cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts
"The big Random House Dictionary defines molding as:
Society is very adept at changing our natural inclinations and getting us to adopt common characteristics, i.e. molding us. In many ways we are each molded by our circumstances and surroundings. For example, we are refinancing 1307 Emerald Green once again (../0219.html, ../0228.html, ../0235.html) because last time we took on a note with a variable interest rate, and we recently received notification the interest rate is going to go up. The social mold notes it is foolish to pay more interest, particularly as part of a mortgage payment, than the current prevailing rate. So we find society molding us to not be foolish and to refinance the house so our interest rate is more standard.
My natural inclination, particularly regarding finances, is to let sleeping dogs lay, so they don't bite me when they wake up. Andrea is much more willing to aggressively make sure we are not taken advantage of. For instance, last time we refinanced the house, we were assured by the broker and by the closing agent she would be placed as a co-owner on the deed of trust. Did they? No! Did we pay a lot of money to them to make sure all of this was done? Yes! Do I want to sue them, or otherwise go after them for not doing what we paid them to? No! Do I think it should be changed? Yes! Am I willing to do all of the calling, negotiating, and follow-up necessary to get this changed? No. Why not? Probably the answer to this is part of the answer to the question Andrea asked, and that I included at the end of the last Thoughtlet I wrote (0430.html):
It is not a matter of laziness, nor of lack of interest, nor of
a desire to see someone else work, nor a vindictiveness, nor
feelings of inadequacy or incompetence, etc. Rather my lack of
desire to go shopping, to find a mortgage broker to work with me
to refinance the house to a better interest rate and better
terms, or to get up from in front of the computer where I am
working on one of the projects that I find exciting and help
wash windows, is a results of wanting to stay in my comfort
level, a result of my personality, or, if you will, a molding
process I have been through which has set a lot of my personal
characteristics. My dad would not have volunteered to wash
windows around the house, nor to seek out a mortgage broker.
Am I blaming my Dad, or am I giving you an excuse to blame me
for your choices? No! But Dads and Moms are ultimately a
significant force in molding each of our lives, particularly
by their example.
Sometimes, like in the case of washing windows, I doubt if my Dad would have ever noticed that a window was dirty, and so why would he take the time to wash it? Sometimes, like in the case of finances, I think my Dad had been hurt so many times by other's greediness and willingness to take advantage of his selfless spirit that he avoided anything to do with finances until he found himself having the same type of problem all over, again and again. Was he a bad guy because of his these characteristics? No! Could he have done better? Yes! Was the molding of Dad's discernment and financial abilities flawed? Yes! Do each of us have flaws in our molding? Yes! Could we each do better? Yes! Is it important not to judge, lest we find ourselves judged? Yes!
For example, for those of you who bother to read these words I write each week, do the words ever get you to think about how you can make your life better than I have made mine? Do they ever encourage you to look at your molding, and change it so your lives, and so, for those with children, the lives of your children will be happier?
Hopefully the above words have made it obvious that this week I have been thinking about Andrea's question about not having helped her wash windows. Melanie asked, and so I was instantly willing and ready to help wash windows. I understood the need to wash the windows before the screens could be put on. I saw a goal and was motivated to meet the goal. Andrea was washing windows, is obviously a competent window washer, and may have expected or may have wanted me to volunteer to help her wash windows, but I either didn't see her expectation and want, or thought what I was working on was more important than helping her do something she was obviously doing a very good job of completing without my help. Sarah, Kate, and Jared, I apologize for molding your spouses so that they might not see, discern, recognize, or act on things which to you obviously need attention.
So how was my week? In some ways I found GDC molding me to the GDC culture, and in some ways I found myself being driven by my past molding. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, evenings I worked with Tony Traweek from 5:30 until 10:30, and on Thursday evening we worked from 5:30 until 7:00, and I finished what was left to do and left for the house at 8:30, getting home about 9:00 PM. We were continuing the geodesy issues for the Gulf of Mexico work, which I mentioned last week (0430.html). There were problems after problem. First there was a power hit, and we couldn't reboot OpenWorks. Then we ran out of space, and could not resort the 4 GB file. Then the geodesy issues had to be resolved because the project covers the entire Gulf of Mexico, and the geodesic stretch at the edges of the project made the maps look unrealistic, and we were not going to be able to translate them into other geodesic projects which GDC's customers more commonly use. Was I frustrated? Yes! Did we finally solve the problems? Yes! Friday, for the first time since I did the initial consulting work for GDC in November of 2003, I was able to step Dave Johnson, Mike Dunn, and Ken Butler through a volume of rock properties as a 3-D volume. The first volume, which we finally got created on Thursday night, was Mud Weight.
Mud is what is put in a drill hole to keep lighter gas and oil from blowing out the hole, like happened on so many of the early oil and gas wells. The weight of the mud is varied by mixing heavy materials with the mud. The deeper you drill, the heavier the drilling mud needs to be to keep fluids from shooting up the hole and creating a blow-out. The GDC rock properties database includes drilling mud weights at various depths between 900 feet and 17,100 feet. This was the first volume that Tony and I created. The results are really neat, and I expect this is the first time someone has made a volume like this. Over the coming months we will find out whether oil companies see any value in these efforts, and whether they are willing to pay for these rock property volumes.
