"On Sunday evening our quiet insular life turned upside. Melanie and Jared and Colby and Taylor and Halle came to stay with us for three weeks. Jared is at a pre-Dental school at the Texas Medical Center, and the family is staying with Grandpa and Grandma. The amount of energy bottled up inside these three kids is phenomenal. It makes me wonder how I ever managed being a Dad when the six of you I raised when you were this age were running around the house. To top it off, we had a call from Ben and Ethan about our trip to visit them in Calgary the first week of July (0727.html). Ethan made his Dad go out of the room, and he told me about Egyptology and mummies. It is amazing how much he knows. He also told me he has started to ride his two-wheel bike. I put Colby on the phone and they talked for a minute. I think it is about time to institute the monthly kids and cousins teleconference call. Hopefully we can figure out how to do this for free on the Internet. After we got of the phone, Colby showed me how good he can ride a bike, and he rode down Chris Schmidt's street. He is good. I stressed stopping at the street each time he went to cross it, and he seemed to agree with me. Still scary, especially since I know how fast kids can drive up Emerald Green.
Monday was Memorial Day, and so I did not have to go to Geokinetics. We had planned to take a canoe trip on The Colorado River at Columbus. However, the river was too high, and so I ended up calling Roice and canceling. Oh well! Matt was disappointed, because he ha made two trips around the river loop now, and it has become a tradition. Colby was up early. He wanted to go to the park on Crescent Green, so we did. He did very good on his bike, and was careful to stop and look both ways each time he came to a place where he needed to cross the road. He did get a bit ahead of me sometimes. When we came back to the house we went along the bayou. He was afraid he was going to fall into the big hole. It reminded me of the vertigo my Mom experienced when we went to Cedar Breaks or the Grand Canyon, and how she felt like the big hole was calling to her to fall into it. Anyway, we made it back. Colby ended up going to the Park 4 times on Monday, once alone with me and three times with his sisters. Andrea took him after a pancake breakfast and after we all went swimming. It started to rain while they were out, and both Jared and I went looking for them to give them a ride home. We could not find them. They went to another park and were under a pavilion when it was raining. Melanie took them twice. She had a hard time because Colby would ignore her and get too far ahead and she didn't want to yell at him. Swimming with the Grandkids was fun. First time in the pool this year, and the year is already half over. The pool is definitely not economically viable based on how much we use it. However, it was fun to swim with Colby and Taylor. Taylor does not like to get her face wet, and she still seems to like the water. Melanie has one of the Steward girls coming over to give them swimming lessons. This happened later in the week, and seems to be going well. Rob came over and spent the afternoon and evening with us. One other thing that pleased me was that Colby wanted to get his rock, and he was very deliberate in the one he picked. Then on Tuesday, while I was at work, he switched it out for another rock, which was his original first choice. Oh well! At least he is interested.
Monday evening while dinner was being prepared, I had Taylor and Colby come into the reading room, and I got down one of my Mom's Twin books. There are 24 of these books:
I spent Tuesday interpretation of the top of a salt dome for a salt flood. Dave was back from his trip to New York, and Mike was back from his trip someplace else. A customer wants a big map of the blocks in the Gulf of Mexico with a map of the Tiles overlaid. This is all put together on my Landmark License, and Mike has decided to renege on a promise to pay me for the use of my license for paying work for China ($75,000 worth of work), a U.S. company ($19,000+ worth of work), and a Columbian company ($15,000+ worth of work. He has leased an SMT license to strengthen his negotiating position. So I told the sales folks I'll make the map for $5,000., which is what it will cost him to have Les generate the map with SMT. He found a way to get Carlos to generate the map for about $2,000 worth of work. I'm proud of him, and I have no intention of being manipulated by his penny pinching style. I'm sure this long brooding discussion is a big part of my disappointment with Geokinetics. Oh well. It was nice to come home to Grandkids, to be able to read The Farm Twins, and to play with them before they went to bed. I was finishing up a couple of Thoughtlets Tuesday and Wednesday evenings (0720.html and 0721.html).
Wednesday morning I called Jory Pacht (../0334.html, ../0531.html, and ../0542.html) to set up a lunch time to discuss using his using my Landmark Licenses, and to discuss how I can help him with some of his other exploration work. There was an article in The Houston Business Journal about a new company, Energy Quest Resources, which received $25 million investment, and in looking into it on the web I found out Jory was won of the principals. We set up a lunch meeting for Tuesday, 12 June 2007 (0724.html). He is going on a Corporate Retreat to The Grand Tetons to selebrate selling their last project next week, and did not have time until the 12th.
Shortly after this call Dave Johnson came into my office. I thanked him for the CD (0720.html), and we had an extended discussion about it. He kind of started the discussion off on the track I wanted to go when he said, "He didn't say anything to attack the Mormons on this CD did he?" I told him yes, and that I still thought the CD was wonderful. Told him how it helped prepare me spiritually for spending a day doing vicarious work for ancestors at the temple. I was able to point out how inconsistent it was for him to make his comments about "Mormons having other Gods before God" when he is preaching doctrine the LDS church has taught for 170 years, namely that Jesus is the God of The Old Testament, and was Jehovah saying "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," and as Jehovah, he was not The Father. I also told him our scriptures clarify the Ancient of Days was Adam. We discussed how paid ministers are naturally going to be down on the lay ministry of the LDS church, quoting I Peter 5:2 about not preaching for filthy lucre. I'm not sure he heard what I was saying, and at least I was able to cover the points made in my Thoughtlet about loving yourself. I felt good about it. After the discussion, I went back to picking the top of salt. Just before the car pool was ready to leave the office, Mike Dunn asked when I was leaving. He then sent an e-mail asking to meet with me on Thursday morning at 8:00 in his office. It rained hard on the way home. Rob had taken Andrea and Matt to the airport so we did not have to park a car, and he came over for a while later in the evening. It was nice to get home and to relax reading The Farm Twins to Colby and Taylor.
