Baah

It’s the ‘holiday season,’ which translates in today’s world as two things:
Dollars and Political Correctness.
Dollars because of the amount of money people sill spend outdoing Santa.
And Political Correctness because we need to make sure that we market to all
of the religious holidays.
I’d like to turn people’s hearts and minds to the manger, where Christ was
born in Bethlehem.
When a Savior for the world was born in a place that only God expected and
the arrogance of man had no hold.
Where the sheep said “Baaah.”

Hummmm

Last night we had Christmas music on, which was fun, at least some of it was,
some of it was pretty poorly done.
So we fast forwarded those tracks which needed it.
I was glad to have been able to hear “Oh, Come Oh Come Emmanuel.”
That is one of my favorites because it is so emotive.
I like to sing along, even if my voice doesn’t have the range it used to when
I led the congregation in singing.
So, even if you don’t know all of the words this Christmas, humm along!

Bug

Prayer requests abound this season, but do pray for the people with this new
Flu strain.
It’s apparently a doozy.
Pray that folks don’t get it.
Pray that those who have it will get better – and pray that those who will be
traveling (us and so many others) will have safety in their journey.
And remember that prayer is part of your relationship with God – keep it real
and keep it constant.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Punny Guy” Peterman

The message that I’ve been getting this year is this: Read your Bible every
day.
A simple message.
One I’ve been getting since childhood.
However, it has taken 25 years for me to put it into practice – and still I
have days where I foolishly don’t make it a priority.
But here’s the thing: doing so makes renewing your mind a lot easier.
Romans 12:2 says:

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is
good and acceptable and perfect.

The part of this passage which I have struggled with at times is the renewing.
If you think about how much you are bombarded by this world and its media,
advertisers, your social peers and your own flesh’s desires you see that
we’re not in a light weight paintball battle.
So renewing our minds, conforming them to Christ, will

• enhance our relationship with Christ – our savior
• help us to stand against the schemes Satan (Ephesians 6:11)
• help us to edify other saints (Romans 12:4-9)
• help us to know what the Lord’s will is
• help us to be lights unto the world

With this in mind, even though I read/listened through the whole Bible once,
and am wrapping up a New Testament read/listen Jessica and I are going to
read through the Bible together (separately, and then discuss together)
this year.
Paul Henebury encouraged me towards this early this year and I’ve made it a
priority.
The sad thing about Seminary is that this was not a priority emphasized by
any teachers I had, save one.
John and Karen got me the Bible on audio CD for Christmas last year and its
been great listening through.

Make the time, it can only benefit you!
If you’ve got questions about what you read ask someone you trust as a
spiritual leader.
And if you’re not sure who that is, you’re more than welcome to ask me and if
I don’t have an immediate answer I can find out from my resources.
Pray for the Holy Spirit to open your eyes as you read – it will be a bright year, if only lit by the Word of God!

Resting in Him,

Randy Peterman

Footnotes

1 The New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update, (La Habra, California:
The Lockman Foundation) 1996.

However, I’ve got one of their video cameras now, and its digital.
It even uses a memory card if we’re crazy enough to use one.
However, I’m already giddy due to the fact that it supports Firewire.
Firewire is super fast.
So now I can take video footage of Abby and then put it onto the computer at
lightning speed and so far my limited tests have shown that my PC can
handle such a high speed video stream.
My old Dazzle USB connection would mess itself up horribly when we’d try to
record more than 5 minutes worth of audio and video.

What this means for you, the reader/viewer is that I can make videos of Abby,
life and crazy comic sketches and then stream them from this website.
It also means that I’ll probably start pushing some bandwidth limits on my
site if I put up much video.
I might have to put them on my yahoo archive, but all of the segments will
have to be 5 megabytes or less to be put up there.

Jessica and I went to dinner tonight with Abigail and she was really
impressed with the animal heads mounted on the wall.
I pointed to a stuffed buffalo head on the wall and said, “Buffalo” (surprising, huh?).
Abigail said, “Buffafo.”
I was shocked!
I dropped her in astonishment, she sustained a sprained appendix, has an
involuntary wink and talks backwards now, but the buffalo thing was cool*.

Resting in Him,

Randy “I’m a digi-geek” Peterman

*This is a joke, though not funny to some, it is part of my weird humor.
Abigail is doing fine and was not dropped.
Ooooh, look at all of the pretty buttons on that camera.

