"As I mentioned in last week's Thoughtlet (0527.html), Monday was July 4th. I don't remember what we did besides go see the movie `Bewitched.' I think Andrea worked on preparing the bedroom to be repainted, and I think I was working on catching up with these Thoughtlets. Looking back it seemed more like a Saturday than a holiday.
On Tuesday, one of Fred Hilterman's students, Haitao Ren (Hector), who is working for GDC 20 hours per week, made a statement worth repeating, kind of summarizing my feeling about working on the Tiles project at GDC:
On Wednesday there was a call from a Real Estate Appraiser who wanted building plans for a low cost small 4-plex in downtown Houston. The lot is 60x100 feet and there will be no parking, just gravel out front. I called Ray Gardner, and he said that by the time he became licensed in Texas it would be the most expensive 4-plex ever built. Oh well! It was good to catch up a little bit with Ray. He is going to be out of town the first part of the time we are in Houston. We talked a little bit about TDR's (0532.html), and he said the key contact is the Iron County Planner, Reid somebody. He also said that Jack Sawyer is involved with the Indians that own the property on the west side of Shirts Canyon.
I also gave Riley Skeen a call about a system to do some surveying in Red Cove. His daughter is loving her mission in Verona, Italy. She finishes up in September 2006, and so this is when Rachel will have an opportunity to visit Rome.
Andrea finished painting the bedroom, and was ready to put the waterbed back in place. I went to Lowes and purchased some bolts to hook the headboard onto the bed. I also found out that a 3/4" x 36" black iron pipe costs $4.94. I want to figure out how to make a geodesic connector to screw this size pipe into, and then build geodesic domes for Ethan, Grant & Ella, and Colby & Taylor. Hopefully this will happen this year. During this whole process I learned that the waterbed was purchased in 1990. Little things collapse emotions into time-lapse memories. I recall reading that the only thing known to be able to exceed the speed of light is the human mind, which can jump from the living room to the planet Jupiter and back in a couple of seconds, much faster than the speed of light.
Thursday was a busy day. I got in trouble for an e-mail I sent to Tom Concannon, the Geokinetics Inc. V.P. Finance and Corporate Lawyer. I disagree with how he is treating Frank, who works for us in China and who is working for us in Houston for a few weeks. I think my bosses agree with me, they just think I need to show more tack in what I write. I expect many who read this at some time in the future will agree. The first suicide bombings in the London Underground occurred on this Thursday. Uncle Randy is in Oxford, and is OK. Uncle Steve and Aunt Jill arrived in London with about 200 band kids from Europe earlier in the day. They were touring Windsor Castle. After the tour, they packed up the kids and went to France. I'm sure there will be interesting stories to hear about all of the related adventures. This Thursday was actually the night we met Paul and went to the Houston Temple (I wrote about it in the previous Thoughtlet, 0527.html, and I guess getting weeks mixed up is a natural consequence of falling behind on the Thoughtlets). I thought it was interesting that the name of the person I did an endowment from was submitted by Isiah Gibson in Vidor, TX. Melanie, do you know Isiah? What a small world it is.
Friday I wrote a couple of possible stanza's for Prime Words. One on the way into work, based on Program #1742 of John Lienhard's `The Engines of Our Ingenuity' (a):
and one based on a presentation by Olin Baker in Attitudes & Answers on 105.7 KHCB, one of the Christian Stations (b):
I had driven to work and did not ride with my car pool in order to help Frank. The company wrote an expense check, which I took to Frost Bank with Frank and cashed (he had never seen a drive-up teller before and was fascinated with it, taking photos with his digital camera). Then I took him to the downtown Grayhound bus station and sent him on his way to Austin to visit his professor who is in Austin on a sabbatical. I stopped at Rick Zimmerman's office to see if I could find out what the deal is regarding the Memorial Day conversation (0524.html). He was not there, and I was able to meet his new assistant, Elizabeth. When I got back out home I stopped at the grocery store and bought 2 dozen roses, one for Andrea, and one for the Thielmier's (0521.html, 0522.html, 0523.html, 0524.html, and 0525.html). Andrea and I took them over and spent about a half-an-hour talking to Gary and Bonnie in the driveway. It was Alan's birthday, and it was the day the murderer was to be arraigned. Turns out they postponed the arraignment. Gary had scheduled to take a week of vacation before the shooting, and he still took it. They both seem to be doing very good. I wonder how well I would cope with the death of a child. I believe my faith is secure, and it is such an unnatural occurrence, I'm sure it would prove to be a trial if one of you passes to the other side before I do.
