27 May 2007 #0721.html

Dallin Spencer Nelson

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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.

"Monday morning at the office I got the call from Paul, followed a short time later by this e-mail:

'Welcome Dallin Spencer Nelson. Kate had the baby this morning. I don't have lots of time to type, but to sum it up . . . BIG baby. 10 lbs 9 oz. Baby and Mom are great. Here are a few pics. Feel free to call 314-322-3654. http://katepaulnelsonfamily.blogspot.com/ Love ya, Paul'

It is hard feeling like you are very effective as a Grandparent, or as a Dad, when you live a long ways away from your family, or when they live a long ways away from you - either of which option provide the same mathematical result: separation by time and space. Of the many beauties of the times in which we live: telephones - to receive news like the safe and successful birth of a new Grandchild; photographs - to be able to see a new Grandchild; and the Internet - to have virtually real-time updates on the first few critical days in the life of a Grandchild (see http://katepaulnelsonfamily.blogspot.com/). I keep hoping I will figure out how to use these three media to even better support not only a new Grandchild, like Dallin Spencer Nelson, but also his parents, his siblings, his uncles, his aunts, his cousins, and other interested parties.

In the meantime, life motors on when you are far away from the missed distractions accompanying a new birth. Monday I went to POPS. I really go for the history talk by Bob Scott. However, the discussion on Continuous Circulation, by National Oil Well and Varco Business Development spokesman, was very good. Of course I hoped to get a call from Pinebrook Road Partners, and just to keep any of you who are curious from guessing, I never did get a call. I called them a couple of times, and came away figuring it was a waste of time and a compromise of confidentiality to pass this information directly to them without going through an introduction process. Oh well!

Monday evening Reynolds and Luana Calhoon, their granddaughter Renna (Ryan and Wanawan's daughter), and their daughter Coleen, along with Tony and Jana McClain, and Rob joined Andrea, Matt, and myself for a shis-ka-bob bar-b-que dinner and a Family Home Evening. Originally Coleen was not going to come, and her plans fell through and she did come. I was very proud of how Matt played with Reena and how he was such a gentleman all night. It was a wonderful evening, and this was not just because Rob played my guitar and sang, nor because I did also. It was because of the fellowship, looking at digital photos of Michael and Matt and me at the Big Bend High Adventure (see ../0222.html and http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Scouts/020529_Big_Bend and http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Scouts/020605_Big_Bend). Reynolds gave a wonderful lesson on the importance of a Temple Marriage. We talked and played guitars, and looked at photos, and had a good time. Tony borowed a book on the discovery of oil in Kuwait by a Jack-Mormon, and a book on the life of Wilford Woodruff, which I have not read yet. I enjoy this type of interaction a lot. I especially enjoyed Renna, showing her my virtual pig, magnetic harmongraph, and my rocks. She is a few years older than Dallin Spencer Nelson, and since Paul and Ryan were friends and went on a mission about the same time, I could see Renna and Dallin hooking up 22 years from now. Who knows, stranger things have happened.

Tuesday I broke several of my rules. I took Wade Hutchings to lunch. Wade is our Elder's Quorum President, and I tend not to do business with members of the church. However, Wade is a geologist, very down to earth, and I trust him. We went to a French restaurant. I told him about my reconnaissance exploration ideas, as they relate to geopressure cells (see ../0523.html). The ideas were new to him, and he agreed to keep them confidential. I asked him to be a reference if an investor were to call and ask him about the viability of my proprietary ideas. He agreed. I also asked him to consider letting me help him do exploration around the Marathon gas fields he is responsible for using these technologies. He said he would think about this. This was the first time I've talked about this other than to Sam and Joe, and it was exciting to see his positive reaction to the concepts. He asked about licensing the technology. When I got home, Matt and Andrea wanted to go see "Shrek the Third" so we did. It is very much an adult movie, making fun of the fairy tales in adult ways. I'm sure kids will like it, and I'm also sure they will only get a small portion of the adult jokes woven into the plot. When we got home from the movie there was the following note from Reynolds:

"Dear Roice, Andrea, Matt and Rob, We just wanted to let you how much we enjoyed our evening together with you last night. The singing with guitar was par excellent, even though Reena exclaimed she "didn't get it" to Rob's One Chord Song, she still liked it! Thanks for the awesome food and your wonderful company! We appreciated so much your sharing pictures of Michael on the Big Bend adventure. He looked so young, just short years ago. Matt, may you be heaven protected in your new assignment and remember always, you're headed to the Temple. Ya'll are very special folks! Love, Reynolds, Louanna, Colleen & Reena"

Wednesday was the day I showed my friend Les Denham the pictures of Roice ridding his unicycle to work, and his saying off the cuff, in his Australian accent, "Well, it looks like he's doing his bit to keep Austin weird." I thought this was funny.

