cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, and Maxine Shirts.
"Thursday morning Christian Singfield and I met with Howard F. Lederer, Chairman and CEO of Atec, a manufacturing company. Christian is my friend from Brisbane, Australia who has built a new way to scan cores and cuttings from wells. I've referred to him several times over the last few years (../0018.html, ../0052.html, ../0103.html, ../0104.html, ../0107.html, ../0109.html, ../0110.html, ../0120.html, and 0204.html). He is here to either turn his idea and work into a business or to go bankrupt trying. Talk about faith. Anyway, during our meeting with Howard, we went through the normal get acquainted, and this is our business idea. Then Howard said:
Christian proceeded to give Howard a lecture about the power of
his idea. I interrupted him, and said, `Christian, you didn't
listen to the question: Do you want to be right, or do you want
to be rich?' Christian hesitated, and said, `Well at this point
in my life I need to make money, so I guess I want to be rich.'
I sighed to myself, and said good answer. Then after the demo
was pretty well underway, I excused myself, and drove back to
Katy with Howard's words ringing in my ears. How often I have
answered variations on his question in a way that has not led
to happiness, certainly not short term happiness, and it is
questionable if it has or will lead to long term happiness.
Sunday, I maybe should have thought of a variation as I wrote the two Thoughtlets. Certainly Monday when I got feedback, or Wednesday when I responded to that feedback, I should have listened to Andrea's comments after editing my writing: `Do you want to be right, or do you want to have a relationship?'
Monday morning at 8:00 I met Christian Singfield at II&T's office, which is in Suite 430, one floor above where the old Hypermedia office was at 11767 Katy Freeway, Suite 330. We went out to his car, got his cuttings scanning unit, and brought it into suite 300, where Bob Sneider's office is. The demonstration and discussion started very cold, and ended up much warmer. Bob asked simple penetrating questions, like `Can you image equivalent of a 20 power microscope in 6 months? This would be for reservoir rocks. And can you image 50 power for evaluating seals?' Christian answered all of the questions right. However, when we took his unit off of Bob's table we scratched the table. Bob make me feel very insecure, and I almost cried when he looked so disappointed. I guess I respect him so much, and seek his approval. He is the guy who fired me, or at least said he did not want to work with me anymore, in a letter I received when we returned from our Church History Vacation back in about 1993. In contemplating my interactions with Bob, I know I can never be right in his eyes. So `do I want to be right, or do I want to get on with my life?'
Monday afternoon I prepared too quick of a proposal and a response to Ax Hesterman at Shell Research. When I looked at it again on Thursday evening, I realized there was a big glaring error in what I sent to him Monday. I guess, I answered the question to myself: `Do you want to be right, or do you want to be timely?' as I wanted to be timely. Steve Joseph pointed out the error when I sent it to him for comments on Wednesday. My followup response to him on Friday read:
There is no question that in this case it would have been better
to be right rather than timely, and it was foolish to send off
a half-cocked proposal, which I had not thought through and had
not bounced off of enough people. Oh well!
Monday afternoon I also prepared a proposal for Chuck Edwards and his company in Dallas, CDX, to look at purchasing 135,000 acres of minerals from a guy from Lubbock for $15/acre and 16% overriding interest royalty. If CDX ends up taking it at this price it will finance Dynamic Resouces. I was up late Monday working on the Shell and CDX proposals, and sent them Monday morning after Andrea proofed them. I also prepared a proposal for Royal Exploration in Corpus Christi, which I had to reprint after Andrea found some big issues with it. At least I've learned to have someone proof my stuff, and at least she is here and willing to do it for me.
As a result of the proofing and printing on Tuesday morning, I was fifteen minutes late to meet Sam LeRoy at his office. We were on the road to Corpus Christi at 6:45 AM. Sam gave a wonderful talk at the Corpus Christi SIPES luncheon (Society of Independent Petroleum Engineers and Scientists), which you can review at www.walden3d.com/dynamic/papers/022602_Corpus_Sipes, if you are interested. Following the meeting, we spent about two hours with Royal Exploration in their office. They liked our message and our plan, and looking back I can't help but wonder if they weren't saying `Do you want to be right, or are you willing to help us find hydrocarbons?' Bob Rice did call me back on Friday, and hopefully I will be able to close a nice contract with Royal this next week. It might involve another trip to Corpus to meet with their partners.
