Aloe Vera

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Dear Paul, Melanie, Bridget, Rob, Ben and Sarah, Sara, Heather and Nate Pace, Audrey, Rachel, and Matt,

cc: file, Grandma Hafen via Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, Lloyd and Luana Warner. and Diane Cluff.

Welcome to "Thoughtlets." This is a weekly review of an idea, belief, thought, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you, my children, with an electronic copy to on-line extended family members. Any of you can ask me not to clutter your mail box at any time.

"Since the Thoughtlet concept started with the four line stanzas in Prime Words, which are intended to be rhyming definitions, I am going to start today's words off with some definitions:

Aloe: Any of a large genus of succulent chiefly southern African plants related to the lilies; the dried juice of the leaves of an aloe used especially formerly as a laxative. Vera: A female given name: from a Russian word meaning "faith." Aloe Vera: Any one of the species Aloe Vera, the fleshy leaves of which yield a juice used as and emollient of skin lotions and for treating burns.

When I was growing up we had a medicine kit in a dark blue suitcase in the laundary/sewing/freezer room. In that suitcase was a large (maybe 3" diameter) white container with the word KIP and a large red cross on the outside. When ever Sara or I got burned we would go get the KIP and put it on. We didn't have Aloe Vera cream, which is better.

Once, when I was probably about 10, I went to Fruita, in Capital Reef, or maybe it was to Springdale, in Zion, to visit my cousin, Big Roice, for a few days. We played in the sprinkler all day and both got really sunburned. We were sunburned to the degree we had large blisters on our shoulders. I do not know what the cream which was put on the burns was, I do not remember the healing process, and I anticipate it was something like Aloe Vera.

Last Saturday I wore my Silicon Graphics labeled baseball cap to Matt's soccer game. The game was at 2:00 in the afternoon, and we were on the south side of the field. I sat in a lawn chair, and came home with the left side of my face bright red from another sunburn. I had just finished peeling from getting sunburned at the Hafen Reunion in Pinto (9936.html). These are times for the balm of Aloe Vera. In fact, this last week there are many times I wished I would have had a `fragrant healing lotion or ointment,' sometimes for the body, sometimes for the spirit, and mostly for the normal hurt feelings accompanying daily life.

Monday a meeting with Wayne Esser of Boeing was changed from Continuum to the drilling and transportation pipe company DST. I was involved in a stratagy review meeting, which started at 7:30 AM and wouldn't have been able to make the meeting anyway. I was asked to meet with Wayne and Roger to review the results of the meeting over lunch downtown. It looks like all of the trips to Seattle are going to result in something. I will keep you all posted. While I was downtown there was a call from Andrea telling me I needed to get hold of Melanie, and suggesting we drive to Austin for the evening to provide some family support aloe vera. So I was able to leave the office about 4:30 and we met Melanie at the Institute at about 7:30 Monday evening. We had a wonderful dinner at the Olive Garden, she had time to talk through reasons why it is time to get new roommates, and I was able to give her a father's blessing. The feelings and the love were strong. We went from dropping Melanie off at her car to Jester Hall, the great and spacious building on campus at UT Austin, to see Sara. Neat room. Very nice roommate. Nice decorations. Very spacious compared to my dorm room my first year of college at the University of Utah. Sara, it was good to see you, to meet your roommate, and to catch up a little on what is going on in your life. It is wonderful to see such a dedicated student. I drove back to Bastrop, and Andrea drove the rest of the way to Houston. We got home about 1:30 AM. This was Andrea's first trip to Austin.

Tuesday I was tired, despite Andrea driving most of the way home. I We had another strategy meeting status. It ended with one of the principals walking out in a huff. The thought came to mind that he was a very spoiled little boy, and he got his way too often by throwing a temper tantrum. I certainly see how the same seeds of distruction have played a role in my personal interactions with those I care the most about. And I see the same issues being played out by some of those I love. I think I am able to see this because of the PAIRS filter, or maybe I should say the PAIRS lens. I wish there were an aloe vera cream to soothe the pain which creates these kinds of reactons.

