I had a whirlwind day last Thursday.

First I drove from Tulsa down to Oklahoma City for a meeting of Natural Gas and Energy Association of Oklahoma. They had the meeting at the Oklahoma History Center near the State Capital.

You could really tell that the price of natural gas is down. Not many people showed up. March prices for Oklahoma gas could be down in the $2.70 per million btu range. That is about 1/3 of last summer’s prices, and its winter. Doesn’t look good for the rest of the year. Also, the speaker was going to talk about Nuclear Energy in Oklahoma. To a bunch of gas folks?

Some people have told me that energy companies rig the prices. I tell them that the energy companies are pretty piss poor at it.

The Speaker was State Represenative Scott Martin of Norman. He is sponsoring a bill to facilitate nuclear power plants in Oklahoma. I think it is a good idea. That is for another post.

I kept thinking Scott Martin, Scott Martin . . . Seemed like he was involved in the Nick’s Law controversy going on in Oklahoma. He is a Republican . . . Some Republicans’ have suggested that Oklahoman’s with autism and their families maybe need to move to some other state. That kind of bothers me. Maybe the politicians need to move instead.

Anyway I got home and googled Rep Martin and was very pleasantly surprised. According to this Rep Martin was one of only four Republicans who stood up to their leadership to try and bring Nick’s law to the floor last year. So, I think that he is a good guy. I wished I had talked to him, but he had to go to a hearing, busy, buys, busy.

Speaking as a Republican, I have been wondering for some time now what they bring to the table, I mean, if you are not a big contributor looking for special favors in return for contributions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to turn Democrat on anybody. But still I’m wondering.

I had other things to do so I didn’t go through the Oklahoma History Center. I have done it before and I really recommend seeing it if you hadn’t before.

I did go through the grounds though. Lots of oil and gas stuff there.

Drilling rigs of various vintages. Look at the sky, you wonder why I didn’t want to stay inside?

A pumpjack, an older model. For pumping oil.

There was a geocache on the grounds. I’m sorry to report that I didn’t find it.

Now, a boring blast from the past. I used to live close to the Capital in my pre-Sweetie days in an old neighborhood. So I went over there to take a look.

I loved this house. I signed a 1 year lease and left before the lease was up. Everything that wasn’t nailed down was disappearing. I even caught a fine young coed from that great Methodist school, Oklahoma City University, stealing bricks from the back yard. She said she didn’t realize that they belonged to anybody. She offered to put them back where she got them. Boy, that was nice of her.

I then left the city and headed west, to western Oklahoma. To check on some projects I helped put together commercially. In particular a couple of compressor stations.

Here is what one looks like. Isn’t it a beauty? Ok, time to quit.