Category Archives: News

Things, Goings On, and Stuff I write

We’re Home

Even though we had a good time in IN, we’re back home.
Tomorrow I’ve got to get back to Alt-N where I’ll bust my bum finishing up
WorldClient’s LookOut theme, and then polish off some of the other tasks
I’ve got left to do before the release of MDaemon 7.0.
Jessica and I will have some separation anxiety as I’m going to have to work
a lot of hours between now and February 10th, the tentative release of MD
7.

We’re feeling physically tired and drained of energy.
Last night Abby didn’t sleep well and the flight was not much better for her.
She was supposed to take a nap during the flight, but instead slept for about
25 minutes and then woke up to be semi-difficult for the rest of the 2:05
flight (2 hours and 5 minutes long that is).
Jessica was gracious and gentle with her as always, I get so frustrated and
just want her to stop while Jessica tries to divert her energies elsewhere.
Jessica’s method works better than mine.

I’ve got to go help unpack the bags and then we’re going to take a nap
(yahoo)!
After the nap we’ve got some errands to run… but then we’ll be home with
some time to watch the Red Dwarf DVDs.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Sleepy Head” Peterman

Return of the King

We saw Return of the King yesterday… Wow.
Not ‘Wow’ in the sense of my socks were removed by the forceful impact of the
movie, but wow in the sense that it was a great movie with some really
powerful content, cinematics and effects.
Unfortunately I missed about 4 minutes of it because I had to go to the
bathroom twice: 3 hours and 20 minutes and a 32 ounce softdrink will do
that to you.
I think that almost all of the movie was good except a few candy cane lines
(sweet lines that were too ‘Barney’-ish) and a few places where the blue
screen effects usage were too obvious.
However, the battle scenes were amazing!

I watched as before my eyes what looked like thousands and thousands of
troops marched up against thousands more troops.
Giant elephants, dragons and orc after orc marched across the big screen: all
real-life looking.
And the score for the movie was incredible.
I listened to the score as lines were being said and at times the emotion of
the line was underscored 100X by the chord shift in the background, and if
the average movie-goer didn’t know that they were being impacted by the
score I wouldn’t be surprised.
The editing and score were so masterfully intertwined that I think that its
one of the best editing and composition jobs I’ve seen – ever.
If you haven’t seen the movie, I heartily recommend you do before you miss out
on the amazing views that could be missed by watching it on the small
screen.

Risk Chump

Kelsey won again last night so I think I’m officially runner-up while Kelsey
wear’s the Risk Champ title.
However, I’m going to try to hold on so that when we get together again I’ll
take the title back.
John has spanked us in Chinese Checkers and Aggravation though.
Kristen kicks all our bum’s as ‘supporting player of the year,’ she may not
win, but she’s been there the whole time 😉
Jessica of course endures all of the taunting, jabbing and verbal assaults
that fly over the Risk battle fields and sometimes wields a deadly blow,
she’s a graceful warrior.
Karen knows that Risk is not her game, and just plays Aggravation with us, which is good.
Knowing is half the battle.

Tomorrow we leave to go home so today we’re going to try to max out all of our time and get in all of the family time we can muster.
Therefore, I’m going now.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Saber Rattler” Peterman

Risk Champ

After playing Risk 4 time Kelsey has won twice and I’ve won twice.
We’ll need to determine who is the champ of the week before Sunday afternoon when we leave.
I’m thinking that we’ll get at least one more game in.
Hopefully we’ll get two in.

Yesterday was heavier on the gifts than I’m used to and I got a lot more gifts than I expected.
I think that I’m most excited about the [if you got me a gift, put it here](You’re supposed to laugh).
I enjoyed playing with the LOTR: Return of the King video game.
I also am keen on watching Abby play with some of her toys, particularly the ones that are not making noise right now.

I need to go round up the group of kids that are hear and thwack them on the head to get them into shape (That’s a joke, you’re supposed to laugh).
They’re running around like a group of wild orcs.

