"There were not as many chess moves this week as last week. I expect it is because I was in Utah for the creation of Garrett and Rachel Olson and I did not respond as quickly as I do when I am connected in Houston. Colby did make 4 moves, Rob made 5 moves, and Roice made 4 moves. Still, it is not bad to make 13 chess moves in 7 days when one of the players is on the road most of the week.
Monday morning the 9th we were in Provo and we both slept in. It snowed and was too cold and wet to walk up Rock Creek Canyon. We were both tired from last week and attempting to impress Garrett's parents on Sunday. Well, maybe we were not consciously attempting to impress, and I'm sure we were doing our best to not cause any problems. When I got up and read my e-mail messages, there was a note Les Denham sent to Tracy Stark stating seismic data sets with non-zero start time are rare. Jim Siebert sent a note showing continued interest by Wilkens Weather Technologies, which was in response to a nice summary he provided them of the ConocoPhillips meeting on Friday (see 0910.html). There were e-mails with Patricia Mercado and Randy Bruner at Layton about meetings with a Layton Energy investor. I was in Salt Lake and could not attend, and I offered to be available by phone. They responded it was not necessary. There were two e-mails from Donna Covey about Walden 3-D, Inc.'s tax return, one related to my salary and one about the consulting fees paid to Jim Siebert. After getting cleaned up, I sat in front of Randy and Kathryn's TV and worked on a project I've wanted to do for a long time. I used the TheBrain to build a network display for descendants of Roice Bengt and Emma Lambson Nelson. Since I'm late posting this Thoughtlet, you can check out the results at http://nelson.walden3d.com/twiki/pub/Main/RBN_EL_Descendants/. I do not think anyone has used The Brain to create a descendant chart like this turned out. I was very pleased. No one I showed it to was very interested. Oh well!
We finally got ready and drove up to Salt Lake. Audrey made us each an excellent Tuna Sandwich and a big bowl of really thick Beef Stew. Audrey, I am very impressed with how your house runs. I left Andrea and went to visit Bob Ehrlich. Bob had someplace else to go, and was a bit late getting back. I just sat in the car and read the book I bought at Houston Intercontinental, "Sacred Stone" (see 0910.html). Bob signed a disclosure for Dynamic Measurement, and we had a wonderful and very animated discussion. I transferred some data for him to test his automated self-classification system on. He promised to send me two prospects in Illinois. It has been several weeks and when I called he said he forgot. Still have not got the prospects. They will come. I also went by Parker's place. He did not answer the door. Later he told me he was taking a nap and did not answer because he was not expecting me. So I went back and we spent some more time with Audrey and Sophie. Somewhere in here Joshua introduced us to his new company. He is making silencers for 22 pistols. The automated milling work they are doing is really neat. They are selling them all across the U.S. He should do well financially with this venture. It is not a venture I would choose to do. Maybe this is just because of the number of animals I killed with my 22 when I was growing up. I really want nothing to do with guns and killing at this stage in my life. And it will be interesting to see if this stays a fact if our country falls apart.
Andrea and I left Audrey and Joshua's in time to get to Provo to watched "24" with Randy and Kathryn. We also stopped at a Walmart and got some Family Home Evening treats. However, I'm not sure "24" counts as a Family Home Evening lesson. We enjoyed the conversations as much as the show. We were all making fun of Jack Bauer's dialogs: "We have no other choice!"; "There is not time!"; etc.
Tuesday morning we moved out of Randy and Kathryn's place. We put our suitcases in the car, and drove to downtown Salt Lake, where I Dropped off Andrea at a science play place. Sophie met her there, and did not miss Audrey for 2 hours while Audrey had her hair done. I went to Applied Geophysics to see Parker, who was not there. I talked to Ben, and said I would attempt to come back on Thursday. I parked and read my book for an hour, and then I went to the University of Utah to see the Sutton Building. Matt Kitterer had set this lunch up (see 0909.html). I met John Kaloudis. Before helping raise money for the "U" he was the Greek Orthodox Pastor for the two churches in the Salt Lake Valley. Now he works with Alumni to get them to invest in the geology department. The Sutton Building is nice. I would like to go to the dedication of the building on the 17th and I won't make it. Cash flow needs to be king right now, and we don't want to run up our credit cards any more. Frank Brown joined us (and paid) for lunch at a Greek restaurant just off of campus. Seems like a good place for a Greek Orthodox Pastor to go. University fund raising from Alumni must be hard. I'm glad I'm not doing that kind of fund raising for a living. It's much more fun to start companies and solve real world problems. After lunch I dropped them off at the Sutton Building and drove down to South Salt Lake to pick up Andrea at Audrey's.
