cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, Maxine Shirts, and Sherri Nelson.
"Last Saturday, December 29th, the Sun computer, which is also the walden3d.com mail server, started acting funny. I had spent three days digital filing from about 1,150 e-mail messages down to about 200 messages, and all of a sudden the computer said the disk drives were empty, implying I had lost all of 2001's e-mail messages. I didn't dare write any e-mail's until I had the computer looked at. Marc came by on Monday afternoon and was able to fix the problem. However, by then I was deep in a big project, which along with Christmas, kept me tied up until Wednesday evening. Then there were other mitigating circumstances, which I will write about in a second thoughtlet later today (../0201.html). The bottom line is I didn't get a Thoughtlet off last week, and so I will spend this afternoon repenting.
It is time to do something about the weight I have gained over the last half a dozen years. I guess I could continue to feel sorry for myself, and eat myself into an early grave. However, I don't think that would be fair to Ethan Evans and Grant Matthew. Even though you kids didn't have Grandparents active in your lives (with the notable exception of Grandpa and Grandma Shirts impact on Heather, Audrey, Rachel, and Matt), I want to be active in the lives of my Grandkids. I never knew my Grandpa Nelson, because he died before I was born. However, Grandpa Hafen and I were buddies, and, in some ways, I learned more from him than I did from my Dad. I want to provide that same kind of benefit to my Grandkids. And I can not be involved if I'm dead. The charts say I should weigh 180-190 for my height, and I found myself at Christmas weighing 265. So it made perfect sense to do something about the extra 70-80 pounds I carry around. In my typical computer nerd way, I decided to break the problem down to it's smallest component: the swallow. Andrea is still asking me if I'm counting chews, and I say nope. For reference, in regards to weight control, it doesn't matter how many times you chew. It seems to me that what matters is how many times you swallow. So I have set out on another quest. I am going to count every swallow I make, until I weigh between 180 and 190 for at least 3 months. I realize this could take a long time. Now it doesn't do any good counting swallows, if the count isn't recorded. If the count is not written down, it becomes as fruitless as counting swallows in the old barn down by Grandma Nelson's house on the farm, where 50 new swallows would take the place of every 25 that left, and they all looked the same. So I've started a simple spread-sheet with the following 10 columns:
When I count swallows and write them down on my little 3"x4" piece
of scratch paper, I record the day once, a brief description of what
I put in my mouth, and the number of swallows. This is the raw
data Heather can use for a statistical study for one of her nutrition
classes. I then proceed to make an estimate of how many swallows are
protein (this is easy with things like the nice Greenberg Smoked
Turkey that the Rudman Partnership sent to us for Christmas), and it
is harder when I mix up left over ham and bean soup with left over
shoestring potatoes and saltines). Oh well! Life is not suppose to
be easy.
I'm not sure how many years it will take me to learn how much of what I should and shouldn't eat. However, I figure if I simply count swallows, and think about the scale results, I'm smart enough to learn how to control what and how much I eat. So here are the daily average number of swallows for the first 11 days of my quest:
It is easy to see the impact of Fast Sunday on the December averages
(last Sunday was Fast Sunday because this Sunday is Stake Conference).
It is suprising how much sugar I eat. Oh well! It is also equally
easy to see the impact of 52 swallows of buttered popcorn at the
movie last Friday night. A few weeks ago we had a High Priest
Priesthood lesson on integrity, and I could not help but think about
getting popcorn bags refilled at different movies, even knowing how
the theaters overcharge for popcorn. So for the last several movies
we have gone to, I have not had any popcorn. Friday, I decided to
go ahead and purchase a bag of popcorn. I threw the bag away after
the movie, and based on the impact on counting swallows, I will not
purchase popcorn when I go to movies anymore. Oh well! And in the
meantime I plan to do a better job at exercising also.
The Monday before Christmas I got a nice note from Melanie asking where the Thoughtlet was. I sent it just seconds before her e-mail arrived, and her note arrived before the computer gave me a cc of the Thoughlet. Melanie, it was nice to be remembered. I struggled with the Thoughlet two weeks ago. After proofing it, Andrea said, `Are you sure you can live with the consequences of sending this? There are some who will not understand your point of view.' I said `Yes,' and have spent the last two weeks wondering if I was right, specifically because only one of you called over the holidays.
Gifts have become my way of expressing love (for example, these Thoughtlets). It was wonderful to have Rachel and Matt here, and to see and experience their joy at Christmas. They even said, with genuine words from the heart, `This is the best Christmas we have ever had.' It was disappointing Matt did not get a sibling gift yet. He probably asked a dozen times if Ben and Sarah are coming down, if Sara was bringing it down, etc. Sarah sent a nice note apologizing for it still being on their kitchen counter, and pointing out that Matt will get another Christmas. Haden Hudson, a good guy who has never joined the church and whose x-wife and daughter are members and whom Matt and I Home Teach, sent me the following story, which helps me put Christmas in perspective:
Melanie called from the airport on Christmas morning, and it was
good to talk to you. Melanie and Jared, thanks for the beautiful
tie and the sockings. Wonderful gifts. Roice, thanks for the
book: `The Laws of the Web.' It is very good. I have read it
already, and since you will probably not read these words for
some time, I will call or send you a direct note. Rachel, thanks
for the wood carving tools. They are neat, and I hope to find
the time to use them. Matt, thanks for the shaving cream. I've
used it every day since Christmas. Sara and Des, thanks for the
Olympics Calendar, the Bill Cosby tape, and the other things. It
is always so obvious how much thought you put into your gifts.
