cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail., Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, Maxine Shirts via mail.
"It really doesn't matter how old we get, it seems there are lessons to learn over and over and over and over and over and over again and again. I got sick this week. Just the common cold, and I have felt poorly all week. Rob, I could blame you because you had stayed home from school a week ago Thursday when I took you over to Sonics for dinner, and you were coughing in the car and at the house as we watched October Sky. However, I won't. I could blame the scouts for talking me into going bowling all night (0008.html). However, I won't. I could blame Andrea, who had a cold the week before. However, I won't, especially since she seems to have caught whatever I have had this week, and it has hit her a lot harder than it hit me. I am actually starting to come to realize it doesn't really do any good to blame and shame and yell and put down and to do all of those things I perfected over the 22 years between 1974 and 1996. As Nancy White taught us in Pairs, control, anger, frustration, fear, and pain all conspire to keep us from pleasure, tenderness, and love. We really can not control when we get a cold.
Or paraphrasing what Steve Joseph said to me yesterday:
The conversation with Steve came up because Vpatch (0003.html, 0004.html, and 0008.html) appears to be approaching funding, and he and Roger called to talk to me about being in New York this week for investor meetings. It specifically had to do with responses to my expressing frustrations about Continuum, and my dogged dedication to insure those who have invested in my ideas get a reasonable return for what I emotionally see as their the belief in me. I told him, with a tear in my eye, which he could not see in Provo nor Roger could see in New York, that it is going to take me several months of pondering, prayer, and thinking about it, to emotionally understand and be able to respond to the power I feel in his words. I repeat is words for you kids because my gut tells me this is `a little statement of a big thought,' because I am going to send this Thoughtlet to Steve to make sure he agrees I heard him right, and because this is the kind of conversations I would like to see each of you having. Talking about and undersanding the basic principles of life is so much more worthwhile than worrying about who gave us our latest case of the common cold, and spending our time blaming and shaming. Stuff happens.
I remember the first times I tied my activities to getting the common cold. It was a scout camp near Cedar City. I was probably 12 or 13. About Matt's age. Brother Bishop took us to scout camp. I had a blast. I didn't work very hard on merit badges, and we got called on the carpet about it. So I decided to get some merit badges. There was a lake where we were. I followed my Dad's example, and went fly fishing. Only trouble is I didn't have any waders, and the water was cold. So here I was in the lake, standing in water up to my waist, fly fishing away to get the fishing merit badge, and who comes by but Uncle Glenn. Glenn is a couple of months more than seven years older than me, and so he was probably there as a junior scout leader. He told me I was going to get sick, standing out in that cold water in my bare feet for long periods of time. He did help me earn the fishing merit badge, by confirming to Brother Bishop the two types of trout I had caught many times at Calf Springs Ranch: German Brown and Rainbow. And I did get sick. It is always a real learning experience when we realize our choices can bring us heart ache and leave us hurting.
I mentioned a few of weeks ago (0006.html) about the time I got the most sick on my mission. I recall getting the common cold several times when I was doing so much traveling all across the world. For the most part I have never been bothered by time changes. However, as I look back, I do realize, like staying up all night bowling, flying around the world makes our bodies more suseptible to allowing a bacteria or a virus to overpower our immune system. Once Morris Covenington, one of the Sales Vice-Presidents at Landmark, told me I had to go to Oman to visit with PDO. I got sick on the way over. When we got to Muscat I had a high temperature, headache, and felt absolutely horrible. We went to customs, had problems with our visa's, and I just layed down and went to sleep. They got me up, and into a hotel room, where I slept until the meeting with Shell's international division, which I remember as PDO. I went and stood up and made the presentation, excused myself, went back to the hotel and slept until it was time to get on the plane to London. I thought my ears were going to bust. I have always been afraid of flying when I have a cold after that trip. When we got to London, I got a hotel room and went to bed for a couple of days. I felt absolutely terrible. I called up Ray McConnell, whom I knew from when I served in the Hyde Park Ward on my mission and asked him to get one of his mates and come over and give me a blessing. He did, and I finally got out of bed to go out and eat with the Landmark guys before they returned to the states. As we were walking down the street we learned about the Challenger explosion. Being such a fan of NASA's, this was one of the reasons this experience with the common cold was burned into my memory banks.
