All is Fare in Love and War

This Thanksgiving weekend was one of the most violent weekends to date for
Doug Dellow and myself.
We managed to play 5 games of Empire Earth.
Thousands of pixels died painful deaths at the hands of our civilizations.
There was great rejoicing – our villages celebrated by eating Turkey.
Doug and I even stayed up until 4:00AM Thursday night/Friday morning – my
army got whooped, but Doug stuck it out and won.

Doggone Traditions

Thursday morning we got up and were watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving day
advertisement, I mean parade.
But in between floats, balloons and bands there were commercials – and those
commercials involved a pitch for the Purina Traditional Thanksgiving day
dog show.
What!!?
When did that become annual?
When was watching judges feel all over dogs that have been spoiled worse than
most teenagers in Incline Village (Nevada) a family tradition on the day
we’re supposed to be thankful for what God has blessed us with?
It was surely never a tradition in our house.
We watched part of it anyway.
Lame.

Wave the Dead Bird

We ate lots of food that day, part of which included the grilled turkey and
whine.
The kids provided the whine while Doug and I provided more pixels with death.
Oh, I mean wine, we had wine with Thanksgiving dinner/lunch.
It was good food, good clean fun and we were stuffed.
Millions of American’s gained millions of pounds this week, collectively.

The problem with Turkey, however, is that it dries out.
It takes a lot of self control to not mention microwaves in front of the
turkey, because if you do, your turkey will dry up into turkey jerky.
Sometimes walking by a microwave with a bit of turkey will cause it to just
shrivel up.
Day old turkey soon becomes a sinewy mess of meaty strips.
Don’t talk about microwaves with turkey present – its just not pretty.

Fry Day

Friday was the annual ‘Glutton for Punishment Day’ where shoppers done their
stupid hats and show up at stores as early as 4:30 AM to get a good price
on items that are being sold for cost or less by retail giants.
They use three ploys: 1) Use rebates that will take 3 months to fulfill or 2)
carry one of each super cheap item so that they will be out of the special
offer and 3) create such a tiny window of opportunity that only 6 people in
a metropolitan area could possibly manage taking you up on it.
Most stores use all three tactics.

Jessica and Amanda went out and were our family representatives for the
holiday post turkey shop-a-thon.
Twelve hours of cash blowing fun, lines and caffeinated bliss.
We had to take multiple trips out to the car to get the gifts that were
purchased.
Some nations around the world have a budget smaller than the amount of money
spent in the Dallas/Fort Worth area on Friday.
I’m glad we could contribute to our economy.

Thinking Outside of the Box

Saturday Doug and I (with assistance from our wives periodically) put the
cabinet doors up in their kitchen (we’ve helped in the remodel process).
This was pretty cool, the kitchen still needs the countertops, but its
looking really nice.
I can’t wait to see it done, unfortunately since they’ll be out of town for 2
weeks near Christmas and Doug has to work in Tulsa every other week, it
may not be done until next year.

My’s Boyfriend

My sister Becky (sometimes called “My”) has a boyfriend, Kurt Katzorke.
He’s been in Colorado since Tuesday (he arrived sick, what a bummer) and
they’ve been spending time together, which is great.
Unfortunately he leaves tomorrow and so Becky will have to be down for a
couple days.
But I’m sure that they’ll resume their incessant text messaging, emailing,
phone talking ways within about 4-5 minutes of Kurt’s arrival back into
Carson City.
Maybe sooner as once he lands he can start using his cell phone.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Pixelator” Peterman

We bought the Lord of the Rings: Two Towers DVD set a week ago and I
was watching how they used computers to tweak a real person to look like
what is rendered as Gollum.
This is not too different from our ‘cleaning up’ images of models for
advertisements, pornography and publicity shots.
This sort of thing cracks me up.

Anyway, the extra stuff on the DVD set is really neat and I was impressed
with all of the work that went into making the movie as cool as it was.
If you haven’t bought the set, you may consider doing so, its worth your
money.
We enjoyed the extended scenes and we are enjoying the extra material.

OK, that’s all for now.

Happy Thankgiving Tomorrow!

Pnang.

Resting in Him,

Randy Peterman

Having gone to Colorado I have developed a big ego.
Not because Colorado does that to you, but because a 10 year old girl
(Kailey) approached me after church and told me that she named a tomotoe
plant after me.
How cool is that?
If each person on earth gets 15 minutes of fame, I feel like I’m getting
overtime.
However long that plant is alive, I’m famous.

Friday

We flew out of Dallas at around 4:00 PM central and made our way (slowly but
surely) to Colorado.
Slowly because we were on a plane designed for moving possibly 20 people, but
they had so engineered it to have seets that gave the appearance for a
greater amount of accomodations.
It was a 2 and 2 set up so that Jessica and I ended up sitting on different
rows, Abby stayed with Jessica.
The fellow that I sat next to was nice and talked with me for some of the
time, and part of the time I read I and II Timothy.
The fellow was the manager of six steakhouses in Oklahoma City called Santa
Fe Steakhouse.
Upon arrival in CO we made our way to the baggage where they informed us that
our suitcase had popped open at some point.
Samsonite.
Becky and my Dad picked us up at the airport and upon departing we called mom
and she met us at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner.
Not just any dinner, but for Anniversary Dinner.
It was my parent’s thirtieth anniversary!
I said it then, and I say it again now, Happy Anniversary!

