cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, Maxine Shirts via mail.
"It is interesting to me how memories are invoked. Friday Andrea wanted to go see a Victorian tragedy at the Greenway Plaza theater called `House of Mirth.' We were late leaving, and having been there many times I drove, and drove a little too fast when traffic allowed me to. As we drove over the bridge at Edloe Street between the Hotel and the Summit (now the Compaq center), my mind was flooded with memories. Then when we parked, I took us through an obscure exit to a flight of stairs, up an escalator, and right to the movie, and more memories flooded my mind. The movie is a definite chick flick, and I'm not really into tragedies. Nice cinematography, and it is fun to romantize earlier times, like at the turn of the century. The popcorn was good. As we walked to the car I pointed out the room where I came on my first visit to Houston. I believe it was on September 13th of 1979.
In the Thoughtlet labeled Frustruated (../9837.html) I described how my boss at Mobil Oil Field Operations had come down so hard on me and how I responded by going to Pinedale, Wyoming and then going over to Salt Lake to meet with Evans & Sutherland. What I didn't mention in that Thoughtlet was that prior to this altercation I had talked this same boss into letting me sign up for the first SEG course on `3-D Seismic Techniques,' which was taught by Fred Hilterman, Gerry Gardner, and others I would later end up working closely with at the Seismic Acoustics Laboratory. The seminar was held at Greenway Plaza in Houston, Texas. Wayne Wade, the salesman for Evans & Sutherland in Dallas, came to this course with me. I was talking to Evans & Sutherland marketing management, and to others about getting funding to build my dream of an interactive 3-D interpretation workstation. Wayne told me I should get a job that covered personal cash flow requirements, and not just leave Mobil because I felt mistreated. I was in the MBA program at SMU, and the professors at the Caruth Institute of Owner Managed Business had recently reviewed the importance of working at the interface between industry and research before starting up a new company. Then lunch was to be served, there was an empty place at the table Fred was at, and Wayne said to me `Go for it! One in the hand is worth two in the bush!' These words struck home, because it was only about a decade earlier I had been trying to catch mice and birds to feed my owl George (../9730.html). So I sat by Fred, and in my subtle way (not), I made sure he knew I had been thinking about 3-D seismic interpretation for several years. At the end of the lunch he pulled me aside and asked me enough questions to justify setting up an interview trip for me with the Department Head, and the rest is history. It still amazes me the University of Houston hired a kid with a Bachelor's degree (almost an MBA), at a larger salary than the Department Chairman which I reported to received. And the Houston adventure all started at Greenway Plaza.
Over the years there have been a lot of trips to Greenway Plaza, both in the hotel, at the Summit, and in buildings surrounding the area. Marti and I took our kids to the Ringly Brother's Circus a couple of times, there was a Regional Church Conference there, I had been to several `artsy movies' there before, there was an Amy Grant concert there, a couple of weeks before the divorce was finalized I took Marti to a Rocket's game at the Summit, On the 14th and 15th of December of 1989 Walden 3-D hosted a two day planning meeting at the hotel. Participants were Rick Duran from Chicago, Ray Gardner from Cedar City, Bill Atkins, Alf Klaviness, Townsend Dunn, Chris Schmidt, Bernie Peterson, Michael Crawford, Bill Bavinger, Kevin Cassidy, and myself from Houston. Within a year of this Walden 3-D hosted the World Game at the hotel basket ball court. Digicon is within a couple of blocks of Greenway Plaza. This is where Bob Limbaugh worked when I went in and asked him if he would like to `quit his job, take a cut in pay, and be my boss?' He said yes. Exxon Production Research is just a couple of blocks away, and there have been dozens of meetings there over the years. I remember being ushered out of an independent oil company in Greenway Plaza a few years ago, after mentioning I was a member of the Church. Soverign Oil & Gas (0103.html) is a block away.
Maybe it is because I am a spatial thinker. Whatever the reason, as Andrea and I drove up to Greenway Plaza on Friday evening, I was almost overwhelmed with emotions as all of these past experiences flooded my mind. Maybe it is because there are aspects of Greenway Plaza that meet many of the criteria Walden 3-D has spent years thinking about in regards to how cities of the future should be built around people instead of around cars. I dreamed wierd dreams about being in the bowels of the facility that evening.
This week was one of those weeks I long for. There were a lot of different things that came together, which I have been working on for a long time, and a lot of positive things happening. It started Sunday night when I called Mom. She is having cogestive heart failure again, and since it was so hard to go to the hospital last year this happened, she is staying at Porter's this time. Mom it was good to talk to you, and I appreciated the nurse who suggested you read President Kimball's book `The Miracle of Forgiveness.' It would be so nice if you could find some of the peace, which comes with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and principles like forgiveness. Everyone, Grandma said to say hi to you, and she wants you to each know she is thinking of each of you and wishes you the best. Most weeks she asks if I have talked to Roice and Rob, how Sara is doing in France, what Melanie and Paul are up to, and how Ben and Sarah and Ethan are. My calls each Sunday night are pretty brief, and yet they are a highlight of my week. As I think of my feelings about these calls, it gives me hope that the effort to write these thoughtlets out each week will eventually be appreciated by all of my kids. I find it interesting I get often get the most positive feedback about the effort from my step-kids. And I haven't taken any of them to Greenway Plaza.
