cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts
"Yesterday Andrea and I drove over to San Marcos and were taken out to lunch by Roice and Sarah Nemeck. It was the first time for either of us to see Roice's condominium, and the orange and blue painting. Neat! It was a nice drive, and it gave Andrea time to talk about several things which she has been thinking about, mostly related to teaching seminary next year.
On the way back I read three articles Paul had sent me, and
outlined how it relates to possible graduate studies projects
in my mind (see image to the right for my outline). The articles
are probably not of much interest to any of you. For
reference, the three articles are:
When we got back to the house, I decided to draw a picture, using HyperEdge, of the outline I had generated on the way back from San Marcos. As I finished this drawing up this afternoon, I was thinking about what I would write about today, and decided that even though none of you are interested in the virtual reality intersection of "computational fluid dynamics" and "finite element analysis," you should each be interested in the process I used to respond to Paul, and the fact that most of the examples I responded with:
So I decided I would base today's Thoughtlet on my vision (or idea) of where the Thoughtlets will end up. My concept has evolved some since the 38th week of 1996 (../9638.html), when the first Thoughtlet was written. However, the end-of-the-road plan in my mind has probably not "evolved" as much as one might think. Back in 1991, when Bill Bavinger, Ray Gardner, Mic Patterson, Rick Duran, Alf Klaviness, Chris Schmidt, myself, and others worked to define the Walden 3-D Design Process (see http://www.walden3d.com/w3d/papers/design_process92, and specifically ../sld012.htm), the basic outline was already in place for responding this week to Paul's request for my thoughts on his Master's Program research project and thesis. And over the time I was writing Lovelet's to Marti (every day from 29Feb1995 to 12Jun1997, for a total of 836 Lovelets), I developed a picture in my mind of how I would be able to apply Bavinger's clustering approach to automatically derive process models, entity-relationship models, simulations, and work flow optimizations from all of the words which were being written in these daily letters. In fact, my vision of where the Thoughtlets will end up probably goes back farther than this, to "The Engines of Our Ingenuity" or even possibly to the editorial page on The Church News, and an interest in developing ways to automatically retrieve information in context that could help with a current concern, i.e. a way to put information in context so it can be used so I do not have to relearn a lesson.
I do not have a search engine on the Thoughtlets, yet, and I have never tried to cluster the words, phrases, concepts, and context. However, I have in my mind that this can become a very good resource when Ethan needs to write a report about Ronald Reagan (0423.html), or Grant wants to see what Grandpa thought about basketball (9704.html), or Colby wants an example of what not to do when building a rocket (../9908.html), or Taylor wants to read about her blessing (0412.html), or Sara needs material for business development in Benin, or Rachel or Matt need background material for a paper at school or ... . The bottom line is that I see how this can become Family Resource Base.
This week I got an advertisement for purchase of my domain name (walden3d.com) for the next 100 years. Interesting, and fairly cheap. Expect I will do this sometime in the next few years. And as I move the text files that were typed on books I've read on-line, and lists of books-on-tape, and the library listing Andrea has worked up the past few months, and then when we get the newspaper clippings I've saved scanned, and all of this data gets organized and given context with a process index (Knowledge BacboneSM), a spatial index (Infinite GridSM), a temporal index (TimedexSM), and a data type index (Abbott's Atlas Classification Scheme), and when these indices are made transparent so one can search for relevant information and get access to it, I hope this Family Resource Base will become more extensive and relevant than encyclopedia's and other on-line reference materials.
My personal history has shown that I tend to be 8 to 16 years ahead of general implementation of these kinds of ideas. And since I hope to still be around in 2012 (age 62) or in 2020 (age 70), I figure there is plenty of time to put together a useable and relevant Family Resource Base. I even imagine Paul writing about his summer experience at GM in 2003, or Sara sending pictures of what she is doing in Benin, or Audrey figuring out a way to help us all understand those things about travel that only a flight attendant can know first hand.