The lethargy around here is high.
We’re tired, we’re physically drained and I think its just because we’re
coming down from our weekend.
We stayed up late, got up early, and now – we have to get back to normal.
So with that in mind – this is my entry tonight.

The only other things I’ll say is that last night I put up some pictures of
Abby.
In case you didn’t see them, they’re here.
I think my favorite is the spaghetti ‘we want you’ picture.

Resting (literally and figuratively) in Him,

Randy Peterman

This year you will find Abigail Ruth Peterman modeling the finest in
spaghetti strap tops and pajamas.
Her Super-Model status has been sealed for the remainder of the decade.

Smile, you’re on daddy’s camera!



WE WANT YOU!



Are these things comfortable? Depends.



On the phone…with grandma.



Abby opening some presents



Amazingly, Abby opens more presents



Jessica acting ‘goofy’ (I mean that in the most adoring husband sort of way).
I actually made her do that.



Abby being cute again.

Yesterday afternoon my boss bought a Dodge Viper.
Wow.
That is a fast car and it is slick looking, too.
His is all black and to make matters blacker he had the windows tinted.
The only things that are not black are the lights, brakes and rims.
The seats are covered in suede and the car just looks fast.

Mr. Utter

Our friends the Utters, who kept us company when we first moved to Texas live
in Michigan, but fortunately they sent Jamie Utter down to visit us and
tonight we had dinner with he and two other elders from the church he
co-elders, Doug and David.
I could have spent the rest of the night talking with them, but time ran out
and they had to get back to the conference they came down for.
We missed Ruth, Jay and Lacy, but hope to see them sometime next year anyway.
I didn’t get enough time!
But time seems to be the one thing that is always running out.
I can’t wait for Christ to return because then we’ll get to be with the
Utters for a lot longer – eternity.
It won’t be like that perfume/calogne called eternity because it will last
and smell better.

Shopping

I’m going out shopping tonight for Jess’ presents too, so we’ll see what I
find.
She’ll never guess…

Resting in Him,

Randy “Sneaky Snake” Peterman

The Alt-N trip to Cancun.
Pictures provided by our little Kodak digital camera 🙂

A view from the Plane as we were landing.



A view of the beach from our room.



Here you see a slightly different view.



Isn’t this also a nice view?



What are the chances a girl like that and a guy like that would get together?

100%!



Dolphins are a tasty snack – when they’re orange and for kids.

Don’t eat these at home.



Fashion Sea Horses 😉



This is so cool!



After you play with dolphins you should always have a hearty bowl of
butter soup.



This is what we watched as we rode the ferry back from Isla Mujeres.



Louanne and Jessica on the beach Sunday Morning.
What good friends!

This morning I drove into work from Sherman.
Jerry had said I could be late due to the trip.
I got to work at 10:00.
After a short bit of reading email and newsgroups Jerry came in and invited
me to go to lunch with himself, Arvel and Jon.
We went to the Cacherel, which is a fabulous restaurant near
Alt-N.
After a lunch retelling our adventures in and out of Cancun we headed back to
Alt-N.
But on the way down to the car from the Cacherel Arvel mentioned wanting to
go look at cars.
So we did.
We looked at Dodge Vipers.

The new 2003/2004 body design is much better than the older body
design.
The interior also is better.
Arvel really liked them.
They’re way outside of my price range 🙂

I know, a tough day at work.
I’m tired now from entering my hand written articles from over the weekend
(here, here and here).
I put up many of the pictures I took with our
digital camera under the media section.
Hope that you had as fun a weekend as I did – you should visit Cancun.

Resting in Him,

Randy “They don’t make’em like they used to” Peterman

Today was a long day.
It started out nice enough, I woke up to a gorgeous sunny day with the sound
of waves crashing on the shore outside.
We got ready, packed our bags (so we didn’t have to do it later) and then
went downstairs to eat.
We met Steve Bardenhagen for breakfast and then played miniature golf with him.
Steve works for Alt-N on RelayFax, our fax server application.
Without Steve it would still be one of our lesser worked on programs.
Now ComAgent-Java is the least focused on 🙁
I need more time to work on that.
Back to the story…

So far things are going OK, but we’re supposed to wait for our shuttle to
pick us up at 1:55.
It came at 2:15.
We got to the airport and were pretty rapidly given our tickets and sent to
go through security.
We made it through that pretty painlessly.
Then we got to our gate, A6.
A6 had the worst PA system,
it sounded like a megaphone.
Our flight was supposed to bored, I mean board, at 3:55.
At 3:55 we were watching another plane start to board at A6 – it was going to
Mexico City.
We heard nothing over the PA
saying that the gates had been switched, that things were delayed or that
small rodents had eaten the runway up and that we were stuck in Cancun.
So Jon, Steve Jess and I went into the bar/restaurant next to the A6 gate and
ordered some drinks and fries.
We talked and continued to wait.

