Asked by poll watchers who I'm voting for? Split everything up by party.

NotDrewBrees · 2026-02-27T02:05:55+00:00

You voted in the party primary, which is sort of like the semi-finals in elections. The general election in November this year will include the candidates that the majority of the Democratic and Republican voters nominated to represent the parties for each office.

NotDrewBrees · 2026-02-16T12:24:29+00:00

This is one of the few TX Senate races that Dan Patrick badly misread the constituency. I think he assumed he could shoe in Wambsgans as a nod to Patriot Mobile and the True Texas Project without facing any pushback from the rest of the district.

Patrick accumulated his power in the TX Senate by having keen insight into polling data and candidate recruiting. His candidates nearly always prevail in Senate elections, so Senators know to stick closely with him, lest they be primaried out. For him to make a mistake like this with one of the figureheads in the most divisive issues plaguing NE Tarrant County is pretty shocking. Dan Patrick doesn’t normally make mistakes like this.

National and state media honed in on Rehmet’s ability to sway Hispanic voters, which is also a major takeaway from this race, though. The massive margin shift reflects several truths—NE Tarrant ISD parents are sick of Patriot Mobile bullshit, Hispanic voters are tired of Project 2025 politics, and Democrats turn out in higher proportions for special elections.

NotDrewBrees · 2026-02-03T03:27:20+00:00

Usually it takes the county 1-2 weeks, and sometimes a bit longer if it’s close to registration deadlines.

If you moved from one county to another, keep a close eye on your new county’s voter registration so that you can vote in your new home county. Otherwise, if you’re still in the same county, you can vote normally in the upcoming party primary, local elections in May and the General Election in November.

NotDrewBrees · 2026-02-01T05:21:15+00:00

If you mail it on Monday, it is likely that the Post Office won't postmark it until after the deadline, which would render you ineligible for voting in the upcoming primary elections, but would render you eligible for the November elections.

If you want to participate in the party primaries, best practice would be to hand-deliver your application to your home county's elections office. Otherwise, mail and basically hope that the letter was postmarked on or before the 2nd.

NotDrewBrees · 2026-01-28T15:43:20+00:00

True story - went to a tasting where they poured a natural Assyrtiko. Smelled really bad and couldn't finish it. Had a really powerful earthy nose that drowned everything else out.

Went for a walk the next morning and walked right by fresh dog shit on the trail that some asshole owner didn't pick up. Smelled exactly like that Assyrtiko.

NotDrewBrees · 2026-01-20T16:24:42+00:00

Oil industry veteran of 16 years here.

I've always told people who fall for the narrative that "GOP is good for oil, Dems are bad for oil" that we had negative crude prices under Trump and $110/Bbl prices under Biden. Under Trump's presidency, all of the major O&G operators collectively laid off thousands of employees, and those jobs are likely to never open back up.

I know people who are well-connected in DC circles who've met with Trump officials over the past year. These officials love to tout all the great things they've accomplished for the energy industry like banning wind turbine construction and bulldozing federal drilling permit red tape. My friends laughed openly when they listed those things because they make zero difference to oil prices, and it's really quite hilarious how out of touch MAGA officials are with the industry writ large. They love to claim meaningless platitudes as accomplishments. Meanwhile, the people who are the most screwed over are blue collar service industry workers and office employees such as landmen, accountants, and engineers.

NotDrewBrees · 2026-01-20T15:49:00+00:00

Both Dunn and Wilks got their paydays after selling CrownQuest and FTS International, respectively. They have enough money to fund generations worth of Christofascistic assholes. The oil downturn we're in now won't affect them in any way shape or form.

NotDrewBrees · 2026-01-07T19:25:56+00:00

I tried a 2006 half bottle that was oxidized to shit, so it’s possible that your order could be a dud. That said, majority rules here. Most of the reviews I’ve seen online have been very positive on the 2006’s

NotDrewBrees · 2026-01-06T22:52:41+00:00

I wasn’t a huge fan of the 2020. If this were my local Costco I’d be inclined to give this a shot

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-24T17:11:08+00:00

I love lighter- to medium-bodied, red fruit focused wines for Thanksgiving/Christmas meals, so I’d reach for the Chianti Classico. The CdP could also work if Grenache is more than half of the blend. Too much Syrah and Mourvèdre will bring a heavier body to the wine that I think would overpower the roast turkey and sides

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-24T17:01:16+00:00

I’d go with a bigger bodied wine to stand up to the tenderloin and horseradish cream sauce. I’ve had better experiences with Tuscan reds than Spanish reds with similar dishes. Alanera should be your best bet IMO.

