19 May 2002 #0220.html

Storage Sheds

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Dear Paul and Kate, Melanie and Jared, Bridget and Justin, Sara, Ben and Sarah, Heather, Audrey, Rachel, and Matt via hardcopy,

cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Diane Cluff, and Maxine Shirts

Welcome to "Thoughtlets." This is a weekly review of an idea, belief, thought, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you, my children, with an electronic copy to on-line extended family members. Any of you can ask me not to clutter your mail box at any time.

"Over the years I have had several storage sheds. When I was growing up, the entire farm was my storage shed. I could put (and sometimes hide) things anyplace, and they would be there years later. I remember my maps to the old cottonwood tree, half way between the lower plant and the bottom (north end) of Dad's farm. There were places in the old cement water storage unit by Grandma Nelson's house, the chicken coops, the secret room in the barn, the tree house Daryl Krueger built (../9730), the tree house I built (../9817.html), the silage pits (especially the one we used as a garbage dump), the scales (where cattle were weighed), the shearing sheds, etc., etc. Then I became older and more `sophisticated.' Playboy photos from the trash cans at that old Hotel Escalante, which had become a college dorm and which was cleaned up by Harold ?? and his family, one of the boys in the Cedar 3rd Ward, went in the bottom of my underwear drawer. At least until Mom found them and it seemed like the entire population of Cedar City was told about it.

At the University of Utah there was no need for a storage shed when I lived in the Ballif Hall dorms the 1968-1969 school year, nor in the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity house the 1969-1970 school year. I don't remember where my roll-away bed, which Ray Gardner and I shared at the Frat house, was stored while I was on my mission. My bronze colored Javelin (a Rambler) was my storage shed. That held true for the summer of 1970 when I worked for Pan American in Denver too. On my mission a box was a sufficient storage shed. And when I returned and roomed with Riley Skeen on 1325 East, the 1973 school year, I started to collect stuff. (I missed the 1972 fall semester because of my mission, and actually graduated with my B.S. 1 semester short of 4 full years.) My roll-away bed, which had been in my room at home as long as I remember, was used by Steve Lovell when he was Dad's hired hand and lived in my room with me, and which Ray and I used, as mentioned above, was in that house. I remember because Riley snored so bad. I also had an old nagawhide (sp?) couch from the ranch, with wagon wheels on it. It finally wore out when we were in Missouri City. I think we stored all of this stuff with the old man downstairs from where Riley and I lived the summer of 1973 when I was back in Denver to work for Amoco. That fall was my first year of marriage, and we lived in the apartment Ray Gardner's dad designed as an architect student on 5th South and 13th East. There were two bedrooms, and one of them acted as a storage shed.

In Dallas there was no need for a storage shed when we lived in the Nottingham Apartments. My boxes of rocks fit in a closet. Then we moved to the house on Hanover Street and the detached garage had been converted to an extra, unairconditioned room. It became my first real storage shed. Rocks, papers from college and high school, notes about my wild, world changing ideas started to collect. We were offered double our investment on the house by a stewardess out of Love Field, and the house across the street from Ed Gray on Lockmoor Lane became available. Again the garage, this time connected, had been converted to a family room. It also worked well as a storage shed, and as a room where my friends and I could play like we were entrepreneurs, founding Computer Genealogical Services, and setting out to change the world by changing how information was handled. By the time we moved to Houston, or should I say Sugar Land, it took a pretty big U-Haul Truck to move all of our stuff from Dallas to Houston on January 16th, 1980.

We crammed it into the rental house, the next storage shed, in Sugar Land until our house on Blue Quail Drive in Missouri City was built six months later. This was a four bedroom house, and so there was plenty of room. The rocks were still kept in boxes, and those boxes were wearing out by this time. We did keep the garage clean enough we could park in the garage. That is until Brent and Cheryl Ruggles had to move and needed a storage shed for all of their stuff. We were good sports and so the garage became their storage shed for a few months. The issue was they brought cockroaches with their stuff, and we never got rid of the messy little bugs. This was when I first realized storage sheds could be a health hazard, and it started with volunteering to provide space to be a storage shed. Oh well!

