Author Archives: Randy Peterman

The Masons

Posted on by

One of the families that has had the most impact on my adult life deserves a Thursday post. Thursday, over on Dwimble.com, is “Thankful Thursday” – and it has been so for quite some time. Our whole family is thankful for their whole family – every day of the week.

Louanne and Jessica became fast friends when we met at the seminary church. Her husband Mike was the one who introduced me to Alt-N, my employer for over 12 years now – it’s good to be friends and co-workers.  Their friendship is precious and has blessed many, but their generosity and labors towards spreading the gospel, loving others and reaching out to the world in kindness have blessed so, so many more.

If you don’t subscribe to their blog you should, it’s a regular light in my day. Also: foodies!

Sean Franzen

Posted on by

I’m not in contact with Sean as much as I’d like to be.  This is my fault.  I’m going to fix that – but not as a new years resolution.  Sean was my best friend growing up and his family is super special to me.  They’re the kind of family that you make ‘security’ questions about on websites to confirm who you are because you instantly remember details like phone number and address [all which have changed] because you nearly lived there [disclosure: I have none with their information, so this is not useful to hackers].

Sean and I met at a community play when we were in the 4th grade.  I had somewhat recently moved to Carson City, NV as my dad had taken on a job in the area.  We were in a one week production of Jack and the Beanstalk.  And by one week I mean we were cast on one Friday and did our first public production the following Friday.  We were in the play’s circus together (I believe as clowns) and each only had one line.  We were already doing one-liners together in the 4th grade. [I know you didn’t even laugh at that, but I am writing it anyways]

Sean had [and still has, but I’m writing about my childhood here] a great knack for creative things like art, music, writing, photography and even children names.  He had a running list of weird, creative and interesting names for children.  The one I remember to this day is Jervrarvry.  It sounds just like you’re thinking, I promise.  Sean (primarily) and I came up with a code alphabet to use in Math class.  We would pass notes in an alphabet so obscure and awkward to write that note passing was a very tedious process.  We were good at tedious.

Sean and I would listen to music from his parent’s amazingly broad music collection.  He’d jump up and play a cut from a jazz record – say Stan Getz – and then we’d switch to a CD of funk-punk [Primus is Funk-Punk, right?] followed by Garth Brooks.  That would of course need to be followed by the Hallelujah Chorus to help cause mental chaos.  And emotional chaos.  Music does that.  It’s like emotions thrown into a blender when you switch genres that disjointedly.

Sean got a scholarship to go to the Hallmark School of Photography because they realized how brilliant he was (and still is).  You’ve seen his work in photography and photoshop whether you realize it or not.  He’s worked on high-profile projects that were sent internationally for advertising campaigns.  He’s just that good.

I’m thankful for the years of laughter we had together, the weeks of fear we had together doing things like staying alone at our homes while our parents were out of town and camping together in the wilderness.  The hours of tears [some of which I caused].  I’m thankful for listening to “Love Shack” by the B-52’s over and over and over and over again with his parents and John Franklin, one of our friends, on the way to a ghost town in California for his birthday one year.

I’m thankful that while we’re not as close as we used to be that we can jump onto each other’s radar with the Internet and catch up on life, liberty, jazz and the pursuit of rappiness.  I love you, man!

Thankful Thirteen

Posted on by

This is the first of many posts I plan on posting this year for 2013.  I’m going to try to make a few rules about this so that I can try to setup safe, but useful constraints to what I post.  I’m sharing them here so you can lower your standards 😉

  1. Doesn’t have to be every day
  2. Don’t just be thankful for a person – be specific
  3. “Funny be – there is no try” – Master Yoda

I’m going to start in an interesting place: I’m thankful for Tony Nuzzi.  He’s my friend, he’s a brother-in-Christ, and he’s got a great sense of humor.  The stuff that he has been through has not defined who he is, he’s grown from it.  He has dyslexia and he pushed through that to become one of the more accomplished writers I know.  You won’t read most of his writing, though, because he’s a coder and has written numerous patents. Those aren’t “sit down and read” material, sorry 🙂

Tony and I met because his dear wife (whom I will be thankful for on another day to be fair) and I worked together at the Manger Christian bookstore in Carson City, NV.  Tony came by on his lunch break and immediately I wasn’t sure what to think of this guy.  I hoped he was good enough for my friend Erin.  As it turns out I’ve learned quite a few things from him about being a dad and husband and I think he’s perfect for her 😀  He still married up.

Tony has not been afraid to lovingly confront me in my shortcomings and he’s also not been afraid to run out of a grocery store next to me laughing hysterically because one or two of us may or may not have farted and left a smell so rank in the magazine aisle that our wives were embarrassed enough for all four of us.

I’m thankful for the friendship that has endured for almost a decade and a half. I’m thankful for the laughter, some tears, some guitar time, computer time, Bible time, and of course taking our families to Disney World two years ago.  He’s one of my best friends and I hope you get to meet him some day if you have not met him (yet).  Ask him about a Rolls-K’nardly.

