25 Dec 2005 #0552.html

Family Christmas

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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.

"So now I get to write about our family Christmas, one of the best Christmas I have ever had. There were only three negative things that happened, or maybe I should write did not happen:

  1. Audrey and Josh were with Josh's family in Mexico, so it is probably selfish to say it was negative they were not with us;
  2. Heather was not here, and missing her does not discount how good it has been for Andrea to have semi-regular enjoyable conversations with her; and
  3. we forgot to get a photo of everyone together on Christmas Day. Oh well!

Friday the 23rd, Monday the 26th, and Monday the 2nd of January (Aunt Sara's birthday) were GDC holidays. Also, Friday, 060106, was Roice and Sarah Elizabeth's wedding (../0602.html). I had worked over the Thanksgiving holiday and a couple of weekends in China, and had a couple of comp days coming. So I took 2 comp days and vacation from Tuesday evening the 20th through the wedding, not going back to work until Monday the 9th of January, except for Tuesday the 3rd of January. In order to take this much time off, there was a lot of work to get done. The biggest project was to finish up the 300 page Ji Dong Report. We did, and I felt good about it. However, I spent much of January and much of February working on improving and adding to what we did, even though results like the well trajectory plans (../0607.html) were never officially added to the report by GDC. I think Geo added them to their version of the report, but we did not.

As far as the first four days of the work goes, I have virtually no notes. On Monday there was an e-mail from Roger Anderson announcing the passing of Dr. Larry Sher at BBN (Bolt, Beranek, and Newman):

'From: Roger Anderson <anderson@ldeo.columbia.edu> Subject: Fwd: [Fwd: Passing of Larry Sher] a sad event indeed... he was a gigantic visionary... roger > From: Albert Boulanger <aboulanger@gmail.com> > Subject: [Fwd: Passing of Larry Sher] > > This is so sad... > > To: xbbn@xbbn.org > Subject: Passing of Larry Sher > > ..on the morning of the 16th'

Larry had the patent on the vibrating mirror 3-D display device which Genisco built, and which I bought one for the Seismic Acoustics Lab, and helped sell one to Amoco, Conoco, and Phillips, the three Oklahoma research labs in the 1980's. If anyone is interested in a more detailed description of this device it is written about on pages 199-203 of my book, `New Technologies in Exploration Geophysics.' I made several trips to Cambridge, MA to visit with Dr. Sher after I learned about his device from the radiologist at the University of Utah Medical Center. 3-D visualization has always been a keen interest of mine, and this was a dominant part of my life and work in late 1981 and early 1982. The Genisco SpaceGraphTM was actually purchased by Anne Simpson, Director of the IPL (Image Processing Lab), one of the research groups in the AGL (allied Geophysical Laboratories), when I was the General Manager there.

Monday evening Andrea and I went to see the latest Harry Potter movie. Enjoyed the graphics, and yet I don't even remember the name of it now. Guess that shows the impact it had on me.

As mentioned in the previous Thoughtlets (0551.html), Craig Hanson came and visited on Tuesday. As I strive to catch-up on these Thoughtlets, I was not allowed to board an airplane (../0609.html), and it reminded me of another Pan American / Amoco Memory. The summer of 1970 I was sent with an Amoco geologist to collect samples all around the Great Salt Lake. He had broken his leg and had a metal bar in his leg. It was always a hassle to go through the security area at the airport. So he had carefully instructed me to meet him at Stapleton International Airport in Denver one hour early, outside the security area. I was there, and he never showed up. I waited and waited as instructed, and finally ran to the gate to see if he had gone through early. It turns out he had, he was on the plane, they were shutting the gate, and they would not open it to let me on. It was very embarrassing. I had to call my boss, Bob Kallweit, tell him what happened, and get new instructions. It turned out there was another flight about an hour later, and so other than the embarrassment, there was no harm done. I don't remember the field work, and I do remember missing the plane because I was so embarrassed about the mistake. Even though I did everything just as instructed. Oh well!

My notes for Wednesday say `fears, Matt, heartburn, genealogy, & movie.' Matt wanted to go to Las Vegas with a female friend from college, stay with her, and then come home. He had no money for the shuttle, and did not want to ask for money. Both Andrea and I were very uncomfortable with this choice. I typically don't have heartburn unless I eat way too much. I'm not sure what this word was written for. I spent a lot of time before Christmas, and over the earlier part of the year, working on typing in the Shirts, Hafen, Nelson, Sharp, Nielson genealogies as my Christmas present for you kids. Much of this was done sitting in front of the television and watching a TV movie. I probably spent all day watching movies and working on genealogy. This is the best I can do after this long at translating these five words.

On Thursday Andrea and I decided on things we wanted (were willing) to get rid of. Things like my Newton, the big light bulb from The Keynotes, little gifts from China, old T-Shirts, etc. We divided them into groups and placed them all in a convention bag. Then we wrapped them all. The idea came from Dave Johnson. He said they just wrap up a bunch of presents, then play games to pick the presents, and then let the kids trade between themselves. So we wrapped three presents for each adult: (1) the grab bag with a T-Shirt and a small present; (2) three video tapes from our collection of Disney and other family movies; and (3) personalized genealogy. It was fun, and we got finished just before it was time to pick up Rachel at the airport. Thursday evening Andrea, Rachel, and I went to see `Family Stone.' I didn't like the move much. It showed the pain of a family, had a big homosexual theme, and glorified drugs and alcohol as normal parts of life. In addition, the main actress reminded me of Marti, and her self-justifications. Oh well!

