Oil & Gas & Etc.

Pulled into the parking garage by the office today figuring to park in one of my usual spots. Got there and found a VW parked smack on top of the line, taking out both my favorite spaces. So I parked down the line and planned to get on the YouParkLikeAnAsshole website when I got to the office, to print out one of their YouParkLikeAnAsshole tickets. But, when I got out of the car I noticed the meter maid marking tires. Thought I’d ask her if it was actually a ticketable offense to park like that. I caught up to her as she was approaching the VW. She asked if it was mine. I told her, “no way” and asked if she was going to give it a ticket. “Yep, $40”, she answered. “Cool,” I said, “I hate when people park like that.” She said, “Me, too.” I skipped the YouParkLikeAnAsshole ticket. The real thing was much more satisfying. Later I realized I should’ve used my phone to get a picture for the YouParkLikeAnAsshole website; but, when I got back it was gone.

In the Chappells Blog I recently wrote about Knoppix on a stick, and mentioned winPenPack where you can get a whole collection of portable apps installable on a USB stick, a/k/a flash drive. Last night, back on Bill’s Demon Child called Windoze, I was perusing one of my favorite hangouts—the Sourceforge site. Sourceforge is essentially the home of the Open Source Community. It’s a place infused with the energy and mindset that made the internet what it should be. A person could write a lot more about that, but I’ll save it for another time.

While perusing Sourceforge I came across the Portable Apps Project, also to be found at its own Portable Apps Website. I think Portable Apps might even be better than winPenPack. I downloaded the standard suite and installed it all on one USB stick, and then downloaded a bunch more portable apps to add to it. Having already done a couple of installations of winPenPack and, therefore, being already familiar with how much can packed onto one little USB stick, I was nevertheless again amazed at all the stuff I put on it, and how much space is still left. I was hard pressed to think of more that I might conceivably want to have on it. Yet, a visit to the PortableApps website just now revealed several new additions to the list of available apps, particularly, several new games. Sudoku, BTW, is included right in the Standard Portable Apps installation.

Like winPenPack and Knoppix, PortableApps is all free stuff. BTW, I’m back on Knoppix/Linux this evening, while also watching a little March Madness, though I’ll likely be paying more attention to the TV and less attention to the monitor tomorrow, when KU will be playing. Rock Chalk!

Next time I’m at the law library using one of the PC’s or laptops to do research on Lexis, I’ll just plug in either my winPenPack or my PortableApps stick. I can save all the research right to it, and also write the brief and whatever else I might want to do, even taking breaks for a little game playing. And I won’t have to worry about leaving tracks on the library computer where adverse counsel can check on what I did during my session.

The internet makes it possible to find out more information than you can possibly use, much less absorb. Information, which is supposed to enable us, disables us due to overwhelming volume. I can spend so much time learning about something that there’s no time left to use what I learned. On top of that, for any piece of information in support of one viewpoint, I can find another piece of information in support of the opposite viewpoint. Information is supposed to enable us to find the “truth”, find the “facts”, and make “informed” decisions. Instead, it’s making us more confused than ever; possibly to the point of becoming catatonic.

But, that’s not what this post is about. I wanted to show you some places to learn about oil wells. There’s a nice explanation at the How Stuff Works website; there’s a good presentation at Wikipedia; and, if you need to decipher oilfield terminology, Schlumberger provides the The Oilfield Glossary.

There are no doubt many other websites with similar information. The How Stuff Works and the Wikipedia articles themselves present numerous links to other resources. No doubt, if you follow them, you’ll find even more links, and if you follow them you’ll find…

At some point, hopefully, before you become catatonic from oil well information overload, you’ll decide you’ve learned enough.

Anybody besides me ever feel like they’re missing something in life because they don’t know “the rest of the story”? I think so because, once in a while, I see blurbs about such things on those TV magazine shows. Usually, after a while, I tend to just forget that there was something more I wanted to know. Just now, though, I was reminded of one such item, because I happened to take a look at the Ernie the Attorney Blog, which I think is the first “blawger” I noticed some time back in the early days of blogs. As a tangential thought to what he was actually writing about, he provided a link about the guy who took a ride in a lawn chair attached to helium weather balloons. I’d long since forgotten about that event; on seeing his reference to it, I was immediately fascinated, and decided to do my part to further immortalize it with another link on the web.

And, now, I find myself pondering something else I often wonder about, that being somebody else’s story; especially given the tragic conclusion of the lawn chair balloon guy’s story. As a lawyer, I’m often aware that I play a direct part in other peoples’ lives (hopefully helping and/or improving them in some way); yet, their lives had stories both before my entrance and after my exit from their books. After 30 years of this, I’m incredulated (I just made up that word!) by the thought of how much life I may have changed. It seems to me that lawyers ought to stop and remind themselves, occasionally, of the responsibility they carry by involving themselves in peoples’ lives the way we do.

Heh, and here I’ve been wondering why I don’t have enough time to get things done any more! Too much time rendered unproductive as a result of pondering irrelevant and forgettable things.

Every time I come back for a look at this blog it whacks me on the head with another dose of “flying time”. It’s incredible I haven’t written anything since July. What’s worse, is how long it’s been since I wrote anything to do with law or oil or gas. I should look at earlier articles to see if I’ve already expressed my exasperation with the litigation side of law practice. If not, I’ll have to devote an article to that pretty soon. For now, I’ll just say, “I’ve had it.” If my experience the past couple years is an accurate reflection, then litigation is certainly no longer about finding truth or justice. Any lawyer who thinks thorough research and preparation are key is a dinosaur, like me. What it’s about now is figuring out any billable activity that can be justified in order to reap the maximum fees from the client. To actually suggest consideration of settlement before the client has started seriously complaining about the large amount of fees and small amount of progress is contrary to the mission statement of any modern law firm. Or, maybe it’s just the ones I keep running into. There also seems to be no compunction about subornation of perjury. The only hesitation seems to be over whether or not the other side might have some concrete evidence sufficient to establish the perjury. If not, it’s off to the races! “Don’t ask, don’t tell” seems to be the new maxim for attorney-client relationships. It used to be, “I can’t properly represent you if you don’t tell me the truth.” Now, it’s “If you’re lying, don’t tell me you’re lying.” But what about the rules and statutes that impose on the lawyer an obligation to independently investigate the facts to be sure the claim is in good faith? Heh, just find me a judge, any judge, any where, who’d be willing to slam an attorney who obviously did nothing other than take his client’s “word” as gospel. Unless, sometimes, it turns into something that waste’s some of the judge’s time, to the extent he/she will call it a “fraud on the court”. A fraud on a party, however, is just part of the game. Well, I guess I unloaded a few remarks there, after all.