Well Trajectory Plans
Dear Family and Friends,
Welcome to this week's "Thoughtlet."
These words are my personal diary and a weekly review of ideas,
beliefs, thoughts, or words that will hopefully be of some
benefit to you: my children, my family, and my friends.
"I started the week off feeling really good about myself. After all sacrament meeting showed I am reaching my primary class kids, and so maybe I am not as bad of a person as I often think I must be. Wouldn't it be nice if none of us had feelings of insecurity? Wouldn't it be nice if all of us always realized we are children of God? Wouldn't it be nice if we knew how to tell when someone is down and knew how to build them up again? Wouldn't it be nice if we were always up? Nope! It wouldn't be nice to always be up, because then we would not appreciate our status. Each of us who truly realizes we are a child of God is happier and better able to handle the trials accompanying experiencing the good and the bad of life. It would be nice to not experience insecurity, and yet, at least in my case, if there is any humbleness that exists in me, it is probably due to my feelings of insecurity. So it is nice when there is a week which starts off and ends nicely.
Maybe because I was still on a high, when Dave Johnson came into my office for his morning fix of `conversations with Roice,' I shared my plans for Red Cove with him. He took the 98 page document home and came back the next day with specific suggestions about how to improve it. I incorporated these suggestions, prepared a revised copy and sent it to Trey Sibley at The Rudman Partnership in Dallas within the next couple of days. But I divert from talking about the week's theme.
Dave is really excited about the work we have done for the Ji Dong Oilfield. He is convinced we have identified a bunch of oil and gas for them. He is also convinced that our report does not present the importance of the results in a way that will be meaningful to them, which is the feedback we are getting from Jialin and Jifeng. So Dave wanted me to spend the week working up detailed well trajectory plans for some of the prospects we identified for the Ji Dong Oilfield. Most oil and gas wells are drilled to hit multiple targets, which requires the well path to deviate from a vertical hole. Mapping the different layers, identifying probable traps, and defining an optimal well path to hit the most possible traps results in a well trajectory path. I worked very hard all week to make these maps, the appropriate cross-sections, and to come up with the three-dimensional well trajectory paths that have the optimal chance of success. I do enjoy doing this type of work. It is like a 3-D jigsaw puzzle, and nicely fits my spatial competencies. Since it is not appropriate to share any of the maps nor cross-sections in this forum, I guess I could quit this Thoughtlet here.
However, there ware some other things that happened this week, and so in the spirit of these Thoughtlets providing a diary, there were some other things that happened this week. On Monday Anne John left a message asking me to call her. She wanted my primary class to sing `The Scriptures,' which we had used for a Sharing Time Activity, at the Relief Society Birthday Party Dinner. I told her this would be no problem. On Tuesday there was a nice note from her, which reads:
<![CDATA[`Roice,
Thank you so much for being such a wonderful teacher to Tyler.
He really has learned so much in your class and has a desire to
learn about the scriptures. Thank you for your wonderful example.
Sincerely,
Anne']]>
Nice. And right after I read the mail, Andrea said, `Why don't we go to a movie tonight. So we did. Empty nesters! We went to see `Good Night, Good Luck.' Interesting movie about the Macarthy era. The impact of government getting involved in what happens in our private lives was overplayed with the couple that were told they couldn't be married and both work at the same company. I think it is worth seeing this movie, and because I disagree with a lot of the liberal legal groups, I think it is important to take the presentation as given with a grain of salt or three.
This is sort of how I am having to learn to treat the Chinese connections. Thursday I sent the following e-mail to Jialin (proprietary information edited out of the letter):
<![CDATA[`Jialin,
I did not get the well trajectories sent off today, so your
statement to Mr. Xie that it would come be this weekend was good.
I was in a meeting on a big project in Mexico, and when I went
back to my office, the company wide network was down, and I was
locked out of the Landmark software and could not move the
pictures I'd taken to the PC.
Oh well! I've finished the interpretation, and am just putting a
PowerPoint together to show three drilling locations: .... I'm
sending this note from home because the GDC network went down and
e-mail did not work at the office.
I realize you think it would have been good for me to come to China
the end of January, and I still don't. Here are some of my reasons:
(1) If you are going to be successful long-term at GDC, you need to
plan so there are no surprises, positive nor negative. Things need
to be scheduled well in advance, and then they need to go smooth.
I realize this is hard, because Chinese Oilfields management seems
to always be in crisis management, or jerk around management mode.
We can help the Oilfields realize this is not efficient way to do
business by insisting on and demonstrating good planning. However,
based on how late we have been on all projects to date, we have not
set a very good example so far. Oh well!
(2) I would not have any of my interpretation tools with me, except
for Open d-Tect, and I have not picked horizons or faults with this
software. The geology is complex, and it is much better that I have
had my Landmark workstation to do the interpretation.
