Laodicean

God's Word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path, and apparently, a handy reference for obscure, supposedly difficult-to-spell words. The name of the city in Asia Minor that was home to a certain lukewarm, spit-worthy church mentioned in Revelation, or more specifically, the name of a resident of said city, was deemed arcane enough to be proffered as the final term for 13-year-old Kavya Shivashankar to spell correctly and clinch the title of champion at the 82nd annual Scripps National Spelling Bee last week. Colin and I, being the Scriptural scholars that we are, knew how to spell the championship word and, being the word nerds that we are, correctly guessed a few others. The bee was truly reality TV at its best – drama, suspense, heart-warming vignettes, narration by Tom Bergeron – though I could have done without Erin Matthews' patronizing interviews with the kids who tripped up on their Greek or Hungarian or Swahili terminology and lost their chance at attaining orthographic glory.

Entertaining as it was, I wouldn't consider the bee as the highlight of the past few months. That would probably be our trip to Spokompton for Justin's graduation. Justin of course is the last Brandler to stress out through four years at Whitworth, with many a mental/emotional breakdown along the way. Graduation was indeed a time of joyous celebration for Justin and the whole family, especially my Dad, who no longer has to pay college tuition. In the traditional Whitworth fashion, Justin decorated his cap with an item signifying his major (biology). Can you guess what it is? (Hint: It starts with an "s" and rhymes with "perm.")


As I mentioned in my last post many moons ago, Justin is wisely taking a year or two off before med school and traveling to Guatemala for another medical mission trip this summer. Check out his blog for updates beginning mid-June.

Other than the trip to WA, during which time I realized I somewhat missed Spokane and its dumpy charm, not much has been happening at the Hesse household. Another disappointing TV season gone by, and we are left with little to do besides critiquing SYTYCD (the judges and producers more so than the dancers) and challenging ourselves by playing Rock Band at increasing levels of difficulty. I suppose I could provide some useful information, like the fact that I recently helped launch new project at work – a digital, interactive magazine intended to pull in readers and advertisers who are ditching print – and let you know that Colin is hard at work finishing his dissertation exploring if emotion competence affects initial interactions.

And that's all the information I feel like sharing at this point. I'll close with a teaser for my next post in the form of a riddle: What do Wal-Mart, garden gnomes, and the Seattle Seahawks have in common? Check back in about a month to find out.