12 Jun 2005 #0524.html

Magnet for the Bizarre

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Dear Family and Friends,

Welcome to this week's "Thoughtlet."

These words are my personal diary and a weekly review of ideas, beliefs, thoughts, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you: my children, my family, and my friends.

"Wednesday evening I had a conversation with Paul. He said to me `Dad, you are a magnet for the bizarre!' It has been a month since that conversation, and I have often thought about the comment since then. First to come to mind is the divorce, then my mind wanders to Jane Morless dying of mad cow disease (../9937.html), Todd and Michelle Staheli's murder (../0349.html, ../0350.html, and ../0351.html), the murder in front of our house (0521.html, 0522.html, and 0523.html), and even more recent stuff, which I will reiterate in this e-mail. Then my mind jumps back to my youth and childhood. In an attempt to keep this week's events on a lighter note, I will recall a recent conversation with my friend Les Denham when I told him about being a magnet for the bizarre.

Les came into work with a great big scab on his forehead. He wears a beard, and has lost all of the hair on his forehead, so a quarter inch diameter scab is fairly prominent. I asked if he had an accident on his sailing boat. He said no, and started to laugh. Told me that he must have turned over too quick in bed, and the cat that was sleeping on his pillow with him decided to flee the scene. The problem was getting traction, and so the claws came out and provided the traction as the cat lifted off of his head.

I laughed, and told him I'm not the only magnet for the bizarre. Then mentioned that because of my allergies, this is one thing I'm pretty certain will never happen to me. And besides that I don't like cats much. Les said, `Why?' I explained a side of my youth I hadn't thought about nor remembered for years. One of the issues with the Byproducts Plant, the northern extension of Nelson Meat Packing Plant, was that the raw meat attracted cats and skunks. Lots of folks in Cedar would bring their unwanted cats out to the valley, and turn them loose. And we ended up with all of these cats and skunks in the grainery and Byproducts Plant. There was good reason to be concerned about diseases, especially rabies. So as soon as I was old enough to shoot a 22-rifle, one of my jobs was to keep the cat and skunk (and squirrel - who messed up the haystacks and the side of the silage pit, and prairie dog - who messed up the furrows and created big problems for irrigating the crops, and jack rabbit - who became diseased when there were a lot of them around) populations to the minimum possible. I became a pretty good shot, largely because of all of these animals which I killed, as instructed to.

Let me digress on my story, and describe cat hunting at the Byproducts Plant in more detail. First the facilities. The original building is on the east side. It is a grainery. There is a cement chute, where grain from the fields is dumped. This grain falls into the basement, where it is raised by a worm spiral elevator to the addict and dumped in one of two three-story 20 foot square grain bins made of hard wood. On the main floor, which was about 6 feet above the road, there was a steam roller. Steam from the Byproducts plant was run into here, and grain was dropped between two large steel rollers which had steam going between them, to crush the wheat. The results were the rolled oats we fed the cattle each evening. The grain got into the bin above the rollers by opening a slot in the basement, and a worm elevator would carry it up and drop it in this large bin. Once the oats were rolled, they would be taken by a worm elevator up to another large bin where they were stored. We would fill up 80 pound bags of rolled oats to feed the cattle each night from this bin. I also liked to eat the rolled oats. I used to climb all around these bins and pretend I was Tarzan. One of the reasons I climbed around them was to find cats, who also climbed around them, and would hide in the various bins.

The center building was a storage area on the main floor. On the front was a coal chute, where the coal to create the steam for creating rolled oats and for cooking the offal was dumped into a coal bin in the basement of this part of the building. When I was about 14 there was a fire, the Cedar City Fire Brigade was called, and Steve Lovell's wife had a terrible time waking me up to go out and show the Fire Trucks how to get down to the fire. I was always tired after spending a day working on the farm or in the meat packing plant. Steve got the fire put out before the fire brigade arrived. There were several old harnesses in this storage area, which I now have in Grandma Shirts' garage. The roof was falling down because of the fire. In the basement of this room was the boiler, which I'll describe after I describe the cooker. Cats would often climb from the boiler, up to this room.