We drove to Providence to see Paul and Kate and Grant and Ella and Dallin and Kate's sister Lori. First time I'd seen Lori since before she was married. She is expecting her second child now. My how time flies. Lovely house. Lori and her husband are living downstairs right now. We had stopped at another Walmart and picked up a slinky, some play dough, and a helicopter gun as gifts for the kids. They liked the gifts. I took some photos while we were there, which are at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/03_PaulKate/090310_Paul_Kate_Family/. We took the family to dinner at a pizza place. It is amazing how much the kids have grown up since we saw them a year and a half ago in St. Louis. It was a nice visit, and way too short. Oh well! We had to get back to Audrey's and Joshua's place before it got too dark. It was almost 11:00 when we got back to South Salt Lake. I checked my mail on Audrey's system. Des sent a note saying he could not follow up on the test of the DML project right now. It was too late to get in the queue for students' capstone projects, and SUU does not have the right equipment. Must have been his last e-mail before they left for China. I reminded him I posted 50 ideas for reseach projects when I created the last presentation for the Central Iron County Conservancy District a couple of years ago (see http://www.walden3d.com/cedarcity/CedarValleyWater/060706/Slide01.html). Oh well!
Wednesday, 11 March 2009, was the big day. This was the day of Garrett and Rachel Olson's wedding in the Salt Lake Temple. We were where we were suppose to be when we were suppose to be there and everything seemed to go like clockwork. I took a lot of photos (see http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/09_GarrettRachel/090306-14_Rachel_Garrett). Andrea and I arrived at the temple a few minutes before Rachel and Garrett. Andrea went with Rachel to help her put on her wedding dress. I had the privilege, along with Mike Olson, of being one of the witnesses, and so I was ushered into a separate room. As I went to the room, there was Marilyn Grua. For those who don't know or don't remember, Marilyn took over Sherry Sumps work as my assistant for several years during and after the divorce (for example, see ../9909.hmtl). It was good to see her. She has a cane, and is not moving very fast. She looked really good. I was able to catch Andrea, so she came over and said hi. For some reason, Rachel was somewhat focused and ready to go to the changing room. She did wave and smile that beautiful Rachel smile. After signing the witness paper work, I went downstairs to the marriage waiting room. I was the only person in the room, other than a sister temple worker, for about 30 minutes. During that time I was reading Psalms, and from 26:1 extracted a possible stanza for Prime Words:
Then the family started to arrive. Peg and Mike's family, whom I had never met. Andrea, then Randy and Kathryn and Grandma Shirts. Russell and Marilyn Shirts. Paul and Kate. Justin and Bridget. And others I'm forgetting. Mike Olson had come straight downstairs, and he had to go sign the witness papers. Before we knew it, it was time to go upstairs to the sealing room. I was on the right of the sealer's chair, and Mike was on the left. Andrea sat on the left of the couch next to Grandma Shirts. Peg was on the right next to one of Garrett's Grandmas. Eric and Margaret Nielson arrived just before the doors were closed. Peg's Dad had a fender bender, and did not make it to the sealing, but joined us outside for photos. The sealer was loquacious. I enjoyed his comments and advice, and I don't remember any of it to write it down. He did forget the ring ceremony, and Andrea prompted his memory. It was an honor for me to have had a little role in helping this wonderful and eternal event happen. There were tears of joy.
Then we went outside in the cold. It was about freezing. As the photos show it was a beautiful clear day. And it was still cold. There was some snow melting and dropping from the top of the temple. I followed Joshua the photographer around and took photos of him taking photos and captured all of the good shots he sat up. It was good to see Bridget and Justin and Rachel and Ian. I loved the recollection of the snake story (see ../0725.html and specifically http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/070612-21_Des_Justin_Beijing/mov09128.mpg). I think the photos I took tell a better story of what was happening outside than anything I can write. There were family photos on the stairs, individual photos next to the temple door, in the alcoves, by the side of the temple, and then folks started leaving for the wedding dinner at the University of Utah Alumni House. Andrea and I followed the photographer and Garrett and Rachel Olson to the reflecting pool, to fountain up the hill, and into the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Rachel did not like mention of the fact her nose looks like Joseph Smith's nose, her being a descendant of Hyrum. Oh well!
