Something old explorers only dreamed of.

http://geology.com/nasa/world-topographic-map/

Eric’sWeb

My Brother Jack was born on July the Third and he and I loved fireworks.  We both wanted to be soldiers and we practiced war our entire childhood.  Because of our obsession my favorite holiday, and my Brother Jack’s, was and is the Fourth of July and the one I remember best is the first one that I can remember.

While growing up in small town Vivian, there were no City ordinances barring the use of fireworks.  Every manner of explosives was sold including M-80s and Two-Inchers.  Jack and I are both lucky to have all our digits as we later experimented with everything we could strike a match too.

My buddy Timmy Jon and I even mixed our own batch of gunpowder and almost burned up the house with it.  The first Fourth that I can remember, however, we made do with firecrackers, bottle rockets, sparklers and Roman candles.

On the Fourth of July my Mom and Dad would buy us about ten dollars worth of fireworks.  Ten bucks doesn’t sound like much but you could pop lots of firecrackers for that amount in the sixties.  We always began the fireworks as soon as it was dark enough.

I don’t remember my age but I was old enough to feel the excitement of impending danger.  With our Dad’s help we began lighting sparklers, popping firecrackers and launching one bottle rocket after another.  We soon got down to the good stuff.

‘Hold it in the air and shake it,” My Dad directed as he lit my first-ever Roman candle.

I can still remember the percussion and slight recoil as incandescent flame burst from the coiled-paper barrel of the explosive device.  I couldn’t count at the time but I had a seat-of-the-pants feel for how many fiery rounds the candle contained.  When it was over I held the warm rod in my hand, inhaling acrid smoke and burned powder.  It was an odor I will never forget.

My red-headed Brother Jack was next at bat and he had mischief in mind before my Dad ever lit the candle’s fuse.  My Mother was standing behind us in the open door of our house.  Soon as the candle started spitting fire, Jack began pointing it at anything that caught his fancy - a tree, the family car, me, and finally toward the open door of the house.

Dodging the oncoming fireball, my Mom screamed and jumped off the porch.  Jack put at least three fireballs through the house, luckily catching nothing on fire.  When he finally threw down the spent Roman candle my Dad just shook his head, grabbed the remaining fireworks and walked into the house.  Mom followed him, but not before unloading verbally on Jack.

Nothing much else was ever said about the incident, Mom and Dad giving Brother Jack the benefit of the doubt that what he did was caused by inexperience and lack of good sense.  After living in close proximity to him until I was fifteen, I know better.  He went to sleep that night giggling about scaring my Mom and Dad and getting away with it.

The Fourth of July means a lot more to me than just fireworks and hot dogs and we should all reflect on the sacrifices this wonderful holiday immortalizes.  Still, my favorite holiday remains the Fourth of July and the one I remember best is the first one that I can remember.

http://www.EricWilder.com

I found a treasure trove of my Mom’s old cookbooks when my Brother jack and I finished packing the last of Mom and Dad’s possessions before selling the house.  She was always trying new recipes and used brother Jack and me as test subjects (I won’t say guinea pigs).

We liked almost everything she cooked – except the prune pie she once made for us.  She had a tendency to pencil a little check mark beside recipes she particularly liked.  Here is one that had two check marks beside it:

Oatmeal Crispies

• 1 c. margarine (or butter)
• 2 c. brown sugar, packed
• 2 c. flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs
• 2 c. rolled oats
• 1 c. raisins
• 1 tsp. soda

Mix butter, sugar and eggs.  Mix in baking soda, salt and flour.  Mix in rolled oats and raisins.  Drop dough by spoonfuls onto baking pan.  Leave room for cookies to spread.  Bake at 375 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.  Enjoy.

Eric’sWeb

An interesting article, especially for a Louisiana boy like myself.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090629-mississippi-river-sea-levels.html

Eric’sWeb

      Here a couple pics of a well in Logan County, Oklahoma.  It must not be very good because the buzzard in the second picture is roosting nearby.

