cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts
"This was not the best week of my life. Based on an unexpected 2 day consulting job, on Monday I bought tickets for Sara, Melanie and Colby, and me to go to Utah for the Hafen reunion over Labor Day weekend. It was extremely frustrating. The airline web pages are slow and bomb out most of the time. I was attempting to compare prices. Jared helped by finding good deals and passing them on to my via Melanie. At one point Andrea came in and asked how it was going, and I responded angrily. It set the tone for the week.
Joe Roberts gave telephone reports on Rob Yorke. Uncle Robert sent a note about Andrea's family history assignment. Steve Joseph sent some interesting material on BPM (Business Process Management). Sara came over for dinner. We had tapioca and fruit for a salad.
Tuesday evening I left II&T early and met Rob at the Cinemark Theater and watched "Finding Nemo" again. I was pleased Rob was interested in going to this with me. We stopped at the `ship' between Mason and Fry and had some shrimp afterwards. It was nice to spend some time with him. He has broken up with his girl friend because she has started using drugs again. I'm very proud of this choice. He seems to be doing well.
Wednesday Andrea spent the day catching up the finances from 3 weeks in Utah. Reconciling 5 check books, going through all of the mail and all of the papers, realizing our finances are not much better than when she left, my Monday reaction, my lack of communication skills, and other stuff all conspired to create a strong discussion Wednesday evening. Matt reported this discussion to Audrey, who told Rachel, who told me, who told Andrea and Matt, and it didn't help soothe feelings.
Thursday and Friday I spent at Landmark Graphics reviewing three oil fields for Fletcher Enterprises of Indonesia. It was an interesting experience. It was particularly interesting because of our host. It turns out I had worked with her when I was at Mobil.
We had been on a Mobil sponsored geology field trip together, back in about 1977. It was several days on a bus looking at different outcrops and alluvial systems across Texas. At one stop a couple of days into the trip I caught a large praying mantis. I was showing it to some of the class, when she walked up and said, `Well no matter how much you pray, you won't get any from me.' The next night she shacked up with one of my friends, and they were making out on the bus all the way back. Her comment had been funny, and out of the blue, and then it became sad.
In 1979 I was running the Mobil Field Operation land crews. One of my responsibilities was to make sure the trainees had a good six week experience in the field. It was her rotation to go into the field. She shacked up with the Senior Observer, and it was creating a big moral problem for the crew. My boss sent me out to Pecos, Texas to solve the problem and to bring her back to Dallas. I put everything I had learned on my mission to use, trying to smooth through this, not to be judgmental, and to get things back on track. By the time I finished she understood that she had created a major problem for all female geophysical trainees in the future for Mobil. It was not an easy trip.
When I walked into Landmark's office with my two new friends from Indonesia, we were escorted across the BMW campus to one of three Landmark offices, through multiple layers of security, taken to one of the upper floors, ushered into a conference room, where she was waiting for us. As I was introduced to her, she said, `Yea, I know him!' And of course, I knew her too. It was awkward to say the least. They gave us a reasonable presentation, with her presenting the geophysics. Then they put us in a data room with access to a workstation to evaluate the data. When I needed additional information, I filled out a form and took it to her. When there were system problems, she found someone to fix them. The data was interesting, the project has some good potential, and yet there was this undercurrent. I think Greg Fletcher liked the work I did for him, and he said he might have a bunch more work for me to do for him. I have had one e-mail and the check since doing the work, and it will be interesting to see if anything comes of it.
At the end of the day on Friday, I went into our host's office and asked how she was doing. She responded, `Horrible. I've been divorced three times, and I'm stressed out about my job. I pointed to the photo on her desk, and she said, `Oh, he is my current roommate, and he is a nice guy.' I really didn't know what to say, and so I told her I was glad that part of her life was going OK. I did ask her if she knew my former boss in Field Operations, who had sent me to Pecos, and who is one of the top people at Halliburton. She didn't realize he worked at Mobil, and yes, she did work with him when she first went to Halliburton and before being assigned to Landmark. Later, I sent her an e-mail andtold her about my divorce, how hard it was forme, and how much PAIRS had helped me. I also gave her the contact information for Nancy White.
I wish I could have had each of you with me to watch what happened on the field trip, to see the problems in Pecos, and to hear the despair and hurt in a beautiful woman's voice on that Friday afternoon. It broke my heart. I wish I could find the words and the spirit to tell each of you how important it is to keep the commandments, and stay close to the principles you have each been taught. Often I feel like a voice crying in the wilderness.
Friday evening Andrea and I went to two wedding receptions and a the 50th birthday party for her Indonesian walking lady. The first reception was for Daniel Weber and Erin McPherson. It was at the Country Club on Westheimer Parkway. It was a formal sit down dinner, and we left before the dinner was served. The second one was for Wendy Gebauer. It was at the Single's Ward, up off of the Beltway. Melanie and Jared and Colby were at this one. It was good to see you guys, and fun to hear the comments from my friends about how cute Colby is and how good you look. Then we came back to the subdivision for the birthday party. Definitely my week to be Indonesian. The data I had spent two days reviewing was from South Sumatra in Indonesia. Andrea's best walking friend is Rita. When I was reintroduced to her husband, it was obvious he wanted nothing to do with me. I felt bad, and didn't know what to do. So I ate some of the good Indonesian food.
Later in the evening I asked who owned the house. I was interested in their collection of art and other things in the house, and expected the owner to be interesting. Andrea found him and introduced me. He said, `What do you do?' And this started a 30 minute conversation, which was really interesting. He is a strategic scientist working with databases for Hewlett Packard (formally Compaq). I know enough I was able to direct the conversation to areas he is working in, and I was fascinated by his comments and the way the discussion went. He was called outside to listen to the country singer they had hired, and we spent the rest of the evening outside. It was a nice evening, and loosened up as we went from place to place to place.
Saturday I picked up Greg Fletcher, took him over to II&T, showed him the web pages I had put together for him, and discussed future projects. Then I took him up to Intercontinental Airport. From here I went to the Sheridan at I-610 and 290. I had been up until about 2:00 AM putting together the Indonesian web pages, and up early in the morning working on them some more. I was early for my meeting with Ajay Kalsi of India, and so I went to sleep in the car for an hour. Then I went in and called him. He and his Russian geophysicist came down. They had a plane to Calgary in the evening, and wanted a nice lunch. So I took them to Beef 'N Bird. It was closed. I got them to open up so I could show them Ken Turner's paintings. Ajay was not that impressed.
Then we went to Nara, the Japanese place Andrea had taken Sara to earlier in the week. We had a nice dinner, and they had the web pages which I had put together for Ajay on their portable computer. I showed them stuff they had never looked at. If any of you are interested, there is no password on these pages. They are at http://www.walden3d.com/phoenix. They left it that they would look at this in more detail, and get back to me. I agreed to clean up some of the links, which I spent 10 hours or so doing. Have not heard anything else from them about this yet. However, my friend Jory Pacht, has had some really strong negative things to say about how Ajay does business. Be careful of folks from other cultures. What they consider honest and moral is not what you have been taught.
Sunday started out a little better earlier days during the week had been at home. In Sunday School Michael Cahoon read a quote from James Talmage (a) which I turned into a possible Prime Words stanza. It goes:
After priesthood meeting I went to the Bishop's
office to participate in Matt being ordained as
a priest. The Bishop started with, Matt has
asked me to ordain him. I was hurt. And I know
Matt's real Dad has also felt hurt at not being
able to participate. Oh well! Matt seems to like
Bishop Camp and that is a good thing. What is
important is Matt was ordained a priest."