08 Aug 2004 #0432.html

Yarden Kessler's Bat Mitzvah

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Dear Paul and Kate, Melanie and Jared, Bridget and Justin, Sara, Ben and Sarah, Heather, Audrey, Rachel, Matt via hardcopy, and Brian,

cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts

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.

"Today (I wrote this last week, and am just getting around to editing it) has been a hard day for me. However, as I look back over the week, there was one definite highlight. First some background. Wednesday evening, at the request of Ron Dozier, the Stake Employment Specialist, I went over to the Catholic Church to help set up chairs for the semiannual joint Catholic/LDS Job Fair. Ethan was here, and after a nice spaghetti dinner, he went with me to help put up the chairs. The chairs were bigger than he is, and he worked really hard at moving them around and getting them in the right place. It was so much fun to see his enthusiasm and his willingness to do whatever was asked of him. There was one scare. He pulled the legs on folding tables up, and then we needed to move the cart full of tables to another part of the hall, and didn't put the legs back down. Ethan was helping push the cart by pushing on the legs, and the legs collapsed and smashed his fingers. Another quarter of an inch and he could have lost a finger. It scared him more than hurt, and he was babying them for quite a while. After we finished, we took a list of the companies hiring at the job fair across the street to Bishop Camp, and then took a copy of this list to John and Kathy McReynolds. Ethan was a perfect gentleman on each visit. He was very, very, very reverent when we went into the churches. This was very impressive to me.

Given this background, let me share the highlight of my week. As we were driving home from these errands, completely out of nowhere, Ethan looked at me and said, `Grandpa, I love you!' It was so sincere. So loving. So special. Hopefully some of you who read these words will feel the Holy Ghost or the Lord's spirit bear witness to you why this was the highlight of my week. So why didn't I title this Thoughtlet with the words: `Grandpa, I love you!'? First, because there will only be one week in my life which can be titled `Yarden Kessler's Bat Mitzvah.' Second, because I hope I will hear the words `Grandpa, I love you' more than just this once. And third, because of my fears that these sincere, loving, special words were an anomaly, an anomaly which will go away as the earthy attitudes of our modern society encroach on the pure loving spirit of a beautiful child of God. On reflection, I'm sure the dominant reason for the title of this week's Thoughtlet is tied to my fears.

It was another busy week. Although I only stayed late Monday and Thursday evenings. First thing Monday morning, I found myself working on renewing Jialin Yan's contract. Monday night was spent working with Tony Traweek on the geodesy problems. Tuesday, there was a note from Jialin, and we began negotiating the contract. I don't negotiate well. I really like Jialin, and it is hard to be a friend and an employee and honor what you are told to do with what your friend is asking for. Oh well!

Tuesday morning Andrea and I called Sara. She did not answer. I think she is on vacation this week. Oh well! We got a package from her that included the little drive I sent her a few weeks ago (0423.html). Sara, thanks for the PowerPoint presentations. I have converted them to html, and will post them at http://www.walden3d.com/benin/presentation01 for your review. Shortly after I got to work I received a call from Doug Harless. I'd been asked by Dave and Mike to contact him to see if he could help with a need for additional Lunix clusters for the big West Africa processing job. He had changed his cell phone number, and I had no way to get hold of him, so I was really glad to get his call. It was a very interesting call. After the call I walked in Dave's office, closed the door and said, `We need to have a revival meeting.' Dave was getting ready to leave for Kenya, in East Africa, for two weeks, for a missionary trip. Last year they drilled a water well. I had mentioned this to Doug, and he explained he had invested $300,000 getting a drilling rig put together and packaged to be sent to Kenya to drill water wells. As I explained this to Dave, he looked at me and said,

I told him I felt so, and that the call seemed and felt like so much more than coincidence. Then I explained that the reason Doug had called, was because one of his investors wants to purchase an exploration company, and Doug is going to check and see if this could be a geophysical services company or an oil and gas exploration company. Then I explained Doug has access to the largest Linux cluster in the world, at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and they are looking for a partner with intense computation problems, like prestack depth migration, which they can use to `break-in' their new cluster. Each of these three things are of great interest to Dave. In addition to our ongoing conversation with Jialin Yan and his contacts at CNPC.

Wednesday was a good day. Sarah, thank you so much for arranging for Andrea and me to go to the Houston Museum of Natural Science with Ethan. It was an absolute blast to watch his eyes as he discovered new things. The dinosaurs were particularly fun. But everything is new, and there are so many things he got very excited about. Especially the mag lev train, and the dump truck taking sludge from the Houston water system filtration plant. I didn't want to go back to work, but that is what I get to do right now, so I did go back to work. In the evening, on the way back to the house, I called Sam LeRoy, to see if he might be able to work with us on the Tiles^TM. He has been doing some work for PetroSolutions, and sees a possible confict-of-interest. I hope it isn't, because I do enjoy working with Sam. I got home in time for the spaghetti dinner and to go set up chairs with Ethan. Then we came back to the house and played cars, and pool, and other cool stuff.