The building on the west was where the offal from Nelson Meat Packing Plant were dumped. There was a big dirt ramp leading up to the main floor, and the truck from with the bones, and heads, and trimmings, and intestines, and other components of the Meat Packing Plant offal would back up to the top of this ramp and dump their load. Sometimes it would be full and they would dump it on the side of the ramp. At the front right side of this large room, which was always full of rotting carcasses and offal, was a hole which the offal was thrown down into the pressure cooker. I will talk about the cooker in the basement of this building in a minute. I remember when I was dating Ellen Green, Sharon Green's little sister (Sharon is my cousin Paul Nelson's wife), I drove her down past the Lower Plant to change the irrigation water. I was used to the sight and the smell and the flies and didn't think anything of it. I remember looking over at her and seeing her almost start to throw up. Oh well! She stopped dating me after this. There were usually several cats in this building when one would first drive up.

To the west of this building were some forms for a cement wall that was never built for an additional building. They were six inches wide, and made out of 1"x 6" boards and as you came away from the building they were about 8-12 feet off of the ground. The cats and skunks would often run from the the main room, where the carcasses of all dead animals in Cedar Valley and all of the offal from Nelson Meat Packing Plant were dumped, down into these forms. As I recall the most cats I ever killed in one day was 5, and it was because I caught them in the bottom of these forms and was shooting down on them.

To the west of these forms was the grinder. It was a 4' diameter screen cylinder with spikes welded on it. We would hook the tractor up to it with an 8" wide 20' long pulley which would turn the cylinder around very fast. Then we would take the 20-30 pound 3' diameter 2-6" thick pressed cakes of cooked bones and offal, grind them up, and sack them in 100 pound gunnysacks. These sacks were basically pure protein, and were sold to Barlocker's in Enterprise as feed for turkeys. Dad also had me spread some on top of the grain, which was spread on top of the silage, which was fed to the cattle in the feed lot every night. Feeding cattle brains of other cattle, no matter how much they are cooked, is the primary cause of Mad Cow Disease, which is the reason I have been so interested since this became a problem, first in England and now here in Texas. Randy Shirts actually spent at least one Saturday helping me grind up the pressed cakes. We could usually grind about 10 ton in a day. At 2,000 pounds per ton, and 100 pounds per bag, this is about 200 bags of this stuff. This was real work, and I was always very tired at the end of one of these days.

Going around back, or on the north side of the Lower Plant you could enter the basement of all three buildings. On the west was the cooker. It was a big tank about the size of a cement truck's container. This was the cooker and had big paddles inside it which stirred up the offal as steam was fed into it and cooked it under pressure. Once the bones were cooked they would shatter, and the meat all turned black. A lot of the smell went up the smoke stack. The wind in Cedar Valley usually blows towards the north, so we typically did not have to smell it when the offal was being cooked. However, the folks at Mattheson Dairy and Charlie Garfield were right down wind, and they always had to smell it. Elma Matheson made comments about it several times, and yet we were still pretty good friends growing up. There was a lot of grease and fat in the mixture, that was dumped out at the end of a cooking session, and fed into a big trough. At the end of this trough was a big press. The gloop was shoveled into the press, large steel disks were placed between bunches of the gloop, and once the press was full, hydraulics were used to squeeze all of the lard out of the gloop. Before World War II this lard was more valuable than the meat from Nelson Meat Packing Plant, because it was used as a lubricant for bullets. However, with the war, new lubricants were invented, and the price of lard plummeted. There were always dozens of 100 gallon barrels of lard, or empty barrels waiting to be filled with lard, in back of this part of the Lower Plant.

