2016 was a year for the books. I read a lot more this year, and listened to a lot of good music, so that’s a good thing. On the other hand, as demographics and biology would decree, our Greatest Generation and Baby Boomer heroes passed away at a seemingly increasing rate—time even started catching up […]
2015 In Review
2015 was 150 years from the end of the Civil War, and 1 more year that I changed jobs and moved, this time back to the Centennial State of Colorado. I started out continuing the daily journal of my ancestor Pvt. Orrin Brown, then relaxing my publishing schedule and finishing with some pretty good Americana music. […]
Transitions and Commitments: Best of the Blog 2014
This was a year of transitions and commitments. I changed jobs, changed states, and started to follow my ancestor Pvt. Orrin Brown on his march with Gen. Sherman to the Sea. In the new year, we’ll follow him as they turn North for home. And I hope you’ll follow me as I explore new stories […]
Railroads Rebuked for Failing Freight Service
It used to be that at the very least you could count on the trains running on time. Not anymore. The Red River Farm Network out of Grand Forks, ND, has great coverage of agricultural issues across the northern Great Plains of Minnesota, the Dakotas and somewhat into Montana. In this week’s news digest, they […]
No Net Neutrality for Amtrak on the Hi-Line
NPR this morning followed-up on my blog yesterday on the boom in rail freight, especially in the Bakken. Amtrak’s Empire Builder follow’s James J Hill’s pioneering Great Northern Railway route, from Chicago & the Twin Cities to Fargo, then parallel to US 2 (the “Hi-Line”) across North Dakota and Montana to points Northwest. Oil business […]
Railroads riding the Bakken Boom
Rail roads seem to define America, from the Golden Spike to the Singing Brakeman. We love them, we hate them, we ride them, we wait for them. The rail industry, however, isn’t waiting for us, growing traffic where it can. Recently the rail industry has been in the spotlight, pro and con, as the work […]
A Story Within A Story: The Best of The Blog 2013
In the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7), author J.K. Rowling introduces a story about three brothers and their three magical items that promise to bestow eternal life. The particulars are prime folklore, but the three legs of the story inside the story is legendary mythology. We tell stories for many reasons. We […]
Bittersweet in the Bakken
The Bakken fracking boom is a testament to the innate ingenuity of the human mind. Who thought just a few short years ago that application of new technology on old oil fields would turn North Dakota into America’s 2nd largest oil producing state, and subsequently turn around a century of out-migration. What a tremendous opportunity. […]
Where the Well Things Are
Everything we thought we knew about energy development just a few short years ago seems to have been turned on its head. Some of this change has been caused by new technology, some by old politics; a lot by larger forces in the world around us: Over the next three decades, world energy consumption is […]
Bakken Boom May Need Timeout
Earlier this year, the USGS estimated “mean undiscovered volumes of 7.4 billion barrels of oil, 6.7 trillion cubic feet of associated/dissolved natural gas, and 0.53 billion barrels of natural gas liquids in the Bakken and Three Forks Formations in the Williston Basin Province of Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.” Interesting news out of North Dakota’s […]