Author Archives: Bill

Friends in the Doctor’s Lounge

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Monday night was great because I got to spend it with some very good friends in The Doctor’s Lounge (the screened-in patio in my back yard). A friend that spends most of his time out of town was able to come over to enjoy cigars and share some rare beers. We get to see each other about 4 or 5 times a year when he’s back in town.

The evening improved when we were able to convince another friend to join us for a cigar later in the evening. Finally, the evening was completed when a work friend joined us late at night after he got off work. There we were – me being the only connection to all of us – four men enjoying cigars and conversation.

It will probably be months before the four of us would ever have a night that we could all meet again. However, this past night was special enough to last for several more months. What a wonderful way to finish off a beautiful night in the Doctor’s Lounge.

Alumni Choir of Kansas State University

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This past weekend, I joined about 20 other former choir members of the Kansas State University Concert Choir. Among us were individuals that sang in the choir as long ago as the late 1960’s. Helping us out on soprano were three high school students that were daughters of some of the alumni.

We met on Saturday to rehearse the music and then sang on Sunday morning for the 11:00 Mass at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. We sang a William Byrd Kyrie, a Mozart Gloria, Schubert’s Sanctus, and Ralph Vaughn Williams Agnus Dei.

I really wish we had a recording of the music because it sounded great. It’s amazing what can be done in just 24 hours (plus the preparation we each did prior to meeting this weekend).

What a wonderful way to meet up with old friends and meet new ones. In fact, one of the tenors was a groomsman in my wedding. Good to see you again, Rob!

The really cool thing about this group – we’re going to be singing at Carnegie Hall this winter. We will be singing Haydn’s Paukenmesse.

Photo courtesy Mark Kahler.

My Father’s Daily Minute

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My father began composing daily emails with reflections on scripture from the Bible.  In January 2010, he added me to his distribution list.  I’ve saved all the emails and have been wanting to find a way to more adequately preserve them than just in a folder in my Mail program.

I thought about creating an ebook or something like that, but I wouldn’t be able to add to it very easily without adding future editions or volumes.  What made most sense was creating a blog that could be updated daily with the daily reflection.

Therefore, I created “My Father’s Daily Minute“.  I’ve only begun adding previous posts – I’ve got over 800 of them to get the site fully up to date.

Take a look and tell me what you think.  If you like it, sign up for the updates from the site so you too can get his daily reflection.

Piano Recital

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The big musical weekend was capped with Linda’s studio piano recital. Anna and Emily played and did a wonderful job. Emily played Kabalevsky’s Five Variations on a Russian Folk Song Op 50, No 1 (mistakenly attributed to Latour in the video). Anna played Streabbog’s A Sad Story Op 63, No 12.

You can see more pictures of each of the students playing by looking at the top of the page under the top menu and mouse over “Piano Studio”. Click on the “Piano Recital April 2010” menu option.

Linda’s new car

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Yesterday I told you that we sold our minivan, the Kia Sedona. We sold it because Linda got the car she’s been lusting after for about the past 6 months – a Toyota Prius V. She has always wanted a Prius, but didn’t feel it was right to ditch a minivan with all of its cargo capacity for such a small vehicle as the Prius. However, Toyota recently introduced the Prius V which is almost like driving a Prius minivan. It’s not quite as big, but it has plenty of cargo room. It only seats 5, but with our girls getting older, we don’t really need that 3rd row of seats now.

Importantly, the car gets about 43 miles per gallon – which is a whole lot better than 20 mpg that the minivan was getting.

We have fully fallen in love with the Prius V and everything about it – including the syncing with the iPhone and handsfree phone calls. I’m sure the car can do a lot more that we aren’t even aware.

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Now the question is – do we replace my car with another Prius?

No more minivan

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This last week we sold our minivan, a 2003 Kia Sedona. This was the first vehicle we ever purchased new and we bought it as I was finishing medical school. This minivan was not our first (we had a used Ford Windstar previously), but it sure gave us a good run. The vehicle had 137,000 miles on it and saw our kids grow up from the start of kindergarten.

Many trips have been taken across town and across the country in the old Kia. Despite being such an inexpensive vehicle, it was really very dependable and we had actually planned to take two long trips this summer with it. However, the timing was right to purchase a new vehicle for Linda – one that she has been drooling over. I’ll tell you more about that vehicle in another post.

The good news about the Kia – it went to a family that just had a 3rd child and were in desperate need for an affordable minivan. They were good friends of a neighbor – a perfect situation for them and for us.

Goodbye, Kia…

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