Ceiva Frame
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.
"It took me until Tuesday evening to get the next 46 pages of An Open Mind printed and packaged to send to Jan Miller and Melanie. I like what has been written, and I look forward to getting back feedback from others. In many ways I have become so used to folks writing off my projects, I kind of expect them to fail. It is nice to have this project still alive, even though there has only been one (1) e-mail, and a few telephone calls confirming receipt of material I've sent and non-committing statements, which can can be interpreted by someone with a little bit of sarcasm, as covering for unprofessional responses. Oh well! I will continue to be optimistic.
Tuesday we received a nice thank you note from Jim Jensen. It read:
<![CDATA['Thank you, Roice and Andrea for a lovely Sunday afternoon.
The Easter dinner was choice. I enjoyed Roice's folk music 0 the ballad of a frog who uttered "Brig-ham."
The movie was at times spiritual ... touching ... and to me tangible. I faded away from time to time
during the last fifteen minutes perhaps attributable to a nearly sleepless night. Thank you for sharing
the film and a memorable afternoon.
Jim']]>
Wednesday morning I derived a possible stanza for Prime Words from reading the daily message message posted by brainyquote.com, this one written by Dale Carnagie:
<![CDATA['Success is getting
What you want
Happiness is wanting
What you get']]>
Wednesday I called about a letter from Craig Cannon in Concord, NC who thought Dynamic Resources was a public company and wanted to use it for a reverse merger. He had no money to invest. Oh well!
George Schultz gave me an article out of CNNMoney.com which included the words, stating that my experience with low mileage from ethanol fuel when we drove to Missouri for Thanksgiving was right on track (0648.html):
<![CDATA['Because ethanol is only about 70 percent as efficient as gasoline, and because EIA measures gasoline
that is already blended with ethanol when it computes its demand numbers, people need to use more
gasoline to go the same amount of miles. But both analysts say ethanol's contribution to rising demand
is small,as the ethanol concentration in gasoline is typically less than 10 percent.']]>
Wednesday night I sent out two e-mails about the Ceiva Frame, the first to Roice, Paul & Kate, Melanie & Jared, and Audrey & Joshua, and the second to Heather, Sara Ellyn, Rob, Rachel, and Matt. The Ceiva Frame messaging system limited e-mail notifications to five (5) at a time. My message simply said: "Ben and Sarah gave us a Ceiva Frame for Christmas. It allows folks to upload digital photos for our viewing. Mobil # is rn.66859A74@ceivamobil.com. Hope to see your photos soon. Love, Mom & Dad." It also limited the number of characters I could send out. Thursday morning when I woke up there were 27 new photos on the Ceiva Frame. Neat! No, REALLY NEAT! I wrote the following thank you before I left for work:
<![CDATA['Sarah, Melanie, and Paul,
I finally got the Ceiva Frame e-mail sent out last night after finishing up last week's Thoughtlet.
Imagine my surprise and delight to wake up this morning to 27 new photos from the three of you.
This is absolutely wonderful. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Dad']]>
Thursday morning I scheduled to be at dGB at 7:00 to work with Friso Brouwer and Kristofer Tingdahl. Bill Barkhouse (../9945.html) is now working with them. Nice discussion about semblance space, offset space, physical space, 2-D stratal patterns, 3-D stratal surfaces, carrying parent / child relationships with automatic interpretation picks, geologic space, geochronostratigraphic space, network space, and IP Address structural relationships to The Infinite GridSM and The Knowledge BackboneSM, dip steering, how the dGB auto picker will work with semblance picks, as well as some discussion about bidirectional marketing. I would love to go into detail on any of these topics any of you are interested in, and since I doubt anyone will take me up on the offer, I'll just drop writing about the 4.5 hour meeting here. I went downstairs and picked up our individual tax return from Merril Littlewood. The return is big enough we should be able to fix the master shower and the garage when we get the return. Andrea is pleased.
From I-59 and Dairy Ashford I drove to The Houstonian, back up by the Geokinetics office, for the 2007 Spotfire Energy Forum. They were showing my poster on "Rock Property Classification Trends" again this year, which was my justification for not going back into the office. Good meeting, and I learned a lot. They have a new product which looks very interesting. Several folks spent quite a bit of time talking with me. I got there just before lunch, and John Hanten, with Chevron's Venture Capital Group came and sat by me. We talked about some of my ideas which need funding: Dynamic Resources, condensation water generation, putting a thermal chimney on the side of a mountain like Pine Valley Mountain, and Galveston Futures. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of the conversation. Again, I've become jaded, and as interested as folks seem when I'm talking to them, there never seems to be any follow-through. John Dinning is aware that Geokinetics will probably not renew the Spotfire license. He said he will work with me if I decide to renew it through Walden 3-D. $3,500. per year is too big of a bite for me to take on until we get some real income coming into W3D or Dynamic Resources. Time will tell.
