Author: kenritley

Sunset over Corpus Christi

kenritley

Here the sun is setting and your first thought might be “oh, gee, the sun is setting” but my first thought was “quicksand – keep out or die.”  No joke – take more than two steps forward and archeologists will be unearthing your preserved body hundreds of years from now. I can’t speak for other states, but in Texas at least, wherever you find shallow bodies of waters (rivers included) you’ll find deadly quicksand. Once you start sinking, unless you know the right moves and execute them at the right time — you’ll be deader than a beaver hat in a rainstorm!

I took this snap from a vantage point that anyone familiar with South Corpus Christi will instantly recognize, but I keep it a secret here to avoid drawing the attention of unwanted tourists!

DDoS – Distributed Denial of Seagull Attack!

kenritley

This is a Texas grackle – a noble bird, for more civilized times. They inhabit the parking lots of Corpus Christi, working hard to scrounge for their food and keep the parking lots clean:

And these are fat, lazy supermarket seagulls – not the proud, respectable seagulls that fly along the beaches and hunt for fish, but rather fat seagulls that sit on the roofs of supermarkets in Texas – on their fat bird-asses – waiting until they see something to eat:

Well, I just didn’t think it was FAIR that the noble grackles work so hard for their food, only to have it violently seized by their fat-assed feathered breathren just before they can eat it. 

So . . . I started a DDoS – a Distributed Denial of Seagull Attack – in which I sprinkled some potato chips underneath the shopping carts, where the grackles could easily get to them – but the seagulls were just too big!

As we’d probably say in Texas: that’ll learn them fat-assed gulls, don’t mess with grackles!

Corpus Christi Sunset

kenritley

Here’s a nice snap I took of a sunset on a warm winter’s evening in Corpus Christi. You can see two effects that are not always visible: a round “22-degree” halo around the sun, where ice crystals in the atmosphere has scattered the light; and a horizontal line, called “crepuscular rays” or “horizon glow,” caused by refraction off the horizon:

Eagle Ford Shale

kenritley

Continuing the series, what is 50 miles wide, 400 miles long, and delivers 1.1 BILLION barrels of oil per day?

The Eagle Ford Shale in Texas!

Here “shale” is the operative word. Thanks to fracking, the production has increased from around 300’000 barrels per day ten years ago, to over a million today!

“Frack, baby, Frack!”

New pumpjacks – did they frack?

kenritley

Here is a snap I took in southeast Texas, somewhere between Corpus Christi and San Antonio:

These are modern pumpjacks – and the owners are clearly labelled on the sign:

This snap was taken here, 

just a few miles north of the village of Cambellton (pop. 350):

There are two things that are really interesting to me. 

First, since Texas is a very mature oil area, how could there be NEW pumpjacks? Does this mean they carried out fracking somewhere nearby? My guess after doing a bit of research – YES!

And second – I looked up the company: Murphy Exploration and Production. Interestingly, the senior leadership teams has financial leaders, HR leaders, legal leaders – but nary an operations leader! 

So . . . who at Murphy is responsible for actually getting the oil out of the ground?

My battle with a monster

kenritley

A Guest Blog, by Arlene Ritley

I was in the bedroom reading and got up to go into the front room to turn the light off when I noticed this huge creature on the wall above the lamp, black with legs and a silver black back with tentacles and furry legs. It was still – not moving, just frozen in time.

Quietly on Catholic feet, I moved into the kitchen, open the cabinet under the sink and looked for something to spray him with. All I found at first was some room spray, and I took that. Then I found some Clorox without bleach spray, and I brought that along. I was now armed and ready for battle!

I quietly gathered my arsenal of weapons and walked close to the wall he was on. I knew he was looking at me, because the tentacles on his head began moving, almost as though he were trying to get my scent from the air. I slowly and carefully picked up what I thought was the Clorox without bleach. However, it turned out to be, the room spray. I had no choice put to aim the spray at him and pull the trigger.

The spray hit him full on, but he turned his head to look at me, and I almost saw him laugh, saying to himself quotation marks what does this woman think she’s going to kill me, room deodorizer?

And slowly, laughing at me, as I stood there, he climbed up the wall, not bothering to look back.

I quietly turned around and found the Clorox spray. I turned the nozzle on and put a sample of the spray into the sink. Seeing that the Clorox comes out of the spray quite heavily, I pointed at the cockroach and sprayed and sprayed and sprayed.

The Clorox spray started trickling down the wall, leaving wet marks on the wall as it came down. The cockroach never moved, although it was covered in the spray. It just looked at me and I looked at him. I told him, cockroach you will not win the war. I sprayed him again and again.

He finally fell off the wall, and I thought to myself this is the end of roach. But as I looked at him on the rug, he started moving slow, but then gaining speed running around my chair, trying to find a hiding place. The rocker is large, and there are many hidden places that he could hide within the springs of the chair. This is not what I wanted. So again, I moved forward, seeking him out.

He finally came into view, and once again I sprayed him, and he moved into the hidden shadows, and I lost him, but he came out again, and the spray was in my hand, and I used it spraying and spray until there was puddles of spray in the rug.

It finally seemed that the end was near for the roach. He did not move, nor did he look at me. I almost thought he was giving up, and I was very happy to put my spray down. But instead he made a right turn and went back under the chair with the speed of lightning.

I moved the chair and there he was quietly sitting, looking at me. I walked away and went to the closet and found a broom, and I got that out along with the rag. So, although he was not moving, just looking at me, I quietly threw the rag over him, and then hit him and hit him and hit him with the end of the broom. He did not come out from under the rag and so I stepped on it with all my weight. Gently and quietly I picked up the end of the rag and looked underneath it, and there he was never to live again. I wrapped him in a paper towel and put him in a large plastic bag which I then sealed tightly. Tomorrow I will take him to the trash barrel. But I know in the back of my mind if there is one cockroach in the house there are many, so every day I will be looking at the walls and the carpets for anything that moves.

I going to call the handyman out to put a sweeper under my front door so that nothing from the hallway hallway will crawl into my room.

I am also going to look on amazon.com to find some roach killer. And have that sent to me on overnight delivery. It is war and I will win!