Spring Break Highlights (?)

Spring Break is over. I've returned to South Texas and am busy girding my loins for the remaining weeks in this semester. But before moving forward, it might be appropriate to take a few glances back at 'the week that was.'

It wasn't much of a vacation. Most of my time was taken up with various home maintenance and repair chores. The most demanding was a broken water pipe at our weekend cabin on Lake Buchanan.

The main supply line is an old, old galvanized iron pipe (30+ years). It is deeply buried -- at least two feet underground -- and goes under a couple of foundation footings. Needless to say, the break occurred under the house, which necessitated a whole passel of digging and burrowing. I'm old and feeble, but I can still dig. However, my burrowing days are way behind me, and my wife adamantly stated that she is not now, nor ever was, a burrower. So we had to break down and call a plumber. My wallet is still screaming in outrage.

At the same time, our deer hunting lease in South Texas was sold out from under us. The Eagle Ford shale play has increased demand and raised prices to an unimaginable extent down here (see the note below). We had short notice to clear the lease, so I spent a day driving down there, loading up my blind, feeders, and other items, and driving back to Central Texas. I left with a full tank of gas. The next morning, before I headed up to the lake cabin, I refilled the truck. Twenty gallons = $70. After a round trip to the lake and back I topped off the tank again. Another $30. That's $100 worth of gasoline in one day. Granted, my old truck isn't the most fuel efficient, but still - $100 for one day's worth of driving!?! 

Damn...

There was, however, one highlight of the trip back from the lake. As we passed through Burnet, we saw the sign below.

Peer pressure in a small town can be a powerful incentive to pay your bills.

But there was still time to appreciate the arrival of Spring in this part of the country. Trees are budding out, wildflowers are blooming, songbirds are filling the air with their melodies, and life in general is happening. It's all good.

So I'll suck it up and drive on, dealing with the indignities of traffic, students,  idiot politicians and school administrators, and other pains in the butt.

After all, when you consider the big picture, those things are just minor annoyances when compared to the pleasure of family, friends, and the renewal of life that Spring heralds.

Pop another Shiner and enjoy...

Note:

Here's what it's like to be at the center of a modern-day oil boom.

There's a fellow in Three Rivers who's renting out his house to 17 workers in the Eagle Ford Shale. He's charging each of them $150 a week. That's more than $10,000 a month he earns in rent.

In that same small Texas town, the McDonald's inside Love's Travel Stop has at least 20 job openings and is busing about 10 workers to the store from Beeville,34 miles away.

... last summer, Valero Energy Corp. was doing weeks-long maintenance at its Three Rivers refinery, and dozens of contract workers were hired from outside the city — only there was no place for them to stay.

Some lucked out when a man rented out his garage (after adding a shower) to 12 of them, charging each $150 a week. Others resorted to tents in the city park, availing themselves of the public restrooms and barbecue grills...

Eagle Ford, along with the Bakken shale oil play in North Dakota, have the potential to create not only jobs but wealth, lower oil prices, reduce our dependence on foreign oil imports, and stop the flow of money from our pockets to people who are trying to destroy this country. More on this later, but for now, go here.