Andrea joined me for a GSH luncheon at the H.E.S.S. building on Westheimer. I enjoyed the talk. However, I was disappointed that the planned speaker, Dr. John Lienhart who does `The Engines of Our Ingeneuity,' had to go in for an operation and was unable to speak at the last moment. I stayed downtown for a meeting with a company who builds web pages to allow their clients to capture and integrate all of the information necessary to improve operational efficiency, manage assets from cradle-to-grave, track inventory, and interface with the customer from initial order to delivery and payment. It is interesting stuff, and it ties directly to Monday's lunch meeting, as well as to using Continuum theaters as command and control centers. I got back to the office about 4:00 and wrote up a couple of paragraphs for the corporate brochure for the SPE and SEG conferences. There was a dinner at 5:30 with Pal Rulstadt, the financial manager for Mr. Finstadt, the Continuum financier. I left this dinner after appetizers for a dinner with Rick Zimmerman and the C.E.S. princpals. This lasted until about 10:30, and I was definitly tired by the time I got home. It would have been nice to have an aloe vera cream for tiredness.

Wednesday I spent the day working on my paper, now called `The Impending Obsolescence of Maps.' I am pleased with how it has come together. However, when I showed it to Peter Duncan he said he didn't learn anything from it. Oh well! Maybe presentations which present the obvious are still worthwhile. I got home in time for dinner, and we all went to a Joint Young Men/Young Woman activity together. The Teachers were responsible, and it was a night of baking cookies and doing skits and singing Karioke (sp?). It was fun to watch the kids on the stage, to watch them make and bake cookies, and to see the excitement of the judging. Maybe these kind of wholesome upbuilding activities are the real aloe vera balm of life.

Thursday started with the 7:30 sales meeting, which has been moved from Friday so Australia doesn't have to stay in the office until 9:00 in the evening. Annoucements for the Seminar I am doing on the 19th of October were sent out: `Maps, Models, Immersion, and Collaboration' (http://www.continuum-corp.com/seminars.htm). I have started to work on this. I got home just in time to take Matt to soccer practice. He is having a pretty hard time interacting with Andrea and at school. Please join with me in remembering him in your prayers. After all prayer is the significant spiritual aloe vera.

Friday started with a 7:30 phone call about the C.E.S. proposal to DST. Really interesting phone call, and I am becoming really impressed with Big Roice's best friend Steve Joseph. It is so much fun to work with and interact with the C.E.S. guys. I guess I have always liked being around people who are a lot smarter than me. It provides an environment where I can learn, an intellectual aloe vera if you will. There was a developer's meeting at 9:00. At 11:00 there was a demo, and the system was down because Jeff had insisted on changing out the board driving the screen and had stressed the system. It was funny watching the held in over-reactions.

Of particular interest to me was that Chuck Edwards and his son Cliff were in attendance. Chuck was the Chief Geophysicist at Chevron for 17 years. I never could sell Landmark to him in Chevron, and when he retired he went on Landmark's Board of Directors. We became good friends during all of the China trips, and he was my partner in China Cattle Corporation. For those who don't remember or didn't know, CCC was formed to run purebred cattle in Gan Su Province. Uncle Glenn Hafen and Uncle Lloyd Warner went to Gan Su with Chuck to represent me and to look for a site for our operation. A large tract was set aside, and we were in final negotiations on the contract when the Tianamen Square massacre happened. The project died and I sold my interest out to Chuck a few years later when HyperMedia got in such financial trouble. Cliff started at Mobil the year after I did. He was always very technical, and when I was working for Mobil Producing Nigeria in 1978, he did all of the seismic modeling for me on the discovery well we drilled off of the Asabo platform. Cliff was later the Chief Geophysicist at Mobil, and we have kept in contact over the years. I even talked about recruiting him to run Rick Zimmerman's Texas Independent Exploration. Anyway, Cliff and Chuck now work together. They have been using some new multi-lateral drilling technologies to drill for coal bed methane in Arkansas and vacinity. They have been able to build a company from zero to a $70 millon valuation today in the last three years. They expressed a lot of interest in Continuum and in the C.E.S. evolver concept. Chuck is also involved with a large ranch in West Texas where there is an opportunity to tap a very prolific acquifer and create a whole new metroplex. The whole conversation was an economic aloe vera to plans I have been working on for my whole career. I am very excited about the opportunities.