Wednesday morning I met with Christian Singfield and his almost sponsor at Geoservices named Chris Platt. Nice guy, and he came back to me with a proposal to head up up a consortium of companies to provide a service to look ahead of the drill bit and to predict porosity. He is going to take this proposal to his bosses in Paris the week of the 18th, and so I will know if this is going to happen by the end of the month. It would involve using Christian's cuttings tool, as well as some other tools I'm acquainted with, and would lead to business for Dynamic. We went from here over to Petris, where we were treated to a nice lunch at a French restruant (jealous Sara?), and where we spent 5 hours showing our stuff. Jim Hurn had set this up, and the President of Petris we were showing to was Jim Pritcherd. His question's kind of boiled down to `Do you want to be right, or do you want to have a partner?' It turns out we are bringing them into the proposed GeoServices consortium, and he set up the meeting with Howard Lederer on Thursday, which set the theme for my week.
Thursday afternoon Andrea and I went to the Temple, where I couldn't help but think about the week, you kids, and Andrea's comment to me early in the week: `Do you want to be right, or do you want to have a relationship?' Why can't I have my cake and eat it too? Too bad life isn't like that, once we get past the stage of being spoiled little kids. At 52, you would think I would get past that stage. Oh well!
Friday I spent a couple of hours with Mike Dunn at Geophysical Development Corporation (GDC). He offered me a job a few weeks ago, and this was a meeting to expore the options, specifically talking about a twist to the Infinite Grid(SM) technology, which I believe could be very useful to GDC. I would enjoy working with him, Fred Hilterman (my boss from the Seismic Acoustic's Laboratory who brought us to Houston), Richard Verm (one of the SAL PhD students and head of GDC's research), and others on their team. We will have a follow-up meeting this next week. Mike has been very open with me about where GDC is, and what they need. I think it will fit with Dynamic, and with me acting as a consultant at GDC. It might come down to `Do I want to be right, or do I want a real job?' (see ../0037.html, Please Get A Real Job).
Saturday we had a Katy Stake Prepardness Fair. I was pretty sarcastic about insurance guys and lawyers using this forum to drum up business. Andrea put me in my place by asking me, `Do you want to be right, or do you want to learn something?' I learned how to make an omlette in a baggie. I learned a little more about wills. I learned how much I like apricot butter on homemade whole wheat bread. And I was able to give blood. While we were there, the Hagen's gave us four tickets to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Matt didn't want to go, and so Rachel, Andrea, and I went down and saw the next to the last concert in the Astrodome. Second time I've been to the Houston Rodeo. I liked it. The host was Kenny Rogers, and Charlie Pride, The Gatlin Brothers, Mac Davis,and Naomi Judd all performed. I was amazed with how well they handled all of the traffic to and from the rodeo. We had a hard time finding a place to park, kind of double parked, and it all turned out just fine.
For those interested in progress on weight loss, it has been two months since I asked myself, `Do you want to be right, or do you want to lose weight?' Actually it has been 67 days and 9,989 swallows, for an average of 149.09 swallows per day. And this morning I weighed 245 pounds, which is a loss of 20 pounds and 7.5% from start, and 25% of the way towards my goal of 185 pounds, which will be a loss of 30.2%. The two charts below, which are linked to larger images, summarize results.
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At 9:00 AM I had my first Activities Committee Meeting. It went OK. Guess I will get the hang of this calling. Just need to ask myself, `Do you want to be right, or do you want to have ward participation?' Fast and Testimony Meeting was very touching. What wonderful people we have in our ward. I had fasted about a specific issue a friend is facing, and my fasting and prayers were dramatically answered. It will be interesting to see if it is one day, or if it is permanent. I was able to talk to Melanie, Sarah, Ben, Mom, Sara, Kate, and Paul today. As information for the rest of you, we are going to fly to Las Vegas on Tuesday evening the 12th during Rachel and Matt's Spring Break. We will spend Wednesday and Thursday in Cedar City and St. George, then I will meet with the Geology Department at BYU on Friday, and Parker Gay in Salt Lake on Saturday for lunch. Sunday is Grant Matthew's blessing. It has been a good day. I just need to keep asking myself: `Do you want to be right, or ...?'"