In the center room was the boiler. It was like a big train steam engine boiler. Dad spent lots of time inside the boiler replacing and welding pipes that had rusted through because of the fire and steam and pressure tied to the boiler. There was a large coal bin, which from which the coal for the fire to create steam in the boiler was shoveled. Dad also spent a lot of time welding the spikes on the grinder, so that the cakes of offal could be ground up. By the time I was old enough to work, the plant had been operating for 20 years, and there was never enough money to do any reasonable maintenance. As a result most of the equipment was jimmy rigged and was continually breaking down. It would get fixed when it broke, and the fixes were often very creative. I expect that watching Dad do this type of `maintenance' was part of where I learned to think different from most people.

In the basement of the grainary, which was where the chutes that fed grain from the large storage bins back up into the small bins which fed the steam roller and which was where we pulled the rolled oats to feed the cattle from, was also used as the storage space for hides. My first job in Nelson Meat Packing Plant was to learn to use the electric skinner and to skin the cattle. It was a really big deal if you used it wrong, and marred the inside of the hide. Those hides with cuts sold for less. The hides were all salted down and were stored in the basement of the east third of the building. I remember the doors had blown off of this building and once my dog started to bark at what I thought was a cat under the door. So I lifted it up to shoot the cat, only to get sprayed by a skunk. This was when I learned to take a bath in tomato juice to sort of get rid of the smell of a skunk. By the way, that skunk never sprayed anyone else.

I have never described this part of my life in such detail to you kids before. And I do not expect you have to think about this description of the Nelson Byproducts Plant very much to realize that I have been a magnet for the bizarre since my youth. And certainly the fact that I killed so many cats in my youth will enhance this perception in the minds of those of you who love cats. I always like to listen to cats purr, and because I have such a strong allergic reaction to them, I tend to not spend much time stroking them and getting them to purr. There were times in my youth when I would catch young kittens I found, cage them, and attempt to tame them. Living on the farm, it was good to have cats running around the outside of the house to keep down the number of mice that made it into the house. I remember one particularly spunky cat that I worked with for quite a while. He did not want to be tamed. Once I took my gloves off and was petting him, and his head got loose and he turned and bit me. My reaction was immediate and swift. I threw him down on the cement in the garage, and it killed him. As I have read the scriptures I have often thought about this, my one true crime of passion, especially in reference to when Alma was lecturing his son Corianton regarding the abomination of sexual sin:

`Know ye not, my son, that these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost?' Alma 39:3-14

Anyway, I digress. As I finished confessing about killing cats at the Byproducts Plant, Les started to laugh. He told me that when he was in High School they had a song they sang which was a parody on `Major General' in the musical `Pirates of Penzanze.' The song, which he sang to me, included the words:

`I served a term as cat destroyer to a sausage firm . . . I killed those cats so skillfully that now I am a general in Germany.'

It was really funny as Les sang the words. My thought as I write them is at least we didn't use any cat meat in our sausage. The fact I have been a magnet for the bizarre my whole life, also comes to mind. Oh well! It certainly seemed more so than usual this particular week. I had one of the hardest conversations of my entire life with someone I love. In the middle of the conversation even the sun went behind a cloud, showing to me how foreboding the spirit in the room was. It is not easy to care. Especially when you have close friends and loved ones that go through tremendous trials, whether of their own free choice or because of things outside of their control. For instance, Friday June 3rd my long time secretary at HyperMedia, Walden 3-D, and Continuum Resources, Rhonda Hartmann, wrote:

`> Roice, > > Did you hear about Mike's death at Cameron?? Thought I should > let you know, if you hadn't been filtered the information. I > would like to come see you sometime when I'm back in Houston. > > Hope all is well with you and your family. > Rhonda'

I responded:

