Kenneth S. Olson

Personal

Welcome to the personal part of my website!

Family

I’m married to Jessica Olson, the most beautiful woman in the world! We have two children. Both are utterly adorable!

Check out our family website at awuka.com.

Name

Here’s the low-down on each of my names:

• Kenneth (Ken). My first name comes from Ken Milhous, the son of my mother’s best friend back in high school. My family visited the Milhous family, and my brothers enjoyed hanging out with Ken so much that when I came along they said, “Let’s call him ‘Ken’!”
• S. stands for “Scott”. There's no special reason for this name. Mom and Dad just liked the sound of it.
• Olson. My last name comes from my great-great grandfather, Ole Petersen. He was a fisherman in Norway, who unfortunately drowned in a fishing accident in the North Sea. His only son was Peter Olsen (“Olsen” = ‘son of Ole’). Peter moved to the U.S. when he was 16 years old, and the spelling of his last name was changed to “Olson” at that time. He spent the rest of his life working for the Great Northern Railroad in northern Minnesota.
• Floyd. My mother’s maiden name is Floyd, an anglicized version of the Welsh name Lloyd, which means ‘holy’ or ‘grey’ (Evans and Thomas 1968:315). It is also a nickname for someone with grey hair or who wears grey (Hanks et al. 2002). The Welsh spelling is “llwyd”. The “ll” in Welsh is an alveolar lateral fricative [ɬ], so the original Welsh pronunciation is [ɬuid]. The English spelling “fl” is likely due to the fact that the lateral fricative sounds something like [fl] to English ears.

Hobbies

I enjoy music as a hobby. I sing, play guitar, and write songs. I recently completed a music CD entitled S.D.G. The most popular song, based on iTunes sales, is Faith Mighty Faith. To listen to a live version of the song No More Tears, click here. You can listen to exerpts of the other songs and and purchase the CD (or MP3s) at CDBaby.com. MP3s of the songs are also available at iTunes and Amazon.com. Also, check out my Facebook Musician page.

I own two folk guitars, a classical guitar, an electric guitar, and a bass guitar. I’m also borrowing my dad’s mandolin, which I need to get back to him sometime.

Jessica and I enjoy swimming, dancing, running, hiking, camping, singing together (she has a beautiful voice!), and reading together. We’re presently reading Molder of Dreams by Guy Rice Doud, who was the 1986 U.S. national teacher of the year. I just finished The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, which is the most helpful book I’ve read in a long time. We enjoy watching Rick Steves’ Europe and listening to A Prairie Home Companion.

Church

Jessica and I are members of Redeemer Covenant Church, in Carrollton, Texas. Redeemer is part of the Evangelical Covenant Church denomination. Our home churches are Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale (Jessica) and Rochester Covenant Church (Ken).

References

• Evans, H. Meurig & W. O. Thomas. 1968 [1958]. Y Geiriadur Mawr: The complete Welsh-English English-Welsh Dictionary. Latest Edition. Christopher Davies, A Gwasg Gomer (this printing: 1989)
• Hanks, Patrick, Flavia Hodges, A. D. Mills & Adrian Room. 2002. The Oxford names companion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.