Me healthy? I can't remember...

Although a glass of wine or a mixed drink may be good for your cardiovascular system, a new study suggests that by the time moderate drinkers reach middle age, they may not remember if they are healthy or not.

The American Heart Association's long term study on low to moderate level imbibers showed an increase in brain atrophy in that group by the time they reached middle age. Atrophy as in brain shrinkage and loss of the use of portions of your noggin. Thank God I gave up drinking 10 years ago, although by the time I did certainly my brain had atrophied into negative territory. At least now though, I can smile whenever I see a moderate drinker friend give me that condescending little smirk when they say, "oh a glass of wine is good for me".

New carpet and a pleasant surprise...

The very effiecient Jon at Lowes had us scheduled for our carpet installation today at 9 o'clock this morning. I was disappointed as they arrived at 9:09. Actually I was pleasantly surprised. I've had scheduled appointments with tradesmen who showed up 4 or 5 hours late, without calling, as if the customer had nothing else to do but sit at home for half a day.....I won't mention names but does a cable company with Cox in their name ring a bell?

The pleasant surprise was not that the installation guys were on time but that the face at the door was a familiar one. It was one of those TV sitcom kind of recognitions, not instantaneous, but the kind that take several seconds and then the light bulb appears over your head. And without thinking I actually uttered a sitcom line, "hey I know you". John [named changed] said, "yes you surely do".

I knew John almost 8 years ago when, for a three year period, I was a drug and alcohol counselor working mainly with convicted felons. The people in our program had felony convictions involving drugs and/or alcohol and our program was their last chance to try and straighten out their lives through sobriety before they were carted off to the "bighouse" down at Huntsville. If they completed our 6 month program, they would be put on parole without being further incarcerated. Our program was a half-way house arrangement after these folks had already completed a lockup style 6 months of intensive drug treatment and "re-education" called SAFP, short for Substance Abuse Felonly Punishment.

John was one of the many who made it. I had not seen him since he graduated from our program, but I add him to my list of those I have seen over the years who are doing well. Instead of becoming a statistic of continuing criminal activity, John turned his life around and now owns his own flooring business with five employees. And...they did a great job and were in and out of the house within a half an hour.

Having "been there and done that" with substance abuse, SAFP was an initiative of Governor Ann Richards. It works, I'm proud to have had a part in it, and my Christmas season will be a little brighter knowing that one more person is doing well and won't be spending the holiday season in a cell.

The Retail trade.....

If at all possible I like to support our local small businesses who are in competition with the megastores that proliferate in the retail landscape today. I think that, especially in a smaller city such as ours, it is hard for the locally owned stores to compete against the Wal-Marts, Home Depots and the Lowes of the world.

We have been planning to redo some of the flooring in the estate in advance of the upcoming nuptials, so when I saw an ad last week from a local flooring company saying that, "The holiday season is the best time to get the best prices and quickest service for all your flooring needs".....I thought, that suits our plans just fine! So off to the local merchant I went and saw some samples that would work in our home. I told the salesman that I'd fetch the bride-to-be back and we'd make a decision. This was on Tuesday. We are working with a very quick timeframe but with Thanksgiving the earliest we could return to the store was Friday, which we did. Only to find a sign that read, "Closed for the holidays, back on Monday"! Back on Monday? Don't they know that "Black Friday" following Thanksgiving is the biggest carpet and tile purchasing day of the year.

So, off to Lowe's, the megastore competition, we went where we found a very suitable carpet for 1/3rd the price of the local store [with free pad], a tile that we liked, and Jon, a salesman who worked his tail off for us. Upon hearing of our time dilemma, he suggested the carpet that we ended up buying as it was in stock and could be installed quickly. This was on Friday, and today the carpet and tile installers have already been out to measure for the job. As I was waiting for the tile man to arrive, the phone rang. It was Jon checking with me to make sure his tradesmen had been there. Now that's service!

