02 Mar 2003 #0309.html

An Identified Miracle

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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, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, Pauline Nelson via Aunt Sara, & 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.

"The older I get, the more convinced I am there are unidentified miracles surrounding us each day of our life. Historically these have been attributed to guardian angels. One of my books, which I really like, The Holographic Universe, attributes them to the interconnectedness of everything. I have attempted to address this topic in past Thoughtlets, like the one about Coincidences (../9715.html). The point I was trying to make is that when we have one of these `coincidences,' which is beyond our ability to explain, we ought to recognize it as an identified miracle, and express thanks to our Heavenly Father.

Before I get to specifics, I'm going to summarize my week, as has become a normal component of this weekly exercise, and my way to keep up with a personal journal. Monday morning started with a series of phone calls and facsimiles. Parker Gay sent me details on airmag surveys in Oklahoma's Arkoma Basin. Dr. Emmanuel Egbogah, Chairman of Emerald Energy Resources Ltd. sent me the current business terms for OPL-229. He also sent me a letter confirming Emerald will pay me 2% of the negotiated cash farm-in value in consideration for introducing Emerald to a farm-in partner. For a $20 million investment, their goal, this translates to a $400,000 finder's fee. I sent copies of these and the HyperMedia Space-Act Agreement, which was signed on 30 April 1990 to Swede Nelson for his review as part of our Geo-China and Geo-International Joint Venture discussions.

It turns out NASA has developed something called Robotnault, which is a mechanical replacement for the upper half of the human body, and which can be used in harsh environments, like deepwater oil and gas drilling or for putting out oil field fires. We are hoping to discuss with NASA the possibility of commercializing this technology for them under the same kind of agreement HyperMedia entered into back in 1990. There is a valid question as to the wisdom of putting a piece of information like this out to so many people, as someone could learn of it and come in and out flank our efforts with NASA. I continue to monitor who reads the Thoughtlets, and other than the folks at the University in San Marcos who so far only access the family addresses page, have not identified any abuse. So I will continue to trust those who read these Thoughtlets will treat information like is in this paragraph as confidential. If I find this trust is misplaced, I will change my modus operandi.

At 10:15 a week before, I had met Don Volte and Paul Wadell of Chroma at the Galleria Tower, and then we met with John Dickinson and his partner at 10:35 (0308.html). After entering into confidentiality agreements, Chroma had presented two the Bayou Boure' Prospects they have worked up. It is an interesting fact that e-Seis (../0137.html, ../0205.html, and ../0242.html) first introduced me to this opportunity, and I added it to the Dynamic CLPs we have attempted to sell since then. I had told Chroma and Swede about it, and Chroma ended up with agreements to work the Prospect up and take it to market and sell it. During the week that had passed, through Swede, I have a legal agreement giving me the rights to sell these Prospects again, and this will retain a nice ORRI (Over-Riding-Royalty-Interest) if I am able to sell this deal. At 2:00 last Monday, John Dickinson, along with a consulting geologist which works with him, came to II&T (Interactive Interpretation & Training, where I have my two Landmark Licenses and where I office or have meetings) to talk about how Parker's aeromagnetic data could help them with their exploration efforts in the Oklahoma portion of Arkoma Basin. In terms of Bayou Boure' he could not make any sense of the economics Don Volte provided him, and I've been working since then to remedy this issue.

At 3:30 Johnny Kopechy arrived at II&T, and we broke off the meeting with John Dickinson. Johnny is interested in managing the drilling of Emerald's first wells in OPL-229. He is going to prepare a proposal and we will meet with Jude to discuss this next week when Jude is back from Australia. After Johnny left, I spent several hours working on better defining a drilling location for the Kula Prospect in OPL-229, as I had agreed to do with Dr. J. and Dr. E. the week before. By the time I got home I was very tired.

Both Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly spent finishing the new interpretation of where to drill the well in the Kula area and capturing screen shots of this data. This data is still confidential, and so I can not yet share examples of the maps I created. Tuesday afternoon, I received a call from Danny Davis requesting I return his well logs from the Cook Inlet. This project is obviously not going to happen. Oh well! It was interesting when I returned the logs how he got down on his former partner, Fernanodo, and referred to him as a con-artist who never delivered anything he said he would. At NAPE I had been told the same thing about Danny Davis. It is sure a lot different working with the business side of oil and gas exploration (money-centric) than working with geologist and geophysicists (data-centric).

I am currently re-reading the New Testament in conjunction with Gospel Doctrine. On Wednesday morning I read Matthew 6, including:

`No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot server God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?'


