Monday Musings

Today's brew: Community Coffee with Chicory. Solidarity with the peeps in the Big Easy.

Morning starting off slowly today. Traffic was especially slow and clogged up on the way to son's school. I can think of better ways to start the week.

The weather is getting springy now. The cold snap is leaving and the temp today should reach 73 degrees. Yes.

I read an article in the local newspaper a couple of days ago that we can expect gas prices to go back up here . Seems we may face price spikes and shortages due to refiners phasing out use of the fuel additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) in favor of ethanol. Energy forecasters say that gas supplies in Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth area along with some cities on the East Coast may be disrupted as refiners try to keep up with demands of the summer driving season. A little something to look forward to.

Keep in your thoughts the nine foreign oil workers taken hostage in Nigeria. Nigerian rebels overpowered a security detail and seized the nine employees from a barge that was laying pipeline for Royal Dutch Shell. The group that claimed responsibility is called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. Three Americans, two Egyptians, two Thais, one Briton and one Filipino national comprise the nine hostages. It is scary stuff in this region of the world. My husband is an oil drilling rig engineer and he has been taken hostage himself three different times in the region of the Ivory Coast and Angola. These incidents usually don't make the news but do sometimes here in this area as we are the dominant area for oil drilling companies in this country. One of the hostages was seen on tv a couple of days ago. He is from a small town in this area and is 68 years old. It's scary stuff.

I see Cindy Sheehan and entourage are going to the Gulf Coast to walk from the coast of Mississippi to New Orleans to bring attention to the area and the damage done by the hurricane. She'll be in New Orleans to publicize the 3rd anniversary of the Iraq invasion. Gee, thanks Cindy.

Sigh.


"You've got to continue to grow, or you're just like last night's cornbread - stale and dry". - Loretta Lynn