Virginia Is For Families

I was having trouble discovering a topic to write about today. I was even considering writing about Sparky and Malarky my two German Shepherds who guard the house while we are gone. They are downstairs at the moment imagining how great the trash man would taste and discussing who will get the more tender parts.

But that’s not going to happen. He’s a good guy. Still I don’t want to tell the dogs it won’t happen . In the first place they would be upset with me. And in the second place they might try to eat me. And I am not safely on the other side of the door like our neighborhood trash guy.

I left him a trash can full of woodworking trash today. Lots of little 2 X 4’s that add up to about half a ton. He’s probably not too happy about that right about now. He has to pay a whole lot more money for gas just to get here and then I am weighing down his truck with all this wood.

I’m a bad customer.

But on the other hand I could share some good news with him. This will make him happy enough to forget about a bunch of 2 X 4’s.

Oil slipped off a record high above $143 a barrel today as US crude rose 11 cents to 140.59 a barrel. I know that seems like not so good news. You have to dig deeper to find the pony as President Reagan used to like to say. Because the US Energy Information Administration revised down US April oil demand by 863,000 barrels per day. That’s nearly 4 percent below demand last year in April.

“This revision of the US oil demand for April has certainly put pressure on crude futures. This is demand destruction before our very eyes” said Phil Flynn of Alaron Trading. “This is a huge revision and it happened when fuel prices were still lower, so you can expect that there could be more future downgrades in demand data.

On the other hand we have the weak dollar and escalating tensions between Iran and Israel over Teheran’s nuclear program.

Those two are gonna have a showdown at some point. But what I interpret this guy saying is that there is probably a huge glut of oil out here and the traders have gone too far. Prices are going to start down in the very near future.

And we can all take our cars out on the road again! Who has cut back on their driving?

Just about everybody. We all make those little decisions that cut our fuel costs by five, ten or twenty percent. And it adds up! So I need to run down the street and catch my trash man before he turns the corner. And tell him the good news.

Maybe Sparky and Malarky would like to come? Would you guys? Great! Come on then. Let’s get some exercise and run down there to see the trash man!