Then we moved to our bigger house at 1307 Emerald Green in the fall of 1984. No more need for storage sheds. The rocks finally went in the rock garden. The food storage (canned wheat) in a closet upstairs. The Seismic Acoustics Lab notes were in a few boxes which were stuck in the garage. However, it wasn't too many years before there were boxes of stuff. When I left Landmark, my office, which had been acting as a storage shed, emptied into the garage. We had money, and so we rented a storage shed over by the fire station on Kingsland the west side of Mason. This was probably first rented in the late 1980's, even though I didn't go part time at Landmark until the early 1990's. I remember when they called all upset because one of the 5 gallon cans of honey we were storing there rusted through and got all over our stuff, and our neighbor's stuff, and was running down the aisles of the the storage shed. Then we couldn't afford the monthly costs, and it wasn't too much longer after that when we moved all of the stuff into the garage with the 1928 Wyllis Whippet.

About this time HyperMedia went under. I was forced to walk on an office lease. The High Priest Quorum came to my aid and helped move all of the stuff out of HyperMedia's Park 10 office. The Kingsland Storage Shed was just opened, and so we rented a space there and moved HyperMedia stuff, and all of the boxes from the house into there. There wasn't enough cash coming in, and using that storage shed did not last for long. Soon Roice and Ben were driving across country in a large U-Haul van with the Wyllis in it, and surrounded by about 100 boxes of unsorted stuff. I remember the snow storm, and the calls of `What do we do now?' They made it. Unloaded all of the boxes. Grandpa Nelson drove the car out of the back of the truck and on the way down, the ramp broke. It all worked out. He drove fast.

So Mom and Dad's house became my storage shed. There were 100 boxes in the basement and the Whippet was in the garage. Mom and Aunt Sara had seen water in the basement several times and they were sure it would flood again and all of these papers would be ruined. It didn't and they weren't, much to the chagrin of some. Then Dad died, and within a year Mom needed to move where there was assisted care. So I went to Cedar, rented the largest U-Haul truck available, recruited a bunch of cousins to help load it, and we did. My cousin Leon Nelson took the Wyllis Whippet, and he has been paying $145 per month for a storage shed for it for about six years. If I want to get the car back, it will probably cost more than it did originally, just to pay the storage shed costs. As I finished loading the U-Haul van, closed the doors, and got ready to leave the farm, I couldn't find the keys. It was an hour later, and after strong feelings that my Dad was there and was trying to say something to me, before I was found the keys and left the farm. I haven't been back since, except to stop briefly to see Uncle Willis and Aunt Shirley Gurr, who now live down at Grandma Nelson's house.

So I drove to Vegas, then to Arcosanti, then to Phoenix, where I picked up Melanie at the Williams. Then we went to Tucson and to Biosphere 2, and drove on into Houston. By this time I was living in the house alone, except for those like Larry Law that stayed upstairs, and my bedroom and the garage became the storage shed for several years. Melanie and then Sara and then Paul helped me to sort and move and rebox and stack all of the boxes. There are still 4 boxes in the bedroom, and there are about 100 boxes in the garage. And as I reported last week, the garage door literally fell off the track, and the boxes had to be moved so it could be fixed.

So Monday morning this week, after doing my exercises and going for a run, I had Andrea get in the car with me to go over to the Kingsland storage shed to check out prices. She was not happy with this plan. Even $70 a month was too much of a commitment for climate controlled storage. If we made this commitment, it meant we would be paying this amount for the next N-years, and I would not clean up any of the material in the boxes, we would not be able to go on a mission until we dealt with them and several other things I was not expecting. So I rearranged all of the boxes in the garage, so the garage door expert could get in to replace the door on Tuesday morning.

