Author Archives: Randy Peterman

A New Story Wherein Randy Smells Like Burning Wood for Days

So about two (2) weeks ago I saw an episode of Good Eats called ‘Q’.  It was about smoking pork butt (which is actually the pig’s shoulder).  I lost site of any other Fathers Day Weekend (FDW) goals and determined to burn wood at such a slow rate that no flames were detectable, yet smoke would emit from the wood and make the meat and everything within a 15 mile radius smell of smoke.  It worked.  Too well.  The smoked pork with an espresso barbecue sauce was finger-licking-good (without the geriatric chicken guy), but everything still smells smokey.  I was at church, rubbed my nose and “poof!” smoke smell on my skin, in my nostrils and causing me to want to try smoking meat again in the middle of the street with a space suit on.  Then the smokiness of the meat would be less smoked Randy and more smoked flavor on the meat when we bring it in from the smoker.

Good meats 🙂

Happy Father’s Day Dads in My Life!

Happy Fathers Day to my real/biological Dad!  Happy Father’s Day to my Father in Laws John & Clair!  Happy Father’s Day to the surrogate (can men be surrogate) dads that I had in Texas and in other situations!  Y’all have taught me much in my first thirty years and I’m looking forward to the rest of what I get to learn from you.

I’m Bringing Sexy Backup

Sorry for the Justin Timberlake reference.  I’ll confess to not actually having heard his ‘hit’ single, so if that reference makes you want to throw up in your mouth, I’m even more apologetic.  That being said, please backup your hard drive today.  If you don’t have an external hard drive that gets backed up to on a regular basis, please stop what you’re doing, even at the risk of getting fired, and get one.  Get the external hard drive, copy your files from your internal hard drive onto the external hard drive.  Do it now.  Do it today, or if you must put it off, do it this weekend, but don’t put it off or else you could lose critical things like those blackmail pictures you have of your [insert being/entity/person/senator reference here] in their [insert some awkward piece of clothing here] while [insert embarrassing or illegal activity here].  Or you could just lose important documents like papers for school, papers for work, papers for church, or even worse, papers for the government.

If you’re running Windows XP you can tell it to backup all of your files automatically!  Just go to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.  Then follow the wizard.  Figure out if all of your valuable files are in your My Documents folders or if you want to backup the whole system and then set up a schedule.  Have it backup once a week or daily, but have it backup your computer or valuable files regularly.  Once that’s done you can rest knowing that unless your external hard drive fails you’ve at least got things preserved.

I setup a network wide backup at my house this week using an Airport Extreme USB connected external hard drive so that all computers backup onto one drive every night.  If I were more clever once a week/month I’d take a second external drive to my parents or some other ‘safe’ place and keep one there, too.  Just in case.

Sure, backing up data isn’t sexy, but its smart.  So listen to Justin Timberlake and backup at the same time, then you can be both.

Thankful Thursday: My Bike

I’m glad my bike was given to me as a graduation present many years ago when I graduated from High School.  My grandmother gave me a large sum of cash (well, for me it was a large sum of cash at the time) and my dad and mom picked up the rest of the tab.  Together they bought me a green GT mountain bike.  No shocks, no frills, just many gears and a bike frame that was meant for men and not boys (like my old bike which was a BMX bike with 21 inch tires).  That bike has been through many accidents with me and survived the Texas heat.  I’ve broken or bent the forks, the rims, the sprockets and blown out tens of tires on it, but its still hanging in there.  I’ve gotten more bruses and scrapes from that than any other activity and its been a hoot!

Most recently I’ve hooked our kiddy trailer up to the green monster and been pulling the girls around the neighborhood.  Hearing them laugh behind me and having them yelling at me to go faster is also a blast.  Of course eventually the fun wears out about the time my legs do, but its still a blast.  Thanks Grandma (though she’s in heaven and not earth-dwelling any longer)  and mom and dad for the bike.  Its been great.

For the record the fastest I’ve gone on it was 45 miles per hour going down the road at King’s Canyon in Carson City, Nevada.

Draw the Line

I’ve posted before about hating ‘The WalMart’, and I don’t like ‘The Blue Shirts’ [Best Buy], but one store I haven’t openly beaten to a pulp is Circuit City.  The company has an ex-employee who has posted information about the corporate policy and employee deception.  Don’t read it unless you want to be very angry at Circuit City.  On the other hand, don’t shop there unless you have read it.  Or in my case its just another reason not to shop there.

Evie-isms

Evelyn’s speech is improving and she’s starting to construct sentences and use phrases in context.  They’re not long sentences, but they’re more communication than single words demanding an immediate need be met (well, at least some of the time).  Therefore I am creating the Evie-ism category for this blog.  I don’t have the first one to post, but just a moment ago I was running after her to tickle her and she yelled, “Away!”  Which I hope is short for run away which her big sister says in the same situation.

Thankful Thursday: My Church Body

I have to be super-thankful for my church body.  I’ve missed three weeks in a row due to traveling and I miss many of the people there.  The people I don’t miss yet I probably should make an effort to get to know better 🙂  We moved to Denver to go to Holly Hills Bible Church (HHBC) and the body there has had its ups and downs as various events have taken place, but the teaching has remained consistent and the edification is amazing.

One guy particularly has encouraged me over and over: Norm.  Norm is in a wheelchair because he’s got some severe problem that has slowly caused him to lose muscle mass in his legs.  He’s in constant pain (though he is on pain medication) and yet he’s always got a smile and when we talk about our lives in Christ he’s just an encouraging brother.  Norm was in communications before the web and its been interesting at times to discuss his take on things having come from the print and media world before HTML.

Norm told me about going through trials and suffering in real life and about how one of the Sunday School classes he was in at HHBC encouraged him. Norm sees the trials and suffering as an opportunity to grow in his walk with Christ.  Yesterday he had some surgery on one of his eyes to attach his retina (again) to his eye so that it will work correctly.  He now has to sit facing down with his head for days as the retina and eye heal.  What an amazing brother in Christ to endure these things with such joy.

Thanks Holly Hills, and thanks Norm!