Greetings from atop the Permian Basin

Of course, the producing structure here is basically a fractured permeability trap on a homoclinal fold

What do you get when you put an engineer in fire ant county? Today's travellogue brought to you courtesy of my gene pool. Take it away Cousin Eric...
Midland, TX Baby! A place that not only did I never want to go there,
but a place I had consciously thought about and decided that I never
wanted to go. Midland as you may know is the place where our beloved
leader made his first attempt at elected office (failed) and his first
attempt at a career in business (failed). It is also home of the
Petroleum Museum, where what's left of Midland's petroleum industry
largely resides.

I had dinner tonight at Cattleman's Family Steakhouse. I was drawn
there by two things. A desire to meet Cattleman and the promise of the
Chicken Teriyaki House Special. Neither of my dreams were fulfilled
when I ordered the Prime Rib.

As you may be aware, Texas is one of my least favorite places. I have
devoted a fair amount of time to avoiding the State as a whole. At the
Dallas Airport people boarding the plane were complaining about having
to go to Midland. These were native Texans. They should be happy just
to get out of Dallas, I was. And from what I gathered from overheard
conversations and a cursory review of the attire of my traveling
companions fell mostly into two groups. Employees of DR Horton and
Baptist Missionaries, and of course a solid contingent of crossovers.
In case, you don't know who DR Horton is, DR Horton is to home building
what Butler is to Midland architecture. Needless to say, I was
relieved to have packed the I-pod.

I am not entirely sure what it is about Texas, the people are friendly
to a fault, perhaps a little dim, but friendly. For example, I arrived
in Terminal C at DFW and was leaving from terminal B. I lingered a
little too long at the map in the tram and a woman so well acquainted
with ground transportation at DFW that she was sitting on the luggage
rack, offered to assist me. I mentioned that I was going to terminal
B. My confusion was not over the route, the train runs in a circular
route in only one direction. I was merely contemplating the bigger
question of why terminal A was between terminals B and C (Texas schools
rank 47th in the nation.) I got off at A to check out the culinary
offerings and to get away from the woman in the luggage rack. She
practically chased after me yelling that I had gotten off at the wrong
stop.

The culinary offering were pretty slim. I settled on a Pretzel Dog
from Auntie Anne's. This was after considering my other options which
were McDonald's I Can't Even Imaging That This Is Yogurt, Au Bon Pain
and a slightly slutty looking Asian woman who offered to let me taste
her chicken. The Pretzel Dog consists of a hotdog wrapped in pretzel
dough and fried in butter. It was strangely satisfying. I may have
one on the way back. I decided to walk to Terminal B.


Upon leaving the job-site I stopped at the Discount Smokes and Liquor
Store as I wanted something drink. They had no Cokes, only Dr. Pepper.
Give me a Dr. Pepper, a big slice of Cantaloupe (which was on the
salad bar at Cattleman's) and send me to west Texas and all that's
missing is a bunch of little guys dressed in red poking me in the
posterior with forks. The sign on the door noted that it was a crime
to drink on the property, misdemeanor was in parentheses following
'crime'. In Texas that means that you are limited to the half-death
penalty. Texas, oddly enough has no open container law, but has dry
counties. No word on what happens if you are caught with an open
container in a dry county.

That's about it for now. I will be getting off the Permian Basin
tomorrow.