cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, Maxine Shirts.
"Here's the last note in this weekend's trilogy. First a couple of things I neglected to mention in the previous Thoughtlets sent out this weekend. I would not have been able to put all of the Offshore Texas examples together without help from Andrea, Brian Bentz, Richard Nehring, Les Denham, Sam LeRoy, Dick Coons, Lexco Data Systems, Laura Kay Ethetton, A2D and Dave Kotowych and Brenda Sigurdson, Peter Duncan, and others.
For example, on a Saturday earier in the August, either the 11th or the 4th, Andrea went downtown to II&T's office with me and worked from about 9:00 AM until about 1:30 AM Sunday morning. This was the weekend we built Infinite Grid(SM) cells around each of the Federal lease blocks being studied Offshore Texas. and these overlay maps provided context to everything else that was done. It was a lot of tedious work, which was necessary because the automatic generation tools Brian Bentz used in Connecticut did not work, and there was not time to go back and try to fix it. It worked out fine, and was still hard. Brian Bentz built some 200 different maps for me from Richard Nehring's database. Les Denham helped translate files, create CD's, and set up GeoQuest projects for interpretation. Sam LeRoy helped interpret and organize all of the data and put together great examples to explain the new concepts we are pursuing.
Dick Coons believes in me and supports me, just as I strive to do the same for him. He actually sold prospects on 5 of the blocks he has been working in the North Padre Island area of Offshore Texas to a company in Corpus called Manti Exploration. They bid on these blocks in the Federal Lease Sale and won all five blocks. Dick will get $175,000 for this work, and he is passing $5,000 to Dynamic, which more than covers the marketing costs associated with going to APPEX 2001 (which I mentioned in the last Thoughtlet is short for the AAPG Prospect and Property Expo). Also, Lexco Data Systems provided the offshore well location database. Laura Kay Ethetton loaded the database onto the Landmark project we built. A2D provided temperature, water depth, density, mud weight, and location information through their President Dave Kotowych and their systems person Brenda Sigurdson. Peter Duncan paid me to develop the examples using Chroma technology which we showed at APPEX 2001, and he believes in me. When I called him up on Monday morning and asked to be able to come in after his staff meeting and show the movies I made over the weekend so everyone at Chroma was aware of what I have done, he said, `Roice, I trust you. You don't need to show me what you've done.' And he was very pleased with how our booth turned out and what we showed. As was I.
Because it took so much longer than I expected to make the movies on Saturday night, and because I spent so much time working on the Texaco report, I did not get everything done on Saturday. Sunday, after Matt and I went Home Teaching, I worked on finishing up the different projects for the booth. Although I spend a lot of time writing the Thoughtlet on Sunday, I really do strive to not work on Sunday. Most of the work this Sunday was using my new paper cutter to trim home made business cards for the booth. Our Home Teachers came, and I stopped trimming cards while they came. I finally watched The Horse Whisper with Andrea. She gave it to me as a present at Christmas. I was affected like I thought I would be. It reminded me of The Bridges of Madison County, and Hollywood's justification for infidelity. The photography of the west and of the horses was nice. I got all 23 sets of business cards cut, and printed several other documents. I went for a run on Monday morning, and kept printing stuff until about 10:00, when I left for Chroma to pick up the computer. While I was giving the demo of the movies I made on Saturday to the Chroma employees, Fairfield delivered a letter with permission to show their seismic data at APPEX and to use it for our marketing purposes. Talk about working right at the boundary.
Andrea went downtown to Key Maps and picked up the laminated posters and met me at the Adams Mark Hotel, where the conference was. The Adams Mark is just inside the Tollroad and a block south of Westheimer. I had booth 100, which was one of the best positioned booths at the show. They had tried to change me, and I was able to keep the site I originally signed up for. It was amazing how much stuff we put in a 10'x10' booth, and also that I was able to get it all in the Saturn and drive it down to the show. There was the Bat Cave Table, three of the booth boxes, the indian basket Grandma Nelson gave me, the stereoscope, a cloth Andrea made to fit around the table, three Indian rugs, supplies, and a couple of boxes of brochures, stereo pictures, articles, etc.
