Driveway Visitors....
After a flurry of politically oriented posts last week, it was with some welcome relief that I was occupied by visitors to the estate over the weekend and unable to muster the time to update Streams until now.
Our good friends Bruce and Arlene Crandall stopped by on their wanderings in their driveway filling RV. They are great driveway guests and it's always good to see them semi-annually and catch up. Their son Donovan is now residing in Houston where he is the managing director of energy banking for a large German bank and so Bruce wanted to learn more about the oil/gas business resulting in a trip to my office and later a lengthy tour of the Petroleum Museum. Bruce had the oil and gas 101 presentation, but I suspect he was more impressed by the Chaparral Racing wing of the museum. We also got the opportunity to take them to little Jack's first tackle football game, where they got to see little Jack get faced smashed in a bone jarring block. But he got up, shook it off, and went back to the game...so we were all proud of him.
Bruce is a lengendary Army aviator whose character was portrayed by Greg Kinnear in the film "We Were Soldiers". Bruce was also the aviation advisor on the film where Arlene and Bruce became so close to Greg that they are God Grandparents to the Kinnears first child, daughter Lily. And we always enjoy hearing more stories of his flying exploits around the world. This time it was about flying mapping missions in Libya in the early 60's. Interesting tales of seeing miles and miles of burned out German and British tanks from the great battles of WWII. And the German minefields that in some places were more than 17 miles wide, so thick in fact, that Bruce said they were afraid to land their helicopters in the desert.
I've known Bruce and Arlene only for 5 years or so, but it feels like much longer and we certainly see them more regularly than many people I've known for much longer. We'll probably see them again in Washington D.C. at the Ia Drang Veterans reunion in November, and then again in Febrauary when they stop on their way back to their home in Olympia Washington. And through pure serendipity, I'll see Bruce's banker son Donovan next week in Midland to talk about financing our new gas project. Friends are great.
After a flurry of politically oriented posts last week, it was with some welcome relief that I was occupied by visitors to the estate over the weekend and unable to muster the time to update Streams until now.
Our good friends Bruce and Arlene Crandall stopped by on their wanderings in their driveway filling RV. They are great driveway guests and it's always good to see them semi-annually and catch up. Their son Donovan is now residing in Houston where he is the managing director of energy banking for a large German bank and so Bruce wanted to learn more about the oil/gas business resulting in a trip to my office and later a lengthy tour of the Petroleum Museum. Bruce had the oil and gas 101 presentation, but I suspect he was more impressed by the Chaparral Racing wing of the museum. We also got the opportunity to take them to little Jack's first tackle football game, where they got to see little Jack get faced smashed in a bone jarring block. But he got up, shook it off, and went back to the game...so we were all proud of him.
Bruce is a lengendary Army aviator whose character was portrayed by Greg Kinnear in the film "We Were Soldiers". Bruce was also the aviation advisor on the film where Arlene and Bruce became so close to Greg that they are God Grandparents to the Kinnears first child, daughter Lily. And we always enjoy hearing more stories of his flying exploits around the world. This time it was about flying mapping missions in Libya in the early 60's. Interesting tales of seeing miles and miles of burned out German and British tanks from the great battles of WWII. And the German minefields that in some places were more than 17 miles wide, so thick in fact, that Bruce said they were afraid to land their helicopters in the desert.
I've known Bruce and Arlene only for 5 years or so, but it feels like much longer and we certainly see them more regularly than many people I've known for much longer. We'll probably see them again in Washington D.C. at the Ia Drang Veterans reunion in November, and then again in Febrauary when they stop on their way back to their home in Olympia Washington. And through pure serendipity, I'll see Bruce's banker son Donovan next week in Midland to talk about financing our new gas project. Friends are great.
