I’m happy to say that I’m not addicted to e-mail. Or at least I don’t think I am.

However, I’ve come to realize that communicating through email is preferred to picking up the telephone by a fairly large margin. In fact, I actually prefer it as it lets me keep a written record of communication, not necessarily for legal purposes, but for organizational purposes.

During a typical day, I get so focused on the job at hand that if you want me to do something, you better send me an email. Why? Because in the process of verbally adding a …

We’re starting to see the consolidation in the airline industry that we’ve need so badly for the last 5 years or more. ATA Airlines, Aloha Airlines and Skybus (which I wrote about almost a year ago) all quit flying this past week.

I gave Skybus a 3 in 10 chance of surviving, and it looks as if I was right. Rising jet fuel costs and a slowing economic environment got the best of them after only one year. Of course, when you offer tickets for $10 per seat, it doesn’t take a financial analyst to figure out that you might not be in business for long….

If you’ve never read an annual report from Berkshire Hathaway, it’s rather interesting. As compared to many other company reports, it’s a little more succinct and easy to read. Mr. Buffett pulls no punches and doesn’t really sugar coat much.

Read the 2007 Annual Report Here

A week ago, I attended a land auction to see if I could pick up some additional oil production. I’m not sure what land is going for in your neck of the woods, but around here it’s gone crazy!

Tracts 1 through 3 and 5 were primarily farm land, with acreage ranging from 30 acres to 300 acres. One of the tracts had some oil royalties attached to it that only amounted to about 200 barrels per year.

The farm land alone went for nearly $2,000 per acre. Unreal.

Tract 4 was what I was interested …

Sprint (S: chart, web, Y!) has been down in the dumps lately. Actually for the last several years (or more accurately since they merged with Nextel). They just wrote down $29 billion, or the equivalent of that same Nextel merger.

Sprint is a poorly run company, not just at the executive level, but all across the board (although new CEO Dan Hesse is making a valiant effort to turn that around). Their marketing department never really sold the Nextel technology, and little money went into preserving the customer base Nextel generated. On top of that, Sprint didn’t spend enough …

I’m starting to shift my resources back to expanding my oil and gas business. Not that it has been on autopilot completely, it just hasn’t required much attention lately, which can be attributed to having good people run the day-to-day production.

It’s time for more though, and I’m looking to increase production through additional acquisition or drilling.

This weekend I’ll attend a land auction with five different tracts for sale. Tract four is the one I’m interested in, as it has existing production on a full section, which equals about 640 acres. According to state records, there are five producing …

An interesting consequence of a Microsoft/Yahoo merger would funnel nearly three fourths if the U.S. email accounts through one huge data processing monster. What this means is that email accounts and a host of other personal data would be held by one company; something I suspect the U.S. government might squawk at.

Interestingly enough, 46% of internet users in the U.S. have email accounts run by Yahoo, Microsoft holds 27% and 29% use Google’s Gmail.

Personally, I’m not sure I’m crazy about having three quarters of the email accounts held by one company. In essence, there’s too much personal data being held in one place.

Then there’s the possibility of monetizing …

It was bound to happen (again). Today Verizon Wireless revealed new plans to offer a flat-rate unlimited calling plan. They say it is an effort to attract high end customers, which may be true, but I see it as a commoditization of the wireless industry.
The plan will cost $99 per month and offer up unlimited calling to anyone in the United States. Interestingly enough, AT&T trumped Verizon by announcing a similar deal for $0.99 per month more, but also eliminating any additional roaming charges.
It is clear to me that cell phones are becoming a commodity just like the old fashion predecessor, the land line, …

It seems that AT&T is no longer seeing the value of the pay phone.  The company announced today that its pay phones will be phased out over the next year. They declined to say how much revenue its pay-phone business generated, but the number is small and declining, after all, how can they compete with cell phones at $0.50 per call?

It’s interesting that a service long thought to be impossible to live without could be phased out of service, but it’s happening.

It certainly leaves one to think about what other iconic items once thought to be revolutionary will be a thing of the past in the not too distant future…

From …

A vote today inside the FCC could lead to tighter regulation of the cable industry. The five commissioners from the FCC are set to vote on a proposal to include several issues.

First, they are to consider whether or not it should cut rates charged by cable operators to lease channel access to programmers by as much as 75% in order to encourage more diverse programming. Cable operators are required to offer leased space, but it isn’t used widely — mostly carrying infomercials and programming from religious groups.

Secondly, they are to decide whether cable operators should have to settle disputes with programmers …