I had most of it in, and was starting to put the booth up when I got a call from John Dorrier. John graduated from the University of Utah a year after I did. He was one of the Master's students recruited to the Geophysics Department after the embargo (probably by the ads I put up. He was a good friend of Ed Gray's, and he came to work at Mobil, after I made the interview trip up to the University of Utah for Mobil the spring after my first year there. He came to me through Randy Etherington, who had called earlier to ask if we were interested in showing a prospect in Columbia. As I set up the booth, we negotiated a deal, where John paid us $500 to show his prospect at APPEX 2001, and if we are successful in selling the propspect we get $10,000. Being able to make this agreement before the show started was very exciting to me. And every $500 helps. About the time I finished this Andrea arrived with the posters. I would never have got all of the stuff tied to the booth up if she had not been there to help me. We worked steady and hard until 5:00 when she left and it was still not all done. Sam LeRoy came and helped set up some of the 3-D displays on the computer, and helped with the booth. The people from Data Displays came and set up the plasma display. And the booth all came together very nicely. I left the exhibition area at 5:50 soaking wet with sweat, went to the car, and got my change of garments and clothes. I was changed into my suit, put on fresh deordorant and after shave, and was in my booth at 6:10.
APPEX 2001 was a great convention for Dynamic to start out at. We got 8 good contacts Monday night, 38 on Tuesday, and 17 on Wednesday. And we have a good story put together. I won't bore everyone with the details of our message unless you ask. There is a web site describing the booth and our message located at http://www.walden3d.com/dynamic/APPEX_2001 if you are interested in learning more.
On Tuesday morning Bill Sevens flew in from Boston to meet with me and talk about the Virtual Oil Company. He works for Daniel Yergin's company: Cambridge Energy Research. Yergin is the guy who wrote `The Prize' which is an excellent documentary of how the oil industry grew up. Sam LeRoy, Merril Littlewood, Rick Zafar, and I met with Bill. He acted very impressed. It will be interesting to see what, if anything other than a free breakfast, comes from this. One of my friends, David Schoman formerly with Mobil, was sitting at the table next to us. And when we finally got up to go to the buffet I stopped and talked to him and asked him to come over to our table after we all got back and say `Roice's work with the Virtual Oil Company is state-of-the-art.' He did. And it was really funny to see Bill Seven's reaction. Bill started to talk to Dave about his implementation of the virtual oil company in Denver and Midland, and I didn't think we were going to get him back to our table. It was really quite funny.
Richard Nehring and I were worn out by the time the show ended on Wednesday at noon. It took an hour to take the booth down and get it packed in the Saturn. I drove the computer out to Chroma and met Richard back at Sam LeRoy's office. Rocky Roden and Marc Edwards joined Sam, Richard, and me for a two hour debriefing session. I showed the digital photos from the booth, and Sam got really excited about them. Especially the one where I zoom out from Ken Turner's painting of an elephant (repesenting a large oil field) to the plasma display where one of our most promising prospects was rotating in 3-D. APPEX 2001 was definitely a fun three days.
I drove from Sam's to the house and was able to unload all of the stuff out of the Saturn before it was time to leave for the Priest and Laurel trip to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. Matt went with the scouts to an Astros game. We tried to coordinate getting John Sneidman a ride, and it didn't work out. Rachel stayed home. It was a nice conclusion to a very busy three days.
Thursday morning I was back at Chroma, where we had the follow-up working session with Texaco. And I spent the rest of Thursday and most of Friday working on rewriting the Texaco report. This report writing is really involved, and since I struggle with words, it is times like writing this that I again appreciate the practice writing these Thoughtlets gives me. I was wiped out from the last couple of weeks, and so I'm sure my mind was not working as fast as it can. Saturday I got up and went for a run, went to choir practice for the first time with our new choir director, and came back and spent the entire day redoing the business card display Sara did for me a couple of years ago. I have a bunch of new business cards, and I put each or your birthday's (and Ethan's) in as part of the display. I like it, and now the extra cards are not just stuck in front of the glass. There were a couple of calls from Paul. He and Kate took Grandma Nelson to the Hafen Family Reunion in Pinto. He also spent several days at the Nelson Cabin up Cedar Mountain. His in-laws came, and his Sister-in-Law Lori broke her collarbone in a 4-wheeler accident. Oh well! Also, Paul is going to be put in the Bishopric next Sunday, and I am going to attempt to make it out there to participate in the ordinance. Paul, I hope you know how proud I am of you and of the choices you are making.
Sunday was kind of a bummer. I was released as the Venturing Scout Leader. I thought about getting up and bearing my testimony, and I didn't make it to the stand. We do have a new Gospel Doctrine Teacher, Marion Pickerd, and she did a wonderful job for her first lesson. It was about the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, which is a sad event. Larry Law taught the lesson in High Priest Quorum. His topic was on becoming pure, and the way he presented the lesson left me wondering if there is any chance for me to be accepted by Heavenly Father. Oh well! The good thing about Saturday and Sunday was that Sheri Tritipo, my second cousin Keith Nelson's oldest daughter, has moved in with us for a few weeks. She is very nice, and she had her two beautiful daughers with her this weekend, and we had some fun. It was nice to have the e-mail working and to take the time to catch up on these Thoughtlets. Hopefully you each learned something from my musings about APPEX 2001."