The point of this short story is that, at least to me, service is still king, whether you are a local company or the national megastore. When you're competing for business, closing your store for five days just doesn't cut it. Quite honestly, I'm not much of a shopper arounder, and if the local store had been open on Friday, I would have probably bought their carpet and tile if they had treated me like Jon did. I wish the local merchants would learn this lesson, either that or stop complaining about the national chains. This lack of consumer awareness is a bad habit in this town.

For my large format digital image printing I have been using a big firm in Dallas to which I FTP my images. I have been trying to use a local imaging firm here for several years. I have suggested that they set up an FTP portal on their server. Not a hard thing to do, but it has not been done yet. And last year in December I finally loaded some smaller images on disks to give them a chance to print these. When I arrived at the store the sign read....."Closed two weeks for Christmas". Two stinkin' weeks? I haven't been back since.

Dispatches from Iraq update: war news must be slow in Qatar where Galloway is today. The only communique I received from Joe were two jokes, which cannot be reprinted here. More later.....

Dispatches from Iraq.......

My close amigo, compatriot and business partner Joe Galloway has been sent to the Middle East by his employers, Knight-Ridder Newspapers, to see what up close and personal stories he can dig up. His first stop is Qatar to interview General Abizaid, the Commander in Chief of CENTCOM, then on to Baghdad. As much as I am able, I'll try and update you on his travels. His first dispatch today:

"just got to lovely qatar and hit hotel after 24 hours of travel. whew. my email works but is clunky as hell. More later"
joe

Giving Thanks......

We hope that you will give thanks for all the blessings in your life today. Thanksgiving Day is really about gratitude. Gratitude for all the things that you have and hold dear. If you are truly grateful, you cannot be sad, angry, resentful, jealous, miserable or otherwise feeling sorry for yourself. God Bless you all......!

And click the icon below to listen to a short message from me........called in from my cellphone and automatically updated to my server. I just love new technology!

audio post powered by Gold Dog Technology and AudBlog

Iraq is no Vietnam.......but

"Iraq is no Vietnam, but there are eerie parallels", so starts the column mentioned below. No one knows the differences....and similarities between the two as well as my good friend, author Joe Galloway. Joe spent the better part of five years covering the Vietnam War for United Press International......from start to finish. And not from the comfort of the International Hotel in Saigon. Today Joe is known as one of the deans of Vietnam War correspondents because of his on the ground, down and dirty, grunt's eye coverage of that war. In 1965, he participated in and survived the largest and one of the most important battles of that war, as recorded in his book We Were Soldiers Once, and Young, later made into the film We Were Soldiers

In 1991 he rode with Gen. Barry McCaffery through Iraq and covered Desert Storm first hand. Very few others did. And now Joe is covering the present Iraqi situation as the head military correspondent and a sydicated columnist for Knight-Ridder Newspapers. As he said to me a year ago, he would be on the ground in Iraq now, if his wife had not said, "if you go to another war and the enemy doesn't shoot you.......I will". Knowing her, she would too. She's a crack shot.

Joe is an ardent supporter of the military, gives his time freely to their causes and holds a Bronze Star for Valor earned in Vietnam. The only such award given to a civilian during the war. So, when Joe speaks words of warning about a military situation, it pays to listen. Read Joe's Column

Iraqi Insight......

Some constructive, rational, and realistic thoughts from Mr. Talabani, the head of the Iraqi National Congress are here in an Opinion Journal Essay

Spread the word.....

Something you will probably not see much of in the mainstream media......Iraqis, yes Iraqis, are organizing an Anti Terrorist Demonstration. Visit the link for more information from Zeyad, an Iraqi who reports the news in Iraq as he sees it.

Thanks to Gordon at The NZ Pundit for spreading the word.

SpyBot to the rescue....!

In a followup to my Adware/Spyware rant of the past week, I stepped up to the plate and downloaded an Adware removal program......SpyBot. After running it on two seperate machines, I'm here to sing it's praises. And, it's FREE.