We were about an half an hour late for Garrett and Rachel Olson's family dinner. Matt was calling asking were we were because he needed to drive back to Cedar City Wednesday night to meet his ROTC group that were going to Gettysburg early on Thursday morning as a Spring Break activity. It worked out, and he was able to do all of that driving safely. The dinner was fabulous. Shrimp, seafood, steak, and I especially liked the lamb. There were all kinds of vegetables and deserts. The "testimony meeting" was a little long and forced, and there was still some really good advice. I thought Joshua Waldron and Randy Shirts did particularly well. Joshua talked about never fighting unless you are naked, quoted from the scriptures about how a man needs to learn his place, and pointed out that once Rachel makes up her mind, no one changes it. Randy talked about a big lesson he has learned, which I have not learned yet, regarding the importance of just listening to your wife describing her problems and not attempting to fix anything she describes, just listening. I wrote possible stanzas for Prime words from Kate Nelson's comments on spouses, and Mike Olson's comments about the importance of living in the present:
It was a very nice evening, and I was tired when we headed back to Joshua and Audrey's to go to sleep. In fact, I slept in again Thursday morning. Andrea left while I was still doing my exericese to pick up Sara Ellyn at the airport. I stayed at Audrey and Joshua's to take a consulting call from Joe Furmonski, and it turned out to be from Matt Hochstetler at janus.com in Denver. There were six e-mails earlier in the week setting up the call. I ended up billing them $300 for a couple of hours of work. It was an interesting call, and he wanted to know about the Brazil subsalt play and relationship to discoveries in Angola and Cabinda. My concerns with this play is whether the play is economic. The recent Jupiter and other deep water discoveries in the Santos Basin offshore Brazil have the potential to be the size of Sauda Arabian oil fields. However, the wells are in 6-9,000 feet of water. The temperatures at the sea bottom in this deep of water are so cold that oil with any wax clogs up the drill pipe and can not be lifted to the surface. In addition they have to drill through thousands of feet of salt, which is a big problem on several fronts. The salt moves, and shears off the pipes. There can be pressure cavities in the salt, which can cause the well to blow out. Anyway, I enjoyed the call, and Matt has seemed very appreciative of the conversation. There have been several e-mails since our first correspondence. Sara Ellyn and Andrea had to listen to me finish up the telephone call when they got back. Heather arrived shortly after, and both girls were asleep on the couch before we knew it.
Andrea and I picked up the Groom's cake and drove it down to the reception place. The reception place was a series of greenhouses next to a cemetery. It was beautiful. The plants, the tables, the table coverings Rachel had selected, everything. It reminded me of a conversation with Bill O'Brian years ago. Bill had gone to work for Landmark right out of The University of Houston with a geology degree. He was a good hand, and did a lot of good work. About the time I stopped working for Landmark, Bill quit. He called me up and wanted to take me to lunch to tell me about his plans. He had gone to work in new business development for a giant funeral home service. He pointed out how different the work was from Landmark, and how they had their own sense of humor. For instance, when he suggested they invest some of their profits in nursing homes, they immediately responded, "We can not do that, it is a conflict of interest." This was my first time to drive through this part of South Salt Lake this close to the mountains. The alluvial fans are very large, and the incised valleys are humongous. It was fun to look at the geology, although I did not bore anyone with us regarding my observations.
Garrett and Rachel Olson's reception was wonderful. We arrived early enough to help with some of the logistics. Almost the first person there was Ed Gray. Ed was in school with me at the University of Utah. He went to work for Mobil after I made a recruiting trip to the "U" the spring following starting to work for Mobil. Ed bought a house on Lockmore Lane, and when we got an offer for our house we could not refuse, we ended up buying a house right across the street from Ed and Carole and their 4 kids, who were the same ages as Roice, Ben, Paul, and Melanie. I'm pretty sure they ended up with six kids. Ed was one of my advisers when I was Elders Quorum President in the Dallas First Ward. And Ed was one of the three co-founders of Computer Genealogical Services. He could see the impact of the secularism of Texas on his kids, and so he quite Mobil and moved to Woods Cross, between Salt Lake and Bountiful. I re-read what I have written about Ed in previous Thoughtlets. I don't mention any of this. The failure of CGS and Ed moving to Utah were two key the reasons I was willing to move to Houston to work at the Seismic Acoustics Lab at the University of Houston. I did a search on "Ed Gray" in previous Thoughtlets, and there is little describing what a strength Ed has been for me over the years. I wrote about visiting with Ed when I was doing some work with Ray Levy of EGI (Energy & Geoscience Institute) and the professor running SCI (The Center for Scientific Computing and Imaging) at the University of Utah. We were applying medical isosurfacing technology to seismic data. I mention having conversations with Ed during my two trips to pursue these ideas(see ../9740.html and ../9743.html). However, I did not write anything about the conversations. Note 1997 was about a year after Marti divorced me, in the days when I still thought the divorce was temporary and Marti would come back. Ed gave me very practical advice. He talked about the wild daughters of one of the Apostles a few years ago. He talked about how this apostle had been told his was the only family where these rebellious spirits had a chance. Ed helped me get a better perspective on the implications I had drawn from President McKay's statement that "No success in life can compensate from failure in the home." My implications were that my life was a complete failure and there was no redemption for me. Ed was there for me and helped remind me God loves sinners and those who have made mistakes, and Jesus suffered to provide us with a clean slate to start over on. I write all of this to give a little bit of context for the joy I felt as Ed walked in the door of the reception hall with his big half a false tooth smile. We sat down and spent 45 minutes catching up. When things take off for me, and there is money to do exploration, Ed is going to be one of my closest partners. It was so much fun to catch up and find out how all of his kids and Carole are doing. We are both very interested in several of the opportunities to work together that came out of our conversation. Time will tell.
