Oil prices rise above $62 dollars per barrel for the first time in six months.

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

Eric’s Web

   When I quit Texas Oil & Gas, I gave up my company car, a maroon Plymouth Fury that I dearly loved.  I owned the TR4 that I had bought from my friend John, and a Triumph Bonneville 750 motorcycle that I would someday sell to him.

Neither car nor motorcycle was the picture of reliability.  I left TXO to pursue fantastic riches as an independent oilman.  Being young and naive, I only had about a thousand dollars, most of which I had borrowed from Carol, my girlfriend of the moment, to sustain myself until my first big break.

The Triumph served me well around town but I had not ventured far from my digs at the old Woodlake Apartments where I had moved after my first wife and I finally divorced and sold our house.  When my mother got sick and needed a medical procedure, this all changed.

Packing a suitcase, I tossed it in the trunk, threw caution to the wind and headed south.  My mother survived her procedure in the Atlanta, Texas hospital and we enjoyed a good visit.  I was feeling bulletproof when I finally headed toward OKC along winding Louisiana Highway 1.

Shortly after leaving Louisiana and entering Texas, a sweeping curve appears that you can easily make doing sixty.  I was tooling along at a considerably higher rate of speed when I reached the curve.  How fast?  I have no clue because, like many of the other electronic devices on the Triumph, the speedometer did not work.  When I hit the foot peddle, I got a very big surprise.  I had no brakes.  The sickly weak peddle went straight to the floorboard and remained there.

I thought that I was going to wind up in the ditch.  Instead, the tires on the little car gripped and I ended up accelerating out of the curve, my heart in my proverbial throat.  That was it!  I had no brakes.  Doing what any other testosterone laden young man would do, I decided to keep going and worry about any potential repercussions later.

The Triumph had a strong motor and excellent compression.  When you let off the gas, the car decelerated rapidly.  The car's old tractor engine had enough torque to pull a tree stump and growled like a lion on the prowl.  It made me feel vital and alive.  Don't ask how, but I made it safely back to OKC - 362 miles in less than five hours.

I made no money during the first five months of my independence.  Finally, I earned a pittance for a consulting job.  On impulse, I bought an expensive Guild guitar with a bright red finish I somehow felt that I could not live with out.

It was the last straw for my girlfriend Carol and idiot was the nicest thing she called me that night.  She also called me a hopeless dreamer.  We broke up shortly after the guitar incident but I went on to make more than a quarter of a million dollars before the end of the year.

I made and lost lots more than that during the years that followed, but I also spent many of those years at a level of near poverty.  Still, I survived and I had lots of fun along the way.  Carol was a great person and she was there for me when I needed her.  She is long gone from my life but a few things from that era still remain - my Guild guitar, my Triumph TR4, and at least a few remaining hopeless dreams.

Eric’s Web