Adware is so innocuous because it's installed deep with the bowels of your machine....and consequently is hard to identify and manually remove. SpyBot is designed to find all the HKEY codes and little .EXE programs that run the Scumware which allow intrusive popups, unwanted Internet connections and that slow your machine down.

At about 6 Mb, it is a fairly manageable download, even for dialup connections, and installs rapidly and easily. I would recommend running thru the quick tutorial, especially if you are not a Geek. But if you can read above a 5th grade level it is fairly self explanatory. When run, SpyBot searches your entire machine for the offending programs and codes, and then allows you to delete them all, or to manually select the ones that will be deep sixed. It even sorts thru your "cookies" and points out the ones that may do such evil things as data mining.

If you don't know if you have Adware/Spyware on your machine, I can almost guarantee you that you do. Spend the little bit of time using SpyBot and you'll be surprised. Deleting all these Scumsuckers will give you immense pleasure.

Good Bye Old Friend.....

Old soldiers beds never die.....they just fade away. Today I said goodbye to a steadfast friend, my old queen size bed. I won't go into the entire chronology of the bed, but it has been with me for 31 years, and for 28 of those years it was my primary place of respite. For the last 3 years it has been residing in my guest room, which will now become Jack's room. So...the Cody Memorial Bed had to go.

The bed has a long and storied history. I purchased it while in the Army in 1972 from a friend, Lt. Dick Cody. Dick is now Gen. Cody, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army. It has moved with me, and been placed in 14 seperate residences over the years, including a house in Mililani Hawaii, a highrise condo overlooking Waikiki, and apartments, duplexes, and homes in Dallas. Ditto this in Midland Texas. Several years ago, as a guest bed, it received another historic sleeper....my friend and author Joe Galloway. In an ironic slumberland twist, Joe knows Gen. Cody very well, having met him during the first war in Iraq.

When the decision was made to purge Jack's room of the bed, I notified Gen. Cody that he had first right of refusal on taking the bed back. In what must have been a gut wrenching decision for him.....he declined. I then offered the bed, as a piece of history, to Joe Galloway. Joe apparently didn't appreciate the historical significance of the bed as he replied back, "get rid of that suma' bitch, it was worse than a Days Inn mattress slept on by 10,000 traveling salesmen". So, all avenues exhausted, I offered the bed to a charitable organization, The Servants of the Poor. This morning they took delivery of the historic object. I only hope that they can find a good home for it. Perhaps a destitute derelict on par with the first two owners.

This and that, Part II....

*Two more helicopters down in Iraq today with lose of life. The news hits all to close, reminding me of earlier times in another conflict in the late 1960's and early '70's. One soldier dying in a foreign country is one to many, but that is why we have soldiers and armies. To protect our freedom and help others gain theirs.

CNN, in their online news report, makes the comment......"The deaths brought the number of American soldiers killed in the Iraq war to 417. Of those, 278 have died since President Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1." It's that second sentence that gets me. To my way of thinking, inferring that somehow President Bush mislead the public into thinking there would be no more casualties.

CNN thinks that you, me and the American public are morons who will rise up in protest over George's "lie". We are not and we will not. Most people with half a brain know what he meant, that the large scale unit actions were over......that in fact we won the war. Which we did, routing a very large army and sending it's dicatator despot leader into hiding. The lives we are losing now are in the enforcement of the peace. Not that a death in enforcement is any less painful than one in war, it's not. But there is a big difference. In Vietnam, we never had the chance to enforce a peace, we could not conclude the war.

417 deaths in Iraq. That's to many, especially to the families and friends whose lives this will alter forever. But many of us who remember our history, and perhaps lived a little of it, can compare this to other military actions. In WW I, the US military lost over 70,000 dead in under two years. I dare say that 417 soldiers were killed at D-Day in Normandy in the first 30 minutes of action. My friends and comrades in the 1st Cavalry who fought in the Ia Drang in 1965 lost 305 of their buddies in just under 5 days. I hope we can keep this in perspective.

