"It has been a wonderful week. As I reflect on the week I see how it followed the 80/20 rule. Wikipedia defines this rule as:
How does our week relate to the 80/20 rule? I guess this little thought are based around having 20% of our kids home for the week, i.e. Matt and Rachel. It is based on how much we enjoyed being with each other. It is based on 20% of our vacation being quite miserable, because of factors completely outside of our control (see the description of Friday night and Saturday below). I'm sure if I was willing to spend the time I could come up with other correlations. However, I will simply and briefly summarize our Disney World Vacation 2007. The trip is best summarized through the digital photos I took, which are located at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Trips/070313-16_Florida.
Monday was a work day. It was too typical of how things have been going. In order to speed up the depth migration processing, there has been an effort to run the algorithm's on multiple nodes at the same time. Each node typically has 8 CPUs (Central Processing Units), and the algorithms are already parallelized to run across multiple CPUs at one time. The issue is that the batch process to run across multiple nodes at the same time has never been solved. I left GDC on Monday evening glad to be getting away for four days, and feeling like the time I've been in the Depth Migration Group, which is about 4 months as I started in this group in November, has largely been wasted. I have done some good work for China, Mexico, and of course I have done a lot of filing, and my Galveston Futures project. However, as far as making GDC any money to justify my salary, it has mostly been negatives, i.e. showing how this breaks or that breaks, how much time it actually takes to pick velocities, acting as a counselor, helping close the Columbia 3-D seismic processing and interpretation project, and working with Les on the paper for the AAPG in Los Angles in April. It was nice to be leaving on our Disney World Vacation 2007, and to put all of the frustrations of working at Geokinetics behind me for a few days.
There was a lot to do when I got home. I had finished up the previous Thoughtlet on Michael Grant Cahoon (0710.html) on Sunday evening, printed copies for my files and for Matt, and moved it to html on Sunday evening. However, I forgot to e-mail it to Paul and Melanie. I actually got home about a half hour before Andrea, Matt, and Rachel. Andrea and Matt had gone to Intercontinental Airport to pick up Rachel, and they had come home by way of Michael Cahoon's grave site. They were pretty somber. I don't remember what I did, and it was something like mow the lawn. George, Becky, and Kevin Scultz came over for Family Home Evening, thanks to Matt talking to Kevin on Sunday, when they were both at church in their army uniforms. Matt was responsible for the lesson, and he basically attempted to shoot from the hip. Doesn't work to not be prepared. Sister Schultz was prepared with a lesson about things you can do with you cell phone. And Andrea was prepared with a lesson and had us each look up scriptures that protect us from Satan's deviousness. I read from Numbers 11:16-17, where the Lord called the first quorum of the seventy to support Moses and gave them The Holy Ghost, which were words I had just read in my effort to count the names and attributes of God in the scriptures. Also, there was a lot of talk about service to the country in Iraq, because Kevin just returned, and so I went up stairs and got my copy of "Letters Home" about Henry Wendell Jones (../0439.html), and read about his experience on Normandy Beach. I choked up and cried as I tried to read it and to express my gratitude to Kevin and Matt and their colleagues. I sang "I once saw a family" after all of these lessons, and then we had ice cream for desert. It was a nice very evening.
Tuesday morning came early. We were are the airport by 6:00 AM for a 7:30 flight to Orlando via Atlanta. Everything went pretty good. The Atlanta airport does not have free wireless, and it is interesting what a hassle it is not being able to log on and collect e-mail or to do other on-line activities. When we got to Orlando we got our car at Enterprise, and proceeded to Kennedy Space Center, or what I grew up knowing as Cape Canaveral. The photos I took are at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Trips/070313-16_Florida/070313_NASA. I loved our brief time there. It brought back all of the memories about my childhood watching of the unfolding of the manned space program and things which I have written about before, like October Skies and the first rockets. There were a lot of things I wanted to purchase in the gift shop for grandsons. I didn't. Maybe I'm getting better at my spendthrift attitude. The last place we went to was a kid's show about going to Mars in 2025. It was fun, and probably the highlight of this part of the trip for Rachel and Matt.
