The Pecos Depot - The actual railway station in Pecos, Texas was moved to Odessa and now sits next to The Barn Door Restaurant.
A very nice restaurant when you are in Odessa, Texas. (Beware: mostly beef served for dinner!!)
My flight from Houston arrived on time!!Greetings from West Texas. Actually I am in the Odessa half (population = 97,000) of the so-called Midland/Odessa "metroplex". (One of those twin cities like Minneapolis/St.Paul or Dallas/Ft.Worth, etc.) It's been many years since my last trip to Midland so it's about time that I return to this part of our state. I am here on a short (3-day) business trip helping three co-instructors present a four-day school to about fifteen of our company's employees who work in West Texas. The course I shall be helping teach is entitled "Oilfield Chemistry" and is mainly aimed at our field personnel, that is, those engineers who actually work in the oilfield and have to keep all the oil production wells operating. Midland/Odessa's economy (like Houston's) rises and falls with the price of oil. Lately, this city has been prospering: lots of employment, people spending money, motels fully booked, etc. I am wondering what the recent plunge in the oil price from $148/bbl to < $80/bbl will do to the West Texas economy. I lived through the oil price crash in the mid-80's when everything in Houston was either for sale, for lease or foreclosed! I just hope the oil price drop is not as severe and not as long-lived this time around. [Yes, I realize all you folks in New York or California want the lowest oil price possible. But all those of us in the oil industry just want a reasonable price: not so high that it chokes our struggling economy and not too low to prevent exploration and production. And keep people like me employed a little longer!]
PS: A special note of thanks to one of my followers, John, who answered my technical question on how to use embedded links within a posting. John's Blog, I Have Dreams, has all the graphical details laid out so a novice like me can follow the instructions easily. THANKS A LOT JOHN!! If I ever pass through Kuala Lumpur, I owe you a big coffee/tea at Starbucks .... or wherever your preferred local place to hang out is located! Oh, and thanks for pointing out that the flower I had in an earlier post was a hibiscus flower - your country's national flower.
PPS: Apologies for the rather mundane pictures above but I have not had time to take any really interesting pictures here in Odessa --- yet.
PPS: Apologies for the rather mundane pictures above but I have not had time to take any really interesting pictures here in Odessa --- yet.
3 comments:
Yeah great post except that picture is kinda messed up but who cares.
Thx for posting great blog.
Migdalia Sojo
Hi Traveling Chemist, I am really happy that you had done it!
Training people is part of my full time job, and truly it had always been a real joy to see those that I had trained or helped succeed in applying whatever that I had taught them.
Keep up the good work and the posts coming in!
Hi Chemist,
Thanks for replying. I really actually didn't expect anything so thanks for making a cruddy day a little better. My grandmother loved to travel and she especially loved going to Texas and the surrounding area. Too bad she's not around anymore. She would have loved reading your blogs too.
P.S. I like the picture. I think it's rather artistic.
P.P.S. Thanks again!
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