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   Good
Dog Gone
Luna was big and shy and just out of her
puppy year when we first met her in early 2019. In time, she
became the family dog, a friend to all of us. As the
designated dog sitter when Jean and Joel went on vacation or off to
the hospital to add a family member, I got my own special time with
this big, friendly girl.
After developing a limp in a front leg,
X-rays were at first inconclusive. But on Easter Saturday we
learned that Luna was suffering rapidly advancing Cancer. At
seven-and-a-half years of age, Joel made the decision that she be
put down on Easter Sunday. Medicine for her pain helped to
make her passing easier. I drove to their house to say my
goodbyes to this special friend and to play with my other special
friend Galen. Her passing hit me harder than I'd expected it
would.
Having lectured on Job chapter 39 this
year, I was reminded that God is not only intimately involved with
His premier creation, mankind, but that He is also just as caring
toward all of His other creature creations.
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  Resurrection
Sunday
We worshipped at UPC's 8:00 AM service
where there was ample seating. The 9:30 AM service was quite
crowded. I then went to Hope's 10:30 AM two-hour Easter
service. While the UPC service was more glitzy, Hope's service
was more spiritually enriching.
I joined 26 others, the extended family, at
Susan's for her roast pork, Julie's COSTCO cake, and much more.
I hid 50 chalk eggs from Annie, 24 decorated hard boiled eggs from
Cynthia, and 30 plastic eggs that I provided and which Charis and
Valerie had filled with two pieces of candy each. All eleven
grandkids but Jadzia were old enough to relish the annual egg hunt.
Charis was happy to have found the golden one.
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Mark 15:16-20, 2632 NKJV
16 Then the soldiers led Him away into the hall
called Praetorium, and they called together the whole
garrison. 17
And they clothed Him with purple; and they twisted a crown
of thorns, put it on His head, 18
and began to salute Him,
"Hail, King of the Jews!" 19
Then they struck Him on the head with a reed and spat on
Him; and bowing the
knee, they worshiped Him. 20 And
when they had mocked Him, they took the purple off Him, put
His own clothes on Him, and led Him out to crucify Him. . .
26 And
the inscription of His accusation was written above: THE
KING OF THE JEWS. 27 With Him
they also crucified two robbers, one on His right and the
other on His left. 28 So the Scripture was
fulfilled which says, "And He was numbered with the
transgressors." 29 And those who passed by
blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying,
"Aha! You who destroy
the temple and build it in three days,
30 save Yourself, and come down from the cross!"
31 Likewise the chief priests also, mocking among
themselves with the scribes, said,
"He saved others;
Himself He cannot save. 32 Let
the Christ, the King of
Israel, descend now from the cross, that we
may see and believe." Even those who were crucified with Him
reviled Him.
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THE
MOCKERY OF THE CROSS
Even as they ridiculed our Lord, the Roman soldiers depicted
His true identity by their mockery. He was indeed the
King due a purple robe, crown, verbal recognition as that
King, and kneeling worship.
Pilate's ordered titulus read (in
three languages) "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum" (Jesus of
Nazareth, King of the Jews). The title "King of the
Jews" is only used in the New Testament by gentiles, namely
by the Magi, Pontius Pilate, and the Roman soldiers.
In contrast, the Jews in the New Testament use the title
"King of Israel" or the Hebrew word Messiah, which can also
mean king.
The passers by repeated the
misquote leveled at Jesus during his illegal trials.
Jesus never said He would be the one to destroy the
temple.
See John 2:19.
The religious rulers themselves
called Him "Christ, the King of Israel," while admitting His
oft demonstrated power to save others. Jesus was right
to observe, ". . . they do not know what they are doing .
. ." See Luke 23:34.
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. . . whoever sows generously
will also reap generously.
2 Cor 9:6
  The
Apostle Paul was making a spiritual point from a simple
agrarian reality.
