"It has been a quiet week by Lake Wobegone. The biggest news is that Sara is coming home early from the Peace Corps. She was very hesitant to tell me, because I have taught you kids to follow through on commitments. I understand she has been sick a lot, and I have been very worried about what she hasn't told me about her friends and traveling companions, living and work conditions, motorcycle accident, and other things. There is a tendency among a few of you kids to lie to me, i.e. to not tell the whole truth or only to say the things you think I want to hear. There is a classic example that came up a few weeks ago, and I was specifically asked not to write anything about it in a Thoughtlet, and so I won't, until it becomes public knowledge, and then I won't make a big deal about it. My point is that eventually the truth (knowledge of things as they were, as they are, and as they are to be, 0502.html) always comes out. Anyway, Sara Ellen will be home about Easter. I will probably be in China when she gets back. I did not ask her, but I assume she does not get any of the $5,000 job completion pay. I know she is worried about money and wants to get after understanding what is involved in being a full time cook.
In last Sunday's Chronicle there was an article about thousands of protesters clashing with police in Togo, the country just to the west of Benin. Sara had sent a note saying to call her on Monday in Contoneau, because she was going to Ghana on Monday afternoon (http://www.walden3d.com/benin/letters/050211.html). Needless to say I was less than excited about her trip, and told her when I finally got hold of her on the phone. She assured me she would be safe, and that she was traveling in a Peace Corps car, and that they take all necessary precautions. She sent the following note on Friday:
I hope that somewhere in my words, those of you who read them
will see the depth of my concern, my love, and my desires for
the very best for each of you. Maybe you will find it in the
consistency with which I write them? Maybe you will find it
in the things I do not write about? Maybe you will find it
in the white spaces between what is written? And maybe some
of you will never recognize it in this life? Oh well! Isn't
being a parent fun? A challenge? A trial? A test? A
learning experience? An opportunity for personal growth?
On Monday, Andrea gave me a card that read:
Also, we received a nice note from Bridget:
There was yet another interesting show on `The Engines of Our
Ingenuity' Monday morning, a repeat of program #1035 about
Martha Ballard Midwife, from which I wrote the following
possible stanza for Prime Words:
Jialin has been tied up with Spring Festival activities all
week, and so there was no communication from China until
Friday. The report was brief and to the point, and left
more questions than answers. Sam LeRoy had a Tiles meeting
on Monday, and I was asked to find some more well log
digitizers. I called Rob, and he was interested, but sick.
The Doctor told him he was no longer contagious, and so I
picked him up Tuesday morning at 6:15 and he worked until
4:15. He was too sick to come in Wednesday or Thursday, and
too sick to even call in on Friday until after lunch and
several phone messages from me. Oh well! Tuesday evening
Andrea and I went to the temple and both enjoyed the time
together and in The House of The Lord. I spent the first
of the week working on cleaning up my e-mail messages at
work. I also put together a Spotfire presentation on my
Dynamic Prospects to show to Rick Zimmerman, when (if) he
calls back. Tony Traweek and worked late on Wednesday night.
Roger Anderson had pointed Vijay Vaitheeswaran, the Energy and Environment Corespondent for The Economist, at me. He was in town for CERA WEEK (Cambridge Energy Associates). He kept delaying his visit, and finally made it to the office at 7:00 Wednesday evening. Lee Bell was walking out as I finished my initial debriefing of what Vijay wanted, and ended up talking to him with me for an hour. Then I gave him a series of demonstrations and described some of the projects I have been working on. He was particularly interested in my work with gas hydrates, and I might end up publishing the stuff I prepared for the Hedberg Conference for two years in that magazine. Interesting. He was very interested in my connections in China. Also, I sent him some follow-up information, and it will be interesting to see what actually gets published in the April edition of The Economist. He assured me I would not be taken out of context, and frankly, fairly often when I've been quoted in the press in the past, I find there are some points which are misrepresented. Time always tells.
Samuel Mentemeier, the Anadarko geophysicist I have been working with on the presentation for the Spotfire conference next Tuesday (0509.html), had a motorcycle accident, breaking his leg in two places, and making it so he will not be able to attend the meeting and give the presentation. Anadarko assigned a petrophysicist named Brian Locke to take his place. I met with him on Friday and he will do a very good job. The other thing that happened at work was that Prakash and I spent quite a bit of time putting together a model from the Xing Jiang Oilfield for Dave Johnson. I kept making mistakes in what I provided Prakash, and as with most mathematical models, he was able to identify the mistakes and ask me to redo it. I think I got it right before I left on Friday. It is interesting that folks are still coming up to me and saying that they miss our Chinese visitors. There was an article in this week's Time Magazine about the number of Chinese spies in the United States. When I read it I laughed and thought about Mr. Mao from Xing Jaing. I let him borrow Prime Words one night, and he came back with a note that said `A philosopher. Mr. Roice' Then the day they left he took dozens of digital photos of my office, telling me he wanted to arrange his office just like I arranged my office. I wondered at the time if it was some kind of spy thing. Oh well! I got quite sick myself Thursday night, and have spent a lot of time asleep in bed since then.
