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.
"Amazing it is already 9:00 on Sunday night, and I'm just starting this week's Thoughtlet. I mentioned in the last Thoughtlet, which was just sent out (0131.html), that we drove straight through and got back to Houston at 9:00 Tuesday morning, Matt's 14th birthday. There were banners wrapped around the trees, across the back door, up the stairs, and all over the house. Matt is definitely loved (although he did something mean to Rachel on her birthday, and she is still pretty upset about it). After eating breakfast, Sister Salt arrived to pick up Adam and Nathan. I took Preston Jurinak and John Sneidman home. Then I read through the e-mail, learning I had offended some of you with my Thoughtlet about devaluing (and had misspelled the word a dozen times in the Thoughtlet [maybe Andrea didn't proof that week's writing?]), and filing a whole bunch of junk mail. I spent Tuesday talking to people on the phone, building a Table of Contents for Ward Abbott's Online Atlas (http://www.walden3d.com/Abbott/contents.html), getting the booth sorted out with APPEX, and working through a bunch of different things.
Continuum has not payed us the last invoice, and there was another one due, so I took it down and talked to Dave Ridyard about what is going on. He assured me we will be paid when they get the money, and I assured him, I have found another place to put the Landmark license if they don't. I then went over to Sam LeRoy's, picked up the folders for Offshore Texas, and got caught up what had happened with Sam while I've been gone. Then I went downtown to II&T to meet with Richard Thorpe, who has been working the Fairfield data for me while I was out of town. On the way I placed calls to Richard Nehring, Dick Coons, two individuals at Shell Research, and my contacts at BP. There are so many opportunities sitting out there, and all I need to do is close a couple of them to be able to retire credit card debt and get the car payments under control. I left II&T at 6:45 PM and was back to the house at 7:30 to go to `Planet of The Apes' with Matt for his birthday (and with Andrea and Rachel). I enjoyed the movie, especially some of the humor tied into the previous versions of `Planet of the Apes' from when I was a youth. I could hardly stay awake by the time we got home.
Wednesday I got up early, and the Sun computer had died. Marc Roulston was scheduled to come in, because Internet America was purchased by Mindspring, the walden3d.com service provider is being changed, and I had to get the router up to the latest specifications. Marc was able to get the computer back up, and to do several other things. However, it meant I didn't leave for Chroma until 10:45 AM, and my supervisor on the Texaco project was not a happy camper. By the time I left, we had a pretty good story put together for the Texaco presentation scheduled for Thursday. I drove back to Katy from Sugar Land, and arrived just in time for the Combined Youth Activity, so I went straight to the church. I was dead tired by now. I drove Alex Beckstrom, stopped at the house, provided gear to Chris Schmidt and Brian Stine, picked up Matt, and drove him and Alex over to Cullen Park on the other side of I-10. Then I fell asleep in the car, until Andrea woke me up and sent me to the church to tell parents the kids would be a half hour late getting back. When I got home I just went to sleep.
Thursday I got up early, answered e-mail, and got ready to go to Chroma. One of the e-mails was from Roger Anderson. He wrote:
Thinking about how tired I have been, and about using my hand
held cell phone on the Houston freeways, it makes one think.
I guess, when it's time, it's time, and as I said to Roger:
I got to Chroma about 8:30 Thursday morning, and was all ready
for the Texaco presentation by 2:00. They didn't show up. They
thought it was at their shop. Dave was upset. I smiled, and
went to work on the Fairfield data. I worked until about 7:00,
the last hour multiprocessing with Steve Joseph on the phone.
Guess it was worthwhile for me to have gone to the vPatch Board
Meeting, because some of the Board Members have stepped up to
the bar and are providing the interim finacing, as per my
suggestion. Steve is moving more and more to the construction
side of things, and since that is where I expect I will end up
in the longer term, we had a lot to catch up on. I went from
Chroma to the annual scout preview meeting. It was a waste of
time for me. Oh well! I stopped at two stores and found some
diskettes for the digital camera, and got home at 9:30. Andrea
and I talked for an hour, and then I got my presentation
together for Magnum Resources in Dallas. It was 1:30 AM by the
time I went to bed.
Matt, Andrea, and I left for Dallas at about 9:00. We went by Sealy to pick up the digital camera from Ken Turner, who met us at the church. He has lost 47 pounds over the last four months, and it is a good motivation for me to get after loosing some of the extra 60 pounds I'm carrying around. I actually gained 10 pounds on the High Adventure, though I had lost most of this by Friday, by not eating dinners. We drove from Sealy to Novasota to Madisonville, and got to Las Colinas and Magnum Hunter Resources just at 2:00 PM. It was a good meeting. Again, there are a lot of opportunities for Dynamic Resources, and I just need to close the first business deal. We got over to Ben and Sarah's at about 5:00 by way of Mockingbird Lane and lots of old memories for me (../9814.html, ../9816.html, and ../9902.html). They have a beautiful house, and they have done so much to it. I'm truly impressed. Ben and Sarah look so good, and Ethan is as happy of a baby as I've ever known. It was a great visit. We went to Applebee's for dinner, in honor of Audrey. They had helium balloons, and Ethan was hitting his and it came off the string and flew into someone's margarita. I thought it was funny. Then Matt got a balloon and his also went across the room. Oh well! I wrote a song for Ethan's birthday, and he enjoyed putting his hand across the strings on my guitar and stopping the sound:
Ben had soccer practice Saturday morning, and Sarah, Andrea, and Matt wanted to do some shopping. So Ethan and I played, and when he went down for his nap, I got caught up on reading Time Magazines. Tracy, Laura, and their daughter Veronica came to visit and eat hamburger's for lunch. We all watched `Mighty Joe Young' and had a nice afternoon talking and playing with the kids and the dogs. Tracy has taught his dog to `chase an Aggie' and it will chase the red light from a laser pointer (needless to say he got his PhD at UT Austin). It was a special day, and I look forward to being able to spend days like this with each of you as you settle down and start to create the next generation. Andrea is worried that we are setting a precedence with our $30 birthday gift for Ethan's First Birthday. I'm sure it will all work out, and am glad we could visit, even if it was a week late.
We got back to Houston at 8:40 PM, changed and went over to the Equestarian Center to Megan Peterson's wedding reception. We got there at 9:15, just as they were driving off. It was nice to see our friends. Alan Peterson was genuinely glad to see me. Mike and Susan Reed were there, and we got caught up and I got their address in San Antonio. Marilyn, Corey, and David Grua were there, and we had a good discussion. David is all caught up in some of the early New York church history stuff. I tried to help him see past the trees to see the forest. They came over for lunch after church, and we talked some more. It is nice to have good friends.
Today at sacrament meeting Matt was sustained as a Teacher. It was Fast and Testimony Sacrament Meeting, and I was very touched by several of the testimonies, including two of the adult leaders that went on the High Adventure with me (0131.html). Someone mentioned they only know 20% of the members of the congregation, and our temporary Sunday School Teacher picked up on this and played a great game at the beginning of Sunday School. He had the first person in the front give their name, then the next person give their name and the name of the first person, then the third person the name of the first and second person and their name until we had gone through the entire class. There were about 40 in attendance. It was tied to a lesson on adversity, and how the Savior knows each of our names. I ordained Matt at the beginning of Priesthood meeting. I wish you all could have been there. Rachel and Andrea were there. It was special to be able to see Matt make this big step. In many ways it was a similar milestone as Ethan's first birthday."