North Dakota is about as far from an ocean and surfing as any place in the U.S.

So why would a North Dakota energy official use a popular surfing term, “hang ten,” to describe the condition of his state’s oil industry?

“You have to find the right wave, and generally it’s a big wave,” Lynn Helms, the director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, said the other day, sounding like a surfing aficionado. (Read more.)