I've discovered if I leave the house at 6:55 AM I can catch the Rush Limbaugh update on the Pat Gray show, listen to a couple of chapters of The Book of Mormon, and listen to The Engines of Our Ingenuity just before I park at One Riverway. Thursday morning I wrote a possible stanza:

Thursday morning there were more e-mails from China. At 10:30 Lac Nguyen brought two professors from UH Downtown by. They might be a good source of students for us to digitize logs from the estimated 400 well logs for the Tiles^TM project. They also might be a source of programmers and others who can help as GDC expands, assuming we are able to sell the material we have been putting together. I had to leave the meeting before it was done.

I met Melanie, Colby, and Taylor at the Downtown Houston Aquarium under the spray unit for getting cooled off. Colby and I went and bought the tickets. He pointed out the bad shark from Finding Nemo. He also pointed out the waterfalls, and wanted to go get in the middle of them. They have this spurt fountain, like at the new theater in Cedar City, only with over a hundred spurts (everything is bigger in Texas). Melanie dressed Colby down to his diaper, and he went playing in the spurts. He got spurted in the face, and so he always covered his mouth after that. Andrea, Sarah, and Ethan were so busy watching Colby that they missed the turn, got stuck on Alan Parkway, and had to go around a big circle to get back to The Aquarium. What a perfect age to go through the aquarium. Ethan's favorite thing was the pirate treasure. He kept wanting to go back and to get some of it. Colby liked Nemo and Dori. At one point Sarah grasped her hands together over her heart and said:

Ethan did not like the loud noises. After I left they went on the train ride, the Ferris wheel, the carousel, and ate lunch upstairs in the aquarium cafe. I had taken both Ethan and Colby up there to see the sharks while Melanie nursed Taylor. It was another fun afternoon, with two handsome boys who both enjoyed being with their Grandpa. I went back to work and ended up working until about 9:00 with Tony Traweek. We got most of the issues resolved we have been working on the last few weeks.

Friday morning Carlos was finally able to provide me the data from Tile-01, which is centered on South Timblier South Addition Federal Protraction Area offshore Louisiana. I spent all day making maps. I made maps of Shale Vp, Sand Vp, Shale Density, Sand Density, and Sand Distribution at depths of 5,100 feet, at 10,100 feet, at 15,100 feet, and at 20,100 feet. I was asked to do a bunch of other stuff, and I found myself getting into my present funk by the time I left the office. I did stop and buy Andrea some roses, and I bought some candy to replace the M&M's Maureen Callahagn and the chocolates Pamela West have put out in their offices. I was burned out, and looking forward to Yarden Kessler's Bat Mitzvah by the time I got home.

The invitation is a pretty yellow flower with Yarden's name in English and in Hebrew saying:

I was going to take photos of the invitation and of the program, and I decided it would be too much with the four photos I want to include from Iraq, and so I will just type out the program:

Andrea and I were representatives from our family. It was a very nice service. Yarden is much more self-confident than Sam LeRoy's son Ira was (../0227.html). The Rabbi was the same guitar strumming singer, and they have moved to a new site. Karen's mother, Dorit Jackson, is over 80 years old. We had a nice discussion with her. She was born in Germany, and was able to leave Germany listed as her Uncle's daughter in 1939 and immigrate to Israel. She reminds me so much of Grandma Hafen. It was a nice evening, and they had very good desserts. However, I was still hungry, and so I stopped at Wendy's and bought a bacon cheeseburger on the way home.

Friday I wrote a possible stanza for Prime Words, based on Yarden Kessler's talk at her Bat Mitzvah:

Saturday I wrote two more:

Saturday morning turned out to be quite hectic. Andrea is very busy getting ready for Seminary to start next week. I was busy working on getting Sara's powerpoint so it could be put on the web, and turning it into CD's so I could give copies to Roice, Ben, Melanie, and Rob at Ethan's birthday party. Rachel had to go to work early because it is the Texas Tax Free Weekend. Matt needed a ride to his new job at Urban Planet. Andrea needed a letter taken over to Bishop Camp. I needed to charge my digital camera. Roice called and said he was going to stop and pick up the two coffee tables Ben had refinished in High School and take them to Galveston for Melanie to put in her pickup.

On the way to taking Matt to Urban Planet I turned on Car Talk. They had a guy call and ask about the how the handle people who come up to you when you are in the far left lane of the freeway, and you are going at or slightly over the speed limit, and they flash their lights to get you to move out of the way so they can travel at 85 or 90 mph. The conclusion was that it is not our responsibility to correct these folks, and we need to let them receive the consequences for their actions all on their own. This would be a good thing for me to learn. I'm afraid I haven't, and I tell myself it is because I care.

