My Dad Said…

Abby has started to pick up on the convenience of authority at times. For example she’s started the stage wherein if one parents seems to not be delivering the expected results then she’ll envoke the authority of the other parent. Just now I overheard her saying to Jessica, “But my dad said I could….” Jessica knew it was a fabrication (or lie, fib, deception, untruth, falsehood, misrepresentation or B.S.). I find the irony to be that I used to try this and while there were some times that it worked, I was always a crumby liar. Which is probably good. The only way I have ever been a very good liar was in the context of a practical joke, surprise party or when Jessica’s $450.00 leather jacket got put in the washing machine and I blamed it on the one eyed monster I had seen leaving our house just as I got home after a long day of work* [and Jessica if you’re reading this its completely true – the monster was leaving our house, it is my only excuse**].

* That is a lie. Jessica has never had a leather jacket to my knowledge, and certainly has never had $450.00 to buy one.
** This is a complete fabrication, which therefore makes this parenthetical statement an attempt at humor.

Oh, What a Trashy Dad I Am

This morning upon waking up I had to get the trash out to the curb. There was a lot of it because I cleaned out the garage for the first time this year. It needed it badly and there are still more things to tuck away and more things to pick up and tidy, but its a start. Anyhow, Abby asked if she could help. I told her no she could not because it was cold outside. Colder than a caveman frozen in a block of ice in Sunny California [Trade Mark] that happens to defrost and go to high school with Samwise Gamgee and Polly Shore. So I opened up the blinds at the front window so that Abby could watch me take the trash to the curb. She watched and watched as I took each can, several bags and more cardboard than a Wal-Mart dumpster out to the sidewalk. Each time as I walked back to the house she would wave at me through the window. Her cute little face peering out making sure I was there and when I wasn’t in view she would make sure that she saw me as soon as I was in view. Her hand waved with great excitement at seeing her daddy. It is good to be Abby’s dad – she truly is a joy to her father.

Then I took a walk in the cold (which was not as cold as Ensino Man, but was more like the cold of the bathroom tile when you’ve been nice and warm and cozy in bed, its a bit of a shock but you get used to it and then falling back asleep is more difficult) to return some videos we had rented. I think we rented them when Hoover was the president. They have been in our house for so long that I had grown accustomed to them kind of like the spider that is in the corner of my office that I just can’t get rid of because he’s become a strange companion. A companion like a prairie home companion. A companion like Mr. MacFeely is to Mr. Rogers. A companion like Robin is to Batman. OK, so not that kind of companion, the spider is in a funky spot that I don’t care to put the effort into getting rid of. Jessica would like me to, though.

So, its been a good morning 🙂

This Has Got To Stop!

As revealed in this article it is clear that baseball players need to stop reporting the wrong age. Sure, steroids are an issue, but we have got to stop reporting that various players are certain ages that they are not. The last thing the public needs is heroes that are younger and older than they are.

Since Kirby Puckett not actively playing any more none of my baseball cards will have the right date for his birth.

And believe it or not between my brother and I we have multiple Kirby Puckett baseball cards. I don’t know that they’ll go up in value or not though just due to this scandal of age discrpency.

Double Your Pleasure

Well, last night, after a gruelling day of whatever we went to dinner. We went to a restaurant called Mimi’s Cafe. Ironically there was one not too far from us in Texas that we never went to in Texas, but once we moved to Colorado we still didn’t go there. Then, we went to Texas last Summer and met our friends the Henebury’s there for lunch and really enjoyed it because they have a New Orleans flare with a diverse menu. So we go to our local branch periodically.

