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Category Archives: News
Good-Bye, Herb
This last weekend (the weekend before Thanksgiving) my bride’s step-grandfather passed away. While I could share a few funny stories about Herb, I’ll share two: the silliest and most valuable interchanges I had with Herb.
Story 1:
Jessica and I often visited Indiana for holidays and important events like Jessica’s sister’s graduations. One such event brought me face to face with Herb, who loved computers and electronic communication, where he insisted on showing me this new search engine. I was not interested because I believe at that point in time I was using Alta Vista or Yahoo! or some such thing. Herb insisted that I check out this new engine Google. He loaded up what was probably IE4 or 5.5 and typed in Google.com. Up popped this primary colored logo with the simplest of layouts: a search field, and a button to search. Good golly this thing was stupid looking and didn’t give me a homepage with news and other garbage. I was pretty sure that this Google site was going to be gone before too long. I was wrong, Herb was right 🙂
Story 2:
Herb was an outspoken Democrat from Southern Illinois. He and his wife, Jessica’s grandmother, Babe, were very active at the time in the Democratic party in their hometown and the Southern Illinois region. I was registered independent in Texas and have generally found myself what would be labeled conservative. I am, however, not a Republican (or a tea partier). I found myself somewhat frustrated on one such trip to Indiana where we met and Herb and I had a really good talk. What we talked about was how parties got rather involved in sides, party lines, and ‘winning’ rather than taking care of people and the problems that the people were facing. We concluded together that it didn’t matter much which party was on your voter registration, but instead more importantly that the people be enabled to exercise their rights, the problems be resolved in a fruitful way, and that the political system not get bogged down in fighting of various sorts. It was the first time (out of multiple discussions with various folks) I had had such a great discussion with someone who on the surface didn’t see eye-to-eye with me politically. It was encouraging.
We’ll miss Herb at family gatherings. And I won’t forget one of the most important things he ever said to me, “Take care of Jessica, she’s a good girl.” I’ll be taking care of Jessica, and not just because he told me to. Good-bye, Herb.
Abby and Evie in Colorado Springs
Abby and Evie in Colorado Springs
Originally uploaded by RandyPeterman.
We went to Colorado Springs today for a pre-Father’s Day family time. The girls were cute at the zoo there.
2000
WordPress is telling me this is my 2000th post. Not a lot of content here, but just for grins:
1) The surprise non-geek post: Ligers
2) I’ve been blogging (mostly at this site, but when I started on a site that no longer exists) for over 10 years
3) Doing the math on that, I’m not a very consistent blogger
4) Before switching to WordPress I wrote my own blogging platform
5) Most people really want pictures of my daughters on this site, but I’m a bit short on photographs
6) After all this time I think my Sister-in-Law, Shari, still thinks I’m a dork
7) I have probably gotten the most comments on this blog from my mom, who used to regularly correct my spelling and grammar
8) This list isn’t very interesting
9) The blog I used to link to, but that is defunct, but that I miss the most is “Apropos of Nothing”
10) Before Facebook and Twitter I used to spend a LOT more time on this site
All Smiles
Indianapolis Museum of Art
Today we went to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. I’d show you pictures, but for some reason they don’t allow them there. It is as though I would take them and pass the artwork off as my own. That being said, you should go there if you find yourself in Indianapolis. It is free entry, and it is right next to a beautiful garden that you can also tour (which is worth seeing, free). I’m not what you would call an art ‘fan’, but I also figure that art is important to explore and learn about (in the context of non-naked art). We had a great time looking at various bits, but at present there were two installations that I really thought were interesting.
The first exhibit we looked at that I enjoyed a lot was a fashion exhibit. While I’m a t-shirt and jeans guy the exhibit showed styles and dresses from the last 100 years and what blew me away was that many of them could have been worn by people today. It made me think that maybe the newness of those things we see on reality TV is really just recycling and re-hashing. I also enjoyed that one designer took a man’s suite, tore it apart and turned it into a woman’s dress and in so doing made a creative expression, but also mocked the designers of the time (or so said my wife, who knows about these things and is a regular commentator on all things fashion). There was also an interesting display that showed dress patterns over several hundred years, but all of the patterns were done in the same white material so you could observe the gradual changes in the patterns and not be distracted by the materials and prints/weaves that they would have had. My engineer/nerd self was quite pleased with this display.
Secondly they had the most awesome marble-on-a-track fixture. It was large and went through no less than 4 rooms. It took about 5 minutes to complete (possibly longer) and the girls and I ran after the marble. Except that the marble was a volleyball sized plastic ball and the track was huge. If you miss the Indy 500 (and I would), this is another race to see, and the crashes never happen so you don’t have to worry about the plastic marbles dying.
One other thing I thought was cool was a 360/mobeus strip sort of model sailing ship. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it was a perfect example of the sort of thing that was at once creative and abnormal as well as very detailed and precise.
If you find yourself in Indy, go there, you won’t be sad you did.
Too Much Information: News for 2010-4-14
In an effort to stay on top of news, I present to you: Too Much Information! A snarky look at how our news is not useful.
4 shot dead in Chicago home – because the fact they were shot is not enough, we need to know it was inside. A home. In Chicago. I wonder if they were shot alive in the woods in Benton, IL instead of Chicago if it would have been picked up [ED: I’m not trying to be callous about murder, I’m just weirded out by the odd specifics of the headline].
Russia pledges $50 mln to replenish Kyrgyz coffers – That’s health care generosity. I had no idea that the civil unrest in Kyrgyz was due to coffing. I thought that they were ticked at their president, but it turns out that they had a respiratory disorder. I feel better now knowing that Russia is on top of the coffee people of Kyrgyz.
Palin urges less government, lower taxes at Boston Common Tea Party rally – If I was charging as much as she is for ‘appearances’ and ‘speaking’ I would want to have lower taxes so as to keep more of that money. Also: does she like her tea strong like the British? Would that be ironic? British. Tea. Taxes. It feels historical somehow.
Google Adds Real-Time Twitter Archive Search – when I tweet I consider it 140 characters or less of throw-away rubbish. Now you can search for my rubbish and the rubbish of millions in real time. That’s like being on the receiving end of a garbage disposal. Yummy!
testing from my BlackBerry
I am writing this from the brand new WordPress app for the BlackBerry. It works pretty similarly to the iPhone app. Not that I’ll blog more often 🙂
the glass is half full
And So It Begins
Jessica is in the other room doing school with Evie. The 4 year old is now becoming an educated little girl. May the learning never end, little girl, may you find yourself always in wonder of the new things to know in life.
Kicker – 1995-2010
Kicker
Originally uploaded by RandyPeterman.
Last night my in-law’s dog Kicker died on the way home from the vet. As much as my sour attitude lent itself to the name Kicker, he was a great dog and it will be weird to go to their place and not have him running around and barking at pretty much anything that moved outside.
One of my all time favorite memories with Kicker was when I used to tickle Jessica when we were dating and her laughter would lead him to bark at me and try to jump up to get me to stop. He was a loving dog and he was much loved. We will miss him.