We finished our drinks and fries and then headed out to meet up with Jerry
(which was the first time I saw him all weekend).
Then, then, they announced that the flight would start boarding in
20 minutes.
They announced it with a megaphone, there was no
PA system!
After 20 minutes they megaphoned that they would start boarding in 15-20
minutes (again).
Finally, we all boarded.

The plane made relatively good time back north and I slept most of the way –
I was bushed.
Upon arriving at DFW airport we landed and taxied towards the gate.
I say towards the gate because just when it looked like we were going to
actually reach the gate, they stopped the plane.
The plane that was at that gate still had apparently not figured out that we
needed to be there.
So we waited.
Then the captain came over the overhead speakers (no megaphone) and said that
the plane was out of the way and we’d be at the gate shortly.
Jessica had to go pee.
The captain came over the speakers again and said that the ground crew was
moving some equipment and so we’d have to wait some more.
Jessica’s bladder ruptured and the paramedics were rushed out.
Just kidding, but by now she was in pain.

Finally we disembarked the plane and headed towards
U.S. customs.
We headed from gate A18, where our car was parked at, towards customs.
Towards customs we walked.
And walked.
And walked some more.
We arrived at customs which was at gate A1.
There we stood in a long line.
Jessica still needed to go potty.
Finally the customs agent checked us out and we were herded towards an
escalator.
At the bottom of the escalator was a lobby with baggage… and a bathroom for
Jessica.

So after taking care of business Jessica and I headed back across the airport
to A18.
We got there, got into the car and headed towards home.
At the toll booth, where the airport practices extortion, we handed the older
gentleman in the booth our ticket.
He looked at it for some time.
Then, he muttered something and punched a number on a device next to him.
After a few moments another man walked into the booth – apparently a manager.
That many apologized to me for the delay and then the older fellow said,
“It’s mutilated.”
Wrong!
That ticket had been in my glove box all weekend long where it had peacefully
rested, and unless some glove box gnomes came and mutilated it and then
cast a spell on it so that it looked fine to us, but not to the toll booth
fellow, it was not mutilated.
The manager told him to type ‘mutilated’ into the computer and then punch in
the ticket’s number.
The computer seemed to like that because they then asked us for $48.00
USD for our car’s three
day stay.
I could have stayed at Motel six that long for that much – with Jessica and
my car.
Then they explained that my ticket was too long.
Like I had stretched it out before pulling up to the booth.
Darn glove box gnomes!

We rushed home and got our change of clothes for the night in Sherman with
Amanda and Doug and to check the phone messages.
Then headed to get gas in the car, some money for dinner, and then to Sherman.
Right.
This day needed more delays.

I inserted my debit card into the pump and told it to use it as a credit card.
Stupid me – it didn’t like that – it told me to see the cashier.
Stupid them – the station’s store was closed and the cashier was not present.
I tried again and all was well – 1 minute lost at the gas station.

I then proceeded to the Bank of America
ATM in Albertson’s.
The machine didn’t like my card and said it wouldn’t work in that machine.
I went to the second machine – same error.
I finally bought a pack of gum and took some cash out that way.
5 more minutes lost in Albertson’s/B. of A.

Money in hand I went to McDonalds.
Where I waited for them to ask me to give my order.
We waited about 1 and a half minutes.
Then I backed up and drove forward again in case my car hadn’t triggered some
trigger.
Nothing.
So I thought after yet another minute, “I’m going to pull forward and give my
order in person.”
Good thing I did because once getting around to the other side of the
building there was a sign that read, “Place order, pay, & pickup here.”
Doh!
That was just icing on the cake.
Why would you not put a sign up saying, “Pull forward.” or have someone out
in the front using sign language to get us to pull forward.
Neon lights would work, even chalk on the sidewalk would have been better
than a sign on the other side of the building.

