cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, Pauline Nelson via mail, & Maxine Shirts
"About Tuesday this week, Matt came home from school with the mail from the mailbox out front and with the most genuine excitement I have heard out of him, saying:
It is amazing the impact a good Grandfather can have on a child. When Morris Shirts was unexpectedly thrust into the position of being a surrogate father for Matt, when he was already retired, he rose to the challenge. Grandfathers have a completely different view of the world from their Grandchildren. In Grandpa Shirts' case, he had fought in World War II, lived in Iran setting up teaching schools under the Shah, was a Ph.D. Professor, and, according to my Mom, was the best teacher she ever had in her life. Those of you who have recognized how bright my Mom is, know those words do not come lightly nor out of flattery.
So how did Morris choose to relate with this baby, child, and young boy named Matthew Nielson? Boys seem to be naturally inclined towards guns and tanks, trucks and cars, and this was a fit. I don't know what they played, nor how they played. Andrea says they visited all of the construction sites in Cedar and looked at earthmovers and trucks. Matt says Grandpa told him war stories. I expect there must have been some war games, and discussions about things learned in the Pacific Arena. For the last four years I have watched Matt live in an imaginary lego world of space ships and wars, with matching computer games. Matt attacks this world like a retired professor reflecting on earlier times.
Each child brings unique characteristics with them when they are born. These are characteristics outside of either genetics or environment. I believe this is easily seen by looking at the differences in the 10 of you kids, your spouses, children, cousins, and friends. So maybe Matt was a General in the War in Heaven, and comes by this interest in war and strategy, technology and attack plans, naturally. Maybe he was given an opportunity to come to earth where he could learn from his youth from a great teacher who had truly learned in his youth. What ever the case, it appears Matt has maybe found his niche. He is definitely excited about being in the Sea Cadets, and being Cadet Matthew Nielson.
My week was more of the same. IBM China still hasn't paid their $16,000+ bills. Emerald Resources has not received investment money, and thus have not paid their $10,000. bill. The marginal fields have not been officially awarded, and probably will not be until after the election in April, and so VRMT has not paid their $46,000+ bill. ASI is running on a shoe string, and so they have not paid their $100,000+ bill. We started talking to the accountants about Continuum Resources, and it looks like we will be writing off their $45,000+ bill on this years taxes. HGOL has not made any progress, and I don't see them paying back their $5,000. bill any time soon. Does there seem to be a trend here? I know Andrea is not pleased with outstanding receivables, and their impact on our paying of our bills. I'd like to take her and any of the rest of you who could make it to see Disney On Ice Princess Classics sometime between March 19-23, and the budget doesn't look like it will happen this year.
One of the guys I met at NAPE sent an e-mail saying he is evaluating the economics of proceeding with the proposal I sent him on Monday. My interpretation is someone has not been paying him his bills. The other group has not called back yet, although their contact, Pradeep Anand who worked with me for a while at Landmark, assures me they want to work with me. Rick Zimmerman did not return my phone call, and I guess this is to be expected, despite his word of interest at NAPE. I did execute a NDA (Non- Disclosure Agreement) with FakeSpace, and they seem to be interested in several of my projects. Also, I reconnected with Lac Nguyen, who was Bowen Loftin's chief prototyper at NASA and at VETL. We had two meetings this week, and he will be helping me with the VRT (Virtual Reality Technology) Projects Geo is setting up under our Joint Venture. Swede Nelson, Merril Littlewood (my accountant), Ed Rogers (my lawyer), and I have spent time working on the Geo-China and Geo-International Joint Venture Agreements. I spent most of the rest of my time this week working on the Geo JV web pages (www.walden3d.com/geo). So even though there isn't a lot else to report, there are a couple of comments on past Thoughtlets.
I received a summary of Ben's thoughts about his trip to China. I haven't received Brian's yet, and so it will be at least another week before you get to hear about their experience from their view. Maybe by then I'll have a better idea about when I am going back over, for the next folks on the list to do their planning. Maybe I'll also know what is happening with regards to the Hedberg Conference in June. If the AAPG does change the conference to Vienna, I need Audrey and Sara to tell me if you want to take the train to France and visit Sara's friends from the 9th-12th and then meet me (and hopefully Andrea) back in London for a week to celebrate your respective college graduations. If there is money by then, you might enjoy Vienna. Otherwise you can explore London on your own for a few days.
Uncle Tony sent me a nice note about my Thoughtlet about Toquerville (0304.html). In my defense, Mom's P.O. Box is in Toquerville, even though Mom lives in LaVerkin. Guess that goes to show how much impact my visits through and to this part of the world have had on me. The other thing in my defense is it is a name, and I have always struggled with names. Oh well!
In regards to last week's Thoughtlet about Columbia's Last Flight (0305.html), there were a couple of interesting article in today's Chronicle. Did you realize it was only on December 17, 1903, 99 years ago (0351.html), that the Wright Brothers launched the first airplane. The other article I was interested in was titled, `Dittemore's church prepared him for crisis, friends say.' Quoting the first, third, and last (22nd) paragraphs from the article:
| The movies teach us that we can go with the flow and life
turns out great. Matt, his friend Andrew, Andrea, and I
went to see `Shangai Knights' with Jackie Chan on Friday
night. The situations they were put in were totally
ridiculous, and the way they got out of them, was mostly
slapstick. It is a good movie for a laugh. The scenes
in London reminded me of my mission. Then last night,
Andrea and I watched the movie `Maverick.' with Mel Gibson
and James Garner. More of the same. Fun story, with a
lot of laughs. As we were about to fall asleep, I
mentioned how I seem to live my life like Maverick. She
responded, `Yes.' Yesterday morning we were up early to take Matt to a church basketball game. He worked really hard, during the half hour he was able to be there. Then we took him over to Peckham Park in Katy where the Sea Cadets were meeting for their first full day together. We went home and I had an hour and a half teleconference conversation with Swede Nelson and Merril Littlewood about the JV Agreement. Then a meeting with Lac Nguyen about Virtual Reality in China. And then I worked on the JV web pages some more. Andrea went up to the Bishop's Storehouse with Brent, Reed, and Elise Peterson. Another Grandpa teaching by example. Matt seemed please with his day when we picked him up. To the right and below are three photos from his swearing in ceremony. He is going to do the Sea Cadet Color Guard for a Katy VFW Activity in a couple of weeks, and he has a couple of special practices to get ready for this event. He said the first hour was really boring. However, the exciting thing is he is excited to be Cadet Matthew Nielson." |  |
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