Friday Matt arrived. He seemed fine, and everything seemed to have worked out. He was stuck in the airport for several hours, which was not any fun. Oh well! In the evening Paul, Kate, Grant, and Ella Dawn arrived. I remember watching the special program on KBYU celebrating the Joseph Smith Bicentennial, and I don't remember if Paul and Kate and the kids arrived before or after the program. I took some notes on the program, which I think are worth writing out:

`President Hinkley pointed out how Joseph Smith's shadow has now reached across the earth. 100 years ago, Joseph F. Smith dedicated a monument to his great-grandfather at Sharon, Vermont. The pillar was 38 1/2 feet tall, with one foot for each year of Joseph Smith's life. It took 22 horses to haul the 40 ton block of granite up the hill. The temperature dropped 30 degrees overnight, which froze the ground, and made it possible to move the monument. At the time it was erected, it was the largest polished shaft in America and possibly in the world. It came from a quote: "I am like a huge rough stone, rolling down a hell. All hell knocking off a corner here and there, that I might become a polished shaft to the Lord." Joseph Smith There have been 130 million Book of Mormons distributed in 77 languages. There are 5 million priesthood holders in 160 nations. Joseph Smith's name is known for good and evil in all parts of the Earth. And no man has born a stronger reality of the living Jesus Christ than Joseph Smith.'

I do remember I was still working on putting together large family group sheets to show all of you the extent of the genealogy work I have done for you. I also remember reading some stories to Grant. And I remember Paul watching Numb3rs with us and making some insightful comments like: `It was such and such, you can tell because they always set these stories up like that;' and `They use way out math and make it look like it fits something practical, when it is pretty esoteric.' Hard to believe someone this smart is related to me.

One thing that was different this year was the number of electronic Christmas Cards we received. They came from Bruno Steinle - in Switzerland, from Ed Rogers - my lawyer, from Bob Horner - in Florida, from Pradeep Anand - originally from India, from Ioannis Kakadiaris - at the University of Houston, from Candice Womack - at the bottom of Emerald Green, from Laura Pankonien - in Austin, and from Paul - sent Christmas Eve from our house.

On Saturday Andrea and Rachel and I found ourselves alone in the house, and so we went to a movie. Andrea was so pleased that `Memories of a Geshi' was not `R-Rated.' It was an interesting movie. Much more so to Andrea because of her time as a missionary in Japan. Life definitely creates some major challenges for us, and this movie shows someone who had much bigger challenges than most of us. It is the kind of movie which encourages me to count my blessings. We got back to the house after Paul and Kate and the kids returned from Marti's, and after Ben and Sarah and Ethan had arrived. And thus the wonderful party started. Pretty soon Melanie and Jared and kids were there, then Sara Ellyn and Rob showed up. Of course, Matt and Rachel were there. And it started to seem like a full house. Sometime during the day, I actually wrote a song about the excitement and tension among the Grandkids:

`Anticipation 24 Dec 2005 HRN C: An-tici-pa-tion All across the na-tion Little girls and boys Dreaming of new toys 1: Mom has a vision Full of happy children A mini type of Zion Sharing with their friends 2: Dad teaches the lesson Reading Luke's story One of many sessions Teaching of eternity 3: Grandma builds tradition Baking pies and cakes Orange rolls and protection Lots of hugs for hurts and aches 4: Grandpa's family mission Rolled across the floor Teaching the heard lessons Striving to open good doors 5: Children become excitement Parents full of love Grandpa pulls a stunt Grandma thanks those above'

I remember there was a lot of egg nog, thanks to Matt. I don't remember all that we ate, but there were all kinds of goodies. Andrea had made a lot of extra cookies for the after Epiphany Joint Concert Party, and she started to pull them out of the freezer. I was still working on some of the large Family Group Sheets during the evening. And so I was not interacting all of the time. However, we got everyone together about 9:00 PM and I read the story of the nativity, while Ben and Ethan placed the pieces on the table in the music room. I had thought we might dress the kids up and do it outside, and this worked better than that would have. Hopefully everyone remembers this through the excitement of the following day and days.

Andrea and I had reserved a room at La Quinta. It has been quite a while since I would bring Andrea to Houston and she would stay at the La Quinta Inn, while I stayed in this big old house alone (../9851.html, ../9904.html,and ../9916.html). The idea was to set an example for you kids, and more importantly to make sure we did not cross any lines which would start our marriage off the wrong way. It was nice to leave the pandemonium of parents putting together presents for kids until early in the morning and to get a good night sleep. We stayed at the La Quinta Inn on Sunday night also.

I'm not sure how to write about Christmas Day. I guess if a photo is worth a thousand words, the best thing I can say is there are 208,000 words + ten thousand words per movie means there is an additional 480,000 words, or a total of 688,000 words at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Family/RBN1a_RoiceNelsonFamily/051225_Christmas. My heart is still full! It was an absolutely wonderful day! Thank you all for making the day a perfectly wonderful Family Christmas!"

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.