cc: file, Grandma Hafen via Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, Lloyd and Luana Warner. and Diane Cluff.
"This week was a lot slower than last week. This type of slowdown naturally follows the law of undulation, which was the topic of an early thoughtlet at Thanksgiving in 1996 (../9648.html). There was still a lot going on at work. It takes a lot of time to write up call reports, make notes on all of the people talked to at a convention, get their names entered in the corporate data base, follow-up personally, and have the regular operational meetings. This day to day stuff often creates the music of the heart.
Grandma Hafen has been slipping in and out of a comma. When she is out she can communicate a little. However, she is very weak, and it is very hard for her to say anything. She can not hold up a phone, and so I have not been able to talk to her. I expect to make an emergency trip out to Utah at any time, and would like to know if any of you, who are not already there, wish to go out with me. Sara keeps me informed on how Grandma is doing, and if any of you wish to be in the loop, more than these weekly Thoughtlets, let me know.
Most of last Sunday was spent writing the tome sent last week. I got up at 5:00 Monday and kept working on it until 11:00 AM. Then after Family Home Evening, at which Adam and Andrew Salt joined us, I kept working on it until about midnight. The copies I printed out for Grandma Nelson, Grandma Shirts, and Matt were 22 pages long each. I apologize for boring you all with what, at first glance, appears to be just ego. Hopefully you see and time will prove it is a statement of the power and influence of the spirit in my life. Simply the fact I have been blessed with insights from outside myself and the glory from anything that happens as a result of `the windows of heaven being opened' or `great treasures of knowledge' being received goes to Heavenly Father, the actual source of the individual insights. Sunday evening I missed Stake Choir practice for the Epiphany/Katy Stake Joint Concert (../9750.html and ../9850.html), which practices resonates as music of the heart, because Brother and Sister Salt took their son Matt to Utah to the Mission Home and Andrew asked me to take him to the Priesthood Preview as his Home Teacher. Isn't it wonderful how as we fullfill our callings, we have simple things happen which rebuild our self-esteem and feelings of self-worth? Again it is a natural component of the law of undulation (../9848.html), which I referred to above. When looking at the peaks and troughs of my life dispassionately, it would be nice if they did not have such strong amplitude variations, which almost appear bipolar (../9709.html) or even schizophrenic. I don't think I suffer from these mental issues, and yet we all know most certainly time will tell.
Jeff called about 10:00 Monday morning to find out where I was. I didn't explain about the Thoughtlets, however I did imply my self-justification of having worked with Mr Meng Ersheng Friday evening and Saturday morning and afternoon. Jeff needed me to find out some stuff, and so I placed a call, and took the Chief Geophysicist of one of the Major Oil Companies out to lunch on my way to work. The rest of Monday was spent doing a lot of the follow-up listed in my first paragraph above.
Tuesday we had investment bankers from New York in and spent several hours describing why they want to invest $15 million in Continuum Resources. Interesting game. I took Matt to soccer practice in the evening. There were no coaches, and 3 other players, so I played soccer with them for about an hour and a half. As I said to one of the boys, my stomach weighs more than you do. We had fun, and I took one particularly strong spill on my face. Between Andrea's good cooking, eating out at work, and all of the stuff at the convention I once again weigh more than I ever have. At one point during the SEG week I weighed in at a whopping 250 pounds, which is 10 pounds more than ever before in my life. This morning it was down to 237 pounds, and I guess I need to use this medium to confess to all of you how good or bad I am doing in order to feel accountable and to get down to my ideal weight (180 pounds). Pray for me. It is very easy for me to use food to make up for feeling sorry for myself, even though I need to learn to not sweat the small stuff (and it is all small stuff).
Wednesday morning we had a Continuum shareholder's meeting. I will write about it when the plans are publically annouced as accomplished. At 11:00 I met with a retired geophysicist, Jack Land, who specializes in micro- magnetics. His ideas fit along with mine relative to generating a lot of leads using integrated data bases. In the afternoon we had a demo for Amerada Hess. In the evening I had arranged for our Venturing Crew to visit the Old Folks Home off of Mason and north of I-10 (Sun Bridge Care and Rehabilitation Center). It was a good evening, and we ended up at Marble Slab, with me buying ice cream for the 4 boys attending and not for me or Brent Peterson. We met a couple of sisters from the Stake Young Women's organization there, and they gave us a real bad time about this being the Young Men's normal activity. They were just upset at being seen there.
