Run the Rig

Today has been a bit stressful.  I went to bed knowing that the Safety guy would be out here to do "Commentary Drives" where we have to tell him everything we're doing as we drive along, and he grades us.  I did get to go for a run, and make some Manicotti, but then I came to the box to discover Miranda trying everything she could think of and some other things to get our tool to work. 

The tool sends a signal through mud pulses, and we were getting enough interference that we weren't receiving the signal. 

We re-wired some stuff, and moved cables around, and restarted computers countless times, and basically made a royal mess.  Finally something we did worked and we got the signal.  Woo hoo.

Miranda left to do her commentary drive, and I fought with the computers to get them to communicate with each other.  Luckily the two primary computers are working properly, but the back up doesn't want to cooperate.  I spent an hour trying to figure it out, then called the IT guys, and they spent another couple hours on it. 

Finally they realized that it has to do with the way I logged on.  At least that's what we think right now.  I haven't logged off to see, yet.  That is for a future post.

Today's Exploit:

While I was near College Station I spent a lot of time on the rig floor, because they spent most of the time tripping in and out.  When they do this, I am not needed.  The driller was thoroughly sick of tripping by the time he got to go home.  And he got the easy job of controlling the hydraulics, the poor rig hands had to do the heavy lifting to move the pipe. 

The last day before he left the driller told me that if we had to trip for any reason before he left he'd make me run the rig.  That means sitting in his chair and ordering the guys around, which would be fun.  But it also means controlling the top drive, and that is very scary. 

He then decided that I could have a choice:  run the rig or pull slips. 

Slips are REALLY heavy metal wedges hinged together to go around the pipe and keep it from slipping when adding a new stand. 

Picture from Schlumberger Oilfield Glossary

I told him I'd pull slips, all by myself.

Apparently they weigh about 200 lbs.