"Tim Gebauer came by with Andrew Salt to Home Teach us Sunday evening, and brought a copy of Newsweek. It is a significant religious statement to have the LDS doctrine of the Godhead on the Newsweek cover.
I could quote from the article, and I won't. Rather I will give a link to digital photos of the article (http://www.walden3d.com/articles/051016_Newsweek), which is my first posting of an on-line resource I intend to spend the rest of my life building. This way, any of you who read this and want to get more specific information for whatever reason, can go to the original source, and have access to the information. I've actually been working on this idea since at least when we moved into this house. The books I have read and underlined and have typed or had typed, are intended to become part of an on-line searchable resource. Also, the newspaper articles I have been saving and classifying by putting in folders, for over 20 years, are intended to become part of this same on-line searchable resource. The end result is my inheritance for each of the 10 of you and for each of your children.
In my mind it is a small box, shaped like a pretty rock of your choice and liking, that could be called `Dad' or `Grandpa' or a family urim & thummim. In this box are gigabytes of information organized around the two themes of `Prime Words' and `Thoughtlets.' It includes all of the historical information about the founding of Computer Genealogical Services, Landmark Graphics Corporation, China Cattle Corporation, Walden 3-D, Inc., HyperMedia Corporation, Advanced Structures Incorporated, Dynamic Oil and Gas Corporation, Walden Visualization Systems, Continuum Resources Corporation, Dynamic Resources Corporation, etc. in digital form, which are in the boxes in the garage. It includes all of the newspaper clippings in a digital form. It includes each of Ken Turner's paintings, as done for each of you (including the ones that have not been painted yet for Heather, Audrey, Rachel, and Matt). It includes all of my songs in digital form. It includes all of the digital photos. And everything is indexed spatially by the Infinite GridSM, temporally by the TimedexSM, by process using the Knowledge BackboneSM, and by data type using learnings from the Ward Abbott On-Line Atlas project. It is the rest of your inheritance beyond the Ken Turner painting, it is a way to ask Dad or Grandpa or Great-Grandpa a question and have an answer from the perspective of an old guy that's a little too fat, living in the early years of the 21st century, and get a perspective. It is an ongoing part of the education part of the inheritance I promised each of you. And each of you get exactly the same thing, so there is no reason for family quarrels about inheritance. Any money and any things that are left when I die are intended to go to charity, and all any of you get is a Ken Turner painting and an education. The ability to see behind the Newsweek Cover, if you choose to do so.
Monday morning I was at Randall's at 6:15 to pick up any copies of the Newsweek Cover they had. I took them to work, and left it out on top of the computer disk next to my monitors. This way anyone who came in would have occasion to discuss this side of my life. Mike Bennett brought in a customer, and it was fun to watch him move the article aside so the customer did not see it. I gave a copy to Lee Bell, and five weeks later I still have my last copy sitting on top of the disk drive.
For the second month in a row I missed the POPS luncheon on Monday. Can not seem to get my days right, and maybe it is because they had the wrong day on one of their newsletters. Bottom line is I did not get me dues turned in, and so I will not get listed in the directory this year. Oh well! I will miss the November meeting because of the trip to China (0548.html). And hopefully I will be able to attend the December meeting, although I have Jury Duty on Monday the 12th of December (0551.html), and I expect this is when the next Pops meeting is. Oh well!
I'm not sure how many of you caught my note that mentioned that President Pickerd called to tell me Larry Law has a terminal brain cancer (0524.html). For the Nielson's, Larry was the father of a Stephanie, Clayton (Roice's age), Alma (Paul's age), and Paige (Matt's age) that grew up in Nottingham Country Ward. Larry worked for me at HyperMedia Corporation, and spent about a year working for me in Saudi Arabia. Margie was in Young Women's with Marti, and she divorced Larry about the same time Marti divorced me. Early this week I received the following e-mail from Larry's new wife:
I responded with:
http://www.walden3d.com/bom/weather/BoM_Weather
One evening we took some whole wheat muffins to the family that moved into Ken Burton's house. His name is Mark Wolford and he is a programmer from England. We later got a nice note from his wife Wanda, who was not there when we visited, specifying that Mark `saved me One.'
