cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts
"Interesting week. I quite enjoyed every day at work, and I didn't even mind the commute that much. I've kind of got into listening to The Book of Mormon on tape, and during the process of listening have defined some things I want to do in my own Book of Mormon research. The more I study this book, the more impressed I am with the depth of the message, and the more convinced I am that this, like The Holy Bible, is the word of God, and is relevant to our lives today.
There were several nice notes, photographs, e-mails, and phone conversations this week from you kids (where several is greater than 2 and less than 10). One included the phrase:
On reading this phrase my paranoia immediately jumped to
For instance, in the light of those actions which are
represented by the confessions I have made in these Thoughtlet's
the last two weeks? (0432.html paragraph and towards the bottom
where I started with `Also, Sarah's Mom had fallen ...'; as well
as 0433.html paragraph 2) Or is it that I was such a horrible
father figure as you kids were growing up or, for some step-kids,
when you lived here during the summers, that this light is very
different from the light you see now?
So I decided to write a few words about my thoughts about the light in which we are viewed by others. For what it is worth, you will have to search for a long time to find anyone else who has the self-confidence and has been more willing to lay it all out there for review by you and actually by the whole world. I can not tell you how much I wish I could view some, in fact any, of my ancestors in this light! I firmly believe it would help me to better understand myself. So I hope you can see that I am attempting to provide you what I wish I had been provided. Grandma Hafen probably did better than anyone else, and this was largely at my prompting and encouragement. Bengt Nelson's biography is wonderful, and 20 pages goes nowhere in terms of understanding him, compared to the hundreds or maybe it is thousands of pages you kids have to review about my life, if you choose to do so.
Yes, I have consciously written about my warts. Maybe I have done this in the wrong way, airing dirty laundry, and bringing up things that are best forgotten. If so, I apologize. This has not been my intention. Recognizing that I am sometimes have a rebellious spirit, maybe in my subconscious I am striving to out flank the promise of the rebellious in D&C 1:3
and in effect have just fulfilled the promise by talking
making it so my iniquities and weaknesses are available
`upon the housetops' through the Internet and satellite
communications. My intention is to make sure that there are
not secret things talked about when you kids are together,
things that do not have a basis in fact. Hopefully you will
note that I talk about walking to Brookshire (<../1998/9835.html">../9835.html,
0013.html, 0104.html, or 0237.html), and yet I have been
careful to not provide details of the circumstances which
prompted the walk, nor to blame anyone else, nor to cast
aspersions on others for my in ability to emotionally handle
certain circumstances. In this particular case, it has been
fascinating that no one has ever asked me why I was walking
to Brookshire along the railroad track at 3:00 AM. And as
I get older, I realize it doesn't matter why. It was simply
a statement that I am human, I have weaknesses, and I could
not emotionally handle what was dished up for me once upon
a time. My reaction to the same circumstances today would be
much different, and hopefully much more Christ-like, both to
myself and to others. Whatever the case, I am certain that
time will tell whether it has been appropriate to write
these things, or whether I would have been better to have not
written these words.
I feel sorry for those who use my warts, or the warts of others who have been brave enough to be open and honest, as a basis for their choice to sneak, to lie, to cheat, to steal, to dress immodestly, to be selfish, to be prideful, to break the word of wisdom, to be immoral, or otherwise break the commandments of God, which commandments I do know each of you have been taught.
As a scientist, I struggle with the heredity/environment question. As a member of the church, I have the additional knowledge that we each lived before we were born, and that we each come to earth carrying traits with us from our pre-existence. And I firmly believe we each can, and each have the right to, make our own choices. So instead of the heredity/environment question, it is a four-dimensional matrix consisting of heredity, environment, pre-existence, and free agency. This is where I stumble. I, due to an inflated ego, tend to emphasize the environment issues. And I tend to only count the environment I provided. Not the gross sitcoms, and lowbrow cultural things that are drilled into your heads through magazines, through television, and through the movies.
My emphasis on the family environment comes down to the church's teachings on the family, and to having grown up on a farm in a fairly isolated family environment, compared to what any of you experienced. In effect it comes down to the fact Mom and Dad did not provide a positive emotional environment, and as hard as I strived, I didn't do much better. In both cases, I now see the impact of the family environments my parents each came from better, and I better realize how unjust it is to judge either of them because of the emotional environment they provided Aunt Sara and me. In this light, there is no basis for any of us to be upset, nor to be angry at others because of their choices.
However, we all do. We get scared. What will others think of me if they see my child, or my parent, doing such and so? So we each make our own mistakes, each in our own unique way. And we each get to reap the consequences of our mistakes, as well as our choices. And it isn't easy. And it doesn't get any easier as we get older. Life is a test. And the sooner we really recognize this fact, inside our heart as well as our mind, the better we will each do on the test. And we are tested every day. We are tested with each of the little things we choose to do. And each test tells where we are, in the same way a piece of a hologram has all of the information for the entire hologram, it is just not in as good of focus as if you have the entire negative.
Stephen R. Covey's book `The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' had a positive impact on my life when I read it in the early 1990's. I quote from page 316:
And in my mind, before we can transition, we need to
acknowledge our weaknesses, acknowledge we are not perfect,
and then maybe, over time, we will make the transition.
