Author: Dick

Bill Clinton. Always good for a chuckle.

Thar she blows! The Spindletop gusher near Beaumont, Texas, in 1901.

Oil prices reached yet another record high today at $76 per barrel. Do you know why? Answer the following question:

Oil and gasoline prices are at record levels because:
a. The Iraq War
b. Instability in Africa and the Middle East
c. Extremely high demand and inadequate refining capabilities
d. A black cat crossed the street in front of the guy who sets oil prices.

If you picked any of the answers above you may be partially right or you may be as wrong as Teddy Kennedy in a Speedo. Now I am not an economist, nor do I play one on TV. But doesn’t it seem as if experts on the oil industry sometimes just pull an answer out of their ass when asked the reason for rising fuel prices? The latest hike is attributed to troubles in Nigeria and the escalation of military action by Israel. It could have just as easily been caused by a black cat though.

About a bit more than 5 miles — as the crow flies — across town from where I live sits the spot where the petroleum industry as we know it began. It started with the gusher at Spindletop on a cold day in 1901. Since that time, the area in which I live eats, breathes (no jokes please), and sleeps the petrochemical industry. Even in bad times, one would be hard pressed not to run into someone here who works at a place like Mobil-Exxon, Motiva, DuPont, Goodyear or for some business related to petrochemical refining.

With all the petrochemical plants here one might think, just off the top of one’s head, that gas prices would be cheaper here than in other parts of Texas. But that’s not the case. AAA said last week that the average price of a gallon of gas in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area was a hair over $2.77. But gas was cheaper in places such as the Austin-San Marcos area which are a ways from heavy refining activity. And the Houston-Galveston area, another place with a high concentration of petrochemical manufacturing, had the highest average in the state at slightly more than $2.92. Go figure.

Those prices don’t, on the surface, appear to make sense. However, not all of the petrochemical plants in the Beaumont-Houston corridor refine gasoline. But with the proximity to refineries it would seem gasoline would be a little cheaper. It all seems a bit illogical but that’s the petroleum biz. I have said before in this blog how it doesn’t make sense that an oil company can get thousands upon thousands of dollars from oil while my, admittedly miniscule, royalty share in a few wells nets me $10 a month.

The whole shebang is a mystery to me. And by shebang I mean life and vacuum packaging. But I think if you asked them for the unvarnished truth, some of the so-called “experts” who are supposed to know the ins and outs of the petroleum business would tell you that their analysis of pricing is largely a product of an educated guess. I guess a guess is a good as no answer at all, right? Maybe. Or maybe not. I really don’t know, so stop asking me.

Nature smacks around its toys near Holly Beach, La.

Large machines were dragging up tangled, steel messes this afternoon along Hwy. 82 near Holly Beach, La., that were once cars and trucks. It’s amazing how many people left behind automobiles when they headed for the hills to escape Hurricane Rita. The assumption would be that many of the abandoned cars wouldn’t run, but surely some were operable. Cars and trucks, and even a shrimp boat or two still litter the marshes a good 300 yards from the water almost 10 months after Rita hit.

I don’t claim to be a great photographer or even a photographer, except for the fact I know how to aim and snap the camera (and now download the pictures). With that lengthy preface, I note the above photo I took today heading back home to Beaumont after visiting Cameron, La., on business. I don’t know what the wheeled ruins were when they were meant to be something. Perhaps it was part of a trailer. I just liked the juxtaposition of the natural Gulf of Mexico setting in the background and nature’s most impressive sculpting.

Old Toilet Haiku

In blistering heat
No fat ass sits upon you
Porcelain orphan.

A sad site it is to see one, much less six, cast-off toilets sitting by the curb. Why is it sad? I don’t know. It’s one of those situations that is hard to pin down.

When you think about it, toilets are normally pretty sturdy fixtures. Many can survive hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, big butts and so forth.

The flush toilet is really a marvel in itself. Toilets are fixtures of history, seating generation after generation of asses. It’s a good thing that toilets can’t talk. Oh the stories they could tell! Gross ones, I’m sure.

Some people in the world, perhaps some still in the U.S., do not have flush toilets. But I don’t expect to see Sally Struthers make a tearful plea for Third World children without toilets. Maybe she should though. Or maybe Jerry Lewis could have a telethon for “Crappers Without Borders.”

It’s just a thought.

What’s bugging me, you might ask? Like many others who live along the upper Texas coast, mosquitoes are bugging me.

Today’s “Beaumont Enterprise” reports that salt marsh mosquitoes are out in swarms in the area and are worse than normal because of recent rains. It is fortunate that the salt marsh mosquitoes do not carry the West Nile Virus. But West Nile has turned up in Jefferson County, where I live, and I usually don’t see a mosquito until it has feasted upon me. Thus, I can’t tell whether it is the salt marsh or some other type.

I have to remind myself to coat the exposed parts of my body with insect repellent before going on my morning walk. I have two kinds of repellent, both of which contain about 7 percent DEET (N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide). But the usually reliable S.C. Johnson product, Off, doesn’t seem to work as well as Cutter. Maybe it’s a smell thing. Smell is one of the factors that make human flesh attractive to mosquitoes, according to the Centers for Disease Control:

“Female mosquitoes bite people and animals because they need the protein found in blood to help develop their eggs. Mosquitoes are attracted to people by skin odors and carbon dioxide from breath. The active ingredients in repellents make the person unattractive for feeding. Repellents do not kill mosquitoes. Repellents are effective only at short distances from the treated surface, so you may still see mosquitoes flying nearby.”

Women mosquitoes — you can’t live with them, you can’t kill them.

It would seem as long as you smell like something a mosquito won’t even touch — and don’t breathe — you’ve got the mosquito problem licked. However, that doesn’t sound like a terribly attractive solution.

The Karankawa Indians who once roamed these coastal environs dealt with mosquitoes in a rather organic manner, according to “The Handbook of Texas Online”.

“They often smeared their bodies with a mixture of dirt and alligator or shark grease to ward off mosquitoes.”

One would think that dirt along with alligator or shark grease would keep most anything away. Although, I wouldn’t take my chances with either alligators or sharks.

Almost everyone has to put up with some sort of unpleasantry no matter where they live. Hurricanes and mosquitoes are the two biggies here. I can keep the mosquitoes away. The hurricanes are another matter.