written by Charles
Dear friends,
Merry Christmas from the Leary's! 2012 has been a thick year - and 2013 shows similar promise.
This spring I turned 30, graduated from SMU with an MBA, and we promptly moved to North Dakota for my job with Hunt Oil Co. I am a production engineer, which keeps me busy with the wells that have been drilled and are producing oil each day. With moving parts and fluids, they do require a certain amount of attention to keep flowing. I'm also involved with the part of the well lifecycle called fracturing, which is a fascinating technology that has recently transformed the US energy landscape. I’m very fortunate and grateful for this experience, and find many similarities with my job and my time in the Navy. The lingo, attire, and lack of ocean is different, but many of the methods and people are comfortably familiar.
Allie is doing well and likes the small-town atmosphere of Minot, which reminds her of time she spent College Station, TX. She also keeps everyone updated on our activities at her blog, so please tune in there for other-than-annual updates. She enjoys working for a Dallas based valuations & financial reporting company, which allows her to work from home and not have to venture out to the sub-zero temperatures this time of year.
We sold our home (goodbye, deck, I miss you) in Dallas in a snap, and gobbled one up in North Dakota. Our new home was on the market for two days, which is about one more than average up here. It’s a little bigger than we’re used to, but we’ll fill it in due time. Wonderfully, I graduated from man-room to man-floor, also called a “basement” by the gender-neutral crowd. Presented with increasing levels of awesomeness, the man cave has: a guest quarters (complete with a rocket red, late-70’s themed bathroom), a study, a room with pool table & dart board, a workshop, a giant fireplace, a door to the backyard patio to grill, and a room with a poker table and wet bar. This will probably be the best man-floor I’ll ever have.
North Dakota is an adventure - during the summer it looks like many scenes from Dances with Wolves could be filmed a few miles from our home. During the winter, it looks like many scenes from Fargo could be filmed a few miles from our home. Needless to say, we are enjoying the scenery and experience. The wildlife in our backyard is much different than Dallas, frequent visitors include: black squirrels, dove, rabbits, deer, turkey, raccoons stealing fruit (although they haven't been back since they got shot with a pellet gun) - and recently, a moose near the house (which is a big news story in our small town).
I have become an expert snow blower. This seems much more fun than mowing a lawn - but not really at 5am on a weekday when it is -10 degrees and one must get out of the driveway. We have only gotten about ten inches of snow this year (average is been 50 inches/year), but nobody knows what the next few months will bring.
Minot was sleepy city six years ago, but no longer after the oil boom. Every restaurant and retail shop has a sign out front that says “help wanted.” There is a large Air Force base and university, so the population, unlike all of the state to the west of us, is not just oilfield. The Canadian border is 60 miles to the north and everything else is really far away . Like Dallas, our town hosts the state fair. We went this past year and drank beer, watched men wrestle with alligators, play with bears, and sing country music. ‘merca. There isn’t as much fried food as the Texas State fair, but they do try.
A lot of people ask, when we tell them we live in North Dakota, “well how do you get there?” Actually, there is a (relatively) decent size airport in Minot that serves much of the western part of the state. It has two gates, one serves Delta and flies through Minneapolis and the other serves United and flies through Denver. The airport is two miles from our house and the parking lot is about 50 feet from the gate - it’s not uncommon to leave the house thirty minutes before your flight leaves. Most of the flights are packed, and the airlines often offer hundreds of dollars to be bumped, but no one takes it.
The pheasant hunting in North Dakota is exceptional. On the weekends, it's rare to not get your limit by dinner (that’d be “lunch”, if you aren’t from around here. Dinner is called supper.) In the fall when the sun is out late, you could down a few birds after work. I have yet to go ice-fishing, but am definitely looking forward to trying. From what I’ve heard, its more like beer-drinking and the fishing is ancillary. So, it sounds fun! Also, no need to bring a cooler to put your fish in, you just throw them outside the hut. Very convenient.
North Dakota has some interesting and amazing metrics:
We’ve traveled a little bit this year: we enjoyed seeing friends on both coasts and went to numerous weddings in Texas and some in Rhode Island and Jackson Hole, WY. We had a quick trip to Dallas over Thanksgiving (with a long Turkey Trot run) for the wedding of good friends, then jaunted up to NYC for a family trip over a long weekend.
Molly the dog continues to be a handful, albeit more manageable. She is now closer to both her Canadian and hunting ancestry and a very happy camper tromping about the snow and chasing birds. Since we have made it this far and Molly seems to be doing ok, I think it’s time to progress in taking care of more advanced life (you know, start with a plant, then take care of a dog, then....).
Reaching it this far in the letter warrants a reward; Allie is pregnant and we are expecting Baby Leary in July 2013! We are overjoyed, anxious and prayerful for a healthy addition to our family.
We hope y’all have a merry Christmas and a joyful and prosperous 2013.
Sincerely,
Charles & Allie
Dear friends,
Merry Christmas from the Leary's! 2012 has been a thick year - and 2013 shows similar promise.
