cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, and Maxine Shirts.
"Sometimes the tunnel seems very long, even when there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel (0214.html & 0215.html). Seems like right now could be compared to a progressive dinner, where you go to the first house and there is nothing to eat, and you go to the next house and there is nothing to eat, etc. When Matt and I did our home teaching a little while ago, one of our inactive families which never invites us in, reminded me of what it was like in 1984. He is a lawyer and does taxes for folks, and was obviously hit hard in 1984.
His comments reminded me of the beginning of the professional progressive dinner, we refer to as moving to Houston. I moved to Houston the weekend of January 16th of 1980. I moved to Fred and Kathy Hilterman's at Wirt and I-10, and left Marti and the four oldest kids in Dallas. My last day of work at Mobil was on Friday, January 15th, exactly 5 1/2 years from my start date at Mobil of July 15th 1974, and exactly 6 months before I was vested in the Mobil savings program. We rented a house in Sugar Land, and I drove up to Dallas and packed the U-Haul Trailer on a Saturday a few weeks later. I remember tieing some electrical conduit galvanized pipe to the side of the U-Haul Trailer because I didn't want to leave anything we might be able to use. I remember not having any help to load the truck, after all of the folks I moved working in the Elder's Quorum in Dallas. I also remember we had tickets to see Andre Segovia, a very famous classical guitarist. As a side note I have never been to a classical guitar performance. Oh well! There was this ice storm coming, and we didn't want to get caught in it, I didn't believe I could afford to miss any work, and so we packed up and moved to Sugar Land. The move was very hard for Marti. As I look back, I realize she never recovered from the depression associated with that move and the baby blues accompanying four young children and a husband always working. We decided to build a house in Missouri City on Blue Quail Drive, and we were the last white family to move into our neighborhood. The commute to the University of Houston was not that bad, although it was only a few months later when I totaled my brand new yellow Mazda on the way into work. It was an important day, and I was suppose to meet the Evans & Sutherland shipper's at the Seismic Acoustic's Lab that morning. I was very late.
However, when we started Landmark in the fall of 1982, and finally ended up in the office on Highway 6 at the mouth of Buffalo Buyou, it was a long commute. It took 45 minutes to an hour one way, and I did not like it one little bit. Again I found myself as the Elder's Quorum President in the Maplewood II Ward. We had all the problems of any Elder's Quorum in a big city. I was stressed with all of the start-up stuff at Landmark, and had started all of the travel to open Europe, Australia, China, Canada, etc. I recall the summer of 1984, which gets to this diversion. I had an interview with the Stake President, a President Smith who worked for a coal company. He complimented me on how well the reports from our Elder's Quorum were, and how they were the best in the Stake. I told him all that was happening with 6 young children, a new company, my travel to Europe, Australia, and China, and that I felt very stretched. He asked me if I was asking to be released. I told him I would never ask to be released from a church calling, I was just presenting him with facts. And he released me. So we decided to move closer to work. I had been looking for a place to build my prototype 3-D city and had met Joe Roberts. We ended up letting him talk us into buying 1307 Emerald Green. A major stop on the Houston progressive dinner.
We did not have enough money to close on the house, and covered the closing costs with a credit card. All of the paperwork had been done for Landmark Graphics to go public, and so we were sure we were going to be able to pay off the house within a few weeks or months. However, it was August of 1984, and there was a stock market crash the week before Landmark was suppose to go public. I recall Roice and I Home Teaching the Wade's during those months of late 1984 and early 1985. It was really tough times in the oil patch. Much worse than now. We had bought the house at it's highest value. Housing values dropped about half. There were numerous meetings with the bank that did the loan. It was several years before we got everything worked out. It was a bitter lesson, and I certainly don't want to repeat the trials of those days. We did have a regular income. There was a few weeks when it looked like Landmark was going to go bust. And yet during all of this time, I was out there on the world stage selling Landmark, believing in what we were doing, and getting the industry to accept my optimism. It worked.
