cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, Maxine Shirts via mail.
"Snakes, Termites, Raccoons, and Taxes. In case you can't tell from my title, it has been another one of those weeks. It all started on Sunday evening as I was writing last week's Thoughtlet and I heard a scream of terror. Clark Kent transformed into Superman, and was in the bedroom in a flash. Only to find no one in there. Another scream came from the kitchen, and we flew across the couches to find two 12" snakes coiled on the kitchen floor in front of the garbage and the refridgerator. I didn't bother to ask what kind they were, and they couldn't tell me how they got into the house, so they were decapitated with a hoe and placed in an empty milk container in the garbage, and I went back to writing about Greenway Plaza (0111.html).
Monday morning, like all spare time these days, I was busy working the phone, typing, building web pages, planning how to get the new business off the ground, when there was another scream, only this one was of dispair interspersed with tears. Thankfully I had a blue shirt on, so I didn't need to change this time. When I got into the bedroom, there was Andrea standing at the foot of the bed shaking and looking at 100,000 termites swarming against the window and on the floor. Rachel had told us there were little bugs all over the floor when she vacuumed on Saturday, and it was scary to see all of these little critters. We sprayed them, and called Modern Pest Control. I left at 10:30 for lunch with Alf Klaveness and Joe Watson, whom I took to `A Taste of Texas.' It will probably be August before Joe invests in Dynamic Resources, and with Alf after him, it will probably happen, at least to the tune of a couple of hundred thousand dollars. I went from there to Chroma Energy, where I worked with Dave Eichen on the Matagorda Island data volume for Dave Agarwal.
Tuesday morning the Modern Pest Control guy came. After a thorough inspection of the house we were told we not only have rats and squirrels in our attic, we also have raccoons. He arranged to spray the place where the termites came in, got us to sign a contract for $1,400 we don't have, and arranged for someone to come and place traps later in the afternoon. I said to myself, `Good, bad news comes in three's so it should be over.' Ted Collins called from Midland and asked how Dynamic is going to get all of the different groups working together. Dick Coons called and gave a status on the Ship Shoal Prospect. I was down in Sugar Land at Chroma by 12:30. I'm getting somewhat proficient on Chroma's software, and was able to build default modules for two other data sets before Dave Agarwal and Les Denham arrived at 2:00. The presentation went well, considering the fact we do not have data to calibrate the patterns coming out of ChromaVision. There were cell phone conversations with EEX and Swede Nelson while at Chroma. I got home by about 6:30 and spent the next half hour on the phone with Durke Smith of Century Exploration Company. I was working up a sheet for members of the Dynamic NetWork to submit prospects for ranking and funding all evening. It seems days are very long.
Wednesday morning I left at 6:30 to pick up Alf Klaviness. I gave him a ride to Shell Research on Bellaire Boulevard, where he gave the monthly GSH Technical Breakfast talk. These talks were started by Dave Agarwal after he came to one of the HyperMedia Breakfasts, and I've secretly resented having others take over my ideas like this and make them look like they are their own ideas. It is the first time I have heard his whole presentation in several years, and there are some subtle capabilities that make this an extremely powerful tool. I look forward to when Dynamic is involved with our first well, and we are using Alf's tool as part of our modern exploration program. Alf and I had a great conversation on the way down there and back to his office. He is writing a letter to Culbertson, our new U.S. Representative, who took Bill Archer's place, requesting the HOV lane be removed, and diamond lanes be put on both sides, allowing access all along the route and monitored by video technology. I described Joe Robert's idea that a one-way road be built on the dam from Barker Cypress west to where it turns south at Highway 6, and then exiting onto Memorial Drive. We drove out and looked at it, and he agreed this is a good idea. One-way in during morning rush hour and one-way out during evening rush hour. As I took Alf back home, he mentioned that he is building a prototype one-man gyroscope, which he believes can be scaled up to be a 40-man gyroscope. The idea is to start it up with compressed air, no gas engine, and to have counter-flow propellers like a torpedo so there is no need for fins, and to have it run by centrifugal force. He is building a prototype with a bicycle in his garage. I told him I sure hope I can do as good at giving a technical presentation and having an active mind in 37 years, when I am 87.
I got back to the house at about 10:30 and left in the middle of a major Houston rainstorm at 3:00 for a meeting with Steve Joseph at 3:30. Traffic was terrible in the rain, and I was 25 minutes late. Steve has a contract with Hanover Homes. He wants to subcontract part of the work to me. We agreed he would buy the Popkin software licenses he had implied he would buy two years ago, and that I will work for him about 5 days per month. It fits in the Walden 3-D strategic path, there are some overlaps with what I want to do with Dynamic, and it will help pay the bills. We went to dinner at Landry's, and Steve payed me $6,000 of the $6,500 I originally paid for the software. Oh well. Andrea was pleased. It sort of made up for snakes, termites, and raccoons.