My personal prayers before I left for II&T were a little more intense on Wednesday morning. Bob Horner and I got talking as I stopped on one of my trips to the lou. I was complaining about IBM-China having not paid their bills, and how it was only thanks to those that still, for unknown reasons, believe in me, that we are not in more serious financial trouble. Bob stopped me right there, and said, we need to pray. He proceeded to ask Heavenly Father that the Chinese would pay me, and that our financial needs would be met. After his simple and humble prayer, he opened up about experiences he had in Viet Nam, and described a half a dozen times he had personally identified a miracle in the saving his life or the life of others fighting with him. It was touching, especially because it was the first time in all of the years I have known Bob where he has opened up to me like that. I went back to my interpretation and to contemplating what I should focus on. By the time I finished my interpretation and got home Wednesday night, I was pretty disillusioned as to where all of my efforts are going. I had signed up to go out with the missionaries, and our visit was to a member family in Katy Second Ward, where we taught their 8-year old the sixth discussion. I felt the parents should have taught this, and yet I recognized the spirit the missionary I was with brought to the lesson.

I got up Thursday morning and showered. Anna Schmidt was still ill, and Matt needed a ride to seminary. So I didn't read the paper nor the scriptures, I just took him and went into II&T to finish capturing the data to make the montage requested by Dr. J. and Dr. E. on the previous Thursday. I could not justify spending the time to do the work, especially since Emerald and VRMT have no money to pay me. However, I did it and finished up about noon. I asked Les Denham to make me a CD so I could take the data home and use HyperEdge to make the montage. While he was cutting the CD for me, Bob came in and said, `Would you like to work in China.' I said, `You know I have to do something to bet control over my bills. Why do you ask?' He told me he had just received a phone call from Alan Clare at Apache Corporation, and they are looking for a geophysicist to work on their oil and gas field in the Bo Hai Sea for the next six months. It will involve several trips to China over this time to collect data, and to work with the people on site.

I called Alan and expressed interest. He told me what was involved in the work, and asked me my background. I told him I have worked with several folks now at Apache very closely, and suggested he talk to Mike Bahorich, Dave Monk, or Alan Peterson to get a personal reference. Then I told him where my resume is on the web (../../resumes/hrn.html), and as he described what he needed, I told him where a shorter oil & gas version is (../../resumes/hrn_vita.html). He was reviewing them while we were on the phone. He asked how much I charge. I told him $1,000 per day. He said they only budgeted $900 per day. I told him this was OK, as I needed to pay some bills. He said he was sure it would be fine, Mike Bahorich was his boss, Mike was just calling him, and he would call me back.

As Les finished cutting the CD with the Kula maps and sections on it, the cell phone rang. Alan said Mike had started to laugh when told I was interested in the job, and had asked, `How did you find him?' Alan said he saw no problem, other than the geophysicist and Mike are out of town all next week, and they do not want me to come down for an interview and to finalize the agreement until Monday the 11th of March. I am to be there at 9:00 AM and will start working on Tuesday. He agreed they will give me Friday's off to work on my other projects, and he sees no problem with me meeting with my Joint Venture Partners when I am in China, since there is no conflict of interest. When I got home there was the following e-mail waiting for me:

`Mike and Steve Have spoken to Roice and he will come in at 9am Monday 10th March to discuss the project and, assuming we're all happy to proceed, can start same day or Tuesday 11th. His p reference is to work approx. a 4 day week so he can pursue some other current projects and commitments and working on and agreed rate of $900/day. Also, he would appreciate being able to follow up on a China venture he is involved in (not in conflict with the project work) and hence utilize some of the time in China to follow up on this. As he and I discussed, the project would be for 6 months with the longer term aim to continue the relationship with Apache for other projects around the world as we should see fit. Cheers and will discuss with you Mike. Roice's long (and I mean long!) CV is attached the second of the two websites, better to go to the first depending on how much time you have! Alan Clare Geological Technology Coordinator Apache Corporation 2000 Post Oak Blvd, Suite 100 Houston TX 77056'


I told Andrea and Matt. Matt said, `Roice, I was never worried as I knew everything would be OK.' I responded, `Mom has been worried enough for you and me and her.' Then I started to work on building the composite montage for Dr. E. and Dr. J. While I was working on this Swede called and we went over the latest e-mail from Mr. Yan Jiafeng. He has approached one of the large state-owned oil companies and they have expressed an interest in a proposal Swede provided concerning building refineries and such in a South American country. As we neared the end of our conversation, I mentioned the Apache opportunity. Swede's comments were more than interesting to me. The following are his ramblings as near as I can recall:

`Roice, that is wonderful news! I can't think of a better solution to meeting your near term cash flow needs. If I wrote fiction, I couldn't have thought up such a good scenario. I don't write fiction, and could not have thought of a solution like this. Talk about an answer to prayer! This is a a miracle! You must be very pleased.'


I have never talked to Swede Nelson about my prayers. He knows I am committed to the church. He knows, by my interactions with him, whom I serve, between God and mammon. My hope is that each of you have someone who recognizes this same characteristic in yourselves at some time in your life. Someone who recognizes and points out, as a completely independent observer, an identified miracle.

