More pipeline news

Hah! News! I just take photos and make up what I think is happening. For this picture, I didn't even get out of the truck, an explanation for the big crack and antenna that's in the frame.

This is taken on the east side of the road across from the old house just north of Hobbs Cemetery. Now here's what I think is going on. They're (Strike? Kinder-Morgan?) bringing in these big wedge tank thingies and then Key is coming in with water trucks and filling up the tanks. Then they're gonna blow water through the pipes laid thus far, maybe to clean them or test them. That's my take. Could be all kinds of wrong.

I found the Texas Register page on the website for Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade. There is so much information located on this site that you could do searches on your searches for days, keeping you entertained without the need for social networks. The register is the journal of state agency rule-making for Texas, documenting changes that are made to the Texas Administrative Code.

Boy, it's been hot! And speaking of the weather, a friend of mine uses WeatherBug on her computer desktop. It downloads a cute little ladybug onto your toolbar and it chirps when the temperature changes. I've never used it before, but I was checking out the iPad at BestBuy this weekend and WeatherBug was one of the apps on there.

I like the KTXS interactive weather map, but it seems like it's a little off sometimes, especially when you zoom in. I also like NOAA, but it's been acting kind of wacky, too. KTXS Live Doppler is usually my deal-breaker, the absolute authority after I've visited twenty other sites.

Wondering how to spend the fourth? I'm thinking Mexican food and watching public fireworks. We've done all the variations, barbecuing, eating at the carnival, doing our own fireworks or watching the fireworks show, and I've decided this year I want less work and more fun. And no eating at the carnival or in the park. One year we saw a naked, small child crawling all over the food storage area of one vendor, so we went to another stand, only to end up with food poisoning.

I think Casa Olivarez and Towle Park in Snyder sound like good destinations for celebrating Independence Day.

Watch for the cold front coming in tomorrow. Ha ha ha! They should call it a tepid front. But forecast highs will only be in the 80's, lows in 60's, and we'll take that.

Juneteenth Texas-style

The article Forever Free on the Texas State Library & Archives website has a lot of information about the June 19 celebration and what it meant for a black man to live in Texas after the 1865 Emancipation Proclamation. Interesting to note that in 1854 the Republican party was formed by slavery abolitionists. Check out all the links on the site to learn more about Texas history.

Texas-Mexico border conflicts

I wanted to show you some articles written by Christopher Sherman, the Rio Grande Valley correspondent for The Associated Press. He is writing some very interesting copy regarding mounting tension on our border. You can also follow Sherman on Twitter. Illegal immigrants and the cartels have both sides at a boiling point.

What sparked my interest and led me to find Mr. Sherman's articles was that he interviewed my friend Jack Cox (not the Roby one), a land owner at Falcon Lake near Zapata, Texas. They're having trouble with Pirates on that lake because the border runs through the middle of it. Cox is used to being in the middle of the fray, though. He was a hunting guide in South Africa and hunted elephants and lions himself. He was also an oilfield roughneck, which led him to Africa in the first place.

Looking at Sherman's articles in a time line tells a story in itself as tempers flare and patience runs short in the border cities.

Here is the cut-line for the photo; it was taken a short distance off-shore from Cox's camp:

In this May 27, 2010 photo, game wardens from Texas Parks and Wildlife patrol the U.S.-Mexico border on Falcon Lake. Since the Texas Department of Public Safety warned two weeks ago that boaters should steer clear of the international boundary that zigzags through Falcon Lake because "pirates" had robbed fishermen at gunpoint, most of the boats hunting the lake's famed large-mouth bass have stayed on the U.S. side, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife Capt. Fernando Cervantes. On April 30 and again on May 6, heavily armed men robbed fishermen on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake. (AP Photo/Christopher Sherman)