I am now officially an old guy, retired, hold my principles dear; they are well formed and tested. I am not a know-it-all but I have experienced a lot. What I know may not match today exactly but it rhymes pretty well.

After 40 years in the oilfield my wife asked how long I would stay with it. I said as long as I can climb in this truck and go to work. You have one bucket for money and one for crap and one of my buckets got full but I can still climb in the truck. I work every day now on the farm and the only person I argue with is me. If it isn’t my business, it isn’t my burden. At least I try to make it that way.

Spiritual, moral and ethical decay have brought us to this place. Without that politicians would not be doing what they do.

My intention is not to elect leaders. My intention has been to elect a representative. What we get is politicians.

I weep at the thought of sacrifices made to give us the opportunity and nation we are wasting and destroying at the hands of demons who could not hold a candle for our great forefathers to run by.

I do not think we will be able to reverse our descent. It has gone too far. To change it would take a benevolent dictator with the power of command and control to enact sweeping change by elimination of that which is against our founding principles. While doing so he would need the power to crush enemies of right and the wisdom to know them.

Favorite Poem so far:

IF by Rudyard Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!

My father was an engineer, I am an engineer and my son is too.

Doctor: “It’s worse than I feared.”
Mother: “What is it?”
Doctor: “I’m afraid your son has ... the Knack.”
Mother: “The knack?”
Doctor: “The Knack. It’s a rare condition characterized by an extreme intuition about all things mechanical and electrical ... and utter social ineptitude.”
Mother: “Can he lead a normal life?”
Doctor: “No. He’ll be an engineer.”
Mother: “Oh, no! [crying]”
Doctor: “There, there. Don’t blame yourself.”

I have worked in 32 countries in desert heat, arctic cold and jungle humidity and loved what I got to do but not always the people I worked for or with.

I didn’t work offshore my whole career. I did lots of other things but I worked offshore enough. My longest stretch was 74 days, that was enough. The normal hitch is 28 days on and the same off. I respect a lot of the men who do it all the time for most of their lives.

A fellow I know had an office in Houston with high windows high in the building. He would have the candidate stand on the coffee table and look out the window and ask what he saw. Nothing was the answer. Just sky. He would ask if that bothered the candidate, if not he could work offshore:

How to get used to working offshore

· Buy a dumpster, paint it gray and live in it for 2 weeks straight.
· Yell at your neighbor if he walks outside without a hardhat and boots.
· Have your family eat the raunchiest Mexican food you can find for three days straight, then yell at them for spending too much work time in the bathroom.
· Make your family complete a JSA before they operate any appliances in your home (i.e. Dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc.).
· Spend $20,000 on a satellite system for your TV, but only watch Fox News and the Country Music station.
· Have the family vote on which TV channels to watch and then pick different ones.
· Sew reflective strips to the front of all your shirts.
· Reprogram all your phones so that you have to dial 99 the number and # to call anyone outside your neighborhood. When you do call wait 3 seconds after every question before speaking.
· Needle gun the aluminum siding on your house after your neighbors have gone to bed.
· Buy $50,000 worth of radio equipment “in case” there is an emergency and hire a qualified radio operator to “man the station”..... then make them pay your bills, arrange your travel and answer all your phone calls.
· When your kids come home with A’s on their report card buy them a camouflage hat with flames down the side and the family name embroidered across the brim.
· Yell at your wife if she cooks anything but fried chicken for lunch on Sunday
· Each Christmas when your aunt Jane and uncle Jim visit make them stay on the porch until they have watched a 2 hour video of yourself pointing out all the fire extinguishers and smoke alarms in your house.
· Never call a local repair man when your stove breaks. Instead call someone in the UK and pay for their flight. When they arrive call the taxi company and give them strict orders not to pick the repairman up until the stove is fixed.
· Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have you spouse whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep. She should then shine a flashlight in your eyes and mumble “Sorry, wrong rack.”
· Designate a room in the house as “The Control Room” then make your kids sit there in front of a computer screen for 12 hours. Tell them that if anything turns red they could cost the family millions of dollars and the family may die.
· Tell your neighbor to call you whenever they see a thunderstorm in your area.
· Leave the lawn mower running in your living room eight hours a day.
· Head to the local dive “bar” and ask the first retired guy you see to sit in your home office scratching his crotch. Make him a plaque reading “company man” and tell him to “remind” you daily about every squeaky floor, dripping faucet, late mail deliveries.... Tell him to invite his friends over and when they show up move your kids into the garage so the friends have a nice bed to sleep in.
· Each morning jot down the wind speed/direction, barometer reading and the amount of fluids in your hot water heater, gas tank, lawn mower.... convert the figures you get into whatever unit of measurement you did not use and write it down in 6 different places.
· Have your kid monitor the police scanner 24 hours a day “just in case there’s an emergency”.
· Go to your local elementary school and ask the principal to send you a weekly list of the stupidest things the kindergarteners have done that week.
· Call a meeting with your family every Monday and read the list with a straight face.
· Place toothpicks, picante sauce and a can of Tony Chachere’s on your kitchen table. Real galleys only use Louisiana Hot Sauce and have it imported from Beaudreaux’s Country Store in Franklin, Louisiana to any place in the world. No distance is too far or cost too great for this.
· Call 911 and tell them to send a helicopter each time your son falls off his bike.
· Eat only at all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants that specialize in fried foods. Bonus points if you have a view of the cooking area from your table and the place primarily employs nose-pickers and butt-scratchers.
·Twice a day (or more if possible) get everyone together in as small a room as possible (a closet or bathroom should do) and have a meeting to listen to someone tell you what you did all day. Bonus points for reiterating statements multiple times (i.e. “Like Joe said, safety is...”).
· Catch the rain sheeting your platform/rig/wheelhouse. Pour it into a seriously specially designed container for shipment to a lab that will drop 20,000-count shrimp into and determine how many live more than 24, 48, 72, & 96 hours.