My morning routine used to be coffee, bagel and a newspaper. When the scandal called Rathergate broke, the phrase "fake but accurate" jarred my brain. I fired most mainstream media in September 2004. That’s when I joined Redstate.

As Vladimir, I lurked at Redstate for a while before contributing a few throwaway diaries. But I found my blogging voice when I realized that my petroleum engineering background allowed me to make observations that the average reader would never find in the mainstream press. Geography helped too: Louisiana is a cornucopia of compelling content.

And there were plenty of stories worth writing about:

• Louisiana Politics and Politicians: the William (IN HIS FREEZER!) Jefferson clan, Edwin Edwards, Ray Nagin and the occasional honest pol;
• Energy: High prices, low prices, Peak Oil (or not), the Shale Boom (I was initially skeptical of the Bakken), and the Obama Administration’s patently fraudulent claim of responsibility for same. You may have read about "fracking" in these pages before it was a thing: https://redstate.com/2010/01/23/energy-101-hydraulic-fracturing/
• Climate, Environment and Science: Anthropogenic Global Warming, the BP oil spill, Hurricane Katrina, the Bayou Corne Sinkhole, Bulls*** Detection.

The "Greatest Hits" tab at my blog contains links to the articles I like best.

I was a diarist for a looong time. My advice: Don’t give up writing. I became a Front Page Contributor in 2009, at the first Redstate Gathering in Atlanta. Late last year, I stepped back from the one-post-per-week goal I had set for myself. My personal life demanded revised priorities.

Through Redstate, I’ve met and interacted with some of the finest, most influential conservative minds in the country. I was an eyewitness to the political "coming out parties" of Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, among others. I testified before Congress while the BP well was still blowing; my prediction of the spill’s impact was based on science and experience, and a lot closer to the actual outcome than the environmental calamity scenario being sold by the scientific illiterates in the press.

Few of my articles have clickbait titles ("You’ll Never Guess What Weird Trick BP Used to Cap the Macondo Monster Well from Hell!"). Traffic was never really my goal; posting on Saturdays meant less completion for space and more time for interested readers to digest the content. Anyway, I hope I brought something to the picnic. I wish you all well, although there may be the occasional Vladimir sighting from time to time.

Cross-posted.