I felt really good as I spent the rest of the evening finishing up the montage for Emerald. Friday morning there were a few additions to the montage. I did make it all the way around the Kingsland to Greenhill to Crescent Green block on my run before that. Matt had his annual ARD Meeting (Action Review and Dismissal) at 9:20 AM at Taylor High School. It was a good meeting. Matt told everyone the story about the Pink Gorilla, which I had told him at the campout the previous Friday. I was late for a presentation to a potential OPL-229 investor. Fernando was suppose to set the meeting up. He canceled it Thursday evening, too late to let Basil know, who had flown down from Dallas for the meeting. Oh well! I arrived just before Basil and Vince were ready to leave. Basil and Vince seemed pleased with the montage I have put together for Kula. It does need to include specifics on the existing well. I had picked up a cross-cable the week before to download Melanie and Jared's digital photos and movies, and since the meeting was canceled, I decided it was a good time to download the photos to the computer. It was really time consuming. I worked on it until 4:30, and got all three disks downloaded. I definitely like the Sony CD approach better. In the evening we considered going to a movie, and decided to wait until IBM China pays their bill. I ended up watching the movie Midway and working on a couple of projects like cutting out new Dynamic Resources business cards, while the movie was going on.

Saturday was a nice day. Ran around the Greenwind Chase block to Forest Green on Kingsland, and then walked home. Thought of a way to formalize the NetWork and hopefully it is something we can implement. I spent most of the day trimming last year's growth off of the crepe myrtle, and picking up several bags of leaves from the front yard. I was definitely tired when I finished. There was another response from Mr. Yan, and I wrote a tentative answer and called Swede for comments. Swede called me back when I was at the church getting ready for our first ward party of 2003. Melanie called while Swede was on the phone. Never did talk to Melanie, and she sent me an e-mail asking me to fill out a questionnaire to help with her presentation to the Young Women in her ward on Sunday. This was my response later in the evening:

`1. Name: H. (Howard) Roice Nelson, Jr. 2. Birthplace: Cedar City, UT 3. Were you raised by your parents? Yes. 4. Number of brothers/sisters: 1 Sister. 5. Your place in the family (oldest, youngest, etc.): Oldest 6. Occupation of your father: Farmer and Meat Packer 7. Did you have financial security growing up? No 8. Religious affiliation of your family: Inactive LDS 9. What are your most memorable spiritual experiences? Corvallis, Oregon 10. Any special background or traditions? Work. 11. What kind of relationship did you have with your parents? "Free" Hired Hand for my Father, and enjoyed working with him. Mom was my best friend, when she wasn't mad at someone or something. 12. What is your education? B.S. Geophysics U of Utah; MBA SMU 13. What are your most memorable school experiences? Geology Field Camp in the Rocky Range by Milford; taking a classical guitar class; the Viet Nam Lottery Night when I drew number 340 and no longer had to worry about going to Viet Nam; and the Pledge Sneak at Phi Sigma Kappa. 14. What is your occupation? Geophysicist 15. What is your main goal in life? Continue to make a positive difference. 16. What makes you happy? Seeing my kids succeed and make good choices. Spending time with my Grandsons. Playing the guitar. Working on projects which can make the world a better place for my kids and my grandkids. 17. What makes you sad? Seeing my kids make mistakes and do things which write negative scripts in their lives. Not having enough money to spend take off work and spend time with my Grandsons. Being too busy to write a new song on the guitar. Not being able to work on projects which can make a positive difference for my kids, grandkids, and friends because of money, bureaucracies, greed, and circumstances. 18. What hardships have you overcome? Dysfunctional childhood family life, allergies, a mission president who was disfellowshiped, a business partner who took advantage of me and lost about $2 million dollars of my money, divorce, children who have not followed the things I tried to teach them, significant financial trials like an unexpected $100,000 tax bill, etc. In each case I have only overcome these hardships to the degree I have overcome them because of the help and support of my Savior. 19. What do you most enjoy doing with your family? Spending time with them. 20. What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? Playing the guitar. Writing things I hope will prove useful to my children and Grandchildren, reading, spending time outside, working in the yard or camping.'


Swede advised me to modify the tentative e-mail response to Mr. Yan. I do enjoy him and his comments. It was interesting attempting to talk to Swede while filling water pictures for the Ward Party. Gary Jones was cooking hot dogs, and so I had to step outside to talk about representing Magic Earth in China, since Gary now works for Magic Earth.

The Ward Party was a Chili Cookoff and Pie Baking Contest. We had 22 round tables up with white covers and red plaid plastic squares on these with centerpieces with a neckerchief and two helium balloons. I counted 112 folks, and the Bishop said he counted 120. Andrea won the first announced prize, third place for the Chili, and Brother Beckstrom said, this is rigged and I will be really upset if the Carons and Chandlers win the other two prizes (they are the others on the Activities Committee). Matt accepted Andrea's prize for the `fruitiest dessert.' She was the only one to win in both categories. By the time we cleaned up and got home I was worn out, and went to sleep about 9:00 PM. I woke up at 2:30 AM and Andrea had fallen asleep in the living room in front with the light on. Oh well! There were a lot of nice comments about the party at church today. It was a good Fast & Testimony Meeting. However, no one talked about an identified miracle. Hopefully someday each of you will be able to bear testimony of an event in your life which was an identified miracle."

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 © 2003 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.