Irkutsk

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Dear Paul, Melanie, Rob, and Roice,

cc: file, Diane Cluff, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Sara and Des Penny, Grandma Hafen via Tony Hafen, and Lloyd and Luana Warner.

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.

"Irkutsk is approximately 790 miles to the west-south-west of Tolmsk. It is absolutely amazing what a small world we live in. There were several people at church who came up and asked if Paul was OK with the terrible plane crash which happened in Siberia. Was it his apartment complex? Then when I called Grandma Hafen tonight she asked the same question. I didn't even know it had happened. Paul is safe, relative to this plane crash. Irkutsk is next to Lake Bajkal, the deepest landlocked lake in the world if I am not mistaken. Paul, I hope you have a chance to visit there before comeing home. As far as the airplane crash goes, Paul is safe.

In fact I received two letters from Paul this week. Highlights include:

Then:

And Roice is in Singapore (his address and phone number is at the bottom of this e-mail). I will be in Utah for Christmas. So we will have our family members at four different corners of the globe. It is exciting as time passes and I see you kids scatter to the four-corners of the world. It is especially exciting and fullfilling to know you are making worthwhile contributions. I remember Ray Gardner telling me once: `Roice it is nice to want to make a difference. Over time your six kids will make much more of a difference than you ever will.' I believed it when he said it, and I believe it now as I write this.

Often, after a week like this past week, I have sat back and wondered why I make the efforts I make. Am I just trying to convince my Mom I am a worthwhile person? Am I just trying to help her convince her Dad (my Grandpa Hafen, whom regretably none of you had the opportunity to meet) she is a worthwhile person? Is my self worth completly tied up in super human achievements? Am I just working so hard to cover the emotional pain which has enveloped my life the last several years? Is the work just a way to distract myself from life and from feeling like a failure? What kind of a negative impact is my example having on my kids and unborn grandchildren? Is there a better way to live? How does one find and share joy? What can I do better?

To provide a context:

• Sunday: Thoughtlet finished and e-mailed at 23:24. Finished up some other stuff and got to bed about 12:30 AM.
• Monday: Up at 6:00 and took Larry to catch the bus at 6:30. Worked with Rhonda on cleaning up some of the office until about 12:00. Much of the time was actually spent on the telephone to Albequrque, Amoco, the VETL, John Amason, etc. Worked at Energy Innovations on the Turner Ranch override interpretation until 5:00. Stopped at the grocery store. Got back to pick up Larry after he had walked to Houghton and Kingland. Ate dinner and set up for Family Home Evening. There were 14 people attended this week, several non-members for the third time in a row. Got a phone call from John as it was ending and talked until 10:00. Worked on the Turner Ranch Prospect until about midnight. Then John had an orignial of the Walden Visualization Business Plan together (http://www.walden3d.com/ wvs/plan) and we met at Kinko's to get everything printed and bound. We worked until about 1:30. I backed up Turner Ranch and got to bed about 2:00 AM.
• Tuesday: Got up and ready to leave, took Larry to the bus stop, and went to Kinko's to pick up the bound business plans. Drove to the VETL by the University of Houston. The visitors from Pemex report to the President of Pemex who reports to the President of Mexico. They were very excited about our visualization technologies. The demonstrations went very well, and they are very interested in working with us. I left the VETL at 11:30 for a lunch meeting with Rick Zimmerman, Roger Anderson, John Howell, and Argie Rhuman. It was preparation for the big meetings on Friday night and Saturday. It lasted until 2:00 PM. I went from there to Energy Innovations where I continued to work on Turner Ranch. Left at 5:15 to pick up Larry, drop him off at the house and head out to the church for High Priest Personnal Priesthood Interviews (remember my calling is in the High Priest Group Leadership these days). Finished at 9:30. Mike Pickerd called back about being invited to Friday night's meeting. He was committed to be at the Live Nativity at the Stake Center and arranged for one of Chase Manhattan's Reservoir Engineer Bankers to call me. We talked for over an hour with me explaining to him what NRMI (Natural Resource Management Incorporated) is. Continued to work on Turner Ranch during and after this phone conversation, until about 1:00 AM.
• Wednesday: Got up and took Larry to the bus stop, went back and left a lot of instructions for Rhonda. Drove to the VETL for the weekly staff meeting at 9:15. Met with John Amason and reviewed the dynamic status. Sam and one of his colleagues showed up at 10:00. We explained the basic plan for Walden Visualization Systems (WVS) and NRMI. Then we showed them a demostration of the CAVE(tm). The demonstrations have improved a lot over the last few months. It really changes peoples view of the world. I went to Energy Innovations and worked on preparing a report on Turner Ranch. I talked to Rob and Sara, neither of whom were available to come over for dinner or the evening. I spent the evening on the phone with John Amason working on the business plan, and finalizing 24 figures for the Turner Ranch report. Fell asleep about 12:30.
• Thursday: Got up and took Larry to the bus stop, went back and worked on the business plan and the Amoco meeting. John brought changes by and I took them to Kinko's. Their Mac's were broken and my printer is down. Rhonda met me there. Was very tired and frustrated. She took over getting the business plans rebound. Went to Amoco and was about 7 minutes late. Great meeting about how to help them document the differences in the way they have done their work in the past and the way visualization tools have changed their work process. They described one specific project where they documented a 40:1 improvement in the amount of time it took to do a project. Went from there to Energy Innovations. Got there at 10:00 and helped print and label the 24 Figures. Went with Bob Davis, President of Davis Crude, to visit a potential buyer of prospects and a potential investor in WVS. The meeting went exceptionally well. There is interest. Went back to Energy Innovations with Bob, reviewed several things with Rhonda, stopped at Wendy's for a Greek Pita, small Frosty, and ice water, and headed for Kingwood for a followup meeting with David K. Davies & Associates about the Pemex meeting. Dan's first words were `Can I go to work for you guys?' Went from there to Intercontental where I caught a flight to Albequrque. I fell asleep and about an hour later woke up in a panic because it was dark outside and I was sure I was going to be late for my meeting at the Wyndom Hotel at 6:30. Then I realized that meeting was Friday night. Got to Albequrque and walked a few blocks to the LaQuinta Motel. Fell asleep. Doug Harless woke me up at 9:00 and we went out to dinner. We talked until after midnight Houston time about our requested exclusive marketing of MuSE technology in the oil and gas industry. It was a good conversation.
• Friday: Doug picked me up and we went to MuSE for 4 hours of intensive negotiations. They want $12 million for a Master Var Agreement for the Oil and Gas Industry. That is more than the $10 million we are attempting to raise. All in all the meeting went very well. They did detailed due diligence on us since the last visit. It is flattering (and embarrasing) to have them pass on to me the things my friends (and some who are not friends) had to say about me. I got back to Houston at 4:20 PM. Drove to Newfield Exploration Company to talk to them about the subsalt farmout I have an override from Ridgemont Energy on. No answer yet. They are drilling a couple of wells in the block now and it seems they want to get the results back before signing off on the farmout. I got to the Wyndom Hotel at Greenspoint at 5:30. We had 16 folks there, including 8 of the best geoscientists in the world, for the organization meeting of NRMI. It was a really neat meeting. It lasted until 10:15. I outlined the next day's meeting at the VETL for Roger.
• Saturday: John picked me up at 6:15 AM. We were at the VETL at 7:00. The organization meeting lasted until 4:30 PM. It was excellent. It was so neat to hear the reaction of these geoscientists to the Virtual Environment stuff we have been working on. When I got home, I went for my Saturday run around the block, read Friday and Saturday's papers, and settled down to watch John Wayne's movie El Dorado and do my laundry. Missed the last half hour of the movie because Keith Rawlinson called from Bruni about orgainzing WVS. He and John and I talked for about an hour and I fell asleep about 11:30.
• Sunday: Got up about 8:30, enough rested to take another run around the block (4 miles). Got the Christmas stuff out of the attic and put my foot through the ceiling of the front hallway. Cleaned up the mess, set up the Christmas tree, and got ready for church. Because of the Nativity program, we only had Fast & Testimony Meeting at 11:00. Came back and read Sunday's paper, had High Priest Quorum Leadership Meeting at the house, went to the church for a temple recommend interview with the Bishop, came back and broke my fast (one of the new boys in the ward, Rob's age, has cancer and started kemotherophy this week), rearranged the furniture, vacuumed, ironed my shirts, went to the joint Catholic/LDS Christmas Program choir practice, came back, called Grandma Hafen and Mom, and then I wrote this. It's now 12:50 AM.

