Nothing About The Bakken -- Environmental Landscaping -- April 9, 2017

Nothing about the Bakken. For the archives. Personal interest. Two nice articles in today's Dallas Morning News. 

First: "The Shape of Things To Come", Mark Lamster, Dallas Morning News, April 9, 2017. Data points:

• Frederick Law Olmsted
• father of landscape architecture in the United States
• arrived in Dallas, 1855
• his works include
• Central Park, Manhattan, NYC
• Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NYC
• the Emerald Necklace of Boston
• White House grounds, Washington, DC
• Capital grounds, Washington, DC
• The article comes at a time when there is a movement in Dallas to "re-wild" the Trinity River, to let natural ecologies one again take over the space between the levees. My reading of the tea leaves: Olmsted would have said "no." Or perhaps, "hell, no."

Second: Peter Walker, landscape architect, first recipient of the Richard Brettel Award in the Arts, Dallas Morning News, data points:

• first recipient of this award
• $150,000
• Dallas philanthropist Margaret McDermott, recently celebrated her 105th birthday, donor behind the award
• Brettel occupies the Margaret M. McDermott chair of art and the aesthetic studies and the Edith O'Donnell distinguished university chair at the University of Texas at Dallas
• also the art critic at The Dallas Morning News
• writer considers Walked the dean of American landscape artists; currently active; in his 80s
• his firm is active worldwide
• educated at UC-Berkeley; the University of Illinois; and, Harvard University
• first major work: his firm designed the overall landscape for the incipient Dallas Arts District
• then, the corporate community of Solana northwest of DFW
• then, the landscape master plan for the University of Texas at Dallas
• that led to designing the landscape for Clements University Hospital at UT Southwestern Medical Center
• he has designed a landscape master plan for the University of Texas at Austin
• his signature landscape: the National September 11 Memorial in New York City
• others:
• Barangaroo Reserve Park, Sydney, Australia
• Sony Headquarters, Berlin
• Jamison Square, Portland, OR
• Harvard, Boston, MA
• Sydney Olympic Park, Sydney, Australia
• Glenstone, Maryland
• Cleveland Clinic 
• two immense landscape/architectural environments under construction will crown his storied career
• the Transbay Transit Square, San Francisco: one block wide, a quarter mile long, and four stories above street level
• the Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore: a five-story circular tropical garden in a totally air-conditioned space inside the airport; for airport travelers to relax

Whiting To Report Three Nice Wells Monday; Note Natural Gas Component; NASCAR Today -- Minimal Blogging -- Family Commitments -- April 9, 2017

Monday, April 10, 2017

• 32764, 2,043, Whiting, Chameleon State 31-16HU, Banks, 4 sections, t10/16; cum 77K 2/17;

Sunday, April 9, 2017

• None.

Saturday, April 8, 2017

• 32560, 1,385, Whiting, Flatland 43-9-2H, Banks, 35 stages, 7.5 million lbs, t10/16; cum 100K 2/17;
• 32561, 2,370, Whiting, Flatland 43-9-1H, Banks, t10/16; cum 78K 2/17;

Note:

• The Chameleon wells are followed here. 
• The Flatland wells are followed here. 
• Links to "families of wells" are listed here. 
• The wells are not always kept up to date. 

Note, also, from first comment below:

Regarding the above wells' production, the natgas output is especially strong.

Using rough, back of the envelope figures, at $3/mmbtu, each 50 MMcf of gas should gross $150,000 in revenue.

Naturally, there is more to the financial picture, but 2 million, 3 million cubic feet per day sold starts to add up.

