"If you arrived at the place alphabetically, you realize the same technologies can be used for good and for evil.
Sunday the 29th of May was the day Grandma Shirts and Rachel went back to Cedar City. Andrea got up and drove them to the airport early. Since we only had one car for a while, it was nice that Andrea made it back in time for me to attend the Ward Welfare Meeting as the Ward Employment Specialist at 8:15 AM. This Sunday was also Fast and Testimony Sunday because the first Sunday of the Month was going to be our first virtual stake conference. I do not get up and share my testimony very often. I did this Sunday, specifically because I wanted Matt to see my example. Matt, I do hope you will regularly attend church meetings and keep yourself tied into the spiritual side of life.
Monday the 30th of May was Memorial Day, and I did not have to go into work at GDC. Andrea made waffles for breakfast. Jennifer Lozier came over and we talked at some length about various things. One of the things I was surprised to learn is that they own a ranch in New Ulm. This came up because Matt, Andrea, and I spent the the afternoon with Rick Zimmerman and his friend Melissa at his ranch in New Ulm. I had spent quite a bit of time since returning from China organizing the exploration opportunities we identified when I was doing Dynamic Resources full time. I had a box full of material to go over with Rick.
It was obvious Rick wanted to show off his ranch to me. It is beautiful. It is a Texas version of Calf Springs Ranch. Two big fish ponds. A beautiful house sitting above one pond and downhill from another. Lots of acres of grazing land. Several horses, and a big stable for the horses. A working shed and guest house. And the part Matt liked the best was the mule. The mule is a tractor that goes all over the ranch. By the time we left, Matt had covered the ground several times. As I watched him ride around the ranch, and as I let him take me for a drive at sunset, when the sun was painting the clouds red and orange and purple and violet, I couldn't help but wonder again if it was a big mistake to put the Landmark money into HyperMedia Corporation instead of buying a ranch? Ranch life does not match the gospel. If you have a ranch, and work in town during the week, you need all of the time available on weekends to work the ranch. And this does not fit church callings and LDS lifestyle. It was the way my Grandpa Hafen lived, and it was the way my Dad and his Dad lived. And it was a conscious choice for me not to do this. As I watched Matt, I couldn't help but wonder if there is not a better chance of youth finding God in this environment than there is in the chapel. It is easy to second guess when we look back. And I still stick by my original decision, even though it turned out to be such a disaster. I did not know it would become a financial sinkhole, and I was pretty sure that a ranch could become a financial sinkhole.
Melissa showed Matt and Andrea around. Andrea and Melissa spent quite a bit of time sitting on the dock talking while Matt was riding the mule around the ranch. In the meantime, I had my meeting with Rick. I felt prepared, and yet as he quizzed me on the various opportunities, I felt like I did not know enough. Some he was interested in and some he was not. I took notes. When we took a break and took his dog for a walk down to the dock he said we covered more information and viable prospects than a company like Devon covers in a month of exploration meetings. He also told me that what he had in mind was to form a new oil company, and to have me be the figure head of this new company. He would put in investment money and he would raise investment money from others. I attempted to not act very excited, because I wanted to see what Andrea thought of this. However, I was very excited. I recognized that this would give me the opportunity to prove the concept of the virtual oil company, and more importantly it would provide sufficient cash to prototype the new city. At least, it would provide this kind of cash if I am right in my thinking and opportunities.
The downside of this story is that this meeting was on Monday, May 30th, and I'm writing this Thoughtlet on Monday, July 4th. There have been a couple of phone calls and a brief visit to Rick's house to drop off the 130 opportunity spreadsheet I prepared and the documentation supporting the spreadsheet, but there has not been another word from Rick about his proposal. Maybe it is a test, and more likely it is just the way he does business. I must admit it has become very frustrating. As Andrea has said to me on more than one occasion since this meeting, `Remember Roice, it took Rick several years to even look at the opportunities, so you need to be patient.' The one thing that did keep going through my mind during our visit was Ken Turner's dream of tents, and how well this ranch, which is just before you reach New Ulm and pretty close to where Jennifer Lozier described her ranch as being, would make a great staging area for moving several thousand people to Utah after a weapon of mass destruction or biological agent was set off and there was a collapse of government services and civility. Who knows what the new and impending vector in our life is going to be. I certainly don't, I'm just certain it is coming.
We left after dark, and it was too late to stop by New Ulm and say hello to Ken Turner and his family. So we just drove back into Katy and home. It was a time to reflect on what I really want to spend the third portion of my life doing. I did not mention the details of the discussions to Andrea until we were home. And I only mention it in this forum because it seems as though only those who are actually interested in my life and times are reading all of the words I place on the Internet.
Tuesday morning I caught up entering all of my swallows sheets into the spreadsheet. I also spent some time talking to Christian Singfield about the next steps of Full Spectral Imaging (FSI). At 10:00 Tuesday morning there was a Tiles meeting, and I was put in charge of the Tiles project. Sam LeRoy's contract was not renewed because of cash flow considerations. Then we had a marketing meeting with the marketing group in the afternoon. They did a good job of directing us away from advertisements in professional magazines, and encouraging GDC to do a direct mailer with a 30-day free trial of d-TIPS. I was charged with creating the marketing images for the mailer.