*I have embarked on my first phase of the redecorating of the estate.....La Hacienda del Oro Perro. The guest room is becoming Jack's room, and at his request he wants an Army motif.......good boy! So the walls will soon be some version of brown close to Desert Sand, which will coordinate with the desert camo pillow covers that his Mom will make.

I am compulsive about doing things "right". The words still ring in my ears from childhood, "if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right", but this time I'm fudging a little. Currently the walls are papered, and the "right" thing to do would be strip the paper, retexture the walls and then paint. But....to save time for my other projects, which do involve wallpaper stripping, I have chosen to paint over the paper. I am doing that "right" though, by floating the seams in the wallpaper to hide them and priming the walls before painting. I am also compulsive about projects, once started, being completed quickly.......so I have to go back to work now.

This and that.....

*Movie stars from the 30's are now almost gone. Now, in very sad news Blondie, Penny Singleton, has also passed away at the age of 95. If you read the CNN headline on the link herein, you'd think that her biggest accomplishment was as the voice of Mother Jetson on the 60's TV show "The Jetsons". I suppose that CNN had to pander to the younger crowd that remembers the Jetsons to get a bigger market kick out of their story. That's balderdash. The Blondie movies were tremendously successful in the 1930's and 40's. I still get a kick out of watching them both for the corny situations that Dagwood put the Bumsteads in, but equally important, for the historical peek that movies of this time give us into ordinary life during that time period. Personally, and on a more prurient note, I always thought that Blondie was kind of a babe. I have to note that I'm soon to be married to my own Blondie....and I think she's a real babe too!

*As soon as I make my second 50 million dollars, I'm going to hire a full time staff of attorneys, net gurus and sleuths to go after all the slimeballs that backdoor adware/spyware onto peoples personal computers. For neopytes, these are the little programs that cause pop-up ads to appear on your screen and also secretly transmit your surfing habits back to the sender. Your permission to add these to your computer is not asked. Who puts these there? Morons.

My partner Del noticed a problem with his laptop this week. Actually more than a problem, the havoc caused resulted in his machine being rendered useless with the internet connection application popping up every 30 seconds and occasionally an undending stream of miniature pop up windows appearing. Luckily while I was trying to determine the source of the problem, a perfectly timed error box appeared....!!Bargainz.exe fault error!!. Aha....the source of the problem. Googling up Bargainz, I quickly learned that this is in fact adware. Which in Del's case had run amok.

That's why these criminals are morons. Who in their right mind buys anything marketed on unwanted pop-ups? The only buying behavior generated is to quickly purchase a Colt .45 to blow these scum away. To make matters worse, their little adware program is obviously poorly written. I too found this culprit on my machine at home and the only thing it did was to slow my computer down and occasionally bring up the internet connect screen. No ads ever appeared.

Yes, with the second 50 million, I'm starting a "Suing Company". Money is no object....find these scum, initiate lawsuits, and even if we don't win a dime in recompense, just make their stinkin' lives miserable.

Veteran's Day....

At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, the guns along the western front fell silent as the armistice went into effect thus ending WWI, one of the greatest slaughters in mankinds history. A whole generation of young men had been destroyed in most European countries. The Austrians and Germans had lost 2.5 million men killed and another 1.2 million missing. Missing usually meaning that the soldier had been pulverized beyond recognition, or that his body had simply vanished into the mud. The British lost over a million men dead or forever missing. The Australians lost 58,000. The Canadians, 56,000. The French, 1.7 million. New Zealand, over 16,000 dead. The United States, 70,000 dead or missing. The number wounded generally ran 3-4 times the number of the dead. Compare this to the, then, populations of these countries and the magnitude of the disaster becomes even more clear.

It was because of the shock of this calamity that the idea for a remembrance to honor veterans of that war, Armistice Day, was quickly conceived. The "war to end all wars", of course didn't, and so in the United States in 1954 this day of honor became known as Veteran's Day, to include all veterans who had served in the armed forces.