We drove our car up to Sherman from there and went to bed around midnight.
Abby was asleep so we just talked with Amanda and Doug for a bit and then
crashed for the night.

Finally resting,

Randy “Jet lag” Peterman

This day started out rough.
I didn’t sleep that well last night and then Jerry called out room at 7:30.
I had slept so poorly that my stomach hurt.
We got up and got ready and then ate breakfast.
After breakfast we walked on the beach and collected shells.
Tiny Shells.
We also got sand blasted by the wind on the beach.

At 9:50 we left with Mike and Louanne Mason on the public buses and made our
way to the ferry to take us to the Isla Mujeres.
There Jessica and Louanne were to swim with the dolphins.
The boat ride rook about one half hour and presented us with still more wind.

The dolphin facility was neat, Jessica and Louanne were the only
ones in the class.
It was very cool that they got to ‘share’ a dolphin.
The look in their eyes was a constant glow.
The instructor first explained to them the signals they would need to know to
work with the dolphins.
Their eyes brightened even more as the instructor modeled what they would be
doing with a wooden cutout of a dolphin.

Mike and I were instructed to stay a distance away from the area that the
dolphins were in.
I got pretty bogus pictures, but since Mike has such a great camera he was
able to zoom in.
We could hear the gals laughing from our view across the water.

After the dolphins we went to “downtown” Mujeres.
It’s a small town and it is pretty run down looking.
In what was a great decision we at lunch at a restaurant that has
been the best meal so far.
I had some of the best fajitas I have ever had.
We all agreed lunch was fantastic!
As lunch ended it started raining and we made our way down to a shop where
Louanne had planned on buying a belt.
She bought three belts.
We bought four bracelets that we liked.
I was pleased that the shopkeeper, an older woman, had a Bible and appeared
to have been putting it to good use.
We didn’t haggle with her but paid full price.
Hopefully that was a blessing to her.

The ride on the ferry back was brought due to the storm that brought us the
rain.
We endured it and then hopped on a but that amused us once reaching the
mainland.
A passenger was shouting from the first seat, out the window, for folks to
get on the bus.
He was the frontman while the driver moved the bus ‘rapido.’
We stopped to pick up passengers until there was standing room only.
We had to shout and ask for the driver to stop in front of our hotel or else
he might have kept going right past the empty bus stop.

I have a real heart for the Mexican people.
I want to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to them.
Unlike the affluent Americans they seem simpler, and the Catholic culture may
lend them to an easier understanding of the message of Grace.
Then again, since Catholicism is a works based religion, they might find
grace to be a foreign concept.
I’ll have to talk to some of my missionary friends.

Speaking of foreign, on one of the customs forms they had a typo.
It asked if we were Mexican Nationals or ‘Foreing.’
Since I’m not that much into golf I said I was Mexican!
Just kidding, I filled out the form correctly, but I did think that was
funny.

I have to go get ready for the company dinner so I’ll write more later.

[Randy and Jessica get ready – then go to the company dinner here]

The company dinner was great fun.
Unfortunately Jerry and his two kids,
Grace and Eric
could not make it to the dinner because the kids were just warn out from
their deep sea fishing trip earlier in the day.
We had a good seat in the middle of the table so as the conversations drifted
I could change my focus of attention with ease.
Some interesting food was served, but more than that some interesting and
tasty drinks were served.
Jared and I had these really (really, really, really) cool coffee
drinks.
The waiter put sugar on the rim of the glass and then carmelized it with a
torch.
Then, he poured some alcohol into the cup that he had lit (fire!).
After the fire burned a few moments (5-6 seconds) he sprinkled in some cinnamon
and then he poured coffee into the cup.
Then, he heated a spoon and took the spoon and scooped up some frozen whipped
cream and put it into the cup and then placed the spoon across the top of
the cup.
After placing the cup in front of me he lit another ladle of liqueur and
poured that over the coffee and spoon.
Yum!
Here is a recipe that looks like it might get you
close to the same thing.
We all agreed you couldn’t get this at Starbucks 🙂

The restaurant closed at 11:00 so we left and went back up to our rooms.
Full, glad to have seen some new and fun things and to have socialized.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Eat-A-Fajita” Peterman