His context was a promised financial gift for the needs of
the saints, not about how to plant one's garden. But
it's still true for my roughly 850 square foot garden area
in our south yard. I often wish we could convert the
large forested southwest corner of our .42 acres to garden.
In economics, the things that most limit production are
known as "factors of production", which are traditionally
classified as land, labor, and capital.
LAND: I only have so much space that is not shaded by shrubs
and trees.
But the real limiting "factor" is how much good dirt I have
to fill my many pots. I always have more pots than
dirt to fill them. Fortunately, our big Redwood tree
provides a bottomless supply of mulch.
LABOR: Until granddaughters develop the gardening bug,
there's only so much time and energy that Grandpa has to
devote to his farming hobby.
CAPITAL: Surely it would be cheaper to buy vegetables
and herbs than to spend so many hours planting, watering,
fertilizing, weeding, and harvesting.
 It's likely that only the flowers are
less expensive grown at home.
But harvesting all my crops (tomatoes,
peppers,
garlic,
potatoes,
green onions,
cucumbers,
cilantro, catnip, parsley,
oregano, and
a dozen varieties of flowers) is so
darn fun!
I found some old parsley seeds and some very old Evergreen
bunching onion seeds. I'd already planted 100s of
fresh onion seeds of the same variety, so this is just an
experiment. Likely none of these seeds will prove
viable.
Last May, I started Catmint and Red Yarrow in small pots.
I finally transplanted five now flowering pots of Catmint
into the southeast corner of the garden, and near these,
eight pots of Red Yarrow which were extremely root bound.
And those mystery bulbs I planted last fall? They've
come up Tulips just in time for Easter.
Four-year-old Valerie started three pots of flowers, two of
Alyssum and one of Zinnias.
At month's end, the first few Russet potatoes in the ground
are finally coming up. Ten 7-gallon grow bags and two
5-gallon buckets of potatoes are doing fine. The
tomatoes I planted in Berrydale look great compared to those
29 planted here, but I planted Jean's in pure compost.
Peppers wait for warmer weather to be planted in fifteen
waiting 5-gallon buckets.
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April 1
April 3
April 4
April 5
April 7
April 9
April 11
April 12
April 14
April 19
April 24
April 29
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Russet potatoes sown in the
ground.
Yukon Golds planted in grow bags
and pots.
Evergreen bunching onion seeds
planted.
Oregano seeds planted.
Moved 14 tomatoes in quart pots to
the deck.
Put six more Early Girl seedlings
is quart pots.
Old parsley and green onions seeds
planted.
Bought more potting soil and
compost.
Repotted the last of the pepper
seedlings and the last six Early Girl tomato seedlings.
Began preparing the ground along
the tomato trellis. Planted Cilantro seeds outside.
Oregano just starting to come up.
Planted tomatoes and Zinnias in
Berrydale.
I planted out ten tomato plants
along the east end of the tomato trellis.
Filled many pots with soil and
fertilizer. Planted more flowers.
Planted nine more tomatoes along
their trellis and ten in pots. Twenty-nine now altogether.
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 Game Nights as Planned
When we designed the Library, we
expected it to become an oasis for reading, music, and
games.
I'm probably the adult in the house
least likely to join in on board games. Other duties
come first. But early this month, Charis introduced me
to
Castle Panic, and I found it just about right
in light of my aversion to the complexity of many
other games.
 In
Castle Panic, The players work
together to defend our castles, in the center of the board,
from trolls, orks, and goblins that attack out of the
forest, at the edges of the board.
Annie and Charis were on Spring
Break April 7 through 11 and I found
myself entertaining Charis. Along with board games, I
may have been a bad influence, teaching her how to play draw
poker and Blackjack (also called "21"). But I also
discovered she's interested in starting to learn computer
software.
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Yes, but . . .
28
Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?
29 From whose womb
comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost
from the heavens 30 when the waters become hard
as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?