About Thursday, there was a nice note from Jeff Jurinak:
John Bennett forwarded this from Calgary:
There was also a surprise e-mail from Audrey, a very nice surprise, where she wrote, in answer to a question:
Then there was the e-mail correspondence between Andrea and a former student, who is now one of Rachel's teachers: Kevin (Dr. Stein). I guess Kevin was a handful when he was a student. He apologized for his behavior. Interesting correspondence, and since it was not to me, I won't include it in my journal.
Roice sent a note that specified The Pumpkin Contest has returned!: (http://www.gravitation3d.com/pumpkin).
Thursday I was working on my catching up the Thoughtlets, and made a note that Nathaniel Ashby September 1846 near Bonapart, Iowa on the back of my swallows sheet (0539.html). I have also referred to this ancestor in a couple of other Thoughtlets (../2001/0117.html, ../2001/0118.html, and ../2002/0226.html).
Friday Cindy Peevy and I went to the north Belt and I-45 and I gave a presentation to Truit Smith and his team at Newfield. Mike Dunn came to participate after another lunch meeting. I thought the presentation and the meeting went well. However, a few weeks later we got a call telling us they are not going to be purchasing any of GDC's Field Studies nor Well Studies nor TILESTM nor anything else right now. Frustrating.
Saturday I was part of a work team, and for the third time a team leader, that went back to Vidor. Andrea substituted for me at the Primary program practice on Saturday. I rode over and back alone with Dan Jones in his truck. He did not know about Larry Law's cancer. The trip gave us time to talk. I think it was good for Dan. The ER Bishop was in fine form. He started the meeting by lifting up his foot, pulling back his pant leg, and saying, I wore no socks today in honor of Mayor White's call for everyone to wear no socks because the Astros won the Pennant and are in the World Series against the White Sox. On reflection the GDC office and the city and the region was much more excited about a baseball game than the Newsweek cover. The baseball game is over, the Astros lost four in a row, and the gospel of Jesus Christ is rolling forth to fill the earth like a stone cut from the mountain without hands (Daniel 2 in the Old Testament).
It seems like the trees just get bigger and bigger. We took a couple of four foot oak trees off of trailer houses. We cut down several damaged trees. It was very hard work. The digital photos I took do not do justice to the work we did (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/NottinghamCountryWard/051022_NCW_Vidor_Team).
There were two funny conversations. I was attempting to be friendly with the families we were helping, and so I would ask if they know Wrights Bar-B-Que and Jackie Wright and his son Jared. Then I would tell them Melanie is married to Jared. I told one lady, who's son has just got out of prison, who came by while we were working, and who is a real work of art, and her response was one of the most sincere and responsive comments I've ever heard. She simply said:
I'm not sure it is possible to describe the feelings, the goodwill, the joy that was in this single word. I was touched. At the last place we went to, I repeated the process and the man, a marine looking man with an artificial leg, responded:
When I told Melanie while we were eating dinner at Wright's Bar-B-Que, she said I needed to tell Jared. When I told Jared, he responded with
The ride back with Dan Jones was nice. We talked about how all of the travel I did for Landmark Graphics hurt my family. He told me how much his kids appreciated receiving the post cards I sent to my various classes from different places around the world. I think this mostly effected Stephen and Greg, and not so much the two older brothers. Again I was wiped out when we got back home. It feels really good to work hard like this.
Sunday was the annual Primary Program. It was special to have my class say our parts: Ashley Siebert; Kirsten Songster; Dylan Hutchings; Jared Davis; Tyler John; Jonathan Schmidt; Noah Inman; and Jennifer, a new girl. As always, just the songs were very special:
Sunday evening in my weekly calls I learned that Sara hit a deer in Austin, and it killed the deer and dented in her grill. She could not believe there were deer in the center of Austin. Oh well! I could not believe that two members of the Godhead, appearing to the 14 year old Joseph Smith, as depicted in a stain glass window, was on the Newsweek cover."