"Well, here we are again! The bad news for me is it is the 5th of February 2006, and I am starting to catch up on a Thoughtlet for the week ending the 20th of November 2005. The good news is
One more thing before start catching up, we received a note from Matt at Boot Camp in South Carolina this week, and I want to quote it in it's entirety for those of you who read these writings of a father/step-father who cares (note that "(sic)" is a historians way of writing "I'm quoting what was written, and I know it is actually spelled or grammatically different than what was written.):
For those who have not looked at the address list in a while, Matt's address is:
So here we go, jumping back into a time warp some 12 weeks ago. I recall I was attempting to get this Thoughtlet posted before Andrea and I left for China over Thanksgiving (0548.html. As is normal on a trip across the water, I stayed up all night, and just ran out of time before it was time to pack, and drive up to Intercontinental Airport. Anyway, back to the past.
On Monday Lynn and Dave Johnson, Rob and Paul (who was in town working for Boeing in Clear Lake), Jialin Yan, Lisa & Les and Les' brother John Denham, Andrea, and myself had a party. I wanted to do something for Jialin, who was in Houston for the SEG. I also promised Les that we would get together with John, who was visiting from Australia. And so it all came together, and we had a party on Monday night. The Johnson's were the first to arrive. I've referred to Dave Johnson, the President and CEO of Geokinetics, Inc., the owner of GDC, in about 30 Thoughtlets since the fall of 2003. The Johnson's are Evangelical Christians, and so I welcomed them, and said to Lynn, `I'm pleased you would come to our house, even though we are not Christians.' She looked at Dave and said, `That didn't take long.' After a couple of other similar cracks, with the paintings of Christ on the wall, Lynn said, `OK Roice, let it go.' So I did.
I cooked hamburgers on the grill, dutch oven potatoes, and cobbler. It was good to catch up with John Denham. John has lost part of his right ear to cancer. Otherwise he seems in good spirits and seems to be doing well. I think Jialin had a good evening. Rob played some of his songs, and his music made the evening for me. I felt very good about having the Johnson's over, and I would like to have more evenings like this.
On Tuesday and Wednesday there was a lot of work to be done to get ready to leave for China the following Monday (0548.html). I also wrote an e-mail to the Abbott's about my conversations with Ajay Kalsi:
One day at lunch I slipped over the MicroCenter to purchase a new power chord for my PC. Turns out to be a big issue. It has to be able to handle 135 watts, they did not have it, and it needs to be ordered. Obviously would not be ready before we left for China. So I spent an evening putting a splint on the worn out part with popsicle sticks and safety pins, and wrapping it with electrical tape. The split seems to have worked just fine, and I did not have to go through the hassle of finding and ordering a power supply.
Thursday there was a review of the status of Frank's work at GDC. There is no question about the fact he has worked hard. There is also no question about the fact he is not trusted, and it is feared he might have taken technology from GDC. I hope not. I expect time will tell. I have a note about Passport and Visa's. Maybe this was the day Andrea got her visa back. I don't remember. I also had to arrange to get some money for Jialin, and as is always the case this turned into a big problem. However, we finally solved everything.
It seemed like there was too much happening on Thursday. I was attempting to get some interpretation work done. And it was Robert M. and Ramona Sneider's Memorial Mass. And the big meeting with Dave Johnson and Rick Zimmerman and his team happened. I made hard calls, and did the best I could.
I felt a strong obligation to go to the Sneider Memorial Service. I did a search on `Sneider' and it looks like I have not written much about him. Bob is the only person to ever fire me from a business relationship. I learned about Bob when I was working for Landmark. His eulogy gives a summary of his accomplishments, and so I will type it out:
Bob is super impressive. However impressive Bob's life was, I must admit I prefer my eulogy (../9846.html). Bob was brilliant. After he left Shell, he helped Canadian Hunter discover the Elmworth Field, which is a gas field that is continually recharging and covers a large portion of the Canadian province of Alberta. It had thousands of wells drilled through it, and it was a tight gas sand that had not been recognized with the petrophysical analysis. At one point I heard that Bob had ORRI (Overriding Royalty Income) on 5,500 wells. In a meeting I had with Bob and an executive at Pennzoil, he flat out stated his net worth as $3 billion. I remember mentioning this to Mike Pickerd, who is a banker, and Mike said `That is impossible. I would know of this man if he had those kind of assets.' Bob was paranoid, and I expect his statement was true. He was just very quiet about his assets.
