Choose Your Own Debenture

Or Stewardship, the Biblical model for Living and Giving

With the economy in turmoil, and the Stock market in a spin, it can be
hard to gain a biblical perspective on our financial lives.
“What if?” questions abound, and investment advisors are all
over the map, giving advice everywhere from “wait” to
“sell it all.” In this time of turbulence it is
important to remember several biblical principles. The first
principle to remember is one of abiding – remembering who God is, and
your relationship with Him. The second principle is God’s
commands on finances and temporal prosperity. The third principle
is scriptures command for wisdom in all things. With each of these
principles firmly in your mind, and a heart in God’s Word, the
economy can die, soar, or stay right where it is and you will be
contently where you should be!

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What is All of This Stuff?

RSS Minnow

Unlike the skipper and his slow shipmate, Gilligan –
RSS has nothing to do with the
ocean.
However, if you don’t know what it means, you could be just as lost.
You’ll need a News Aggregator, which is a program that collects RSS files from across
the internet and without much work turns them into viewable bits of text with links
to full articles.

This is quite nifty, especially if you think about how many sites you might look through in
a day.
Lets say that you check out www.randypeterman.com every day and you think to yourself,
“Golly, Randy doesn’t put up news stuff that often, I wish there was a way I could
be notified when he does put some new news up.”
Well, with RSS and an aggregator (I recommend
FeedDemon)
you could just open up the aggregator and you’d see if I did or not.
You’re smart, so you say, “I can do that now with a browser, why not just do that?”
Well, I’ll tell you what, if you check enough sites in one day this could really save
you time, assuming that they have RSS feeds.

The bottom line is that if you’re a busy individual, you can save a lot of time by simply
adding an RSS aggregator to your computer-lifestyle.
I check FeedDemon every morning with my email, so I know if some of the websites I read
regularly have been updated.
I can also get the news and other fun information, all with this handy-dandy little file
format.
Yes, file format, because RSS is
just a file.

CSS? What Does that Mean?

It means Cascading Style Sheets.
Its a nice way to make the pages look good without loading them down with extra
HTML so that the page
gets super heavy, making dialup connections unbearable, and older browsers
cough and hack on nested tables..

I use stylesheets to make the page have multiple styles.
Find the “Pick a style” links and test it out.

What Are Access Keys?

Do you use Microsoft Access?
Good for you.
Accesskey’s don’t have anything to do with MS Office Access.
But they do have to do with handicap accessibility, or just plain quick shortcut keys.

If you are using Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher on windows you can use accesskeys by
pressing Alt + whatever the accesskey is.
For example, on this site, the news link accesskey is the key number 1 (one).
So, using your super sleuth mind, you probably already put Alt and 1 together and came up
with an algebra equation.
Once you’re done with your algebra, try pressing and holding the Alt key and then
pressing the ‘1’ (one) key.
Nothing happened did it? In Internet Explorer you have to then press the enter key because
the accesskey only moves the cursor’s focus to the link associated with the accesskey.
However, if you want to use Mozilla you’ll find the accesskeys trigger the links as well.

If you’re on the Macintosh I’m told you should use the Ctrl (Control) key.
I don’t have one, so I’ll just take the word of the professionals who passed on that tidbit
of information.

Abigail Ruth Peterman

A special message from Abigail:

mk lkni iuurtetrtt j h

Abigail (Abby) is one cute toddler, she’s a real treat, except for when
she’s grumpy, or wakes up at some odd hour of the night. Her mom and dad
love her so much. To her credit her birth more than tripled the number
of hits this site gets a month.

Abby is walking all over the place and running too.
She is able to say Cat, Shoes, Daddy, Mommy and Apple Juice.
She also can make the sound of a sheep (ba) and a lion (raaaaaaaahhhhhh).
What a gal, we love her a lot!

Abigail Ruth Peterman

Jessica Peterman

Born March 30th, 1978, Jessica Marie Peer was a military brat and so she
moved all over the US, even to Hawaii (where she had a lucrative side-job
tracking sand everywhere). Bored with the life as a young child she
turned 15 or 16 at the age of 5. A more mature gal than her peers (no
name puns please) she fell in love with Jon Bon Jovi. That relationship
didn’t last since legally, she was jail bate.