My Great Great Grandfather was an infantryman in the Union Army in America's Civil War. I have a faded photograph of him taken in the 1880's in front of his farmhouse. He is proudly wearing his Grand Army of the Republic badge denoting his status as a veteran. My Grandfather, my Dad's Dad, was a Marine Corps infantryman in World War I, and among other actions he fought in the battle at the Belleau Woods. We still have his most prized military possession, the Marine Corps "globe and anchor" insignia that he wore.

My Dad was an infantryman during World War II. He fought his way through Italy with the famed 45th "Thunderbird" Division. On his very first day of combat, his best friend was killed. He was in almost continuous combat on the road north through Italy until his feet were frozen in the Italian Alps, ending his combat career. He spent the remainder of the war in England attached to the 8th Air Force. He was gone for over three years. For 50 years the memories of his experience were to hard to talk about, and only in the last five years have I learned what he endured. We have the uniform that he wore when he was mustered out the Army, some medals, including his prized Combat Infantry Badge, and a few assorted items...including a defused hand grenade still in it's orginal carton that he brought back as a memento.

I too was an infantryman, an officer. As far as I know, the first officer in our family ranks of the citizen soldier. Through R.O.T.C., the Regular Army, active National Guard service and the Reserves, I have about 17 years of combined time. And though I endured some difficult, harrowing, and painful times in my army career, my service pales in comparison to all the hardships that my forebearers and many of my friends endured. I don't dwell on the details of my service, but rather chose to focus on the unique and lasting friendships I have made among my military brothers.

Veteran's Day is sometimes a hard thing for Veteran's to handle. While the general population is, in the main, appreciative of the service of the nations veterans, many do not cast a passing thought about the sacrifices that have been made by young men and women in their service to the nation. Sacrifice not only in blood, but in time. Gone from home and family for years, missing family funerals, gone for Christmas, gone for childrens births. Most citizens can't even be troubled to put out a flag on this day. Veterans notice. Many citizens are glad for the "free" day off. Most Veterans are glad they have the chance to go to work.

Departed columnist Mike Ryoko, a veteran, wrote a humorous column in 1993 suggesting that only Veterans get a day off on Veterans Day. Not a bad idea, but I would suggest that to really honor veterans, that the 11th of November be set aside as a day of national service...a day off work for all in the country to perform volunteer work in a charitable program of their choice. This would be an appropriate and fitting way to honor the service of our veterans. Until this happens, most veterans will celebrate Veteran's Day the way we have for decades, among ourselves.

I have the privelage of knowing, and having spent some time with Gen. Hal Moore . One of the things that Gen. Moore is religous about doing whenever he meets a veteran is saying, "Thank you for your service". So to all veterans....."Thank you for your service"!

Note to the flagless: I have a certificate from the 25th Infantry Division noting that in three short years I ran over 1,000 miles in combat boots. This to keep physically fit and combat ready. My 50 something year old feet are now paying the price. I have flown many 1,000's of miles in Huey's, CH-47's, C-130's, C-141's. I have dropped an accumulated 13 miles straight down in 58 some-odd parachute drops from 1200 ft. [many at night]. There is no telling how many 100's of miles I have "humped" across swamps, deserts, mountains and plains carrying such things as an M-16 rifle, M-60 machine guns, 81 mm. mortars, baseplates and sights, not to mention a loaded rucksack. This all for the privelage of sleeping in a muddy hole covered by a plastic poncho. And my "mileage" is miniscule compared to some troopers I have the privelage of knowing.
Therefore, we would find it satisfying if you might find the time and energy to walk the 20 or 30 paces to your front porch and put out a flag as a token of thanks, that you didn't have to do the above. Thank you.

A Warning........!

If you don't have a Carbon Monoxide alarm system in your home.....make a point to get one this weekend. The results of chancing an encounter with the stuff can be deadly or, at the least, earn you a very miserable trip to the emergency room. We found this out today first hand.