Job
38:28-30 NIV
Simple Systems
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Never Thought I'd be
Buying Another Lens
My friend from the SPU business
school, Mark Oppenlander, asked me if I would return as the
photographer for the 2025 Social Venture Plan Competition
Showcase on April 16th. Dr. John Godek, a fellow SBGE
faculty member and Nikon enthusiast, had taken over that
task from me when I retired. But he is on sabbatical
this quarter.
I lacked a fast zoom lens for this
5-hour indoor job. My 50mm f1.8 prime lens has been
serving me very well for all my family photos. So, I
returned to my EBay account that I hadn't used since 2023.
 I
bought a used Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 AF-S lens in excellent
condition. These were manufactured between 1999 and
2021. I paid $299.99 with free shipping from Malvern,
PA. The original MSRP on this lens was $1500 in 1999
dollars. Amazon.com is selling a refurbished one for
$895.
My
favorite online camera guru, Ken Rockwell, has this to say
about the 17-35. "The 17-35mm f/2.8 AF-S was Nikon's
basic wide-angle professional zoom for film and FX Digital
for 20 years. Almost every pro had one of these on one body,
and a 70-200mm VR on his other body. It is one of the two or
three lenses everyone with a D700, D3 or F6 should own.
If you
don't mind the significant weight and price, just go get one
and skip the rest of the review. This lens is fantastic for
FX Digital like the D3 and film cameras."
Wikipedia says, "It
is generally considered to be one of the finest zoom lenses
ever produced, comparing favorably with many wide-angle
prime Nikkor lenses. As of 2006, Photozone.de ranks the lens
in 4th place among all Nikkors both prime and zoom, and in
first place among all zoom lenses by any manufacturer."
The honorarium I will receive from
SPU for this work will pay for most of this new lens.
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Life is too hectic to not take
advantage of simple efficiencies. Patterns of
behavior, like how to load the dishwasher or how I start my
day make some aspects of life easier.
In the morning I have this routine.
1) Turn on the grow lights in the basement and while I'm
there, turn on the fish lights and feed them.
2) Clean Shadow's litter box. 3) Weigh myself.
4) Check my blood sugar and record that glucose number and my
weight. 5) Turn off the north yard light. 6) Shower
and dress. (I shave only on Tuesdays and Saturdays.)
7) Have breakfast.
The adults in the house match what
we've done for the girls. We can always answer, "Whose
cup is this?" Thomas - Green, Annie - Blue, Nancy -
Red, and my cups are in Husky colors.
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 SPU's
19th Annual Social Venture Plan Competition
 For
many years I served as the event photographer for the SPU
business school's Social Venture Plan Competition.
From 2:00 PM until nearly 7:00 PM on the 16th, I returned to
SPU to handle that job one more time.
I put the new 17-35mm f2.8 lens on
my Nikon D750 body and put a 35mm f1.8 DX lens on one of my
Nikon 300 cameras. It turned out I only used the D750
and took 192 photos. I brought my old Dell laptop in
order to burn my photos to a DVD.
 Even
though I've been retired for four years, I met many former
students who were by now event judges and a few current and
retired business school faculty and adjunct faculty (Mark
Sabo, Annie Kato, Andy Chen, Don Lee, Randy Franz, Ross
Stewart, and Interim Dean Charity Osborn). I
especially enjoyed meeting with 19-year event sponsors Scott
and Kathleen Cummins. I was Scott's Merit Badge
counselor at Camp Parsons back in August 1974 and tutored
him in Microsoft Excel over a Christmas break in 2015.
I was surprised to learn that Scott was a Vigil Honor Order
of the Arrow Scout. This was perhaps the only time
I've had the opportunity to share the Vigil Honor secret
handshake! What a hoot! Scott and Kathleen are
pictured at the right with Mark Oppenlander who recruited me
for this event.
The winners of the $10,000 grand
prize was the Summit Steps team. They had developed a
career mentoring program for foster kids. They are
pictured above with Charity Osborn. I had a long
conversation with Greg Torres-Uhler from their team.