Thursday we had our sales forecast meeting. Total potential sales are at about $38 million after the SEG. Undulation again. We just need to minimize the variance between peaks and troughs and to insure the trend line is upward and a fast enough rate we can be profitable. I had a GSH Board Meeting at 10:30 down at H.E.S.S., by the Galleria. The Board approved a new Special Interest Group for Reality Centers: RC-SIG, which I will initially head up. I stopped at Ninja's Japanese Resturant on the way to the office for lunch. There were two of five tables with acquintances at them. Interesting. Gary Young and I spent all afternoon laying out the basic groundwork about how we could help Mr. Finstad get planetariums in all of the malls in Norway and then in the U.S. It is an exciting business model and has the potential to help educate a lot of children over the next few decades. This kind of stuff really excites me. I spent the evening reading Net Force: Hidden Agenda's.
Friday morning there were e-mail and heated discussions with a Continuum Officer about stock options, and the fairness of allocations. There was a C.E.S. phone call at 8:00, and it looks like the fund raiser in New York, Bronson, is going to come to the table before the end of the year. Undulation. I spent the morning with a couple of guys who are doing some nice work with G.I.S. (Geographical Information Systems), air photos, public domain topography maps, etc. I see some real exciting possibilities for tieing them into Continuum's theaters. Dennis McMullin and I had lunch. He is going to get a regular job since he has not been able to generate enough money pursuing his Knowledge Management interests. Chuck Edwards and I had a half hour meeting about funding Jack Land and my interests in integrating data to generate exploration leads and prospects. Then Elmer Eisner came over and met with Dave Monk and me for a couple of hours about his ideas for a new way to display seismic data. Very computer intensive. Has to do with virtual source gathers. Expect there is a pony in that pile. The CoRe Exchange included explaination and distribution of stock options, and an excellent presentation by Darall Fanguy, who just joined Continuum in London from CADCentre. He has built numerous platforms, buildings, topographies, and other 3-D virtual visualizations. It is really exciting seeing the plans for Continuum Resource actualized.
Friday evening Rachel was feeling sick and went to bed. Matt was busy on the computer and watching TV, and Andrea and I went out. It was a very nice evening. We went to dinner at Laundry's and shared a blackened redfish after gumbo for me and a shrimp cocktail for Andrea and the really good Laundry's salad. We avoided the desert temptation. Then we went to see the movie `Music of the Heart.' It includes the emotions of a wife and two kids being left by her Navy husband, and brief digression describing her non-gospel based choices as a result of being deserted. As President Jones recently said to the Katy Stake Priesthood:
It is sad how this type of behavior is part of most movies and most television shows today. The writers don't have self control, and so they justify their indulgances by exposing the rest of the world to the erotic pictures in their minds. However, despite this digression which is mild compared to most shows today, I thoroughly enjoyed the message of Music of the Heart. I couldn't help but think a similar movie could be made about your Aunt Sara and all of the wonderful impact she has had on music students in Southern Utah. I found the movie very touching and very inspiring. Too bad I don't have any money to contribute, because I probably would if we could afford it.
When we got home I read most of the rest of the Tom Clancy novel. It is so sad that the novels also fill their pages with descriptions of erotic behavior. Guess this is why I seldom read these type of novels, even though I enjoy the suspense and the intrigue and the suspense. I fell asleep reading, and finished the book on Saturday morning. Matt's last game had been canceled, and so Saturday was a pretty slow day. Andrea and I went for a run/walk around the block, then I worked around the house. Got a haircut, gas, and picked up mail at the Post Office box. Sara caught me up with how Grandma Hafen is doing, and I made up a tune and wrote out the following words (slightly modified for mail filters based on last week's e-mail not going to Ben and Penny's):
I realize my songs all sound the same. So do Neil Diamond's, and others. I realize the words often don't make sense. Neither do John Denver's. I realize nobody but me might like the songs, and that's OK because they are music from the heart.
Thanks for reading and letting me share my deepest feelings. Have a great week. Looking forward with great anticipation to seeing everyone at Thanksgiving. Remember Grandma Hafen in your prayers."