"These thoughtlets are far enough behind, I am not going to attempt to be detailed in catching up. I can't remember back 3 months anyway, so what I have are my brief notes. And to top it off, along with losing my job at Geokinetics (0738.html), my whole world has turned upside down since this week. It is hard to put yourself back into the mindset before a major change in your life. I hope this ability to step back in time proves to be one of the benefits of these Thoughtlets. Namely the ability for you kids, or your kids, or their kids, to crawl around inside my head and see what I was thinking prior to or during the divorce (../9647.html), or prior to the impact of Peak Oil (0742.html), or some other worst case scenario which will happen in a much more modified form than our fears between now, when I am writing these words, and then, when you are reading these words.
In terms of what was happening this week, I do not remember. It is obvious from my notes I watched a lot of television, and typically when this happens I am doing something on the computer. In looking back over projects I was working on about then, there is a 99.6 MB PowerPoint I completed shortly after this, which was probably what I was working on. The PowerPoint is called "Data Mining." It was initially put together for a professor with Pemex in Mexico City at the request of Luis Roca. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this was probably the week I used Sketchup to build the model of my proposed project at Deerwood (http://www.walden3d.com/w3d/design/Deerwood). The bottom line is I was very busy on the computer and watched a bunch of movies and science shows this week depicting worst case scenarios.
It was during my television watching on Sunday, the 26th of August that I selected the theme for the week coming up. Usually this selection happens at the end of the week. However, when you are this far behind, all kinds of factors can be tied up in selection of a title or what you write. The television shows were on the Discovery Channel and were called "Megaquake," "Mega-Tsunamis," "Global Warming," respectively. Maybe watching these worst case scenarios at the beginning of a week got my mind going along the line of extrapolating current conditions to worst case scenarios. Maybe it was work at Geokinetics was anything but a positive experience. I had been put on a shelf, and I knew it, and I knew my bosses knew it. It was a very frustrating time. I would jump on any positive ideas I felt I could help with and extrapolate them to the limit. However, none of these ideas fit within the framework of a seismic processing business model. Attempting to take my mind back to the night I watched these three hour television shows, it seems to be a common trait of television shows like these to build on people's fears, and to take known processes to the worst possible conclusion. There has been a lot more earthquakes recorded recently, some are stronger than ever recorded before, and if one is just this much stronger it is going to change the entire shape of the planet earth. There was a terrible tsunami a few years ago in Indonesia, and imagine what will happen if a wave like this, or 10 times bigger, hits the California coast line from an earthquake on the other side of the Pacific. Mankind has put so much carbon in the atmosphere it is going to melt the ice caps and all of the coastal cities in the world are going to be flooded, destroying the habitat of 80% of the population of planet earth. Each of these worst case scenarios is plausible. Each of them has some basis in truth. And none of them will happen during my lifetime, during your lifetimes, nor during your kids nor your grandkids lifetimes.
What makes me so confident in writing these words. I know Heavenly Father has created this earth for His purposes. In the same way the worst case scenario spinners play on our ego to get us to think everything bad is going to happen to us, my ego tells me everything good is going to happen to us because of the love of our Heavenly Father and because of the watchful care of our older brother Jesus Christ. This optimistic, or glass half full, approach has served me well in my life, especially in the face of others who are set on spinning worst case scenarios. And, of course, there are some things, like Peak Oil (0742.html), where I find myself spinning a much worse case scenario than many around me are prepared to listen to. The difference with regards to Peak Oil is this is something mankind has complete control over, and in my opinion is missing the boat on. Andrea recently taught her seminary class about the plagues Moses brought upon Egypt. She drew an interesting connection to the relationship between the plagues and the various gods of Egypt. Each plague seemed focused on proving one of the pantheon of Egyptian gods had no power. In a similar way, today our society seems to worship the things which come from or use hydrocarbons, and in a sense oil and gas have become our gods. Nothing makes more sense to me than for Heavenly Father to allow our society to find out in a very harsh way there is no salvation in hydrocarbons nor their derivatives. But more about this 7 thoughtlets from now.
Monday I watched three movies, the 'Key to the City' made in 1950, 'The Farmer's Daughter' made in 1947, and 'The Bishop's Wife' made in 1947. These movies were exploring things I have come to know in some detail just after or before I was born. I recall reading a scripture earlier this year in one of the first four books of The Old Testament which says in effect there is nothing which mankind has not tried before, teaching us there is no need to make the same mistakes again. In looking for it , I came across Leviticus 21:9, which is related, and demonstrates a most grievous worst case scenario. These three movies are great, and I highly recommend each of them. As you watch them, I believe you will be able to correlate these movies with topics covered in these thoughtlets, and will be able to see how I struggle with the same things the writers and directors of these movies were struggling with.