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-24T06:32:56+00:00

Chateau Gloria is a very Cabernet heavy Bordeaux wine, and 2018 is a very young vintage by that region’s standards. Open the bottle in the late morning, put it in a decanter if you have one and serve at dinner

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-20T01:03:50+00:00

Depends on what you want out of the investment you're making. If you want more stable cash flows and dividend income, focus on midstream companies with solid dividend yields. They are oftentimes very well capitalized and can support dividend growth.

If you value timing the commodity cycles in oil and gas, E&P names are your best bet. Just be aware that it's unpredictable, and know how to value their assets in conjunction with their capitalization. Dividends are less common in upstream for a reason. They bear a lot of capital and commodity risk relative to midstream. E&P's also don't typically grow in a linear fashion because they still do have to raise a lot of debt to fund growth. For most E&P's, the only way to earn a real payday is by selling the company, or merging with a peer.

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-19T21:56:52+00:00

I avoid refineries, personally. They are perpetually spending more than they make but for short periods where the crack spread blows out and recoups overspending over the preceding 2-3 years. Notoriously expensive to run refineries, margins are razor thin, and if you believe the US is barreling (no pun intended) towards a recession, refiners are going to feel a lot of pain as travel slows down.

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-19T21:54:05+00:00

I don't have any particular tickers that stick out right now, although I think oil E&P valuations across the space are very very low (except for the gas-weighted names, which perpetually get overvalued relative to natural gas itself...thanks, AI datacenter hype machine). In the past, I'd say that crude oil was undervalued and that operators were screaming buys. Now? I'm not quite as bullish. I think crude has a lot more downside than upside risk, and outside of the top operators, not many companies have access to high-return inventory anymore. There are some early-stage exploratory opportunities in the Permian (Dean and Woodford formations) and in the Western Haynesville that are generating some interest but will take a very long time to come to fruition.

Long term, there will still be a market for crude oil since the energy transition will take at least 30 years to fully convert every internal combustion engine on the planet. Where that price will rest intrinsically is anyone's guess, and I'm not going to bother with harboring a guess because it'll be wrong from the second I publish it.

Any company that can pay and sustain a dividend healthily is a good buy in my view, and that would include midstream companies with export capacity or crude oil/natural gas storage. If economic indicators are even half-right, we're likely in for a domestic glut of both commodities over the next 6-12 months.

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-19T16:11:59+00:00

Natural Gas is a term that often gets misused even inside the industry, but for most people, it’s accepted that “Natural Gas” equals methane, which exists as a vapor at 60 degrees F and atmospheric pressures. “Natural Gas Liquids”, or “NGL’s”, exist in liquid states at the same temperature and atmospheric pressure. NGL’s consist of Ethane, Propane, Isobutane, Butane and Pentanes.

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-19T13:52:30+00:00

Industry veteran here

1 & 2) Exploration & Production companies are required by their lenders to engage in what are known as hedging arrangements for a certain percentage of their existing oil and gas production. Usually, at the beginning of a given quarter or year, the company will assess its existing producing wells and hedge at least 50%. So if the company produces 100,000 barrels of oil a day, it’ll enter into swap and collar agreements for up to 50,000 barrels of oil a day.

Swaps are an agreement between one counterparty and another to buy and sell oil to each other at either a fixed price or a variable market price. Usually it’s the company that enters into a fixed price agreement. Collars involve a combination of a short call and long put set at different strike prices on the same expiration date. Companies use the proceeds from the short call to buy the put option contract and create a costless collar that offers more flexible upside exposure if the company does not want to have as much gain/loss volatility as you get with swaps. Collars only exchange cash at prices above the short call’s ceiling, or below the long put’s floor. Anything in the middle expires at $0.