Eric’sWeb

We experienced the “Summer of Love” in 1969, along with Woodstock and the first man on the moon.  There was also Vietnam.  I had just graduated from college and planned to marry in August.  Before the marriage occurred, I sat my first oil well.

It was early July and I waited in Houston, Texas for my first assignment as a mudlogger with a company called Core Lab.  My new mentor was a degreed geologist named Ed M. and we were soon on our way to Mississippi.  The 60s in Mississippi were still racially charged and we had to peel off the Core Lab sticker from our company car before driving into the state.

Many in Mississippi thought of CORE as the Congress of Racial Equality, not an oil and gas service company.  Being from Louisiana, I was somewhat used to racism, but not even close to what I encountered in Mississippi.

My first well was a 17,500’ wildcat, just outside of Laurel, Mississippi.  Ed and I found a room at a local boarding house.  Ed liked boarding houses – he had married the owner of the last boarding house where he had stayed in Monroe, Louisiana.  I liked them too because I did not have a lot of extra money for the local Hilton.

The drilling rig was big and noisy, but I was not destined to see the well through its total depth.  Instead, I drove to Weslaco, Texas to finish logging a well drilling there.  I never finished that well either because Core Lab sent me to log yet another deep wildcat, this one near Talco in east Texas.

While young hippies were smoking dope, cavorting around with no clothes, and listening to rock music, I spent the “Summer of Love” on an assortment of noisy drilling rigs from Mississippi to Texas.  My boss begged me to sit a wildcat for him in Nicaragua and put off my marriage until later.  I thought about it, and the extra money he offered, but my bride-to-be would have none of it.

Five months later, I was married, drafted into the Army and training for a traumatic trip to Southeast Asia as a hired gun for Richard Nixon.  Yes, I missed the wild and decadent parts of the “Summer of Love” but I tried making up for it during the “Disco 70s.”  Maybe it is a good thing because I don’t think I could have survived both.

Eric’sWeb

Natural gas production falls as operators cease drilling because of depressed prices making it uneconomic.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=aqhTLXECUJTk

Eric’sWeb

Interesting and entertaining videos.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/06/sandgrains/

Eric’sWeb

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/06/11/100082885/?postversion=2007060406

Eric’sWeb

An interesting development.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31548588/ns/business-world_business/

I love cheese balls and found this recipe on the back of an Underwood Deviled Ham wrapper.  I haven’t tried it yet but the recipe sounds yummy, and Marilyn promises she’ll whip up one for Father’s Day.  I can hardly wait!

• 2 cans (4.25 oz. each) deviled ham.
• 1 (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
• 1 package (.04 oz.) dry ranch style dressing
• ½ cup diced tomato
• 2 cups (8 oz.) shredded Cheddar cheese
• ½ roasted, unsalted sunflower seeds

 Directions:

In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients except sunflower seeds.  Refrigerate until firm enough to handle.  Form into a ball and roll in sunflower seeds.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.  Makes one large cheese ball.

Eric’sWeb

Our company having fallen into bankruptcy at the end of the last oil boom, Anne and I traveled to cities all over the United States, looking for a bank to lend us the money to bail us out of the situation.  We did not find a bank.  Like many oil companies, they were also going out of business right and left.

There were so many houses foreclosed in Oklahoma City that the FDIC had to open an office here.  Soon, they had a thousand employees working in the city.  We were not the only Oklahoma oil company in trouble.  Everyone was in trouble!

Our banking leads exhausted, we began looking for a "white knight" investor, someone that would inject some much-needed capitol into the company.  Anne and I did not know such a person but we knew someone that did.

Harold (at least this is the name I am giving him for this story) is from Alligator, Mississippi (I am not making this up!) and knows more people than the census bureau.  He is also a brilliant, self-taught geophysicist, and just a little shady.

A fiction writer with the world’s greatest imagination could never create a fictional character as interesting as Harold is.  If I were inclined to write a biography, I would write Harold’s biography because he is perhaps the single-most interesting person that I have ever met.  He knew a possible “white knight” in New Orleans so we headed south to make our pitch.