Grandma Shirts called on Thursday to tell us when she is coming in and leaving for Rachel's graduation and Melanie and Jared's baby's blessing. I answered the phone and she asked how everything is going. I said `OK,' and she said that isn't a very strong OK. I guess I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm getting a little worried the rest of the tunnel might be longer than I thought it would be. Shell has not closed their contract yet because the contracting officer is in Europe until Tuesday. Christian Singfield has got the run around from CDX, and it looks like there is only one person in their company that can, or will, make any decisions. It will be a few weeks before I start doing any work for them. Mark Litner led me into a lawsuit by Continuum employees against Kjell Finstad, which I will talk about more later. Ken Tuner has been told the older President Bush wants to hang his painting `Out of the Ashes' in the museum in College Station, that all of the key Firestations in New York are going to have a gi'clee, and that he will get something for all of the copies that are sold. Not sure what Heritage Galleries On-Line will get out of all of this. I have the signed agreement from Bob Burton, and it is a function of when MKS get funded and if they decide to drill one of their deals. Probably 2 months out. Mike Dunn's contact has been on vacation, and will hopefully be back this week. It is taking a long time to put together the Harris County Census Track Map prototype. It should be very valuable, once it is all put together. I talked to Bob Peebler at EVP (Energy Virtual Partners), and hopefully we will get together with their key technical guy, Chris Dale, this next week. I deliverd the Heads-of-Agreement to MKS Oil & Gas, they had meetings with potential investors each day last week, and hopefully we will negotiate and sign the agreement over the next two weeks. So all in all, from a business perspective, there haven't been very many morsels on any of the plates in this progressive dinner coming out of the tunnel. It seems harder to close business than it did back in 1984. And yet we have certainly not faced anywhere near the challanges many in the industry did back in those dark days in Houston.
I spent most of the week getting the Heads-of-Agreement put together. Then I have started to mine all of the consulting contact information in the HyperEdge Expert Association files. We really did some good work back in 1994-1996. Hopefully I will be able to leverage it with EVP, MKS Oil & Gas, and others. I must admit it is frustrating not being able to close any of these business opportunities that seem just beyond my grasp. Oh well! It will work out.
On Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons I spent about 3 hours each day with the missionary elders teaching Norbert Schmidt the 4th and 5th discussions. We have a new elder, Elder Snow from Magna. It has been good for me to go to the discussions, share my testimony, and feel of the spirit and the excitment of an 83 1/2 year old mature man whose heart has been softened and who is teachable. He was the President of Arrow Shirts. He has a wonderful spirit with him, and it is touching to the soul to hear his comments, his love for his son and his wife, and his desire to prepare for the other side of the veil.
Thursday evening I went to listen to James Burke speak at Rice University. I had written it down wrong, and the talk was the week before, so I missed it. Oh well!
Friday evening was the Nottingham Country Ward Progressive Dinner, which I coordinated as the Activities Committee Chairman. I wrote about how we set up for the Ward Dinner Groups back in January (0203.html). Since I had already put together a spread-sheet with the longitude and latitude of each family in the ward, it was a pretty straight forward thing to take the folks who signed up for bringing appetizers (hors d'oeuvres, soup, or salad), entre'es, and desserts and map where they lived. Then I organized 10 groups, 5 for appetizers and 5 for entre'es. Then I sorted those who wanted to participate so that no two couples were at the same group, assigned the different groups, and made invitations for the couples who signed up. It went pretty smoothly. There were a few cancellations, and it seems they were all going to the Salt's for the main meal. Oh well! Andrea and I went to the Burgerner's for salad. We learned that their oldest daughter has rented a house in Colorado at a ski resort for a week in July, and all of the kids are going to go there for a family vacation. Sounds like a lot of fun. We had the Nicols, Cahoons, and Talleys at our house for the main meal. Andrea made some nice shish-ka-bob's of chicken and peppers and onions and pineapple with a butter garlic glaze which we barbequed on the grill my Mom gave us as a wedding present. Then we all met at the church for pot-luck desserts.
