We went to bed with Anne having another spasm attack of coughing. I was a bit upset by this because we have a small dehumidifier

On the floor by our bed against the wall. This thing heats up the room (which I don’t like) but quells my wife’s coughing attacks letter her sleep and me. I figured enough of this that about 5am I decided to get a bit of reading in after I did the cbi thing. I read for about 15 pages and went to bed.

I think I got 6 hours of sleep in but woke up with a soar neck. I checked my toe and it seems the coloring had eased off a bit. At least it’s not getting swollen and there’s no pain, which is a good sign. I’ll keep monitoring this through out the weekend.

Once I get into work, it’s our office pool NFL draft day. We have 8 players that each get 2 teams. There’s $160 up for grabs.

On the markets yesterday the announcer Angus Reed was talking with the news anchor about something the oil tanker companies want to do. Ok, most oil is shipped by oil tankers at sea. So to inflate the price of oil, they figure that if they can move oil tankers at a slower speed say where it ordinarily takes 15 days to reach point B, they’ll reduce speed making the trip in 25 days. This raises the price of oil. There’s more to it then that of course.

Speaking of oil booms here and yes elsewhere, Stanley North Dakota is sitting smack dab in the middle of what’s called the Bakken shale oil field.

I’m no geologist but as I understand it this is shale rock oil. Kind of like our tar sands but embedded in the rock. The term is oil shale. The thing with oil Shale is that it isn’t crude oil. It’s processing is about as dirty as our own Tar sands oil. Some Americans are quick to criticize Alberta Tar sands oil because it’s not environmentally friendly. Wait till you start hauling this stuff up en mass. The environmental impact will be astounding. Up until recently shale oil has been difficult to produce because it requires horizontal drilling. That technology is now here. At the moment the price of oil is $118/barrel. Apparently there is something like 32-500 billion barrels of shale oil in the Bakken. Most of this is in North Dakota and Montana. Also a lot of this shale oil is in southern Saskatchewan and a little bit into Manitoba. Southern Manitoba could experience a boom as well. I’m not to worried about the Tar sands oil. Most of the Bakken oil will most likely be used for US domestic oil. We have the rest of the world to sell to.

This afternoon I’m going into work and get my NFL teams for our office pool. I might even go in for Friday morning and have Friday afternoon off. I haven’t decided. Then later it’s payday. Anne checked the bank to see if the caretakers had cashed our check but so far nothing. I might have to go up the street to my bank. I’d rather come strait home. Other then that not a lot going on.

I checked the LHC countdown page and the site is down. The initial activation is supposed to be (according to their countdown clock) Friday morning. Now watch, they are going to introduce another countdown. I’m not sure exactly what time the LHC is supposed to be activated. At first I thought 11:30am local time. Then I hear 8am. I’m not expecting any discoveries like right away or anything. 

I'm happy I picked up my two EverQuest books last night and the last of the Stardoc books I think there is still one more in the series. I still have the 3 New Jedi Order books there as well.

Last night I was learning a bit of jazz piano. I don;t know if this is the genre I want to specialize in. I kind of like classical since I've learned how to play the first opening part to "Ode to joy." I can play some "Jngle bells", "Twinkle twinkle little star" even a bit of "Darth Vaders Imperial march." Just simple stuff but I hope to do some more on the weekend.

Anyway Bloggers, that‘s all for now

e. Jim