Harold booked us at the Monteleone Hotel, a wonderful place on Royal, just a block from Bourbon Street.  He had invited his new girlfriend as his latest marriage was already in the dumpster.  Harold was not good with relationships.  The next day after checking in, we took a taxi down Bourbon Street.

Mr. X (a very real person) lived in a million dollar shotgun house on the end of Bourbon Street.  A shotgun house, built in the 1700s so named because if you unloaded a shotgun at the front door, the load would exit the back door without striking a wall.  There is not much to a shotgun house but because of their location, they are worth millions of dollars - yes, even after Katrina.

Harold introduced us to Mr. X, a friendly man with dark Cajun hair and eyes and a long black moustache.  He had a manservant that I will call Hay-sus.  Hay-sus could not speak English but he knew how to mix drinks.  Mr. X started talking and we listened, and drank, all day long.  A one-time banker friend (surprise, surprise!) had apparently ruined Mr. X.  They were now bitter enemies.

Mr. X told us hours of interesting stories, but we never got a chance to state our case but he did take us back to the Monteleone for dinner.  He was allergic to seafood and did not like steak so we had enchiladas at the restaurant's Mexican restaurant.  There was a troupe of Mexican singers and Mr. X paid them probably a thousand dollars, at a hundred dollars a pop, to sing various Mexican songs.

Harold's girlfriend left sometime during the night (he was hell on relationships!) so we met at the Monteleone’s Carousel Bar the next day for drinks before flying back to OKC.  I got so drunk and disoriented that I could hardly walk out of the place.

Anne and I never found a “white knight” and our company’s bankruptcy stood, our hopes and dreams struck down like so many tin soldiers.  Thanks to Harold, though, we had an experience almost impossible to believe.  It is now but a memory and I am passing it on, albeit in an abbreviated version.

Someday I might write Harold’s story, but it should really go straight to the big screen because I’m positive it would break all attendance records.

Eric’sWeb

Studies show that it is possible to generate enough electricity to supply the world by wind alone, but it is still more expensive than burning coal or natural gas. A most interesting article.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1906507,00.html?cnn=yes

Eric’sWeb

A risky geothermal energy project in Switzerland, funded in part by Google (yes, Google!)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/business/energy-environment/24geotherm.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Gas field discovery in Norway.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPQH8ybXTHH4

Eric’sWeb

Amen!

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twiparch/090617/twipprint.html

            Since I have the best dad in the world, I thought that I would put up a few pics of him for Father’s Day.  My dad Jack will be 90 next month.

Fiction South

My wife Anne, like myself, was a boxing fan.  When she was alive, we often hosted fight parties for many championship-boxing events.  There was always lots of beer.  Our friend Ray immortalized in my story Chicken Fries would always bring brownies.

Dave, my friend who sold me my first motorcycle would bring his famous sausage balls.  Later, when times were tight, just Anne, Dave and I would get together for a fight.  One fighter we never missed was Mike Tyson.

Tyson, at the time, was still young and going through opponents like an Oklahoma tornado.  When scheduled to fight a no-name boxer, Buster Douglas, no one wanted to watch the likely one-round event except the three of us.

I do not remember much about the evening, or the fight, except that Buster Douglas connected with Tyson’s jaw and knocked him clean out.  I also remember Dave’s sausage balls.  This week, Dave was kind enough to send me his sausage ball recipe.  Here it is and I hope that you enjoy them as much as I did.

Basic Version

3 cups biscuit mix (Bisquick or similar type mix)

1 lb. bulk sausage

½ lb. grated Cheddar cheese

Combine the sausage and cheese first, then add the Bisquick mix until the mixture will hold together, mix thoroughly with hands (or spoon, easier with hands), mixing is easier if the sausage is warmed slightly in a microwave first.  The amount of Bisquick mix used to hold the whole thing together will change as you change the type of sausage used.  Now, form mixture into balls (about a ping-pong ball size), a perfect ball shape is not important, in fact it is better if formed into odd shaped imperfect balls.  You can freeze you balls for baking later or bake now.  I like to bake now and freeze for heating later in microwave.