As far as this week went, it was pretty frustrating. The 30,000 foot view from GDC is that Dave, Mike, and Lee were in Paris for the EAGE, Richard was on vacation, and there was problem after problem getting the jRouge rock properties database formatted and transformed so that I could build sand thickness maps for the Gulf of Mexico. Ken Butler and I put together a table of contents for the first Rock Property AVO Tile study we have been working on for the last few months. I think it will be a very useful tool for explorationists. Hopefully the last problem was solved on Friday, and that by Monday afternoon I will be going full forward on creating the maps for the reports.
Last Sunday I wrote the following possible stanza for Prime Words based on comments by Sister Liu in Fast & Testimony Meeting (cheeky was a quote from Lynnette Stevens describing Sister Liu's daughter, and weekly self-discovery refers to taking the sacrament and recalling baptismal covenants:
On Monday the new sales manager, Sonny, introduced me to
a new salesperson who is going to focus on selling the
interpretation products. Her name is Pamela West, and she
looks somewhat like Marilyn Monroe. The good news is that
she has been selling in this part of the oil industry for
the last 6 years, understands the technical language, and
has a track record of successfully selling interpretation
products like I am charged with helping develop for GDC.
I met with Lac Nguyen on Tuesday and on Friday. He is going to build a prototype visualization distribution for the Tile Studies. It will be like a Virtual Reality Game, in true 3-D when displayed in a Visualization Environment, and as easy to use as any of the new 3-D VR games. I was wiped out when I got home, and ended up watching `Arsenic and Old Lace' with Andrea and Rachel. It is a well done movie, and it was not nearly as funny to me as the first time I saw it. Maybe the idea of basing a comedy on murder is just not as funny to me as it used to be.
Wednesday we got a nice note from Aunt Sara, which was sent to everyone on this list. I'm going to include it here again because this includes the information in the Family Resource Base I am building:
`Dear Family and Friends,
We're in Ireland now with Des' family. We've had beautiful weather which is not usually the case. I've hardly had to use my coat or an umbrella. We enjoyed the three weeks in France and it was fascinating to be in Normandy the week before the 60th anniversary of D-Day. There were vintage tanks, jeeps and cars gathering, lots of soldiers of different countries. Every village was festooned with banners and flowers. We were at the American cemetery and there was a school choir from Arizona singing patriotic songs and spirituals. The Memorial museum at Caens is pretty sobering, but we'd definitely recommend it. There are still portions of Port Winston on the beach, but Omaha Beach is totally cleaned up. There were lots of American soldiers jogging and hanging out waiting for the big festivities. Since they are close to Brian's age it was particularly poignant for us.
Brittany is great. Again, if you get a chance go. Mont St. Michael was packed so we didn't do the full tour. The megalithic site at Carnac is Stonehenge with hundreds of stones in alignments. We also got into a mounded passage grave which was very impressive. I made the mistake of ordering salmon crepes and the salmon was raw. | didn't see "crudity" on the menu, but then a lot of ordering in French was guess work for us. The chocolate crepes were much better.
We got into the last open cave with the two colored paintings of bison that is open to the public in the Dordogne region. It was fabulous. We also went to the recreation of the Lauscaux Cave. The best part was when the guide used a fire lighter to illuminate the drawings and it really looked like the animals were alive.
The Roman ruins near the Provence region were fabulous. We saw a huge aqueduct "Pont de Gard" and the Roman theatre in Orange which is amazingly well preserved. It was a holiday while we were there so we got paella, street fair, dancing with regional costumes, and their idea of a rodeo where the young men dodged a cow with padded horns in an arena. That was a particularly fun day.
We've been to Kerry near the ocean with Des' mother and brother's family. We're off to his sister Helen in County Tipperary on Friday. We hope all is well with you.
I'll let Bridget and Brian tell you their own news.
Lots of Love,
Sara'
I like salmon sushi. Bridget and Brian, what is your news? There was also an e-mail from Hayden Hudson, which I liked:
`BUZZARD
If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8 feet and is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of 10 to 12 feet. Without space to run, as is its habit, it will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top.
BAT
The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkably nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.
BUMBLEBEE
A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.
PEOPLE
In many ways, there are lots of people like the buzzard, the bat, and the bumblebee. They are struggling about with all their problems and frustrations, not ever realizing that all they have to do is look up!'