Tuesday night I watched 'The Aviator,' which is the story of Howard Hughes (See ../0513.html for my initial review of this movie.). Wednesday I watched 'Prisoner of Zenda', 'Dodsworth" made in 1936, and 'The Maltese Falcon' staring Humphrey Bogart and made in 1941. Each of these are good movies. Dodsworth was particularly poignant in its description of a man who worked too hard, made a lot of money, and who indulged his wife's searching for herself beyond what was appropriate. There is so much we can learn from the experiences of others. There is so much we can learn from the exploration of artists into what makes us tick as human beings. Of course, in my mind all of this exploration and learning is best done in the framework of the gospel, as otherwise we do not have eternal truths we can hang onto when the paths we are taken on lead to places we would be better to not to explore. Along these lines of exploring different paths, Cindy Peevey gave me contact information for a small oil company in West Houston where she thought I would be a lot happier than working at Geokinetics: Opal Energy. It is many weeks later, and I still have not contacted them. Largely because I would so much prefer to work for myself, and not to find myself in another box. However, this is definitely a good lead to follow up on if I am not able to get enough consulting work nor raise investment money for Dynamic Resources Corporation.
This was the week before Labor Day and the annual Hafen reunion at Pinto. I attempted to call Rick Hafen several times. He was not home. It did not sound like he was going out to Pinto this year. I also called Susan Staheli, who is Aunt Lillie May's only child, and finally got through on Thursday evening. Lillie May Snow was the tenth child of Adolph and Nellie Rosetta Atkin, and my Grandpa Hafen was the second child of this family. Susan's kids do not like to attend the activities at Pinto. Also, I learned what a burden the meetings have on the toilet and other facilities. She does not want to attend any more. Her family and our family are responsible for the reunion next year. Oh well! Sure hope I get some breaks on business things. There will be a 40th Class of 1968 High School reunion next year, and the Hafen reunion, both of which I am committed to help with. Then the following year is the Nelson reunion, which I am volunteered to organize. I need to arrange for getting everything together for the July 4th parade. And I was hoping to have all ten of you kids with your families at this reunion. Based on who is not talking to me now, it will be wonderful if three of you are able to make it. Oh well! Rather than dwell on all of this, I buried myself in my project and watched two not as good movies: 'Independence Day' and 'Ocean's Eleven' Talk about worst case scenarios! Aliens taking over the world, and thieves becoming our heros.
Friday afternoon Marc Roulston came by and we talked about getting Mplayer loaded on the Linux system. It comes from Hungary, and might be breaking copyright and intellectual property (IP) laws to load it on the system. Marc seemed to not think so. IP is a big issue that needs to be looked at in a lot more detail. I gave up attempting to contact Rick Hafen, and I decided we would be better not to spend the money for a plane ticket at this time. So I stayed home and worked on my project and watched: 'The Great Train Robbery,' 'The Wind and the Lion' from 1975 with Sean Connery, and 'Murder on the Orient Express' from 1974. This movie marathon continued on Saturday with 'The Saint' starring Val Kilmer, then on the Science Fiction Channel: 'Tidal Wave: No Escape;' 'Earthqake: Nature Unleased;' 'Ice;' 'Magma: Volcanic Disaster;' 'Atomic Twister;' 'Black Hole;' and then closing out the day with two John Wayne movies: 'Red River' and 'The Doolins of Oklahoma' from 1949, the year I was born. The tidal wave, earthquake, ice, atomic twister, and black hole movies were each a worst case scenario. There is no question about the fact people have been saying the earth is going to end any time now, since before John Wayne's 1949 movies, and yet we are still here. So maybe this is the summary of how to react to these worst case scenarios: "The world has been falling apart and people were going to destroy themselves for generations, and yet we still keep on living and loving and working and playing."
Sunday morning, the 2nd of September, during Sacrament Meeting I was reading from the Priesthood/Relief Society manual on Spencer W. Kimball and extracted from page 109 the following possible stanza for Prime Words:
Then as we were leaving sharing time to go to Primary Class, Morgan Bancroft was going into sharing time and she said: "Brother Nelson, will you be my teacher next year?" Her new teacher of two weeks, Rachel Wheeler's mother, watched this exchange. It was flattering, and I wondered what she thought.
In the evening Paul called. They had two wards meet together today, and he was conducting the Fast and Testimony Meeting. He was attempting to be funny and said from the pulpit:
He said the Stake President was on the stand, and did not think it was funny. I did. Maybe the stake president thought it was a worst case scenario. That evening I watched another movie: 'Man on Fire' from 1957 with Bing Crosby. In this movie, his wife divorces him and attempts to take custody of his daughter. He fights back, and as he prepared to kidnap his daughter and take her to Europe the was close to turning into a worst case scenario. Turned out he softened, as did his daughter, and the movie ended on an amicable note. I guess the message to me (and hopefully to each of you) this week was to avoid thinking about and always expecting worst case scenarios."