Place balls on non-greased bake/cookie sheet and bake in over at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, but check after 12 minutes.

That is the basic recipe, now for the Cajun version:

Cajun Version

3 cups biscuit mix (Bisquick or similar type mix)

1 lb. bulk sausage  (sausage can be any type you like, as long as it can be broken up and mixed with the other ingredients, I sometimes use hot sausage)

½ lb. grated Cheddar cheese (extra sharp cheddar cheese is the best to use)

From now on, you are on your own to add what ever floats your boat, some of my favorites are:

1 nice sized onion - chopped

Several cloves of garlic - chopped

I sometimes put several drops of Tabasco sauce on each ball before cooking.  It leaves a very nice red color on each ball and adds a good kick.  Note:  If while mixing, you are having drinks, or whatever, the Tabasco sauce goes on the Sausage Balls.  Enough said?

Then mix, bake as above and enjoy.

Eric’s Web

I left Texas Oil & Gas in 1978, intent on becoming a successful independent oilman.  Practically broke, I had little more than the false bravado of a young man that had never tasted defeat, well, maybe a little.  My recent divorced following a seven-year marriage had left my ego slightly dented.  I was either too young, or too stupid - maybe both - to worry much about failure.

My first six months as an independent oilman, I went through every penny of my savings, meager though they were.  I got by, somehow, with a mortgage on my motorcycle - a Triumph Bonneville - and a thousand dollar loan from my new girlfriend.

To say that I succeeded because of perseverance would be a lie.  My departure from paycheck security exactly coincided with the Arab Oil Embargo of 1978.  Before 1979 ended, I was rolling in dough, and firmly convinced that I was the smartest geologist there ever was.  I was not merely a participant in the last oil boom; I lived and breathed it.

Do I have stories?  Well, let us just say I could write a book about it.  Here is just one story:

John, my partner from Mississippi, and I spent our mornings drawing maps.  At lunch, we would go to a watering hole named Over the Counter.  We often stayed until three or four in the afternoon, drinking scotch and whiskey.  Yes, we were living in that kind of world.  One such day after leaving OTC we found a man waiting at our office door.

“Someone told me you boys are prospect generators.  I am returning to Florida tomorrow and I need a deal.  Can you help me?”

We both shook our heads.  “We don’t have anything this moment.”

“Please, I’m a desperate man.  Surely you have an idea, or something.”

John spoke slowly, with a distinctive Mississippi drawl.  He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a crumpled napkin.  “Here’s an idea I was telling Eric about at lunch.”  He showed the structure map, drawn in faded ink on the napkin, to the stranger from Florida.  “This prospect is in Grant County.  This dry hole had 2 feet of porosity and this dry hole had a show of oil on a drillstem test.  I think you’ll find oil right here,” he said, pointing to an X near the center of the napkin.

The stranger pulled out his checkbook and proceeded to write us a check for a thousand dollars.  “If this lease is open, I’ll give you another four thousand dollars, and drill a well.  If it hits, I’ll assign you a 3.125% override.”

With that, he disappeared, with the napkin, down the hall to the elevator.  A week later we received a check in the mail for four thousand dollars.  The man’s company drilled the well and it came on for 140 BOPD, ultimately producing around 60,000 BO.

Yes, this is a true story and such was the rock and roll world of the last oil boom.  We thought that it would never end, but it did.  I was a multi-millionaire by thirty and dead broke by forty.  I came though the ordeal bent but not broken.

John became a lawyer.  I stuck it out, continuing as an independent geologist, sometimes making a big kill, but mostly barely surviving.  Along the way, I began putting my thoughts on paper, at first just to vent my frustrations.  I soon learned that I had a passion for the pen that has never abated.

Yes, I lived the last oil boom.  I can tell you stories you would not believe, and maybe someday I will.

Eric’sWeb

I, for one, am not complaining.

http://blogs.epmag.com/rhonda/2009/06/12/can-we-really-complain-with-70bbl-oil/

Eric’sWeb