnant?"

The new doctor continued to write on his clipboard and without looking up said, "Does she still have the hiccups?

(Thanks to Dawn for sending me this)

It's Christmastime at the Hurt Household

Ahhh...can you smell it? It's "hot stuff" cooking at the Hurt household. What? You don't know what "hot stuff" is? It's the Hurt recipe for Chex Mix, and we make it every year at Christmastime. Here's our family recipe:

• 1 box Cheerios
• 1 box Wheat Chex
• 1 box Corn Chex
• 1 box Rice Checks
• 1 Can Spanish Peanuts
• 1 Can Mixed Nuts
• 1 pkg. pretzels
• 1/4 lb. butter
• 1/4 c. worshteshire sauce
• 1 T. celery salt
• 1 T. onion salt
• 1 T. cayenne pepper

Melt butter. Add remaining ingredients. Mix over cereal. Bake 1 hr. at 250 stirring every 20 minutes.

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)
  

----------------------------------------------------------------

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).

16 Geocaches Today!

We went to a geocaching breakfast today and then headed out for Ft. Worth cache run today. This was one of the first ones we hit. This was an area in front of a courthouse that is a small garden-like area full of native Texas plants. As we drove up to the cache, we saw 6-7 ladies there who take care of the plants. I told Amanda we were not going to be able to get the cache because of the ladies there and the small size of the area. Amanda wanted to try being geo-sneaky, so we gave it a try. As we approached where the ladies were, the greeted us warmly and explained a little about the plants that were there. We thanked them and walked on, but one of the ladies followed us. She walked up to me and said, "we are not muggles". A "muggle" is a person us geocachers watch out for because they might see us grabbing a cache and then come mess with it not knowing what it is. She had seen my GPS and was telling me she was a fellow geocacher. As it turned out, she was the owner of the cache! She's the one who took this picture of us.

As I tell my friends that I introduce to geocaching...if there's an evergreen tree in the area, check there first!

When we saw the name of this cache (QT2), we knew we had to head that way. No, the cache was not at the actual QT store, but we did stop by there. We saw then Hummer limmo and snapped a quick picture.
This was our last cache for the day, and it was an "interesting" one. Here's our log:

OK Rob {cache owner}, I gotta tell ya...we didn't like this one! To be honest, we did NOT read the description and you did warn us but... Well here's the story.

GeoPunkin and I went to the geocaching breakfast in the area today (GCYEAA) and then headed out on a cache run. We had found 12 caches and GeoPunkin was about ready to call it a day. I told her 3 more and we could have 15. We visit our local QT at least once a day, so I told her we'd grab two more and then one at the QT (where we could also grab a drink). I saw QT and that was it. All my fault, but I did not read the cache description. I was thinking lamp post cache or something. Well, we got to QT, saw we still had nearly 1/4 mile to go and headed out after the cache. The plant growth was not really in bloom which helped, but it was thick and taller than GeoPunkin in some places! In all honesty, there is nothing wrong with this cache, we were just tired and this was the toughest one we did for the day. It really was a good place a good hide.

Thanks for all your caches...especially the ones we got to today.