cc: file, Diane Cluff, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Sara and Des Penny, and Lloyd and Luana Warner.
"I got several nice notes from my sister, a flattering e-mail from Aunt Luana, and a note building feelings of connection with my cousin Diane Cluff.
Sara said: `Daddy was steadfast. I don't know how he lasted all those years trying to please mother when she didn't appreciate him.' It brought to mind something repeated several times in PAIRS; namely the fact we tend to repeat our parents dance until someone decides it needs to be changed.
Aunt Luana was effusive in her praise of me, and although it feels good to read nice things about yourself, it was uncomfortable. She also said she was talking with my Mom `about anger one day. (Aunt Luana) said, `That's something one has to get over.' (Mom) said, `Is it possible? I can't!' It made me (Aunt Luana) understand her more for her to say that. I saw for the first time that her unbridled temper and pent up anger coupled with years of unforgiving have built for her a lot of misery. I had known she had a sharp tongue but I hadn't recognized the source before.' Your Mom has that same kind of anger towards me, towards her Dad, and towards men in general. At least your Mom did something about it, rather than let it just keep growing inside and festering. I still wish she could have chosen a solution other than divorce, and yet I am striving very hard to wish her the best as she goes forward with her life. I wish you kids could of known my Mom before the stroke and especially without all of her anger. I guess part of my job is to help you come to know the wonderful person I knew as a child. And to help you each to get over and put behind you your anger towards me and those parts of your childhood which were not ideal. I have carried my Mom's anger around with me for years. I am learning to let go, and I hope to help each of my kids to do the same.
Diane said, `I feel like I have gotten to know my cousin who was lost and now I have found him. Just a little plagerism there.' She also said Roice is joining them for Thanksgiving. `He is going to make orange sticky buns.' It is wonderful to have family to be there for those I love and care for so much. I wish I could be every place and find ways to help each of you. Fact is we each need to live our own lives and each of you are of an age you need to be making your own choices and living with the consequences. And I need to let it happen and get on with my life.
My approach, as has been amply documented in these Thoughtlets, is to `bury myself in my work.' I recognize this is not balanced and will not work over the long-term. For the next several months I feel like it is good therapy for recovering from the emotional pain I feel. And so I will continue along this path. Besides, my work really is a whole lot of fun.
For instance, Wednesday night John Amason and I flew out to Albuqurque, New Mexico to evaluate some technology which could have a major influence on Walden Visualization Systems (http://www.walden3d.com/wvs/plan). It was just fun. The people were very nice. The meeting looked like it wouldn't go anyplace when I refused to sign the confidentiality agreement, because it was way too one-sided. However, they agreed to look at our confidentiality agreement and to just not show us the material which would be marked confidential if they were to pass copies on to us. Both John and I felt we had a pretty good understanding of virtual environments and how to apply them to solving real world problems. We learned MuSE (Multi- dimensional user-oriented synthetic environment) Technologies, Inc. has taken computer user interface to a whole new level of sophistication.
The first demonstration started with an image of the earth spinning in space, above a wireframe platform which had a set of menus on the front of it. The virtual environment had separate layers for the surface of the earth, for the cloud cover, for the moon, and for an accurate representation of the star field relative to the earth. As the earth spun the clouds could stay stationary. They have developed a series of navigation aids which allow a user to fly past the earth, and turn and look back at the other side of the earth, to teather your viewpoint to one view of the earth and see the starfield spin as the earth rotates, and to interact with the environment as naturally as we drive a car. They removed menus and replaced them with voice activated calls. They removed the need for a mouse, and tied the display to levers, joysticks, and other navigational tools. They had a head-mounted display counter- weighted so the `flyer' could take the audience around the various synthetic environments as naturally as going on a walk through the park.
Then they showed us dynamic simulations of explosing welding, showing stress, and shock or impact analysis. The pieces of the model were taken apart, studied individually, and put back together as part of the process. There was a similar evaluation of evaluating and removing a tumor in a patient's brain. The tumor was mapped using isosurfacing algorithyms. They showed us how CAD (Computer-Aided Design) data were placed into a 3-D virtual environment, how they could fly through the components, see collision detection between the various moving gears, teather to another user looking at the same components on a smaller computer system at a different site, integrate two views of the same data, controlling the speed and direction of time, disassembling the model while the motor is running, looking at cross-sectional views, etc. I guess none of you, except Des, are really into this kind of 3-D dynamic analysis, so I will not try to explain why this technology is so revolutionary and so exciting. Let me just repeat how much fun it is to work with this kind of data in these kind of virtual environments. Beyond the fun, there are tremendous practical applications of these technologies. Properly implemented they will be able to provide truly significant savings, specifically for oil companies. We have started the discussions for an exclusive license agreement for distrubiting MuSE technology in the oil & gas industry. This new user interface appears to be a perfect match with the work we have been doing with virtual geotechnical environments at the VETL.
I dimly remember as a child my Mom creating her own virtual environments. They were often built around the musicals of Rogers & Hammerstein. I think I memorized all of the songs for South Pacific, West Side Story, The Music Man, and several other of these classic musicals. We sang together. We danced together. She played the piano and I sang with her. We built things with Lincoln Logs (I still have the old set), erector sets, bars of soap, and sticks. She taught me how to play `boneys' (where you took the dried and bleached vertabrae bones from cattle and sheep and played like they were cattle or horses). She read to me. And she made me help her clean the house, wax the floors, dust, prepare food, and learn the importance of work. Those days, before she went to work for Mr. Southwick and later for Dixie Leavitt, were wonderful carefree days of learning and fun. She was my personal muse, where a muse is any of the nine sister goddesses of learning and the arts in Greek mythology. It is so sad to look back and realize this side of my Mom died with the stroke or was burried in anger before any of you really got to know her. For what it is worth, I will strive to do my absolute best to bury my anger, to conquor my criticism, and to be a grandfatherly muse you will each want to have around your kids.