I feel so sorry for children who are not taught to look up, i.e. to pray. Of course, I also feel so sorry for children who have been taught to pray, and for whatever reason choose not to pray. Along this line, it was really interesting to me to follow all of the coverage of the death, memorial services, and burial of Ronald Reagan, especially since this was what I wrote about last week (0423.html). I never realized how serious the shot to his lung was. I was impressed by how he strived to live the rest of his life as if it were a gift given to him for the purpose of doing good. From the humility shown by getting on his knees at the hospital to clean up spilled water so his nurse would not get in trouble, to his call to Gorbochev to tear down the Berlin Wall. The network's played George Bush, Sr.'s comments at the National Cathedral about how much he learned from Reagan too many times, and it was interesting.
Wednesday, as I turned off of Chimney Rock onto Woodway on my way to work, the Country Western radio station I was listening to played a Garth Brooks (a) song called `The Dance,' and by the time I was at the office I had written the following possible stanza on my swallow sheet:
Thursday I thought I had an employment meeting at the Stake
Center. However, it turned out I was off two weeks. It
is scheduled for the same night that our High Priest Quorum
is going to be going to the Temple to do sealings for our
ancestors. Melanie is planning to come over and help me
do my Mom's temple work that evening (0426.html). Andrea
has been getting the front entrance redone, and most of
the week she had a stone mason from Italy there, who was
grinding the purple out of the marble and polishing the
front entrance. It looks wonderful, and I like having the
rock entrance, even though I realize some feel there is too
much cement and rock and unbending around here.
Friday Dave and Mike were back from Europe and in the office. I called Jialin Yan first thing in the morning, and then gave them a detailed report. Things in China are starting to move very slow. I expect I will be going back in July, or possibly August. Christian Singfield called and asked if I would speak at a private conference he is setting up for the Chief Geophysicist, Chief Geologist, and Chief Driller at Pertamina, the Indonesian National Oil Company. There is a reasonable chance my next trip to the orient will be to Indonesia and to Beijing.
Friday evening I changed into my Boy Scout uniform in the car at the parking garage at 1 Riverway, where GDC's office is. Then I drove to the Katy 1st Chapel, and participated in a special event for 11 year old Boy Scouts. They were just going to the flag ceremony when I arrived. Then there was a nice fried chicken, beans, and toast dinner, with cookies and chips. Following the dinner, I was the merit badge counselor signing off the following boys on architecture:
It seemed funny for a geophysicist to be passing off the architecture merit badge. The regular counselor had a conflict come up, and I was listed by the Boy Scouts as a counselor. So I did it. I took the computer and set up Lac's Virtual Reality Tour of Moody Gardens. The boys really liked that. I talked to each one of them, and filled out and signed their merit badge cards. For many of these boys this was their first merit badge. I ended up explaining what a merit badge was, what a court of honor was, and how these badges related to becoming an Eagle Scout. Hopefully I helped get them started off right on the path to Eagle. This was the same room where we had Roice's Eagle Court of Honor and Melanie's wedding reception. I had mixed feelings about being there.
Saturday morning I went for a run, and watched part of a couple of western movies. One had Elvis Preasley in it. Then Andrea and I drove over to San Marcos to see Roice and Sarah. I did not realize it takes 2 1/2 hours to drive there. Guess this is why we have never gone over before. When we got there Roice and I played with computers and Andrea took a nap. Roice helped me set the stereo displays on the stereo viewer. After Sarah got off work, they took us out to lunch at Palmer's. It seems like I ate there once when we had the scouts at El Rancho Cima. It was a really, really good lunch.
The thing that I love about Roice's condominium is the patio and the way it sits next to this giant old oak tree. Last Sunday morning, when I was having a shower, I had an idea flash. I put three different things together in my mind ([1] neither the county nor the Army Corps of Engineer's has the money to extend Kingsland Boulevard to Memorial; [2] a commercial entity could probably obtain rights to build environmentally friendly stilt housing in the park, along the road, if they paid to build this road; and [3] all of the work we did on designing a housing complex for Maudeen's Ranch could be leveraged to put together a proposal to Steve Raddick, Precinct 3 County Commissioner, and to the Corps).
