cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts
"Andrea told me not to write about this week's lowlight. However, as Gary Jones said when I told him, `It confirms your human-ness.' And it gives me an opening to tell two stories from my mission which are not in my journal and which I haven't told yet. And I am pretty sure Sara will need to have these stories to laugh about, because it will only be a matter of when, not if she faces a similar problem in Benin.
Once in a while, when I called Grandma Hafen on Sunday evenings, she would say she had a hard week with dysentery. I didn't know what that meant, and I didn't want to say so by asking questions. In case there is anyone as uneducated as myself, it means diarrhea. Not a dinner time topic.
My two most embarrassing personal experiences, prior to this week, were when I was on my mission. I got quite sick twice when working in the Hyde Park District. The first time I was throwing up for a couple of days. The second day was our D-Day (Diversion-Day), and my companion did not want to babysit me, so he went to the Hyde Park Chapel to play basketball with some of the other Elders. I knew I wasn't suppose to be alone, and so I decided I needed to get up and make my way to where my companion was. I made it down the street, across the light, and almost to the Earl's Court Station when I lost it. I sat down in the gutter and threw up, and as I looked up an American couple was walking by. The woman looked at me with pity, and the husband hurried her along. This was 1972, in the height of the drug revolution, and I'm sure they thought I was reacting to something I had done. It gave me a chuckle and I made it to the Hyde Park Chapel.
The second was on a day when we had a District Meeting. I was the Hyde Park District Leader, and there were about 12 Elders and Sisters in my district. I had a bad case of dysentery, and lost it before I made it to the toilet. I had to wash out my garments in the sink, and the Zone Leaders showed up as I was finishing the clean-up job. They laughed about it, and I was really embarrassed. Hopefully none of you ever have anything like this happen. However, I expect it is good for you to anticipate the unexpected.
The week of August 11th started with me getting up at 4:30 AM to look at Mars. Ray Gardner had been out taking photos with his telescope, and invited me to join him. He didn't get up that morning. I couldn't get back to sleep. So I had a bath, shaved, packed, and headed for Salt Lake. I left at 6:30 and arrived at the airport about 10:30. When I was at one of the most desolate places between Milford and Delta the cell phone rang and it was Joe Roberts. He has an opportunity for my Chinese Joint Venture to represent Core Labs. Then Christian Singfield called. The whole experience he had with CDX has turned out to be terrible. Oh well! I do what I can to support him, and hopefully it will all come together someday. My flight was not until 4:30, because I set it up expecting to have meetings at the Church Office Building. Oh well! The reason I left Cedar City so early was to save a day on the car rental. I used the time in the airport to finish Airframe and start Timeline. I made it home, and Andrea picked me up at the airport (Matt and her took the car home on Sunday when they got in). Delta had lost one of Matt's bags and I picked it up.
Tuesday I heard from my friend, and Mr. Yan Dun Shi's Secretary, Zhu Sheng Zhen, that he and his wife and daughter were going to come and stay with us starting on Thursday evening. Tuesday was spent catching up on e-mail and getting ready for our first meeting with John Bernard and Frank Lott on the Casey Ranch Project. I paid $30 to get the car cleaned, because I expected to be driving visitors around on Wednesday. Andrea thought that was excessive, and that I should have paid her. In the evening I had Stake Training in being the Ward Employment Specialist with Brother Dozier. It was actually pretty worthwhile, and I think I will be able to do some good with my new calling. I was tired and somewhat uptight.
Wednesday morning I was to have an 8:00 breakfast with Doug Harless, and there were some things I wanted to do to get ready for the Casey Ranch meeting. So I went in to work early. I almost made it. However, by the time I drove up all of the parking garage levels, and ran into the building, I exploded in the hall just outside the men's room. It took me 30 minutes to clean up the mess I made. It was on my shirt, my pants were soaked, my boots had to be repolished, etc. I called Doug and told him what happened. Andrea said, `You what!' Seldom do I take two showers. However, it was necessary this Wednesday morning. Oh well! The rest of the day actually went pretty good, considering how it started out.
John and Frank liked the work we have done. Gary Jones was somewhat up to speed and he helped with my presentation. I took Frank down to Hobby Airport. On the way back Doug Harless called, and we ended up eating a late lunch at Pappasitos on I-10 by Gessner. He is selling Linux Clusters and software which allows remote maintenance without shutting down a 200 node cluster. This is very useful technology in seismic processing, especially in doing pre-stack depth migration. Seems like Doug is going to find a way to help me be successful with what I am doing. Hope so! Joe Roberts called, and we did some more work on the Core Lab opportunity. I made it home about 4:30, and Peter (Sheng Zhen Zhu), Amy, and their 2-year old daughter Sara arrived about 5:30. Andrea had fixed shish-ka-bobs, and I cooked them on the grill. We went to Matt's scout camp Court of Honor. I opened up the baptisimal font, walked Peter and Amy all around the building, and had a nice discussion about what Christianity is about as practiced by different churches. When we got back to the house, I picked up the guitar, and Sarah started to dance. It was the cutest thing. We have some digital camera movies of it, and I don't think they completely capture the moment. It was a wonderful beginning to a fun weekend. Paul called, and we started to make plans for Labor Day weekend.
Friday I went in to Interactive Interpretation & Training (II&T) in the morning. Andrea took the Zhu's to the Butterfly Museum and the Natural History Museum. I was back at the house at 3:30 for a meeting with Jennifer Lozier and her investor friend from Austin. I prepared an investment opportunity page for them to review (see www.walden3d.com/ideas/opportunities.html). Turns out he is shopping, and his most serious interest is in the area of nanotechnologies. I don't know much about this stuff. However, Roger and Albert do, and I made the connection. Don't think anything has come of it yet.
Saturday we took two cars to Galveston. Andrea took Amy and Sarah. They left several hours after us and went right to Sarah's parent's beach house in Pirate's Cove. Peter and I went to Radivoj Drecun's office and met with Joe Roberts to discuss the Core Lab opportunity. Peter represented Geo. The meeting seemed to go fairly well. Then I took Peter and we went to NASA. We stopped and ate lunch at the seafood place I like in Clear Lake. Then went on several of the tours and movies at Space Center Houston. I noted that between 1985 and 1996, the Historical Mission Control Center put 512 people into space and landed 6 on the moon. I lived in Houston during all of this. Really neat. Then we went to Galveston and met Amy, Sarah, and Andrea on the beach. It was fun. Sarah was afraid of the dogs and the water. We got her to go out with us. There had been a big storm, and there were a lot of really neat sea shells. Most of them had hermit crabs in them. I collected a whole bucket full for the Zhu's to take back to Arlington.
Sunday morning was Stake General Priesthood at 7:30. Matt went with me and sat by me. It was a good meeting. President Pickerd quoted Neal A. Maxwell as saying `Love is not always reciprocated, and it is never wasted.' Peter, Amy, and Sarah came with us to sacrament meeting. It seemed to be overwhelming to them. They left from the meeting, and other than a nice thank you note, we have not heard anything from them about their thoughts about visiting us yet. Hopefully they did not get dysentery."