I had seen the ads for Carbon Monoxide alarm systems accompanied by the warnings of it's undetectable menace. But, truthfully, I had filed these warnings away as something that happens to poor people in ramshackle homes with 50 year old patched up heating systems, or as the result of living in a cheap trailer home heated by open flame heaters. In other words, something that happens to someone else. No more.

This morning at 7 A.M. I received a call from Julie saying that she was violently ill, nauseous and with a terrible headache. On awakening her son Jack, he also complained of a bad headache. Being a smart cookie she added up these facts, along with the salient point that she had turned the heater on in her house last night for the first time this season, and came up with a quick assesment of Carbon Monoxide poisoning. She was correct.

Luckily her folks live within blocks. Unluckily they had left their phone off the hook all night. So...barely able to stand, she phoned a neighbor who drove to her parents house and summoned help. They immediately loaded Julie and Jack into the car for the quick trip to the hospital. All Julie could do was lie in a wretched condition while Jack rode with his head, like the family dog, out the window in the 35 degree air, a smart thing to do. By the time I arrived at the emergency room they had been probed, stuck and hooked up to IV's and oxygen masks. Not a pretty sight, but they were on their way to recovery, Jack more quickly, but Julie not far behind.

By policy, and a good one, the emergency room notified the fire department of the situation. The good fire fighters quickly arrived at Julie's home and their monitors pegged for CO as soon as they entered. We were very blessed that the outcome was not a more tragic one. Fortunately, Julie is an early riser and she fought her natural instinct to go back to bed when she started feeling ill. Many people might....and it would be a fatal mistake, the sleep that never ends.

Julie's house is a modern home which she purchased less than two years ago, at which time a complete inspection was made of the heating system. Apparently the heating vent discharge flue had been shaken loose over the last year causing the problem. This should be the lesson for us all.....it doesn't matter the age of your home or heating system. Things can happen. I have a security alarm system in my home with a hardwired fire detector with....I think....a carbon monoxide detector built in. I think? I bought another one today just in case. I hope you get yours!

Strange Skies.....

................that was the title of the email I received today from Blogmate Bernard "Slatts" Slattery in far south Australia. The Internet is an amazing thing. The email from Slatts, 10 kazillion miles away, referred me to an article I had not seen on an event that occured in my hometown. The strange event was the appearance of the Northern Lights over West Texas caused by largescale solar activity which generated excessive electromagnetic energy.

This is a rare occurence, but not a first time one. As the article referred to in the link explains, activity of this magnitude occurs in 10-12 year cycles and the last time I had seen the phenomenon of the Lights was about 11 years ago +/-. I remember it well because I believe that it occured in the same year that we had an earthquake of a magnitude grand enough to shake the bewillikers out of my bed and wake me up in the middle of the night. It was also not long after these two concurrent strange events that I gave up strong drink, something I had been meaning to do for quite awhile. Well OK, something other people had been meaning for me to do for quite awhile. But apparently the Northern Lights and Earthquake in conjunction did the trick for me.

As a footnote, this occurence of the Lights and the electromagnetism that caused them, almost had a dire economic effect. We were using a GPS system to locate the top of the old abandoned oil well mentioned in a previous post. Very shortly after we had located the well, our GPS system was knocked out by the burst of solar energy, as were our cellphones at the remote location 40 miles north of town. It could have cost us several days delay.

Four Star Week.....

Sometimes in life, things seem to come in clusters. This week it was interaction with U.S. Army four star generals. Last weekend, as noted below, we spent a great two days with my old friend Gen. Tom Hill and his wife Toni. This week's four star encounter was with none other than recently retired General Tommy Franks.