On the way home I stopped at the I-10 and Highway 6 office of Geokinetics and talked to Diane Anderson who is responsible for the corporate stock options. I explained about my tax loss carry forward with HyperMedia, about using stock for tithing, and asked her to help me know the choices I have relative to the Geokinetic stock options which I am now completely vested in. She said she would let me know tomorrow. When I got to the house, there was a very nice thank you note to Andrea from Audrey for her going to the baby shower. I called Jan Miller / Nena Madonia. They were both in meetings. The receptionist curtly said, "We received your material." I responsed, "So I guess I wait for them to call." Her answer was immediate, "Yes!" So I hung up and am still waiting for the call Nena promised to make to me within a week of Tuesday, March 27th. Later Thursday evening I had a Star Scout Board of Review for Daniel Heaney with Jeff Jurinak and Kay Harlan. There was a good spirit in the room.
Friday or Saturday Roice beat me at chess again. To encourage someone else to take me on in a chess game, I include the messages tied to our chess game again, along with a screen capture of the final piece positions on the board:
<![CDATA['1 White So, I guess the previous game was a stalemate, since we didn't finish it, and I had a plan on
how to make 10 moves without getting check mated!
1 Black nope, sorry, the last game was over :( Click on "My Games" near the upper left to see the check mate...
2 White If you say so. And I will get you this time.
2 Black We'll see about that ;) Game on!
3 WhiteReally?
3 Blackon guard!
4 White Cute!
7 WhiteI'm sorry I missed your move. How long have you been waiting?
7 Black no worries. I moved last Friday, but there is never a rush. I just figured you were out of town or
something. Thanks for the move compliment in your email :)
8 White Never can be in a hurry with you. Even when you feel guilty about missing an e-mail. Oh well!
9 White I've also lost some weight. I'm down to 230, from an all time high of 265 a few years ago, and
my goal is also 195. Bet you beat me to this goal. Glad to read you like your hobby, despite its
expense in terms of the broken arm.
9 Black that's awesome. Are you still doing the skip dinner approach? One thing I've done which I think
has helped a lot is to not eat anything after 8:30 (3 hours before I usually go to bed). I use to be in the
habit of snacking then.
10 White Yes, I skip dinner, attempt to not snack, count swallows, go up and down 54 flights of stairs
most work days, work in the yard, etc. Travel, stress, and worry are my downfalls.
10 Black hopefully our chess games are a stress reducer, not a stress producer :)
11 White I think it is pretty obvious I am not very focused on the games. My stress is first and foremost
worrying about you kids, especially Rob and Heather these days; second, getting my finances back in
order; and third not liking my job anymore. The game is a pleasent diversion, and it let's me know you
are ok. Do you work Friday? Andrea and I were thinking we haven't seen the Austin contigent since
Christmas and it is about time. I am off on Friday and have a scout commitment Saturday morning.
But Friday and Friday evening are good. What do you think? What about Sarah and Sara Ellyn?
11 Black Sorry you are stressed and not liking your job, but I'm glad our games are pleasant. Sarah and I
both work Friday, but don't have plans for Friday evening. I'm not sure about Sara, but I figure she
probably has to work too. Anyway, we'll keep Friday night reserved for you guys - let us know what
you decide. P.S. check.
12 White Looks like you are out for blood. Will you play another game if you beat me really bad this
time? On guard.
12 Black I'll always keep a game going with you if you want, no matter how bad either one of us wins or loses :)
13 White Good. You almost had me, or at leas my castle.
13 Black nice defensive move. my plans were foiled!
14 White 1. Yea. I looked at the board long enough to see how much trouible I was in. 2. Regarding
Friday, I guess we will not come we only spend time in the evening and I need to be back here early
Saturday. Andrea has commitments the next Saturday, the 14th. However, we do not think there are
any commitments the 21st, 28th, or 3rd of May. If you are interested in spending a day with us, and
if Sarah and Sara Ellyn are available, we will set it in stone. Interested in another camping trip? Let
us know what works best for everyone up there and we will tell Rob too.