Monday morning was very busy. Swede Nelson called, and we discussed where Dynamic is. He mentioned his investor friend is interested in Main Pass Field 41, Block 59, which is owned by Ridgelake. I told him Ridgelake is who I have an override agreement with. He asked me to confirm their asking price of $150-200 million. I called John Ruben at Ridgelake and talked about the Subsalt play and Block 59. I also called Sam Langford at Texas Independent, because Swede's investor friend is interested in moving from mining to the oil industry, they have several hundred million to invest, and they are looking for a company they can purchase to give them an operation's base. Sam says Rick Zimmerman is within a few days of closing the sale of TIE and the price is closer to $100 million than to $50 million. I also finally responded to outstanding e-mails to several of you. I apologize it has taken me so long. In fact, I was so busy with these e-mails, I forgot the 12:00 RC-SIG teleconference, and they had to call and remind me. Oh well! I left the house at 4:30 with the back-up zip disks for the Corpus Christi presentation, which I left with Sam LeRoy so he could put them on CD. I forgot the new 250 MB zip drive and had to drop it off on Tuesday morning.
I went from Sam's to the Hilton on Westheimer near the Adam's Mark for a 5:30 HGS dinner. This complex of hotels is loosly patterned after Greenway Plaza. The topic was `Interpretation and modeling of time lapes seismic data,' by David Johnston of Exxon-Mobil Upstream Research. There were several friends there, and we had good conversations. Scott Sichrist asked if Richard Nehring and I have any good prospects to show yet. He said he was ready to take them to his board as soon as we have some results to show. Alf Klaviness and I sat together, and we set up the next meeting with Joe Watkins. Roger Anderson and Albert Boulanger had come out to meet with me following the meeting. We had a our usual enlightening discussion following the dinner and talk. The result of this conversation is at www.walden3d.com/dynamic/images, and I feel like we are getting a better and better description of the Dynamic Resources concept. I was up late Monday evening making the slides to have to show Ted Collins on Wednesday morning.
There were several interesting e-mails on Monday. Melanie wrote:
Melanie, it was good to talk to you on the phone a couple of times this week. There was also an e-mail from Heather:
And there were two e-mails from Sara on Monday, (at 9:28):
Then at 11:34 AM:
Then on Tuesday Melanie sent me her resume to comment on. Again'im sorry I didn't get to it until Friday. After stopping at Sam LeRoy's on Tuesday morning with the new 250 MB zip drive, I was at Chroma Energy (Southwest Freeway and I-59) at 8:30. I spent the day working on Dave Agarwal's Matagorda Island 3-D survey. It is an interesting experience learning a new interpretation tool. It was fun to work on figuring out the relationships between RGB (Red-Green-Blue) color space and HSV (Hue-Saturation-Value) color space. I still don't have this down. There were several phone calls during the day. Specifically I learned that Cindy Harris, who I knew when she worked for Cheyenne Petroleum, will represent Century when they evaluate the EEX and Dynamic prospects. I finally left Chroma so I could meet Richard Nehring at Sam's office at 5:30. Sam was busy with his South America project, so I went to dinner with Richard. I called Andrea and explained how much I did not like eating alone when traveling.
Wednesday morning Riley called me at 7:00, and as I mentioned last week he work for Ted Collins at American Quasar, and he was able to give me several pointers relative to our upcoming meeting. I met Richard outside the River Oaks Country Club at 8:00. We found the Hunt Room and had a wonderful meeting with Ted Collins. A couple of years ago Ted purchased the Permian Basin properties of Amerada Hess, and he was down $180 million. However, he was recently able to sell them for $320 million, and he is actively doing exploration in King, Jack, and Wise Counties Texas. We had loaded my impending obsolesence presentation to be given in Corpus on Richard's computer, and during our two hour meeting we reviewed this. Richard Nehring is very good, and all in all it was a real good meeting. Ted does not make his mind up the first visit, and he is interested in being the business guy or at least the business advisor. He will probably come back to Houston on the 20th to meet with Swede Nelson. I went from the River Oaks Country Club to The Park, where I picked up some data from Les Denham at II&T and made several phone calls to catch the NetWork up with the results of the meeting. I ate the spinich and pork dumplings I like so much downstairs and then drove past Greenway Plaza on I-59 down to Chroma.
