Independent Play
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.
"Sunday morning, July 17th, I wrote a song for Andrea:
<![CDATA[ `C. Andrea, I love you
Andrea, you are the
Light and the joy
Of my life
1. You often ask me "Why?"
"Why do I love you?"
You seem so insecure
Can't you see how
You fulfill me
2. You're out to prove your worth
Doing things you don't need to do
And yet by doing these things
You make our home heaven
And lift me
3. There doesn't seem to be
Anything you can not do
Once you put your mind to a job
The only thing from completion
Is the passing of time
4. I love the food you cook
The way you feather our nest
The way you take care of me
You are the very best
I could hope to have
5. If I make it back
To Heavenly Father's house
You and I both know
It's going to be because
You led the way']]>
As our week progressed, and as I would watch TV and work on my
map of water well data in Cedar Valley, and as she would work
on Roice & Sarah's, or Sarah Ellyn's, or an unassigned quilt,
Andrea pointed out to me how we have reentered the independent
play portion of our lives. Andrea's concept is:
- as babies, someone diapers us;
- as toddlers we enter a stage of independent play;
- as teenagers we stretch boundaries to earn our independence;
- as adults we take care of others;
- as our children grow we seek independence from always being there
for our children;
- after our children leave home we reenter a stage of
independent play;
- as oldsters, someone has to diaper us again.
My days are pretty structured now. I get up at 5:30, shave and
shower by 6:00, read the paper and drink a glass of orange juice
by 6:30, work on e-mail's or catching up Thoughtlets until 7:15,
arrive at the Park and Ride by 7:25, arrive at the office by 8:00,
talk to Jialin in China or work on Tiles until 9:30, get up and
take 10 swallows of water, go back to work on Tiles until 11:30;
change my shirt and pick up a towel, walk from floor 21 to the
basement, then run to floor 5, then walk to floor 17, then use
the handrails to walk to floor 27, then walk back down to 17,
then walk back up to floor 27, then walk back down to 21, go
wash my hands, eat lunch, read from Adam Smith's `The Wealth
of Nations' until 12:30, work on Tiles until 2:30, get up and
take 10 swallows of water, go back to work on Tiles until 5:00,
ride home with the car pool by 5:35, go home, eat dinner, work
on a project until Jay Leno comes on, watch the monologue and skit,
go to bed, and at 5:30 AM repeat the above. I must admit it
is kind of boring not having kids around to be random event
generators.
On Wednesday, the 20th, there was this note from Ben:
<![CDATA[ `Subject: Hello
To: 'Andrea Nelson', 'Marti Nelson', 'Paul Nelson',
'Rob Nelson', 'Roice Nelson III', 'Roice Nelson Jr.',
'Sara Ellyn', 'Audrey Waldron', 'Heather Nielson',
'Matt Nielson', 'Rachel Nielson', 'Des Penny'
From: 'Ben Nelson'
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 11:10:36 -0700
Some of you may already know this, but I recently started a
new job with The Capital Group Companies, which manages The
American Funds family of mutual funds. One of the benefits
of working here provides the ability for certain related
people to me to purchase mutual funds without the sales
charge (I realize there are "no-load" funds in the market
place which provide this feature, but they invariably have
much higher expenses which can significantly effect your
return over the long term).
If you want more information on the fund family (which I highly
recommend and not just because I work here), feel free to get
in touch with me or you can find information on-line. If,
after doing your research, you are interested and/or these fit
into your investment plans, let me know and I'll forward the
necessary paperwork.