I don't have answers to all of the above questions. However, just the fact I am willing to ask them tells me I am still alive and participating in life. Will I change my direction and actities? Probably not. I do enjoy the path I am on. I see the opportunity to continue to make a difference in the work I do. It is truly fulfilling to see the impact Landmark Graphics has made. Landmark, and competitors who have copied and expanded on Landmark technology, have changed the way every oil and gas company in the world looks for oil and gas. Because of the widespread use of hydrocarbons in our society (fuel, fertilizer, synthetics, cloth, binders, dishes, etc.), this truly impacts almost everyone on the planet. True this is not always positive, as shown by emissions and the greenhouse effect. Free agency does have a natural consequence. However, I choose to be excited about the positive.

Even though I find myself in my own little emotional Liberty Jail, I know that the time will come when I will be set free. I look forward to the day. I believe the potential impact on society of the things I am working on will be much larger impact than Landmark has had. The ability to make mistakes in a virtual environment, with almost no cost, and then to not make mistakes in the real world because of the virtual simulation has significant economic, technical, social, and business implications. Pursuing these dreams is my way to follow Joseph Smith's example as he thought about things in Liberty Jail and wrote the 121, 122, and 123 Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants.

As Roice has told me over dinner a couple of times, I hope each of you other kids realize our efforts are often selfish. I want to see the world a better place for each of you, for your children, your grandchildren, your great- grandchildren, etc. I hope the time will come you see and recognize my efforts and that they will become meaningful to each of you. Guess this is why I write these Thoughtlets. So that when you are old enough to really think about motivation, you can review these notes, and recognize patterns of truth in the fabric of my words. In the meantime, we will work on the problems in front of us and worry about exotic diseases in Singapore and airplane crashes in Siberia. The bottom line is Paul's apartment complex is a long way from Lake Baikal and from the airplane crash in Irkutsk."

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. If you ever want to download any of these thoughtlets, they are posted at http://www.walden3d.com/hrnmen or you can e-mail me at rnelson@walden3d.com.

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Copyright © 1997 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.