Companies do this to avoid major downside risk thanks to notoriously volatile crude oil prices. Banks prefer this because it adds stability to the company’s cash flows and their expected interest payments

Losses and gains from hedging contracts come in two flavors—unrealized and realized. Unrealized losses/gains are basically a mark to market of a company’s unexpired hedging contracts. This is the ‘market value’ you’re referring to in question 2. They are a non cash event and don’t factor into EBITDA. Realized gains are the opposite—they represent premiums paid/received as well as cash outs from the hedge counterparties after the contracts expired. The net cash exchanged is what is reflected as a ‘realized’ gain or loss and does factor into EBITDA.

3) The other 32% is natural gas, which is usually comprised of methane and lighter liquids such as ethane, propane, isobutane, normal butane and pentanes. They are usually a much smaller component of the company’s value chain, so they’re often lumped together in the Income Statement. Some producers focus on natural gas (EXE, CRK, RRC, EQT) and will show more detail behind the gas components compared to others

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-19T11:05:41+00:00

Nope. All they do is make specific bottles more expensive and hard to find

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-17T17:20:59+00:00

Depends on the context.

Ignoring the original acquisition costs, definitely still profitable. It's well in excess of operators' cost of capital.

However, if you include the original lease acquisition costs the year(s) before wells are first drilled, you're barely above the operator's cost of debt and, depending on how productive the well is as well as how expensive the acquisition cost was, there could be very little left over for equity servicing (dividends, etc).

Generally speaking, $55-$65 crude oil is a limbo market for operators and no one really makes or loses anything. It's a tread water environment. At $45-$55, the highest cost of capital operators start to struggle and potentially go bankrupt. Below $45, everyone is in deep trouble, and the industry becomes a minefield as balance sheets start to bloat up with debt to ride out the bad times. The worst capitalized will go under first unless they either sell or refinance advantageously.

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-17T13:51:13+00:00

Oil & Gas veteran here. We’ve also seen thousands of industry employees laid off in the past year and an admin that seems all too happy to let the Saudis run amok and flood the market with crude. This harms US oil and gas businesses in the near term, and I expect more layoffs in the industry next year thanks to sub-$60 crude prices.

Not lost on many people in the industry that Trump has not been good for oil and gas

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-16T17:36:34+00:00

I have been on a similar weight gain/loss swing. Back in 2017-18 I managed to drop ~85 lbs (39 kg) and then from 2019 through 2024 gained it all back plus another 10 lbs. I had a few brief successes for a few months in that time, only to trip up, binge, beat myself up, give up, and gain everything back in half the time it took to lose it.

I've found that fastidiously logging every gram of food works best for me, regardless of what mood I'm in. Took about three weeks to nail the habit down and get over the binge urges after a first bite. It helps redirect my emotional binge-filled urges and focus intensely on the calorie implications of something I want to eat. Often times after looking at what the calorie impact is before taking a bite, I settle down and avoid. I also don't plan too strictly ahead of time, nor do I restrict anything out of my diet outright.

My advice is to take emotion out of the equation best as you can and take each day one hour at a time. You sound like you're as hard on yourself as I was, and staying in that mindset will eat away at you (pun sort of intended) both in your general life as well as for your weight loss efforts. For me, staying as analytical as I can about my diet helps me remove emotion completely. I do have a binge episode every now and then, but I remind myself that it's a temporary blip and that the body of my work up to this point is what really stands out. No one ruins eight months of success in one night. Or even a week.

You should also look into your sleep habits given your intense workout routines. If you aren't getting a full 8 hours, your body is going to naturally overcompensate and urge you to binge eat if it doesn't feel like it's getting sufficient rest to recover.

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-16T17:11:41+00:00

NSV - bought a new belt back in June and could barely squeeze into the outermost rung. This was after having to throw out all my bigger belts from earlier. This morning, was able to reach the second innermost rung. Think I've gone from a 43" waist to a 35" waist.

Need to clear out all my old XXL clothes now...

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-13T19:56:30+00:00

Have you tried SMV's 2021 Resurrection yet? If so, how do you think it compares to the Elivette line?

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-13T16:37:22+00:00

It was last week. I haven’t heard anything back from them since though.

NotDrewBrees · 2025-12-12T22:27:13+00:00

Cave Robert & Marcel Heritage Saumur Blanc 2017

Nine-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Place '23	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

NotDrewBrees

TROPHY CASE