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.
"At 11:30 last night, as I dropped off the keys to the Johnson's green Honda with Sarah Johnson Nelson's Father, he said to me something like `I will long remember what you said to me about the relative importance of some events as actually being inconsequential.' It is so nice when we are taught by the spirit. Sometimes we can say or write a word or a concept and it will actually open new worlds to others, worlds completely outside of our expectations or even our understanding.
Sometimes others open the doors to new worlds for us. For instance, I had a lunch on Monday with a long-time friend who has taken a one year contract with Landmark. It is exciting to learn how they are tracking exactly how many people are using which of the Landmark products. It was interesting to learn that 80% of the software use is the stuff I helped design for them 10 years ago. As I described what we are doing with Immersive Environments, he expressed considerable interest. However, he said, `Roice, I would really enjoy working with you and you must still remember I have made a commitment to work here for a year. I won't go back on my word, and you know it always comes back if we leave a customer in a bind.' Needless to say I am committed to working with this friend and finding a way to make sure his customer needs are met. How refreshing it is to have someone say their commitments are not inconsequential!
Roger Anderson flew in from New York on Tuesday for afternoon help give demonstrations at the VETL to Burlington, an oil company, and to Western Geophysical, an oil service company. Rhonda had made arrangements for a nice lunch for all of us. It was Mexican, including beef and chicken fajitas. We are gettin our presentation down better. They identified some major fields in the Irish North Sea and in Algeria where they have a need for the kind of expertise we have put together through NRMI. One of the major concerns the senior managers we met with have is they are outsourcing their core competencies in places like Indonesia. They are not doing the detail reservoir management studies, and thus they do not keep that knowledge internal to the company. If we can just figure out how to get an oil company to let us participate in the upside of what our technologies can do for them! The cost and the savings to the first company, over a relatively short period of time, like a decade, will not be inconsequential.
These financials are quite different from the amount Melanie is going to make working for me this summer. She will help me get all of the boxes currently stored in my bedroom (which were in Grandpa and Grandma's basement in Utah) sorted and filed. Hopefully this will occur in a manner which will be useful when I take time to write some of the books hidden in those boxes. Melanie started the summer off helping clean up the house before Bridget and Aunt Sara arrived for Ben and Sarah's wedding. Thanks Melanie, it looks great! Wednesday was Melanie's birthday. In my normal `get things done' way, I offended her as I asked about this and that after picking her up Wednesday morning. Melanie, when you finally turned to me and said, `Happy Birthday Melanie,' I felt so foolish. It is just too easy to get in the habit of stressing the inconsequential.
Roice, Sara, Sara's friend Amy, Rob, Melanie and I spent the day with Ben and Sarah and several of Sarah's cousins and friends at the Johnson's Beach House in Galveston. It was a beach party honoring Ben and Sarah. Paul, you will not believe how good your sisters look in their bikini's! Neither Sara nor Melanie are little girls anymore! Even an old balding man notices. Mabe it is because I am their father, but I would like to see my little girls dress more modestly. I am afraid an inconsequential glance can turn into a spiritally and even physically dangerous experience for them.
Thursday turned into a marathon work session. We finally received a written Terms Sheet from Norway. John, Ron, Rhonda, and myself spent all day Thursday working through responses to the various points on this facsimile. Melanie, thanks for going to Wendy's and getting us all lunch. I was working on getting the response out until 7:00 PM, which was when I needed to leave for Personal Priesthood Interviews (my current calling was first refered to in these Thoughtlets in ../9749.html). I thoroughly enjoy meeting with my guys each month and learning how they are doing. Don't feel like I help them much, and hopefully my perception is flawed. For example, Brother Cahoon and I have informally set a challenge to see who can lose the most weight. As Brother Cahoon left the interview, he turned to me and said `Hope you see less of me next month!' Fulfilling a priesthood assignment may seem inconsequential, and it isn't.
Friday was another hectic day. We started at 7:00 at Jeff's office. I left at noon and picked up 30 Tinseltown tickets to the movie `Truman,' and to pick up Roice and Melanie, so we could go pick up Aunt Sara and Bridget at Intercontinental Airport. We were late, and then I dropped Roice and Melanie off at the Terminal B instead of Terminal A. However, we worked it all out, despite what turned out to be inconsequential errors.
We drove back to the house, unloaded the bags, talked for a while, and then went to the Wedding Rehersal Dinner at Grace Presbyterian Church at West Belt and Westheimer. Paul, the church Ben and Sarah were married in is absolutely beautiful. The rehersal was very formal and very polished. There was an excitement about the event. Ben and Sarah were in fine form and had a lot of fun with everything. The dinner was Mexican beef and chicken fajitas. It did not suprise me for Ben to have a Mexican meal for his wedding dinner. As we left the church to go to the movie at Tinsletown, it started to rain. If it is possible for Jim Carey to make a serious movie, Truman is the first. One of the funniest parts of the movie was when it rained just on him in a 3 foot square area, as he sat on the beach. As he got up, the rain followed him, until it started a downpour. I had spent the afternoon complaining to Sara about how it hadn't rained in Houston for a couple of months and how dry a year it is for Houston. As we came out of the theater, there was a Texas thunderstorm dumping buckets, not inconsequential amounts, of water on us.
Saturday morning John, Ron, PC, Jeff, and I met at Jeff's office from 7:00 until 11:15. Then I left and went back to the house and picked up Aunt Sara and Roice and took them to the VETL for a demonstration of Immersive Environments. I think you both enjoyed it. We got back to the house with enough time to relax for a minute before going to the wedding. The wedding was scripted out like a play. Everyone played their part perfectly, even the three year old `flower girl.' I was particularly touched by a section in the program:
There were a lot of friends there and at the reception. It was good to see so many friends. Ben and Sarah definitly had a good time. It was fun to see them interact with their friends, to see their polished first dance, to watch the tossing of the flowers (Mia caught them), to see Ben remove the garter and Rob put it around his head like a runner's sweatband, to watch them cut the brides cake and the groom's cake, etc. The funniest moment was arriving at the church and seeing Rob in his checkered shorts with a tux top. He forgot his pants and Karen Amason brought them to him. The highlights for me were a nice long hug from your Mom, and a slow dance with Melanie. She followed me really good. I wanted to dance with Sara too, and they didn't play anymore slow dances. Oh Well!
The most disconcerting moment was when Sarah realized her's and Ben's change of clothes were in the Green Honda, that it was parked 15 miles away from the Cinco Ranch Clubhouse at Grace Presbyterian Church, and that no one knew who had the keys to the car. Sarah was quite upset, partly because everything had been so perfect up to that point, and partly because of all of the emotions tied up in the evening. Her Mom and her Dad could not believe this had happened. As I mentioned to Ray, as I drove him back to his house, the clothes and the locked car are truly inconsequential relative to a wonderful evening. In fact, I doubt if anyone would remember, nor would 95% of the attendees ever even know about this minor inconvenience, if I wasn't writing about it here. I guess this shows how power of words is not inconsequential."