As I've been driving, during slow times at work, in the evening, and other spare minutes throughout the week, I have been thinking about this idea. Mic Patterson has talked to me several times about building housing like tree's. As I looked outside of Roice's place at the big oak tree, I could see in my mind where hundreds of houses were hidden in the trees of Barker Reservoir, floating above the flood control level on stilts, and connected with floating walkways and bike trails. I imagined a community where everyone owns access to a car, each of which is parked in a car rental parking lot on the Katy Freeway, and is available for people to check-out whenever they need a car. I imagined a place where there were sufficient stores and shops that most people just stayed on site and got around on foot, exercising as part of living.
Of course, besides the flooding and non-ownership of the dirt upon which the housing in my mind would be built, there was the issue of the shooting range. However, I looked up the speed, distance, angle of entry for bullets fired from the shooting range, and the area of interest is out of range. There is the noise from the shooting range, and I expect this can be handled with electronic white noise designed to "erase" the sound of the guns being shot. So the bottom line of this thinking is that I have got something growing in my mind which I find very exciting, and I will be thinking about this a lot over the coming months and years.
Andrea and I went over to the Greg and Robin Branning's when we got back from San Marcos. Doug and April Talley were visiting, along with their daughter Shannon and her new husband. Nice discussions with several long time friends in the ward. Then Matt, Rachel, Andrea, and I went to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Great special effects. Good story line. Just sad to see so many folks caught up in wizards, and werewolves, and things which are closer to satanic than to Christ. Oh well!
This morning was Stake Priesthood Meeting. Matt went with me, and he did not want to sing. Our ward sat in the choir seats because we provided a special musical number. President Gillespe, whose son was one of the scouts I met with Friday night, talked about prophecies about our times, and specifically I Nephi 22:23-24:
`For the time speedily shall come that all churches which are built up to get gain, and all those who are built up to get power over the flesh, and those who are built up to become popular in the eyes of the world, and those who seek the lusts of the flesh and the things of the world, and to do all manner of iniquity; yea, in fine, all those who belong to the kingdom of the devil are they who need to fear, and tremble, and quake; they are those who must be brought low in the dust; they are those who must be consumed as stubble; and this is according to the words of the prophet. And the time cometh speedily that the righteous must be lad up as calves of the stall, and the Holy One of Israel must reign in dominion, and might, and power, and great glory.'
As he talked about protecting and raising our children as calves of the stall, my mind went back to the farm. He talked about a friend with a wild daughter, who was asked to the prom by a boy who just moved into their ward, and how when she asked what color of dress she should get - so it would match the flowers he was going to get - he responded `I don't care, as long as it is modest,' her whole outlook on what was important changed, and she has stopped wearing the spaghetti straps and other immodest clothes she formerly wore. He talked about a study by BYU professors which showed that 50-60% of youth are sexually active before graduating from High School, and 10% of of youth in the church are sexually active before graduating from High School. The percentages for girls is higher than for boys, and the key factor is the quality of the friends the kids run around with. These statistics hold in Europe, South America, Texas, and Utah. And he pointed out how we need to protect our daughters (and our sons) as calves in the stall.
President Pickerd talked about plagues. He explained what a plague is. He gave statistics on the number of deaths from the middle age plagues, from influenza 80+ years ago, and described AIDS as a modern example of a plague. Then he described four plagues he is very worried about:
Bishop Camp and Brother Mason were out of town, and Brother Harlan conducted Sacrament Meeting. President Steed was the Stake Speaker. He pointed out there are four essentials for finding truth:
I wrote another possible stanza for Prime Words based on President Steed's talk (a):
As I finish writing these thoughts, I can't help but wonder
if there will be a time - sometime in the next few hundred
years - when a descendent will search these words, will be
touched by The Holy Ghost, will choose to improve their life,
and will express thanks to God for this Family Resource Base.
Maybe it will be your child, grandchild, or great-grandchild,
and maybe you want to start thinking about how you can more
directly contribute to The Nelson Family Resource Base."