Thursday we received a note from Ethan:

'Dear Grandparents, What have you been doing? We have a bridge in our classroom. It's made out of wood next to our Monet pictures. Mrs. Lawson's husband made it and we can walk on it. But only two people at a time. And we have a paint tray, we put water in it so it can be like water in a lake. And we have a little lily pad, a real one, in our paint tray of water. We are going to learn how to plant lily pads and lily plants. We have butterfly caterpillars. We have 11 of them. Miss Clark's class has 10 and Mrs. Tran's class has 10 (Those are the other Kindergarten classes at Ethan's school—Sarah). Daddy came back from on Wednesday. He gave me a toy double decker bus and a black taxi. And he got me a black t-shirt. Yesterday I went to James' birthday party. James is my hockey teammate. We bounced on a jump house. We ate cake and we played mini hockey inside because it was raining. Mini hockey is just the same as real hockey except it has little mini sticks and you're supposed to have a small net. That's all for now. Goodbye, Ethan'

There was also a note from my sister Sara:

'Dear Roice and Andrea, It appears that the farm deal is dead. When it came right down to it they didn't have the money they said they did, but were getting a huge loan in June. We think they decided the market is too slow to take the risk with loans. The engineers, however, have put so much work in the plan that they have other potential buyers that we'll start talking with. What a nightmare. We're emotionally worn out with all of this. We'll keep trying, but this probably means it could be years before it sells. We don't know if the separate group went ahead with Darrell and Conrad's land. That team was going to put in a charter school. Bridget is home with the baby and still pretty sore. The baby is sleeping well and Justin's mom is there to help for a few more days. I go June 2. I got a note from Audrey that the baby blessing has moved to July 1 and I can't get back up to Salt Lake that week. I'll try to connect with them and Rachel when I go up in June. Heather wrote about graduate school. I'm sure she's disappointed, but it sounds like her job is going well. Brian is in his final term at the sound engineering school and feels good about the school and how he's doing. He's hoping to get one of the internship spots as an assistant teacher next year, but I would imagine they give preference to the Canadian students so they don't have so much visa fussing. We'll see. We're still trying to sell the house, but we've had more interest so we're hoping to get that finalized soon. Hope all is well. Love, Sara"

Then there was a second note from sister Sara:

'Dear Roice, This is the response we got about the school. Yes, as of yesterday I will be proceeding with the charter school since I am purchasing Conrad Bills and Darrell Kruegers land (about 4.9 acres). The School building will be on the Conrad Bills parcel with the area behind the two homes being either open playground or staff parking. If there is anything I can ever do for you please do not hesitate to call. Lou'

Lastly there was also a note from Dave Johnson on Thursday:

'All, Yesterday the Board of Directors and members of our Senior Management team were honored to ring the opening bell on the American Stock Exchange. You can see pictures and view a video of the event on Geokinetics website or visit www.AMEX.com to see the video. You will be happy to know that I knocked the heck out of that bell!! This event was a ceremonial celebration of a significant milestone for us all. About 2 weeks ago, we completed a nearly $125 million equity offering and simultaneously listed on the AMEX exchange. This listing will bring our shareholders more liquidity and should help to increase our trading volume. Over time, this should add value to our stock. Dick Miles, Scott McCurdy were on the road for about 2 weeks talking to over 90 investor groups about the company and the accomplishments you all have made. The story was easy to tell and well received. We plan to pay off our existing Bonds with the proceeds of the equity offering. This results in us having very little debt for now and enables us to proceed on a very aggressive capital investment program for the rest of the year. We plan to upgrade several of our crews from 3000 channel capacity to 6000 channel capacity. We also plan to fund a new transition zone crew in Australia, and make some other investments in new equipment. Our company has been transformed by the 2 major acquisitions we made - Trace and Grant. We have fit very well together. We are constantly on the lookout for more synergistic acquisitions than can move us forward in our desire to be recognized as the best at what we do. Over the past 2 years, we have gone from 2 crews in the US to 22 crews around the world and become the 4th largest in the world at providing land and transition zone seismic. Our past growth record is unmatched in the industry, but we are not done yet… Keep up the good work and live safe. Dave Johnson'

Friday when I got home from the office, Matt had been out to Cinemark had had tickets to 'Pirates of the Carribean III.' We went out to the theater a half an hour early, as this was the opening night. There were hardly any lines at the ticket counter when we arrived, and we were about the 10th group in line. However, a few minutes after we arrived, the line was all the way out into the lobby, and the theater was packed when they let us in. I enjoyed the movie. It was a bit graphic, with swords being stuck through bodies, and such. There was a lot of action. You have to think about the plot to keep everything straight. It is not really a movie for little kids, although I'm sure they will all see it. It is a good movie for teenagers and folks like me who have never grown up.