Anyway, I digress, and the bottom line is Andrea and I ended up being about 10 minutes late for Yarden Kessler's Bat Mitzvah on Saturday morning. Andrea and I also had some words about how poorly we have been communicating lately. Oh well! On the positive side, Masako Perich and her daughter Maiya were at the Bat Mitzvah. It turns out Maiya is one of Yarden's best friends. We stayed long enough after the service to eat some lunch. This made us about 10 minutes late getting to Ethan's birthday party. Oh well!

Ethan and Colby were glad to see me. Ethan was a little bit confused by having two Grandpa's. The party was nice. We did not give as nice a gift as others, and I reminded myself we did take Ethan to the Museum and the Aquarium. We ate hamburgers and cake, even though neither Andrea nor I were hungry. I drove Andrea and Colby down to the beach in the golf cart, and Andrea took Colby out to wade. I sat in the golf cart and waited in front of Mike Forest's beach house (../0033.html). It was fun to play with the Grandkids. At the same time, it hurts more than I have words to say to see those I love and strived to teach correct principles to not following what I thought I had taught. I don't know how to let go of these things that scare me so much. Andrea later told me it is not my responsibility to be the policeman, and I need to learn to just love love you kids. Oh well!

Also, Sarah's Mom had fallen and hurt her left hand, and it was very badly bruised. Seeing this bruise reminded me of the times back in 1991-1995, before PAIRS and learning how to go out into the desert and scream (../9733.html and ../9743.html) or to hit the bed with a tennis racket (../9718.html), when I would get so mad about my lack of control of things at home, that I would box a solid wooden door frame or door until my hands were swollen and the same kind of black and blue as Susan Johnson's were. I don't handle these type of emotional memories very well. There was not much conversation, and I'm sure this was largely my issue because I don't know how to handle my feelings very well. Our three hours in Galveston seemed to fly by, and yet they also dragged. I'm sure I was still down in the dumps from work Friday, and also from the argument with Andrea earlier in the morning.

Andrea and I drove back to The Westside Tennis Club for the last portion of Yarden Kessler's Bat Mitzvah. It was the party, which Yarden's Grandma Jackson said was the only part of the service which is like what happens in Israel. It was very loud, and Andrea estimated that the Kessler's spent a lot of money on caterers and facilities for the three meals and the entertainment. Steve Tobais was there with his wife, and discussions with him were the most enjoyable portion of the evening for me. It was fun to see Yarden, Karen, David, and Amir put in a chair and bounced around in the center of a hundred people all clapping to very loud music. There was champagne, wine, and beer, and I was not comfortable with children being around this stuff. It was so loud that we finally left about 10:00 P.M.

Because I had been working on getting Sara's powerpoint so it could be put on the web, and turning it into CD's I did not read Saturday's Houston Chronicle until Sunday. It was interesting to see an advertisement for Temple Sinai:

There was also a headline in a Houston Chronicle article on page A6, Saturday, 07 Aug 2004, which caught my attention:

Imagine, being a failure and not showing up to work because you are dead! As mentioned above, I was somewhat down in the dumps, and this headline lifted my spirits a little bit. It brought new meaning to my nemesis phrase from President McKay:

My obsessive thoughts have been along the lines of:

Sometimes, when I am in a funk like this, I seem to be able to hear the spirit better. For instance, I wrote four possible stanzas for Prime Words at church today:

As I was starting to write this, there were two e-mail's from David Devor in Israel which I found quite interesting:

1. Fifty-nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 911 by David Kopel of the Independence Institute, 13952 Denver West Parkway, Suite 400 • Golden, Colorado 80401-3119, www.IndependenceInstitute.org • 303-279-6536 • 303-279-4176 fax The extended article is a available for download at www.davekopel.org and I will not include his 59 points here. The more I read, the more I am convinced that Satan is actively involved in politics today. And the sad part is, he works both sides.
   