Thursday morning at 8:00 I went over to Laura Kay Ethetton and we spent 2 hours working up a ranking sheet for Dynamic Prospects. It is at http://www.walden3d.com/dynamic/clp. I went from there to meet with Cindy Harris of Century at Dick Coons house at 10:00. Cindy said she is going to recommend Century bid on the three blocks Dick has identified in Ship Shoal. I told Dick about the `coons, and he said they are his favorite animals, since he is R. Coons. He has pictures of raccoons all over his house. From here I went to lunch with my accountant, Merril Littlewood, who is possibly interested in running the Dynamic drilling fund. He has put together or been involved in 42 wells in the past, and he is concerned about getting hooked on the oil and gas gambling mentality again. I told him it is all science. He laughed. He also told me we will have about a $5,000 tax bill this year. Guess I know how the unexpected money from Steve Joseph will be spent. I met Dave Eichen of Chroma at II&T and we reviewed the Matagorda prospects. They are weak, and there is probably only one or two of them that will be sellable. It was sad to see all of the effort, and the minimal results. One coincidence (../9715.html) I have not mentioned, is that Geneva Henry, the lady who is in charge of the Digital Library at Rice University and who set up the meeting for me to talk about Bavinger's color patent (../0042.html), is Dave Eichen's wife. Talk about a small world. I left downtown at 5:15 and was home by 6:00. Very fast, and it must be due to Spring Break.
Last Sunday evening Bishop Feil called, he is once again my Priesthood Leader as my Home Teacher Advisor, and asked if I would go to the temple on Friday with a shovel to help. I hesitated because I am so busy these days, and when I said, let me know if you can't find anyone else, he said, `Roice, I'm calling you because no one else volunteered.' So I said `I'll be there.' I worked from 6-8:00, and then drove up to the temple and arrived at 8:45 AM Friday morning. There were no grounds people there. I walked around the temple and could find nothing to do. Then the cell phone rang. I ended up talking to Louis Burnet, Walt Lynn, Dave Eichen, and Swede Nelson. Good conversations and important to Dynamic's future. Still no grounds people. So I read my AAPG Explorer. Then a grounds person came by in a little wagon. They really weren't expecting anyone. He assigned me to pull weeds in back in a dark, shaded, cold corner by the receiving area. When his boss came by, I told him I had been there an hour prior to finding out what they wanted done. I didn't tell him that I would have been glad to pay a ground crew to pull the little 2" pieces of grass out, rather than do this. The next time he came by I asked if they didn't believe in using mulch, as it would keep most of the weeds I was finding down. He said they ran out. Then I settled down to pulling weeds. At first with my gloves on, and then I pulled the gloves off and got my hands dirty in order to pick out the little weeds, which would soon be big if not pulled. I had a 3" x 5" card and a pen in my pocket, and I made notes of thoughts.
Weeds are like pornography. If we are not constantly pulling it off of the stage of our life, especially in todays media blitz, it will take over and stifle the good. As I thought about problems like snakes, termites, raccoons, and taxes, I realized they are all something easily handled. However, pornography is something else. It is insidious, with its gradual and cumulative effect. It can truly turn good people into unhappy addicts craving more. I thought about Mom talking about going to the St. George Library and reading every book in the library. I thought about some of the novels she described reading, and the feelings she described which welled up inside her. I thought of all of the books which were on her bookshelves, and how I had looked through some of them over the years and was appalled by the language and the descriptions. I thought how Nancy White at PAIRS said we marry a person with characteristics like the parent we need to work out issues with. I thought about the video tape Uncle Tony made for me with photos and film transcribed to tape showing Grandpa Hafen pulling up Grandma Hafen's skirt on a trip to Mesa, Arizona shortly after they were married. I thought how innocent that is compared to what we let in our livingrooms on the television sets today. I recalled the Hopi word koyaanisqatsi, which describes how life goes faster and faster and faster until it burns up. It is Stanza IV.B.60. in Prime Words:
I thought of the book of quote of Isaiah 9 in II Nephi 19:18 where it says:
These thoughts brought up all of the fears I have for you kids, and especially for those who don't read these words, and it made me want to pull the weeds, like pornography, out of your lives that much faster and that much more thoroughly. Then I thought about our Savior, and how the scriptures describe him as living outside of time as we understand it. I imagined Him watching each one of us live our lives from birth to death. I imagined the pain He feels as He watches us make the little mistakes which lead to the big mistakes. I though of my mistakes and my sins, and I cried as I pulled out weeds. I wondered when we die, if we don't go to this same place outside of time, and wondered if we watch ourselves from the spirit world, both as spirits before we are born and as spirits after we die. I wondered if the still small voice we hear when we pray with sincerity is the voice of our spirit calling from outside of time and space as we know it. I thought about Handel and how he `heard' the Messiah and just wrote it down, and I thought of the millions who have sung these words with fervor and feeling over the last 260 years since it's composition. I thought of Henry David Thoreau's words at the end of his first chapter Walden on economy:
By this time I had worked around the back of the distribution center and was pulling weeds next to the entrance. The parking lot was full, and a thought came to me about the impact of pornography on our lives: `Anyone who does not see the distructive nature of pornography, and who is humble enough to do a simple test, should spend an hour standing or sitting outside their local temple watching people go in, looking into their eyes, photographing them, and catching their spirit. Then repeat the process standing outside an `R-Rated' movie entrance. And after this experience, simply ask themselves, which group do I want me and my children to associate with? Where do I want to be in 10 years from now?' By the time the boss came and told me they were leaving and I could leave whenever I wanted to, I had decided what my ideal retirement job will be: `daytime gardner at the Cedar City Temple, and nighttime writer about all of the thoughts of the day.' As I walked over to my car, I could not find my keys, and I realized I had left the car unlocked and the keys were in the car. I lock the car doors in my driveway! Guess this shows how comfortable I feel at the temple. I was home by 12:40, and even though I didn't have the time, I was glad I went.
