Category Archives: Opinion

1 Cup of Flour

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Nothing has been more amazing for me to watch than my childrens development.  Abby is learning how to read and that is quite awesome.  I was just upstairs getting a bit more coffee and watched Abby read the ‘1 cup of flour’ line as she is helping Jessica make some sort of baked good.  Abby doesn’t like to read in front of me for some reason.  She’s a very strong willed little girl and I think I need to read to her more so that she can understand that I don’t expect her to read to me all of the time 🙂

But I love to see my little girl grow and mature into what will probably be the most frightening thing: a woman.  Not frightening in a bad way, but scary for me because I will have to let go.  The name Randy means ‘house wolf’ or ‘protector’ and I know that my tendency is to want to protect my family, but I need for them to learn how to be critical thinkers, socially adjusted, and most of all baby-makers.  Because if these girls don’t reproduce how will I take over the world through vicariously living through my grandchildren [that’s a joke]?

I have been saying to Abby, and will be saying to Evie, that we want her to grow up to be a godly wife, just like her mom.  It lets her know what we expect for her to be aiming for, but it also lets her know what that looks like.  That will look like a human woman who is not perfect, who admits her faults, but clings to God, co-leading her family as best as she know how.  Lovingly.  And if Abby is as smart as I think she is (she’s probably smarter), we’ve got a whole lot of fun, baking, growing, stretching, screaming, laughing, scraping, explaining, learning and running to do.

And I can’t wait!

Critical Thinking

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I just read a blog post about how machine guns that fire through propellers on air planes were created.  One of the first commenters didn’t understand the value of the post [so I left a comment explaining one particular application for him].  One of the things that gets me over and over is that as a human being I am challenged to always cull through the massive amount of information, experience, and emotionally charged things in life and think about what they’re there for.  If someone is always expecting a pre-processed bit of useful wisdom, a report culled from data, or an instruction book in life: they’re not going to get farther than that.  Instead, as a responsible, brain-gifted humans people should be pushing for a consistent method for interpreting life through.

Critical thinking is a great part of what that means.   Being able to grasp language, comprehend stories (and their morals), understanding humor, and grasping the depth of emotion that a story holds are critical to thinking.  I don’t fault the commenter for their not understanding what was posted on that blog, but it did cause me to think a lot about how important critical thinking is to me.  I hope that you are able to take that away from this blog.  Sometimes I’m critical, sometimes my posts are just fluff, and other times I have written very intense, highly opinionated pieces.  But in the end this blog exists, in part, to encourage folks to think.  If you don’t think, someone else will do it for you*.
* And if you don’t understand the problems that can lead to, there’s probably not much hope for you 😉

I Pledge…

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The latest Best Buy commercial starts with all sorts of pledging.  Not pledging with value, but instead pledging of garbage, drivel, and stupidity.  Pledging to help you get into debt on a new TV system.  Pledging to show off their stuff to friends (in greedy, selfish boasting).  And of course pledging to help you.  Right.  Best Buy employees are about the least helpful employees.  I have asked for help there several times and not gotten it.  Instead they only work in departments that give them kickbacks.

I pledge to not shop there.

Randy Peterman the Sit-Com

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You probably have heard the age old adage, “God made man in His image.  Man returned the favor.”  That would be a quote from Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain.  It has nothing to do with this post.

I love it when folks say, “You’re funny,” to me because it makes me feel like they find me funny.  But its all a lie.  I’m not funny.  If you walk up to me and say, “Randy, give me all of your money.” you are more likely to get money than if you were to walk up to me and say, “Be funny” and get a joke.  I think you’d have a much higher chance of walking up to George Bush and getting the correct spelling for ‘strategery’ than you would me whipping out a funny quip.  But I do try.

What really gets me going is a funny scenario where my mind can just go off into the never-never land of imagination and put people in very, very strange situations that could never happen.  For example putting me in a fast food employee scenario.  That would be weird because I could riff on the concepts given me.  The problem with that scenario is that its been done too many times.  However, what if a person worked fast food and truly excelled at there job?  What then?  Imagine the annoyed customers when an employee actually gave a rip!  I would be really ticked off if an employee actually asked me if I liked my food while I’m trying to reconstruct the elements that could potentially make up a hamburger.

And that, in short, is why there is not a Sit-Com based on the comedy material of Randy Peterman.  Because there really isn’t comedy material… its just a bunch of pops and clicks that happen to coincide with very strange thoughts that come out as a tumultuous blech of weirdness.  And there’s already a show called Southpark that does that.

399 Good Reasons to Ditch Microsoft Windows Vista

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As CNET reports, Microsoft has announced their new Windows Vista operating system prices.  The version of the OS that I would need to do everything I need within my home would cost me $399.00.  Or I could install Linux for free, or ditch the Windows OS completely and get some more Apples (a mini would do just fine).  Why does Microsoft want to overly segment their market?  Do they feel that since they have much of the business world over a barrel that they should just gouge the home users who happen to prefer some slightly more advanced features that are now in their premium packages only?  Or is this an opportunity for consumers to discover other operating systems that get the job done for less?

