cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, and Maxine Shirts
"I took a three week vacation from Thoughtlets, and now I get to catch up. Threre hasn't been much happening with work to report on. I have been busy, especially on the PetroChina project. I have put together about 200 pages of reports for the $10,000 they agreed to pay me for consulting. And have done about three times as much work as I intended to. I tell myself I am building a market opportunity. This is the first time I have had the opportunity to be at this high of a level in a major oil company and talk about my ideas about how exploration should be done. I am very excited about the trip to China and hope to have some positive things to report when I return.
Since I'm four weeks behind on the Thoughtlets, and since there isn't much from a diary standpoint to write about, I decided to sort what I write differently. Instead of the typical time-based or chronological notes, I'm going to mix and match from events of the last four weeks. This Thoughtlet will be focused on the three grandsons, and especially Grant Matthew's first birthday. The next one (0252.html) will be focused on 11 movies I have been to over the last three weeks. It seemed like we went to a lot, and so I decided to do a top eleven countdown of movies for Christmas 2002. The third thoughtlet (../0301.html) is to start of the year 2003, and kind of catches up stuff not included in the other two. For instance, it summarizes lessons learned from my swallow counting in 2002. In fact, there are 8 screen captures of graphs from the swallow counting. Too many pictures to e-mail. Especially when you add in the additional 17 digital photos I decided to include in these three Thoughtlets. I believe everyone except my Mom has access to the web, and I encourage you to go to the web pages (www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets/2002/0251.html and then click on ... at the end of each new Thoughtlet) and if you like one of the little photos, click on it and hold it, and download the image to your system. This way I can include all of these photos in the hardcopy I send my Mom and print for Matt, and don't have to worry about sending too much to anyones e-mail box. The last Thoughtlet is for this week, a couple of days early, before getting on the plane to China, and it is a suprise (../0302.html).
The only non-PetroChina business event to report was my annual lunch with Dennis McMullin on Tuesday. Both Dennis and Andrea gave me a really bad time about me missing the lunch. Just because I have forgot to show up twice in the past doesn't mean I will do it again! In fact, I got there 40 minutes early. So I went into the Circuit City next to the Macaroni Grill to look for colored plastic sheets. They didn't have what I wanted, and so I priced plasma screens (still way out of our budget). I drove up to park by the restaurant and read while I waited and Dennis was there early too. I sure like him. He is struggling between jobs. Wish I could solve everyone's economic problems. Guess I need to stay focused at home for now.
Andrea went to Spokane for her nephew's wedding on Friday night. Wished I could have gone with her. I've never met Robert's wife and kids. Oh well! It looks like Grandma Shirts' 80th birthday party is set for the 15th and 16th of August in Cedar City. I guess I will meet them then. It would be nice to have each of you come up to Cedar for this. Right now we do not have money to help with plane fare, and hopefully this will change.
The nice part about staying home was to be able to host Grant's first birthday party. It was nice. I struggle to find words about feelings, and so I will just repeat, it was nice. I did write the following song about the three muskateers, and their first time being together.
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I'm am really looking forward to taking these three boys
on a week long trail ride and camping trip, in the wilds of
Southern Utah, and other similar things, which their Mom's
probably don't want to hear about, and yet which will help
them reach more of their potential. I'm sorry my boys did not
have a Grandpa involved in their lives. I'm glad Matt did.
I did. And as stated before, I intend to repeat the example
of my Grandpa Hafen.
I think I got to know Grant best on the first day Paul and Kate arrived. Paul was gone somewhere, and Grant was exploring. Doesn't walk much yet, and he still gets around just fine. He is strong. He has a neat personality. To me it is really interesting to see the personalities of each of the Grandsons as they are slowly revealed. I'm sure to someone from China or Nigeria they all look the same. However to me, each of the boys is unique. Ethan is a leader, strong and self-confident. Grant is a worker, intent on tearing down my buildings in order to later learn how to build them back up. Colby is an explorer, testing how helium baloons and balls bounce, and what pine cones are made of. I have a photo of Ben and Ethan working with my Lincoln logs. However, I spent more time with Grant building and tearing down than with either of the other Grandsons. After all it was Grant's first birthday, and he was here more than Ethan or Colby.
I went to Randalls and picked up pizza and some balloons for Grant's First Birthday party. They were a big hit all week long. Sara's roommate made a chocolate cookie birthday cake. Somehow I didn't get a photo of the cake. The present opening was interesting. The wrapping paper is often more interesting than the presents. At least until Grant learned how to put a basketball through the hoop. Rob was here and he sang me a couple of songs he wrote on the guitar. As Melanie said later, `imitation is the greatest form of flattery.' Although I'm sure the words to my songs are not quite as negative as some of the words Rob sang. It was nice to have him back in the house. His girlfriend seems very nice, and she obviously cares a lot for him. The best picture I got of Ben, Sarah, and Ethan was taken during Grant's first birthday party.
One of the funnest things we did was to go out in the front lawn and play with the boys. Ethan, being the oldest and the most mobile stole the show. He was kicking the soccer ball, using a stick as a wand and turning Uncle Paul into a monkey who climbed up the tree, and sticking the spare house key in the dashboard of the car where it is unretrievable (Grandpa was suppose to be in charge at the time. Oh well!). Tim Stevens, the Englishman who is a member of the church and lives at the bottom of Emerald Green, mentioned how much fun it looked like we were all having out on the front lawn. No fireant bites. Makes me want to be in Utah where there are no fireants and where the lawns are so nice to roll on.
It was nice to have Rachel, Melanie, Colby, Paul, Kate, and Grant with me at Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School. I wished Andrea could have been there, and her flight from Spokane came in Sunday evening at 8:30. Having her home was kind of like whipped cream on a good week where we celebrated Grant's first birthday."