We left the visitors center, drove back to the mainland, and before we knew it we were at Rick and Pat Hawthorne's house. It was so good to see them again. They had waited for us so we could go to dinner together, and everyone was hungry by the time we arrived at about 6:30 PM. So we went out to eat at the best steak house in the area. It has been a long time since I've eaten a good steak. The conversations were a lot of fun. Their son Ronnie has just moved back home. He talked about Roice driving around through rain puddles listening to music about being 'so bad,' and he talked about Ben, like he and Ben were best friends. Interesting. I do not remember him from when Rick and Pat stopped and stayed with us on different occasions. When we got back to the house, both Andrea and I read the 50+ pages Rick and Pat have put together as a draft on their book about some of the trials their marriage has had to take on. Most of what is written so far is about their son Ryan, who is mentally about 5 years old, and who is now living in state sponsored housing about six hours away. Life can be so sad. They have also written some about Ronnie's cocaine addiction and some of the struggles he has had. Both Andrea and I made some minor suggestions to the text. I think it will be a wonderful book, one which we can all learn a lot from. Especially how a marriage based on love keeps going, even when there are really significant problems being faced. This is certainly a different attitude than those who justify families breaking up because the parents 'just made each other so miserable.' People individually choose to be miserable. Misery (see 0706.html) is exactly the same as being offended (see ../0651.html), and blaming misery on someone else is nothing other than an excuse for selfishness and a way to justify things like divorce based on blaming someone else for personal sins and personal choices to be miserable. A highlight in regards to Rick and Pat's book is they were motivated to do this based on my efforts with An Open Mind. Unintended consequences of independent actions need not always be negative.
The photo to the right is the best summary of our trip from my perspective, specifically because it shows the four of us in front of a castle in the sky. This is a photo taken on Wednesday, our day spent in Disney's Magic Kingdom (see http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Trips/070313-16_Florida/070314_Magic_Kingdom). The day started out with a fabulous breakfast, which Pat fixed for us. We drove past The Magic Kingdom to The Animal Kingdom and had to drive back. We went from one ride to another, and learned how to get and use "Fast Track" tickets. We ate Taco Salad's for lunch and Fish and Chips for dinner. Andrea, Rachel, and Matt each seemed to be living out part of their childhood they missed growing up. I enjoyed the parade, and talking to young college students from Nepal. The fireworks were great. Matt and Rachel went down Thunder River, Splash Mountain, and Space mountain two times each. It was obvious they had fun. Both Matt and Rachel commented I did not smile very much on the trip. I've thought about this comment a lot. My heart is certainly torn by not being able to have the other 80% of you with us. It was good to see Rick and Pat, and it hurt to better come to understand the struggles they have had. The good thing is they each have a strong testimony of the gospel, and this has helped them navigate the troubled waters along their path. The trip certainly brought back memories of good times, like when I brought six of you to Disney World years ago, or when all ten of us went to Disneyland prior to Andrea and I getting married. One of the things which kept ringing in my head was the scene in "Man's Search For Happiness," which I have referred to in several previous Thoughtlets (see ../0625.html), where it refers to the temporary happiness found at the carnival. I probably watched that film strip an average of once very other day over my two year mission, and the images are burned in my memory. I'm sure this is a big part of the reason why I have always avoided theme parks like 'Six Flags Over Texas.' It is sad I never learned how to play. I'm sorry! I'm sorry if I frowned too much! I did have a good time on the trip, and there were also lots of good memories crowding my memory. I particularly liked the parade and the fireworks on Wednesday. We did not get back to Rick and Pat's house until about midnight. Everyone but me was asleep when we arrived, which is good since I was driving.
