A guy in the desert looking for oil
Monday, March 3, 2008 at 07:24PM I talked to my sister today and I was telling her about a guy I met on the airplane on the flight from Tampa to Houston a couple of weeks ago. That conversation certainly was educational. Prior to that, I never even thought about how companies go out and find where to dig for oil. The technology behind it is so amazing. I never would have thought that geophysicists were involved in that kind of thing. I thought they just looked at rocks and told you how old the earth is or something like that. Sheesh! That goes to show you how much I know.
Anyway, so he explained to me how intricate and involved the process is of looking for oil. I didn't realize it took a lot of time to do that and that it involved massive amounts of data (he said terabytes, actually. Good thing I knew what that meant or my brain would have rebelled and shut down right then. I was still awestruck from the new info I was being given).
This is what I have always loved about traveling. You meet so many interesting people and learn stuff that you never would have thought of otherwise. How cool is that to have your horizons widen (gee, that is so cliche) by meeting and talking to people. It's like extending your own experiences. Of course, it helped he knew how to explain his work to me in really simple words so I can follow because, well, I even have difficulty saying the word geophysicist. What - ever!!! You try it. Without my annoying curiosity of asking, I probably would still be thinking that some guy just stands in the middle of the desert surveying the land, sniffing the air, licking his index finger, holding it up to the breeze, and saying, "yup! dig right thar!" See? It's good to be curious. It helps lessen one's ignorance.
Reader Comments (2)
Geophysicist... Did you know that that's what Papa was going to study before he found his calling? Man, we could've been totally rich by now! :D I don't have any regrets. I love Papa for the clergyman that he is. I wouldn't have him any other way.
Yeah . . . Papa as a geophysicist. Hmmm . . . he certainly has the brains for it. He was meant to be what he is today, though. Do you remember his story about officiating the marriage of 100 couples in one day? Would he ever have affected lives like that as a geophysicist? Hah! Besides, there was some really good tapey out there from the congregation. he he. They don't offer that to just anyone.