Resting in Him,

Randy Peterman

Christmas Eve(ning)

It is Christmas Eve evening, and let me just say that 1) I’m stuffed and 2) Abby is getting a whole pile of presents tomorrow morning.
I think that if Santa were to eat at the Cheesecake Factory before going out to deliver presents that he’d never made it.
We went there for dinner and, even though the service was a little lesser than normal, we left stuffed.
We had great food, and as usual, a great heap of desserts that were tasty.

John and Karen have purchased enough presents for Abby that I think that some small countries could survive on the taxes they’ve paid by themselves.
Santa will be eating a whole lotta cookies.

Jesus will not wonder why he’s not invited to millions of homes in the world.
Being a dad this year (now that Abby’s older) really hits me harder about the Santa thing.
I don’t like the idea of telling Abby that Santa is real, only to later be telling her myself, or have others tell her that I’m a liar.
That being said, I want Abby to know the real reason for Christmas.
It’s not presents, family, mushy feelings, commercialism, German traditions, or tradition – it’s Jesus.
I hope that when we’re all done with presents tomorrow that I’ll be able to read the Christ child’s story.
Even if its not to the whole family, I want to read the story, to focus on the Word of God – to focus on the beautiful baby who would later be the savior in death and resurrection.

May you have a Merry, Christ centered, Christmas!

Randy “Party Pooper” Peterman

Christmas-Eve-Eve

Today we went to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum, what a great children’s museum.
It’s very large and was changed from the last time we visited it.
Abby had a great time and was immediately excited about the large (6 foot) snow flakes hanging in the entry.
The children’s museum had 5 floors, each with various themes and exhibits.
One exhibit, that we took pictures at, was an Indy car.

We started at the top, floor 5, and made our way down slowly, but surely, to the second floor, and never made it to the first floor (it should be noted that the entry way was on the 2nd floor).
We went to a kiddy area that was geared towards 4 and under kids.
Abby was just overwhelmed with all of the options, but got to play with a fun water
exhibit that allowed her to splash, play with a rubber duck, and get wet.
Then she played in the sand with Jessica, Kelsey and Kristin (think wet hands in sand at first).
After that we went to a little sensory maze where Abby could walk over a small wooden suspension bridge, climb on large stuffed animals, crawl through a tube, and climb on a large stuffed bumpy thing that I can’t describe easily.
After the sensory (overload) exhibit Abby played in a play house, which was lots of fun for her as well.

We saw an exhibit on puppets, which included some video footage from Sesame Street and The Muppet Show.
Abby liked the puppets, but was more entertained by the pencils and paper at one of the puppet
exhibits (for writing scripts for your own puppet show).
I was impressed by the wide array of puppets that they had.
I didn’t even think about some of the examples of puppets they had that I had seen.

Another interesting display is an area geared more towards 5-11 year olds which includes a Rube Goldberg contraption that is fabulous.
They also had a turtle/frog display that was really large and then on top of that they had some stuffed (taxidermy) animals.
Abby learned that owls say hoo-hoo, which was cute.
I crawled through some tubes and tunnels with her so that we could go down a slide in that area, but it was hard because I’m so big and not so nimble any more.
It reminds me I need to get in better shape.

Eventually we made our way down to a really neat exhibit on building and construction.
One of the displays talked about building skyscrapers: 2,000 people died falling off of sky scrapers between 1900 and 1920 (10 a month or one every other day and a half).
They also had large examples of joints in wood working, which was neat.
There was a large yurt built in the exhibit that was just cool to look at.
There was no metal in the yurt, it was held together with a lot of animal and wood products.

