I really messed up this noon, Abby asked for a vitamin and I told her, “No, you need to eat some more cookie.”
My only defense is that I was trying to take my vitamins and I was trying to buy some time.
This is a sad day in the Peterman household 🙂
3 John 1:4 (NASB)
I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.
I am constantly reminded that this world is full of almost-truth, no truth and farthest from the truth. I am a strong proponent of ‘absolute truth.’ Absolute truth is the idea that truth is not just personal opinion, but exists outside of mankind [and as a Christian it resides in God]. A popular philosophy some time ago was called ‘modernism.’ Modernism said that man could figure out truth through science. That fell short since you can’t scientifically prove a lot of things. So then the philosophy of ‘post-modernism’ developed. Post-modernism involves the idea that there is no absolute truth at all. In short, everything is an opinion and everything is relativistic. Relativism clings to the self-cancelling statement: There is no absolute truth.
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It was an intense weekend. It was like a marathon without any actual running. It was like swimming a 200 meter sprint where the only water was showering. It was like climbing Mount Everest without ever leaving the mall. It was like yet another stupid comparison that it was not like. Actually, we did a lot Saturday and Sunday and we had to be around a lot of people a lot of the time without the break that makes socializing OK. I suppose I should clarify that it was the time with people we didn’t know that made it so intense.
Saturday the holiday shopping had already started and so when we went out to do a few errands we were overwhelmed by the number of morons in the parking lots and the number of people in the shops. Twice I parked next to people who probably shouldn’t have parked at a 15 degree angle in the spaces aloted for 90 degree parkers only. And we were trying to leave the mall parking lot and two older people (I assume they were a couple) were just walking along right down the lane I was in. Slowly. But. Surely. “Oh, Herald, there’s a car behind us. With cars behind it. Should we get out of the road?” Apparently Helga was more alert than Herald. Eventually they moved and we were able to go wait our turn for the exit at the mall.
Sunday we enjoyed church (a brief note from the service) and then there was a potluck to celebrate the new-born Jenkins’ baby Lauryn Karis (which is Greek for Grace). That was fun but we came home and I was so tired I took a nap. The problem was that I had to wake up from the nap. I was so groggy that it took me a while to get awake enough to get ready for family pictures. Once I was ready I plugged in my clippers (I had a lot of hair to trim off of my face). They didn’t work. They would not respond to the ‘on/off’ switch. So I had to resort to a free razor that came in the mail. Wow! That thing worked. All four blades worked in harmonious action to raze the forest on my face. I may switch back to a wet shave if that razor does that wonderful. My electric razor hasn’t been functioning correctly lately anyway (battery memory).
Anyway, we arrived at the photo studio in time to wait for an hour behind the others who were also waiting behind those they were waiting behind. Abby was good natured about it and endured many bad stories I made up. She posed well when we had our turn and delivered wonderful pictures. If only I could get her to pose for me that way! We ate when we got home and then put Abby to bed. Then we put her to bed again. Then again two more times. She’s been doing that lately and I’m afraid sleep will be less around here for the parents.
Oh, well. I know next week will be an X-weekend, too. We’re driving down to Texas on Friday. We’ll be there for 9 days so it should be fun, busy and involve a reasonably large amount of turkey.
Today in church we went over Colossians 2:16-17. One of the key parts of this passage is that we need to not focus on the shadows, which have no substance, but instead focus on the substance of what is to come: Christ. Sometimes I get caught up in trappings like computers, programming, my car and my music. The truth is that Christ gives any meaning to those things that exist. If I look at them as His tools, then they have value, if I look at them as my posessions, or results of me and my genius then they are just shadows and they have no eternal value.
A list of questions that is slowly, but surely, spreading like gangrene across the internut.
Now, this reminds me of a ‘date’ experience I once had. In highschool I was in this band. We played really mediocre adult contemporary music (music that I wasn’t proud of). We played a show for a local youth group and one of the girls in the youth group apparently found me talented and attractive. So, my buddy Nate (whom I’ll refer to heretofore as ‘Natey-pooh’) hooked me up on this blind-double-date. They set a time and they would meet me at the theater. So I showed up early, not wanting to look like the ‘late date’ guy. And then I waited. I walked into the theater, looked around at all of the faces, hoping to see Natey-pooh’s familiar face, but he was not to be found. So I went back outside and waited some more. Finally, they pull up and say, “Get in, we’ll go see the movie at theater X because we’re late.” I told them I had spent my hard earned minimum-wage money and that they could buy tickets, too.
So they parked, met me at the front and introduced me to a girl I’ll call ‘danger.’ She seemed nice enough and as a teenage boy thinking with hormones, her appearance didn’t scare me off. We went into the theater and started to watch the movie. And that’s when danger started doing things that made me really nervous: she started to ask me questions. That’s right, we were watching the movie (It could Happen to You) and she asks, “So, I saw you in the band, you were great. Have you been playing long?”
I’ll pause now to point out that chick-flicks are not very fun for me, but I try to give movies half a chance. This movie became far more engrossing immediately because I wanted to avoid what was clearly a person who was not interested in social appropriateness. Namely, talking during a movie.
After the movie, which was interrupted many times, and at least once while Natey-pooh went to comb his hair in the bathroom while his girlfriend freshened up, we went out to the parking lot. Danger was ready to go to Denny’s and have some more time together, but Natey-pooh and his girl saw the situation in disrepair and came up with lame excuses as to why that wouldn’t work.
Natey-pooh, I don’t owe you for the date, but I do owe you for the save.
