Author Archives: Randy Peterman

Ye Olde Footballe

Today I had a brief party at my house wherein we watched some [American] football and consumed food. The food was good, I’ve had better football. The Denver Broncos, our home team, played so well that they gave a great demonstration of what not to do, while the Pittsburg Steelers (where, apparently I have some family heritage. No, not in steel, but Pittsburg) rocked the socks off of the locals. Yes, it was much like beating a dead horse.

Then, to make sure that my brother-in-law and his wife would have a good laugh saying, “Seattle is better than Denver,” the Seattle Seahawks spanked the Carolina Panthers. That is to say that the Panthers lost even worse than the Broncos. I didn’t know that two teams could be in the playoffs and have their playing be so off! Hey, at least the Colts, where my father-in-law is from, Indianapolis, weren’t playing… then it would be like a family feud, and we can’t have that.

Oh, and the Broncos did have a severe disadvantage this game: they hadn’t lost any other home game this season which put them at a near absolute situation where they would lose. I blame statistics and not the fact that Jake Plummer threw two interceptions and fumbled – its all in the numbers.

Tech Support

My uncle is a former programmer turned Pastor/Elder at a church in Norther California. I sent him a funny MP3 about doing tech support and he said it reminded him of a situation he was in.

Eric Peterman: One woman called me screaming that the state report wasn’t working. After a series of questions I determined that….
Eric Peterman: All semester long she hadn’t been entering any student records in!
Randy Peterman: Oh NO!
Eric Peterman: Another called to complain that “it wasn’t working.”
Me: Have you started the program?
her: Program…
Me: Yes, the Selpa Manager Program. Have you started it?
her: Started it…
Her: How do I start it?
Me: Uh, you double click on it?
Her: Double-Click on it…
Me: Yes, to start it you click it with the mouse.
Her: Um, mouse?
Me: Yes, on the desktop.
Her: The stapler is on the desktop and my cofee. There is no mouse!
Randy Peterman: This appears to only get worse!
Eric Peterman: Yes!
Eventually I got down to:
Me: Is the computer on?
Her: On?
Randy Peterman: Ha ha ha!
Eric Peterman: Needless to say, she got quickly promoted within the district and we got someone much more competent and at a lower pay.

You have to love real life, you just can’t make this stuff up.

Snow-Brainer

OK. There is about 2 inches – maybe 3 – of snow on the ground. Denver is devastated because people don’t know how to drive on the snow. I’ve got a dental appointment in about a 2 hours and I’m probably going to have to leave one hour from now due to goofy road conditions. So here is a list of appropriate driving approaches when you’re driving in the snow for the few readers who find snow driving difficult to grasp:

  1. Drive slowly. Your reaction time will be useless on slick or icey roads.
  2. Pump your breaks if you start sliding. That is don’t just put your foot on the floor assuming that you will stop sliding due to a greater amount of fear.
  3. Turn into a slide. That is if you turn left and your back end starts sliding out from behind you turn your stearing wheel to the right to straighten out and gain control.
  4. Did I mention slow down?

There. Those aren’t hard, but when you’re in an out of control situation having those reactions is not logical, so try to keep your wits about you and leave early, drive slowly and be respectful of the road condition.

Eye, Eye, Captain!

I am going to the eye doctor soon. This scares me because I think that my eyes are fine. I think that I can see well. But the truth is that I know they will tell me that my vision is not 20/20 or some number telling me that I can see through walls and burn down buildings with the lazers that shoot out of my eyes.

Will glasses make me look sexy like Clark Kent or will they make me look like an old codger? Of course I may not need glasses, but I’m sure not going to wear contacts – I would go blind poking my eyes before they went in easily.

A Fart in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bathroom

If you want to know what kind of lasting impression you have left on the mind of a youth, just wait until they buy you a Christmas present. Yesterday we had a belated Christmas celebration with our friends the Kaes’. Ironically Trystan got me ‘potty putty’ which is this goopy stuff that is in a plastic toilet that when manipluated with your fingers creates farting sounds. So while some people participated in constructing Trystan’s life and making it better I apparently contributed fart humor. Which is fine by me, it could have been a worse contribution, I’m sure 🙂

Thanks Trystan and for sharing your life with us!

Auto-Focus

So today a man at the zoo kindly offered to take a picture of Jessica, Abby and I. Evie was asleep in the stroller so we let her keep sleeping.

My stinking digital camera has a ‘powerful’ auto-focus feature. You’ll notice how powerful it is below.

Auto Focus Snafu

At least the elephant was doing something fun.

Envious About Tree Guts

My budy Trint has a home made rock climbing wall. He has outlined the construction in a rough sort of way and taken lots of pictures. Of course the worst part of this is that I have a garage, too. Maybe I could talk to my dad about the best way to have a rock climbing wall that goes into the rafters in my garage… just kidding, Jessica. I know we don’t have the money now. But I have the desire.

Pardon My Hurlage

I just got a letter from ‘St. Matthew’s Churches.’ That would be a letter requesting I pray on their ‘prayer cloth’ then have someone else pray on the ‘prayer cloth’ and then send the ‘prayer cloth’ back in an envelope (hopefully with some money) with some checkboxes checked for what we need prayer for. I put quotes around ‘prayer cloth’ because its a cheaply printed picture of a very white Jesus with his eyes closed. And, if I have enough faith Jesus will open his eyes and look at me.

Yuck! This scam is rather annoying, here’s an article talking about the organization. Seed faith my rear-end. No amount of money that I might pour into some random ‘churches’ is going to bring money to me. What a blind bunch of morons that are sending in $26,000.00 or more a month to this group of schemers. Check out some of the schlockery in the ‘letter’ they send:

  1. “Read what God is doing here at St. Matthew’s churches.” And by ‘here’ they mean at their attorney’s office where the checks go. Not at their California mansions where the grand schemer lives.
  2. “Dear… Someone connected with this Address,” I swear I’m not making that up. It says someone connected to this address. They don’t even have their software putting names on these things.
  3. “Now, we must talk to you about something we see, in the Holy Spirit, concerning you and your family’s needs.” Oh, boy! They’ve got special revlation – what is it? “God’s holy blessing power is in the enclosed anointed prayer rug we are loaning you to use!!!” Yippee!!! Now they’re loaning out God’s blessing to “Someone connected with this address” so that we can have ”
    “holy blessing power” in our lives. Gee, surely this isn’t a scam.
  4. “You … are about to be blessed through this unusual, Bible Faith, Church, Prayer Rug…” Unusual all right! It is ugly, printed on paper, and can be recycled. I’m hoping that God will bless me for being environmentally sound with my recycling of this prayer rug.

I could keep going but I’m going to stop. I have to draw the line somewhere, and there’s already enough heresy in this one blog post to cause God to smite my site with a database failure [yes, that too is an attempt at humor].

The upside with all of this is that I know I’ve been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies (Ephesians 1:3), I’ve been given discernment against those who would use religion for personal gain (see contentment: 1 Timothy 6:6-8), and I have a good sense of humor that makes this entertaining. Poor folks who fall for this junk.

I’m praying for my superhero costume to go with my unicycle.

A Perfect One-Liner

My friend Robin set up and delivered a perfect one-liner via Instant Messaging. Here it is:

Robin: So, Time Magazine has some Brain Calisthenics and articles about staying focused, etc..
Robin: I skimmed the article, did the first exercise, then got bored.