(3) I had a Doctor's appointment, which I had set up a month before,
because of serious pain in my left hip. Turns out I had pulled a
major muscle in my groin, the Doctor gave me some anti-inflammatory
medicine which stopped the pain, and it does not require any
surgery.
(4) I'm broke. GDC will not pay for me to enjoy the Chinese New
Year celebrations. The reason I went to work for GDC is because I
could not get any wells drilled and was broke. We still have 2
kids in college, and money is really, really, really tight. And
as you know, GDC pays expenses late, and not in advance. It is a
big hassle every time I go on a trip. Especially with one or two
days notice.
On another note, ... I thought it was very funny that you did not
understand why he needs an invoice sent to GEO for the auditors of
a U.S. public company, and he doesn't understand why GEO needs a
contract with specific wording for the government to allow the
money transfer. Will the culture clashes never end?
I honestly do not like to travel, and prefer to stay home. However,
my youngest daughter has her Spring Break the week of March 13th,
and I would like to make a trip to China and bring her with me as an
early graduation present (she graduates the first week of May).
Matt is in Army Boot Camp, and has a graduation ceremony on the 23rd
of March, which I must be back for. My stuff with the oil company
did not come through, and in a way, it makes sense to me to just
move to China and spend a year working and saving as much money as
possible and getting over the ongoing disappointment about being
able to explore for oil and own it. Andrea finishes teaching
Seminary in May, and if her and Rachel and possibly Rob come with
me in mid-March, we could look for housing, and do some of the type
of planning I am encouraging you to do. Andrea would like to spend
a year or two in China, and I wouldn't mind. Also, Mike is thinking
he wants to come to China in March or April to do some more due
diligence on his business plan for opening an office in China.
Mike and Dave are serious about doing this, and it will probably be
much slower than you want. I think it is possible to place an
x-patriot, i.e. me and Andrea, in Beijing by June, with one fact
finding trip in mid-March. I encourage you to encourage Mike
to come and work through the business plan as soon as possible. ...
I apologize it has taken me so long. I have been working hard at
it, and I believe it would have taken longer to do this quality of
work in China without my tools.
Best Regards,
Roice']]>
On Thursday we also received Matt's second letter. I set up a place to post letters Matt sends home at http://www.walden3d.com/Letters_Home. It is obviously named after the book written about Wendell Jones and his experiences at Normandy (../0439.html). Matt is really home sick, and I encourage each of you to write him as often as you can.
Friday night I came home from picking well trajectory plans to find out that Andrea had borrowed the first season of the TV series `24' from Maureen McPherson. So between watching a couple of episodes of this, and the Olympics, we spent the evening in front of the television.
Saturday I did spend some time working on Thoughtlets, after going out and trimming the roses in relative cold weather for Houston. We also watched four hours of 24, and went to a tri-ward valentines dinner/dance at the Stake Center, which the Mid-Life Crisis played for. It was a fun evening, and it felt so unusual to just leave and not to stay and clean up after the event. In this case, unusual is nice.
For the first of my Primary Class Sister Anne John came in to ask the kids if they would sing for the Relief Society Party. We sang one of the songs she wanted us to perform for her, and I also sang `The Animal Testimony Meeting' for her and Sister Bancroft, who was in class to help with my lesson. The kids seemed excited to help. Tyler John had written out a Thank You note form me, and gave it to me at the beginning of class (see http://www.walden3d.com/photos/NottinghamCountryWard/CTR-8/TylerJohnThankyou.jpg).
Andrea and Paula Jurinak and Marion Pickerd were the sacrament meeting speakers talking about Seminary. Excellent talks. Greg Branning was really funny. After the talks, he went up and told each of the three speakers, while the others were sitting there, that theirs was the best talk and was just wonderful. Andrea's talk, was really good, and brought up several things about the Old Testament I did not know. In the evening Tim and Karen Gebauer came over to Home Teach us. It was a nice day. And I was glad the week was over and to have sent to China the well trajectory plans."
Since the 38th week of 1996 I have written a weekly "Thoughtlet"
(little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me).
Until the 43rd week of 2004 I sent these out as an e-mail. They
were intended to be big thoughts which mean a lot to me.
Over time the process evolved into a personal diary. These notes
were shared with my family because I know how important the
written word can be. Concerned about how easy it is to drift and
forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of
daily life, I thought this was a good way to reach those I love.
It no longer feels right to send out an e-mail and "force" my kids
and my family to be aware of my life and struggles.
Everyone has their own life to lead, and their own struggles to
work through. I will continue this effort, and will continue to
make my notes publicly accessible (unless I learn of
misuse by someone who finds out about them, and then will
aggressively
pursue a legal remedy to copyright infringement and I will put the Thoughtlets
behind a password).
The index to download any of these Thoughtlets is at
http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets,
or you can e-mail me with
questions or requests at
rnelson@walden3d.com
(note if you are not on my e-mail "whitelist" you must send 2 e-mails
within 24 hours of each other in order for your e-mail to not be trashed).
With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)