Wednesday was Richard Verm's 20th anniversary party at GDC. It was also held on Ninfa's on Post Oak. Most of the company came out. I wasn't going to go, and Maureen told me I needed to be there. So I went. That evening Tony Traweek came in. I was telling him about the murder on Emerald Green (0521.html), and he said, you are talking about Gary Thielmier. I forgot that Tony used to work at Unocal. What a small world it is.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday Matt was at Youth Conference at Camp Bouvay. Thursday was one of Sam LeRoy's last days. We got talking about some of the results that have come out of all of his work with the Tiles at about 11:35 AM. By 11:55 we had outlined one of the biggest changes in exploration thinking that I'm aware of. It was one of the most exciting technical discussions I have ever had. It has to do with the relationship between geopressure pods and lightening, and will become the basis of some very exciting studies over the coming years. This is the only time I will mentioned the topic until we are ready to publish it, and I won't go into details about our conversation. Let me just say, that once again, I feel like I was taught truths from the heavens, once again the promise of strict observance of the Word of Wisdom brought fulfillment of the promise:
Thursday I got a surprise call from John Benard. He promised me he is going to drill our prospects by the end of the year. He said in the conversation, I'd really like to give you a million dollar override as a Christmas present this year. Again, it is the zeit geist (spirit of the time), and there are things happening which are going to result in a significant change in the vector of my life. I can feel it around me. And I recognize it might be partly because I'm looking for something to help me run away from the pain and hurt I have been feeling.
By Friday the 3rd of June I was again riding with my car pool: Lizabeth and Carlos. I rode in with them, and Andrea came and picked me up a little bit after 5:00. It was Melanie's birthday, and we decided to drive over to Vidor and spend the night with them to wish her a happy birthday. We were a little bit late leaving, and Jared and Melanie decided they wanted to go to a movie for her birthday. So we met them at the movie theater and saw Cinderella Man. As much as I am not interested in boxing, this is a first class movie, and certainly a movie all kids over about 14 years old should see. It is all about integrity, honesty, and working hard to meet the obligations that come with taking on the responsibility of forming a new family. Oh that there were more people like the hero in this movie! We would not have to worry about the state of our nation if this were true. Where as when our youth are so selfish they do not want to get married nor have children, basically saying they wish they had not been born, and who refuse to make the efforts necessary to improve our world, we are on a guaranteed road to entropy and the loss of all that the heroes of the past have fought and died and lived to build.
We had a wonderful visit in Vidor. After the movie we went to Jared and Melanie's house and someone had made a big fetticcini dinner for them. Andrea had brought over a chocolate chip birthday cake. The kids were tired, and so was everyone else, so we didn't play with them Friday night. However, Saturday morning both Colby and Taylor were up early. I had got up and was working on the spreadsheet for Rick Zimmerman. The kids came in and were playing in the TV room. We had a good time. Jared went to work. Then we went for a walk. Colby's chain came off and I was able to fix it. Then we watched some of the old super-8 movies of me and my sister Sara, which my parents had taken back in about 1954. It was fun to see Colby and Taylor trying to figure out the old projector. In fact, it is fun to sit back and think of me trying to get it working. It turns out the take-up reel is broken. Oh well! Hopefully I will get all of these old movies moved to CD's and distributed to everyone some upcoming Christmas. We stopped and ate lunch at Wrights Bar-B-Que. And took some home for Matt to eat.
We got back to Katy about an hour after Matt arrived. He was getting ready for his Eagle Board of Review, which was scheduled for 4:00 PM. Tim Gebauer was late, and then actually kept grilling him until after the adult session of Stake Conference started. This was good, because Matt stayed for the session. He also went and told several folks that he had passed his Eagle Board of Review. The adult meeting Saturday night was not a virtual Stake Conference. It was a regular meeting and included talks by President Gilipse, Sister Tolman, President Del Vance, Sister Hayward, and President Pickerd.
After the talks we went over to the Kesslers. David had cooked a wonderful meal for 4 couples and Matt. They each work in the oil industry. Two have their own oil companies, one is a consultant, David does seismic processing, and I work for GDC. Steve Tobias and I have known each other for years. It was a very enjoyable evening. Good people. Good conversations. Great food. I would like to do this type of thing more often, including hosting most of the time. Maybe when we get our finances sorted out. When we were getting ready to leave, the murder on our street was brought up. After describing what happened, Steve mentioned that a High School girl close to where they live was shot in the face as part of a gang initiation. The only reason she did not loose her eyesight or die was she was talking on her cell phone, and most of the shotgun beebees hit her hand and the cell phone. Andrea and I walked home from Kesslers because Matt had driven the car home. It did not feel as safe as it did before the murder on Emerald Green (0521.html).
The first virtual Stake Conference was Sunday morning at 10:00 AM. All of the stakes in Texas, and some in surrounding areas were involved in this new format for a local meeting. There were six speakers, Lance Wickham from the Presidency of the 70, Earl C Tingey from the 70, Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and their wives. My initial reaction is to write from my notes all of the wonderful points that were made. However, these thoughtlets are too long as it is, and I'm still 5 weeks behind, and this type of instruction is available through normal channels for anyone interested in receiving, and so I won't. Let me just say that it was a wonderful experience, and that I hope each of you will take the opportunity to participate in a virtual Stake Conference."