Be It Resolved January is the month of new beginnings and New Year’s Resolutions, and if you’re doing great with a resolution to stop smoking or lose weight, more power to you. Of course, logic dictates that those who make less lofty or less ambitious goals will be likelier to succeed. We found some of those on the web, and we’re guessing they’ll be easier: “To get my comma problems under control.” “To eat more types of salads.” “To not wear the same pants so many days in a row.” “Same as every year: don’t die.” “Become an alcoholic hobo.” “Transition to a jumpsuit-based wardrobe.” Whatever your resolution, here’s to your success.
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Domino’s Effect
A Domino’s Pizza store in Andrews, Texas, has been singled out as that national chain’s busiest, biggest-selling outlet, according to a news report from The Wall Street Journal. And the store set the record in the very first week it was open.
“The Domino’s in rural Andrews, with an official population of just 12,000, broke a global record for new store sales in October when it sold $76,076 of food in its first week,” the Journal stated. “The town is located in the middle of the Permian Basin, a white hot West Texas oil play where pizza-hungry masses of roughnecks have congregated to drill for more crude.”
Franchisee James Gerety, who already was operating 10 restaurants in the Midland-Odessa area, told the Journal that his customers kept telling him how badly a store was needed in Andrews, which lies 35 miles north of Odessa, near the border of New Mexico. Apparently so.
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They Said It
“The quicker we get about the business of reducing our reliance on oil, the better.”
—Condoleezza Rice
“Natural gas is better distributed than any other fuel in the United States. It’s down every street and up every alley. There’s a pipeline.”
—T. Boone Pickens
It’s January. That wind is blowing. As the saying goes, “The only thing between the North Pole and the Texas Panhandle is a drift fence, and it’s down.”
“You might be a redneck if… the blue book value of your truck goes up and down depending on how much gas it has in it.” —Jeff Foxworthy
“To desire is to obtain. To aspire is to achieve.” —James Allen
“God made man to go by motives, and he will not go without them, any more than a boat without steam or a balloon without gas.”
—Henry Ward Beecher
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Word of the Month: Sweet
adj., pleasing to the taste (merriam-webster.com); very good or appealing; not sour; free from excess of acid, sulfur, or corrosive salts. Used in a sentence: “The sweet light crude oil [known as] Western Texas Intermediate (WTI) is used as a benchmark in oil pricing.” Wikipedia: “The term ‘sweet’ originates from the fact that a low level of sulfur provides the oil with a mildly sweet taste and pleasant smell. Nineteenth century prospectors would taste and smell small quantities of oil to determine its quality.” For a discussion of sweet versus sour crude and their handling and impact at refineries, see Steve Pruett’s column on p. 4 of this issue.