Who am I? What am I doing?

I'm starting a blog.  I declare: this is a blog!  I'm not really sure how you begin a blog, but this will do.  Moving along.

Let me tell you a little about myself and my intentions with this blog.  I am a twenty-something law and business student (JD/MBA, Dec 2013) with a passion for creating value.  I go to Texas Tech University, located in Lubbock, Texas which sits at the precipice of the "big country" and the "high plains" of the panhandle.  Cotton is still a big deal around here, and Lubbockites are reminded of that fact daily by the blowing dust and cotton fibers from the hundreds of thousands of acres of exposed soil that surround the city.  But just 150 miles to the south (a trivial distance to Texans) there is a resurging oil boom taking place because of a formation discovered between Abilene and Midland called the Cline Shale, and my aim is to be a part of the effort to capitalize on that resource.

I've got high hopes for this blog; too many goals to list, but I want to name a few.  First of all I want to chart the progress of the oil companies drilling in the Cline Shale region.  Developing a formation can be a decades long process and I think it will be interesting to document how it plays out and who the big individual winners are.  Secondly, I want to write about some of the oil and gas law issues I’ve studied in law school.  I’ll be a practicing attorney soon and I could use the practice and potentially help enlighten some readers on a technical, but not impossible, area of the law.  Thirdly, I want to help people in the West Texas area take advantage of the opportunities the Cline Shale will provide.  Since the national housing market cratered 4 years ago, unemployment has been a major issue in the United States; and Texas, though it has weathered the economic storm much better than most states, still has an unemployment level that is much higher than before the bust.  I see the Cline Shale as a much needed impetus for statewide (and nationwide) economic renewal.  They say a rising tide lifts all boats.  Well I intend to be the bronzed lifeguard pointing at the coming waves.