Wednesday January 20, 2016 -- Last Dance

I apologize for the paucity of postings today; we were out and about all day. But I am home now.

A reminder: Kinder Morgan and Xilinx report tomorrow. Both after the market closes. After the "machines" shut down for the day.

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A Note For The Granddaughters

Wow, I'm in a good mood. We've just re-arranged our furniture and it seems we've increased our living space by 25 percent. It's huge. We live in a 651-square-foot apartment north of Ft Worth. I don't know why I added "north of Ft Worth"; if we lived south of Ft Worth it would still be 651-square-feet.

Recently, something came up -- I can't remember what it was -- but something came up that required we re-arrange our furniture. In the process of moving stuff around -- oh, now I remember -- it had to do with my wife getting a Wii for Christmas. I felt she needed a bit more room for dancing to Wii. I came up with a solution, and I'm thrilled with it.

It turns out, my solution was only half of the solution. After I made the first change, my wife came up with the other half (of the solution). Everything has fallen into place. All of a sudden our 651-square-foot apartment seems much bigger.

And now she can dance to her new Wii to her heart's content.

We re-arranged our apartment furniture and it seems 25% bigger. I wish I could "re-arrange my stock portfolio" and show a 25% improvement. Ha-ha; LOL. 

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A Note For The Granddaughters

The Bible

My favorite book right now is The New Oxford Annotated Bible, the best present I got this past Christmas.

The book of Tobit is not in the Bible with which I grew up. It is part of the "Apochrypha." I love it! I did not know this: Tobit 7:10 -- "Eat and drink, and be merry tonight." -- p. 1379. I wonder if Donald Trump is familiar with this verse? LOL.

The story of Judith is a "Joan of Arc" story. How amazing.

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A Note For The Granddaughters

UE Boom

There must be a gazillion wireless/Blue Tooth speakers out there now. We bought a UE Boom two years ago and love it. I would have assumed Apple would have "pushed" its Beats Pill wireless speaker but I was surprised to see that Apple promotes two different brands equally: the Beats Pill and the UE Boom. I bought the UE Boom at the Southlake Apple Store on the advice of one of the young Apple associates. I am thrilled. It's kind of funny. We haven't used the UE Boom in months, but for some reason I've been using it again for the past two nights -- and it still has not required re-charging. Amazing. Maybe we have a "magic Elon Musk battery" -- never needs recharging. I have a unicorn grazing on the patio out back.

I say all that simply to post this video. This is a lousy video but the sound is decent. It takes me back to 1974 or thereabouts when I saw Charlie Rich in person. I was dating a most beautiful woman whose favorite singer at the time was Charlie Rich. Her name was Belle. Seriously.

I wonder whatever happened to her. May knows of her / about her. No jealousy. More than a passing fancy. If I had my life to live over, I would have .....

The Most Beautiful Girl, Charlie Rich
I suppose I should be posting videos of the Eagles. But I'm not. But I am listening to "Hotel California" in the background at the moment, so that should count for something.

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A Note For The Granddaughters  

Dinner

I had a most wonderful dinner tonight: a New York strip steak from Omaha Steaks. From wiki:

The strip steak, also called New York strip steak, is a cut of beef steaks from the short loin. It consists of a muscle that does little work, making the meat particularly tender, though not as tender as the nearby rib eye or tenderloin. Fat content of the strip is somewhere between the two cuts. Unlike the tenderloin, the short loin is a sizable muscle, allowing it to be cut into larger portions. 

Before grilling the steak, I cut off all the fat I can reach. I lose a fair amount of steak, I suppose, but that's fine. 

I honestly do not recall if I've had a New York strip steak before. My usual choices from Omaha Steaks have been filet mignon / tenderloin or hamburger, but not strip steak. New York strip steak sounds so ... well, so ... Donald Trump. I assume that the Donald's steak is "New York" strip steak. Whatever.

Along with the steak I also had an Omaha Steak baked potato; three minutes in the microwave oven. May did not join me; we had big lunches and she felt that another big meal was too much. But her steak is defrosted in the refrigerator and ready any time she changes her mind. I marinaded my steak; May says she would like to have her steak non-marinaded. So, we will see. I can't imagine steak that is not marinaded. Now that I understand the ins and outs of marinade, I don't use recipes: simply pour a bit of this and bit of that into a zip-lock bag with a bit of pepper and voilà. Oil, vinegar, coffee, at a minimum.

For dessert I had half of a slice of Oreo cookie cheesecake that our oldest granddaughter got me yesterday. I should have had only a fourth. A half slice was too much. I find it amazing that folks can have a full meal and then follow it with a full slice of cheesecake -- I'm "blanking out" on the brand name cheesecake -- you know, the one in Big Bang Theory. It was incredible. That was the first cheesecake I've had in about two years, so don't judge me.

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Contract Requirements

I can't believe how depressing the news was this morning. It's amazing how really good '60's music can change all that. I see that the NDIC server is back up. Finally, I can reach the "active rigs" site: I think that was the last NDIC webpage to finally come up today. Did Twitter ever come back up?

I am required by contract that each posting have a Bakken-related note included, so here it is:

Active rigs:

	1/19/2016	01/19/2015	01/19/2014	01/19/2013	01/19/2012
Active Rigs	49	161	187	187	200

Wow, I hate contracts. It feels like so much work. I'm retired. That's why I don't have bucket lists.

I'm heading to bed. It's 11;21 p.m Central Time. I have to get up at 5:30 a.m. to get ready to take our oldest granddaughter to "sectionals": "special" flute practice at school in preparation for some competition. If you send me a note, I won't see it until tomorrow.

Last Dance, Floyd Cramer