Friday we received a nice thank you card from Taylor Robbyn Wright (0507.html). I was amazed with her handwriting improvements in the last week. It read:
The theme for this week is the death of a long time
professional colleague. Stephen G. Starr called things
like he saw them, and as a result of me accusing him of
spreading rumors about my marital problems around the
Houston Geophysical Community sometime in 1995, we have
not had much to do with each other for the last decade.
He was certainly right in regards to his brash comments
about my `eternal marriage.' And I was probably
paranoid in my reaction to what he said, and my concern
for the impact of his words on my reputation. And I
think we both lost out by letting this personal stuff
get in the way of our working together professionally.
Oh well!
Sam LeRoy came into my office on Tuesday morning and told me Steve had had a stroke and died. Over the next few days I learned how close Steve and Sam had worked together since I introduced them when we were doing the HyperEdge Expert Association Breakfast Meetings from September 9th, 1993 to August 17th 1995 (http://www.walden3d.com/hmc96/hypermedia2.html). But before I go there, let me give a bit of history.
Back in 1983 or 1984, Steve Starr worked at Union Texas Petroleum. UTP was also the home to Al Poprik, Bill Dickison, and Keith Rawlinson. I remember Steve and Al giving me a copy of a research study by GeoQuest International on the requirements needed to make a successful interactive workstation. We had already designed and built and delivered our first Landmark III workstations. I was interested in the document for historical reasons, i.e. because GeoQuest was a sponsor of the Seismic Acoustics Lab, and their consortium appeared to have been built based on the presentations I gave at the Annual Meetings of SAL. I never used this manual for any design of Landmark software, and looking back I can see how this could be considered corporate espionage. Oh well!
Steve was the person at UTP who pushed through the purchase of Landmark III system serial number 13. This system had dual power, was used in Houston for a while for training, then was sent to Spain, then was brought back to Houston, and eventually was given to the SEG, along with all of the original users manuals, for their museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I next knew Steve at Total Minitome, where he was doing
similar things. He started an annual PC based software
meeting called GeoTech in Houston, which I think
originally started in Denver. The AAPG had a magazine
named GeoByte for several years, which grew out of the
GeoTech meetings. The work that Tracy Stark has been
pursuing for the last several years was sparked by a
presentation I gave at one of these GeoTech Conventions.
There are interconnections within interconnections
related to Steve Starr and my career. I think the
photo from flyer we made for the the HyperEdge Expert
Association Consulting Services highlights the
connections (to the right). Steve arranged for the photographer and
set up the organization. The big oak tree was on
Maudeen Mark's ranch. I'm in the front. Steve is in
back of me to the left (my right hand). Behind him are
Blaine Taylor and Rhonda Harmann (whom Steve talked me
into hiring). Then from left to right are Terry Smith,
Laramie Winczewski, Charlie Rego, Ron Szabo, and Russ
Herron. The meetings with Steve were always firey,
and one never knew where they would go. He was a
catalyst for much good in the industry.
Since all of us have to die, and since you are hopefully too young to see many of your friends die, and so you do not feel the loss as acutely as those of us who have known and worked with folks for many years do, I will type out Steve's obituary for your consideration:
Although I wasn't feeling very well, I went to the viewing
on Thursday evening and the funeral on Friday afternoon.
It was like old home week. Tom Smith, President of SMT,
was leaving as I arrived. Mike McCardle was talking to
him along with Jerry Donaldson. Bill Dickson and his wife
asked about Keith Rawlinson. Scott Sechrist gave me a
status of his work at Calpine and got caught up on what
I have been doing. I did not think they did a very good
job on Steve's makeup. He looked very gray and had aged
a lot since I had seen him ten years earlier. The little
sheet they handed out at the funeral service said:
Stephen G. Starr put a lot of work into the North Harris
County Community College program to re-educate geologists
and geophysicists. He got Landmark, GeoQuest, and SMT to
donate systems and training expertise to the College.
Clifford Kelly ran the program for a while, and he was
the person who, to me, gave the most stirring tribute to
Steve. Sam LeRoy, who was broken up all week over Steve's
passing, also have very nice comments. The PowerPoint
summary of his life was interesting. The music, a weird
song about 300 tons of bananas, seemed to fit Steve.
Mike McCardle's wife talked me into stepping forward and
taking and then releasing one of the balloons in Steve's
honor. It was the first time I have seen this at a
funeral, and I thought it was very nice. My balloon was
one of three that floated off to the left and formed a
triangle, while the other balloons were all in a group as
they floated off fairly rapidly into the western sky.
Steve made a difference, he was a delta function for our
industry, and I am sorry we did not reconcile after the
divorce proved him right in what he had said to me, the
specific's of which I can not even remember, as it
occurred at least a year before I started writing these
Thoughtlets, and a couple of years before they turned
into my personal journal.
I do hope each of you have someone to prod and to nag and to get you to do things like take the Birkman test. In my life, this was partly provided by Stephen G. Starr."