Thursday we got up later. Everyone was tired. I still was up early enough to spend a few minutes talking to Rick before he took off for work. Pat had another big breakfast for us. I spent the time everyone else was getting ready getting digital photos ready for the web. We arrived at The Animal Kingdom at about 10:30 AM (see http://walden3d.com/photos/Trips/070313-16_Florida/070315_Animal_Kingdom). Relatively early on in our visit I recall saying to Matt, "This is first class replication of squaller." It was my first time to visit The Animal Kingdom. I was blown away by how third world the various venues looked. I expect I would have been happy spending all three days we were in Florida at this park. There is lots and lots and lots to see. We went on a ride in Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in Florida, which was something else. I didn't want to do it again, and I'm sure Matt and Rachel would have done it three or four times. I loved the safari ride. Interesting wild animals, much better than at a zoo. Giraffes and elephants are so magnificent in an environment that looks like it is natural to them. The big baobab trees are reminded me of my trip in a taxi down the west coast of Africa, which I documented in Thoughtlet ../0336.html. We ate lunch in Africa, where I had salmon, Mom had a chicken salad, Rachel had half a rotisserie chicken, and Matt had a turkey wrap sandwich and soup. Wasn't exactly like eating lunch in Africa. It was good, and as we left the restaurant we watched black gymnasts do fantastic jumps and jump roping. We did not make it to the big tree in the middle of the Animal Kingdom. We walked through Dinosaur Land, and did not go on any rides. A lot of it was like a carnival. There was a place to go dig for fossils, and it would be fun to take Ethan there. Fact is, I kept thinking about setting up a special Grandpa, daughter/daughter-in-law, and grandson trip to Disney World. Andrea said it is best to let the parents take the kids to Disney Word. Time will tell what happens. There was a very high pollen count, and I went from her to the first aid place where they had some Benadryl, which gave me some relief for the rest of the afternoon and Friday morning.
We left the Animal Kingdom about 3:00 PM and went to MGM Disney (see http://walden3d.com/photos/Trips/070313-16_Florida/070315_Disney_MGM). Matt and Rachel went right to The Tower of Terror. Neither Andrea nor I were particularly interested in another gravity ride, and so we went and got fast track tickets for Indiana Jones. Then we went to a discussion / show on doing animation. The kids were in the line for The Tower of Terror for quite a while, and did not make it back to Indiana Jones in time to get the fast track tickets. Andrea and I were right up front. The kids saw most of the show from the back rows. It was a lot of fun. Amazing stunts. They basically compressed the story of getting the Ark of the Covenant down to a 20 minute show, with all kinds of live action and explosions. We went on Star Tours. I enjoyed it, and both Andrea and Rachel got sick to their stomach being jerked around. We ate pizza in the rain, and went to The Great Movie Ride, while it was raining the hardest. Then we went to Fantasmic! What a show. We were on the second row, of a bigger than football stadium theater. Movies projected on water falls, gas burning on water, lasers, big dragons, giant wicked queens, cannons, fireworks, and Micky Mouse orchestrating his dreams. I have never seen anything even close to being like this show. Absolutely amazing. It was a bit wet because of the rain and the spray from the show, and it did continue to sprinkle during the show. When we sat down, there was a "lady (of the night)" sitting in front of us with short short short, bulging naked midriffs, and a view down her plumber's crack. Andrea tactfully told her she should cover up, and three mothers with small children told Andrea THANK YOU. At one point during the day, I told Andrea there is no longer a need for young boys to look at National Geographic to understand the human body, all they need to do is go to Disney World. It is so sad to see how modesty has evaporated.
We were tired and wet after Fantasmic! we decided to drive back to Rick and Pat's early, arriving about 10:30. This gave us an hour to talk and to look at photos (see http://walden3d.com/photos/Trips/1971-2007_Hawthornes). Pat had pulled out old photos albums. There I was with Elder Hansen as a skinny missionary. I took photos of the photos, and put the pictures from the day together. It was fun to talk and look at photos and enjoy each other. Rachel and Pat are both into making jewelry, and they had a lot of fun doing some of that stuff. At one point Pat called me "Elder Nelson, I mean Roice" and we all laughed. There are not words to describe the joy accompanying seeing and learning of the impact for good my serving a mission has had on Rick and Pat Hawthorne and their six children. The positive emotions were absolutely overwhelming.
