Dear friends and family,
Well, it's Christmas time again. As always, I enjoy getting back in touch with those I haven't communicated with during the year. I hope this time of year finds you experiencing joy and peace in abundance.
My life summary: work - Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. I've now been full-time at SWBTS for just over fifteen years; the last 3+ years I've been Archivist and Special Collections Librarian. This year's most fulfilling professional development has been the beginning of a digitization project to make some of our material available via the Web. I need a bumper sticker that says, "Ask me about my e-books!" If you want to see some of our material, let me know and I'll tell you how to find it.
Work (cont.) - University of North Texas, School of Library and Information Sciences. I taught a new class this past Fall and have been asked to teach two classes this Spring (one of which is new too). This Fall was "Internet Applications and Services" (basically an introduction to the Internet); this Spring will be the "Internet Applications" class again and "Dynamic WWW Control Structure" (how to create a database and connect it to Web applications). The Internet Applications class is interesting because it is completely on the Web. I had about 50 students whom I never saw during the semester. They were in states across the United States (from Alaska to Louisiana) and one student in Germany. It was a fun experience.
Church - Travis Avenue Baptist Church. The Thompsons are still doing a great job with the Sunday School class. Probably the biggest news for the church at large was that we became debt-free as of a couple of weeks ago. It will be great to put our funds into ministry projects rather than debt reduction.
Vacation goal (to visit every state in the union) - I added five more this year (a correction from my Christmas letter): North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, California and Wisconsin. These trips vastly different in scope. A trip to North Carolina came about as the result of a speaking request. I gave a presentation to the North Carolina DRA Users' Group. I went out a few days early and did some touring. Arizona and Nevada were one trip. I used the cheap hotels in Las Vegas for a chance to see the Grand Canyon and the Hoover dam (both bus tours from Las Vegas). For California, the destination was San Diego. I've been a fan of the San Diego Zoo (including the Wild Animal Park) and Sea World for years. I got to visit all of those and do a bit more on that trip. The hotel for the stay was the world-famous Hotel del Coronado. (If you've seen the movie "Some Like it Hot" with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe, the hotel where much of that was filmed was the "Hotel del".) My last new state was Wisconsin. I went to Green Bay to see a Packers' game just before Christmas.
Keep in touch. My e-mail address is below - that's the easiest way to get me.
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas season.
Contact information:
Sincerely,
