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 is the 11th of June, and I am three weeks behind on my Thoughtlets. the Sunday I would have written this I was in Canada, the next Sunday we were in Provo, and tonight at 8:27 PM I am just settling down to type out three epistles (as Uncle Lloyd refers to my `little statements of big thoughts'). During the last two week's travel I realized how one-directional these Thoughtlets are. Uncle Lloyd and Aunt Luana went to Israel on a trip and I have several friends who would have loved to show them around and whom I would have loved to have their comments about. Des has gone on a once-in-a-lifetime 2 1/2 month trip with his Mother to Thailand and Ireland, and Aunt Sara is doing several years work while he is gone. For instance, she is replacing the roof on the farm house. As far as I know, the last time anyone worked on the roof was in 1966 when I painted half of it, and never finished the other half. My cousins Paul and Carl gave me a bad time for years about never finishing the roof. As I look back, I realize I have fought against regular maintenance my entire life.
So on Sunday evening May 21st, Andrea and I drove to Austin to go to Melanie's Institute graduation. Melanie, as I pointed out to you that evening, you are the first person in my family, Marti's family, or Andrea's children to graduate from Institute. I regularly went to Institute classes at the University of Utah, thoroughly enjoyed them, and do not recall graduating from Institute. Melanie, again, I am very proud of you for this worthwhile accomplishment. And Jared, tell your Uncle I appreciate his role in helping Melanie. The only issue is to and back from Austin is a longer drive than is fun to make after church, which doesn't let out until 4:00 PM. It would be nice if there was a Metro bus which would take you right to where you want to go and get you there on time. This would mean one could sleep and read and not have to worry about police finding out how much over the speed limit we were going to get there on time. As we approached Austin we got a phone call from Sara, who needed a ride to the graduation, and this diversion ended up making us about 10 minutes late. However, the service also included Seminary Graduation for the greater Austin area, and the honored the High School students first, which meant we were there in plenty of time. It was a very nice service, and I was very proud to be there.
Monday morning I started the Canadian Air Force exercises again, and Andrea and I took run around the short block (to Kingsland, along the bayou, and back down Cresent Green). I took Audrey to catch the Metro at 7:10 AM. There were a couple of guys waiting there who offered her a free ride so they could take the transit lane. Audrey, as you looked at me I didn't know what to say, and being slow on some stuff (especially finding words on the spur of the moment) I didn't say anything. However, I wrote down their license plate and worried about you all day. Even though it saves $3.00, and even though there have been other offers, this is the only time you or Sara have been `picked up.' The more I think about it the better I think it is not to get in stranger's cars like that. On the way home from work I stopped and picked up the missionaries, and we got to the Metro station on Kingsland just as Audrey's bus arrived. The Elder in the front seat quickly got in the back seat.
Andrea had a special dinner ready. Sara, Rob, Melanie, Jared, and Steve and Connie Slawson and their daughter all were there with us. When it was time for dinner we went in and there was a little bit of drink, a little bit of salad, a small piece of pork, and every thing looked very nice. It took Matt about 30 seconds to say `Is this all there is?' Andrea and I went ahead and ate and talked as if this was the amount of dinner we usually ate. Then we talked about feasting, and I read some scriptures about feasting on the word of God. We had a good discussion about this, and then we each told one of our favorite scripture stories. As we were telling the stories, Andrea pulled out a real feast, which definitely was too much food. Big thick pork chops, corn on the cob, potatoes and gravy, frog-eyed salad, ceaser salad, rolls, and ice cream. It was really good.
Tuesday morning I took Audrey to catch the Metro bus. It has been a few weeks, and so I might have some of the days mixed up. However, I believe this was the day Sara went downtown for an interview at Texas Independent Exploration. Melanie brought Rob down to work. Rob it was really good to go to visit Nancy White with you. Both in the session, and on the way home I learned stuff I had never known nor realized. Communication starts with having data, and I really appreciated the things we talked about. It was especially worthwhile to realize how concerned you are about me, and how you don't want anyone to hurt me. I also realized what a thinker you are, and how deeply you have thought through a lot of things Nancy got us to talk about.
