Pictures of the boys.

Here are some pictures from our day at the zoo on Sunday and the boys first snowman that we made yesterday at lunch. Sorry the boys weren't very cooperative with the snowman picture. If you look real close you
can see Jacob and Ethan hiding from the bears in the cave ;-)

<*** Okay the pictures are actually up now. Sorry it took me so long to fix it ***>

Jesus Hugeri loves you

I thought this story was pretty funny.  It is from the Citizen Link Newsletter that I get everyday.
http://www.family.org/cforum/

-hjh

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

Dog-Park Brick Refused Due to That Person with a Similar
Name

The town of Gilbert, Ariz., refused to place an inscribed
brick in a local dog park because officials say it had a
religious message, Independent Newspapers reported.

Bob Hugeri was glad to hear of a dog park being built near
his home, so much so, that he decided to purchase an
inscribed brick for $20 that would be placed in the park
as part of a display.

And he decided to honor his Labrador retriever, Jack Jesus
(pronounced "hay-soos").

His inscription was simple: "Jesus loves you."

"I thought everything was fine with the message," Hugeri
said. "A few weeks later I get a call informing me that
the inscription on the brick is unacceptable."

Greg Svelund, the town's public information officer, sent
back the application and the $20. An accompanying letter
said the message was inappropriate for a public park.

Gilbert has no specific policy that bans religious
messages on an item such as a brick in a public square,
but the staff made the decision to reject it.

"There's been a lot of attention across the country on
religious messages being displayed," Svelund said. "When
the brick came in, we struggled with it. I called Mr.
Hugeri and asked if he would use the message, 'Jesus
Hugeri loves you' instead, but he wouldn't accept it."

The mayor of the town, Steve Berman, told Hugeri that it
was a matter of separation of church and state.

"What kind of person names his dog 'Jack Jesus'?" Berman
said. "Frankly, I'm not falling for this 'hay-soos'
baloney. I don't want a brick with the inscription 'Allah
Akbar' either. He just wants to put the inscription 'Jesus
loves you' on the brick.  This is a religious message."

Peter de Marneffe, a philosophy professor at Arizona State
University, said the issue is complicated.

"The guy who wants the brick is responsible for the
message," Marneffe said. "The town itself is not endorsing
it. On the other hand, the town doesn't want to risk
litigation and wants to avoid controversy."

Hugeri said he thinks it's a violation of his right to
free speech.

"What did you do over Christmas?" -"I went to Iraq!"

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/sfl-ciraq30dec30,0,4859169.story?coll=ny-leadworldnews-headlines

This kid is awesome!!  Here is the short summary, Teenager from Florida goes to Iraq by himself without telling his parents.  He is now on his way home safely.

I think he was going with journalistic intentions and to help a "neighbor" in need.

This is what he said in an email that is right on.

"There is a struggle in Iraq between good and evil,between those striving for freedom and liberty and those striving for death and destruction. You are aware of the heinous acts of the terrorists ... For their goals to be thwarted, decent individuals must answer justice's call for help ... So I will."

Not sure what he planned on doing and it was pretty stupid and risky but you have to give him credit for going through with it.  Someone with this much drive will go far in life.  What a great story he will have to tell when he gets back.

"What did you do over Christmas?"

"I went to my grandmas.  What did you do?"

"I went to Iraq!"

Why Didn't I Think of That?!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051229/ts_nm/homepage_dc

"...Alex Tew, a 21-year-old student from a small town in England, is cleverer than you. And he is proving it by earning a cool million dollars in four months on the Internet...

The idea: turn his home page into a billboard made up of a million dots, and sell them for a dollar a dot to anyone who wants to put up their logo. A 10 by 10 dot square, roughly the size of a letter of type, costs $100."

Here is the actual website http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/

Ok I have a new idea.  It is called BillionDollarHomepage.com  ;-)

Capitalist Pig

You are a Social Liberal (60% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (83% permissive) You are best described as a: Capitalist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Re: Jacob update

Just found out from Jenny that Jacob is going to get to come home today before noon!!  I guess he is maintaining his oxygen levels on his own.  Ethan and Rachel and I are about to head up to the hospital.

Thanks again for all of your prayers!

--
hjh

Jacob Pictures

	Jacob after his bath
	Jacob playing with some new toys
	Jacob with his breathing treatment

Re: Jacob update

Jacob is doing a little better.  After he took a bath this morning we went back to the room right away because they were worried about his oxygen level and when we hooked him back up his levels were even better than they had been before.  So they lowered the level he was getting from 1 liter down to 1/2 liter.  When his level continued to remain the same they went ahead and took him off of it.  Then he was able to get down and ride a tricycle for a while and he had lots of fun, but then when I checked his oxygen level it had dropped a little bit and then it kept getting worse until the nurse came back in and put him back on the oxygen at 1/2 liter and he is doing well with that.  They are going to try to ween him off a little bit slower this time.  The doctor thinks he will be able to come home tomorrow.  I hope he is right but we will see.

Here are some pictures of him.  Guess which one is right after his bath :-)  Another one is of him getting his breathing treatment.  He is really good about it and just sits there and opens up his mouth and closes his eyes until they are done.

His uncle Jeff came by to see/play with him this morning and my Mom and Rachel should be here around 5:00

Thanks for all of your love, support and prayers.
--
hjh

Jacob update

I just talked to Jenny on the phone and even after numerous breathing treatments lots of other medicine and they have a little oxygen mask blowing right on him they still haven't been able to get his Oxygen levels up.  They think he is going to have to stay for 2 days!!  He is at St. Francis Hostpital, which is a childrens hospital.