I’ve created a new section of this site, it’s a Bible blog, dedicated to things I’m learning in God’s word. This is basically to give me a focused area for theological and Christianity related things. I’ll soon be making a development section as well. The new URL for the Bible blog is bible.randypeterman.com. This will allow for several things, but you’ll have to go over and check it out (even though it’s young and only has a few posts at this date). I’m excited for some interaction. I’m sure that some readers will be slightly shocked, moderately disturbed or generally disgusted 🙂 However, everyone is welcome to comment, so please feel free to do so!
Tonight my parents watched the Abigator while Jess and I went to see the Incredibles. This movie wowed me on technical levels, but left me wanting in the humor department. As always Pixar does a top notch job of making computer rendered ‘cartoons’ the absolute best available (Shrek 2 has absolutely nothing on this). I honestly couldn’t tell you what the movie was about in some senses. I kept staring at the images and being Mr. Geek rather than slowly but surely taking in the story. There were some really cool parts of the movie that were funny, but I don’t remember the hysterical laughter of Aladdin (which was the funniest kids movie of all time in my opinion.. but I awate Sponge Bob’s movie). There weren’t touching moments like in Nemo, either.
Overall this was a darker movie, but without the comedic line-up that some of the pixar movies have had, I didn’t expect it to be so. Since Pixar is obviously branching into a new direction I am impressed and look forward to future movies, and hope to have this one in our ‘fold’ once the DVD is released.
Go see it, it’s worth $20.00 or less dollars for two people 🙂
If you haven’t seen the new Firefox browser, give it a whirl, it’s stable as it ever has been, but it also is loaded with happy Googleness: Mozilla Firefox Start Page. What it immediately made me think, which I don’t know as fact (rumor reports are not normally part of this site): Mozilla.org could be getting funds from Google search ads. And you bet I hope that’s the case. If Google is sharing its income with those who will host ads on their sites, then why not with mozilla.org? Sure, it’s only a guess, but I hope so, because it would be a nice way to support mozilla.org.
I just paid off my Honda Civic, which feels good. However, the process for doing so was uber-retarded. I went online to Chase.com and logged into my account by typing in my username 530… Hey, don’t try to trick me into giving away sensitive information! Anyway, I logged in, and clicked on the (finally present) ‘Pay off my car’ link. There I was presented with a really old address that I lived at over two years ago. I happened to live there when I bought the car 4 years ago. The instructions on the web site were to call an 800 number and change my address information to make the payoff.
So I called.
I did the rigamaroll of automated touch tone systems and then waited online with a 30 second loop telling me how important I was but that I’d have to wait my turn. I waited for not very long, which was nice. Then the gal on the other end of the line (which is a bad term since I was on my cell phone) asked for security reasons for me to confirm my address. I did. She told me that was wrong. I chuckled and thought, “Silly people have our old Ash lane address.” I was wrong. Turns out they have our old, old Ash lane address from when we first moved onto Ash lane (we moved downt he street later). The problem is that I haven’t used that address in years and so I had to look it up in my files. So I finally got her approval with the ancient address and then she wanted to change my address. Which I appreciate. Except that she then wanted to send me out new monthly payment coupons.
I explained again that I just wanted to pay off my car. She said I couldn’t do that over the phone, but I could do it online and via mail. The problem is that the mail system works poorly because if my envelope with check enclosed arrives one day late, they’ll charge me 43 cents for that day. Which means I could literally almost own my car. I could have a loan on my car for 43 cents and sit waiting, wondering what the heck was going on because the mail took a day too long. So I logged in (while on the phone) to my account again and got told by the server that their was an error!. There was an error all right! My car loan was through Chase-Manhatten. That was the error. Ford Credit, who handled my Stratus load, was outstanding. They were the best financial organization I’ve worked with as far as online information, telephone support and prompt handling of payments.
In the end, I let the chase.com site do its thing and finally it stopped having the error and I was able to initialize the payment. I’m hoping that the electricity doesn’t mess up my transaction and I can just breathe easier knowing I’m getting to a place where I can just have one huge payment per month for my house.
The other thing that irritated me is that I had called to change my address on the phone at Chase a long time ago (before I moved to CO) and then I’d changed it online with their ‘online address changing form.’ That apparently is not related to the ‘We have your account under a really old address’ database that they handle things with for the phone department. Why have the same set of information, related to the same account, related to the same customer, stored in many databases, not accessible to the different departments and not manageable by the customer on your online account editing page? Why do that? Because you can. Because you’ve got your customers locked into your system and they can’t do a thing about it. Nice, huh?
[Note: I can’t wait to hear Trint‘s story about what he had happen to him that makes my story seem like a graceful financial transaction.]
Matthew 23:1-4 (NASB)
What a picture this passage paints in my mind. Imagine a group of hungry listeners gathered around Jesus waiting for his direction. The authority with which Christ spoke makes it clear that when he made a statement, people were listening, even if they didn’t understand all that He said.
The short passage points out that the Jewish leaders of the day had usurped God’s authority (through the prophet Moses) and had made more laws! More rules for the Jewish believers to follow. As if 613 laws were not enough, the made more to help keep people from getting near the 613. This is somewhat like airport security in the United States after September 11th, 2001. Weapons like box cutters, guns and explosives were dangerous. Therefore toenail clippers were banned as well. If a 4 inch bumper on your car is good, a 4 foot bumper is better 🙂
What is so precious about this passage to me is that Christ still respects their authority! “What?!,” you migh ask. Christ instructs those listening to obey the authority God has allowed over them, but he doesn’t tell them to become drones. He instructs them to obey God’s law so that they don’t become bound up in the heavy bondage of the Pharisees’ law.
As a New Testament Saint, I rejoice that we’re not under the law at all! In fact the Holy Spirit is given to us to allow us to be free from the bondage of sin and the law. Instead, as we abide in the Holy Spirit we will be doing God’s will, walking in righteousness
and loving one another as God has directed.
Grace is good, especially in the light of this law that was once heaped on the Old Testament Saints.