| |
|
Stepping up to my Future
 Friday
morning, January 20th, I received this email message
from the wife of my good friend
George Scott.
Good morning, Dick!
I hear nothing but praise for your teaching abilities of
God's Word in the Saturday morning Bible study my
husband attends at First Presbyterian, Bellevue. And,
so, as a member of the Spiritual Life Committee at
Emerald Heights and responsible for the best in Bible
teaching, I would like to ask if you could teach Emerald
Height's residents in June and July on Thursday
mornings, the topic of your choosing. A group of
approximately 30 to 35 residents gather at 9:45 a.m. for
one hour. They bring their Bibles and sit at tables.
The chaplain opens with prayer and prays for those in
Corwin Center. There's an honorarium of $75.00 per
session. If you couldn't give us the full two months,
could you give us anywhere from one to four weeks? We
would appreciate it so much!
In Christ,
Sue Scott
Well, if that wasn't "red meat"
to someone with my interest, experience, and (hopefully)
calling. I replied that I would need to check my
schedule with my boss since this was certainly during my
regular work hours, but she had me at "I hear nothing
but praise..." I've been in the Bible study with
George Scott for 23 years, and I covet his friendship
and even his occasional correction. I soon agreed to
teach all eight sessions.
Now what to present? At
first I thought Apologetics, something I've been
planning to review for a few years. But then I
thought, 'start with the familiar.' I settled on
Matthew 8-11, the four chapters that follow the Sermon
on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). I set aside the novel
I had been reading, and began my planning and study
preparations. I've already found my maps!
For example, click on the map at
http://bibleatlas.org/full/capernaum.htm.
|
|
 7565
46th Ave SW Closes
The sale of our family home from 1955 to this year,
closed on time in early January. And suddenly each
sibling had to decide how to invest $85,000. It's
a fun but distracting pastime.
My first investment was 100 shares of Dow Chemical.
That was followed by 100 shares of EBay. I wanted to
invest in some grain fund and chose 200 shares of DBA
(PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund). But I don't
really consider myself a gifted stock picker, so I also
chose two no load index funds, Schwab S&P 500 Index
($10,000 of SWPPX), and
Vanguard Target Retirement 2020
Fund Investor Shares
($12,000
of VTWNX). This was just the start of a new
responsibility in personal finance. I still have
over $58,000 in cash to invest. I do like dealing
through Charles Schwab. Their local branch office
is 12 blocks east of us. | |
A 23rd Birthday Dance
for Nathanael
Nathanael invited the SPU Track team to enjoy a night of
English Country Dancing on the night before his 23rd
birthday. Nancy and I and joined eleven of the
runners, along with Angela his Chemistry lab partner,
and Nathan his apartment mate.
I ended up sitting out three dances, partly to take
these pictures. There were a few girls from the
Track team, but the large number of Cross Country men
meant that this was a rare dance that had more men than
women.
Another gentleman was celebrating his birthday, so we
enjoyed two cakes and Nathanael was able to take a whole
one home.
  
 
|
|
 Nathanael
Goes Long
Nate ran the 3000m
in his first Indoor Track race this
month.
At first, I'd
thought he would race early in the
morning, in which case I'd be at Bible
study. But he was in the
third heat in the late afternoon.
The University of
Washington officials had my media
credentials waiting for me thanks to my
friend Mark Moschetti, the Assistant
Sports Information Director at SPU.
I spent nearly four hours on the track
shooting the Falcons.
|
  Jeannie
Beth Runs in the Falcon 5K
JB likes to edit her
Yahoo! avatar. This version shows
she really enjoyed the University
Scholars toga party.
She also made a good
effort at the Falcon 5K race around
Green Lake. Coach Erika liked my
picture of
Nathanael and Nancy best.
|
|
|
 A
Special Christmas Present in Time for a
Week of Snow
Maria, the first wife of Horatio Hornblower,
gave him knit gloves as a parting
gift before The Hotspur put out to sea.
They saved his life as he used them to
put out the fuse of a French grenade.
My Christmas present from Nancy, and a
very useful and thoughtful one, was
these gloves with both open fingers and
mitten covers. I can use them with
my cameras and they came in handy during
this month's snow week.
Data from
KOMO TV weatherman Steve Pool used in my
BUS 1700 class.
On January 3rd,
I included this note in an email to our
SBE faculty:
Seattle
averages only three snow days annually,
and averages only 5 inches annually, but
I’m still holding out for big snow by
Valentine’s Day.
In
case you're curious, for Seattle, our
record annual snowfall is
 67.5
inches, set over two months in 1968 and
1969. (I was 13 and it was
awesome!) Our record monthly total
was 57.2 inches in January 1950.
At SPU, on the
Tuesday after the Martin Luther King,
Jr. holiday, we shut down at 1:00 p.m.
for fear of impending snow. It
didn't arrive until the next day, but we
didn't get back to work until the next
Monday. Nancy and I had a relaxing
week, leaving the house only twice to
take walks in the snow and lunch at our
local Wendy's.
I enhanced this shot of Shadow using the
Auto Correct feature in Microsoft Office
Picture Manager. On a gray day on
the shady north side of the house, no
white balance setting would work to
bring out the gray fat cat against the
white snow.
Above is one of the raccoons that I am
all too friendly with. Her (or
she) is an inquisitive youngster who
would have joined us in our family room!
 Wrestling
at BCS
Due to the snow, BCS only had one home
night of wrestling in January. It
was certainly a change to only
photograph wrestling three times in
three month -- the third time being this
coming February 11th at which I will
again be paid by WIAA as the official
photographer at the 1A Region I
championships.
BCS has had another disappointing
season, but I still enjoyed the duty.
And my favorite wrestler, junior Cameron
Thoreson, provided my best shot.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bits and Pieces
Bullet's starter
died while we were at church last Sunday.
But we had Millie and were able to drive
Nathanael and Jean back to SPU. Four hours
later the tow truck driver from AAA banged on
the starter with a rubber mallet and it started!
I drove to TLC Auto Care in Kirkland in Bullet
while Nancy followed me in Millie. Over
$1000 later, we'll get Bullet back from the car
hospital.
A nasty virus was so hard
to eradicate from my Dell PC that I decided to
reload the operating system. It was a very
good decision since I rebuilt the system without
losing my data.
Our new
Associate Graduate Director and Budget Manager,
Deb Schleusener, is not up to speed with all of
her new duties, so Jeff Van Duzer asked me to
take over contracting. It's a tedious new
responsibility, but I think some good up-front
organization will do the trick.
We covered the book of Joel in January -- three
chapters in three weeks. We'll read the
doleful Psalm 88 on February 4th. 1st
and 2nd Peter will follow Psalm 89.
Nancy and I have
watched a lot of movies from the King County
Library. We were surprised to enjoy the
spectacular disaster movie "2012." And we
both thought the latest
Ridley Scott's
"Robin Hood" with
Russell Crowe was excellent -- despite the
lesser reviews from the pros.
We got disappointing
news from Korea. Annie and Thomas both got
very sick during their holiday trip to Cambodia
-- Tom even more so than Annie. But in
February, Annie is being checked into a hospital
for tests to discover the cause of her fever and
ongoing illness. Equally alarming is the
news that Tom's younger brother may be seriously
considering joining the Mormon church.
This is agonizing news for the Disher family.
|
|
|
|