One of the main positive reasons I left Landmark Graphics was the opportunity to work with Bob Sneider. We used my Landmark licenses to do interpretation work for one of his clients. He had a geophysicist named Bonnie Creasey, a tough guy with a big handlebar mustache, and a geologist named Leon Wells, whom I worked with on this project. We moved these guys from the world of paper to the world of workstations in about 1992. It was a fun and exciting project.
Bob and I put together a proposal for working with CNPC (Chinese National Petroleum Corporation), which is still the basis for discussions which I have with the Chinese. He was very much an engineer. Interested in the facts, and only the facts. At one point we were looking to start a new oil company (Bob started several) and were looking for an engineer. I set up a dinner meeting with Paul Sullivan, a friend from church. Paul was at Shell, and was looking for a career move. Dinner was at the Crowne Plaza at Highway 6 and I-10. After the meal, Bob looked at Paul and told him he had asked some questions of friends at Shell, and it was his conclusion that Paul was a mediocre engineer but a reasonable manager. He told him he would have a better career staying at Shell than by taking the risk and coming out to work in a new oil company. Paul was devastated, and I think it still bothers Paul. The good news is Paul stayed at Shell, was put in charge of one of the most expensive deepwater platforms out of the New Orleans office, I think it was Mars. He did exceptional, was promoted, moved back to Houston, promoted again and moved back to New Orleans, and then he became the Director of Research for all of Shell out of The Hague. Paul helped me get the consulting job on Knowledge Management with Shell when things were very tight financially (0349.html and 0350.html). Karen confided how much Bob's comments hurt. I know I was surprised, and embarrassed, and I had Bob on such a pedestal, I assumed he knew what he was doing. Upon reflection I think I was wrong to not tell Bob he was out of line and to stop working with him. If someone treats your friend like that in front of you, they will probably do the same thing to you.
That is certainly what happened. By this time, HyperMedia had been closed down, and I was sharing offices with Scott Bowman of Marco Polo Software. We were on the same floor, the 3rd floor, as Sneider in the 11,767 Katy Freeway Building. We were able to run the Internet into Scott's office. Then we figured out how to run the cables through the ceiling and to run the Internet down the hall into Bob's office. Bob did not like the idea of a wire being into his main office, and asked me to have the cable disconnected. John Amason was doing all of my system work in those days. I told him, he did. Then on a day Bob was having a private business meeting and John was testing the printer, he connected it back up, and printed a page on the printer in Bob's office from HMC's offices. Bob went ballistic. He told me I lied to him, and he could never trust me again. Then we took a two week vacation, rented a travel home, and visited church history sites from New York to Pennsylvania, to Ohio, to Illinois, and Missouri. When we got back from our trip, there was a letter from Bob telling me that we were not going to be working together anymore. Just like that. Just like his conversation with Paul Sullivan. I was devastated. It hurt more than having Bill Rollwitz drive HyperMedia into the ground. Bob had told me I would have ORRI on wells I helped locate, and that I would earn well over a million dollars in the next few years. Then he decided he could not trust me, and all bets were off. I guess the `could not trust' was what really hurt, as integrity has always been a key value for me.
I have had several meetings with Bob since then. Always they were cordial. He did all of the work on the National Core Repository, and because of my work with Christian Singfield I felt this was very important. Bob did not think digital images were a worthwhile component. Once I mentioned to him that he was the only person who has ever fired me, and he shrugged his shoulders and said, `I didn't fire you.' His Dad was alcoholic, and I'm sure a lot of how he has treated his partners, and there were many of them, none of which lasted, is related to issues he carried with him to his death. Oh well! I still have tremendous respect for Bob Sneider. In fact, when one of my big projects actually happens and there is some real cash in hand, I intend to donate to a university or research project and to have the building or school or research project named in honor of Robert M. and Ramona A. Sneider. It is the thing I'm interested in donating for. Any and all other money will be reinvested in pursuing other Walden 3-D projects.
It was impressive to see the people who had flown in from Calgary, London, Dallas, and other oil places to participate in Bob's Memorial Mass. I stayed in the background, and I still overheard people talking, and recognized many names from their significant contributions to the oil and gas exploration community. I asked Bob's son John, who has worked closely with him since he got his Ph.D. at Rice, shortly after I was dismissed, what the status of the Core Repository was. John said that $50 million has been donated to UT Austin and the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG), and that the first repository is on track and being put together by Tom Tinker. The first reading in the Mass had been by Tom Tinker, but not the Tom Tinker I know, so it must have been the Dad of the Director of BEG. After the question I slipped off. There was a meal at Carmelo's across the street, but I had a meeting downtown and was stressed out about all that needed to be done before I left for China.