Saturday morning started with mowing the lawn. Then I finally got around to protesting the tax assessment we have been given for 1307 Emerald Green. My first pass said:

"Our friend, John Turner, recently bought a house 1 block from our house (19827 Summerset vs our 1307 Emerald Green) which is bigger (3700 sq ft vs. our 3440 sq ft) and was built at the same time our house was built for $290,000. You appraised our house at $344,919. We do have a pool and a greenhouse (a cypress tree is endangering the pool and the greenhouse needs repair). We received a letter, residential uniform & Equal analysis cad 1150160100025 with 5 other houses in our neighborhood: 1. 1983, Timberwind, 1982, 3166 sq ft, cad 1150160060016, $200,000 value; 2. 19830 Gulfwind, 1982, 3716 sq ft, cad 1150160030013, $248,000 value; 3. 19835 Sunbridge, 1982, 3695 sq ft, $248,000 value; 4. 19815 partridge, 1985, 3812 sq ft, $272,700 value; and 5. 19814 Skycountry, 1983, 4032 sq ft, $290,000. The median adjusted value per sq ft was $69.47, and they recommended our house be valued at $232,933."

By the time I got it down to the 350 character count they required, my protest read:

"JOHN TURNER BOUGHT 3700 HOUSE 19827 SUMMERSET (VS OUR 3440 SQ FT), $290,000. OUR HOUSE APPRAISED AT $344,919. OTHER 1982-5 HOUSES: 1. 19834 TIMBERWIND 3166 SF $200,000; 2. 19830 GULFWIND 3716 SF $248,000; 3. 19835 SUNBRIDGE 3695 SF $248,000; 4. 19815 PARTRIDGE 3812 SF $272,700; 5. 19814 SKYCOUNTRY 4032 SF $290,000. MED ADJ VALUE/SQ FT $69.47. Opinion of property market value $232,933"

We left for a ranch in the country near Tyler, Texas about 11:30 Saturday morning for John and Susan Walker's wedding. It rained most of the way up there, and some of it was extremely heavy rain. We learned that the Prius has a warning light for when the tires are hydroplaning on the water. Sometimes we would slide all the way across the road, and it was kind of scary. I drove all the way there, and then back as far as Huntsville. And we did not arrive until 10 minutes before the wedding was suppose to start. Everyone was just starting to drive or walk up the hill when we got there. We immediately went to the two portable potties, and John Walker came up to use one and found them both being used. We learned he had said earlier in the morning he did not think anyone would use them, and then when he wanted to, they were both busy. The wedding was on top of a hill overlooking this part of the Texas Hill Country. Beautiful view.

Corwin Slack, Bishop of the Memorial Park Ward, (../9724.html, ../9833.html, and ../0230.html), a former neighbor, and long-time friend, performed the service. John's daughter Rachel played her flute as the wedding march. I was the only other music on the program, and I sang "I Once Saw A Family" (../9652.html). John was spiritually touched and could not stop crying. The audience as a whole seemed to enjoy it, Susan's beautiful smile kept me from following John's example and becoming too emotional, and there were a lot of very nice comments about the song by those in attendance. The service was simple, and nice. The reception was professional and very nice. John's sisters put on a real feast with beef, lamb, and chicken, as well as salads, corn on the cob, chocolate covered strawberries, and wedding cake. I took several digital photos and some nice movies, which are at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Friends/Walker_John_Susan/070526_John_Susan_Walker_marriage. One of John and my co-workers, who left GDC a year ago, was there with his wife. Andrea and I talked to Corwin and his son Scott for quite a while, exchanging J. Golden Kimball stories. It was a wonderful afternoon.

On the way to Tyler and back, I listened to some of my Audio-Tech CD's I'm behind on. I learned about the interactivity of Web 2.0, about mash-ups, about how the Web 3.0 is going to be better for computers to communicate with other computers, where tagging (like my spatial, temporal, and process indices) is key, and how Web 3.0 is called the semantic web and is based on ontologies. All of this is just as Bavinger told me it would be. There was also an interesting section on regenerative tissues, and using laser printers to create artificial organs. I am beginning to feel like Grandma Hafen must have felt as she watched all of the changes which occurred over her life time. It is hard for me to even start to comprehend all of the changes Dallin Spencer Nelson is going to see happen during his lifetime.

When we got home we were in time to watch the 11:00 PM showing of the Season Finale of "Robin Hood." This is great TV. It is a little violent, and it really is great TV. I want to get a copy of the shows to watch with Grandkids. However, Andrea pointed out it is a bit violent at times, especially for a new baby like Dallin Spencer Nelson.

Sunday morning came early. Memorial Day weekend was a fitting weekend to be Matt's last weekend home before he leaves for Iraq. He wore is dress uniform to church. Don Keller gave a wonderful talk, and I wrote the following possible stanza for Prime Words based on his talk on the 27th of June 2007:

"Memorial Day: If America ever stops Being good, America Will stop being great (a) Forget not those who saved America" (b) (a) De Tokerville (?), quoted by Don Keller (b) 1868 First Memorial Day

My primary class lesson was on prayer, and I sang "The First Prayer" for the kids. They were busy coloring a puzzle, and so I'm not sure they even heard the words. Oh well! Hopefully someday I'll be able to sing these words in a place and at a time when they really can be heard and understood spiritually by my Grandkids, including Dallin Spencer Nelson."

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 © 2007 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.