Throughout school Jessica was a straight A student, she made her life
complete by being an over achiever. In High School she took all of the
classes that the Carson High School offered in the Math department by the
end of her Junior year. Because Carson High was so stinky she Home
schooled her senior year. This was beneficial for her as it gave her an
opportunity to work full time at a day care, and finish her classes ahead
of the other seniors that she new. Being a senior also got her great
discounts at Denny’s and other fine dining establishments (get it? Senior
discount? Sorry.[RP])

In her Sophomore year she met Randy Peterman at a youth group meeting for
the Grace Evangelical Free Church. They immediately thought poorly of one
another and didn’t see one another again until their Junior year, which
gave them both some time get ‘cooler’. Randy was dating a Senior at the
time (Cindy Falconer), which didn’t bother Jessica who was eager to get
together with the bass player in the band Randy was in (Jeremy Telling).
Jessica and her best friend Glory ‘Bucky’ Bucknell both liked Jeremy and
considered the rest of the band members necessary evil.

To make a long story short Jessica and Randy got married, they moved to
Texas where they went to school at Tyndale Theological Seminary. They
later had a baby and they’re living happily ever after (Theoretically, I
mean no one is happy all the time, come on).

Who is Randall Eric Peterman?

Randy Peterman is writing this, he is writing about himself in third person.
That’s ridiculous – why do I need to write about myself in the third person?
OK, well, I’m going to tell you about myself.
Please don’t hesitate to write me to ask other pertinent questions about me.
Limit those questions to things that are NOT perverse or socially questionable.

That being said…

I was born to two parents, a male and female.
They go by Vern and Nancy Peterman and they also have two other progeny, Eddie and Rebecca.
Because Eddie and Rebecca are like me they don’t go by their full names, they go by Ed and Becky respectively.
Sometimes Ed goes by ‘Dude’ and sometimes Becky goes by ‘My’.
Sometimes Ed goes by in a VW, sometimes My goes by in a Honda.
Time goes by rather quickly unless you’re in the Doctor’s waiting room.

[Switching to free flow poetry]

Ed, 
  My 
	and I 
  grew up mostly in California and Nevada.
    We had
     times on the road that took us
  to other
    states.
We have grandparents
  they have many   many   kids that are 
	 grand
	

[Switching to Dr. Suess mode]

	Ed, My and I
	Bye, we said good-bye
	To our mom and pop
	Out of the nest we'd hop
	
	Randy Married Jessica
	Got married in October-a
	Squiggle, wiggle, piggle, slid
	Moved to Texas Yes we did
	

[Switching to Yoda mode]

		Married Shari did Eddie, Yes.
		Have a son Brennan they do.
		Live in Carson City, yes, they must.
	

[Switching to Haiku Mode]

Becky to Denver
Lives with My Parents There Now
Making a new home
	

I’m blessed to have a beautiful, godly wife, a precious, cute daughter, and an amazing extended family (some of which have the ‘shock and awe’ effect :D).

Ballistic [Ecks vs. Sever]

Rating*

Must See:
0.1
Plot:
0.01
Acting:
0.2
Dialog:
0.1
Production:
0.25
Effects:
0.2

You need to see this movie.
No really, you have to see this movie.
In fact if you do see this movie it will fulfill all your desires.

It will fulfill all of your desires if you desire the following:

  • No plot
  • Senseless killing
  • Rather bad acting
  • Stupid spy names
  • To waste time
  • Seeing an actress with tallent (Lucy Liu) get cast for a movie that she was way better than
  • Synchronized car dancing (two cars spiraling in opposite directions over another car)
  • Beluga whales as a background for a ‘romantic reunion’
  • Swat teams, specially trained specialists mind you, get totally whipped and killed by a single woman (Liu again)
  • Antonio Banderas fly like Peter Pan and then mash into the grown, and not get severly injured
  • Antonio Banderas get crushed completely by steel pipes from one angle and yet be able to spin around and shoot someone when the camera changes angles
  • Antonio Banderas pick police handcuffs with a paperclip
  • Antonio Banderas blow large train cars up and cause HUGE billowing fire that would cause disgusting amounts of heat and walk away unscathed
  • ‘Trained spies’ or agents run through a train yard like their training consisted of mimicking lab rats running through a maze
  • Funding Hollywood pyrotechnics specialists’ kids’ college
  • Living in your parents basement until you’re 35 and then, moving in with your friend and starting a worm farm

OK, you really should avoid it.