After the museum we came back home and John and Jessica made dinner – Pork Chops.
After a tasty dinner we played some games: Risk, Pictionary and Aggravation.
I actually won a Risk game, but it was not a great victory, everyone else was finally so week that I could sweep in, but it was not as impressive as a sudden
clincher.
Pictionary started out fun but bogged down because we kept rolling low numbers so moving through the board took a long time.
We finally just quit playing and switched to Aggravation.
Aggravation was fun Karen and I won, but it took a long time because we kept getting sent back to our bases.

Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve and there’s rumors of more cookies being made.
Currently there are six different kinds of candy, two types of cookies and some fudge.
If we don’t leave heavier than we came it is only because the Lord granted us self control.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Game Time” Peterman

New Words in a New Morning

This morning Abigail woke up and was making various noises so we got up and brought her to bed with us.
I said, “Can you say, ‘Good Morning?'”
She said, “Morning.”
I said back, “Can you say, ‘I’m Awake.'”
She said, “Wake.”

What a treat!
This little girl is so much fun.
She gets excited about the dogs and really likes it when they bark.
However, she really likes the cat which she calls ‘kittycat’, and sometimes ‘duck.’
I don’t know if she calls it that because she forgets, or if she just likes ducks, too.

Anyway, we love having fun with our little girl, and we’re having a great time in IN.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Abby’s Dad” Peterman

Vacationing on Sunday

Today was a pretty relaxed day, I was so tired from lack of sleep
(Abby didn’t sleep well last night, again).
I went back to bed around 10 and took about an hours nap.
Afterwards I tried to help John set up his new office desk, except that Bush Manufacturing put holes (pre-drilled) that were way out of
alignment.
Later Jessica went with John and ‘the girls’ (Kelsey and Kristin) to see
The Nutcracker.

While they were there Abby said ‘night-night’ for the first time.
Karen said it to her and she replied it back… it was sweet.
Abby’s had multiple firsts at each of the grandparents’ houses and its been neat.
It’s cool being a dad.
Karen and I had a good talk while Abby was down.
One thing is for sure (and Karen will tell you this when you meet her) – she
doesn’t hold anything back.
Her honesty about what she’s thinking is always good, she tells me when I’m being
too technical, or theological, or any of the other things I get too
detailed on.
It keeps me grounded.

Tonight the plan is to play several games.
Games are often the centerpiece of our evenings here, which is great, because I
really enjoy games.
I hope that having practice with Empire Earth will help me win at Risk (Mission Risk).
When I married Jessica I had no clear idea of how to play Risk, John has
indoctrinated me 🙂

Resting in Him,

Randy Peterman

We Made It!

We have officially arrived in IN.
Abby is having quite a time being treated to the attention, and is pretty upset that she can’t open all of the presents yet.
Since I’m here I may not be able to update the blog too often, but as I have time I’ll do my best.

John and Karen have redone much of their downstairs area and have re-arranged things. It looks real nice.
OK, I better not be too distracted by the computer or I’ll get in trouble 🙂

Resting in Him,

Randy “Voyager” Peterman

Empire Earth

Last night
Tony
Nuzzi
and I played Empire Earth together for some time.
We experienced a few technical difficulties, but over all had a fun
experience.
However, we didn’t get to finish because we had to go to bed.
We’re getting ready to go to Indiana tomorrow, and we’re looking forward to
the fun we’ll have there.
The snow that I think is there should be fun for Abby, but only if she’s
feeling better, she’s been running about with a slight cough.

Tonight I’m going to try to get some more pictures of Abby up, and maybe
even some footage of Abby opening presents.
She’s become quite the accomplished actress, a drama queen, by most accounts.
The best part is her overly exaggerated “Hi’s and Bye’s.”
The worst part is the dropping to the floor when she doesn’t get what she
wants.

Well, I must go to work and then to my chiropractor’s appointment.
Have a blessed day and a blessed Holiday season.
May the peace of Christ dwell in you richly today and every day!
One last thing: I should be able to put up articles remotely, but I won’t be
able to put pictures up until after we get back home.

Resting in Him,

Randy “Pixelator” Peterman