There were a dozen calls, several e-mails, and Rachel, Matt, Andrea, and I left for the Houston Museum of Natural History at about 2:30. There was construction on the Katy Freeway, and we ended up taking Memorial from the BP-Amoco complex to Wilcrest. There was no parking at the museum, and I finally found a place just in time for our ticket to `The Secret World of the Forbidden City.' I've already written more than most of you will read this week, and so I won't go into my 19 trips to China, the number of times I have been through the Forbidden City, and how interesting I found the show. It is a very nice exhibit, better than the one from St. Petersburg we went to last year. We went to an Italian Resturant on Kirby by Greenway Plaza on the way home. Then just after we got home Andrea and I went to see the 7:55 show of `Miss Congeneality' at Katy Mills Theaters. Cute movie and Andrea had seen it before and wanted me to see it. I learned Andrea was in the Miss Iron County Beauty Pagent, that she sang a song rather than play the piano for her talent, and that she still has the dresses she made hanging in her closet. She learned that Marti was first runner-up in the Miss Northern Colorado Beauty Pagent, that she was the Matchmaker from `Fiddler on the Roof' for her talent, and that she was Miss Congeneality. I learned I fall in love with beautiful and talented women.
Saturday was spent writing letters, and getting ready for the meetings with Swede Nelson on Tuesday (0113.html). When I got up I could hear a large animal moving a cage around in the attic. I went to Choir practice at 9:00. I stopped and saw Rob, who looked a lot better than last time I talked to him. He was quite cordial, although he didn't have time to talk because he needed to get ready to go and pick up Marti from the airport. There was a girl there who had been kicked out of her house, and had spent the night. I'm sure there are some of you that can imagine the pain I feel. Rob informed me he is moving out into his own apartment. I will send a letter to Harris County Child Support tomorrow telling them I do not believe I should be paying any more child support as Rob is 18, has told me he is moving out of his mothers house, is in jeopordy of graduating from High School, and I will not financially support the adolesenct activitives he is involved in. I took some papers to Alf Klaveness after the visit with Rob, and came back home by about 10:30. About 11:30 Saturday the Modern Pest Control guy came by, and after struggling with the wire cage he pulled a 35 pound male raccoon out of the attic. Pretty animal. Last time I saw him or his progenitor was about Christmas in about 1995 when I opened the chimney flue and saw these eyes looking back at me. We have received a partial settlement for fixing the roof, and we need to get rid of the varments before the roofers come, hopefully next month. And we heard them running around over our head again last night as we went to bed. I can imagine the roof falling through with one of these big animals landing on our bed. Saturday evening at 7:00 Andrea and I went to the first in a series of Family Relations Firesides the Ward is having. It has the potential of being as helpful for others as PAIRS was for me. It also gave me a safe place to express my disappointment.
Today was like most Sundays. Cathy and Jennifer came to church with Jennifer's three kids. The choir sang a beautiful song:
When we got home, Roice was waiting. A.J. is in town and he came to town to see him. We played 5 games of chess. Roice beat me on the frist four games, and I won the last one. He took Andrea, Rachel, and Matt for a ride on his motorcycle. He looks good, and seems to be happy with his work. He is moving to a different apartment in June, and I am pleased with this choice. It is so hard to watch those you love make choices guaranteed to lead to at best, mediocrity. Especially when they are smart, talented, good looking, and have been raised in an environment to give them the freedom to be able to choose to make the world a better place. Patience Dad! Matt and I played chess after Roice left. I can already see the day when he will beat me 4:1 too. I watched a movie. Andrea talked me into going on a walk. We stopped and saw the Kesslers. They are doing great, and asked about each of you. Then we came back, I called Mom, finished this, and reminisced on snakes, termites, raccoons, and taxes."