He was a foster kid himself. He had lots of questions
about photography.
I left my business card with many
of the teams so they could email me for copies of their team
photo. And, it appears from these three shots that the
new lens did its job well.
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 The
Grandpa I Never Knew
I've probably included this photo
in my journal sometime in the past. But I will always
want to know more about Grandpa Richard Riddell Sleight, Sr.
(May 6, 1890 to October 18, 1918), the father of his only
son, Richard Riddell Sleight, Jr.. Grandpa died of the
Spanish influenza in Portland, Oregon, five months before
his son, my father, was born.
He married Grandma Vi, Violet
Delores Jennings, on July 7, 1915. Richard was the
older brother of Charles Lee Sleight born in 1891, who died
in a house fire, January 17, 1903, about age 12. He is
surely the "Lee" that made Grandma Vi insist that I not be
named Lee. These Sleight boys grew up in Ashland,
Wisconsin.
Grandpa Sleight was credited with
serving during World War I. Randy retold me the
account of him riding horseback back and fourth over the
Columbia river from Portland to Ft. Vancouver where he
drilled the troops. His officers commission arrived
after his death. His father, Richard William Sleight
(my Great-grandfather) was an attorney and helped to support
our dad after Richard Riddell Sleight, Sr.'s untimely death.
There is evidence to suggest that he had planned to follow
in his dad's footsteps and become a lawyer.
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Planting in Berrydale
On the 14th and 15th, Nancy and I
drove to Joel and Jean's to do some gardening and to
entertain Galen and Jadzia.
I discovered that Joel's pile of
grass clippings hid a treasure trove of rich compost if one
dug down a bit. I cleaned out the weeds from three of
Jean's four planter boxes and filled them with this compost.
In the first, I planted Zinnia seeds I'd saved. In the
second, I planted three of the tomato plants I'd started
back in January. And in the third, I'll plant three
pepper plants in mid-May.
I'd grown a
Baby Darling rose from the one that has climbed up to
our second floor balcony. That one's parent came from
Nancy's home in West Seattle. Nancy worked for
multiple days preparing a big hole, and planted it there in
Jean's south yard.
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   A
Bellevue Play Date
We had an
all-kids-on-deck play date on a rare sunny Wednesday on the 9th.
I spent the morning shopping at COSTCO,
Home Depot, and QFC.
The kids had a picnic in the cul-de-sac.
Charis and Jonny are good enough readers to
entertain themselves together playing a variety of board games.
After dinner, I cleaned gutters as this was
the single dry day expected this week.
 
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  Another
Family Afternoon
On Saturday the 26th, we had another
Dungeons & Dragons day at our house. I discovered how hard it
was to watch seven grandkids while their parents, and little Jadzia,
played in the Library.
Jonny sported the band aid of the week for
the Auburn Sleights. He'd taken a fall from his bike which
earned him a trip to the Emergency Room. He said they "glued
him back together."
It's interesting how the kids pair up by
age, as attested to by the photos below.
I made another long treasure hunt game,
with marshmallows and coins as the treasure at its end.
Joel stayed home, still grieving the loss
of Luna.
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Grandkids Corner |
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Cherry, a neighbor's dog, loves our
girls -- and it's mutual.
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Late on the 29th, Nancy and I drove to Barrydale to be able
to be with Jadzia the next day.
She was well behaved all morning while Jean took Galen to
his Wednesday play day.
We took Jadzia to the car when their neighbor Rich came by
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  Bits and Pieces
 Although
my next teaching opportunity has not yet been determined, I have
committed myself to an in-depth study of the minor prophet
Zechariah. Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just
and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on
a colt, the foal of a donkey. Zech. 9:9b
I'm
really looking forward to a vacation with brother Randy, May 4-9.
We'll be driving down to WorldMark's
Surfside Inn in Ocean Park, WA on the Long Beach peninsula.