And just maybe, over time, others will recognize we have made
a transition, especially if they realize where we came from
and can see and experience where we are now.
Monday on the way to and from work I listened to an Audio-Tech Book Summary. It included a summary of the work of a Mr. Taylor at Conoco-Phillips who is responsible for building a new carbon-fiber business. His first application was to build a bridge. He now has 200 people working on the project. This really interests me relative to the project I have been thinking about for Barker Reservoir. It turned out that on Friday evening, at Rachel Lunt Maxwell's wedding reception, I learned from a Conoco-Phillips executive that this carbon-fiber business is a very small business and probably does not have a future at Conoco-Phillips.
As far as work went this week, each day seemed to fly by. I was busy all of the time I was at work, and the results turned out to be pretty nice. I'm pleased with how things are coming together on the GDC TilesTM, and expect this will become a very good business for GDC.
Tuesday I finally brought Sara's web pages home on a CD and started to reworked them. The CD writer messed up all of the files, renaming them with MicroSoft naming conventions, and it ended up requiring several hours to fix up the presentation I put together last week. I did, and it is on-line now at http://www.walden3d.com/benin/presentation01. After work, Rachel, Andrea and I went to see Princess Diaries II. I look forward to renting this and watching it with Ella Dawn and Taylor Robbyn in a few 15 years. It will be our own special Grandpa/Grand-daughter date.
Wednesday afternoon Mike got back from New Orleans. They did not make any sales of GDC TilesTM at the lease sale. Oh well! Mike's comment was that no one is going to purchase until the precommit discount is past, which is the end of September. Oh well!
I spent most of Thursday creating a Sand Distribution Volume for Tile-01. It will be interesting to see how this displays using the OpenTeck software I've been playing with this week.
Friday I left work early to come home and close on refinancing our house again. We now have a 5.95% annual rate, which is actually about 6.08% for the first year with all of the closing costs. However, the interest rate is fixed, and the monthly payments will drop by about $1,300. per month. Both of these are good things. After the closing I went to Randall's and bought a pizza for $5 and 6 roses for $7. Normally on Friday I buy a dozen roses for $10. Merchants are always trying to get more money for less. Well I paid less than my normal $10, but I got half as many roses for Andrea. Oh well! Andrea and I spent the evening at Rachel Lunt Maxwell's reception. I loaned Floyd my digital camera, and he thoroughly enjoyed the toy. It is interesting how toys can make a guy feel sometimes.
Saturday up early Matt to school for a football scrimmage in Humble. Andrea drove up to support him. I stayed home and watched a movie about a kid's hockey team called The Ducks, and a couple of westerns while I worked on my Book of Mormon pattern project. In the afternoon I cleaned out my office some, took photos of models for my meetings with Ray Gardner the week before Labor Day, and took all of the models apart. Then in the evening I watched a couple of John Wayne movies I'd never seen before. The Green Beret's and The Jet Pilots. The movies allowed me to work on Book of Mormon patterns and data mining work I'm so interested in as I continue to search for the fingerprint of God.
Saturday we also received the following e-mail from Andrea's brother Robert in Coeur d' Alene, Idaho (../0429.html):
For those that don't know, Janneke just left BYU to go home
to prepare for receiving her mission call. Oh well!
Today church was especially nice and touching. I wrote the following possible stanzas for Prime Words:
In Gospel Essentials Bill McPherson talked about when he was
a child, and how when he would do something wrong he would
avoid being around his family. Isn't that the way we all are?
In High Priest Quorum Chris Schmidt gave the lesson and pointed out how an old sore is never healed when it is continually rubbed. I could not help but think about how Andrea requested I not include the passage about breaking the china on my 20th wedding anniversary in last week's Thoughtlet (0433.html). I'm sure her thinking was along the lines of not airing dirty laundry. I expect the stories have been told behind my back (maybe this is my paranoia), and in this light my approach remains to be open, as I described above.
This afternoon we had dutch oven potatoes and carrots, steak, corn-on-the-cob, and salmon cooked on the grill outside, tossed and fruit salad, dutch oven cobbler, and drinks. Karen Kessler, her mom Dorit Jackson, David, Yarden, Amir, Rob, Joe Amason, Rachel, Matt, Andrea, and I had a great afternoon. Rob sang the one chord song, Anti-Social, and then he sang Blackbird. He really has a nice voice, and it was nice to have him over to the house. He is a lot of fun. Then after everyone left I went Home Teaching to the Schmidt's and the Riches. Michelle's younger brother, who dated Heather the summer she was here, was married in the Houston Temple yesterday, and her sister, brother-in-law, two children, parents, and Chris' Mom were all there. It was an interesting Home Teaching visit. The Riches finally have a contract on their house, Steve was home for the weekend, and Sarina and the kids start the long drive to Virginia on Tuesday. I apologize I did not get to the phone calls before it was too late. And for the next two Sundays I'll be in Utah for Ella Dawn's blessing, Aunt Shirley's 50th wedding anniversary, and the Hafen reunion. Life is always changing, and, in this light, I hope it is always improving for each of us."