`Rhonda, What terrible news! I had not picked up on this news. When did it happen? How did it happen? Are you OK? What can we do to help? Sam is working with me and he sends his condolences also. You have a standing invitation to come out to the house or to meet to go out to dinner with Andrea and I. Matt just graduated from High School and will be leaving for Utah to get in state residency for college a week from Monday, and so life is not as hectic as it has been. We look forward to getting together and catching up, especially on the positive things that have been happening in your life. Best Regards, Roice cc: Andrea'

Monday Rhonda responded with:

`> It happened 05-05-05 at 8:30 in the morning. He was at work > at his computer in his office when a contracted patent attorney > (whom he had worked with for 7 years) came in and shot him in > the head from behind. The ONLY, and I mean only good news > about all of this, is that he died instantly and probably > felt nothing. Jackie then shot Mike in the back, one shot in > the ceiling and then shot himself in the head. He had a 357 > (which was used for Mike and himself) and he also had a semi > automatic weapon with a briefcase full of ammunition. He > obviously had some other intentions. The police found a > suicide note (if that's what you want to call it) at his > townhouse. It was on top of his clothes he wished to be > buried in, with a set of instructions as to what to do with > his body. According to police, there was not signs of drugs, > gambling, etc., but was heavily in debt to everyone!!! I am > sure, no one will ever know all the answers to this, which > makes it even worse. > > I will send you a copy of his memorial church bulletin, and an > everlasting website is being created for him. Go to web.com, > type in Hartmann in the search field and chose everlasting > memorial in the pulldown menu under the search bar. There is > a lot there to read and see, but do take time to see the movie. > It is about 15 minutes long, but kind of fun to see some old > pictures of us. We would have celebrated our 34th anniversary > on memorial day!!!! That's a long time, so the good news is > that I have lots of wonderful memories. > > I will be back in Houston towards the end of the month and I > would love to see you and Andrea. This visit is already full > of meetings, appt., etc. I am seeing a trauma counselor every > time I'm in Houston, which has been helpful, but nothing wipes > away the pain of it all!!! > > I think you already have my phone . . . I am spending > alternating weeks in Houston and Ingleside. It is my birthday > this weekend, so will be heading south mid week. Don't have > the foggiest idea what I will do that day, as I'm still living > in the "one day at a time" mode. > > Keep in touch, > Rhonda'

I was definitely shook up with the news. I responded:

`Rhonda, I can not think of any worse news to receive. Thoughts and feelings are flooding my mind. 05-05-05 was one of the most special days in our lives. Andrea's daughter Audrey was married for time and eternity in the Salt Lake Temple on this day. We had the reception the next night. Everything went extremely well, and we thought all was good in the world. The scriptures and the prophets teach us that the last days before the second coming of our Savior are going to be times of great stress, with all kinds of tribulation. This graphically came home to us on Saturday night, 05-21-05, when an 18 year old boy was shot in the head at the stop sign next to our neighbor on the north, and as a reaction to save his girlfriend, as the shooters shot at the car to get rid of the witness, he turned his car onto our street, went past our house, and going 65 miles per hour drove his car through the mailbox of our neighbors on the south and into one of their trees. There were three black youth in the shooting car, and the police have the shooter in custody. He will be arraigned today. The boy, Alan Thielmier, died on Monday, 05-23-05, and the girl has already moved to Tennessee with her Mom. The father of the murdered boy is Gary Thielmier and he attended our HyperEdge Expert Network meetings when he was laid off of BP. He ended up working for Unocal, where he is involved in Deep Water exploration. He knows me from those days, although I did not remember him. One of the police at the scene on Saturday night speculated this was a gang initiation, where they are told to "shoot a rich white kid." There is much to talk about this tragedy, which literally happened in front of our house. We are very shook up about it. And now to have news of your tragedy. The signs of the times are explicit to me. And I know, as I know you know, the Lord loves us and will carry us through these troubling times, although not without great pain, which pain will make the joy of being with Him even more special. We must retain hope. We will be in Austin this Thursday and Friday, and possibly in Calgary the 17th-22nd. Just let us know when you want to get together. I will call you this evening when I have Andrea on the phone with me, to see what we can do to help. Best Regards, Roice cc: Andrea'