Friday morning we took more photos and ate another big breakfast. This time we had lasagna for breakfast, along with fruit and rolls and muffins. We arrived at EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) at about 10:00 AM (see http://walden3d.com/photos/Trips/070316_EPCOT). Matt wanted to drive the race cars and so he and I went directly there. The Mount Everest ride was enough excitement for me from the day before, and so I waited outside and read (see 0712.html for a summary of the book I was reading). Then we went over to 'Soaring' to find Andrea and Rachel. They were already well inside, and so we stood in line. Matt got tired of waiting and crowded ahead to catch up with the others. It was too far and he didn't make it. I stayed in line, and thus was alone to experience the ride. It is a ride that puts three columns of three rows of 12 seats right up next to a back projected IMAX screen, and takes you on a very exciting tour of California, flying at tree level across the tops of mountains, and then down canyons, across orchards, past aircraft carriers, following helicopters, etc. What a ride. I think it was my favorite of the entire trip. After this we went around the world. We all caught up with each other at Japan. It started to rain, and we all put on our Mickey Mouse Raincoats, which I had purchased first thing when we arrived at EPCOT. Andrea and I went on a ride in Norway called Malestrom. It was pretty tame compared to other rides we have been on. It was fun to ride in a Viking Ship. It certainly brought back memories of the Viking Ship I built as a young boy, and the pewter Viking Ship Marti and I brought back from our visit to Oslo, Norway and the EAEG in 1983. We took a boat ride across the world from Mexico to Germany, then walked to Morocco and ate a late lunch. The skipper spent a lot of time flirting with Rachel. He was a year younger than she is. As I paid for our lunch, the cashier pointed out what a beautiful girl Rachel is, and I had them repeat it to her. It was a great lunch: lamb, kuskos, humas, root beer, and bakala. From lunch we went back to the car, got gas, and drove to the Enterprise car rental place. We had an absolutely wonderful Disney World vacation 2007.
Then we got to the airport and things fell apart, the miserable 20% of our vacation. Turns out there was a giant storm in the Northeast. Our stewardesses could not make it to Orlando. There are no Delta stewardesses based in Orlando. We were two hours late leaving Orlando for Atlanta. When we arrived in Atlanta, we sent Matt ahead at a full military run to see if he could stop the other plane from leaving, which we knew from the monitors was late. We followed as fast as we could. There are two story escalators down up from the subway, and I carried Andrea's suitcase at a full run up the entire distance. Good thing I've been climbing stairs. However, the plane had left the gate just as Matt arrived, and so we missed the last flight to Houston Intercontinental. This was followed by lines and more lines. There were no available seats until Tuesday. Once we got to the front of the line, I refused to leave the line until we had solved the problem, which helped create bigger lines for others. Rachel had not turned off the computer when she checked mail, and the battery was completely run down. I set it up at a plug and had Matt watch it. Atlanta does not have free wireless, you have to set up an account and pay for wireless. I refused to do this, even though I wanted to check Southwest Airlines availability. While Andrea went over flight schedules from Atlanta to Corpus Christi, to San Antonio, to Austin, to Dallas, to Hobby, to Lafayette, to Beaumont, to Chicago, to Minneapolis, and to every place else we could think of, I went to Enterprise, Avis, Hertz, and two or three other places, only to find there were no cars available for one-way trips. I also called Greyhound, which had a bus at 5:00 AM which arrived at 11:30 PM on Saturday night. There was no Amtrack Friday night. There were no hotel rooms available in the vicinity of the Atlanta Airport. Matt's flight back to Las Vegas was at 7:00 AM Sunday morning. My keys were left in my checked bag, so we couldn't get the car if we got to Houston and my bag was not there. We were not happy campers. By the time I got back from the rental car places and calling information and buses and trains, Andrea had been able to get three confirmed seats at 11:00 Saturday morning and to get Rachel on standby at 9:00 and at 11:00.
