During my lesson I was teaching in adult Sunday school I said, “I was talking to this lady on the phone. I don’t know she was a lady, I don’t know about her personal choices…” yeah, what I learned was that you shouldn’t say that out loud no matter what you’re thinking IN your head.
Category Archives: Confessions
The Right Tool for the Job
Today on my lunch break I picked up a DeWalt Jigsaw for the wall project. Its one of many saws that I have in my arsenal now. I have found that each new (major) project requires a new tool, and usually that tool is a different saw for a different job. I wish I could explain that, but its just the way project have been so far. I can’t wait for the next project because I’m running out of saws to buy, and a band saw is looking really attractive. <-- that's a joke. If you need to cut long or wide pieces of wood into certain shapes a table saw does wonders. I used mine tonight to help trim some 2x4's down to the right size for one part of the posts on the stairwell wall. The blade can be adjusted up or down, the gate helps hold the wood to the right width, and it can even be used in a semi-router like fashion to cut grooves in the wood (which I did). The table saw was the first saw I bought once we moved into this house. I also have a miter saw. Miter saws are amazing because you can use them to cut very exacting lines and angles. Cutting boards to the perfect length is a cinch with a miter saw. Cutting wooden flooring, long boards, and trim is a breeze. The miter saw is awesome. I picked mine up for my 29th birthday on Amazon.com reconditioned for $175.00. Suggested retail was well over $500.00 I'm proud of that deal, and I'm proud of the fact that I got such a solid saw. Its the perfect tool for some jobs. Along with the miter saw you need a small hand saw called a coping saw for working with trim. A coping saw will help cut out the back of a piece of trim to make sure it butts up to another piece of trim and fits snuggly. The miter saw is massive, powerful, great for precision straight lines, but the coping saw can cut rounded corners, flex to follow contours, and fits in smaller spaces. Its the right tool for the job when you need to manage trim. I also have a hand saw for cutting boards. I don't use it a lot, but I have it. The Christmas tree gets this tool because I don't mind sap getting on the hand saw's blade. Along with the hand saw comes the hack saw. A hack saw can be used for cutting metal. It has a bow shaped body with a thin steel blade that attaches to both ends with very tiny teeth. Its perfect for cutting steel pipes, nails, bolts, and in a jam - wood. I have two hack saws. A full hack saw, and a special saw that is designed to allow the tip of the blade to fit into spots that a full hack saw wouldn't like. Great tools. Another saw I have (but needs to be replaced due to age) is the scroll saw. My mom gave it to me. I'm sure that if it were reconditioned it would work another 10 years easily. Its great for cutting out intricate patterns from thinner sheets of wood. I know it cut out various Christmas ornaments and various other things when it was in its prime. I'm not sure I can use it for the wall project, but I did try to use it to cut Cattan pieces. There are other saws that would be fun to have: I would love to get a reciprocating saw (AKA, saws-all). Amazingly the saw can really cut a lot of things at funky angles with very little loss of control. I borrowed my friend Wayne's for the wall demolition. The jig saw I picked up this afternoon was perfect for the job I need it for. I have tested it out and I love it. Its the right tool for the job. I have found that the right tool for the job is pretty important. I'm learning that to use them right it takes discipline. My friend Dave O'Hara was (and maybe still is) fond of saying, "When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail." I'm beginning to think that in life there's a lot of nailing I've been trying to do when it was time for me to wait for it to be my turn as a hammer and let the other tools do their jobs. I get excited. I want to nail. But a season of waiting is a good season - it lets other tools shine. Other saws may be just right for the job at hand and I'm smashing the materials to death. The right tool for the job may not be me. I want to be used by God - I just need to wait to let Him choose the time, the place, and the tool in my toolbox. Maybe it will be a radial arm saw!
Nine Years Ago
Nine years ago today I gingerly approached the door to Alt-N at about 8:45 AM. I had gotten there early. I was nervous because I knew one person there and I didn’t want to have a very, very awkward first day at a new job. Silly me: I bring awkwardness and awkward humor with me wherever I go 🙂 My boss, Jerry, opened the door and let me into the building. I don’t remember exactly what went down the first day, but it was the first day of an amazing journey that isn’t over yet.