Gen. Franks was back in his old hometown to receive the honor of "Outstanding Citizen" from the local boy scout council. No small award, as past winners who have picked up their awards here are President G.W. Bush, Texas Governor Rick Perry and First Lady Laura Bush. We attended a small reception for the General before the main event which gave us a little one on one time with him and a chance for me to say hell-o to him from several mutual acquaintances like the aforementioned Gen. Tom Hill and my good buddy, author Joe Galloway. Tom and Joe both know Tommy Franks well. We also presented the General with one of the photo images that Galloway took in Vietnam of the actual battle portrayed in the film, We Were Soldiers. The General seemed most appreciative.

We were the guests of Julie's employer, Limark Corp. who were a major sponsor of the event, so we sat at one of the head tables and had the opportunity to say hell-o to Governor Perry. Equally as interesting to me, as an old Eagle Scout, was the great privelage to be seated with the National Executive Director of the Boy Scouts, Mr. Roy Williams. And since everyone at the table was associated with scouting, we had some great conversations about our days and our experinces in the program.

Thanks to Limark Corporation for their kind invitation and it has been fun attending two formal dinners with four star generals in the last six days, but now, I'm looking forward to an informal dinner with the bride to be......Frito Pie perhaps!

The Oil Field.....
I love the oil business, and not just for the money. Quite frankly, most of the time we in the industry don't make as much as the popular consensus or the press ascribes to us. Most of us are not J.R. Ewing. Most of us make a pretty good living, but I dare say that the across the board wages in say, the computer industry, are higher than the average of all those in the energy industry.

One of the things I like about the business is that we are working for ourselves and have a chance to be innovative without asking permission from any higher authorities. Also...truthfully, I love the chance to go out of doors, which is where I prefer to be...and to work with big powerful Bubba type equipment. At least be around it. Not to offend anyone, but it's still pretty much of a mans world out in the oil field.

One of the several creeping changes in the oil business in West Texas is the fact that newly found deposits are increasingly rare. Therefore we come up with ways to better utilize the fields that have been found in the past. One of these methods is to go into old wells that have drained dry their original producing formation, and to try to produce from another untried zone. A "recompletion" we term them. We are currently recompleting a well in Andrews County Texas, attempting to coax more oil from the top of the Devonian formation, the lower half of the zone having been depeleted. Others within close proximity have had some success in this, and for about one third the cost of drilling a brand new well, it is worth the effort to try. This old well was plugged, that is....all the possible producing zones in the well bore have been covered with concrete and now this material must be drilled out in order for us to reach the Devonian over 12,000 ft. below. Catch a glimpse of this operation at the Linaka re-entry photo site.

Old Friends....

There is nothing finer than spending time with old friends, which is what Julie and I did this past weekend in San Antonio. Actually my old friends, but of course, Julie fit right in and she felt like she knew them from the myriad of stories I had told her. The occasion was a college fraternity reunion honoring my dear friend General Tom Hill who was named the Trinity University Alumni of the Year. As Tom said in his acceptance speech, "who would have ever thought this would happen". All of us at the table laughed out loud at that, perhaps a little to loudly.

But Tom has done well. He is only one of a handful of Generals in the Army today with four star rank, and he commands all military forces in the Carribean, and Central and South America. Which includes the miasma in Colombia and the Al Queda detention center in Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Needless to say he had some interesting stories to relate! Like the time he called the head of the military in Colombia to suggest that he support the new president and their constitution. The Generalisimo there said he would and in fact was at that very moment doing so. Tom said that on the phone he could hear automatic weapons firing right outside the Generals office, so he supposed he wasn't lying.

Tom and Toni are great friends and great people. I lived with them at Ft. Benning Georgia when I was a new 2Lt. in the Army, and we became very close. They have traveled in the Army life, so I don't get to see them much at all, though we do call and keep up. So it was a thrill to be able to spend some good time with them in San Antonio...and of course have them meet Julie. Toni kept telling me how much she like Julie and I think Julie enjoyed them, and it was rather exciting to a point. After all she's never ridden in an armed convoy before. Tom, because of his position, has a security staff that travels with him. Three very serious, intent and large young men who wear blue blazers everywhere. The blazers are to hide their automatic weapons. It's a nice feeling, while driving around San Antonio, to have a Ford Explorer following you with well trained young men packing automatic weapons, there to jump in if anything should go amiss.