So we took the overnight bag and the blanket they gave us and went to our gate. At security they made us open the plastic sealed overnight bags we had been given, take out the liquids, and put them in a zip lock bag. We laughed about it. In this line we met someone from Columbus that knows Ken Turner. Valerie and Greg Busselman have a big blue bonnet field next to Columbus, and told us we could call them at 979.702.0029 if we wanted to go see it and take pictures in the field. The bad news is it was not possible to sleep very good underneath a TV monitor blaring CNN all night. It was cold, and I ended up sleeping in my Mickey Mouse rain poncho with two blankets on top of me, and using two other ponchos for a pillow. Andrea did not sleep well at all. Matt and Andrea went and got some dinner, and shared some with us. It was an extremely long night. We did not get on the first flight. I called our Primary President, Tiffany Feil to tell her I would not be at Grant Townsend's baptism at 10:00 AM. However, we did all get on the second flight, and were back in Houston before 1:00 PM. I mowed the lawns, and helped Andrea clean up weeds she dug out of the hedges around the back patio.
Then I got cleaned up and went to Madison Graham's baptism at 4:00 PM. The program for this baptism read:
On the way home from the baptism I got gas for the Saturn and for the lawnmower, roses for Andrea, and treats for my Primary Class. I got home in time to help get ready for our Ward Dinner Group, which was at our house and was another reason for being concerned about our night on the floor of the Atlanta Airport. When I went to start the grill, the propane tank was empty. So I went to Lowes and got a new propane tank. By the time I was back, George and Becky Schultz, Jeff and Paula Jurinak, and John Walker and Susan Miller had already arrived. John helped me get the grill started, and I got the salmon put on. Then I helped Andrea build the shis-ka-bob's. A while later I taught Becky and Susan how to make apple cobbler and started it. Then I put on the shis-ka-bob's. This led to the first chance to relax. Rachel had some friends come over, and as they were leaving she said, 'You and Mom are wonderful.' That was nice. It was fun to talk with our friends. John Walker talked about all of the interesting things he has done in his life. Fascinating. We told stories and ate a wonderful meal. Paula told them about me stuffing squirrels and prairie dogs, and I was surprised as she accurately describe how I used bailing wire to pose the animals. There were a lot of good laughs. Jeff and Paula stayed after the others left. Jeff and I got talking about his new property in Richfield. One of his biggest problems is water. I showed him the condensation pages on my condensation pages put together for the Central Iron County Water Conservancy District (from http://www.walden3d.com/cedarcity/CedarValleyWater/060423/Slide45.html to .../Slide55.html). Jeff got quite excited, exclaiming at one point, "This is really cool." He explained that the reason this could work is because the night sky radiates heat out into the the universe, and in effect the condensation ponds could be considered to be the reverse solar collectors. Then he got worried that the additional greenhouse gases would keep enough energy bottled up that it would not all radiate out. Anyway, it was extremely exciting to me to have a really smart guy, with a PhD in solar heating technologies get so excited about my condensation ideas. Jeff immediately saw the potential uses for this all across the globe. As fun as our Disney World vacation 2007 was, this discussion made my week. And I was definitely tired by the time we finished cleaning up and went to sleep.
Neither Andrea nor I were very awake during Sacrament Meeting on Sunday, the 18th of March. What I remember hearing was nice. Sister Warden was one of the two main speakers, and she is very good. I wrote a possible stanza for Prime Words based on Shane Gillette's talk, who quoted from the same Bruce R. McConkie talk Deanna Warden used:
My Primary Class lesson was on repentance. Good thing for me to review after our night in the Atlanta Airport. At the end of the class I had the class vote on which song we are going to sing for Latter-Day Night Live, on April 21st. I gave each class member two votes, and listed the following songs: