"Several weeks ago the following nice card was delivered to each of us at Geokinetics:
I was pleased we were not having another lunch and afternoon at Dave & Buster's gaming place. And although there were other important things happen this week, this seemed to be the theme for the week. To me it was nice that Andrea would be able to go to the company Christmas Party with me. Although others found it awkward. What surprised me was that it was a Holiday Party, and not a Christmas Party. Maybe Dave Johnson is not the Christian I thought he was?
I was tired Monday. We got back to the house from Thanksgiving with Paul, Kate, Grant, Ella, and Matt (0648.html) at about 10:30. By the time we got the bags, guitar, statue, and other stuff in the house it was 11:00. Then we went to the church and set up Andrea's Seminary room. And it was after 11:30 by the time we laid down and immediately fell asleep. I drove, and so there was no sleeping on the way in. The travel-time calculation portion of the 3-D depth migration project George and I started the Friday before I left for Thanksgiving was not complete. It did not finish until Tuesday morning early (it ran for 10 days straight, which shows why geophysical processing has always been one of the largest users of computer cycles ever since the first computers were built at MIT right after World War II). I ended up drinking a diet coke, which wired me for the rest of the day. I ended up working on China stuff most of the day.
Joe Roberts did send an e-mail saying his friend and accountant, John Wagner, was ready to meet with me and discuss the Colorado County project any night the first of the week. We sent several e-mails back and forth, and settled for 5:00 at Joe's house.
Doug Harless was about 10 minutes late picking me up for lunch. He had set up a meeting for Gary Jones and myself at Brennon's, the oldest steakhouse in Houston, with the CTO and a key technical developer in a new acceleration board for Linux clusters based in Salt Lake City. Turns out the developer is in Gary Schuester's consortium at the University of Houston, and I recall seeing him when I attended the consortium meeting at the SEG (Remember I am writing these Thoughtlets many weeks after they happened: 0641.html). I was not the right person at GDC to talk to about this, and I made sure they knew it up front. They are spinning out their technology and forming a new company to sell the accelerator board. I recommended they raise extra money, and approach GDC with an offer to provide the hardware and a developer for free, with the requirement their be senior management review of all progress at least biweekly. They liked the idea, and there has been feedback since the meeting telling me this is the approach they are going to take to bring the technology into the oil industry.
On the way to the lunch, Doug asked me what I have been doing besides Geokinetics. I told him about An Open Mind, and he was quite taken back. His daughter had twins a short while ago. They were born very early, one died, and the other had no brain. They were in a very famous hospital back east, with the best brain surgeons in the world. The daughter was told the baby would never function and would always be a vegetable. She prayed and prayed, and one day a warm feeling came over her and she knew her daughter would be OK. Since then the Doctors have done all kinds of tests, and the baby now has a brain and is functioning normally. The Doctors can not explain it, and Doug said his daughter would be glad to provide me with CAT Scans before and after the miracle for me to include in An Open Mind.
On the way back to the office we talked about the revitalization of Dynamic Resources Corporation, and the meeting happening at 5:00 at Joe Roberts house. Doug expressed interest in coming, I got permission from Joe, and Doug said he would work his way out to Katy after his next meeting. There was a horrific accident on the Katy Freeway, just before we got off at Chimney Rock. A semi-tractor was on its side across all outbound lanes of I-10, and one of the cement barriers against the HOV lane was all the way across the HOV lane. I did not see anything in the newspaper about the accident, and it was all cleaned up by the time Mike and I drove back out the the Park-and-Ride. I came home, modified, and printed the Power Point describing Dynamic Resources top 5 exploration opportunities for Doug. Doug got to the house just after it finished printing and I rode over to Joe Roberts' house with him.
The meeting was interesting. Joe had cooked some great food, and I ended up eating too much. Several weeks ago I decided to not eat dinner if I was over my goal weight. Well I was on track before going to St. Louis, and over my goal weight 11 pounds when we returned. And since Monday was my first day back on track, I was really hungry. So I decided to eat something, then I decided to celebrate the meeting going so well, and then I ate too much. Oh well! John was interested in my proposal for Colorado County. He and Joe each committed to put up$10,000, for the first phase of the work. I left Joe's house ecstatic, and when I got home Andrea was not home, so I found and ate a bunch of M&M's in celebration. Between feeling sorry for myself when things are down and celebrating when things are up, it's a wonder I'm only as fat as I am. Oh well! Andrea was quite distraught on Monday evening because the stone in her wedding ring came out during the day, and she could not find it anyplace. I told her Marti had lost my Grandma Nelson's wedding ring down the drain making bread in Dallas, and then lost the stone in the replacement ring the last summer she went to New Hampshire to get her Masters Degree. That was not the right thing to say. Oh well!
Tuesday morning I got a couple of back Thoughtlets sent off to Melanie, Paul, and Matt. I spent several hours writing a one-page cover for Fred, which was sent to Jialin to be included as the cover page in the Chinese publication of Fred's book about Seismic Amplitudes. During the day the travel-time ray trace modeling finished up. We (Mike Schoemann) started the first migration on the survey I am to work. I am starting to learn my way around the software, and hopefully I will be a contributor shortly. Lee Bell visited me and we talked about Nauvoo. By the time he left, my whiteboard was covered with a map from Palmyra, New York to Kirtland, Ohio to Jackson County, Missouri to Nauvoo, Illinois to Winter Quarters (Omaha), Nebraska to Albuquerque, New Mexico to Pueblo, Colorado to San Diego, California to Sacramento, California to Salt Lake City, Utah. We discussed Sam Brennon and the Brookland sailing around South America with immigrants and attempting to get Brigham Young to move to San Francisco. Lee Bell said it was a good thing Brigham didn't make the move, or the church would be in the middle of the homosexual issues in San Francisco. Lee seems genuinely interested. I read to him about Moses Browning's invention of the machine gun, and the credit written above the display in Nauvoo (0648.html). I enjoy these conversations, and Lee is my boss, so I'm assuming it is OK to do this on company time. The conversations have helped me see Heavenly Father's hand working across time, shaping events, and setting things up for the expansion of His Kingdom. Of course, it is simply an intellectual exercise for Lee. Lee has become quite interested in seeing that I progress with this project, and he is checking on in each day. This is good. Since I report to Lee on paper, it is nice to have some interaction with him. I wish the project was progressing faster. Oh well!
At lunchtime I went down to find Leavitt Jewelery where I had purchased the wedding ring. They were out of business. I learned the founder had died, his daughter had tried to keep the store open for about three years, and then they had closed it up. Oh well! I found a place across the street, and they seemed competent. Who knows with the diamond business. Anyway, they will be able to replace the diamond within about a week. There were a couple of e-mails with Joe and Ed Rogers on Tuesday and Tuesday evening. Joe told me the investor wanted proof they will not get in trouble with GDC (Geokinetics) for working with me on this project. I told him I could provide my employment letter. He also started to barter about how much they were going to invest. It did not please me, and so I called up Doug Harless and asked if he was serious about raising $100 million for Dynamic Resources. He said he was, and I told him to move as quickly as possible.
