La Primera Dia

Or “The First Day”

Well y’all, I’m writing this by hand in Mexico with one of the most valuable
tools they’ve got: a pen.
That’s right, I think that a pen is nearly impossible to come by in Cancun.

Upon departing from DFW airport we were given customs forms to fill out.
Just the forms.
We had to provide our own pen.
We didn’t have one.
Normally I have one with me at all time in my backpack.
When we landed we were corralled into customs where we were directed to a
counter with the same forms, yet it had no pens.
We eventually borrowed one, and the n left it there in case other travelers
were in the same situation.

In out room, which is OK, we found envelopes, paper, brochures… and no pen.
I bought this pen at Walmart (my favorite store) tonight out of utter
frustration.
If the pen is mightier than the sword Cancun is ready for an invasion.
Or, maybe they don’t use pens so that college students will more willingly
come down and drink millions of gallons of alcohol on break.

After Walmart we left to go to one of Cancun’s flea markets.
Jessica had two goals: find something for Abby and find herself some Jewelry.
I had one goal: to leave the flea market with cash left.
I haggled a fellow down to $20.00 for a bracelet for Jessica.
He tried a long list of tricks to entice us.
I wasn’t going to budge because we didn’t need the bracelet.
In the end Jessica got her bracelet and I got to wonder, “Could we have
gotten it for less?”

Mexico has different soda: Coke is the drink if you want a soda and
they don’t sell Diet Coke.
They sell Coke Light.
It truly tastes better than Diet Coke – it’s sweeter.

Tomorrow we will go to the dolphin swim, but its supposed to be raining in
the morning.
Hopefully the weather calms by the noon appointment.
I hope Jessica has a great time, if the bracelet is any indicator of how
happy she’ll be I’ll have a happy gringo on my hands.

It’s 12:21 (palindrome) so I’m going to bed.
I’ll let you know how today (since it’s so late) goes after it’s mostly over.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Bartering Bandito” Peterman

Abby is Learning ‘The Look’

This evening, in preparation for our trip to Cancun tomorrow we dropped
Abigail off in Sherman at Jessica’s cousin’s house.
We had dinner at Chili’s where Amanda (Jess’ cousin) took a cup of goldfish
crackers and gave some to Nolan, her son.
We had been sharing and so it didn’t bother us in the least for her to do
that.
On the other hand Abigail felt that those goldfish were hers and so she
grabbed the cup once Amanda had set it back down in front of her and gave
Amanda ‘The Look.’
Normally that sort of behavior would get a smack on the back of the hand and
a good verbal warning, but we were so surprised and humored by this first
‘Look’ that we just laughed.
Sometimes being a parent is hard 🙂

We’re leaving to go to Cancun tomorrow morning around 9:40 AM and we’re most
likely going to arrive at noon-thirty.
Odds are we’ll get to our hotel hungry and be ready to eat some of the food,
drink some of the drinks (which may have to be alcoholic simply to avoid
the water).
Then we’ll have some fun with our friends the Mason’s and probably crash
somewhat early just to get some rest and prepare for Saturday’s adventures.

Saturday will hold the dolphins.
Jessica and Louanne (Mason) will swim with the dolphins while Mike (Mason) and I
shoot them.
We’ll be shooting with cameras 🙂
I’m excited that Jessica will be able to do that, and I hope that she really
enjoys the opportunity.
Ever since she was a young girl Jessica has wanted to see a unicorn up close
and personal.
Since she can’t have that she’s settled for dolphins.
Dolphins are just like unicorns only instead of a large horn twisting up out
of their heads they’ve got an air hole.
And instead of four legs and a whinny they have flippers, fins and a squeak
similar to the voice of Mariah Carrey.

Sunday we’ll leave mid-afternoon and get home in the evening late enough to
drive back up to Sherman and then spend the night.
Jerry has graciously offered us a late arrival Monday morning at work so that
we could recuperate before jumping back into the code.
This is probably good since the code may suffer if we work on it while tired
(or in the case of some co-workers, hung over).

This trip is by far the most lavish Christmas party Alt-N has taken us on.
Each year they say, “Don’t expect this again next year.”
However, this is next year and we are going on a trip.
We don’t need these trips to think our jobs rock, but it is sure a nice
gesture and Arvel and Jerry have been fabulously generous.
Thanks guys!