-Randy

Footnotes

* Ratings are from 0 to 1, this is a fractional scale. Odds are You won’t see me ever give a ‘1.0’ on any occasion, however, it could happen.

Guadalajara Burgers

This is the best burger I’ve ever had turn out consistently
fabulous. Having eaten a whole lotta burgers in my life and living in
Texas, where barbecuing is big, I’ve gotta say, this is one powerful
piece of meat.

Ingredients

Burgers

  • 1 tsp chipotle chili powder
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt (substitute with sea salt, or I guess you could use
    table salt, it will change the taste)
  • 1 pound ground round (hamburger – I like the 15% fat, Jess thinks its
    too fatty)
  • 1 can Cooking Spray (No, you’re not going to use the whole
    thing)
  • (optional) 4 Kaiser rolls (Don’t use regular buns, this is a ‘fancy’
    burger, why spoil it with the taste of Burger K**g)
  • 13/4 cups Tequila-spiked Salsa

Tequila-Spiked Salsa

  • 2 cups chopped seeded tomato (or tomatoe if you’re Dan Quayle 🙂 )
  • 1 cup chopped onion
  • 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
  • 1/3 cup chopped peeled avocado (do you ever eat avocado skin?)
  • 2 tbsp fresh lime juice (substitute old rotten juice if necessary)
  • 2 tsps Tequila (actually I’ve never had this with tequila, if you leave
    it out, the burgers will still rock)
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 garlic cloves minced (but don’t mince your fingers, this isn’t minced
    meat burgers)

Preparation & Cooking

Burgers

  1. Prepare grill
  2. Combine chili powder, salt, and beef. Divide the mixture into four
    equal portions, chaping each portion into a 1/2″ thick patty.
  3. Place patties onto the grill rack coated with cooking spray – then keep
    an eye on them flipping them when needed.
  4. Grill/toast rolls if you have them, but don’t burn them please
  5. Once all the burgers and rolls are ‘perfect’ add the Tequila-Spiked
    salsa to the tops of the burgers (after they’re on the rolls) and eat
    them while they’re hot.
  6. Join Guadalaja Burgers Annonymous, cause these bad-boys are addictive.

Salsa

Um, mix all the ingredients together in no particular order.

NOTE:

If you’re feeling prepared try making the salsa one day in advance, this
will let the flavors of the salsa mix and make for a VERY tasty treat
when you eat the burgers. But don’t let the salsa sit for too long in the
fridge (4-5 days is too long, usually) because the avocado is pretty sensitive to time.

Summer 2003

One Year Old Pictures from August of 2003.
Photo’s by Michael Mason, Photographer.


Tongue and Cheek.

Abby takes a walk with Mom and ‘Aunt’ Louanne Mason.

Cute laugh on a cute girl.


Yet Another Cute laugh on a cute girl.

I love being her dad!

Woo Hoo!

One of my personal favorites.

Hermeneutics

A Really Big Word for Interpretation

Hermeneutics (pronounced Herman-oo-ticks) includes the principles and
tasks by which the meaning of the biblical text is determined. In
short it is the science of interpretation. Before you totally
dismiss it as a thing for theologians I must remind you that you are
using it right now. By reading this far, and understanding what you
have read, you have applied some basic principles of hermeneutics.
Continue reading

Pretty Darn Busy

I’m listening to Hokus Pick Manouver’s first major album, “Pick It Up.”
It’s Friday afternoon and I was planning on wrapping up my work on Sojourner
Ministries site but have come to a question that needs answering, so I
figure I’ll put a few moments into an update for the news section.
I’ve been busy so I’ve got lots to share.