I remember getting some version of the common cold each spring. I thought Mom had told me this had a special name in St. George, and that you always get rid of it by `getting out in the sun and cooking it out of your brain.' However, I just called Mom to ask, and she doesn't remember telling me that. Maybe Grandma Hafen told me, or just maybe my memory is failing. I had told Rob he needed to get out in the sun to fight his cold, and he said `Really?' He was suprised I believed this has helped me each spring. Earlier this week I was doing some research on color, and came across an Internet site dedicated to the healing power of color and light. Among other things, the author says:
I've always felt sunlight had value beyond providing a tan or growing a crop. It has been my personal experience to see a correlation between the times I do not get out and get sunshine and the times I get some version of the common cold. I look forward to when I will see as I am seen, and know as I am known (I Corinthinians 13:12), and then maybe it will be possible to understand the relationship between the common cold and sunlight and cold water and staying up all night and fairness.
This week was pretty quiet. Monday we had a meeting about CoReSEx (Continuum Resources Sound Explorer). The preliminary patent we filed last year for using sound with geotechnical data is really exciting. Most of the day was spent with Jim Applegate of The University of Louisiana at Lafayette. We have a nice opportunity to build them a center and have them be part of our network of immersive environments. Tuesday I almost didn't go to work because of the common cold. However, Andrea reminded me I had a breakfast with Jim Applegate and Bob Aghamalian of SGI. When I got to the office we had a review of the Vinto Dome project, which is really interesting. I ended up staying at work. Andrea and I had Teacher Improvement in the evening.
Wednesday I had lunch with Mike Dunn and Richard Barren of Geophysical Development Corporation (GDC). Very interesting opportunities for Continuum. Wednesday night the Venturing Crew handled the Boy Scout Court of Honor. I sang three of my scout camping songs. The evening seemed to go OK. Thursday started with the sales forecast meeting. I spent most of the day working on the color research mentioned above. We had a CES/Vpatch dinner at Guadalahara's in the evening. I sure enjoy Steve, Albert, Roger, and this was the first time to spend much time with Ulysses Mello. Friday Andrea and I had lunch with Ed Rogers. Among other things we talked to him about a summer job for Audrey as a paralegal assistant. In the late afternoon I took Continuum investment documents over to Mike Dunn, and we had a nice discussion. He asked me to go to New York to meet with Roger and the investor on Tuesday. I have an important meeting with Exxon-Mobil on Tuesday next week, and declined. I also talked to Fred Hilterman, who hired me away from Mobil to work for the University of Houston's Seismic Acoustics Lab (SAL), and who was one of the founders of GDC. It was an interesting afternoon, and I was starting to get over the effects of the common cold.
Andrea and I went out to dinner at Laundary's with Floyd and Mary Lunt, and Jim and Linda Conners. We were both still coughing. On Saturday I worked with Ken Turner most of the day on new commercial web pages for Heritage Galleries On-Line (HGOL). Roger and Steve called, which call I referred to above. It was a long day, and Rachel didn't get home from the Stake Dance until after midnight. Andrea was coughing from her version of the common cold. Matt and I got up early and went to Stake Priesthood Meeting from 7-8:15 this morning. When we got back I made my moves on my chess games with Ben (http://www.walden3d.com/dialog/chess) and Paul (http://www.walden3d.com/dialog/paul). It should become exciting as we all gear up to regularly checking the game. Anyone else want to get beat. Even though we don't have much control over many of the things in our lives, we can control whether we spend time learning each others moves in a chess game and using this time in virtual space to get to know each other better. For instance, from past games, I know I can beat Ben and Paul about 2 out of every 3 games.
We may not be able to control the common cold yet, however science is getting closer. Tuesday was really the only day I felt bad. This was largely due to learning that zinc helps stop the common cold. Since learning this from Blaine Taylor in Seattle last year, I have bought a pack of Cold-ezzze every time I have felt sniffles, and they have disolved with the funny tasting candy. Zinc doesn't help allergies, and I still have hope scientists will find a solution for this too. Andrea bought some Zinc Lozenges, which have `14 mg of ionizable zinc and an improved taste.' Tentatively, I agree with Steve's premise that fairness is not a general principle. Integrity, as I've been taught and find I have internalized, says I am responsible to provide a return to investors, if it is in my power to do so. As I said at the beginning, I will be pondering Steve's words for the next several months, and certainly every time something unfair like the common cold comes into my life. May each of you find your thoughts travel similar roads, is my daily prayer."