If you're not dead, you have been blasted lately with all sorts of bombast about "oil industry" tax loopholes and subsidies and the gallant efforts underway to do away with them.  I thought it might be a good idea to simply explain what these "loopholes" are, how they c...

I was not brought up in an oil and gas family.  That fact may be why I jumped into it with both feet when I had the chance.  Like a lot of West Texans, we had a cabin in Ruidoso, NM... The Redneck Aspen located about 70 miles west of Roswell, NM, 250 miles from Lubbock and Midland/Odessa...

Like Cancer Clusters, those odd groupings of various cancers in unlikely places, statistical anomalies as it were, the Central Texas town of Mexia pops up like Orville Redenbacher. First, we were exposed to the unlikely true love story between Mexia's own li'l Vicki Lynn Hogan and "octo...

Yay!  The culmination of the New Deal and the Great Society are upon us, now in technicolor!   Our politicians have now indebted us to the tune of more than the world's GDP!  Wow!  We always do things bigger in America!  They do it because we, the citizens, demand t...

Are we entering a world where Unions once again prevail?  Federal legislation is being proposed that would make it easier for Unions to gain a foothold in American business.  Is this good? Since I "went out on my own" in 1993, I have employed over 400 human beings.  The o...

What if you found out your banker, you know, the OLD definition of such, the guy who is entrusted with your savings, had been going to Vegas and playing blackjack with your account?  Would you be cool with that? What if he was playing blackjack with a group of other bankers?  Would that ...

I was deer hunting a few weeks ago with the Right Honorable Delray Floop, (of the Rising Star Floops), the lame duck US Representative until this week.  We got up early to go to the blinds, but Rep Floop didn't bring a gun.  He brought a walkie talkie.   "I thought you wer...

No, it's not the Tale of Two Cities, it's the Tale of the US Oilpatch.  During the last few years, I have been lamenting to my friends that this was a "bad boom" because the cost of services went up lock step with prices.  While the politicos got all hot and bothered by...

It is with great sadness that I report that Dan (Danny Ray) Robertson died this last Friday.  His memorial service will be Thursday the 18th in Midland, and his graveside memorial will be tomorrow, Tuesday the 16th in his birthplace of Spearman, Texas. Dan was one of the lobbyist guys I wrote ...

I wanted to be an oilman since I was in college.  I had a fresh BS degree in Geology in 1983, not the best time to have one of these bad boys, and was fortunate enough to work for a couple of old wildcatters for a year as a $5.00 an hour geotech/jr. geologist, before heading off to, what I sup...