Utterly Excited

Sunday night, about the same time we land back in Dallas our good friend
Jaime Utter is landing with some of the men from his congregation to go to
the Pre-Trib Study Group Conference.
We’re excited to see him since he and his wife and kids were our only friends
here when we moved to Texas.
We literally spent hours and hours over at their house and Jaime and Ruth
counseled Jessica and I through the tough months that it took for us to
get adjusted to life in Texas.
They then left to go help a church in California.
Then they left California to help a church in Michigan – where they’re
currently located.
We’ll miss Ruth and Jay and Lacy, but we’re glad for the chance to see Jaime.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Can-koo koo-n” Peterman

All the Trimmings

I got my haircut today.

Lots of it.

They cut lots of my hair, all over my head.
My regular hair, my neck hair, my facial hair, and they even trimmed my
goatee.
When I say ‘they’ I mean this one gal at the Pro Cuts I go to periodically.
I go there when Gina, my friend and regular ‘beautician,’ can’t cut my hair.
Gina is a beautician, but she’s just not making me any more
beautiful.

Anyway, it feels nice to have my head back in order, I was starting to look
like a televangelist.
Periodically I’d find myself having thoughts about cast demons out of
televisions.
Fortunately Jessica kept me in line.

Discipleship

Discipleship has been an interest of mine since I was discipled by my dad
with the material from Disciplers Training International.
I’m working on other material that will augment what I learned from DTI with
things I learned in seminary.
I really hope to make good progress so that at some point I can release it to
the public with a request for feedback.

To Market, To Market to Buy a Fat Pig

I’m learning more about trading – maybe some day I’ll be able to do it
professionally.
What I’m learning most though is that I need to stick with the rules.
What are the rules?
Only trade 1/3 of your trading capital at one time and don’t get greedy.
Also, don’t trade anxious.

In the long run a consistent 10% trader will do better than an inconsistent
30%+ trader.
This is because 10% every day with little to no losses is much more
effective that making 30% every couple days due to compounding of capital
and sleep your not losing at night.
The not losing sleep at night thing is very valuable.
That’s All for now though, if I tell you everything it’ll just be one long
entry for today and then no need for anything more on this website 🙂

Resting in Him,

Randy “That One Guy” Peterman

Mad Bling-Bling

OK, so the title has some reference to money.
This news item doesn’t.
It does have a reference to mad though.
I’m mad that people take God’s word and twist it out of context.
I’m mad that people might say something like, “God’s word says we should home
shool our children.”
To which I would say, “Where?”

I’m reading a book (lent to me) called
Educating the WholeHearted Child.
I’ve only read the first page of the first chapter and I’m already wrestling
with its contents.
The issue is not with the idea of home schooling, I think it can be a great
method of education.
Jessica and I are considering home schooling our children.
However, I am really concerned that they blatantly say that homeschooling is
the Christian thing to do.
There is just no proof-text for that statement.

The book’s first page has one verse out of context (3 John 1:4), a second
verse ‘adapted’ to twist Colossians 1:28-29 to be towards children and a
sentence saying that they’re not trying to tell you what you should do.
The premise of the book is that you should home school and that you should
use their methodologies.
I must confess that I haven’t finished reading the book, but the content will
probably continue on in this pattern.
I’m going to finish the book because I committed to it, but I expect it to be
long and tedious because I’m going to read every word and check every
passage referenced.

Anyway, I hope that I can gain some insite from the book, just because parts
of it are errant doesn’t mean I can’t glean anything of use.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Hermeneutical” Peterman

Theologians Gone Wild

My good friend Tony mentioned the above title earlier today while we chatted.
The context was the vacation we’ll be taking this weekend to go to Cancun and
he was implying that I would be a wild and crazy guy.
Obviously I like to have a good time and I like to joke around, also, I like
theology.
I admit it.
I like to study God’s Word and learn and grow.
Why?

I like to study God’s Word because I love God.
He is my father, and He is the one who sent His Son, Jesus to pay the just
penalty for for my sin – death.
I love to get to know my Lord and Savior better.
Sometimes I wonder at how those who reject Christ can say, “If God wants to
forgive me, why doesn’t He just do that rather than make me go through
this Jesus guy?”
It is a misunderstanding of God’s grace and the wonderful work of
forgiveness.

Yes, this weekend I will go wild.
There will be parties and I might be at some of them, but not as a hooligan
or reveller in man-centered pleasures, instead I plan on being a light.
A joyful, hope-filled light for Christ.
Enjoying my position as a sanctified saint.
I will enjoy being with my wife, just the two of us.
We’ll both look forward to seeing Abigail again, but you know what?
We’ll be pleased to just be with one another as a happy marriage founded in
God’s love.

Resting in Him,

Randy “bond-servant” Peterman

Thanksgiving

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

Gollum was a Victoria’s Secret Model Once

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

Move Over Bob the Tomato

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

Going, Going, Gone!

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