A Bakken Filler Before The Stories I Really Wanted To Post -- November 29, 2018

NDIC regulators have given unanimous approval for Kinder Morgan to expand the Roosevelt Gas plant from 50 million cfpd to 200 million cfpd. The plant is located 7.5 miles south of Watford City. By the time the plant is completed, Watford City is growing so quickly that the plant my be less than 7.5 miles from the city -- just saying.

From the blog back on September 8, 2018:
This story was posted earlier, but for those who missed it the first time, from August 8, 2018, The Bismarck Tribune:

• to expand the Roosevelt Gas Plant in McKenzie County by 150 million cubic feet per day
• increasing the capacity to process up to 200 million cubic feet per day

Besides the obvious -- more natural gas processing capacity -- but more importantly, it needs drillers can increased oil production.

For newbies, crude oil production in North Dakota is constrained by:

• the price of oil; demand for light oil
• takeaway capacity (not much of an issue now that the DAPL is flowing)
• flaring (a big issue)
• workforce: competition with the Permian

 ************************************

Getting Ready For Christmas

Her mother said Sophia was moving the nutcracker's jaw for about 20 minutes (?) and the two of them were having a conversation about Christmas. You can see Sophia's hand in the back moving the "lever" and in the front you can barely see the king's beard move up and down.

*********************

The Book Page

I can't wait to get into this book: Math With Bad Drawings, Illuminating the Ideas That Shape Our Reality, Ben Orlin, c. 2018.

I'm read some of it; paged through most of it. Intriguing. Not quite sure what to make of it.

*****************************

The Movie Page

I wish I had the stamina for a 24-hour movie binge. TCM was highlighting Jane Russell yesterday/overnight -- 24 hours. I caught two movies: The Outlaw and This Kind of Girl.

Holy mackerel. I can see why Howard Hughes had trouble getting The Outlaw past the censors in 1941. Now that I've seen it, I would watch it again.

Jane Russell's history is very interesting beginning with her birth in Bemidji, Minnesota. I never knew. From wiki:

Russell married three times, adopted three children, and in 1955 founded Waif, the first international adoption program. She received several accolades for her achievements in films, including having her hand and footprints immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and having a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In between the movies last night, the TCM host talked about the movie, Jane Russell, Howard Hughes, and RKO.

The references to RKO, of course, jumped out at me because of the references to this movie production company in Rocky Horror Picture Show. 

After The Outlaw, an even better movie, This Kind of Girl. Wow, talk about a movie that meets all the criteria for a film noir. From wiki:

A style or genre of cinematographic film marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, and menace. The term was originally applied (by a group of French critics) to American thriller or detective films made in the period 1944–54 and to the work of directors such as Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, and Billy Wilder.

Vincent Price stole the show. If you haven't seen this movie, it's worth watching just to see him (Vincent Price) and ... Mr Magoo.   

By the way, this is why 3-D and AR will bring back the old movies. From The Baltimore Sun:

As readers of this blog know, Russell's allure has never been forgotten by Baltimore movie-lovers. Sun entertainment writer and Maryland Film Festival 3-D guru Chris Kaltenbach told me a year ago that his ideal  3-D presentation would be to "bring the Jane Russell 1954 3-D extravaganza 'The French Line' to Baltimore. Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?"

Also, Martin Hickes, In Praise of Jane Russell. In the clip below, Ms Russell is #27 of 50. It's hard to believe but my wife says she met in person one of the "classic beauties of Hollywood," and, in person, she says, she was even more beautiful than in her pictures. I find that amazing. And uplifting. And wonderful. The toughest part of the Academy Awards show -- when I used to watch many years ago -- was the In Memoriam,

**************************

Music and Hollywood Glamour

Wow, the clip above takes me back to my coming of age years in southern California. Wow, "I had it lucky," as they say.