Author Archives: Randy Peterman

The Incredibles DVD’s

I picked up the Incredibles DVD at Target Tuesday night so that I could be one of 5 million people who bought one that day. I think that this movie is just a fun movie, though I haven’t watched the DVD’s yet. I did spend a few minutes this morning with Abby watching some of the extras. Pixar is just a smart company with smart people making smart, yet entertaining movies. You should pick it up if you haven’t already, you’ll want to share this with others, your kids, your spouse, friends and complete strangers. It’s just good clean fun.

A Date with Abby

Last night I took Abby on a brief date with some errands attached to it. However, it was fun. Jessica stayed home and had some alone time, which she’s actually pretty keen on since Abby is usually pretty demanding of her attention. Abby’s got a really funny thing she does when she meets people: She tells them her name if they appear half friendly to her. We ate at her favorite restaurant, Chipotle, and then picked up the new Pixar video release: The Incredibles.

We also picked up some Jamba Juice for the three of us (take some home to Jess). It was simple but she really enjoyed the time and several times said, “Daddy, I love you!” Which made me feel like a slighlty lesser schmoe for being so busy with work. Speaking of which, I’ve got to get back at it, but I did want to post something positive after the earlier rant about BlockBluster.

Big Fat Asterisk

When I say asterisk I’m referring to is the asterisk that should be underneath Blockbuster’s ‘No Late Fees’ advertisements, banners, logos and propaganda. They should read: Restocking fee will be billed after you return the video after a certain period of time because we’ll charge you for the movie if you don’t return it when we think you should, and then refund you the cost of the movie if you decide to return it. I am a very dissatisfied customer after this little bit of trickery they have committed against me, my family and the American public. Boycott Blockbuster – if you don’t I will.

This of course is yet another strike against a company that has done lots of things to help twist words and play a PR game. In an earlier encounter with their customer service department I complained that they had adult movies on the shelves at their store easily accessible to my young daughter (at the time she was still an infant, but I knew a time was coming when she could reach and soon read). Their customer service representative told me that they did not carry any rated X (pornographic) movies. Which is true, they can carry any adult movie they want as long as it was never rated by the Motion Picture Association of America. So, as long as it was unrated porn several things are possible: they cannot tell a minor that they can’t rent it because it is unrated and I can’t call it an adult movie.

Morons! See Also: BlockBuster Lawsuits

Good Morning to You!

This morning our local firefighters got to practice dealing with a fire at an apartment complex. Not because there was a fire but because the local handicap pickup bus thought it would be possible to squeeze under the overhang in the circular driveway in front of our apartment complex. The driver tried to slide underneath the overhang and broke the fire sprinkler off, which changed the water pressure, which triggered the fire alarm which caused 2% of the people from the complex to actually leave their apartments. Why? Because the little minds that seem to be middle management at our apartment complex don’t hand out notices when they do test so that apartment residents just stop responding. The little manager who cried wolf if you will.

Fortunately, we have just signed some papers in pursuit of buying a house and moving in next month. This is very exciting as our Jerry Springer neighbors will no longer be walking above us like hefelumps and woozles. We won’t have to worry about people parking in our parking spot. We won’t have to worry about those things because we’ll be worrying about other things that come with home ownership. However, we’re delighted at the home, the price and the previous owners of the home. We will surely need more furniture though, more beds (for guests), at least a love seat and probably other things. It has a two car garage which is thrilling because we’ve only got one car. This mean’s I’ll get a workshop space for doing restoration work on old cars, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’ll probably start with a Yugo because that’s the easiest car to find parts for (that is a lie).

I’ll post pictures as I take them. Abby will have a backyard to play in!

Little Sleep Pattern

I’ve not gotten a lot of sleep the last 5+ weeks. At first it was taking a toll on my body, but now I’ve grown accustomed to it. I’m getting five and a half to six hours of sleep on average and it is a little bit tough waking up but once I’m out of bed I get to the tasks at hand I’m relatively ready to go. It helps that a cute little two year old climbs onto our bed in the morning and says, “It’s morning! The son woke up with me!”