On Monday, as I was driving to GDC listening to Mosiah in the Book of Mormon, I learned something. In Mosiah 7:21 it refers to `the east wind which bringeth immediate destruction,' and in Mosiah 12:6 it refers to being `smitten with the east wind, and insects shall pester their land also.' I found these words quite interesting when put in a Mesoamerican hurricane context. While Tony was working on the workstation, since we only have one Landmark license at GDC, I was not able to do the stuff I had been working on. So I went out on the web and found the hurricane tracking charts for the last 100+ years in the Atlantic, and since 1949 in the Western Pacific. I downloaded the last five years of hurricane charts for both areas, and plotted them using Spotfire against Infinite GridSM Mesoamerican maps I had made some time ago (probably while Andrea was washing windows), and am starting to come up with a very interesting picture of `the east wind which bringeth destruction.'
I would like to expand the data downloaded from 5 years to at least 50 years, so there is a good statistical basis for my conclusions, before sharing the results. As a scientist, I note that there is also a verse in Exodus 10:13 which refers to the east wind which brought locusts, and which could be used to discount what I am finding with my maps. But I expect the maps will be obvious and convincing to anyone with an open mind. Convincing that these Book of Mormon words could not have been created by a 21-25 year old New York farm-boy named Joseph Smith in 1826-1830. There is no way the data could fit so well John A. Sorenson's life work demonstrating `A Possible Setting for The Book of Mormon.'
Then on one of the other nights I started to download maps of ancient archaeological sites in Mesoamerica and to build maps so they could be plotted against the storms using SpotFire. I expect this work will result in a whole new spatial study of The Book of Mormon. I've wondered how many Ph.D.'s and Master's Degrees have been earned based on the physical modeling work Fred Hilterman and I did at The University of Houston. As I cite my mind forward, I wonder how many Ph.D's and Master's Degrees will be earned based on the data mining work I have been exploring relative to The Book of Mormon. Whose life am I molding by thinking outside the box? Hopefully it will have a positive impact in one of your lives, or in the lives of one of your children or grandchildren. And this is not to say that molding is more important than window washing, for we need both to have a pleasant and undistracted life.
On Thursday I actually left my office and GDC's office and went to Fairfield's office in Sugar Land to see a new 3-D visualization system built by a company called Qinetiqs (pronounced kinetics). It is based on 20 Linux clusters, each driving 2 projection displays, and projecting the results on an auto stereoscopic screen using a diffraction process rather than fresnel lens to create the same type of 3-D display which you see with 3-D postcards and without any kind of stereo glasses. The example screen is 2 x 1 meters. The display unit is 12 feet deep. It took them four weeks to get it set up. They were doing a prototype project at Ford Motor Company, and Ford's new president has focused their work back on basics. The cost is $500,000. It is neat technology, and not that neat. It will probably become financially viable within 5 years.
Friday evening on the way home from work I stopped and bought some roses for Andrea. My favorite checkout lady was on duty, whom Matt and I gave the Chinese postcard to. She asked me if the roses were for my wife. I laughed. She told me she hopes to meet a nice man she has been talking to on-line. I felt so sorry for her. Matt and Rachel had talked about giving her a Book of Mormon, and so when I got home I told them about our conversation and they agreed to give her a Book of Mormon. We stopped on the way to Cinemark, and also bought candy. Andrea and I went to `I Robot' and Matt and Rachel went to see `The Village.' Based on the responses we got after the movie, I'm pretty sure we went to the better movie. As with `Signs' or `The Sixth Sense' I have no desire to see `The Village.' Of course, I must admit `I Robot' is eye candy, with too much skin and violence, and not for Grandkids. It is OK as a movie, particularly as an action flick. Andrea didn't want to go because the reviews were bad. Rob told me I would like it. Andrea thought it was a pretty good movie after having gone.
Saturday Andrea had her annual seminary training all day. Rachel left for work at 7:00 AM. I took Andrea to the church at 8:00 AM. Then I worked on catching up Thoughtlets for a while. At 9:00 I went to get a haircut so I would be acceptable for Ethan's birthday party. Then I went to Lowes and bought some supplies to fix the molding in the front entrance. It was a very frustrating day. It was very hard to get the molding to fit around the pillars, and I was not in a good mood by the time Andrea got home at 3:00. It was also Matt's birthday, and he was very good about mowing the lawn and helping me cut the molding. He spent the afternoon and evening with friends, one of whom has a birthday on the same day, and is one year older. I got about half way through with fixing the molding. Andrea seems convinced that if it is not finished before the house is appraised on Friday that the appraisal will be thousands of dollars less. I'm not. And maybe this is because of my molding.
Today was Fast and Testimony meeting. There was a very nice spirit there. Tyler Camp is back for the weekend, and he has a mission call coming in the mail. He seems to have grown up a lot. Steve and Barbara Wood were also visiting from Ponca City. In High Priest Quorum, Jeff Jurinak taught the lesson. He had Steve Wood read a quote from Elder Bradford from which I derived a possible Prime Words stanza:
This afternoon I wrote. We had a nice birthday dinner for
Matt. Rob came over and gave Matt three nice birthday
presents. We had a nice discussion afterwards. Rob was
making fun of my ZoomTool structures. He told us that
just like 666 is the devil's number that 777 is God's
number. My work to find the fingerprint of God in data
mining words in The Book of Mormon was brought up. Rob
pointed out that only the brother of Jared, who saw the
finger of the Lord, would really know what the fingerprint
of God was like. It's nice to know he remembers some of
the things I attempted to teach each of you. Maybe I have
done a better job than I sometimes give myself credit for
in terms of the multiple meanings of the word molding."