14 Black camping sounds great, and I don't have any plans the dates you mentioned (as far as I know).
I'll talk to Sarah and Sara in the next couple days and let you know what they say. You and Andrea
don't have bikes by chance do you? (it would be fun to do a ride on our camping trip)
15 White We have bikes, they need some work, we can do that in the next couple of weeks.
15 Black it would be fun, but don't worry too much about it. also, I wasn't thinking about this earlier,
but you might not have a way to transport them to the campsite anyway.?.
16 White There are only two of us, unless Rob comes, and we can put them in the back of the Prius.
Andrea wants the bikes fixed because she wants to go riding on the new George Bush Park trails.
16 Black cool, this could be a good excuse then :) Are the George Bush Park trails close to you?
17 White The new trail starts at Fry and Highland Knolls and goes to the shooting range, and the old road
up to Maudeen's place.
19 White You could have check-mated me by moving your queen between my pawn and bishop. Nice
to know you make mistakes too.
19 Black oops, sure enough
22 White I made this move a couple of days ago, and it looks like it didn't take. Sara Ellyn called last
night. Because of her GMAT studies, sounds like the Sunday night and Monday of Memorial Day is
the best day for her. Comments?
22 Black Sara was over last night for a bit and let us know about this idea. Sarah doesn't know yet if she'll
have Memorial Day off - she thinks probably not. But maybe we can hope for it and we'll let you know
as soon as she finds out. (I don't really get holidays either, but I can just plan to take that day off)
23 White If not, we will just come up and go to dinner one Friday or Saturday.
23 Black ok, I'll keep my fingers crossed that camping can still work out because that would be fun.
Did you and Sara discuss any other weekends that might work if Memorial Day fell through?
24 White Sara Ellyn is tied up with the GMAT untill the middle of May. We have friends, Johnny Walker
and Susan Jensen who are getting married on the Saturday before Memorial Day up in Tyler Texas
(east of Dallas), which is why Saturday doesn't work for us (unless we went camping someplace up
that direction Friday night, and quit so we could get cleaned up and get to a 3:00 wedding). And we
do not have to wait for Sara Ellyn if you and Sarah have another Saturday that is good.
24 Black ok, we'll just see how it turns out then.
25 White How what turns out?
25 Blackmemorial day (if Sarah will have to work or not)
26 White Oh! I thought it was an underhanded remark about how bad you are beating me.
26 Black oh, nope. I know how this is going to turn out ;) he he :)
27 White Awfully confident for someone so young and inexperienced!
29 White Looks like you are getting close to winning.
29 Blackyup. want to play another?']]>
Saturday morning Andrea was up early to take her posters and one of her students down to the Japanese Festival in Herman Park. I read the paper, mowed the lawns, and spent the rest of the morning working on putting a calendar and address lists together to add into the new journal I purchased when we went to the Houston Museum of Fine Art (0714.html). Andrea came back from her trip and I upset her by leaving the front wheels from the lawnmower on the kitchen cabinet and saying 'I figure I bring home the money and so you can get the replacement front tires,' and then arguing about her reaction. Oh well! We went down to the Japanese Festival in the afternoon. It was interesting. Her classes 3 posters each received an award. In fact 6 of the 12 awards were from KISD. The food was good. The dancers were funny. The drums were interesting. I took several photos and movies, which are at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Texas/070414_Japanese_Festival, for anyone interested. From here we went to John and Heather Turner's wedding reception, which was up next to the Houston Temple. Very nice house. Very nicely furnished. Great food. Lots of friends from the ward there. We came home and I continued to work on my inserts for my new journal.
Lyle Rowbury was the main speaker at Sacrament Meeting. I am still figuring out how I will embarrass him with the story Paul told us about tying the tails of two cats together and throwing them over a clothesline (0713.html). My Primary Class was very active again this week, and they had not been eating Easter candy. Madison Graham got very upset at the end of class because she does not want to stand up in front of everyone and perform 'Froggie Learns the Gospel' at Latter-Day Night Live on Saturday (0713.html). I tried to comfort her after class, and I don't think I know how to comfort girls very good. Oh well! Paul called in the evening, and I mentioned the Ceiva Frame and how neat it has been to check for new photographs each morning before eating breakfast. I guess I mentioned that the only morning there were new photographs was on Monday and Thursday, as described above, and he agreed with me it will be easy to forget to send new photographs. Oh well! We will enjoy those photographs which do make it to the Ceiva Frame."
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.)