"There has been a lot happen since starting this Thoughtlet. I purposefully put writing in my blog on hold until I knew the consequences of what happened. So now it is the 30th of September, and I find myself catching up with a Thoughtlet for the week ending 19 August 2007. I have made some notes as the weeks have passed. This is a preview of what is coming up: 0734.html Sara Ellyns birthday and Amir Kesslers Bar Mitzvah; 0735.html Worst Case Scenarios; 0736.html Ice Skating Competition; 0737.html Accountability; 0738.html Laid Off; and 0739.html Will Sing for Retainer. Next week's Thoughtlet will be 0740.html Andrea's 30 Year Japan Nagoya Missionary Reunion.
This was another of those weeks that seemed to drag on. It was the first time in a long time I brought home the Geokinetics PC every night all week. The reason was I was working on my Deerwood project every spare minute I had. This is why I got behind a couple of weeks in the Thoughtlets. Most of the time during the days was spent building the Stratigraphy Strategy for Geokinetics. I finished it up on Thursday and gave it to Fred. He did not have time to comment on it until the following Monday, and then his comment was simply, "Geokinetics does not have the expertise to implement many of the ideas you are writing about." I still think it was a good exercise for me to think through what it will take to automatically generate geology from seismic data. Maybe someday I'll actually be able to implement this type of long-term thinking. Seems like I keep gravitating back to the main reason I left Landmark, and the fact they would not provide $200,000. to build a Sequence Stratigraphy product, and yet they paid $7,000,000. for the land upon which to build a fancy office building, a mausoleum if you will, for the company. When I drove past the old Landmark office on Saturday, on the way back from the Deerwood property, I was surprised to see it is now housing PGS. PGS is a Norwegian seismic acquisition and processing company that is younger than Landmark Graphics. What a small and what a circular world we live in.
Monday evening was the exception for the week. As George and I were leaving the office, Rob called and asked if he could come over to dinner. What a pleasant surprise. Andrea was not planning on cooking dinner, and she used beans as a substitute for sour cream to make Rotel chicken casserole. It was good. Then we watched "Charlotte's Web." When it started we thought it was an animated movie, and it is not. I was sure impressed with all of the things they got "Wilber" to do. Some Pig. Radiant. Terrific. And the movie is worth having in each home's collection. Rob fell asleep during the movie. Oh well! He also brought over four pair of pants which had split in the crotch, and Andrea sowed them up for him. It was a nice evening.
Tuesday and Wednesday were consumed with work on the Stratigraphy Strategy and the Deerwood Project in the evenings. I walked the 54 flights of stairs each day this week during lunch. In fact, I walk down from 21 to the basement, run up each flight to the 9th floor, walk 2 stairs at a time to the 14th floor, then walk to the 27th floor not holding the hand rails, walk back to the basement, run up each flight to the 6th floor, walk 2 stairs at a time to the 16th floor, walk to the 21st floor not holding the hand rails, climb to the 27th floor holding the hand rails,, and walk back down to the 21st floor. It is a good workout, from which I am definitely tired each day. It is interesting how I have been able to increase the difficulty step by step, and how I can do 54 flights of stairs in the same time it used to take me to do 27 flights of stairs a few years ago. One thing I did notice on Tuesday was that the Chairman of the Board of Geokinetics, Bill Ziegler, walked down the hall with Maureen to Dave Johnson's office. My office and desk are situated so I can see all the way down the main hall past the receptionist to the far side of the building. The view gives me an opportunity to keep up with who is talking to who and what is going on in the company. I recall how stern he looked. I do not recall ever seeing him at the office before except when there was a Board of Directors Meeting. Little did I know the impact Bill Ziegler's walk down that hall would have on my life.
Thursday morning I came in to the office after the car pool drive to find Fred there as usual. I said hi, and asked him what is new. He told me I'd find out soon. It was not to much longer before Dave came in my office and said he is leaving the company. He was very positive about everything. I asked if he was going to take me with him. He said he didn't know what is next, except that he is going fishing. We had a nice conversation, he left, and I went back to picking top salt for the Redtack project. It was a long day, as I contemplated the implications to me of this action. It was pretty obvious to me this would impact my future at GDC / Geokinetics Processing and Interpretation. Oh well!
At lunch Dick Miles came by. I said hello, and he came in and talked to me for a few minutes. I told him how much I would miss my morning conversations with Dave Johnson. I also told him one of the rumors of the morning was that Grand was going to shut down the processing company, like they had in the past. He actually addressed this concern when he called the entire company together for an official announcement of the firing of Dave Johnson at lunch. I was pleased this concern was addressed right up front, and that I had helped make this happen.
After dropping George off, I went to Taylor High School and walked the parking lot to get accurate measurements of a parking facility. I had built a model of the framework for a parking garage with Zoom Tools, and this gave me specific measurements so I could move it into Sketch-Up. As I recall, Thursday evening was spent building the garage for Deerwood Village.
Friday on the way to work I took a test in the book I've been reading called "The Speed of Trust." I felt I was conservative in my answers, and the results surprised me: Integrity 21 out of 25, Intent 25 out of 25, Capabilities 23 out of 25, and Results 18 out of 25, for a total of 87 out of 100. According to the author, Stephen M.R. Covey, Steve Covey's son, less than 90 means one has trust issues. I've always considered trust one of my strongest strengths; both to trust others and to be trusted. Obviously there is some work I can do in this area. The book suggests I send the trust test to each of you kids and your spouses, my sister and brother-in-law, brother's-in-law, mother-in-law, and nephew and niece and nephew-in-law to measure me and to see what everyone else thinks. I ended up loaning the book to John Gillooley after finishing it (0738.html), and so this is one of those things which will happen later, if it happens.
There was no one at the office when I got there. So I walked down to Dave Johnson's office and took some digital photos. Then I made a 10 page powerpoint file, which I sent to him and which is linked to with the following links:
There was a lot of confusion and anger at the office. Several folks are convinced the firing of Dave Johnson was a coup engineered by the folks at Grant Geophysical. I don't think so. I think the stock went out at $27/share, climbed to $34/share, then when second quarter numbers were announced as not meeting projections because of the wet spring and 97% of Geokinetics income coming from seismic acquisition which was shut down because of weather, the stock dropped to $17.50/share, and some of the new shareholders wanted someone to be the scapegoat. Dave was elected. Oh well!
When I got home I mowed lawns because it looked like it would rain on Saturday. In the evening, I watched "Flash Gordon" and "Numb3rs" while working on building the Deerwood Village garage with SketchUp. Turns out it didn't rain Saturday. So I edged the lawns and filled up the new 22 plastic boxes Andrea had got on sale at Office Dept. I also spent as much time as possible working on my Deerwood Project. In the evening we went out to Katy Mills Mall and watched the movie "Becoming Jane." Good movie with the tone of a Masterpiece Theater production.
On Sunday, the 19th of August, I decided Jessica Wheeler's Sacrament Meeting talk could be packaged as possible stanzas for Prime Words in a couple of different ways:
or
And her husband, Greg Wheeler's talk, resulted in this possible stanza for Prime Words:
And so I ended the week thinking challenges need not be alarming, even the firing of Dave Johnson."
