So this morning we took a little trip to see some homes in the Denver area. We drove to parts of this metropolitan monstrocity that I have never seen before. In fact, just about one mile from our church is a home for sale. They want a huge amount of money for the property. Part of why it seems expensive is the actual appearance of the home. It also looks like it’s a bit high priced is because the street its on falls somewhere between ‘Homie don’t play dat’ and ‘Pimp my ride.’ In short, it was rather ‘gangsta’ for me and I could never bring myself to buy the home for fear that my two year old might never turn three. I also couldn’t let my wife go out after dark, suggest that other people come over for a meal or that I would take a walk around the block. So… we moved onto other properties on our list.
Author Archives: Randy Peterman
Does This Dress Make Me Look Fat?
Lord have mercy on the man who’s wife wears this.
Hot Rod KitchenAid
Jessica was mildly upset that I said she could make conversations with just about anyone at any given time and that she was cursed with this happening since she married into my family. However, if I get her one of these I’m sure to earn more points.
Peterman Trait
MyMom can go just about anywhere and start conversations with people that she’s never met. I don’t know where she got it other than my dad’s mom, who also manages to do the same. She literally runs into people in the strangest places. My Grandma once had a small collision in a parking lot several hours from her house with a guy she hadn’t seen for a long time. Now Jessica is following into these, married into, footsteps. How?
Today she called to cancel our old Bank of America account and is now still on the phone with the gal at Bank of America. No, she’s not arguing over details of where checks should be sent, she’s not worried about getting security questions right. She’s telling her about Abby’s cough. She’s chatting about all sorts of things. So… I declair it as a pseudo-Peterman trait.
Update: It turns out that it was the gal on the other end. Jessica was not being chatty.
Update Update: It turns out that the gal was telling Jessica that she really wants her 22 and 19 year old sons to have grandkids for her with their girlfriends. I personally hope that there’s a ring on some finghers ahead of time. However, I didn’t cancel the account so I couldn’t cause an argument. My luck she’d have left the account open to spite me.
Bovine Blaze
Some of you may have seen this report wherein we find that there is a huge pile of cow poop flaming… and it won’t go out. I don’t find this particularly problematic because
- The poop is not on fire inside the cows
- I’ve watched Envy and realize it could be a lot worse.
- The fire is so far away from me I don’t notice it
- People have been cooking food over fecal fires for a long time. Here’s an example from the Bible. Just as long as the meat gets cooked to FDA regulations.
Also, if cows are responsible for a large amount of methane then we should harness this and then we’d be cooking with gas.
Published Photographer
So, with the help of my wife’s cousin, Amanda, I’m now a published photographer. Not in any large books or in some exclusive location, but nicely enough I’m published on the January 2006 page of the Dallas Fort Worth Marine Aquarium Society’s 2005 calendar. I took a lot of pictures of Amanda’s fish and aquarium based critters and one of them turned out to be worth putting some text on and printing. While this is one giant step for mankind it is a tiny step towards the moon. No… that’s not right. This is a tiny step for me in the direction of printable, sellable, and mostly desirable photography. I want to take pictures that people will want (surprise) so that I can be artistic. My buddy Sean (warning, may contain some nudity) just blows me away with his creative eye while I sit back and try to make sure my pictures are in focus 🙂 However, in the end, I hope that I am able to take great pictures, and bring light to God’s creation – which is amazing.
Plus there’s something magical about the words ‘turkey baster’ being printed on your picture.
My Niece
So, I’m a wee biased, but I think the little girl involved in this picture is so sweet and cute looking. I can’t wait to meet her for the first time.
Click image for larger version
How To Design a Flash Site
I have been known to be antagonistic towards Macromedia Flash because of accessibility, load time and various other issues that are tied in with poor Flash design and implementation. However, Mars Hill Church Seattle has got a Flash site that I thought was just using DHTML. I think that if I had this to do my way I’d have used DHTML with XMLHTTP. However, this site is really, really usable and you can select, copy and work with the text as if it was just plain markup.
I love the navigation. It reminds me of the Apple Finder app’s Columns view. If you select one main section of the site you get sub-navigation in the next column over. I want to use this sort of design and layout in something some day. I’d love that sort of control 🙂 But I digress. All of the links load up near instantly because graphical elements have been minimized to increase load time. However, the look and clarity is not lost because they have good design style and maintain simplicity.
You should check it out and learn some things from it like I’m going to do.
Hospitality
Jessica and I have been married for over six years now, and it’s been great. Jessica is much more introverted than I am. When people come over I get charged and want them to stay until 10:30 or 11:00. Jessica, however, is tired when people leave because often she is just exerting so much more emotional energy. However, she loves to entertain. She’s a great cook and she loves to make special foods, little treats and throw together a little social event.
I had suggested that we buy a house that meets various needs we have and Jessica threw something my way that just caught me off guard: she wants good room for hosting people, having guests spend the night, feeding more than two other adults and room for kids to actually (gasp) play. Basically she wants to be hospitable and that’s something that I think is terrific. I was just listening to an MP3 from Mars Hill church in Seattle and the teacher is talking about hospitality. I have harped on others needing to be hospitable (scripture says elders need to be hospitable – if your pastors and elders are not so, take a close look at I Timothy 3) and have left church because the people were not. Surely this is something that should be ingrained in me. And in fact it is. My parents were very hospitable folks growing up and I don’t remember them letting a week go by that they didn’t have someone over for a meal, often times multiple families at multiple meals.
So… in summary I love my wife and I’m glad she’s thinking that way. Also, the pastor in that lesson talked about how our architecture today for homes and buildings is not conducive to hospitality. Looks like we’ll be buying an older home.
Daughter of Pants Head
Many moons ago I would put Abby’s baby pants on her head and take pictures. Today, much to my delight, Abby put her own pants on her own head and let me take pictures. Of course she still moved so much that they didn’t come out great, but I’ve come to expect that.
Behold, Abbypantz.
