cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts
"I was thinking about writing about commuting, and I decided it would be better to wait a few more weeks before I take on that most horrific of topics. Mike Dunn, my boss at GDC, and David Johnson, his boss and of no relation to the the David Johnson who grew up in Nottingham Country Ward, were both in Europe this week. Most of the week was spent working with Les Denham as he loaded on of my Landmark licenses at GDC, installed HyperEdge at GDC, and wrote some pearl scripts that allowed me to extract data from the GDC database.
There were two things I was charged to do while Mike was gone. First was to get the posters for the China CPS/SEG Conference booth ready for final review. Most of this was done by the marketing group. I found out the office manager, Liz Nettles, has turned in her resignation, and plans to go to work for GX-Technologies, a competitor. She has been with GDC for 19 years tomorrow, and the operations and client knowledge she carries around in her head is absolutely irreplaceable. She told me she was offered a position to handle conventions for GDC, and she turned that down. I got her to reconsider and to seriously consider whether the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. One thing I did was take her with me to the marketing group to review the posters. She made significant contributions, and she knows she did. Hopefully this will be enough to get her to change her mind.
The second thing I was asked to do was to make sure money was wired to China to cover the costs of the booth. GDC's accountant lives in New Jersey, and goes home about once a month. It appears he owes his position to the New York Jews who own Geokinetics, NASDAQ GEOKIN, GDC's mother company. He is probably good at what he does, and he does not like GDC and Mike Dunn. He is an ultra left-brained thinker. For instance, in the request for payment for the booth, was a statement that they preferred the booth to be paid in RMB, local Chinese currency. His bank will not transfer money in RMB, and so he was not going to wire the money. I called Chase, and they assured me they would transfer the money in RMB. So I suggested he wire the money to the Walden 3-D account, and I would take care of paying for the booth. He could not do this because he wasn't sure what the conversion rate was, and he needed an invoice in RMB and not US dollars. I told him I would pay any difference in exchange rates. He was not willing to let me do this `because of Enron and because Geokinetics is a publicly traded company.' Finally he said, `Well, I guess I will just transfer the money in US dollars, and we will see if they will accept it.' We will find out tomorrow if the money was accepted. Do any of you have any doubts as to whether Chinese will accept US dollars? Ben, I certainly hope you have not become this type of a bean counter! I must admit, I have some worries, based on all of you conditions on our bet about what the average price of gas was going to be. Given all of your conditions, who was right? Really!
The other exciting thing at work was I found where the candy dispensers are, and bought red licorice twice to keep me awake when it got really boring in the afternoon's and I was having a hard time staying awake. My preexisting relationships with Geo-XN in China and Emerald Energy in Nigeria might cause me problems at GDC according to Swede Nelson. Oh well! I will do my best to be an employee, and if it doesn't work, maybe I can go to work for Melanie, or Roice, or Ben, or ... .
Looks like Audrey is going to pass the ordeal of becoming a glorified waitress in the sky. The training for being an airline flight attendant sounds overwhelming. There certainly are nice perks for us in regards to flight discounts. Maybe we will be able to come to Cedar City for a week before the 4th of July Roice and Andrea Nelson reunion. And go to Coeur d'Laine for the Shirts reunion. In addition, to our trip to Vienna for the Hedberg Conference. Time will tell.
Andrea is working very hard at her seminary assignment. One of her students bore his testimony today, and had very good things to say about her as a teacher. It was neat to watch her. The Hastings were here for their son to report to the High Council about his mission to Taiwan. He was in the same mission as the Elder called from Beijing (../0224.html). The Reeds were also here to see Bethany and Brandon Peterson, and I didn't get to talk to them. My second cousin, Keith Nelson, Sherry Maddox's father, and his wife Evelyn were also here. He works for SUU now, and they are on Spring Break this week. They are going to come over for a barbecue next Saturday afternoon (0411.html). It is hard to believe that Heather's graduation is on May 8th, just two months away. Rachel is counting the days. I get the impression this has been a hard year for her at SUU.
So why did I title this Thoughtlets `Houston Arero'? It is simply because Chris Schmidt, who still pays hockey almost every week, made arrangements for any member of the church who wanted to go to get $10 tickets. I figured I don't do enough of this kind of stuff for Matt, as I've been pretty focused on pursuing my dream of building an oil company and making enough money to meet the monthly bills. So I splurged and bought three tickets from Chris last Sunday, and we went to the game Friday night. The Jaspers brought Chris and Johnny, Andrea and Matt. I picked up Michelle from work, and we met at the Toyota Center.
I figure I better write about the Houston Aeros this week, because, unless a Grandson or Granddaughter wants to go to one of these games, I doubt if I will ever go again. Boring! The fights looked as scripted as a professional wrestling match. The referees would stand back and watch them fight, and then they would finally break it up. It is a fast game. It was very hard for me to see the puck. I don't understand the rules. Matt was mad at Andrea because he didn't eat breakfast and didn't ask her for lunch money when she had her purse available. Chris Schmidt's Mom repeated something my Dad said to me once, `You two look like the saddest people on the planet Earth.' Friday was the day Swede chewed me out about an e-mail I wrote to Jude Amaefule and said that my conflicts-of-interest with Chinese and Nigerians were going to get me fired by GDC. Anyway, the one thing common between Dad's comment and Laurie Schmidt's comment is me, and I struggle with being perceived in this light. Oh well! However, I must admit I was bored to death with the Houston Aeros, and basically disgusted with grown men and women acting like they do in the audience. I think they need to get a life, and I'm pretty sure they would say the same thing to me. Oh well!
Saturday I bought a new suit. I threw one away when Matt and Andrea and I went to China. I threw the other one away when I went to China with IBM China. And I've just been wearing a sports coat and slacks for the last year and a half. Andrea had scouted out all of the sales, and so it wasn't really a very painful experience. Andrea spent the day at the Katy Stake Preparedness Fair. If any of you have questions about your 72 hour kits or food storage be sure to ask her. I also got my Saturn serviced, and had to pay $170 to get an O2 sensor replaced. I told him this was the third time, and he checked the nation wide maintenance database and said it had never been replaced. Opps! Guess that was on two other Saturns. Oh well!
I hope your weeks were good, and that you did not find yourself in a downer mood like I was when we went to see our first game by the Houston Aeros."