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32561, see above, Whiting, Flatland 43-9-1H, Banks:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
2-2017	13040	49471
1-2017	88	0
12-2016	19515	42799
11-2016	34550	80981
10-2016	11132	16681

32560, see above, Whiting, Flatland 43-9-2H, Banks:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
2-2017	15267	64032
1-2017	17488	66945
12-2016	23966	53757
11-2016	34251	82210
10-2016	8981	11895

32764, see above, Whiting, Chameleon State 31-16HU, Banks:

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
2-2017	6432	29829
1-2017	11771	51955
12-2016	16203	23996
11-2016	26814	27221
10-2016	15432	8850

Rue21 May Be Latest Big Box Store Casualty; Retailers Closing Faster Than Ever -- Bloomberg -- T+78 -- April 9, 2017

From Bloomberg, the data points:

• America's retailers are closing stores faster than ever
• Rue21 may be next; preparing to file for bankruptcy (Rue21: teen-apparel retailer; my wife has not heard of it)
• Amazon is gobbling up most of the industry's online growth
• the pain for America's shopping malls could be just beginning
• the blight is also taking a toll on jobs
• retailers cut 30,000 positions in most recent report
• some say it was simply too many apparel stores
• store closings year-to-date
• outpacing those of 2008 when the last US recession was waging
• 2016 (again, year-to-date): 1,153
• 2017 (year-to-date): 2,880
• extrapolating: that could be 8,640 stores closing in 2017; 2008 peak -- 6,200
• retail space per capita in the US six times that of Europe or Japan (this does not include digital commerce)

More at the link.

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Enriched Uranium

I'm reading Gino Segre's Ordinary Geniuses: Max Delbruck, George Gamow, and the Origins of Genomics and Big Bang Cosmology. He spends as much time as any writer that I've read writing about Lisa Meitner and how she "realized" that the uranium nucleus could be split. I don't know how many times I've read that bit of physics but could never remember the details. This time, though, I think I finally have it. I finally "understand" it -- as much as I will ever understand it. Of course, I don't understand the math or the physics but I "understand" the concept, if that makes sense.

I finally understand it because of the time I spent with our oldest granddaughter and the periodic table. Funny how things play out.

One of the things I never paid attention to was the actual percent of U-235 in a ton of "natural" uranium. I find that amazing.

• natural uranium
• U-238: 99.284%
• U-235: 0.711% 
• low-enriched uranium (reactor grade)
• 3 - 4% U-235
• highly-enriched uranium (weapons grade)
• 90% U-235
• depleted uranium: the U-238 that is left behind after enrichment 

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Update

I finished reading  Gino Segre's Ordinary Geniuses: Max Delbruck, George Gamow, and the Origins of Genomics and Big Bang Cosmology on April 11, 2017. It's a very, very good read. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in the history of biology and cosmology in the 20th century.

The Political Page, JFK+86 Anniversary In Less Than Two Weeks -- April 9, 2017

The lead story in The Los Angeles Times is actually quite interesting to read, understanding that of the three (The LA Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times), The LA Times is clearly the most liberal and clearly the most interested in bashing President Trump. The story was linked at the Drudge Report, the website accused of being so conservative. Matt obviously saw the same things I did.

This, for example, jumped out at me:

• at JFK+86, the incredibly spectacular Bay of Pigs fiasco;
• at T+75, the incredibly spectacular successful destruction of a Syrian airfield and chemical weapons depot

Mainstream media is accusing "the young presidency" of being rash. I guess the mainstream media was thinking about the Bay of Pigs. Or maybe the Gulf of Tonkin (LBJ + 253).

Elsewhere, this was sent to me by another reader who noted this, in The Washington Post: just as the Russians were building up Central America back in the 60's, we now have the Russians again building up in the region. The headline:

The Soviet Union fought the Cold War in Nicaragua. Now Putin's Russia back.

The Russian embassy has been under construction for at least the past two years and to the best of my knowledge I don't remember seeing one word written about it and certainly not one word from President Obama. But on T+78, The Washington Post finally gets to writing about.

By the way, we have another nominee for the 2017 Geico Rock Award:

Juan Gonzalez, who was deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs during the Obama administration, said he had generally been skeptical about theories that Iran, China and Russia were posing a security threat with their increased activities in Latin America. But he has changed his mind over the past couple of years because of Russia’s activities in Nicaragua and neighboring El Salvador. (The Salvadoran foreign minister visited Moscow last month to discuss trade and investment deals.)

By the way, it's only a few months until October 16 - 28.