Other things. Sorta like posts, but not.

Friday, June 25

Table Dance

Yesterday I got to play Frisbee. I had a new experience at this practice. I got tackled. In the sprinklers.

I was running to catch the disc. I was almost there when I saw a hand over my head. Then I felt something hit my foot. The next thing I knew I was rolling in the wet grass.

The water was great. The grass was not. I am still itchy thinking about it.

Today’s Exploit:

I also went to a party at the dance studio yesterday. I danced a tango, and it went really well. I think it is my favorite dance. Probably because I have the hardest time with it and therefore am determined to get it right.

I dressed up for the party. I wore a black sun dress, nothing fancy. Naturally Shawn had something to say about it.

Shawn: I’ve never met a woman that doesn’t look good in a little black dress.

Me: Haha.

Shawn: You might get a table dance out of this one.

Me: Yikes!

I think I’ve had enough of his “seductive” dances.

Later he almost ran me into one of the support columns in the middle of the floor.

Shawn: It’s ok for me to do table dances, but you don’t need to be doing pole dances.

Me: *shaking head*

Wednesday, June 23

Pork Chops

Todd, otherwise known as PawPaw, likes to make me jump. The other day I was standing next to the driller watching the guys on the board, the platform up the mast. He knew I wasn’t watching and pressed the call button on the intercom. The buzzer was right next to my ear.

Today he gave me a packet that he claimed was rattlesnake eggs. I was rather incredulous, but I took it. As soon as it left his hands it started moving and making a fluttering noise. He had bent a paperclip into an arc and strung a washer between two rubber bands on the ends. Then he’d twisted the washer until the bands were tight and put it in a small paper envelope. When pressure was taken off the washer it spun back to its static position, sounding like a rattlesnake tail in the process.

Today’s Exploit:

Tonight one of the toolpushers asked me if I wanted pork chops for dinner. Normally I would say no to pork chops, but for some reason tonight I said yes. I thought it would be a buffet setup with all the guys going through taking a plate.

It turns out he’d invited me to eat with them. Just me, just them. When I got to the trailer they had already set the table and served everything except the meat. I wasn’t sure what to do at first. It took a while to process the setup.

My first complete thought was that this would be A.K.W.A.R.D.

Some history on these toolpushers: I have never really talked to either one. They were here my first week, before I left my box, and returned last week. Johnny’s older and doesn’t seem to care one way or the other, but Jared seems to avoid me if at all possible. This led to me never having a conversation with either of them until tonight. Luckily it turned out to be not bad, and I even stayed after we’d cleaned up to visit. Everyone in the oilfield has a story about Wyoming, and they all think it’s of utmost importance to tell me. Mostly it’s okay, but it really makes me miss the cool weather.

Of course, now I’m leaving this rig because I made more friends.

Tuesday, June 22

Hugs

At the safety meeting last night the main conversation was the new dog at the rig. It is ‘a very pretty German Shepherd’. And ‘very well trained’.

Why couldn’t it be well trained when I was trying to get it to go home? Why couldn’t it be well trained when it met Little Buddy, rather than attacking her? Darn dogs.

Today’s Exploit:

This morning I was running around like crazy trying to get paperwork done for a new run. I went to see the directional drillers, Glen and Glenn, to get a list of the tools we would be using. Both of them were up, bickering over everything they could.

I gave them the dimensions for my tool and visited for a while. In that time they argued over lengths of the tools, the bit they wanted to use, and where to take surveys.

I finally left to do some more work, and 3.2 minutes later they called me back asking the distances to my sensors. I had to return to get lengths of pieces between the bit and my tool.

Glen: The distance from bit to the end of your tool has decreased two feet, so is the sensor length two feet less?

Me: Not necessarily.

Glenn: Sheesh, you expect her to calculate that right here?

Me: Can you print the BHA so that I can enter it?

Glen: No, the computer crashed so we had to get the backup. Then the printer crashed and we don’t have the driver to install it on this computer. And the internet is down so we can’t download it.

Me: Can you print it to PDF on a memory card so that I can take it?

