cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts
"We got back to Houston from Fandangle (0326.html) on Sunday, June 29th, just in time for church. I am still at Grandma Shirts, and so I'm not sure which Thoughtlet(s) I wrote that evening. I know I am really feeling behind, still.
Monday morning there was an e-mail from Pali Walia about a possible lease in Nigeria. I asked Swede, and there were several e-mails sent back and fourth over the next few days. Pali Walia did sign the confidentiality agreement relative to an opportunity south of Nigeria. The material relative to this opportunity was forwarded to him.
I thought I had signed up to have the missionaries over for dinner and to go on splits on Tuesday. Both Andrea and I were somewhat on hold, and we did other stuff. She was finishing painting the laundry room, and it worked out better. On Wednesday morning there was an e-mail from Marcus Heal, a member of the church we had met at the bar we went to in London after having dinner with Pali Walia and family. His e-mail said:
I responded with:
Wednesday there was an e-mail from Andy Gittins of Beau Energy,
whom I had worked with the previous week (0326.html). It said:
I include this e-mail message to (1) demonstrate how I am regularly
challenged on my interpretations and view of the world, and (2) to
stress that I think it is good when you kids challenge my view, and
it gives us something to discuss until we obtain more data, like the
3-D seismic survey he anticipates and appropriate to what ever it
is we want to discuss, and are able to tie down the answers better.
Wednesday night we had Elder Nelson and Elder Hock over for dinner. It was one of the nicer missionary dinners. You can tell a lot about missionaires and people by how they react to the Ken Turner paintings in the house. Because of their reaction and comments I ended up giving them a Prime Words Packet and singing 'Froggie Learns The Gospel' to them. It was a nice evening.
I stayed up too late finishing up some stuff. We left the house at 7:00 AM Wednesday morning for Cedar City and for my 35th High School Class Reunion. Rachel drove us to the airport, and she drove the stick shift. Rachel, I'm proud of you attacking this fear and overcoming it. Hopefully it will prove to be beneficial to you at some point in time. I slept on the plane. I had my first BBQ Chicken Pizza while we were at the SLC Airport. We flew from Salt Lake to Cedar, and arrived at 2:30. At 5:30 we went over to the new Heritage Center to help set up for the reunion.
I have spent quite a bit of time over the last several months building some class web pages for this and future reunions. There is one page that talks about each of you, and if you want any changes made let me know. I'm the editor, so it is easy to change. It is at: http://www.walden3d.com/class68/2003_status/Nelson_Roice.html
The reunion was nice. It was fascinating to attempt to watch myself interact. It was like I was 18 again. Kathy Roberts came over to talk to me, and I was completely tongue tied. Didn't know what to say, and I expect she felt similarly. I mostly watched others, laughed at the jokes, took a lot of digital photos, and enjoyed the moment.
The program for the evening said:
The Class Game handout said (as filled out by Andrea):
One of the disks is giving me problems, and so I do not have all of the
photos and movies downloaded yet. Hopefully we will get this done in
the next couple of weeks. I really enjoyed Harold Shirley's talk. It was
sad the number of folks from Cedar who did not attend. Several folks
who probably would not have spent time talking to me otherwise did
because we had sent e-mails back and forth about their update web
pages. Andrea pointed out how quiet I was. Oh well! It was probably
not worth the plane fares to come to the dinner, and yet I feel good
about having put the web pages together. It will be interesting to see
if any of you have comments about the web pages. Hopefully I will
be around to have each of you tell me about your experiences with
your 35th High School Class Reunion.
After the reunion, Randy, Andea, and I walked over to The Pastry Pub and said hi to Heather. Randy and his family were staying at Grandma Shirts, and Andrea and I stayed with Aunt Sara and Uncle Des.
Friday morning we got up and went for a run. Andrea and I were indecisive about which way to go, and so she finally had me go one way and she went the other. I went over to statues by the Centrum and read each of the plaques. Then I walked across campus and up by the science building where I read the placque on the statue about Sister Unthank, the lady whose feet were amputated after being frozen coming over Wyoming with the Martin Handcart Company. There were tears in my eyes as I realized once again what a special place Cedar City, Utah is and how blessed I am to have my 35th High School Class Reunion here.
When we got back we showered and walked over to Main Street and 200 South, where Aunt Sara had saved us nice seats to watch the 4th of July Parade. I took a digital photo of each entry in the parade, including several digital movies of the firetrucks and police cars with sirens blaring. I did the same thing for the 24th of July, Pioneer Days of 1847 Parade yesterday. Expanding on the suggestion in the previous Thoughtlet (0326.html) that we have a family reunion next summer in Cedar City, this will give those of you who have never been to a Cedar City Parade real data for making a choice as to whether you would rather be here the 4th or the 24th of July. Hopefully I can read the mini-CD and get all of these photos loaded for those interested in reviewing them.
After the parade we walked down to the park and ate snow cones, talked to some of Andrea's debate students, listened to the Country Western Music Program, took digital photos, and hung out. Aunt Shirley and Uncle Willis Gurr were there, and we spent some time talking to them. It was a nice morning. Randy cooked hamburgers on his Mom's grill for dinner. It was nice to spend some time with his family. Andrea and I went to see 'A Servant of Two Masters' in the evening. Beautiful weather, nice family, and a version of Shakespeare making fun of cell phones. It doesn't get any better than this. We saw Fred Adams and made fun of the nice article in the Church News talking about his wavey white hair. He is trying to raise $6 million for the next stage of his expansion of the Shakespeare Festival. I would like to help him, if it were tied to taking advantage of the geologic heritage of Southern Utah. We will see what happens.
I spent most of Saturday, July 5th reading Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Sea of Fire by Jeff Rain created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieezenik. I enjoy the Op-Center books. There was no sex, no four letter words, and little violence in this book. It was interesting and thought provoking, particularly regarding the use of the web for information searching and data retrieval. There is relevance to things I am working on.
In the evening Andrea and I went to see the musical '1776.' It is a first class musical and shows by how narrow of a margin our country came into being. Entropy, the fact everything is falling to a state of maximum disorder, teaches The United States of America should never have happened. Levity, the opposite of Entropy, or basically the idea that organic life is always becoming more complex, says it should. The musical demonstrates what a narrow line here is between these two trajectories.
Sunday morning, July 6th, I got up and went to Priesthood meeting in the valley. My cousin Susan Howe's husband is the High Priest Group leader. Uncle Ted and Aunt Vanna were in Seattle for a grandchild's baptism. Paul and Lynn were on the mountain with the sheep. So I was not able to see any family. There was a nice quote in Priesthood meeting which I wrote down:
Then I went up town to the Cedar 7th Ward with Andrea,
Grandma Shirts, and Randy and his family. There was some
good advice in sacrament meeting:
Maybe the flood of words in these Thoughtlets are a smoke
screen. I hope not, and I hope I don't drown any of you.
The idea is to collect enough data we can do some pattern
finding and find patterns and turn it into information, make
this information easily accessible to each of you, and then
hope you will choose to use it and learn from the mistakes
and lessons of the past. Maybe this collection of information,
knowledge, and hopefully wisdom can become another
output of my 35th and subsequent High School Class Reunions."