Which reminds me of the song, “You are My Sunshine.” Abigail means ‘Father’s Joy’ and she sure is.

The Zoo

Yesterday during the mid-day we went to the Denver Zoo. Well, we were going to go to the zoo but the parking lot was full. Having talked about going to the zoo to Abby, who at two years old has no comprehension of ‘the parking lot is full’ we drove to another area where we could get parking at a premium: a long walk. Sure, it was free parking but we had to walk around the zoo to get into the zoo so it already put upwards of 3/4 of a mile on our legs pushing a stroller (in case Abby actually got tired) before we got into the zoo. And, as you might expect, since the parking lot was full, so was the zoo. Because of zoo fullness I didn’t bring my camera with logic that was so great: it will be full, there will be too many people in the pictures. Turns out I was right and while there might have been a few fun photo opps there would have been a lot of backs and shoulders in many pictures.

Upon entering the zoo we found that the lion cubs were lazing about as well the adult lions – can you believe that? Nocturnal animals just sitting still; the gall of these critters. So we walked about the zoo and saw the animals and lots of backs and shoulders, but Abby had a good time being hoisted upon my shoulders and seeing over everyone.

And then it happened, out of nowhere I had a sappy dad moment. I was taking Abby on the “Conservation Carousel” where the gal who attends it is conserving energy by not showing any emotion while telling you the rules for riding the carousel. Anyway, the thing started up and I looked and saw my daughter (who, yes, I was holding up on the undulating polar bear) smiling with joy, and waving with glee to her mommy every time we passed her (Jessica was watching the stroller) and I had to fight back tears. I love Abigail and she brings such joy to our lives – it was a bit too much. However, I choked the tears back and we resumed the happy cycling of the carousel for what seemed like a really long short time. It wasn’t more than 3 minutes but it was a lot longer than that because of my emotional fragility.

So, to top off what had now become a special zoo experience as we were making our way towards the exit we say the giraffes running around (and that’s just fun to watch, they look so awkward) and then, right before exiting we watched the lion cubs run around and chase each other. We topped it all off with some ice cream from Bonnie Brae Ice Cream, which is possibly the finest ice cream in Denver.

Good times.

Pop Tarts

Jessica had a pop tart this morning (also known as ‘The Great Anti-Christ’ to diabetics) and I gave the other pop tart to Abigail (also known as “Dad is Great, He gives us Chocolate Cake” to Bill Cosby fans). However, Abby was not convinced that this was a good idea. She’s just not a big fan of them. This is fine with me because their nutritional value has to be somewhere between an injection of sugar and wonderbread.

Speaking of which when my dad was a kid he used to get loaves of wonderbread and do compression testing on them in comparison contests with whole wheat bread. He would take the loaves, and in complete opposite to Jesus, who turned a few loaves of bread into many baskets of bread, would smash the loaves in a vice. Apparently the wonderbread would smash into a tiny, thin bit ‘o bread while the whole wheat loaves would still maintain some substance simply because they had substance.

Another story of my predecessors is this: My dad used to run tiny electrical wires a few chairs ahead of him in school and attach those wires to the bottoms of the metal clips that held the seat to the structure of the desk. He would then attach the positive and negative ends of a battery to the wire ends, shock the crap out of the person in the seat and then yank the wires back to him so that he would be away from the scene of the crime (a few desks back) and have the wires and battery hidden in a pocket.

Hearing this story growing up probably helped me learn a valuable lesson: Don’t get caught… and its better to be an instigator who plants ideas rather than the one actually doing the naughty deed. As an adult I’ve learned this: I’m so in trouble when my kids get older and learn about these things because it will be me who has to explain to parents that my little girl is only doing what she learned about from her grandpa, great grandpa and dad.

Fowl Twist

This last week Jessica requested I get her some lemon head candies. Being either really weak willed or incredibly in love with her I got her some. I had taken Abby with me to the store to buy them and had explained that they were ‘lemon heads.’ Abigail got home later on that evening with me and as Jessica was sucking on them Abigail asked if she too could suck on a ‘chicken head.’ Not quite the same thing.