Andrea and I spent about an hour talking to Rhonda on Monday night. I was really emotionally broke up about the whole series of events. Then Tuesday evening when I got home Jennifer Lozier, our neighbor to the south where the Thielmier car ended up in the tree, came by. She told us that a young black shot and killed a man at 11:00 PM at the Walmart across the freeway off of Fry Road, and she had read it in the paper. It turns out that on Tuesday, 14 June 2005 (0425.html), at the town meeting about the two murders, we learned that the Walmart shooter was Hispanic and his accomplice was white. However, for the rest of this week we had in our minds that we had another Washington D.C. murder spree going on in our neighborhood by a group of blacks. Talk about feeling like a magnet for the bizarre. Later Tuesday night we went to Adam Peterson's wedding reception at Falcon Point Country Club off of Pin Oak Road. Everything seemed normal at the reception, and it is nice to be grounded with the Gospel and with good friends to talk to in times of trial. There are some digital photos of this evening and some of our close friends at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/NottinghamCountryWard/050607_Adam_Peterson_Wedding.

Andrea's Aunt Nadine regularly sends us a package of newspaper clippings and other related things. The following was one of the enclosures received about Wednesday. Note going in that I disagree with #1 (remember about Adam-Ondi-Ahmen as described in the scriptures), and #3 (I think Noah ended up in Turkey and started someplace else).

VERY INTERESTING

  1. The garden of Eden was in Iraq.
  2. Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq, was the cradle of civilization!
  3. Noah built the ark in Iraq.
  4. Abraham was from Ur, which is in Southern Iraq!
  5. Isaac's wife Rebekah is from Nahor, which is in Iraq.
  6. Jacob met Rachel in Iraq.
  7. Jonah preached in Nineveh - which is in Iraq.
  8. Assyria, which is in Iraq, conquered the ten tribes of Israel.
  9. Amos cried out in Iraq!
  10. Babylon, which is in Iraq, destroyed Jerusalem.
  11. Daniel was in hte lion's den in Iraq!
  12. The three Hebrew children were in the fire in Iraq (Jesus had been in Iraq also as the fourth person in the fiery furnace!)
  13. Belshazzar, the King of Babylon saw the "writing on the wall" in Iraq.
  14. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, carried the Jews captive into Iraq.
  15. Ezekiel preached in Iraq.
  16. The wise men were from Iraq.
  17. Peter preached in Iraq.
  18. The "Empire of Man" described in Revelation is called Babylon, which was a city in Iraq!

And you have probably seen this one. Israel is the nation most often mentioned in the Bible. But do you know which nation is second? It is Iraq! However, that is not the name that is used in the Bible. The names used in the Bible are Babylon, Land of Shinar, and Mesopotamia. The word Mesopotamia means between the two rivers, more exactly between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The name Iraq, means country with deep roots. Indeed Iraq is a country with deep roots and is a very significant country in the Bible. No other nation, except Israel, has more history and prophecy associated with it than Iraq. And also ... This is something to think about! Since America is typically represented by an eagle. Saddam should have read up on his Muslim passages. The following verse is from the Koran, (the Islamic Bible) Koran (9:11) - For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the lands of Allah and lo, while some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced; for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah; and there was peace. (Note the verse number! Hmmmmmmm?! God Bless you all Amen!'

The actual words from the Koran Surah 9:11 are:

`But (even so), if they repent Establish regular prayers, And practice regularly charity - They are your brethren in Faith: (Thus) do We explain the Signs In detail, for those who understand.'

