1.) I took a vacation with my family to Mexico. Samantha's late husband's mom planned a family reunion in Cancun and flew everyone there. It was a very nice opportunity and very unexpected. We decided on leaving Claire with Samantha's parents. I'm glad we did. We started early by getting passports and man was that an effort. We had to have death certificates, birth certificates, in-person validations, etc. One thing that made it easy was Costco photos. The vacation ended with us all not realizing how much we needed a vacation until after it was over. We went at the beginning of March and the weather there was just beautiful. I got the opportunity to feed some sea turtles while I was swimming in the ocean. That is a very cool experience and I recommend doing this if you ever get the opportunity. Cancun has both sandy and rocky beaches and my feet found some hard rocks which bruised up my foot to the point that I couldn't walk easily. Even today my foot has issues. I luckily brought some water shoes and used them. Sun screen is expensive there so just pack some! I would definitely go back. Everyone had a good time.
2.) We went through a significant wind storm here. Where I live is next to the mountain and there were winds about 50 mph (80.47 kph) that was really strong and a bit scary. We have one of those portable basketball hoops that holds either sand or water to keep it upright and that was pushed over so that the hoop part was facing the ground. The wind then pushed it probably 20 feet. Keep in mind this thing is fully weighted with water. It is very very heavy. Outside of this we didn't have much of any damage so I believe we were very fortunate. Two neighbors had a trees blow over and I was able to snag one for my BBQ smoker. The other was a pine. It fell onto my neighbor's home. I took my chainsaw over and with the help of a team of other neighbors get the tree off his home. Luckily damage to his home was minimal. I don't think we ever realize just how heavy a tree is. When cutting this tree it nearly took my chainsaw with it when it fell.
3.) Earthquakes. I have never lived through an earthquake so this was new for me. March 18th 2020 I was sitting in my office about 7:15 in the morning when the house started shaking. A 5.7 magnitude earthquake hit Magna, UT about 45 miles North of us. It shook enough to roll me around the office in my office chair. My home didn't sustain damages that I can tell so I feel very fortunate. It woke everyone up. There were probably 90 earthquakes that day. All of them North of us and none of them that big but there have been a lot of earthquakes up in this area. It is weird. So in my life I have experienced hurricanes, tornados, forest fires, floods, and earth quakes. I think the only thing I have not experienced is a tsunami or a mudslide.
4.) The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting us all. School migrated back home and the kids are stir crazy. Emma and Madilyn wrote a parody song about it here:
That was shared a bunch on social media and now they are writing another. It is good to see them use their creative abilities. Both Emma and Alex are still working. Their restaurants are no longer having dine-in customers so they are getting drive-through or phone-in orders only which is interesting since one of the restaurants doesn't have a drive-through. It seemed when this all started everyone just heard about it from the news. As the virus spreads it seems more people are being affected closer to home and even affecting those we know and care about. With the impact the virus has and is having on the economy coupled with the Russia/Saudi price war on oil I worry this perfect storm could send the US economy into a depression. I hope as a country the US can weather this storm and bounce back.
5.) The COVID-19 virus and oil drop has directly affected not only my job but jobs of family members. Being from Texas many don't get just how massive oil and gas is for the state and the US overall. Texas GDP is 1.6 trillion and could be compared to Russia's GDP that is 1.7 trillion. Texas oil is big. I think in the US everything is big and GDP in 2019 represents about 21.44 trillion total so Texas is roughly 7% of the US economy but keep in mind that 1/3 of the known US oil supply is in Texas so there are naturally tons of companies that employ those that live there. These are the big companies - Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Valero, etc. These oil and gas companies employ millions of people. The impact to the US economy is being felt... yes... but to the Texas economy this is huge. Companies that have been cash-rich are now having to determine how best to scale back their company to meet demand and NOT lose the talent they have built over the years. Introducing terms like pay-cuts, furloughs, reductions, and reorganization are very common these days as the companies make necessary changes to stay afloat. Oil and gas is an old business. Most of the leaders have tremendous expertise in oil and gas and it is not uncommon to hear "This is the way we have done things for the last 50 years". This generally has resulted in slow changes to their processes and product offerings. Since COVID-19 I have seen these same companies begin to branch out to use their technologies in different markets. It is uncharted territory for them but if they can adjust to the changing market conditions I think we will see an entirely new form of revenue for some of the companies historically associated with oil and gas. To summarize Plato - Necessity is the mother of invention. It is exciting times.
6.) BBQ. Samantha got me a boning knife to assist in getting pork trimmed from the bone. She and I used it yesterday to make some sausage. I smoked a brisket and some pork shoulders yesterday for pulled pork and today I did sausage and am in the process of making ribs. I love BBQ.
There is more I am not sharing... I'm sure but I will write more later now that I am focused again on this blog.
:-)