Customer S… This mailbox is full, you are being transferred to the attendant

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I tried to pay for my college classes today.  Tried.  As well as trying earlier in the week.  Accept that the folks responsible are – shockingly – busy.  And thus when I get transferred to their voice mail I also get transferred to the operator at the college because I can’t leave a message in their full mailboxes.  So tomorrow I’m going to drive down to the school, between the hours of 9:30 and 12:00 and pay for classes.

Query: How many phone messages does it take to fill up a voicemail box?  And why do critical-to-business employees have a quota in the first place?
If people want to pay for classes let the appropriate employees have a terabyte of storage space so that you can be making money rather than carefully limiting employee effectiveness.

With This Ring

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Things have been a bit gonzo-crazy lately around here.  I have had too much going on the last couple weeks (ha ha, probably years, but we’ll say its been more hectic this last couple weeks) – some of that is going to be wrapped up shortly, and some of it I’m going to put away.  Some of it is going to stay.  However, yesterday, after the 4 years birthday party for Abby (Tuesday she’ll officially be four), Jessica and I went out driving.  We just needed some time to talk and catch up on what the last couple weeks had not allowed us to catch up on.

It is at times like that when I am so glad that I’m married to Jessica.  I love to spend time with her and to share my life with her.  I’m glad she shares her life with me.  She’s a fantastically good wife, a stupendous mother, and a super cook.  Three important things 😉  She also loves to discuss theology with me, which I appreciate immensely.

When I found out that the pretty blonde girl liked me and she was in honors math I knew that I had something good on my hands [1995].  When she said she’d take seminary courses with me and move down to Texas with me I knew that I was amazingly blessed to be married to her [1999].  And yesterday as I was driving and talking with her explaining to her why I had made some choices and she was genuinely listening to me as her husband and friend I knew that I was blessed beyond what I could comprehend in this relationship [2006].  October 3rd we’ll be married for eight years.  That’s five years longer than we dated, which is pretty amazing.

If I could go back and do it all over again I’d probably change a few things [insert long list of stupid things I’ve said in 11 years or so], but I certainly wouldn’t trade my wife for anyone else.

Jingle Bells…

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If you’re not ready for Christmas… why not?  The stores are already starting to prepare.  Get ready for the slow building of holiday music as you shop, get ready for the discount Christmas cards to be out ready for you to pick up.  Get ready for the school children to swing by our door and ask you to help them raze funds for a school camp, class projects, or to pay for facial tissues because the schoolz no longer provide those.  Get ready for long(er) lines at the stores.  And most of all, get ready to pass around the Fruit Cake.

Although it is rumored that some readers of this blog like fruit cake.  And so now I pass on the challenge to my sister: make a fruitcake that isn’t nasty.

My Nority

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This is a highly opinionated, highly controversial post with satire, philosophy and predictions all built in.  Read with discernment.  If you don’t know what discernment is… don’t read this, please.
It turns out that being white, and being on Sesame Street no longer go together.  When I watch television (with oh, so much regularity) the last thing on my mind is race or color unless the script/actor/marketer makes it a part of the show.  For example, having Snoop Dogg do something automatically plays the race card because he’s been ‘pimping’ hard gangsta life for so long.  But when you put Denzel Washington doing something, or Samuel L. Jackson doing something I don’t automatically switch to racial profiler mode.  Nor do I freak out when I see Asians, Latinos or Jews doing something.  Unfortunately on Sesame Street they’re so concerned for “minorities” to be represented that they’ve made non-minorities the minority*.

What this does is breed the problem.  It is part of the postmodern America that we are becoming.  Postmodernism says that I can’t understand you, and you can’t understand me, because we’re different.  Different people can’t relate.  However, it also says that I should strive to understand you, as long as I understand that I won’t fully understand you.  So I get mixed messages, mixed cultures, and mixed chex, but I can’t understand any of them.  Which is OK, because I’m pretty sure that you can’t understand me either.

At least we’ll all be ignorant, confused, and in the dark ages together.  This time we won’t be under the religion of Rome, we’ll be under the religion of the universities, the government propoganda and the media.  What’s ironic is that in a couple hundred years people could say, “The second dark ages were caused by ignorant people who were tribalistic.  Ironically it was started by a group of people trying to end tribalism.”  But then the students will all be bigotted towards the New Yorkers or the Los Angelinos or the Denverites.  Or worse yet, Texas will have finished its conquest over North America and we’ll all be Texans changing our ‘All.’

And the children will watch Sesame Street and learn about Co-operation in a bar where more than one redneck has a weapon.
* I find the term minority to be offensive because it puts an emphasis on people that is unfair.  Instead of being a person, the person is a sub-classified person.  While that makes sense for a sensus or demographic marketing research for racial profiling in a capitalistic environment, it really, really ticks me off that we have to focus on this stuff over and over again.