How often do normally good people go beyond the mark with baloney like the misquotes from the Koran, which Aunt Nadine, someone whom, based on lots of notes and newspaper clippings received over the last 6 years, I firmly believe is a good person without guile, pick up on and think are true. Oh how easy it is for Satan to lead us astray, as described in II Nephi 28: 19-26:

`For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger, and perish; For behold, at that day shall he rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good. And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well - and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell. And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none - and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance. Yea, they are grasped with death, and hell; and death and hell, and the devil, and all that have been seized therewith must stand before the throne of God, and be judged according to their works, from whence they must go into the place prepared for them, even a lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment. Therefore, wo be unto him that is at ease in Zion! Wo be unto him that crieth: All is well! Yea, wo be unto him that hearkeneth unto the precepts of men, and denieth the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost!'

Wednesday was spent building some AVO (Amplitude-verses-Offset) models for Dave Johnson. I've lost track of time. I think this was when he went to China after visiting Algeria. Or maybe it was when he was getting ready to leave for the trip. Anyway, it was pretty intense at work. Then my friend Don Vossler called up to talk about progress with his NRG and STR seismic attributes. I had no progress to report. Don's mother-in-law just passed away, and he called to tell me he would be out of town for the next week or so. Losing our parents or our in-laws is a sad, and not a bizarre event in our lives. However, Wednesday was the day I had the conversation with Paul where I first learned I am a magnet for the bizarre. It is amazing how much your kids teach you as you get older.

Rick Zimmerman had asked me to go to Austin with him to a meeting on TDR's (Transfer Development Rights) when we met on Memorial Day (0523.html). However, as is typical with Rick, he did not return phone calls nor e-mails, and so on the way home on Wednesday night I stopped by his house to get specifics on the conference. I got the specifics, and I also gave him the spread-sheet describing 130 different exploration opportunities and a box full of supporting documentation which I had put together as Dynamic Resources. He assured me he will sign a confidentiality agreement. He never has, and like one of his friends told me, Rick always gets anything he wants for almost free. Oh well! Time will tell. Rick did give me directions to the conference. He also really wanted me to see his ranch by Austin, and made sure I had the information for a visit.

I took Thursday and Friday as vacation days. Andrea and I got up early and were in Austin by 8:00 AM and were at the Texas Wildflower Center by 8:25 AM. The conference had started, and the second speaker was starting to talk. I took a lot of notes. I had never heard of TDR's before. They are based on the concept of a sending area - an area to preserve, and a receiving area - an area to grow. The idea is that you sell off the surface development rights, similar to the way mineral rights are sold. This way someone can determine how the surface is developed. In Austin, this is important because of the Edward's Aquifer. The County controls the amount of development that can go on any piece of property, and if someone purchases the TDR's for a sending area, they can do a higher density development in their receiving area. As Rick knew, this is very relevant to my Walden 3-D ideas. It is also a way to guarantee Dad's farm is never turned into a Boise Cascade housing development. This is a long term project, and really needs to be attacked if we move to Cedar City. I will pass copies of the materials I picked up and my notes to Aunt Sara and Uncle Des when we are in Utah the first week of August (0532.html).

Thursday afternoon we had lunch at the Hotel Dreskel, where Chef Sara Ellyn Nelson works. Excellent lunch. First class hotel. Must have been some good marketing done to get a job in this kind of a place based on her work experience. Sara Ellyn I'm proud of you! There are some digital photos at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/07_Sara/050610_SaraEllyn. Then Andrea and I went to Book People, where I purchased `The Oil Finders: A collection of Stories About Exploration' compiled and edited by Allen G. Hatley. It is a wonderful book, and exactly describes what I want to do if Rick Zimmerman's opportunity turns out to be real. I finished the book before I went back to work on Monday. Then we went over to The Whole Grain Store, where Andrea went shopping and I started reading my new book. We were both happy. Thursday evening we stayed with Roice and Sarah Elizabeth and Sara Ellyn. Roice showed us his telescope and we looked at Saturn and Jupiter and the moon and fire flies. There are a couple of digital photos at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/01_Roice/050610_RoiceIII. Then we watched `Captain Marvelous and The World of Tomorrow.' Andrea was wiped out and fell asleep through most of the movie.

