cc: file, Grandma Hafen via Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, Lloyd and Luana Warner. Diane Cluff, Andrea Nielson, and Heather and Nate Pace
"The highlight of my week was Rob's talent show on Friday night. He was the only student to perform twice, and one of the masters of ceremony said on the second introduction `Next is a student that really wants to win this talent show, so much he is performing twice.' Rob's first performance was a lip syncing dancing/eating lots of garbage skit to the song `I'm fat.' It was definitly funny, and, Rob, you certainly had a good time. His second performance was as a stand-up comic. Rob, you guage the audience's reaction very well, you were quick to take advantage of the applause slide and quick in your innovative responses. It was neat how you got the student involved bouncing golf balls on the end of a club. Your ending with your song `This is a one chord song' was perfect. Again I'm sorry I didn't have access to the digital camera, didn't get your request to bring down the minicam, and because of system problems with the Sun have not got your performance of this song in California posted with the pictures yet. Rob, I got the impression your feelings were hurt when you didn't win one of the three awards. Don't be. More important than winning you had fun and everyone in the audience enjoyed your acts.
The girl who won third place in the talent did a dramatic reading titled `Love,' which had me in tears. As she talked about how `her' little sister came into her life and how she resented the attention she lost and how her little sister was always bugging her and how much they fought, I thought of you kids and also of my sister. Then she described going to the mail box with her sister, her sister saying let's race, and running in front of a car. Her last words at the hospital were `Do you love me?' and after an affermative answer she smiled and died. Marti was in the audience, and as there was a death in our temporal marriage, I have wondered we will ever have such a conversation. I know she has spent a half a dozen years telling me `I don't love you any more.' After our brief conversation at Christmas in front of most of you kids (.../9852.html), I believe her, and thus have decided to get on with the rest of my life. One of the things the brethern have taught for years is the best thing one can do for your children is love their mother. Again, I want to tell you kids I love your Mom. I have accepted change, and in an analog to how I love each of you kids, I have fallen in love with a wonderful woman named Andrea. It doesn't fit my model of how the universe should work, and `That's OK,' especially since I'm not God. I'm very excited about the additions to my family and about having an opportunity to share and serve. Based on how independent all of you are, I expect you will all accept the change easier than I have over the last 10 years, and we'll just let Heavenly Father work out the eternity stuff.
Second place at Rob's talent show was a brother and sister who did a tap dance. It was wonderful. They seemed to have so much fun together, even though he was embarrassed. I remember when I was about 6 or 7 my Mom having me take tap dancing lessons. I remember going to the airport and practicing. I remember my dance partner later became my first `love.' Her name was Marilyn Reese and she was born on the same day I was. At the High School Class Reunion last summer, when I remet Andrea, I learned she has just moved back to Cedar City from California. I remember being sooooooooo scared. I remember the little green suit and the top hat. Watching those kids was like watching an older version of myself over 40 years ago. I couldn't stop smiling.
First place in the talent show was a kid who could balance pretty much anything on his nose or chin. He started off with a baseball bat, moved on to a tennis racket, then a golf club, then his mother's Waterford Crystal (it bounced when he purposefully dropped it), then he got big stuff, with the last item being a full-sized step ladder. I never did try to balance a step ladder, and yet his antics reminded me of lots of stuff I did as I played in the fields and corrals and barns and graineries of my youth. It was the first time I've seen someone be rewarded for the ability to control their body, and maybe it is the one talent we all need to develop.
I wrote about my first significant talent show early on in these Thoughtlets (.../9718.html). This was where Randy Shirts and I played two songs in a Junior High Assembly and I was so scared I forgot the music to the first song. As I think about how embarrassed I was back then, and how hard it was to believe I would live though the day, life has kept on going, despite my mistake. And here I am about to marry Randy's little sister. Who would have ever guessed? I also wrote about Paul's talent show the second year we took the Explorers on the White River canoe race. This was when Jay Deford played `Battle Hymn of the Republic' alone (.../9808.html) in front of `the competition' (a giant group of mean scouts from Louisiana named the Rebels, who had won the talent show for several years running by putting on the same Mardi Grau baloney). The other mention of a talent show in these Thoughtlets was in February, just after Andrea and I got engaged, and Sara came to visit and left to `go to a talent show.' I could spend hours writing about Roice's piano recitals and swim meets, Ben's violin and soccer, Paul's saxaphone and comedy, Melanies' gymnastics and cheerleading, Sara's harp and gymnastics, Rob's performances at scout camp firesides, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on. However, I have to pack for the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Convention) in San Antonio, and clean up the house some more since I won't be here much before Andrea visits this weekend, so I won't write more.
In terms of the week and my `journal entry' it was busy. It is a lot of work to put together something like this `GSH Spring Symposium and 15h Annual GCSEG Spring Technical Meeting' which I am the General Chairman and which is next Thursday and Friday. Sara came over yesterday and helped me for a couple of hours getting some of the material together. It is turning into a professional talent show. I had to present the status to the GSH Board on Thursday, and it seemed like every spare minute was spent getting things done to be ready for the program. And after all of the work we only hav 56 people signed up as of Friday night. Oh well! Expect several more to sign up at the AAPG.
The other major things I was working on this week was the business plan which has come out of the two trips to Seattle, and my presentation for the AAPG. It is interesting how little time there was to finalize the presention I give in San Antonio on Monday at 10:30 titled: `Immersive Environments: a new type of geotechnical map.' I predict it will become the most widely know presentations I have ever given, because it describes a fundamental shift in the way maps are used by our society. If you think about it, it's easy to realize we have been using maps the same way since the 1300' and 1400's. The only reason the Vikings did not populate the America's was because they didn't make a map of where they had been. Mr. Finstad's plan, Continuum's Norwegian (viking) investor, will change that world domination. Replacing maps with 3-D immersive environments is going to create a dynamic, real-time, worldwide participatory talent show. Anyway, this is a topic for another time. I could go on and on about this topic, and would probably just bore you guys to death, and since I want to get ready for church, pack for San Antonio, glance at the paper, and clean up the house some more, I won't. However, I hope you are each having a wonderful time and setting a good example in the talent shows of your individual daily lives."