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Sixteen years of posts, sorted by subject. If you would rather search, the archive has full text.
Announcements
28 postsSite news, new series, and the occasional apology for going quiet for a few months.
Latest: 4th Annual NAPE Kickoff Happy Hour presented by LandmanLife
Rants
27 postsUnfiltered on brokers, clients, day rates, and the parts of this business that deserve to be said out loud.
Latest: How Landmen Have Changed: The Badass Motherfuckers Before Us
Guides
26 postsHow the work actually gets done: going independent, setting a day rate, running title, surviving a downturn, and what nobody tells a new landman.
Reflections
21 postsYear-end tallies, layoffs, birthdays, and the quiet posts written from an airport gate. What the work costs and what it gives back.
Latest: The Value Of Geriatric Landmen: Evolution By Passing Down Experience
War Stories
19 postsTrue stories from the patch. Courthouse characters, field disasters, long drives, and the nights that turned into something worth writing down.
Latest: How Landmen Have Changed: The Badass Motherfuckers Before Us
Videos
17 postsOn the Rocks, the Tejano Brown ground series, and everything else that ended up on camera instead of on the page.
Latest: On the Rocks Ep 6
From the Archives
16 postsPosts pulled back out of the old site and the old blogs, republished with their original dates and a note on where they came from.
Latest: Looking Back – August in Review
EFT & Events
12 postsEnergy Fin Twit, the NAPE kickoff happy hours, and the beers that turned an internet joke into a room full of people.
Latest: Unpaid and Undeterred: My Ongoing Battle with Ruckus Energy CEO Avi Mirman
The Landman Log
10 postsNotes from the actual job: courthouse days, runsheets, brokers, and the parts of land work nobody puts in a job posting.
Latest: The Weight
Industry Analysis
9 postsRig counts, downturns, deal flow, and operators behaving strangely, read from the courthouse rather than from a research desk.
Latest: Avi Mirman’s Battalion Oil Bid for $450 Million: A Personal Perspective on His Unpaid Debt to Me
Giveaways & Swag
8 postsCaption contests, rope hats, and every giveaway LandmanLife has run since the store opened.
Latest: LandmanLife Christmas Giveaway!
Books & Reviews
7 postsBooks worth a night in a field motel, reviewed by somebody who reads them in one.
Latest: Books that Stand the Test of Time, My All Time Favorites
Humor & Memes
7 postsThe jokes that got out of hand. Oilfield humor, memes, and the running bits that turned into characters.
The Blogspot Years
5 postsThe 2010 to 2012 posts from LandmanLiving, written on Blogspot in Pennsylvania while learning the trade. Republished here in full.
Latest: Another day another dollar, but always the same bullshit
Beer & Leisure
3 postsHazy IPAs, icehouses, and the argument about what to drink after a day of running title.
The Ruckus Saga
2 postsThe running account of an unpaid invoice, an operator, and what collection actually looks like for an independent landman.
Latest: Unpaid and Undeterred: My Ongoing Battle with Ruckus Energy CEO Avi Mirman
Title
1 postRunsheets, chain of title, and mineral ownership: how the record is built and where it breaks.