Friday morning I read until everyone woke up. In our conversations, Sara Ellyn introduced me to Crystal Roll-On Deodorant, with no aluminum chlorohydrate, hypoallergenic and fragrance-free, non-sticky, with natural mineral salts. Sara, it was nice to see my advice is listened to (../0340.html), and hopefully you will never have problems with the dreaded Alzheimer's disease. Our visit to Rick's two ranches out by Marble Falls was nice. They are beautiful, and it is really neat that he is protecting nature. We spent most of our time at the first ranch, which has beautiful lakes and streams, deer, and miles and miles of horse riding trails. Digital photos from both ranches are at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Friends/Zimmerman_Rick/050611_Rick_Zimmerman_Marble_Falls_Ranch. The second ranch overlooks Lake Travis. I made a panorama photo from on top of a lookout built on the highest hill of this ranch. As we drove into this ranch, Sara made a comment about what a funny name it is for a ranch, and I read and said the name `Placenta' and said I agreed. Both Sara and Andrea started to laugh at me, because the word was `Placebo.' Oh well! I've said for years I do not do words very good. We were late for something Sara was going to do with one of her friends. Oh well! I think the highlight of this trip was when we stopped at a middle-eastern restaurant in a strip mall close to Roice's house and ate lunch. All three of us thoroughly enjoyed the gyros and other Mediterranean foods. We drove back to Katy Friday afternoon. Matt had got back from his High Adventure trip to the Guadalupe River earlier in the afternoon.

Saturday was kind of a blur for me. Matt did mow the lawn for the last time before he left. There was an e-mail received on Saturday night and a response made on Sunday morning. The system was down and I didn't see the e-mail until Sunday. These e-mails will be in the e-mail archive if someone chooses to look them up after I distribute that archive as part of your inheritance. Late Saturday night President Pickerd called to tell me Larry Law has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain cancer. I guess this phone call clinched the week and the fact I must be a magnet for the bizarre.

Sunday was hard for me. Seth Jones came back from his mission to Georgia and was the speaker in Sacrament Meeting. One of his comments summarized my feelings of the day:

`God wants us to be More like Him, and In case you haven't Noticed, we're not.'

I came home and finished the book about The Oil Finders. Jeff Jurinak, who is now my High Priest Group Leader, stopped by to ask me to be one of three teachers in the High Priest Quorum. The others are Chris Schmidt and Dave Williams. I accepted, of course. We talked for quite a while. We talked about the murder in front of the house, the murder at Walmart, generalities about how hard it is when those you love choose to follow scary paths, and in general Jeff was able to bring a little calm into my life. I refused to talk to Andrea about what was bothering me, because I wanted to keep her separate from it. I guess you could say I do not want her to also become a magnet for the bizarre."

Since the 38th week of 1996 I have written a weekly "Thoughtlet" (little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me). Until the 43rd week of 2004 I sent these out as an e-mail. They were intended to be big thoughts which mean a lot to me. Over time the process evolved into a personal diary. These notes were shared with my family because I know how important the written word can be. Concerned about how easy it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of daily life, I thought this was a good way to reach those I love. It no longer feels right to send out an e-mail and "force" my kids and my family to be aware of my life and struggles. Everyone has their own life to lead, and their own struggles to work through. I will continue this effort, and will continue to make my notes publicly accessible (unless I learn of misuse by someone who finds out about them, and then will aggressively pursue a legal remedy to copyright infringement and I will put the Thoughtlets behind a password). The index to download any of these Thoughtlets is at http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets, or you can e-mail me with questions or requests at rnelson@walden3d.com (note if you are not on my e-mail "whitelist" you must send 2 e-mails within 24 hours of each other in order for your e-mail to not be trashed).

With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)

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Copyright © 2005 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.