There were lots of friends and family in attendance. Robert and Janet Shirts from Coeur d' Alene, Idaho, their daughter Janneke at BYU, and son Johnathan and his family came. Paul and Kate and their three kids were there. Sara Ellyn and Heather were there and beautiful. Joshua and Audrey and Sophie were there. Sophie was really funny. She would pick up a handful of gravel on the ground and move someplace else and drop them. She also had a basket of paper rose petals she liked to dump out and then pick back up and then dump out and then pick back up. Several of Randy and Katheryn's kids were with them, along with Grandma Maxine Shirts and Grandma Bessie Hanson. My cousin, Diane Cluff, Uncle Tony's second daughter, and her Mom, Aunt Irene, Uncle Tony's first wife, attended. It was great to catch up a little bit with Diane. Aunt Irene has taken a hard road. Her second husband has Alzheimer's, and she had quite a few negative things to say. Having seen the other side of the comments, it was pretty obvious to me she did not meet some basic needs which come with marriage, and probably does not have near as much basis for judging as her comments implied she has. Aunt Irene has a walker with wheels and a seat, and she put Ella Dawn on the seat and took her for a ride around the reception hall. Ella Dawn absolutely loved it. Marilyn and Corry Grua drove over from Tooele. It turns out Rick Nielson's third wife, Margaret, knew the Grua's very well when they lived in Vernal, Utah and when they had their house burn down. What a small world it is. There were many others that came, and several who didn't come whom it would have been nice to see. Rachel looked wonderful. Garrett was the perfect gentleman. And I thought it was a perfect night for Garrett and Rachel Olson.
Although there was the issue of the car. Early on in the evening, Rachel approached me with the keys and asked me to hide Garrett's car. Then Mitch, Garrett's younger brother, asked where the keys were so he could get the car. After all Garrett had totally trashed his car when he got married in Alaska. I was very uncomfortable being in the middle, and I slipped the keys to Andrea. Then Andrea pulled me out, and we took the car and found a cull-de-sac to hide it in. I even went up to the homeowner and got permission to leave the car there for a few hours. Next thing I know, Peggy Olson asks me for the keys. She tells me Mitch has found the car, and he wants to fill it with balloons. Anyway, after the reception, I took Garrett and Rachel Olson to their car. It was covered with shaving cream and oreo cookies and balloons and tassels other things. We cleaned off the car. Rachel was not a happy camper. We moved all of the gifts from our rental car to their car. Mitch and his wife were there, and they helped me clean up what was left on the ground into a pile. I ended up leaving Mitch standing over the pile, promising to put it in a sack when his wife got back, and carry it away to a garbage bin. I don't think the neighbors will give permission for someone to hide a car behind their trees again. Oh well! It turned out OK. Rachel said she just wanted to do "what you and Mom did when you hid your car after your wedding." It was about 11:30 when we got back to Audrey and Joshua's.
We left for the airport before 6:00 AM Friday morning, the 13th. So we did not get to say goodbye. It was sure nice to be invited to stay at Audrey and Joshua's place, and not to do the extra hour of driving to Provo. The flight was uneventful. However, as we approached Houston the clouds got thicker and thicker. It felt colder when we got off of the airplane in Houston than when we got on the plane in Salt Lake City. I had finished my book, "Sacred Stone," earlier in the week, and even included a quote from it in the family e-mail written General Conference weekend (see 0914.html). We got back to the house in the early afternoon. Conner Bancroft and his friend who is going in the Marines had just arrived and were just getting ready to work on raking up the leaves. We ended up raking up about 25 bags of leaves. The two young men worked hard. I got a cold as a result of being out in the rain. It did not start to take it's toll until Tuesday, and I did not feel good for a week.