To honor Tom and Toni, many of my fraternity brothers came to town, and we all had a wonderful time, like you do when you tell the same stories that you tell everytime you get together. But they get better with age, and I didn't mind, Julie got to hear a little about my past life, from those who lived it with me. She didn't jump ship on the drive back to Midland, so I suppose it all went well.

If you'd like to browse through a few pictures of the weekend here they are.

Canned Spam......maybe!

I've always believed that nothing will thwart Spam until it is made illegal. All the blacklists, server and client side filters, and searching out DNS numbers and reporting repeat offenders will do very little until there is actually some punishment involved for the scum who spam.

But now, a glimmer of hope is on the horizon. The Senate has passed anti-spam legislation that is a good start to curbing the problem. And there was no waffling, the vote was 97-0 in favor. As one Senator related, he gets more comments, letters and emails about Spam than any other topic. That's saying something in these troubled times. The vote was 100% in favor, in part, because there can be no one lobbying for Spam. Who would do so, the medical fakirs, Viagra con men, or get rich quick scheme criminals? No, there is no good in Spam.

The bill will not totally prohibit unsolicited email, but will fine, heavily I might add and with jail time, anyone who sends messages under false addresses, highjacked ISP's or where the product is a scam......in other words, everyone who sends Spam these days. I'm not naive enough to think that this will stop all spammers, but it will help. And..it will give prosecuters something to work with. However much of the Spam comes through foreign sources now days, so I would hope that there would be some wording in the bill that penalizes the major US backbone carriers like Verio, Level3, and Sprint if they allow the traffic to come into the US over their lines.

It's about time.......

The thrill of speed......!

The John Foster Open Road Race was run yesterday and by all accounts was a big success. For out of towners, this is something relatively new for Midland and West Texas, an unlimited speed time trial event on the public roadways. If you've ever had the urge to take the old family station wagon and go as fast you can on the open road, this is the event for you.

Approximately 100 miles of remote, yet in good condtion, backroad highways are closed off for several hours while entrants race from St. Lawrence to Rankin to Midland. As you read if you perused the website, the vehicles are divided up by performance classes from your basic car, minimum speed 85 mph, to the unlimited cars with speeds in excess of 200 mph. There are some safety requirements, generally a little more stringent according to the speed of the vehicle class, but basically the event is open to all comers over age 21 and able to pay the somewhat hefty entry fee [most going to charity].

I have mixed feelings about the race, though in the main they are positive. It's a little known fact that I, in my earlier years, attended the Bob Bondurant Racing School in California. A great time and better learning experience concerning driving vehicles very quickly. We learned the basics in suped up production model cars and culminated our experience by driving Formula Ford 2000 machines. Thus I have some knowledge on the topic and even more hefty respect for driving at high speed. Many things not good can happen, and happen more rapidly than one thought possible. I'm not sure that some of the drivers in this event are prepared to cope with such emergencies.

I think that this type of race is a good concept and if I still had one of my Corvettes and it was in good shape, I'm sure I'd give a hard thought to participating in the John Foster. ......however. The however is that I really think that the organizers need to consider very strongly being more circumspect with whom they allow to drive in the event. As the old saying goes, this is an accident waiting to happen. There is a vast difference in having driving experience at somewhat above highway speeds like we do in W. Texas, say 85 mph, and driving the family car at 125 mph. Something will happen. A tire will go, hit a bump the wrong way with soft shocks, be hit with those sudden W. Texas wind gusts and tragedy strikes. It's only a matter of time.

Don't get me wrong I haven't given up on speed in my old age, I think the event should go on, but all it will take is one death with the inevitable lawsuits and the race will be history. Just take a look at the rules and the types of cars allowed in the race. Come to think of it, I really have been getting the urge to get another older model Corvette.