Time as a Value Indicator

Posted on by

My friend Dave talked with me about something that I’d like to blog about.  Something I’ve been wrestling with – but not because it’s bad, but because it is so revealing.  He asked me to list of my priorities, which I did, and then he asked me to tell him how much time I spent on each one of those priorities.  He said, “If your relationship with God [in my case] is your first priority, how much time are you spending on that relationship?” Humbly I confess to you: not enough.  There’s a really big difference between my priority list and my time management.  I need to do some shifting.

As my girls get older I’m trying to spend more personal time with them.  It’s hard with all of the demands on my life, but I want that time to reflect their value and their priority.  Because I work from home Jessica sees me a lot more than many wives may see their husbands.  I get to go on lunch dates with her.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays we often drive the girls to school together and then drive home just the two of us.  I think Jessica knows I’ve got her as a priority and that she’s invaluable to me.

If you think of me, pray for me, I’ve got a lot I’m juggling, but I want to make sure there’s time for the things that matter – I want my friends and family to know they’re valuable to me.

So: what are your priorities?  Do your activities reflect that?  Do your activities reflect value to the outside observer or the recipient of the time?

Dear Friends and Family: Stay Away from Windows 8

Posted on by

I don’t normally post a lot of tech advice here.  People ask me for it sometimes, and I give it because they ask.  I’m stepping outside of that pattern to say that you should avoid Windows 8.  It is to user interfaces what being kicked in the face is to life experiences.  In case you didn’t major in analogy in school I’ll put it like this: using windows 8 will be painful, unfamiliar, and they have moved all of your cheeses.

Windows 7 was awesome. I upgraded to it the day it was released on all 4 of my family’s computers.  It was that good.  Windows 8 is a major let down with lots of potential confusion.  Windows 8.5 may be better. They may release Windows 8.1 (remembers Windows 3.1?) that fixes some of the major issues Windows 8 has.  But for now, stay away from it.

Reasons for this, you ask? 1) The move to a semi-tablet focused interface means that a lot of things you know about Windows are gone by default.  There is no small, easy to navigate start menu.  2) The start button is gone if you switch to desktop mode.  If you press the Windows key on your keyboard you’ll be faced with the tablet application picker (AKA: Windows Metro).  3) They’re copying Apple and creating a Windows store just like iTunes and the App Store.  This will mean that over time Microsoft will limit what developers can publish and will censor material based on their corporate needs and drive.  This is unacceptable.

If you make change for change’s sake, you’re just annoying users who have become accustomed to a pattern.  If you benefit the user with these changes, then there’s a trade off that hopefully most people will see the value in.  This is not that positive change, this is just making change to pretend you’re innovating to ‘lead the market’.  Bad move, Microsoft, bad move.

<done ranting, sorry>

35 and 14

Posted on by

So I turned 35 last week.  This week Jessica and I will be having our 14th wedding anniversary.  I don’t feel a day older than 21 (most days) and yet it feels like I have always been married to Jessica.  When I turned 21 it was 8 days before I got married and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It’s been the best kind of trouble, the best kind of fun, and the best kind of love.

I can’t wait to see what 46 and 25 looks like, not to mention 71 and 50.

I love you, Jessica!

I Love Helping People Move

Posted on by

Today I helped some friends from church move.  Why did I want to do that?  Because I sure love people.  I love the time of grunt work because the fellowship, the labor, the sweat and the accomplishment all bring us closer together.  They create history.  They create a bond.  And that’s awesome.  I know that’s weird, but I love helping people move.

Thanks for inviting me, friends!

Nonsense and Stuff

Posted on by

Some friends are moving to Cal-e-fornia from Tejas.  I don’t know why, but apparently they want to move from where it is hot and humid to where it is hotter and humidor. That being said, I wrote a very quick ditty to celebrate this wonderful opportunity.  You may listen to it below:

I’m Moving to CA

Disclosure: I was born in California, this song is, like almost all of my work, tongue-in-cheek.

Some Photos from 2012

Posted on by

In no particular order: Photos from 2012 of our family and people in our family.  No names are given to protect relatives I didn’t get permission from 😉  More to come…

A Vote For Third Party

Posted on by

Creative Commons: source

I’ve heard from some folks lately that voting third party is a lost vote or a vote for ‘the other guy’.  Let’s think about how that plays out.  If I talk to a democrat and I say I’m voting third party they say, “That’s a vote for Romney.”  If I talk to a republican and I say I’m voting third party they say, “That’s a vote for Obama.”  So really I’m voting for both candidates when I cast a third party vote based on this logic.  I’m kind of OK with that since a ‘split my vote between these two people’ option doesn’t exist on the ballot.

Or, there’s the other position: a vote for a person that represents (most closely) your views is a vote for that position, even if it carries little to no electoral weight.  In other words the larger two major parties will see over time that their platform does not represent the third party position and may come around, over time, to represent other ideals.

Vote third party this next election – or at least split your vote between the lesser of two weevils.