Also, I do not have everyone's email, so I am hoping you can
help me get this information out to everyone who may benefit
and be interested. I bolded the people not included on this
distribution. The following relations can participate (note -
I'm only listing my side, not Sarah's):
spouse Sarah
child Ethan
parent Roice, Marti, Andrea
aunt/uncle Chuck, Sara, Des
brother/sister Roice, Paul, Melanie, Sara, Rob,
Heather, Audrey, Rachel, Matt
grandchild N/A
parent-in-law N/A
spouse of child N/A
niece/nephew Grant, Ella, Colby, Taylor
aunt/uncle-in-law N/A
cousin/cousin-in-law Bridget, Brian, Rachel
brother/sister-in-law Kate, Jared, Sarah (soon anyway)
godchild/godparent N/A
grandparent/prandparent-in-law Robbye
son/daughter-in-law N/A
Hopefully I got everyone on there. Note - my understanding is
that once the account is set up, it will stay exempt from the
sales charge as long as it is open. Therefore, you could
continue to receive the benefit even if I leave the Company at
some point or you could set up an account for your child (only
for neices/nephews) (they do have a 529 plan) and they can keep
that benefit throughout their life.
Let me know if you are interested and/or have questions. I hope
everyone is doing well.
Ben
(Note - I do not benefit personally in any way from you investing).
Ben Nelson | The Capital Group Companies | Location:
BRO | Extension: 55685
Outside: 714-257-5685 | E-mail: Ben_Nelson@capgroup.com
[ Mailing: 120 S. State College Blvd. Brea, CA 92821 ]']]>
About this same time I wrote the following to Rick Zimmerman:
<![CDATA[ `Rick,
Attached are my notes from the TDR meeting I went to in Austin.
I had some time waiting on some data being put together, and so
I finally typed them up. I also have a copy of a handout I
picked up for you in my briefcase to give you when we get together.
Dick Coons called me this morning and asked if I had heard
anything from you about getting together. I told him no. I
would appreciate getting the confidentiality agreement you
promised, and it would be nice to have the dinner or just a
meeting with Dick, which you expressed interest in doing.
Andrea and I will be in Utah from the 29th of July through the
5th of August. Andrea's Dad, who passed away in 1998, is being
honored by BYU on Thursday the 4th of August at 2:00 PM. His
research papers and notes on the history of Southern Utah are
being added to the special collections library at BYU. If you
have interest in seeing the Southern Utah properties, or
visiting with my friends in Salt Lake about their Illinois and
Western US Prospects, this would be a good opportunity.
Best Regards,
Roice
cell: 713.542.2207']]>
I also received an e-mail from Albert Boulanger:
<![CDATA[ `Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 19:32:04 -0400
From: 'Albert Boulanger'
To: 'Roger Anderson', 'Roice Nelson', 'Steve Joseph'
Subject: ces-enterprise.com
Dear principles of ces-enterprise,
Our domain name is coming up for renewal. Should I do that?
This a more general prod. Will the oil patch embrace what we
envisioned for CES? I am surprised at the traction we have at
Con Ed, a world class power company, and the lack of success
on attempts we have had in the oil patch to gain traction in
that vertical's world class. My inclination is to persist a
bit more, but I would like your input.
Regards
Albert']]>
I replied to Albert on Thursday:
<![CDATA[ `Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 06:41:37 -0500 (CDT)
From: 'Roice Nelson'
Subject: Re: ces-enterprise.com
To: 'Albert Boulanger', 'Roger Anderson', 'Steve Joseph'
Albert, Steve, and Roger,
Thanks for the note. I agree with Albert's inclination to hang
in there for a while. However, I have no money I'm able or
willing to put into the pot to keep the web page up.
On Memorial Day Rick Zimmerman invited me out to one of his
ranches. He told me he wanted me to be the "figurehead" for a
new oil company, which he would put $10 million in and raise
another $100 million for. A couple of weeks later I gave him
a spread-sheet with 130 ranked exploration opportunities and
come back-up information. He must have got cold feet, because
we have only had a couple of brief conversations since then,
he has never signed the confidentiality agreement he agreed to
sign, and he has not returned phone calls nor e-mail's for
several weeks.
However, there are other similar scale opportunities in the
wind in China and in Australia and in Canada and in Utah and
in Houston. If one of them happens, and if it makes business
sense, I would like to tie into the technologies we worked on
and talked about at CES. For the last few months, since before
before the meeting with Rick's and before Matt left for college
and before we became empty nesters, I have told Andrea I feel
like there is going to be a significant change in my job
responsibilities. Time will tell whether there is any basis
behind these feelings.