Wednesday I sent off another Thoughtlet. I was awake much of Tuesday night thinking about how to respond to the potential conflict-of-interest question. I decided the best way to approach it was head-on. This made Wednesday a scary day, because I needed to find out if I was correct in my interpretation of my employment agreement, i.e. that I could continue to work on things I was working on prior to joining GDC, now Geokinetics Processing & Interpretation (0641.html), and not be in a conflict-of-interest situation. I fully realized I could be fired for even asking the question. I did not tell Andrea I was going to ask the question. However, I did have a long talk with the Lord about it. First thing I did on getting into the office was look for Dave Johnson. He was not in. So I asked Maureen if he was coming in. She said she did not know. So I got involved in some other things, and then Dave stopped by to see me. We had a great discussion, and it went as I hoped it would. In addition, I learned he is on his way around the world again soon. He has to go to Bangladesh, because one of the former Grant crews there has driven a million miles with no accidents, and they deserve a big reward. Then he will go to China, where he will broach the subject of purchasing Geo with Jia Feng. He also hopes to make it to Yang Chen, to personally qualify the exploration opportunity Jialin has been so excited about. But next week he has to go to New York to sell bonds, in order to reduce debt which came with the purchase of Grant Geophysicsal. Anyway, the three e-mail's below summarize the part of the conversation critical to where I am going. The first one was from me to Dave, summarizing this part of our conversation:
The second e-mail was from Dave, acknowledging I had properly stated the conversation:
Receipt of this e-mail resulted in forwarding the above two e-mails to Joe Roberts as the third e-mail, with the following words:
I have not said anything about this e-mail correspondence to Lee, and he has not said anything to me. In fact, he has been all business in discussions since Dave sent a copy of this e-mail to him. Mike was in Mexico. However, I reviewed it with him on Friday morning and told him the Colorado County Project was revitalized because of my strong reaction to the 10:1 reverse split and dissolving of the value of my stock options and the only documented retirement plan I have (0645.html). Mike expressed surprise that there had been enough progress since the reverse stock split for me to bring the opportunity up with Dave. He is right. I must do better at remembering to be thankful for my blessings. Mike also expressed his frustration with the reverse stock split, which kind of surprised me, and gave me confidence I'm not too far out in left field.
Thursday we confirmed something implied in work over the last couple of weeks - namely that the graphics card on the Sun Workstation in my office will not allow horizon picking and map interpretation with the Geo-Depth Software. We decided the best thing to do is to move the Linux system Les has been working on to install Landmark on to my office, even if Landmark was not working. So I got a trolley, moved a big folding table into my office, moved three boxes of books down to the 13th floor, and moved the Sun Workstation onto the folding table. I was able to do this in such a way the 3-D PSDM (Pre-Stack Depth Migration) continued to run. However, when Les attempted to shut down the Linux system, it went into hardware failure mode, and we had to wait until Friday, when Ricky Lara was back in the office to fix it. Thursday was the end of my first month in the Depth Migration Group, and looking back over the month, I am disappointed with how little I have been able to accomplish of value to the company. Oh well! I guess start-up in a new side of the business is often like this.
Thursday there was a serious cold front that came through at about 8:00. Andrea said she has never experienced the temperature dropping by 20o in a matter of a few minutes before. It was still cold when I got home. I went by Hayden Hudson's place. It looks like he has moved out, based on no cars any of the times I've been there this month. Then I drove over to the bottom of Baker Road to get a photo of the pig corral. This story started several weeks ago. I came home one evening and Andrea was very excited to tell me about an adventure on her walk that morning. There was a big yellow sign which read 'KIA Community Center Coming Soon 1800 Baker Road.' Andrea wants to replace our kitchen and master bathroom cabinets with stone and so she used it as an excuse to find out what the KIA Community Center is, and went into 'Baker Granite' to talk to someone there. A cousin of Craig Baker, who