The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog)

Monday, August 31, 2026

Public School Teachers' Nemesis: Lesson Plans -- August 31, 2026

Locator: 51597EDUCATION.

Solution: AI. This is a no-brainer.

Query:

The nemesis of public school teachers (kindergarten to high school): lesson plans. Take up a lot of time and are becoming more scrutinized by state "regulators." Perfect solution: AI. Thoughts?

I think you will be amazed. After more than 23 years in the education system in the United States with four of those years as a teacher at the middle school / high school level, I consider myself something of an authority. LOL.

The light bulb went on when I asked ChatGPT for a one-page summary of the Magnificat and Te Deum to share with my congregation. In less than 20 seconds I had printed the summary after making the query. About five seconds for ChatGPT to answer and about 15 seconds to print the two-sided document.

California's PGE In Freefall -- August 31, 2026

Locator: 51596PGE.

Last week, Friday, ticker was down almost 8%.

Today, pre-market, PCG (PG&E) is down almost 17%.

California legislators refused to "help" PG&E last week. Worse than dead money for investors.

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Disclaimer

Briefly:

I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken.
I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.
I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.
See disclaimer. This is not an investment site.
Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.
If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.
Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market.
I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.
And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution.
I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon. And QCOM.
Longer version here.

RBN Energy: A New Bidirectional Header Aims To Facilitate Rising Gas Flows Through Katy, Texas -- August 31, 2026.

Locator: 51595PERMIAN.

Highly recommended:

RBN Energy: a new bidirectional header aims to facilitate rising gas flows through Katy. Link here. Archived.

Massive volumes of mostly Permian-sourced natural gas are already converging on the Katy, TX, area just west of Houston, and much more will be arriving soon as planned pipelines — including the newly proposed, 4.5-Bcf/d Solitude Pipeline System — come online in the months and years ahead. Now, a new, bidirectional header system is being built to help ease the flow of gas through the increasingly important Katy Hub, which serves as a key aggregation and distribution point for gas bound for existing and planned Gulf Coast industrial and power-generation load as well as a slew of LNG export terminals. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the Aspen Katy Hub project, which is slated for startup early next year.

Consider for a moment a conventional cloverleaf interchange where two multilane highways intersect. It generally works well, at least as long as the volume of car-and-truck traffic doesn’t get out of hand. But when volumes soar and the traffic jams, highway engineers often turn to “stacked” interchanges with several “flyover” ramps that help speed the transfer of vehicles from one highway to the other. As it turns out, one of the most amazing of these transportation “spaghetti bowls” is in Katy itself, where Interstate 10 (aka the Katy Freeway) and State Highway 99 (aka the Grand Parkway) meet.

PGA: The Scheffler Era -- The Performance Yesterday Was Incredible -- August 31, 2026

Locator: 51594PGA.

Of the four or five leaders at the end of the tournament, only Scottie Scheffler was under par for the fourth round, and it wasn't by a little. He was four under for round four.

The Tiger era ended some time ago in the minds of many, but yesterday, it was official. It is now the end of the Tiger era.

The big question: is Scottie Scheffler that good or is the field that bad. My take: a little of both. Quick! Name the top five PGA names right now. It's easier to recognize the top five names during the Tiger era than it is now to come up with the top five names during the Scheffler era. At least for me.

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Meanwhile: NASCAR

Playoff season begins.

Sixteen in the race to the championship.

Major change in format:

Under the newly revamped 2026 format, there are no elimination rounds. All 16 drivers will battle across all 10 remaining races, and whoever accumulates the most overall points at the season finale in Homestead-Miami will lift the championship trophy.

This new format may work well for NASCAR; it is not work well for the PGA and was eliminated this year.

First race: September 6, 2026 -- Darlington Raceway, South Carolina. A fair way from Charlotte to the northwest. The race track is near where I-20 and I-95 cross.