Dave and I met with Rick Zimmerman and his team at lunch. They were very positive about the work we have done for them with Don Vossler's NRG seismic attribute. I left the meeting convinced GDC was going to enter into a big contract with Texas Independent within the next few of weeks. Nothing has happened since that meeting, and it is very disappointing for me and for Don. I stayed after the meeting to do some detailed work with the technical folks. Rick has hired back a visualization guy, who was there when I worked with Rick several years ago. I don't remember his name, and I don't trust him (see, I'm like Sneider). His partner is Craig Limbaugh, who is Bob Limbaugh's son. Within a day of this meeting Craig was on the phone wanting a copy of my agreement with Landmark so his Dad could get the same agreement. I did fax it to Bob. And if Rick ever asks me again if I can work with these two jokers, my answer will be more upfront, i.e. `No Thank you!'
Thursday evening Dick Edwards called, and suggested that I give Shiv Dasgupta a call in New York City. I did, and we had an excellent conversation about FSI. Shiv seems interested, and yet he is not convinced there is a need to correlate stratigraphic layers in wells in Saudi Arabia by means of image analysis of cuttings. Oh well! Someday people will recognize the importance of Chris' innovations.
Friday morning when I got to the office, there were new maps waiting for Texas Independent from Don Vossler. I had so much to do there was not time to take them downtown. We tried to coordinate with some of Rick's technical folks. However, it was left for them to call Don and for him to come and pick up the maps and take them downtown while I was in China. I worked late, getting everything needed from GDC ready to take to China. Friday, just after I got home, there was an unexpected call from Jeff Winston in Boulder, Colorado. Scott Bartlett and his family had moved into their ward, and he wanted to call and tell me and find out what is happening. It was so neat to have this conversation. During the conversation, Jeff told me about a $500 software package called Sketch-Up which he said I should get for some of my project planning. One of the things I did Sunday night, in addition to working on catching up Thoughtlets, was to download all of the Sketch-Up tutorials to look at while in China (0549.html and 0550.html).
Saturday I read the paper, worked on Thoughtlets, mowed the lawn, and spent 5 hours at the office getting ready for the trip to China. Don Vossler called me and I had to tell him that the planned meetings on Friday were a bust. Rick and John Jacobson were not available when I was. Oh well! I told him the data are all with Dave Johnson to go over with Rick, or for him to pick up and take downtown when Rick called. Then while I was working on Saturday Rick called. He sounded very interested in GDC technologies, and the results we have been able to generate in a week working with Don Vossler. He said he will arrange for Don to do a technical review with Steven Alverez (geophysicist, and Sara Ellyn's old boss) and with John Jacobson (geologist). Rick will also arrange for a private meeting with Dave Johnson to start talking about how the companies can work together. None of this ever happened. Oh well!
Dave called me a little while later, and was quite excited when I reviewed the opportunities with him. There was a question on Friday as to whether it was appropriate for me to put Andrea's $114 co-pay for travel to Washington D.C. on my expenses or not. Since Andrea's and my tickets were much less than a normal single coach ticket, it was not an issue. I guess there is a reason accountants are paid to ask this kind of question.
I got back to the house just in time to go to Roice and Sarah Elizabeth's shower in Fulsher (../2006/0602.html). On the way there I remembered a directory I forgot to copy over onto the PC to take to China. I called Carlos and he downloaded the files and e-mailed them to me while we were at the wedding shower. Neat! The shower was exceptional. Beautiful house. Very nice people. Absolutely excellent food. Too much talk about booze and making margarita's for my liking. And it hurts more than I have words to describe to see you, my children drinking alcohol after all of my efforts to teach you better than this. Especially the one that flouted it, and the importance of going to a movie Sunday afternoon, rather than spending any time with Andrea and me. Oh well! One doesn't have to look very far, only in the mirror, to see people who have fallen way short of their potential, and Heavenly Father and Jesus still love each of us. So, at this stage in life, all I can do is love you kids, and just be here when the inevitable consequences of your choices come back to haunt you. Hopefully I will be dead, and will not have to watch your suffering in this life. And maybe that is what my parents said about me. Oh well!
Sunday morning I taught my primary class. I don't remember much else. I know I did not do my Home Teaching for December, and so there must have been something I was working on rather than fulfill this important responsibility. I think one of the things I did (can't tell for sure because the clock on the Sun is off because it was shutdown for several days during the hurricane, 0539.html.), was respond to an e-mail from Paul:
I responded with:
I did stay up all Sunday night working on catching up the Thoughtlets. And this one is the only one outstanding that I did not get sent off to Paul and Melanie, and convert to html pages, before we left. And it has turned out to be writing about a lot of things in addition to working with Don Vossler."