Wednesday morning Audrey and I picked up Sara for her first day of work, and Sara and Audrey rode the bus together. They ended up on different buses on the way back to Katy. Oh well! Sara, it was fun to hear you talk about your first day of work as I took you home. I realize you are not a geophysicist, and you probably never will want to be one. I do think this is good training and a good summer job, and who knows, maybe it will lead to something you are interested in doing. This is what I was attempting to say with the article I sent to you this evening with Melanie (It is an article from Oil & Gas Journal On-Line about the serious lack of personnel for the oil industry after over 1/3 of total employees have left the industry over the last two decades.). Wednesday evening was a Court of Honor. Matt, I was disapointed you didn't go, and I realize Mom told you you could go to the movie MI-2 (Mission Impossible 2) because she didn't know what the activity was at scouts and because the young women were not having an activity. I got home early and watched part of Star Trek for the first time in several months.
Thursday morning I didn't go to work early for the weekly sales call because I had a dentist appointment. So I took Audrey and Sara to catch the Metro. I am impressed with how quickly this has become a routine. I do enjoy the conversations on the way to the bus stop and back home. Once again there was nothing at the dentist beyond cleaning and checking. I met Andrea and Ken Turner at Chase Manhattan Bank at 9:00 and we opened up the Heritage Gallary On-Line checking account. We have yet to have someone purchase a print on-line, and it is finally all set up for someone to do this. Check it out at http://www.hgol.net.
Friday was Rachel's 16th birthday party. Her birthday was the next day on Saturday the 27th. Rachel, it was fun to go shopping for you and although I didn't find a little hand loom like I was looking for, I hope you like the type of hand loom I did find, is something you will like. I have always liked hexagons, and it is possible to weave pieces which can be sewn together as pillows, balls, and other 3-D objects, which I thought was neat. I sure like your friends, and thought you had a really neat pool party. The ice cream cake is really good, and it kind of undoes any good that came from going running every morning. I was certainly impressed you got a date to AstroWorld on the day of your 16th birthday. And you didn't even need to take the Metro.
Saturday morning I got about 10% of what I wanted done. I was really tired, mostly from running each morning all week. And the yard needed to be edged. And the guys putting the DSL line in to replace the ISDN line had left it on top of the lawn. Matt helped me bury the cable. The problem is I cut the TV cable, and we still do not have it fixed. Because of cost and because we want to upgrade to digital cable, we probably won't get it fixed until our finances settle down a little bit. It is a pain to drive out to Intercontinental. I wish they had a Metro bus that went there. Sara got Melanie and Jared to use the Metro to get out to Katy from Hobby last week (0024.html). Oh well! Andrea took me out to the airport, and I slept all the way to Salt Lake. We were a half-hour late because there was a great big storm in Dallas. Ben and Sarah, I thought of you as the pilot described why they went down to Mexico to avoid the storm. Paul, thanks for being there waiting for me when I arrived on the Delta flight. It was fun to go out to dinner at TGIF with you and Kate. Kate, this is your official welcome to these mailings. Hopefully you, or one of the rest of you is going to help me figure out how to turn these thoughtlets into bi-directional, or ideally 10-directional, communication channels. It was fun to take you two to the `This is the place' Monument, and to talk about some of my college day stuff, as well as more recent reminisces with the two of you. Kate, you are a special person, and you are going to be very good for Paul.
When I got back to the Salt Lake International Airport, I went to my gate, read a little, and the first thing I knew it was time to get on the plane to Calgary. It was a small plane, and they are always extra noisy. I still went right to sleep. And, believe or not, I dreamed about the Houston Metro. And it is now 10:27 PM on Sunday the 11th and I'm tired again, so the next two catch-up Thoughtlets will have to wait, probably until Tuesday."