Memo To Heidi: Talk To BLM

Ms Heitkamp was out in the oil fields the other day, mesmerized by the flaring it appears. She needs to talk to the BLM: their managed land has the worst record on flaring in the Bakken, and no natural gas gathering and processing plant on the reservation.

Regular readers are aware of three facts in the Bakken regarding flaring, that, to the best of my knowledge (and I could be wrong here):

• the greatest amount of flaring, at least in terms of percent, takes place on the BLM-managed reservation (based on my interpretation of public documents; and again, I could be wrong)
• there are no natural gas gathering and processing plants on the reservation
• ONEOK -- the most visible / active company building natural gas processing plants in North Dakota are building them on private land, not on the reservation

Can you imagine how long it would take to get a federal permit for a natural gas processing plant on an extraordinary site?

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A Note to the Granddaughters

I have a couple of days off; my daughter has the weekend free and gets to enjoy her wonderful daughters.

Wow, we had a great day yesterday. Because there was no swimming, we had several hours free, from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. I told the granddaughters they had to pick three from the following list, no more, no less:

• a tasty snack at TCBY (yogurt/ice cream)
• a stop at the grocery story to pick up broccoli for dinner
• a short visit to an art museum (10 minutes)
• a visit to the crafts story (Hobby Lobby/Michael's) and $20 each to spend
• clean up their bedroom

I will let the reader guess which three they chose. LOL.

While driving, we continued our discussion on sapphires and rubies, and then had a dialogue on what happens when oxygen combines with various metals.

• when oxygen combines with aluminum (Al2O3) one gets very, very hard gemstones (rubies, sapphires); rubies are associated with ruby-red shoes in Wizard of Oz
• when oxygen combines with silicon, one gets sand (and really hot sand --> green glass)
• when oxygen combines with iron, rust
• when oxygen combines with copper, it turns green (maybe moisture also involved)
• we talked about the different forms of carbon (C) -- diamonds and coal, and what happens when oxygen and carbon come together

That in bold was what she volunteered as we drove along. I was very, very impressed that she knew all about rust.

I asked her what color "copper" was. She thought I was nuts. The color of "copper" is, well, copper, like a copper penny.

So, when you combine oxygen with aluminum you get the second hardest, most colorful, gemstone (sapphire, second to diamonds), and when you combine oxygen and carbon, you get a colorless gas.

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The younger granddaughter is always the luckiest. She routinely beats either of us (me or her older sister) at any new game we play, including Texas Hold 'Em (poke) or chess (when I help her). She always gets away with smallest portion of broccoli at dinner.

Yesterday, while walking from Barnes and Noble, she was lucky again. It was starting to get dark; she and I were walking side by side. The older granddaughter was walking a bit behind us. I am sure that the younger granddaughter and I spied the paper first, though she says she was first. If so, it was by a nano-second. Regardless, because her hands are closer to the ground than mine are, she got to the paper first: three $5 bills and five $1 bills. Yes, she found $20 in cash.

We said we would divide it among the three of us. She said she would divide it in two. I said "which two." For her and her sister. The older granddaughter -- always the kindest, said she would divide her half with me. The younger granddaughter's response:

"Arianna, you can divide your money with whoever (sic) you want, but I'm keeping my half." 

LOL. She will be a good liberal when she grows up.

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We had not planned to stop at Barnes and Noble, but the older granddaughter wanted to visit. I said only 20 minutes. Two hours later I was still asking if they were ready to leave. Nope. The younger one was finishing another Diary of a Wimpy Kid. She has four at home; I think the series is up to nine. Arianna was reading a couple of books that best fit "dystopian literature." She called it by another genre name, but I forget what she called it, not science fiction. Like Hunger Games, three volumes which she has read three times. She has read volumes 1 and 3 of the Divergent series by Veronica Roth, and already knows that the movie will be out later this year. I was not even aware of the book, much less the movie.

That was our afternoon. No dinner. A yogurt snack at TCBY and hot chocolate/pastry snack at Barnes and Noble/Starbucks. Oh, one interesting observation. They both now have whipped cream with their hot chocolate. That was not true last year. Somewhere I missed that transition. They still do not serve broccoli at Barnes and Noble/Starbucks.