owns the stone company was there, and he told Andrea and Rita it is 'The Katy Islamic Association,' that they plan to put a 25,000 square foot mosque on the property, and that they had visited with Craig, told him he should move his store and sell the property to them because they were not going to be very good neighbors. Craig looks kind of like Texas Ranger Walker on TV, and it appears he is about as 'good old boy Texan' as they come. I recall Andrea telling me she said, 'You should put some pigs on the property adjacent to their property,' and that Rita laughed and told her she was 'sooooo bad!' Well a couple of weeks later she called me at work to tell me that on their walk, they went down Baker Road, and there is a pig pen with a bunch of really cute little pigs along the property line. They went in and talked to the cousin Baker, and he said they were FFA pigs. Andrea said she asked, 'Well why did you put such cute little pigs there?' And Mr. Baker simply answered, 'They'll grow!' Then a yellow sign showed up, which reads:
So I told some folks at work about the pigs and the Moslems, and told them Andrea had started the whole thing with her comment about why don't you put some pigs on the property line. Evidently, on Wednesday night the whole story was on Channel 13 News at 10, Cindy Peevey at work saw it, and we had a good laugh. Well, Rob came over Thursday night, and when Andrea retold the story, I learned her comment about the pigs was only said to Rita, and the Bakers came up with the same idea all on their own. However, when I got to the place, there was Craig Baker, kneeling down next to the pig pen with a photographer taking pictures of the pig pen, and him. It was cold outside, my windows were fogged up, and so I stepped out of the car, took a couple of photos (061130_Baker_Pigs_1.jpg and 061130_Baker_Pigs_2.jpg), and headed back to the house. The furnace had not been turned on, so I went upstairs and turned them on, only to find that the downstairs burner did not start and there was a dead mouse in one of the traps. So I called Louis, our AC/heating guy, threw away the mouse, and was just changing clothes when Rob dropped by. Shortly later Andrea came home from teaching her Japanese class, and we had our discussion about Baker Road. Little did I know that the Saturday Chronicle would have a story about Craig Baker's problems, including the photo I took a photo of being taken (061202_Chronicle_1.jpg and 061202_Chronicle_2.jpg), and that the Katy Times which came on Sunday morning would have another article on the community issue (061203_Katy_Times_1.jpg, 061203_Katy_Times_2.jpg, and 061203_Katy_Times_3.jpg, and in January it was on ABC News at 0701_Pig_Races_mov08072.mpg in a local paper again with 0701_dsc08074.jpg, and in the 17 January 2007 Katy Sun with another front page article 070117_Sun_1.jpg and 070117_Sun_2.jpg). I think it is really funny, and yet it is also sad there can be so much mistrust and xenophobia.
After telling Rob the story, Andrea was off again to a Relief Society progressive dinner and Seminary Training. It gave Rob and I time to talk. It was a good conversation and probably lasted an hour. He is getting quite philosophical. He recently went to an addiction recovery class with a girl friend, and they had some interesting handouts on families, which we talked about for quite a while. This Thoughtlet is already getting too long, once again, so I'll save the conversation for a less active week, if I remember, or if Rob sends me his version of the conversation to include in a Thoughtlet. Because I spent time with Rob, I did not get another Thoughtlet finished on Thursday night.
Friday I actually did some good work for Geokinetics in the morning. I picked outline boundaries around all of the top salt picks we had transferred into the project. I also moved the Linux box to my desk after my walk. This was the first day I made it up the first 27 flights of stairs without using the handrail. It takes me about 35 minutes to do 54 flights of stairs. However, once I got the Linux box up, I could not get Geo-Depth up. It might be that since the Oracle database Landmark uses requires a 32-bit operating system, and since Geo-Depth requires a 64-bit operating system, that we will need to load two versions of the operating system on the Linux system. Oh well! Frustrations around every turn corner. On the way home I got back on track for my weekly purchase of a dozen roses for Andrea. There was a nice thank you note from Seth and Brette Jones at the house. I missed their wedding reception because I was traveling. Obviously Andrea took care of the obligations to a former member of my Priest Quorum. Andrea did not get home from the grocery store until about an hour after I got home.