Monday afternoon I received an unexpected facsimile. This was in response to the following e-mail sent to Mr. Meng at the Bureau of Geophysical Prospecting (BGP) April 10th:

`Mr. Meng, Thank you for checking into this computer pirarcy matter. I realized there would little chance you could do anything about this experience. I do appreciate your follow-up, and believe this is a very nice example of the real basis of friendship. For your reference, I have had Germans and Americans hack into my computer and cause problems too. Hopefully we have our firewall strong enough to keep those out who attempt to use the computer without permission. As mentioned at the AAPG in San Antonio, I started an oil company in January of 2001. It is called Dynamic Resources Corporation. We have over 50 good exploration opportunities, and are looking for partners interested in investing money to buy leases and drill wells on these opportunities. Some of these are in the billions of barrels of oil or TCF of gas range. Most are in the millions of barrels of oil or BCF of gas. The investing partner will own the opportunities 100%, less what they give to landowners and governments, and Dynamic Resources is only asking for a Prospect Generation Fee and a Performance Bonus based on the size of the discovery. You can see where the exploration opportunities are located by going to http://www.walden3d.com/dynamic/clp. In addition, we have developed some new technologies which allow us to take large databases and do data mining as well as pattern finding, and to develop trend maps and other maps which semi-automatically do spatial ranking of cells within an area-of-interest. I believe these technologies could be worth millions, possibly even billions of yuan to some of the large Chinese Oil Fields, or the Bureau. I have put all of my savings into developing these opportunities and thus do not have the cash to come to China and give presentations and cover expenses to go through the negotiation process. However, I wanted to tell you about these developments in case (1) some of CNPC, CNOOC, or BGP employees in Houston would like to review the opportunities for a possible investment, or (2) one of these groups, or an oil field, would like to bring me to China as a consultant to explain how the technologies could help exploration efforts in China, and cover my costs to establish a business relationship. Best Regards, Roice Finder, Dynamic Resources Corporation, http://www.walden3d.com/dynamic, rnelson@walden3d.com, 281.579.0172; cell:713.542.2207; fax: 281.579.2141 CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION OF DYNAMIC RESOURCES CORPORATION'


The unexpected facimile received Monday afternoon, May 13th says:

`Dear Mr. Nelson, In response to your e-mail to Mr. Meng regarding a possible visit to China to give a presentation of your investment product, BGP will be willing to pay for your round trip airfare. Please let me know at your earliest convience if you would still be interested to travel to our headquarters so I can make the necessary arrangements. You may reach me during regular business hours at 713.787.9511. Sincerely, Peter Zhang Vice President'


I think this excited Andrea. Certainly more than renting a storage shed. I responded on Monday at 4:30 by facsimile with:

`Peter, Thank you for passing on BGP's kind offer to pay for my round trip ticket to China to give presentations on Dynamic Resources Corporation's investment opportunities. As I said on the phone, I am very interested to travel to your headquarters again. However, I have three questions before we make the arrangements: 1. Who will I meet with in China, and what is their financial authority? 2. What are they interested in investing in? A. Drilling Prospects? or B. Technologies? If Drilling Prospects, what part of the world are they interested in drilling wells in? Most of the current opportunities in our portfolio are in the U.S. Gulf Coast, where typical dry hole well costs are between US$1 million and US$10 million. We recommend 25%-50% participation, and using our other investment Partners to mitigate risk. 3. How much time will need to be spent at your headquarters to finalize an investment relationship? Also, my wife, and possibly my 15 year old step-son, wouild like to come to China with me. Is this possible? Please note Dynamic Resources has over 200 experts in our NetWork, and many of them have schools which I anticipate would be very interesting to BGP and the Chinese Oil Fields. Best Regards, H. Roice Nelson, Jr.'


Friday afternoon I received the following response:

`Thank you for your fax of May 13th. I have contacted our headquarters and BGP will pay the roundtrip airfare to China for you, your wife and your step-son. In reference to your questions: 1. You will be meeting with tne Marketing Manager of BGP in China, Miss Yin Xiao Yhong, as well as with other executives. At this time, we do not have the details of the people who will attend your presentation. When you arrive in China Miss Yin will be arranging the meetings with the proper executives. 2. I do not have an answer at thiks time. It will be discussed during your visit in our headquarters. 3. As far as the length of time you need to spend at our headquarters, please advise me of an approximate reasonable time needed to cover your presentations based on the various topics that you would like to discuss witht he BGP group in China. I would appreciate a detailed content of your presentation so I may forward it to BGP headquarters for their review. Best Regards, Peter Zhang.'


