Leucistic Bald Eagle Spotted In Forest Outside Flagstaff, AZ -- December 21, 2014

We arrived safe and sound. We took a most leisurely trip from DFW metroplex (Texas) to southern California, actually staying in motels along the way, something I wouldn't do if traveling alone. This really is an incredible country. I never get tired of driving cross country.

If we didn't have the granddaughters we would take a meandering, unplanned trip across the states visiting friends. My wife does not know this yet, but I am seriously thinking of returning to Dallas via Las Vegas, then Denver, then south to Texas. It would add 400 miles to the return trip, 1800 miles vs 1450 miles. Hmmm.....

My wife loves "The Big Bang Theory" so part of the way we played a variation of Sheldon's "Periodic Table, Name The Element Game." In our game, we picked a category, such as movie actors. My wife went first: George Clooney.  The letter before "C" ( the first letter of the last name) is "B." So I said Brad Pitt (the first letter of the first name). Then she said Oscar de la Rente ("O" being the letter before "P"). Even though Oscar was a fashion designer to the stars and not an actor I let her use that name. Then I "Q" -- the letter before "R" and I said Quentin Tarantino. And then we quit. We didn't know if the last name should have been "de" or "la" or "Rente."

We took a 3.77 mile walk to the local grocery story to buy groceries this morning. Everything is almost exactly 50% higher here than in Texas. One bolillo in Texas costs 25 cents; here 33 cents. Yoplait yogurt, 10 for $7 here; in Texas, 10 for $6.00. A "crown" of fresh broccoli is $1.79 / lb here; 77 cents/pound in Texas. The list could go on, but one gets the point.

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One of the nice things expensive motels along Route 66 do for visitors is provide them free copies of local newspapers and the USA Today. I didn't have a chance to read the newspaper while driving (had I been alone, I would have, but my wife gets really mad when I read while driving).

I see the front page of the weekend edition of USA Today says the Fed was responsible for this last spectacular trading week of the year: "Fed to the Rescue" --

The Dow Jones industrial average's 421-point gain Thursday was its best single-day jump in three years. The Fed's message Wednesday that it's in no rush to raise rates fueled the two-day rally, boosting the Dow 709 points it biggest two-day gain since 2008. "The mini-correction is over," said a really, really smart person. 

In the business section of the same USA Today there was an article accompanying the front page story: Five Things Lifting The Dow Skyward --

• friendly Fed
• friendly Fed (yes, repeated)
• cheap oil (investors rethinking their initial negative reaction
• stock inventory (if I remember, I might post something on this)
• a big reverse of "bearish" bets

Number 4, "stock inventory" was interesting: a really smart analyst "says the main stock market driver is simply 'supply and demand. In the first three days of this week, there has been more than $30 billion in take-overs of public companies and stock buybacks, so there is less stock for sale on the open market."

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I see both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are still in favor of giving their national natural resource away; spokesmen in both countries said there was not reason to cut production.

I assume there's a corresponding story out there that says China and Japan are sending "thank you" notes and holiday greetings to OPEC. Mr Putin's Christmas is probably not going so well.

Harold Hamm suggests the number of active rigs in North Dakota could go as low as 90. About half where they are now.

	12/21/2014	12/21/2013	12/21/2012	12/21/2011	12/21/2010
Active Rigs	181	192	189	196	160

I have of lot of e-mail to go through and I will eventually get to all of it. I can't decide how the blog should evolve or change going into the New Year. I have been having so much fun looking at the MRO re-fracked wells I've delayed getting back to other subjects.

I'm still amazed with all the non-coverage about that proposed new casino west of Williston. The source said there would a ceremonial ground-breaking October 24, 2014, but I don't recall any photograph to capture the moment. The casino will be on native American ground that I don't think many kew existed in that location. It would be ironic if Caterpillar unearthed huge native American ceremonial burial grounds in that exact location. Something tells me it would cause a minor stir, but once a plaque was laid, the Caterpillar would get back to work.

Oh, by the way, that reminds me: we saw a beautiful bald eagle soaring and then landing on top of a tree in the Flagstaff, Arizona, area. We were on I-40 heading out of town when I saw a huge bird with white wing tips; I followed it and fortunately it perched at the top of a tree to the right of us. And it was clearly a bald eagle. I was not aware that bald eagles had white wing tips, but again, google comes to the rescue. Look at this, a similar eagle in Alaska, this is really, really cool:

A leucistic bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) with white wing tips and white talons flies along the Chilkoot River in the Chilkoot Lake State Recreational Site near Haines, Alaska. The white wing tips and talons are caused by a leucistic condition -- a condition of reduced pigmentation resulting in white patches.

These patches of white can occur while the rest of the animal is colored normal. Unlike albinism, the eye color is normal.

The eagle has been spotted on both the Chilkoot and Chilkat Rivers for several years.

I was absolutely unaware of any such thing. Now, if only this leucistic bald eagle will steer clear of wind turbines. Wow, what a travesty, 38 golden eagles killed by wind turbines in two Wyoming counties.