I’m proud to say that I was hired on to help with documentation – I was to work under Mike, the documentation department’s only staff. I think that I would have learned a lot under Mike’s tutelage and hopefully I would have become a master writer, documentation expert and been able to create documentation you’d want to use. Except that only a few weeks in after digging into the RelayFax help file I was tasked with a side project to help manage changes to the new company website. And as that went well I was asked to help work on another project – WorldClient Pro. This was an application that could be installed on a computer that would allow you to access your email, contacts, calendar events and tasks all in one place over the Internet. Of course, it wasn’t documentation. It was actually a very cool evolution of my development skills because my prior HTML and very, very basic JavaScript skills were challenged and I had to learn. But I liked learning.
Every task that was put before me that required learning meant I was studying and sharpening my skills at home. It cut into homework time for seminary. It cut into time for lots of things. But I loved it. I ate it up. It became a driving passion: if the web can be used to show and input data then I want to make that web a better, more powerful place that does things that people have never thought of before. For Alt-N I have learned Perl, Java (Thanks, Tony Nuzzi!), C++ (Thanks, Craig K., Jon, and Matt for hours of help), ASP (VBScript – Thanks, Dave O’Hara for walking through this with me), C# and even a tiny bit of Windows Scripting Host. In the process I also learned PHP and how to use MySQL, SQLite and SQL databases. If I were to list all who helped or became my friends-in-code along the way this would be a crazy, crazy long post. A task unto itself.
I have been challenged, stretched, bruised (and that’s a good thing), frustrated, built up, loved and trusted. I’ve gotten to make friends from all over the world due to our sales channel/partners with the company. I’ve traveled internationally twice. I’ve been supported through two miscarriages and two beautiful daughters. I have stories that I can share, stories I shouldn’t share, and stories that are too long to tell here. I suppose that’s normal, but the events have always come with lessons.
Starting my tenth year with the company is an honor. I hope to see the challenges we face today turned into monuments of success tomorrow, I want to see my friends at the company succeed and push awesome new features into email so that a world that thinks its ordinary can learn that it doesn’t have to be.
I’m not ginger about going to the front door of the office any more (even if it is ~1,000 miles away). Jerry’s face is one that I look forward to seeing instead of being nervous. Mike still does documentation alone since I was called out of his department just shy of 9 years ago. I have a million more things I want to learn. And I’m grateful for the opportunities I have before me. This series of posts which was supposed to be more complete just didn’t fit into my busy schedule, but I’m glad to have that busy schedule, too. Its usually a sign that I’m alive. And working.
Two Years Ago
Two years ago I can barely remember what I was doing. At work I was working on SecurityGateway (if I recall correctly) and we had a deadline to make. Abby was homeschooling for kindergarten and Evie was just cute and toddling… More soon (never put tomorrow)
A Year Ago
A year ago I had just wrapped up a major software release for the biggest client I had (and firmer employer). Abby had just turned 6 and the first grade was coming upon her, but she didn’t know it because Her mom was going to try to call me while I was busy in Las Vegas.
We had to figure out if Abby was going to go to charter school (which we had signed her up for) or stay with home schooling. It was a big decision and one we didn’t take lightly. First grade at Vanguard charter school turned out to go really well for her… More tomorrow.
TMI: Where’s My Filter
Jessica is in surgery right now. Or is probably in surgery. They kicked me out of the pre-op room. My brain is full of inappropriate humor right now. I know that’s an odd response to my wife being in surgery but I find that in emotionally tough situations I’m drawn to humor because as I’ve said before, “If we’re all laughing we’re all OK.”. The problem is that we’re not ok, but we are laughing.
There’s a lot of stuff that is funny in the hospital. People, situations, protocols, policies, consent forms for pretty much any person to talk to you. Consent to address your spouse (I was right there!) in case of emergency. Consent.
I have read of people having sharpie markers writing, “this leg!” on the appropriate leg for surgeries. Given the internal nature of Jessica’s surgery I’m glad no sharpie markers were present. Unless of course they should have written, “neither leg,” on her. Since her doctor doesn’t do leg surgeries I’m feeling pretty confident about the scheduled surgery not leaving her a double amputee.
There are a few good things about this surgery: I’ve gotten to spend some quiet time with my wife, I’ve made her smile, and when this is all said and done we’ll be able to move on past the miscarriage. The prayers and encouragement from folks has been a tremendous blessing. We could open a lemonade stand with the sweetness that has come along with the tough time. Yes, that’s a lame joke, but I mean the sentiment behind it 🙂
Thanks, everyone for being so supportive, you rock the casbah!