Rob made two airport runs for us. He picked up Garrett and Rachel Olson and he picked up Matt, who arrived from Gettysburg about midnight. We finished the raking about the time Rob arrived with the first load of people. It was raining pretty good by this time. After getting cleaned up, we took Peg, Mitch, Garrett and Rachel Olson, and Rob to Lupe's for dinner. There was a 45 minute wait. It was cold and wet. However, they had a large outdoor heater, and we all gathered under it. The meal was nice, and I did not notice that the waiter gave me the wrong credit card. At least he charged the meal to the correct credit card. We recognized the problem on Monday when we went to Space Center Houston (see 0912.html). I went back to Lupe's on Monday night, the waiter was there, the other customer had brought my card back, and everything worked out fine. Andrea was relieved.
Saturday was the big day of the reception. Andrea was very disappointed in the rain. I was glad it was raining. She has made such a big deal about the half inch hole in the kitchen floor and not wanting people inside our house that I was pleased the activities turned out to be inside the house. I like our house, and I am not at all embarrassed about the house. It has been long enough I do not remember all of the things which needed to be done on Saturday. I know we were busy up until after people started arriving. I had not changed and was lighting candles with Mitch Olson and Matt and putting them in the pool when the first folks started to arrive. I took some photos, and there was a lot more that happened than I remember or took photos of. Melanie and Jared and their kids came over. I had set up my computer in the alcove, and it stepped through the photos from Salt Lake. Halle stood up on a chair and was looking at the photos, when I heard, "Who is the princess?" It was Rachel, of course. Before anyone came, Garrett wanted me to pull out my guitar, so I sang him "Froggie Learns the Gospel," "The Wooden Shoe," Melanie's Song," and "Rachel's Song." I had a hard time getting past the emotions to sing "Rachel's Song" (see ../9945.html). Oh well! Melanie told me I did a good job, and that she did not remember hearing Rachel's song before. Rob brought his Thremin and set it up upstairs. Garrett and "Robert," as he felt he needed to be called, hit it off very well and had a good time together. Roice and Sarah drove over from Austin. There were a lot of our friends from the ward and from work and from the neighborhood who came. Several who could not attend sent nice notes. Sometime during the week Rachel told me about the significant gift Rick Zimmerman sent to them. One thing I've noticed about the weddings of you kids is that I really don't know what gifts you got from whom. It's fine with me, as long as you send thank you notes. And still it has seemed an anomaly in our communication. I was definitely worn out by the time the evening was over. It was probably about 11:30 when we went to sleep.
Sunday morning Andrea took Garrett and Rachel to Intercontinental airport very early, came back and took Matt to Hobby airport at 11:00. I prepared and taught my Sunday School lesson. Sister Harlan's substitute did not make it, so I had Andrew McBride, MacIntyre Branning, Matthew Kennerson, Matthew Parks, Devon Summer, Nicole Davis, Hope Miner, Samantha Wheeler, and Seria Khalio, as well as the kids who are normally in my class. It was one of the better classes I have had. There was good participation, and the kids seemed to follow the lesson material.
When I got back to the house there was a note Kristofer Tingdahl sent , which I liked:
There was also a link from Sara Ellyn to her photo album from her trip to Salt Lake for the reception. The photos are at: http://picasaweb.google.com/saraellyn/UtahMarch2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCPmuttuLsfil3wE&feat=email#. I downloaded the photos and put them at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/07_Sara/090312_Rachels_Wedding. I have this idea in my mind that the www.walden3d.com website is an infinite (disks are getting cheaper and cheaper) and permanent repository for anything family oriented. One of the reasons I put so much effort into documenting these Thoughtlets is to leave a legacy or an inheritance. My goal, which I think I have shared many times, is to give each of the 10 of you (and Bridget and Brian too, if interested) a small box as an inheritance. This small box will have everything I've put on the www.walden3d.com website on it, and will provide an equal inheritance for each of you. If I make any significant amounts of money, I plan to give it away or make arrangements for it to be given away before I die, so there will not be any money for any of you to fight over. However, you will each have a detailed accounting of my thoughts, and, if you choose, you can use my mistakes, and my successes, to better your own lives and the lives of your children, if you choose to have children.
Bridget sent me this note:
I finally looked at them and wrote a response on 11 April 2009, when writing this Thoughtlet out about the new Garrett and Rachel Olson."