So this seems like a good time to put a carrot out there for those who read these Thoughtlets. Remembering I am overly optimistic, I believe this trip for Matt, Andrea, and myself to Beijing is the first of many trips overseas to discuss the things we have put together at Dynamic Resources the last year and a half. I anticipate many trips to China, and also anticipate not paying the airfare. I would like to have each of you go on one of these trips with me, and have wondered how to decide who's turn it is. Therefore, based on the time-stamp order on the e-mail of whomever responds to this Thoughtlet, and expresses interest in accompanying me on one of these trips, I will strive to use that order to give those of you interested an opportunity to visit someplace different than your normal grocery store trip with me. I realize it is getting harder with new children coming, and I expect even these issues can all be worked out for a week or so. And yes, this offer includes Bridget and Justin, Chuck and Di, Aunt Sara and Uncle Des, etc. I do reserve the right to bump the list any time Andrea wants to go on a trip with me.

I did get an e-mail from Paul this week. I consolidated the photos as a single gif file, and the consolidation process cut some of the colors out. I think it just makes his e-mail even more . . . . . . surreal. It is below for your review. It was fun to watch Matt read and laugh as he discovered each new face Paul was making. Too bad it wasn't recorded.

Andrea bought me a Tom Clancy book, and I'm now about 450 pages into it (half way through) and an extra large tootsie roll for our third anniversary on Wednesday. We went out to a new Japanese restaurant on Mason to celebrate. It was really good. We watched four new episodes of Enterprise for the rest of our celebration. We both like it. I got the flu, didn't feel very good on Wednesday, and ended up sleeping almost all day Thursday. I was feeling better by Friday. Friday night Rachel and I had a daddy-daughter date and went to the Peanut Butter Cannery together. I took some photos, which I will put at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/scouts/peanut_butter. It was a fun evening, and I was starting to feel normal.

Saturday included a soccer game (Matt's team won), and the Taylor High School Theatre Arts I Class Presentations of `Class Action' and `Second Class' by Brad Slaight. Matt played a hunchback, and Gerald the computer nerd. He did very good. The plays were a little graphic, and they discussed things High School kids are exposed to today in a way that hopefully gets them talking about it. Matt couldn't understand why the boy who kissed the girl in the school play also kissed the girl in this short play. Guess I don't understand either.

Today was nice. First time I've been able to introduce a grandson to my friends at church. Melanie and Jared were over from Vidor for a friends wedding and to pick up a sibling at the airport. We got a nice Colby Cade fix. Matt and I went Home Teaching, and the guy who has only talked to us on the porch invited us inside. He also wrote out a letter to Bishop Camp asking his name be removed from the records of the church, and he invited us to come back and talk any time we wanted. He especially liked talking to Matt. Our other visits were more positive. It is sad when someone does something like this, and does not realize what they are throwing away. There should be very serious prayer and meditation before taking this action. And time will prove that I am absolutely right in this statement. Imagine when someone wakes up to realize for inconclusive reasons they have thrown away the possibility of being an eternal family. Maybe my long-term planning horizion, as is reflected in all of the stuff I have in my garage storage shed, is why this topic is so important to me.

There is nothing quite like holding a brand new grandson. Colby went Home Teaching with me to the Schmidts, because Matt was at his Teacher's Quorum Advisor's place. They weren't home. Isn't that how Home Teaching often goes? Tonight we watched the Mormon girl Neleh (Helen backwards) lose Survivor, between switching back and forth to a movie and the Cosby Show lookback. The best part was over an hour with Colby Cade laying on my chest listening to my heart beat and me listening to him breathe. Too bad we don't all live in a 3-D Miniarchology, where this would be possible every day with Ethan Evans, Grant Matthew, and Colby Cade. Melanie did assure me Colby was not named after the survivor named Colby.

As I cite my mind forward (Alma 13:1), i.e. remember the future, there are certain to be storage sheds around some corners. I carry around too much baggage not to have a storage shed or two in my future. I specifically see one when Andrea and I pack up our house to go on a mission. Then there is another one when we go on another mission. And dimly I can see a third one when we go on another mission. But then, who can really see into the future? It's sometimes easier to just wait, and look back in the storage shed."

I'm interested in sharing weekly a "thoughtlet" (little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me) with you because I know how important the written word can be. I am concerned about how easy it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of daily life. To download any of these thoughtlets go to http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets or e-mail me at rnelson@walden3d.com.

With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)

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Copyright © 2002 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.