Sad News, Good News
I wanted to post here something that I never, ever would want to post. Last Tuesday (when internet connectivity was only on my iPhone and my emotions were too intense) Jessica and I drove to the hospital in Ukiah, California and after the morning and part of the afternoon in the ER learned that Jessica had had a miscarriage. This is not the sort of thing you expect. This is nearly the worst case scenario. We cried a lot there in the hospital. I wrote notes on my iPhone about how I was feeling, but I won’t post them as they’re far too intense for me to publish without feeling like its too much. They’re also feelings that I don’t have any more because we’re OK. We’re trusting the Lord that He’s used this to get our attention. Prior to the unexpected fourth pregnancy (our first pregnancy was also a miscarriage), we we had planned on no more pregnancies. Except that now our hearts are set on having a third child that we can hold, love and prepare for a life of intensity.
My brother, sister, and I were all born in Ukiah, CA. It was strange and backwards to go to the same small town and discover that this expected Peterman life would not be seeing Ukiah. After the doctor’s gentle disclosure of the diagnosis, “Fetal Demise”, we went to eat (having missed breakfast and our normal lunch) at a place where I recall eating with glee as a boy, the Mutt Hut. Something about the place, and the honestly tasty hot dogs, brought a sense of comfort that sounds stupid as I write this. I was with my wife, who I loved, looking forward to my two healthy girls, whom we both love dearly, and eating food (which we really needed). Ukiah has a movie theater there that I remember as a child. I went there once as a teenager, too. Ukiah now has another memory in my heart and mind now: the place where Jessica and I decided we will try for a third child – a place that has some endings, but also an important beginning. The beginning for the plan for three Peterman kids for Randy and Jessica.
We’re doing OK. We’re doing well. We’re doing this on purpose. And we’re looking forward to seeing this little child we didn’t get to meet on this earth in heaven.
Tracking… Tracking… Broken… Fixed!
My trackball, which I’ve been using instead of a mouse for several years now thanks to a push from my friend Dave O’Hara and my chiropractor bill started to go on the fritz this week. It wouldn’t click correctly and sometimes would register a double click (a few times causing me frustration). I ordered one to come from Amazon to replace this broken device. This afternoon it seemed toast. It wouldn’t click, it would just make clicking sounds but fail to actually send the correct signal.
In desperation as the replacement hadn’t arrived I cracked it open and blew it out with a compressed air can. After replacing the batteries this thing is humming along and working like new. Except I still have a new one on order. Anyone looking for a trackball? 🙂
You Are Not Reading This Here
[as per my wife’s instructions this is not an announcement]
I am so excited I can’t tell you how excited I am. But I CAN tell you that we’re having another baby (gender unknown) and its pretty darn awesome. Just have to let you know.
Names that will cheese off people who think we should name the baby other names, or who think it should be kept a secret:
Girl: Charlotte Rose Peterman – nickname: Charlie, though Unkle Kurt has said he’ll call her Lotty.
Boy: Eric Matthew Peterman – nickname: Eric, though Unkle Kurt has said he’ll call him Eric.
We’re excited and hope you’ll celebrate with us!
King Corn: A Movie You Should Watch
Uncle Ben, in the first of the 2000’s Spiderman franchise, tells a young Peter Parker, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Watching King Corn (website) tonight over Netflix’s instant watching service was sobering. It isn’t the most entertaining movie you will ever watch. Comparing it to Spiderman might be cruel because one is for fantasy and fun and the other is for education and presenting reality in a film format. Despite my stating that it isn’t ‘fun’ to watch, you should watch it because the contents of the film are disturbing.
If you think that government spending is out of hand: watch this film.
If you think that Americans are nutritionally screwed up and need to eat better: watch this film.
If you think that you’ve got everything together and your life is all roses: watch this film.
I am allergic to corn grain and corn syrup, though corn oil does seem to be OK in moderation, and so for me corn is just not a great item to eat. After watching how corn syrup is made, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to eat corn syrup even if I were able to eat it. I’m convicted, once again, that I should be careful what I put into this body, but don’t take my word for it. Watch this film, read Michael Pollard’s book “In Defense of Food” – and see where you land. I bet it isn’t in a field of corn, or in line at McDonalds.