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?