Thursday morning I still could not get hold of Jialin. He simply turns his phone off when he does not want to talk to me. The meeting with Mike Dunn did not go as he planned. He started off asking how things are going. I gave him a copy of Roice's newspaper article about unicycling to work. Then I gave him a copy of the document I put together with me annual review and asked if he had submitted a supplement to my review yet. Of course he hadn't. And he was fairly quick in reaching the conclusion that even though I did all of the things listed, they did not generate money for Geokinetics, implying they were of no value. Of course, I pointed out how Geokinetics had made money on my Landmark license, an how his promise I would be recompensed for this has not been kept. He told me it was foolish for me not to accept the offer he made. He was surprised to learn I would be sharing the money with II&T because they are handling the invoicing. He said he could change that. I told him no thanks. Since he could not force me to do what he wanted, he started to take steps to make my life miserable. Oh well! At least I have his attention. I went back to my office and worked on picking the top salt, listening to three of my AudoTech CD's over the next couple of days. My notes on these CD's say:
On Friday Carlos Venegas came to visit me while I was picking the top salt. He has been assigned to make the block boundary map with the TilesTM boundaries overlaid. He always comes to tell me the latest things that have been happening with his daughter. I got most of the top of the second salt body picked. In the afternoon Mike told me I was going to China next week to solve the problems with Jialin. It was pretty obvious to me he is getting back at me for not bowing to his wisdom regarding the Landmark License. Oh well! Again it was nice to get home, where we finished the 208 pages of "The Farm Twins." Melanie and the kids went to the Houston Zoo with members of the ward for the day, and so the kids were tired. We still went to "Chucky Cheese" to play games. Colby wanted to get Spiderman tatoos , and I have a hard time with any tatoos, even play ones. Seems to me they will lead to permanent ones. Oh well! From Chucky Cheese, we dropped Melanie off at Memorial City Mall, and went to The Olive Garden. Halle was tired and a bit of a pill. So Jared and I spent most of dinner taking turns taking her out. Melanie got around me paying for dinner while I was out. Oh well! I started calling China about 10:30 PM. Jialin still had his phone turned off. So I called Frank, and then we conferenced to Jiafeng and to Yan Dunshi. Neither of whom answered their phones. Oh well!
Saturday morning I got up at 4:30 AM and called Jialin. He answered his phone, because he didn't realize it was me. Based on the answers I got out of him I was able to determine it makes no sense for me to attempt to go to China this next week. If I go it will be a week from Wednesday, although Mike had a note back by 9:00 telling me I was to go any day Jialin did not call in and give a report to me. Looks like next week at Geokinetics is not going to be any fun at all. Oh well! I went back to sleep after the phone call and after writing a report. Melanie went for a six mile run. When I got up I went to the store and got more milk and some syrup for pancakes and made pancakes for everyone. After eating and getting Colby and I got down the globe, he spun it, then closed his eyes and put his finger on it to decide the next Twin book we will read: The Spanish Twins was the winner. Once Melanie and Jared got cleaned up, they left to drive Marti to the airport, to go to a birthday party on the other side of Houston, and to go back to Vidor for the weekend so the kids could play with a cousin visiting Jared's parents. I mowed the lawn, went down to Cornelius' for advice on fungus and mushrooms in our lawn, and came back and sprayed them. I planed to spend the day working on An Open Mind. However, I ended up cleaning up my e-mail, and writing a song. It took me until 10:00 PM to re-skim "Walden, or Life in the Woods," to pull out interesting phrases, and to put it to music. The song is called "Ode to Henry Thoreau:"
I was going to bear my testimony today (03 June 2007), to encourage my primary class to do the same. There were enough people getting up, quick enough, I didn't. I had made notes about the Burgerner Book of Mormon challenge before leaving home: how once I read looking for evidence of the Temple endowment and found 18 examples, and then the next year I generalized this and found 553 consecutive examples. I was thinking of mentioning finding the spatial language in the Book of Mormon, which I believe can be tied to hieroglyphics, when I read to meet President Hinkley's challenge. I also had notes about how I have been re-reading The Old Testament, and have found 274 mentions of God, 1685 mentions of Christ, 30 mentions of The Holy Ghost, 40 mentions of Angels, and 38 mentions of other gods up through Leviticus, with 8 references to God's Face, 28 to His eyes, 1 to His nostrils, 328 to his mouth, 16 to his ears, 16 to his hands, 2 to his fingers, 2 to his stomach, 78 to his gender, and 6 references to his legs up through Numbers. Maybe I didn't get up because sharing this type of information in Fast & Testimony Meeting can be perceived as self-indulgent, and it probably is. Oh well! I loved a comment from Andrew Beckstrom, who went to the Stake Youth Conference, and turned it into a possible stanza for Prime Words:
I did fast from Breakfast on Saturday through lunch on Sunday, and after lunch I took a nap until acid reflux woke me up. I've been coughing all afternoon. Guess I'm getting old. Oh well. Guess getting old even happened to The Farm Twins."