I worked on Thoughtlets until it was time to leave for the Geokinetics Holiday Party at 7:00. We went by Masako Perich's house to pick up a revised final for Andrea's Japanese 2 kids. Andrea has learned that one of the ways KISD has such high scholastic standards is to give super easy finals, and to have them count for a large percentage of the grades. Seems like there are a lot of people who cheat in an attempt to beat the system. Oh well! I don't, and to me that is key. There were three accidents inbound on the Katy Freeway. We got to The Houstonian at 7:50, and I went to the back and parked underground. George and Becky Schultz pulled in right behind us. We made our way to the Geokinetics Holiday Party in the Manor House. We did not try the bar. However, the food was absolutely wonderful. It was the first time all week I ate dinner, and so it was extra good. Les and Lisa Denham were there. Dave Agarwal and his wife. We talked to Dave Johnson, to Mike Dunn and his wife, and several of the folks I don't know that well brought their wives up to introduce them to us and to talk. I enjoyed the evening, and found it orders of magnitude better than Dave & Buster's.
Dave Johnson made a nice speech about how much the company is growing. Then he became Santa Claus, drawing names, were those drawn drew numbers, and there was a gift for them to pick up. My name was drawn towards the end, I drew #7, and it was a $100 gift card to Kohl's. I was surprised who received the gifts, and came away with the feeling "winners" were pre-selected. To me it makes sense that if someone will cheat to get a stock price where the market wants it, they will cheat in other areas also, and so I'm becoming pretty cynical. We gave the gift card to the Bishop to help those in the ward who need the help over Christmas. I took a couple of photos of the festivities (see http://www.walden3d.com/photos/GDC/061202_Geokinetics_Holiday_Party), and several photos of Christmas decorations inside The Houstonian, including with Becky and George Schultz. The photo I liked the best was the one of the decorated oak tree at The Houstonian to the right. I sat the digital camera on top of the car, and the reflection off of the top of the car looks like a reflecting pond. I like this photo, and it alone made the trip to the Geokinetics Holiday Party worth the trip and the time. We got home about 10:30, went right to sleep, and Matt called about midnight with an accounting question.
Saturday morning I got up early and worked on the Thoughtlet about our trip to Switzerland and Italy until about noon (0624.html), only to find I couldn't get it to print, and the mail man came, and so it was not sent out on Monday. Friday I had found out that the e-mail at the house was not working, and there were several notes back and forth to Marc Roulston. He came over about 2:00 and worked until almost 7:00 attempting to figure out what was going on. He called back later in the evening convinced that it is an AT&T problem at the local terminal. Time will tell. After finishing the Thoughtlet, I went outside and mowed the lawn, did some edging, and dug up some weeds. Then I opened up the attic off the pool room, and discovered 4 mouse traps with 4 mice in them, and thus the source of the smell we have been struggling with the last couple of weeks. We also replaced 8 florescent tubes in the kitchen. There is always maintenance to do. Marc came over at about 2:30 and worked until about 8:30. He was not able to get the system back up, and the number we called said they were not open until 7:00 AM Pacific Time. Oh well! While Marc was working on the system I watched a John Wayne movie called 'The Undefeated' (No Matt, it is not one of the movies you gave me!). Then I went and got a haircut. Then we worked for a couple of hours attempting to get back on-line. It looks like the problem is an AT&T problem, and not something at the house. Hopefully we will get it fixed. After Marc left, watched a Hallmark movie about a soldier who came home from Afghanistan and fell in love with a lady who sent him a Christmas Card.
Sunday was typical. Got my Primary Lesson together, and copied lessons for the rest of the year. We went to Ward Choir. Taught my Primary Class, and went to Sharing Time. The Primary kids were kind of wired. Thor Larson was back, and so he was able to help me keep them under control. Fast & Testimony Meeting was nice. I was going to get up, and Mike Pickerd was visiting again this month, so I didn't. Turns out we missed the Epiphany Choir practice because they held it on Saturday. Oh well! Maybe we didn't learn about it because the web was down on Friday. So we watched the First Presidency Christmas Message. They sure do a good job. Then we went and got Andrea's room set up for Seminary. When we came back I ended up watching a movie that lasted until 11:00 called 'The Librarian.' I liked it. And between times I worked on writing this Thoughtlet about the Geokinetics Holiday Party."