The good news is that the progressive dinner was a lot of fun. It was too short. For example, a really interesting conversation with Doug Talley about where thoughts stop was cut off with the arrival of other families. Hopefully we will be able to continue this conversation before the Talley's leave for Ohio. The bad news is the food was too good, and I ate 263 swallows, considerably more than the previous high of 231 swallows on February 14th, Valentine's Day. Oh well! Kind of like those days of old when I would take Mom to Hunan and eat a big lunch, then go to Milts in the evening and eat all of a big dinner. Guess that is how I ended up waking up to find myself over 50 pounds over weight. I'll give a more complete report on the lack of progress on loosing weight in two weeks on the first Sunday of next month (0218.html).
I'm really not one for parties, and I do feel very out of place with this Activities Committee Chairman calling. As we drove up to the house from the church after the progressive dinner, I turned to Andrea and said, `It will be nice when I have a real calling.' She said, `You don't consider Activities Committee Chairman a real calling?' and has been badgering me about that comment ever since. She has been going to Ward Council for three years now, and until I was called they never had an Activities Committee Chairman who attended, let alone one who prepared a monthly Ward Calendar, held Activity Committee Meetings, and has had things like this `complicated' progressive dinner.
Saturday morning Andrea and Rachel left at 6:30 for the annual Priest-Laurel Conference and to participate in 5-Alive, cleaning up the fifth ward. Matt had gone fishing all night with Brother Gebauer and the scouts. He did make it up for his soccer game, and played very good. He went back home and went to sleep until Sunday morning. In the afternoon I hosted a pot-luck dinner for 20 Continuum Employees who are talking about a lawsuit against Kjell Finstad. It doesn't look like I will be participating, even though Continuum owes us over $42,000, access to the software, and whatever the stock would be worth if he would have taken one of the offers he had. It is late, and I'm tired, and I don't think it is worth writing more than I still feel the same way about law suits I always have, namely `forgive and forget and stay as far away as possible.' It was a nice evening, and it was good to see the Slawson's, the Pixton's, and several of the others. I was wiped out by the time they all left, and when Andrea went to the Stake Center to chaperone the dance, I just ended up watching a movie I'd never seen before: The Pelican Brief.
This morning was Ward Council, and I had to get the ward calendars for May and June together to get them approved by all the groups prior to distributing them next week. We have another activity in two weeks, namely the Ward Campout at the Hagen Ranch on May 3rd. Any of you interested in coming and going with us are welcome. Melanie, maybe this would shake out your baby. Or Sara, it would be a party after finals. Or Ben and Sarah, I miss Ethan, and haven't even been able to get through on the phone for several weeks now. Oh well! Sara did call tonight and we had a nice conversation about internships. I got busy signals when I tried to call Ben and Melanie, left a message with Roice, Porter's couldn't get the portable phone working so I did not talk to Mom, and our Home Teachers came and I got distracted before calling Paul, Kate, and Grant. Oh well!
Sacrament, Sunday School, and Priesthood Meetings were uplifting. I find great comfort, and also am able to keep my priorities in check by attending church meetings, and being exposed to spiritual things each week. I was particulary touched by Sister Harrison's talk about a younger brother's cancer in Hurricane, Utah back in 1969. Also, the Choir sang a version of `Did You Think To Pray.' I feel it is appropriate to remind each of you of the words in this wonderful hymn, sort of like was modified to make it more personal for the version we sang:
Matt and I did our Home Teaching today. The Elder's taught
Brother Schmidt the last discussion. His baptism will be
next Sunday at 6:00. It is wonderful he is taking the step
and it is so sad that he did not take it 40 or 30 or 20 or
10 years ago. I cry as he expresses his love for his wife
and his desire to be sealed to her for time and eternity.
I learned I made a mistake by not having his wife, Sister
Lorie Schmidt, in on more of the discussions. Oh well!
Matt and I went to the Thompson's, who brought up 1984,
which led to the comments at the top of this Thoughtlet,
and who after 3 months still do not let us past the
door step. He did talk to us and tell us a little about
himself this month. Then we went to the Riches, and to see
Hayden Hudson. Hayden's daughter is still getting married
in St. George on the 22nd of June. I'd sure like to go out
for that, if I can just close some of these business
opportunities. Then our Home Teachers came and visited us
tonight. And it is already 11:45, and will be in the morning
before Andrea has a chance to proof this weeks words. Hope
all is well with each of you. Hope it will not be too long
before we can all join together somewhere and have a family
progressive dinner."