This spring I turned 30, graduated from SMU with an MBA, and we promptly moved to North Dakota for my job with Hunt Oil Co. I am a production engineer, which keeps me busy with the wells that have been drilled and are producing oil each day. With moving parts and fluids, they do require a certain amount of attention to keep flowing. I'm also involved with the part of the well lifecycle called fracturing, which is a fascinating technology that has recently transformed the US energy landscape. I’m very fortunate and grateful for this experience, and find many similarities with my job and my time in the Navy. The lingo, attire, and lack of ocean is different, but many of the methods and people are comfortably familiar.
Allie is doing well and likes the small-town atmosphere of Minot, which reminds her of time she spent College Station, TX. She also keeps everyone updated on our activities at her blog, so please tune in there for other-than-annual updates. She enjoys working for a Dallas based valuations & financial reporting company, which allows her to work from home and not have to venture out to the sub-zero temperatures this time of year.
We sold our home (goodbye, deck, I miss you) in Dallas in a snap, and gobbled one up in North Dakota. Our new home was on the market for two days, which is about one more than average up here. It’s a little bigger than we’re used to, but we’ll fill it in due time. Wonderfully, I graduated from man-room to man-floor, also called a “basement” by the gender-neutral crowd. Presented with increasing levels of awesomeness, the man cave has: a guest quarters (complete with a rocket red, late-70’s themed bathroom), a study, a room with pool table & dart board, a workshop, a giant fireplace, a door to the backyard patio to grill, and a room with a poker table and wet bar. This will probably be the best man-floor I’ll ever have.
North Dakota is an adventure - during the summer it looks like many scenes from Dances with Wolves could be filmed a few miles from our home. During the winter, it looks like many scenes from Fargo could be filmed a few miles from our home. Needless to say, we are enjoying the scenery and experience. The wildlife in our backyard is much different than Dallas, frequent visitors include: black squirrels, dove, rabbits, deer, turkey, raccoons stealing fruit (although they haven't been back since they got shot with a pellet gun) - and recently, a moose near the house (which is a big news story in our small town).
I have become an expert snow blower. This seems much more fun than mowing a lawn - but not really at 5am on a weekday when it is -10 degrees and one must get out of the driveway. We have only gotten about ten inches of snow this year (average is been 50 inches/year), but nobody knows what the next few months will bring.
Minot was sleepy city six years ago, but no longer after the oil boom. Every restaurant and retail shop has a sign out front that says “help wanted.” There is a large Air Force base and university, so the population, unlike all of the state to the west of us, is not just oilfield. The Canadian border is 60 miles to the north and everything else is really far away . Like Dallas, our town hosts the state fair. We went this past year and drank beer, watched men wrestle with alligators, play with bears, and sing country music. ‘merca. There isn’t as much fried food as the Texas State fair, but they do try.
A lot of people ask, when we tell them we live in North Dakota, “well how do you get there?” Actually, there is a (relatively) decent size airport in Minot that serves much of the western part of the state. It has two gates, one serves Delta and flies through Minneapolis and the other serves United and flies through Denver. The airport is two miles from our house and the parking lot is about 50 feet from the gate - it’s not uncommon to leave the house thirty minutes before your flight leaves. Most of the flights are packed, and the airlines often offer hundreds of dollars to be bumped, but no one takes it.
The pheasant hunting in North Dakota is exceptional. On the weekends, it's rare to not get your limit by dinner (that’d be “lunch”, if you aren’t from around here. Dinner is called supper.) In the fall when the sun is out late, you could down a few birds after work. I have yet to go ice-fishing, but am definitely looking forward to trying. From what I’ve heard, its more like beer-drinking and the fishing is ancillary. So, it sounds fun! Also, no need to bring a cooler to put your fish in, you just throw them outside the hut. Very convenient.
North Dakota has some interesting and amazing metrics:
- North Dakota surpassed Alaska this year to be the nation’s #2 oil producing state, behind Texas
- Millionaires have increased 20% in the past year
- Banks can’t lend fast enough with deposits increasing 15-20% per year
- The local chain hardware store, Menards, has to fly 50 workers in each week from their headquarters in Wisconsin
- Salaries in the western part of the state are over twice the state and national average.
- The unemployment rate in the western part of the state is 1% (also, about the same amount of people that do not want to work).
- Airline traffic is up 19% in the past year
- There are same number of congressional representatives as telephone area codes - one.
- The geographical center of North America is 70 miles east of us in a town called Rugby
We’ve traveled a little bit this year: we enjoyed seeing friends on both coasts and went to numerous weddings in Texas and some in Rhode Island and Jackson Hole, WY. We had a quick trip to Dallas over Thanksgiving (with a long Turkey Trot run) for the wedding of good friends, then jaunted up to NYC for a family trip over a long weekend.
Molly the dog continues to be a handful, albeit more manageable. She is now closer to both her Canadian and hunting ancestry and a very happy camper tromping about the snow and chasing birds. Since we have made it this far and Molly seems to be doing ok, I think it’s time to progress in taking care of more advanced life (you know, start with a plant, then take care of a dog, then....).
Reaching it this far in the letter warrants a reward; Allie is pregnant and we are expecting Baby Leary in July 2013! We are overjoyed, anxious and prayerful for a healthy addition to our family.
We hope y’all have a merry Christmas and a joyful and prosperous 2013.
Sincerely,
Charles & Allie
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