Dinner was good, but after waiting for over an hour to get in, we were
starving.
The place was so busy that the service was a hair less than normal, but it
was good over all.
The waitress was trying to wait on too many tables and the kitchen was
working really hard to keep up.

Saturday

Saturday we went to the children’s museum.
It was small by most standards, but Abby had a good time (and that is why we
went)
The Exploratorium in San Fransisco is cooler, and the one in Indianapolis is
excellent (thanks John for taking us there).
It was snowing by the time we left for the museum, and when we got there it
was really starting to accumulate.
Abby played in a room designed for children 4 and under – she loved it and it
was fun to see her play.

We got home in time for lunch and ate some.
But shortly after that Becky had to leave to go work at her Starbuck’s store.
My dad and I went out and got the ingredients for the
World’s Best Chili
(we add beans to this).
It turned out to be a spicy treat and my dad and I really enjoyed the heat.
We rented Bend it Like Beckham for Jessica and my mom to watch (we
guys watched part of it).

That evening my dad and I went out to help Becky get home as the roads had
iced pretty bad.
She had talked about spending the night at Starbuck’s which caused us to
laugh.
On the way home I saw a taxi driver spin 270 degrees and wind up in the
oncoming traffic turning lane.
I would have dismissed it as slick roads if he had not immediately floored it
and nearly slid into the curb while trying to turn back around.
Not the kind of taxi I’d like to be in.

Sunday

Sunday we went to church and it was good to listen to good sound teaching.
Between the Sunday School class and the main service I gave a copy of my
favorite web development book (Designing with Web Standards) to
the fellow in charge of the church’s site.
I hope he reads it because it is a great book, and also it would allow the
church’s site to be viewable to more people.
The main service was on Phillipians 4:8-9.
Dad laid it out and I sucked it in.
I miss being in a weekly service with meat.

I have summarized verse 8 in pseudo-code (some what likeprogramming code):

function shouldIThinkAboutThis(aThing)
{
	if(aThing.isTrue ||
		aThing.isHonorable ||
		aThing.isRight ||
		aThing.isPure ||
		aThing.isLovely ||
		aThing.isOfGoodRepute ||
		aThing.isExcellent ||
		aThing.isWorthyOfPraise)
	{
		// think about it is a function you define ;)
		thinkAbout(aThing);
	}
	else
	{
		// send for garbage collection
		throwAway(aThing);
	}
}
	

After the service I got to talk to several neat folks: Brian White (whom I’d
met before), Brad (no last name in memory banks) and Craig Kaes (who works
on Jabber).
After we had time to fellowship we headed to a Mexican restaraunt called ‘La
Loma.’
Over all it was a good meal, but the clencher was Abby saying, “Hi,” to the
gals at the table behind ours.
This was the first time she’s said that.
Later on in the day she started saying, “Uh-Oh.”
That will be cute, until the day she breaks something and then says, “oh-oh.”

Leaving in the evening was sad – it didn’t seem like enough time.
However, as time moves forward I can look forward to eternity with my parents
and the other saints in Heaven.
The flight that we had tickets for was cancelled and we had to take a flight
that was an hour later.
We got home only 20 minutes later than our original flight because the
American Airlines flight we had was on a larger plane.

Five Iron

Last on this list was the disappointment of missing the Five Iron Frenzy
concert that was last weekend.
The disappointment is in the fact that it was their last concert and we
didn’t get to go.
Not going was rooted in the fact that we had wanted to go to their show here
and missed it, and then thought, “wouldn’t it be cool?”
But both dismissed it because there would be no way we would be able to be
there on that weekend.
We were, we missed it, and we pray for the Lord’s blessing for the members of
the band.

Speaking of prayer pray for our health and well-being, Abby and I are
fighting colds, and Abby has an ear infection.
Thanksgiving is in a couple days and I don’t want to be sick.

Resting in Him,

Randy Peterman

Tomorrow (Friday) we’re leaving to go to Denver, Colorado.
We’re going to my parents’ where we’ll see them and Becky.
It’ll be for my parent’s 30th anniversary, which is cool, but I know that its
going to be fast and we’ll be sad its all over when its all over.
I have cool parents, the kind that you see on television that are all sappy
and still romantic.
Yeah, that’s them.
The parents that are still in love and grow more and more in love over time.
The kind of parents that are rarer than evidence for evolution (mostly
because there really isn’t any – though my parents do exist).

Ed

Congradulations go out to Ed, my brother, who managed to quit being a
mechanic to be a Nevada State Employee.
This is something he’s talked about, and as long as he doesn’t get involved
with politics, I’m glad for him :)
May the Lord bless him with safety and may he be a light in a very dark
place!
Also, may he get plenty of time with his family and get to have his schedule
changed so he can go to church with them.

Counting

I’ve had over 652 hits this month, and its not over.
While this is not as many hits as some months, I’m glad.
I’ve gotten hits from search engines that used to not point to me, and I
apparently rank pretty high in some of their results for various search
terms.
Whatever the number of people that come to this site I’m hoping that I’ll be
able to shine for Christ and to make this a funny, weird, entertaining and
cool place to read about most things Peterman.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Makes His Bosses Scared” Peterman

I put up some pictures of Abby and the Nuzzi kids (and Tony [FunNuzzi]) in the media section.
Also, I added a new article under opinion.
Thrice, er, thirdly, I wrote a little bit about web standards earlier this evening.
Lastly, I added my lesson from this last weekend (Home Bible study with the Nuzzi’s), its from Matthew 22.