Friday of Last

Happy Birthday Louanne Mason, who turned older.
Jessica and I went to the Mason’s for dinner and enjoyed an evening of food and
fellowship.
Props to Louanne who made me wheat and corn free food 🙂
Abby whacked her head on their table causing a little swelling and a bit of a
mouth bleed, it was her first accident of that severity, but we knew it was
coming.
After a few moments of snuggling with mom she was back in her usual playful mood.

Saturday – A Smashing Time in Sherman

Jessica’s cousin and her husband bought a house in Sherman, Texas, that they have
been slowly but surely restoring.
Unfortunately the previous owners took shortcuts shorter than most contractors would
do so sometimes they’ve found odd things.
Continuing in the tradition of me helping Doug do demolition I helped try to do some
plumbing.

Doug and I spent most of the day trying to get the plumbing to work but ended up
getting some other stuff removed including their stove range oven as well as the
cabinetry around them.
Eventually it was time for Jessica and I to head to Garland where we went to a dinner
put on by Sojourner Ministries.
It was a refreshing time and we felt encouraged that Steve is as passionate as ever to
share “The Jewish Heart of Christianity.”
Amanda and Doug were kind enough to watch Abigail while we made out excursion.
We came back to Sherman and stayed up far too late with Doug and Amanda.

SUNDAY!

Sunday morning started bright and early as the children continued their winning streak.
Kids always win in the morning because no matter now much you want to pretend they’re
not screaming, yelling or doing something else noisy – you must get up in case
other adults are sleeping and try to quiet the kiddos.
Soon we were up and ready to finish a little bit more of the kitchen work as well as
some electrical work.
Somewhere in the swing of things we managed to install the new stove and oven and make
it out the door in time to watch the last half of the Indy Racing League race at
Texas Motor Speedway.

The drive to the race track was good because Doug and I got some time to talk.
Doug is a neat guy and I’m glad that he and I have not only become relatives but friends.
We talked about… hey, we talked about private stuff, you don’t get to find out what we
talked about.
We got to the race track and parked out about a quarter of a mile from the bleachers and
walked in and sat down at lap 100.
The cars are loud.
I said the cars are loud.
I can’t hear what you’re saying.

It was amazing to me how fast the cars went, on Television you don’t always get the best
perspective of what is going on.
The vehicles are louder and faster than Television lets on.
And you can forget about communication.
The people in the bleachers were yelling at one another while drinking – fortunately it
wasn’t fights but just ‘normal’ behavior 🙂
I suppose that with cars that loud there’s not much else to be expected.

The race ended prematurely when at lap 185 (it may have been 184 or some other lap, but
that’s my story) one of the cars (#15) crashed into another and caused it to crash into
one of the barriers at approximately 200 MPH.
The car that impacted the wall was almost completely obliterated except for the fusilage
which contained the driver.
The driver was eventually removed from the safety mechanisms in the ‘car’ and apparently
is recovering.

After the race Doug and I waited at the car for a while before we headed home and talked more
about stuff you’ll only have to imagine.
We grabbed dinner before going home and ate our Taco Bell whilst being swarmed by our ‘chillens’.
We then hung up two cabinets and then it was time to head home to Euless.

Jessica and Abigail slept in the car and I listened to the radio.
The problem is that what came on the radio was a talk show called “The White Horse Inn.”
It tried to be a reformed discussion group but instead ends up being goofy and frustrating for me.
Since I’m not reformed it just tweaks with me and makes me want to argue.
Unfortunately the hosts never listen to my arguments.

The Rest of the Week

This week was a pretty good one at work because the bosses were
impressed with my work on the latest beta of WorldClient.
I love working at Alt-N Technologies, I don’t think that there are
that many companies out there where things are as crazy as they
are here and yet we still get so much done.

Abby’s been a bit of a struggle because she’s been getting more and more
character and personality.
She wants what she wants when she wants it.
NOW!
However, she’s lots of fun and I think that being a dad is going to
continue to require more of me, but its been really great.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Sofa Logic” Peterman