She also said how they tortured the poor boy last night by inserting an IV which took at least 3 tries and both hands and then they weren't able to draw blood in is arm so they had to prick his finger and squeze it out like that :-(  I am pretty sure he is going to hate hospitals and doctors now.

I am going up to the hospital in a few minutes.  We will try to let you all know of any developments.

--
hjh

Back to the emergency room.

Last night after we put the boys to bed we had just finished watching The Apprentice and were in the middle of Smallville, Jacob got up crying. He couldn't breath very well, was coughing uncontrollably and complaining of chest pain so we took him to the emergency room at around 11:30. Turns out is was some kind of bronchial asthma attack. He is fine but they haven't been able to get his oxygen level up to a good enough level to release him so finally they decided to keep him over night for observation. So I have came home with Ethan at about 3:30 am, he was falling apart as you can imagine after spending 4 hours in the emergency room.

He has had this problem twice before but never this serious.

Please pray that they will be able to get his oxygen levels up. After 3 breathing treatments and some steroids he was floating between 88% & 94%, which I don't think is really bad, but it just isn't good enough to release him. If it had stayed at 94 they would have let him go, but it kept going up and down.

Also pray that we will all some how be able to catch up this lost sleep. Ethan woke me up at 9:30 this morning after going to bed around 4:00.

2 emergency room visits in 2 months :-S (Last month Ethan stuck his finger in the paper shredder. So keep that in mind little fingers and paper shredders are not a good mix.)

The Apprentice

Markus cracks me up. LOL.

Every time he starts to say anything I am literally rolling around on the floor.  I have never seen someone string together so many words and not communicate any comprehensible idea.  (**Spoiler**) Even though I have thought from day one that Markus should be fired I must say that he has grown on me the way that the annoying kid at school... (now it is the next day since I wrote everything before this.  I was interrupted with a trip to the emergency room.  More on that later.) So Marcus had grown on me like how the annoying kid at school might grow on you b/c you feel sorry for him since everyone else hates him.  So I was kind of sad to see him go, he made the show interesting.

(**Still Spoiler**) It seemed to me that Clay was more detrimental to that specific task, but he had also done well on the task before where he was a good salesmen for the golf items.  So I can see that it was probably better for the team as a whole for Markus to go but the show will be a little less interesting with out him  :-(  and even though he was a worthless player he will be missed by me.

Our shameful politicized court system

Here it happened again.  Nobody is getting charged for committing the original crime that they were investigating.  Libby is only getting charged for lying during the investigation of a non-crime!!! 

Top Cheney aide Libby indicted, quits post
"WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted Friday on five charges that include obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury in the investigation into the leak of a covert CIA agent's name."

Imagine somebody accusing you of stealing something that you didn't steal and in the process of the investigation they manage to trip you up with what you had said and you get indicted for that, even though you hadn't committed a crime in the first place.  Think of how you could use this against your political enemies just by making an accusation.  Get anyone in front of a 23 person grand jury for a couple of hours with no lawyer and no notes and see how easy it is to confuse them and trick them into misspeaking or appearing to lie!!  Shameful.

All of this is just being used to hurt and weaken the Bush administration while ignoring the true scandal; that Joseph Wilson is an outright liar and used his wife to worm himself into a position to de-legitimize the Iraq war and the mainstream media has almost completely ignored it.  Vallerie Plame was not a covert agent.  Everyone that knew her knew that she worked for the CIA.  You can't out someone who is already out, and she hadn't been "in" for more than 6 years.  No crime was committed.

Surgical Robots.

I thought this was pretty cool.

Surgical Robots.

Dr. Chuck Norris

So I went to my new optometrist the other day.  I was very surprised to find that the Dr. was actually Chuck Norris working under an alias (I won't use his name here to protect Chucks new secret identity).

It was a most unpleasant experience.  Especially for an eye appointment.  Usually they are pretty cut and dry, in and out and here is your new contact prescription, right?  Wrong, not this time.

Now I have to give him a break, that is quite a change to go from a Texas Ranger to an eye doctor, but surely he did some training for it, I don't know.  First he tried to tell me that my eyes weren't lining up exactly but my brain was compensating for it so I didn't have double vision.  But his equipment kept drifting while he was doing that test were you have to tell him when the 2 things line up.  Not to mention that he did it really fast.

So I already do not have very much faith in Dr. Chuck, but then he tries to tell me that my right eye has improved 3 clicks to a -2, but my contact was only a -2.25 to begin with, so I am pretty sure that when they measured my glasses to determine my prior prescription they measured it wrong.  When I told him that my right eye was only a -2.25 to begin with, then he said "Oh, well that is only one a '1 click' improvement, but you should get yourself checked out for diabetes, just in case."

Then a lady takes me into another room and says that she is going to put some "eye numbing drops" in my eyes and it will make them fill "puffy", whatever the heck that means.  If they were honest they would just say "Ok, I am going to put these eye drops in your eyes that are going to burn really bad and then make your eyes feel really freaky for about 30 minutes", freaky makes sense, "puffy" isn't a feeling.

But I accomplished my goal and I am wearing a new pair of contacts now that seem to be much more comfortable then the last brand that I had.  The last brand that I had made me want to rip my eyeballs out of their socket for relief after about 4 hours.

Unfortunately Dr, Norris is the only optometrist on my health insurance plan, so I will go back to him.  I am trying to work up the nerve to ask if he is still bringing criminal scum to justice down in Texas and if so how does he find the time to both fight crime and "practice" Optometry.  That is one heck of a commute.  Don't worry Dr. Norris, your secret is safe with me.