cc: file, Diane Cluff, Darrell and Nancy Krueger, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Grandma Hafen via Tony Hafen, Claude and Katherine Warner, and Lloyd and Luana Warner.
"Well, I guess the more things change the more they stay the same. I see myself slipping back into my old work habits, and probably for the same reasons I had 20 years ago. The combination of insecurity and sublimination are a powerful motivators. After going to church with Claude and Katherine, I visited Grandma, and took Mom out to lunch at Lugi's (a French Restruant in the Four Seasons where your Mom and I spent our first night after getting married). Then I went back to Claude and Katherines and their youngest son put up with me taking him away from his computer game for the two hours it took to write about maps. I drove to Las Vegas, and got there early enough I broke the Sabbath and went to `Star Treck- The Experience.' It is good. I think you will all really enjoy it next time I get you all out that way to visit my family. Then I flew to Albequerque and we got in a little bit late, about midnight.
The three days at MuSE were long, wearing, and exciting. As I watched the demonstrations over and over I realized how much like theater these professional presentations are. When you add a completely new media, computer systems which extend our senses and our memory, it gives a whole new twist to extending the limited Shakespeare experience of my youth. As I write this I wonder if my insecurities have kept me from being the ham I sometimes am in front of a group of professionals. I only made a couple of the presentations at MuSE, and so my participation was pretty subdued. We had visitors from Mobil, Pennzoil, Norex, GoCAD, Input/Output, and Energy Innovations. Because we are trying to get a special S-VAR (Super-Value Added Reseller) Agreement, there was also a lot of negotiation going on in the back rooms. I don't enjoy this, and it was very draining.
A couple of months ago I committed to my friend Steve Goldsberry to support SGI (Silicon Grahics) at a conference they are holding on Virtual Reality next week. As it evolved I found myself giving one of the opening talks, as well as the closing talk for the conference. Each professional presentation is an hour. As I have got older, I have got more conservative in my preperation, and I put in several hours work for each five minutes of presentation now. Well, with all that is happening, there has not been time to do the prepreparation. Since I got back from Albequerque at about midnight Wednesday, I have been very busy pulling my thoughts together. I wish I had a week to think about it, mull it over, rework my thoughts, fill in the holes, get rid of the duplications, etc. Oh well! To top it all off, as I was driving home from a meeting at the VETL on Friday I started feeling really ill. So I stopped at the Doc-in-a-box, which has moved to Dairy Ashford and I-10. After a blood test, listening, poking, and talking, it appeared to be bacterial. The penicillum shot in the touche did wonders. However, I came home Friday and went to sleep. Since I missed a night's work, I ended up making up for it last night. Probably why this Thoughtlet doesn't flow or make sense.
Guess staying up all night in front of the computer is why I started with the more things change the more they stay the same. If you look at my expanded Resume (http://www.walden3d.com/w3d/resumes/resume_nelson_hr.html) there are 134 professional presentations listed (and it hasn't been updated for several years). A fair percentage of those papers represent the loss of a night's sleep. Maybe it is just poor planning. Maybe I need the adrenalin to get over my hang up on finding words to describe the pictures in my mind. Maybe I am just a procrastinator. Probably you can each blame me for teaching you some of these negative characteristics. Hopefully you have also learned that when you make a commitment you keep it, and you do so as gracefully as possible.
One of the issues with being entrepreneural is a tendency to do too many things. Being a generalist means there is often not much depth. It also means there are often times when everything doesn't get done to the quality desired. I remember having professions who I have the upmost respect for telling me a particular talk was obviously hastily put together, obviously not well thought through, and somewhat shallow. I havn't won a lot of awards for my professional presentations. However, we have been point on changing a significant industry. And leading means there will be arrows in the back. It comes with the territory. I expect there will be some of that on these two talks in Norway too. Rhonda did come and check spelling today (over 30 mistakes, and whose counting). Oh well! I think the two papers have come together ok. We will do better next time (I've been saying that for years). They can be reviewed at:
- http://www.walden3d.com/wvs/papers/980506 - Immersive Environments: State-of-the-art geotechnical solutions
- http://www.walden3d.com/wvs/papers/980508 - Immersive Environments: A new media for the 21st century
I hope by sharing my failings you kids can learn from them and make your own mistakes by not repeating mine. The message today is to pace yourself and be careful not to overcommit."