Friday afternoon Kari Mitchel gave the CoRe Exchange presentation on what is happening at the SPE and SEG Conventions the first week of October and the first week of November respectively. Just as I got back to my office the phone was ringing and it was Rick Zimmerman. He normally doesn't return calls, and it was nice to catch up with him. We tried to set up a time to go out to dinner and realized between Family Home Evening, soccer practice, and the Venturing Crew that time is very limited. Andrea called while he was on the phone, and she called back just after we hung up to tell me Matt was spending the night with a friend and Rachel was babysitting. I had told Rick I wanted to set him up with Kari, and so I went and found her schedule, called Rick back and we had a nice dinner at Macaroni Grill on I-10 and Beltway-8. Don't know that our introduction will go anywhere, and it was an enjoyable evening. It is what could be called social aloe vera. Andrea and I went to the movie `The Muse' at Westchase Cinemark Theater afterwards. It was funny, and it certainly is not a must see movie. It was a fun evening.

Saturday started with a very exciting C.E.S. planning meeting call from 7:00-8:30. Then there was Matt's soccer game from 9-10:45. Then there was ward vollyball from 11-12:00. Then Rob came over and ate lunch with me. I was watering one of the plants Dad had been growing in by the kitchen sink when he died. I brought two plants back with me, and this one had got some bugs on it and had died. When the last leaf fell off and the stem fell over rotten I was sure it was dead. However, I was able to get the last leaf to take root, and now I have one nice 10 inch tall plant and another one that is only a half inch tall. Rob asked me what I plan to do with it, and I told him I hope to clone several plants and give one to each of you as a way to keep the wonderful heritage we have in front of us. Rob said I should only give the plants to family members because they are the only ones who will understand the meaning. Good advice. After Rob left I went to get my glasses fixed (they were closed), got the Lexus washed at Rachel's soccer fund raising car wash, got a haircut, filled up with gas, and got back home about 3:00. I went outside and repotted the other plant I had brought back from Utah. It was originally one aloe vera plant, and a couple of years ago I had broken it into pieces and had about 15 pots each with its own aloe vera plant. By the time Andrea and I finished replanting those 15 pots, we had 99 aloe vera plants. Guess that will be enough for each of you to have a plant at Thanksgiving and at Christmas, and for us to give them away to a lot of other people. I think Dad would really like this. After all he was a farmer, and what good is a farm if you don't grow crops which can be distributed.

After I got cleaned up there was a long phone call with David Peterson, who is up in Vancouver now, and is someone I would like to work with on the city planning projects. He has been talking to Ray and me about his planning concepts for years, and is one of the few folks in the Walden 3-D network I have got out to meet Anders Saustraup. He was at Price-Waterhouse in New York when I had last talked to him about 4 years ago. After the call I started writing a song for Matt on the guitar. It didn't go very far. I looked at the TV guide and saw a John Wayne movie called McQ and watched it just because I like John Wayne. Andrea was at the annual Stake and General Relief Society woman's meeting from 4:30 until about 9:30. I worked on getting addresses to invite folks to my Seminar, which was referred to under Thursday above. I was tired and went to bed early. Sleep is the most basic aloe vera type balm available to people.

This morning I slept in until 8:00. Worked on this Thoughtlet. Prepared the lesson for the Priest's, since Brent Peterson, the Young Men's President and Priest Advisor, is out of town today. He was in Dallas yesterday for his brother's wedding, and they are coming back to town tonight. Rachel talked again in sacrament meeting today. Rachel I was very proud of you, first because you gave such a good talk, and second because you weren't at all nervous, since everyone in the audience is your friend. My lesson was on `The Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood.' What a wonderful topic, and what a wonderful blessing the priesthood, or the right to seal in heaven that which is sealed on earth, is and can be in our lives. It is certainly more powerful than KIP, and even more soothing than aloe vera. Sara, it even feels better than when you stopped by after church to say hi and pick up care packages for you and Melanie (and a paper plate full of dinner), and gave me a hug. And I want everyone to know, that felt really good. I am very proud of each of you, and my prayers are with you as you face and fight through another week in paradise. I hope you each have the appropriate type of aloe vera to provide balm to the sunburns, lack of support, anger, tiredness, business problems, intellectual, economic, social, farming, lack of sleep, and spiritual problems of life."

I'm interested in sharing weekly a "thoughtlet" (little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me) with you because I know how important the written word can be. I am concerned about how easy it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of daily life. To download any of these thoughtlets go to http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets or e-mail me at rnelson@walden3d.com.

With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)

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Copyright © 1999 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.