Hiking, birding, swimming, studying, amd eating well are all on the
vacation menu.
I
didn't buy from Temu in China from August through December in 2024,
but I spent $321.65 in eleven orders this year since January.
But with President Trump's executive order adding a $75 charge to
each de minimis order (less than $800
value) beginning in early May, my shopping from China will be on
indefinite hold. I placed four orders this month to beat the
pending huge surcharge. Nancy was pleased with one item, the
photo backdrop stand I used when I took her latest passport photo on the
26th.
Construction
of the new house just over the fence north of us continues rapidly.
The location of the three car garage toward the southwest of the lot
means we will lose convenient parking in the cul-de-sac outside our
gate. The workday noise is loud but bearable. This house
has a large footprint on a half-sized lot.
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My Quote from April |
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All Hail, John Batterson Stetson
(1839-1906) In 1865,
having returned to Philadelphia,
John Stetson founded the John B.
Stetson Company, specializing in
the high-end felt hats he’d toyed
with out West. His most famous
model was the Boss of the Plains.
It came with a dome-shaped crown,
which called to mind the famous
bowler hats of the era, but with a
far larger brim. Stetson kept
things simple by avoiding any
preset creases or garish
decorations, which would allow his
customers to start with a blank
slate, one that would transform
over time.
 John
Stetson sent out samples of the
Boss of the Plains to every
Western wear retailer he could
reach and was sure to include a
blank order form with each sample.
The as-yet-unknown brand was
suddenly assailed with enormous
orders from every corner of the
frontier.
The Boss hat was offered
in only two colors to start, black
and a pearl-gray white. Cowboys in
Texas preferred the black ones
with a wider brim, while riders up
in Montana chose the white, albeit
with a narrower brim that was less
likely to be swept off their heads
in high winds. (Note: Grandpa
Clyde V. Moody, who homesteaded in
Montana, wore the lighter colored
hat.)
By 1886,
Stetson was not only a household
name, but his hat brand was the
largest in the world. A fully
mechanized factory took up nine
acres of Philadelphia and was
churning out two million hats a
year by 1906. Even after the West
was fully won, people kept buying
up Stetsons right and left.
John
Stetson passed away in 1906, that
landmark year when production
ramped up significantly. But in
the years before his death, he
adopted many new modern
manufacturing methods and took a
paternal interest in his
employees. Before
industrialization, most hatmakers
were itinerant workers who
traveled around the country,
wherever work was to be had. To
keep these skilled workers in his
factories, John used pensions,
shared stock, and sizable
Christmas bonuses to encourage
loyalty. His factory had a
library, a dentist’s office, a
hospital, and an auditorium, all
to help out his workers. He also
held classes to help his largely
immigrant workforce gain
citizenship and navigate their new
home.
Paraphrased from
journalofantiques.com.
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An Inheritance of Music
Last month, nephew Jon encouraged
me to choose any of Don and Judy's CDs to move into my large
collection. While most music is streamed these days, I
still enjoy music on CDs that I can play in my basement office on
Dad's big high-quality speakers, or from the Library where I
can send the tunes to any or all of six pairs of speakers
all over the house.
Here's what I claimed.
Classical (8)
George Strait (4)
Garth Brooks (8)
60s & 70s rock & pop (15)
Broadway (2)
Doo Wop (3)
Folk (7)
Stan Boreson (Ballard Comedy) (2)
Despite this windfall of music, I
added one other CD purchased from Amazon this month.
Although the singing career of
Randy Travis was cut short by a stroke in 2013, I came to
love his music back in 1991-1995, and that of many other Country
singers. My first and best student worker assistant,
Becca Sjölund, was a big Country music fan and I wanted to
keep her happy.
Randy Travis was also a celebrated
Gospel singer. I can't listen to his
Three
Wooden Crosses without crying.
"It's
not what you take when you leave this world behind you
It's what you leave behind you
when you go."
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