"This week was dominated by Andrea's 50th birthday party. It was the first of three weeks of training for 4 Chinese from Xing Jiang Oilfield in China. I was responsible for coordinating the training. I will write more about it later (0505.html). The other thing to note is that I had called Sara Ellen several times the previous week, and I called Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, calling at several different times on most of the days. I was pretty worried about what was up by the end of the week. It was Carly Staheli's birthday on Wednesday, and Andrea sent a very nice set of coloring books. I miss my conversations with Todd!
I do not have many notes in my journal. It was about this time that I sent an extensive note to the director of the Earth Observation Project about how the Infinite Grid(SM) could help them. When I called his secretary, she told me my note was received and that he would be back to me. He has not called yet. I also received a request from Pali Walia concerning some exploration blocks he is considering bidding on in Nigeria. I put a day into building a rational reasoning as to how to rank these different blocks. This was also based on the Infinite Grid(SM), and I think Dave Johnson was impressed with what I came up with.
Thursday Sam LeRoy, who now has a six month contract as the manager of the GDC Tiles(TM) project, and I went out to Anadarko to meet with Sam Mentemier about the joint paper for the Spotfire User's Meeting on February 22nd (0509.html). It was a very interesting meeting, and it turns out that the two Sam's worked together years ago at Texaco Los Angeles. I was very glad I took Sam with me.
I told each of Roice, Melanie, Rob, and Rachel when I called them on Sunday evening, the 16h of January, that I planned to have a surprise birthday party for Andrea. However, I really did not have my plan put together very good. On about Wednesday I took off at lunch and went down to Bellaire and Chimney Rock and bought a large pink flamingo plant pot holder which Andrea and I had seen on our way to the hospital to see Ken Turner the previous Saturday (0503.html). It fit in the Saturn when I put one of the back seats down. I also got a Japanese bonsai tree, which is actually a better gift for Andrea. Although, I knew the flamingo would go over well. I was thinking about hiding it at Rita Hathorn's house, but then I decided I could hide it in the garage under the blanket Melanie gave me and Andrea would not notice it. It was a good thing I did, because I later found out that Sam and Rita were in Washington D.C. at Bush's second Inauguration.
Wednesday evening we had Wang Xuejun, Vice-President of International Processing for GRI (the Geophysical Research Institute of BGP (The Bureau of Geophysical Prospecting)) come over for dinner. It was a very interesting dinner, and there are some very interesting things happening in China. However, it is not appropriate to write about them until they are completed. Mr. Wang brought some beautiful roses for Andrea. She fixed a wonderful salmon dinner. It was a very nice evening, and we had very good discussions after the dinner. I'm more optimistic than ever about the Chinese connections.
On Thursday morning I sent a note out to those on Beckie Morales' mass e-mail list. It turns out that only half of the folks were on this list, because she had split it. Alice Beckstrom replied that she would attend, and Andrea read her reply. At least she did not include the message I had sent, and Andrea forgot to ask me what this was about. I also sent similar messages to two of the volunteer mail lists Andrea is on. However, none of these people showed up. On Friday there was a confirmation from Joyce Burnham that she would attend, and she did include my note with it. But Andrea did not see the message before I moved it to a file.
Friday evening Carlos Venegas rode home with me, so we could get in the HOV lane. We went to the Enterprise office on I-10 between Barker Cypress and Highway 6 and I left Ben's blue Saturn and picked up a 15 passenger white van. Part of the Chinese training included providing activities for two Saturdays, and I could not find anyone willing to do this, and so I was left holding the bag. Oh well! Then we went to Garden Ridge and I bought a bunch of turning 50 birthday party favors and 20 black helium balloons. It took a long time to fill up the helium balloons. Andrea called while they were doing this, and no announcements came on the intercom during her call. I finally dropped off Carlos at his car and got to the house about 7:00 PM. Matt pulled all of the balloons into the garage for me, while Andrea and I watched Enterprise. One of the balloons popped, and Andrea did not seem to notice. I didn't say anything, just ignored Matt. Matt had started tearing down the fence in the back yard, had shown me his work when I first got home, and this was when I asked him to take care of the stuff in the van. During an advertisement I slipped over to the Losier's and invited them to Andrea's 50th Birthday Party. I had stopped at Arthur and Alice Henderson's and invited them on the way to work Friday morning. President Pickerd called to confirm the party. Andrea wanted to know what he wanted. After JAG I told Andrea I needed to go to the store to get some cash for the trip to Galveston. I also got orange juice, sausages, eggs, butter, jam, jelly, and syrup for German pancakes, as well as some muffins and a dozen roses. I gave Andrea the roses when I got home and left the other stuff in the trunk. Then I went to bed.
About 11:00 I heard Andrea and Matt arguing about whether he was going to bed or not. She told him to turn off the computer and go to bed. He told her to go talk to Roice, that he was suppose to stay up. I chuckled to myself. When Andrea came to bed she was quite angry at Matt, and wanted to go get after him. I told her I would go talk to him. She said, `We should go together, and be a united front.' I told her to go to bed and I would go talk to him. So I go out, and there is Matt in the front entrance, with all of the lights off, holding a flashlight in his hand and with another one in his mouth, stealthily placing the giant pink flamingo. We talked about what he needed to do. Then I went back in to bed. Andrea said, `What did he say?' I told her he was going to bed. She asked what I said to him. I told her I told him he could not go to Galveston with me if he didn't go to bed. She said, `Why do we always have to threaten him to get him to do anything?' I told her to go to sleep, and could hardly keep from laughing about what was going on in the other room.
Matt did a great job. There were 20 black balloons scattered around the living room. There was a pink flamingo by the entrance to the front entry. There were `So Your 50' banners on the stairs. There was a large banner stating Andrea is over the hill between the mail box and the oak tree. There was an `Over the Hill' table cloth with black `50 year old suckers,' `Over the Hill' napkins and paper plates, and miscellaneous other things I'm forgetting. Matt did forget to get the orange juice and sausages and such out of the trunk. However it was a cold night, and everything was fine.
I got up at 5:30, shaved and had a shower, slipped out
and changed a couple of things around, cooked 4 pans of
German Pancakes, started the sausages, and read the paper.
I got Matt up so he could welcome people in when they
arrived. There were about 20 people here by 7:00. I went
in and woke up Andrea and suggested she might want to get
dressed before she came out. The friends were all in the
living room when Andrea came out. I think she was
surprised. I know she had a good time. It was amazing
to me how many people came with one phone call to Sister
Schultz, 3 e-mails, and visits to 2 neighbors. It was
a good party, as shown by Andrea's smile on the
photo to the right. In fact, Andrea said it was the best birthday
party she has had in her whole life (Grandma Shirts, I'm
sure this is an exaggeration). At least it certainly
is a nice exaggeration. Jennifer Lozier asked a lot of
questions about Sara Ellen, and expressed concerned about
about how she is doing in Benin. Even though I had not
been able to get through to Sara, I assured her everything
was going to be OK. After I told her about Sara's desire
to be a cook, she talked to me about Cordon Blue cooking
school in Austin. It turns out Jennifer's birthday is on
Monday.
I don't remember all of the presents. Most were funny. There were some flowers. Sister Beckstrom brought a Yoda doll, which was really funny. My card for Andrea read:
Inside, it read:
Sister Burnham was doing the dishes and cleaning up for
Andrea as Matt, Carlos, his fiancee, and I left for
Galveston. I will write about the trip to Galveston in
two weeks (0506.html). Andrea had a big smile. All in
all I think we did OK for Andrea's 50th Birthday party."