Well, the reason our pleasure there was doubled was this: Two (count ’em) people came up as they were leaving and told us that our girls were well behaved. Nothing makes you feel like you might possibly not be a bad, evil, incapable parent like having other parents approach you and say your kids are well behaved. And of course Evie smiled a lot, which is fun 🙂

A Non-Whiney, Non-Complaint

Yes, I’ve been a wee negative the last couple posts, but this one and the one to follow it will be happy, gleeful, pleased posts. I promise or I’ll… wait, I can’t write something negative that I’d do or this post would fail the glee test 🙂

Anyway, I’ve ordered a new piece of musical equipment (an effects pedal for my guitars) through Amazon who ordered it through Musician’s Friend. Musician’s Friend is shipping it through UPS. UPS is shipping it through Kansas. Kansas is… wait, this is a happy post. Anyway, UPS is really moving it quickly and efficiently, I love their online tracking system because it first gives you the ‘quick’ bit of information like the scheduled delivery time (Friday in my case) and then gives you a link so that if you’re a tracking happy fellow such as myself you can see that at 1:35 AM your package was in Salina, Kansas making its way to Colorado.

Rock on, I loves me some excess data that will not get my package here any sooner 🙂

Dear Kevin

Dear Kevin,
Would you please stop giving out my cell phone number as your phone number? Sure, there are lots of good reasons to be anonymous and give out wrong information such as fraud, theft and practical jokes, but I’m tired of people calling me up and asking for you. I will confess to liking my ringtone/song so I do enjoy the music playing but I don’t want to get calls for you.

I may in the future start answering the phone as you and see what they’re calling about. Maybe I can have a little fun at your expense as you obviously are having fun at my expense. I’ve noticed that its not just guys or just gals that call which means that you’re not using my phone number to pick-up dates. Well, it doesn’t mean that, but it is highly unlikely.

Well, I just wanted to publicly write this to you since apparently I don’t have your phone number any more than the rest of the world.

Regards,

Randy Peterman

Beware of Change

OK, so I’m not against change. I get it when I (rarely) pay with cash, I see it when I go back to Carson City, Nevada where I go once every several years to nearly wet myself when looking at housing prices and new development in the community. But last night our family went to Fudrucker’s for dinner because Jessica was hankering for a burger and I wasn’t hankering to fire up the grill. I should have stayed home.

When we walked in we were met by a stack of beer boxes, buckets with empy beer bottles (so as to prevent stealing), and a totally scaled down menu. When you are a hamburger based restaurant that sells hamburgers and few other things scaling down your menu is like turning yourself into an overpriced McDonalds. In fact, I think that the service at McDonalds might have been better. They had a table with kids menus on it as you wound yourself through the queue… with a bucket next to it that was empty. It was supposed to have crayons but they had no crayons in the facility. They did, however, add lots more expensive video games for people to play. I just can’t get past the $0.50 per game price. And that’s what they were starting to charge when I was a teenager. Now you have to pay $1.00 or more! Call me a cheap, old fashioned kind of guy but to play a video game that involves shooting people in front of my three year old for $1.00 you’d have to pay me $1,000.00.

And they switched to Pepsi products [which I don’t prefer]. So basically everything that I loved about the restaurant is gone and I’m going to take my business somewhere else that might change, but they might do it gradually or they might maintain a slightly more family friendly atmosphere with choices on their menu. Oh, and I asked the under-aged employee working the register if they had Fat Tire beer. His response was to say, “Fat Tire beer?” slowly and loudly as if I was an old fart who was hard of hearing. “Yes, Fat Tire beer, it’s made in Boulder, CO.”

“I’ve never heard of it before.”

Sorry young’n’, but they’re advertised in neon signs at liquor stores all around the place, most other local restaurants carry them and even Texas (who still thinks they own Colorado) has it. Don’t insult my intelligence when I’m ordering – it is not good customer service.

That is all, our regularly scheduled griping will return later.

Pressing Coffee Le France Way

No, I don’t have a clue if the title of this post even remotely represents “The French” in French. However, I have a ‘French Press’ coffee maker now as of this weekend. I Love it! My buddy Brian has mentioned his several times when we discuss coffee (am I a nut to discuss coffee?). While we both agree that black Starbucks coffee is from the devil, we now also both agree that a French press makes some darn good coffee.

It is slightly more complex than drip coffee because
1) You have to be there to push the water through the coffee
2) You hvae to have a coarse ground
3) You have to be able to put up with a wee bit of mud at the bottom of the cup

But whoa, this is great coffee. A little bit of sugar, some milk/cream and it takes no effort to pass by the Starbucks. Wait, it took no effort for me to pass the Starbucks before.