I like to write. No. I love to write. I enjoy penning these blogs, but it seems like I struggle to stay current. Seems like yesterday when I posted the last one, but … My intent is to inform and cause others to wonder, to think about the why and how of the oilfield. Some times I stray from the subject, like after I watch the news and the many self-absorbed news complicators who are more likely to utter a four-letter word than the truth. Complicator is a new word I just invented, a noun: one who uses fifty words when three would suffice.

I’m always a wondering about people, about why they do what they do and what in the name of all-that’s-sensible were they thinking when they did it. Not the good things. I know where those come from. It’s the bad that causes me to pause, reflect and shake my head.

I try to refrain from making comments about other religions. Even after the fourteen years I spent in the Middle East, living as the infidel among the pious.

I recently heard a rumor about a British Airlines flight attendant who announced, “Ladies and gentlemen the captain has turned on the seatbelt sign indicating that we’ve begun our descent to land at King Fahad International Airport. Please raise your seatbacks and tray tables and set your watches back 2000 years.”

That caused a stir. She was detained, then booted from the kingdom, never to be allowed to enter again. When I heard about her comments, I thought Silly girl. You’re misinformed. 1500 years would have been far enough.

I still have the watch.

Have you ever looked at a globe or map that displays the forests and deserts of the world and wondered why the Middle East and North Africa is all desert?

Which country is surrounded by these Muslim nations?