   This essay comes from the Independence Institute, a think tank in Colorado which is founded on the principles of the Declaration of Independence (www.independenceinstitute.org). The author, Dave Kopel, is a life-long Democrat who endorsed and voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. He supports some but not all aspects of the current war on terror.
2. The second included the four photos below of an Iraqi jet buried in the sand, along with this explanation: `The Iraqi jet, an advanced Russian MiG-25 Foxbat, was found buried in the sand after an informant tipped off U.S. troops. The MiG was dug out of a massive sand dune near the Al Taqqadum airfield by U.S. Air Force recovery teams. The MiG was reportedly one of over two dozen Iraqi jets buried in the sand, like hidden treasure, waiting to be recovered at a later date. Contrary to what some in the major media have reported, not all the jets found were from the Gulf War era. The Russian-made MiG-25 Foxbat being recovered by U.S. Air Force troops in the photos is an advanced reconnaissance version never before seen in the West and is equipped with sophisticated electronic warfare devices. U.S. Air Force recovery teams had to use large earth-moving equipment to uncover the MiG, which is over 70 feet long and weighs nearly 25 tons. The Foxbat is known to be one of Iraq's top jet fighters. The advanced electronic reconnaissance version found by the U.S. Air Force is currently in service with the Russian air force. The MiG is capable of flying at speeds of over 2,000 miles an hour, or three times the speed of sound, and at altitudes of over 75,000 feet. The recovery of the advanced MiG fighter is considered to be an intelligence coup by the U.S. Air Force.. The Foxbat may also be equipped with advanced Russian- and French-made electronics that were sold to Iraq during the 1990s in violation of a U.N. ban on arms sales to Baghdad. The buried aircraft at Al Taqqadum were covered in camouflage netting, sealed and, in many cases, had their wings removed before being buried more than 10 feet beneath the Iraqi desert. X Marks the Spot The discovery of the buried Iraqi jet fighters illustrates the problem faced by U.S. inspection teams searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is larger in size than California, and the massive deserts south and west of Baghdad were used by Saddam Hussein to hide weapons during the first Gulf war. U.S. intelligence sources have already uncovered several mass grave burial sites in the open deserts with an estimated 10,000 dead hidden there. In addition, Iraq previously hid SCUD missiles, chemical weapons and biological warheads by burying them under the desert sand. U.N. inspection teams found the weapons in the early 1990s after detailed information of the exact locations was obtained. Top U.S. weapons inspector Dr. David Kay is known to favor human intelligence as the primary means to find Iraq's hidden treasure trove of weapons and secrets. While there are rumors of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons being shipped to nearby Syria, the weapons may very well still remain inside Iraq buried under the vast desert wastelands. Some critics of the Bush administration have claimed that the inability of U.S.. forces to uncover weapons of mass destruction is proof that the president misled the nation into the war with Iraq. However, in recent days the critics have fallen silent as word quietly leaked from Iraq that major discoveries have already been made and are now being documented completely. Bush administration officials are keeping any such discoveries secret for the moment. MSS-3 DET 32 DET. LCPO MACS(SW) Larry S. Briggs WK - (619) 767-1491 FAX - (619) 767-1472 CELL - (360) 649-5032'


I have no idea if these are real, or if they are like the beheading video that was faked by a student and which has been splashed all over Arab television this week. There is contact information if any of you are interested in following up and letting me know what whether these two stories have a basis in fact.

Roice stopped by this afternoon. He brought the HyperMedia booth back from Melanie. He also brought my Phi Sigma Kappa Fraternity Mug and the castle I made when I was in 9th grade. It was kind of ironic that he was giving me back my beer mug. Especially since I have never even tasted a beer, and I could not help but wonder if I have ever explicitly taught this fact.

Choir practice for singing at Stake Choir somewhat helped pull me out of my funk. The song, Child of Faith Medley, arranged by Donald H. Ripplinger, is very nice, and so I will include the words:

`I wonder when he comes again, will herald angels sing? Will earth be white with drifted snow, Or will the world know spring? I wonder if one star will shine Far brighter than the rest; Will daylight stay the whole night through, Will songbirds leave their nests? I'm sure he'll call his little ones Together 'round his knee, Because he said in days gone by, "Suffer them to come to me" I wonder when he comes again, Will I be ready there To look upon his loving face And join with him in prayer? Each day I'll try to do his will And let my light so shine That others seeing me may seek For greater light divine. Then when that blessed day is here, He'll love me and he'll say, "You've served me well, my little child; come unto my arms to stay." I have a family here on earth. They are so good to me. I want to share my life with them through all eternity. Families can be together forever Through Heav'nly Father's plan. I always want to be with my own family, And the Lord has shown me how I can. The Lord has shown me how I can. While I am in my early years, I'll prepare most carefully, So I can marry in God's temple for eternity. Through Heav'nly Father's plan. I always want to be with my own family, And the Lord has shown me how I can. The Lord has shown me how I can, how I can. I love to see the temple. I'm going there someday To feel the Holy Spirit, To listen and to pray. For the temple is a house of God. A place of love and beauty. I'll prepare myself while I am young; This is my sacred duty. I love to see the temple. I'll go inside someday. I'll covenant with my Father; I'll promise to obey. For the temple is a holy place Where we are sealed together. As a child of God, I've learned this truth: A family is forever. A family is forever.'


I continue to hope in the future. Just as David and Karen Kessler hope for the future of their daughter, which was shown by Yarden Kessler's Bat Mitzvah."

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 © 2004 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.