I left Chroma and went by Marti's house to see Rob. He is never there when I go by. This week I went by on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and today. Oh well! I left him an invite to participate in the Nottingham High Adventure in June in Southern Colorado, and also a video tape about Southern Virginia, a liberal arts college, which would be good for him to attend. I went straight to the Church. The Laurel's were responsible for the Joint Activity, and it was on missionary work. I was to talk about my mission to London. I showed the kids the movie we made on my mission: `The Round Round Round Round Round World of Missionary Work' or `Round the `Round-About and Straight Away Through Mate.' Because of the negative side of my mission, I don't think I have ever shown this to most of you kids. If you have not seen it, next time you are home you should tell me, and I'll pull it out. It was definitely a hit. After this we had our monthly Scout Committee Meeting. When I got home about 9:30, there was an e-mail from James Sneidman, who was one of my scouts last year:
Of course, the mission all of the above men were called to was The British Mission, which is what my mission call read. Although by the time I reported in November of 1970 it had been changed to The England East Mission. I will talk to James about how the spirit is strong, and how Satan is also strong in this mission. And how these same spirits seems to follow those who serve there. Oh well! At least we hopefully learn things which will be for our good.
Thursday morning started with phone negotiations with Dick Coons and Swede Nelson. Then I left at 11:00 for a lunch appointment with Dr. Nate Dean at Rice University. The meeting was on Bavinger's Patent, which was discussed in some detail last year (see ../0044.html). Dr. Dean is African American from Mississippi. His sister is the President of Southern Texas University in Houston. He is a martial art's specialist, and made a trip to China several years ago to visit the home of some of his martial arts. He is a mathematician, and he is very excited about the applications for Bavinger's work in his own area's of study. I ended up raising the Dynamic Resources bar, because now I want include in Dynamic's fund raising $25,000 to help fund Nate's research into Bavinger's work this summer. This has great potential synergy. And the coincidences are beyond happenstance. I went from Rice to Chroma, and from Chroma to see Rob, and from here to home, and from home to get a haircut. They were full, and so I was going to go back on Saturday, and I was too late, so I am starting this next week pretty shaggy.
Friday morning Benson Ford was going to bring a couple of investors out to look at Maudeen's property. They are talking about putting up the $1-3 million needed to purchase the land and to do a project there. Maybe next week. Steve Joseph called again, and he has a $200,000 contract with a building company in Houston, which he will be spending some of on things Dynamic will also be able to use. We were not able to get together, and we both see some nice synergies here. EEX had sent me the terms for working together with them. We still have some negotiating to do, and it is exciting. It could result in $150,000 check to Dynamic by the end of the month, plus an overriding royalty interest. We will see. I went to Chroma again in the afternoon. The Matagorda project is starting to come together. Matt didn't want me to go on the campout to Stephen F. Austin this week, and so I didn't get to go sleep on the ground. Oh well! Andrea and I went to the movie at Greenway Plaza I mentioned at the beginning.
Andrea has come down with a cold and has lost her voice. So she didn't go to choir practice on Saturday morning. She worked in the yard instead. We went on the Azalea Trail from 10:00 until about 4:30. It was my first time to do this, and I really quite enjoyed it. None of the yards of the houses we visited looked as nice as Andrea has our yard looking. When we stood in lines, I read `The Predictor's' and Andrea was OK with that. She talked to other's in line. Right after we got home, Matt got back from the campout. He had fallen down playing on a vine, and hurt his arm. I took him to the emergency room at St. Catherine's while Andrea and Rachel went to hear the Know Your Religion speaker talk to the youth. It took forever. Andrea came over just before they brought out the x-ray's. Matt's arm was not broken. He does have a splint and a giant bandage over his whole arm. I left the hospital at 7:00 and went to get a haircut, and they were closed. I came home and read.
John and Cathy Pixton (../0033.html and ../0036.html) met us at church this morning. I met John at the SGI conference in Oslo (../9819.html), and he later joined Continuum and moved to Houston because of that. His friend was a childhood friend of Cathy's, who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, has three small daughters, and whose non-member husband had been beating her badly enough she had been to the hospital several times. She left him in Indiania and moved in with John and Cathy, and they all come to church today. Loralynn Jones played `Be Still My Soul' on the harp, and I could not help but think of Des Indes in The Hague, where I first heard a Paraguayan harpist and came home to tell Marti we needed to purchase a harp for Sara to learn on. As Matt pointed out to me, I cried as I listened to this music. The song is one that was played on one of the tapes we used with our slide presentations when I was on my mission. Lot's of memories. What did Grandma Hafen say to me? `Roice, you have too many memories' (../9848.html, ../9905.html, ../9934.html, and ../0030.html). Guess that is part of my life. I had to chuckle during Priesthood when Jared Jurinak said: `If you think teenagers are smarter than monkeys, you are dead wrong!' When we got home from church, and after lunch and driving over to attempt to see Rob, I sat in the blue chair and finished reading `The Predictors.' It is a really neat book, and it is a direct analog to what we are doing at Dynamic. Data mining, pattern finding, transforming data pipelines into hydrocarbons, etc. And to think, all of this started for me in Houston at Greenway Plaza."