When I got home there was a nice e-mail message on the machine:
Saturday morning it was time to mow the lawns again. Yes, Matt, I do miss you. I also used the weed whacker to do edging. It was very hard to get it started. Oh well! I drank a whole lot of Crystal Lite. Andrea had finished getting the room painted and had the china cupboard she purchased from Jeanie Dartford against the wall. She told me I could put all of my rock collection in it. I chuckled. So after mowing the lawns, I emptied the boxes of rocks in the garage on the kitchen table. Andrea quickly realized I could not fit my rock collection in the china cupboard. So she had another shelf in the garage, and she moved it in the back yard, against the outside of the chimney, and told me I could put the rest of them out there. So I spent most of the day sorting and washing and organizing and placing my rock collection on these nine shelves. And they did all fit, and I think they look pretty good.
At one point I found the rock I found in the coal mine up Cedar Canyon when I was in 5th grade with Randy Shirts and our teacher was Mr. Holman. I remember Mr. Holman wanted me to give it to him, and I wouldn't. It had a layer of white fossils (what I now know is a transgressive systems tract where the sea level rises from the melting ice cap and the sea transgresses or travels across the shelf fairly quickly leaving fossils), a layer of coal (which was swamps), a layer of shale (what I now know is a highstand systems tract where the sea level is about 200 feet above lowstand because there is almost no ice on the poles), another layer of coal (where the sea level dropped back down and there was swamps again), and another layer of fossils (a second transgressive systems tract). I recognized it was a neat rock then, and as I refound it with my knowledge from having worked with Pete Vail and Ward Abbott, it was like seeing a new chapter in earth's history. The sad thing is that the rock has broken into 8 pieces over the last 45 years, and I might have a hard time convincing another geologist it was once all one rock. Oh well!
When I showed it to Andrea, she said, `You need to show off your rocks in a display case. Anything you remember from 5th grade is very important, and must be shared.' I called Jeff and Paula Jurinak and invited them to come over and look at my rocks and talk about what we are going to do in Cedar City (0532.html), and they got to the house after I had had a shower, but before most of the rocks were put on the cupboard shelves. It was fun to watch Jeff's reaction as he looked at my rock collection. One of the dullest sets of rocks is from my college field camp at the Rocky Range just outside of Milford. They are mostly pieces of granite. However, the interesting thing is they are all labeled with white paint and India Ink. I put these rocks on the waist high shelf outside so I can demonstrate to Grandkids how to label rocks they put in their own rock collection. It will be interesting to see if any of them ever even see my rock collection, or if they do, whether they will have any interest or not. Time will tell.
Saturday there was an interesting article in the newspaper about `bloggers.' It was titled `Are bloggers too honest?' with the subtitle `Young people who post their most personal thoughts online may live to regret it, experts say.' I refer to the article because I started this `blog' the 38th week of 1996 and have my most personal thoughts in the hundreds of entries made since then. If I was smart, I would have realized there was a business in this `blogging' and exploited it over the last 9 years. Looking back I am fascinated by the fact that once again I started doing something about 8 years before it became a fashionable trend. Oh well! The article ends with a quote from a Pew researcher named Lenhart:
I do not think it is possible to be `too honest' in the long-term. Maybe in the short-term one can loose a friend or hurt a feeling by being too honest, and in the long-term, I believe others will recognize and rejoice in integrity and honesty. Of course, if one is too honest about dishonest things, like drunken musings or sexual activity outside of marriage, then it is another story. Since some of you probably are following some of the bloggers, I would be interested in how you see my Thoughtlets relating to blogger's writings.
Sunday, the 10th of July, was nice, as usual. I did write 4 possible stanzas for Prime Words during Sacrament Meeting, based on talks by (a) John Farmer (one of Matt's friends), (b) Debra Siebert (a new member of the ward who is finishing up a Ph.D. in opera and organ), and her husband, (c) an oil company meteorologist:
I substituted in Primary again for the CTR (Choose The Right) class. In the afternoon Scott Whitrock and I went Home Teaching. First we went to the Moore's, who were visiting their home from their assignment in Jakarta, then the Schmidts, where I was asked to stand in proxy for Norb Schmidt for his sealing in the temple to Laurie, then to Haden Hudson, who has moved back to his house after another relationship did not work out. One thing I found very interesting was how often, when Andrea is not around, I have found myself in the bedroom with the lights on in the china cupboard, looking at my rock collection."