Albert, thanks for the earth.google.com link. I love it, and
have been working on some ways to help GDC use it. Sam LeRoy
and I have come up with a significant breakthrough idea regarding
lightening, and we need your help to follow it to a logical and
hopefully very economic conclusion.
Steve, I will be in Utah between July 29th and August 5th.
Specifically, on August 4th at 2:00-3:00 in the DeLamar Jensen
Classroom (1130) at Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee
Library's L. Tom Perry Special Collections, there will be the
opening of the Morris A. Shirts Collection, followed by
refreshments and a tour of the Special Collections from
3:00-5:00. Morris is Andrea's father, who passed away before
we remet. Morris did a lot of research on Southern Utah,
which included publishing "Saints and Sinners," a book about
the Silver Reef Mine, and "A Trial Furnace," a book about the
formation of the Iron Mission in Cedar City. We will be in
Cedar City from Friday through Thursday morning, and in Provo
until we return to Houston Friday morning.
Roger, I miss you and our conversations. Glad to hear you have
some traction in electricity. Figure you might enjoy the
attached poster which I gave to some folks in Washington D.C.
when I attended the IW-GEO (Interagency Working Group on Earth
Observations) Public Workshop early in May on my way home from
three weeks in China.
Best Regards,
Roice']]>
The last message I think might be worth documenting in this diary
is from Ruth Henderson of the Green Trails Subdivision Homeowner's
Association. She wrote:
<![CDATA[ `From: 'Ruth Henderson'
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 22:10:23 EDT
Subject: Got hanging trees???
Hello all,
I've recently gotten several calls and e-mails from our neighbors
who have noticed the numerous tree branches hanging down in the
streets around our neighborhood. Taller cars and other vehicles
scrape their tops when they drive under the branches and it's
very annoying, not to mention hurtful for both the vehicles AND
THE TREES!!! An arborist has told me that the constant scraping
against the vehicles can damage the trees badly - none of us
want that!
So PLEASE look carefully at your trees near the street (and near
your neighbors' driveways!!) and trim back the branches or raise
the canopy of the tree to avoid them being hit by vehicles.
You don't want the liability of causing an accident, and your
trees will grow better and not be damaged--everyone/everything wins!
As always, thanks for being good neighbors - and feel free to pass
along this note to anyone who should see it! Ruth Henderson
Have a Great Day!
Ruth Drinkard Henderson']]>
So Saturday, after mowing the lawns, I cut one of the big branches
off of the tree next to the driveway. Then I spent most of the
day working on entering the Cedar Valley water well data and
watching Elvis Presley movies. Not as good as John Wayne, and
still better than almost anything on regular TV today. Saturday
evening we participated in a surprise 50th birthday party for
Karen Gebauer at the Cimmeron Parkway mud building. It was a
very nice evening, spent listening, playing dominos and bingo,
taking digital photos (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/NottinghamCountryWard/050723_Karen_Gebauers_50th, and generally hanging out. I think
another pair of words for this is independent play.
Sunday, July 24th, Kelley Minor gave one of the Sacrament Meeting
Talks. She is one of my Home Teaching Families now. I was very
impressed with her theme, and actually wrote 3 possible stanzas
for Prime Words based on her words:
<![CDATA[ `The horse and buggy
Have been replaced
By airplanes that
Thread the sky'
`The wagon trains
Have been replaced
By ribbons of highways
That cross the land'
`Pioneers taught us faith
Sacrifice with a willing heart
Courage, daily hope, and
Absolute trust in the Lord']]>
And so the week came to an end, and so on Thursday night of
the next week, I finally caught up with writing these Thoughtlets.
Of course, we leave in the morning for Utah, and so when we get
back I will be two weeks behind again. Oh well! Maybe this
writing is also a form of independent play."
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.)