And Andrea, thanks for coming into my life. I am really
enjoying Hawking's `The Universe in a Nutshell.' I especially
appreciate your support. I see more every day how hard it is to
live with an entrepreneur. I've said the words, and I think it
is important to write them so all those I care about can see:
Thanks Andrea and I love you!
When Rachel, Andrea, and I went to see the movie `A Beautiful Mind' on Saturday, the 29th, I couldn't help but resonate with with the lead as he justified his crude advances with words about `cutting to right to the point.' It seems to me that my comments about eternal families have me coming across to some as this same kind of nerd. For those who have chosen to largely cut me out of their lives, I continue to hope, like the father of the prodigal son, to see the day of return, and a decision to be part of our eternal family. Also, like the movie, I'm sure any movement in this direction is only going to come through patience, kindness, long-suffering, and most importantly love. I am surely living with consequences of my own choices and my own weaknesses. And for what it is worth, I do strive for inner integrity. Maybe I should give up and be passive aggressive by not striving for any kind communication when someone hurts my feelings. Yet, I continue to believe there will be a day, a day before our Heavenly Father, when we find out who was actually counting which swallows. To be very specific, I encourage each of you to go to a Thoughtlet (http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets/2000/0046.html), where I quote `A Proclamation to the World on The Family,' read and ponder each of the words, and spend some time counting swallows, where swallows are specific actions you are personally doing to support these basic human principles with regards to your parents, yourself, and, for those who have a spouse or children, your own family unit.
In regards to my week, I spent the Monday before Christmas creating a document I call `Becoming MicroSoft/WalMart Rich' for Joe Roberts to take to one of his friends at a Christmas Eve party. We have had a couple of follow-up meetings, and I remain very optimistic. The other day Andrea quoted her brother Randy as saying, `Roice is always talking about big projects, and they never seem to happen.' I beg to differ. Specifically starting with the accomplishments of each of my 10 kids, and go on to count swallows of pride and impact. I realize I think differently, and to me whether things happen is a matter of context. There is no question that time will show the big projects you kids will be involved in put a shadow on the things I have worked on. In regards to `business deals' I have been involved in, and the world's way of keeping track in terms of dollars, this counting is overshadowed by the impact of Landmark Graphics and the billions of dollars of hydrocarbons found using this technology, including Landmark being sold to Halliburton for $560 million. And yes, we pocketed about $3 million as a family from Landmark (And yes again, it is very sad the money was not managed well at all). There was over $1 million in work in Saudi Arabia, and over $500,000 for work at Fletcher Challenge Petroleum through HyperMedia Corporation, and how do you measure the impact of NetScape (or whether HyperMedia had any impact here)? Walden Visualization Systems and Continuum Resources poorly managed over $30 million, and Magic Earth was purchased for $100,000., leveraging all of the good market building we did. Advanced Structures Incorporated has generated over $10 million each year for the last three years (alas no profit). Anyway, there is truth in Randy's statement, and obviously, as I reread this paragraph, it set of some alarm bells in my head. And yet I do remain very optimistic.
After Christmas I spent most of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday working with Scot Sechrist on improving the documentation of Dynamic's CLPs (new exploration Concepts, Leads, and drillable Prospects). I already mentioned the movie Rachel, Andrea, and I went to on Saturday, the 29th. Sunday was a good day. I was very touched by the testimonies in Fast & Testimony Meeting. Marion Pickerd did an exceptional job in her lesson about Zion, or `the pure in heart.' This is one of my favorite topics, and I expect there will be a couple of Thoughtlets in the future dedicated to this topic. She asked me to write out Five things I hope to accomplish before I die. The first two (page 56 of Notebook 35) are:
Even if all of you ask me to stop sending you the Thoughtlets, I am now committed to continue to write them each week, with the spiritually renewed hope and belief this effort will eventually truly prove to be a useful exercise.
On Sunday, I also wrote a possible stanza for Prime Words in Sacrament Meeting, based on Colleen Moore's Sacrament Meeting talk(a):
Matt and I Home Taught the Moores, who are home from Indonesia for
Christmas, the Holleman's, the Riches, and Hayden Hudson. As I
think of those visits, I look at two other stanza's, written on
December 16th, quoting Mitchell Branning(b), Lynette Stevens(c),
and Tim Stevens(d):
As far as my week, the computer problems were an issue. And,
other than my paranoid feelings of rejection by those I love the
most, it was a good Christmas week. I assume each of you had a
good week, and I hope you only found spiritual and physical
nutrition as you were counting swallows."