Glenn: First of all he’d have to know how to print to PDF..

Glen: I was going to do that…

Glenn: Click on file, then print. He has Alzheimer’s, I have to remind him sometimes.

Glen: Don’t listen to him.

Glenn: He and Johnny sometimes wander off and I have to go guide them back. They usually end up picking flowers in the forest.

Me: Haha

Somehow the conversation then gravitated to hugs.

Glen: There’s no hugging and no crying in the oilfield

Glenn: We could all have a group hug!

Glen: (To me) I would be okay with hugging you. But group hugs do not belong in the oilfield. I will never hug him.

Monday, June 21

Dog Magnet

When I went home my mom spent ages torturing me about how she was able to watch So You Think You Can Dance. It’s pretty much my favorite show. And I’m always working while it’s on.

Last night I broke down and did some “illegal” streaming on the work internet. In one of the episodes I caught a quote that I liked a lot.

“I found dance as an outlet, now I want to use it as an exit.” -Tyrell Rolle

I thought it was very clever, and very interesting.

Today’s Exploit:

Today on my run I went longer than I usually do. Little Buddy had disappeared with the company man, but somehow sensed that I was going and followed me. We had gone about two and a half miles when we came to a driveway. Little Buddy was about 30 feet behind me because she likes the advantage when I turn around.

I saw a shape, and heard a bark. Then I heard some scrabbling behind me and when I turned Little Buddy was gone and two big dogs were loping down the road .

I started of on the way back to the rig. The big dogs followed. I turned and tried to get them to go home. Three times.

One finally stopped following, but the other stayed with me all the way back.

When I got back Little Buddy decided she was a little more bold and barked at him. I started walking to cool down but was interrupted by barking and yelping. Frankie came out and threw rocks at the dogs to get them to stop fighting.

I continued with my little walk with Little Buddy on one side, and the other dog following behind. Every so often they’d have a little scuffle for attention.

Currently I’m thoroughly sick of both of them.

Sunday, June 20

The Tractor Story

Friday night I saw several bugs that I hadn’t seen before. The first one I followed around for a while. It was about an inch and a half long, and red and black striped, but it was too fast to focus on very well. When I explained it this is what they told me it was.

Photo from here.

I don’t remember it having that many stripes, but the general shape is about right.

Then PawPaw, one of the roughnecks, brought a beetle into the dog house while I was there. It had huge, serrated pincers. A couple of the guys entertained themselves by trying to get their fingers between the pincers.
Photo from here.

They weren’t successful, but it would have served them right if they were. The beetle was about three inches long, and the pincers another two inches.

Today’s Exploit:

The past few days I have just been waiting for a run to finish so that I can be useful again. After they got stuck they had to do a “wiper run” to clean the hole. They didn’t use my tool for that run, so my life was meaningless for those three days.

During that time I spent a lot of time in the dog house, listening to stories. Mac told many stories about riding various ATVs. The one I remember most was about a trip he took with his girlfriend.

They were out riding in a very remote area and he let her drive. One thing led to another and somehow they wrecked resulting in Mac’s foot being trapped under the vehicle. He was not in a position that he could provide leverage to move it, and his girlfriend was too small to do it.

Mac:  I was stuck there, with my foot trapped for about half an hour before we got help. And then I got run over by a tractor.

Me:  …

That last line left me speechless.

Somehow that was a lead-in for another story, about how the tractor incident came about. But his line reminded me of my sister’s line: and then I found five dollars, which she used to make a boring story more interesting.

Saturday, June 19

Monster Killer Bugs

The other night I was walking across location when Todd called to me. When I went to se what he wanted he asked if I wanted some watermelon. I said that I would have a piece, so he started getting it out of the bag. I turned away, and when I looked back he’d taken out half of a watermelon to give me.

Me: I don’t need that much!

Todd: Well, just take it and toss what you don’t want.

Me: Ok?

Today’s Exploit:

While riding in the jeep we encountered some of the bugs that chase me as I run. We had the windows down and two of the flies got in. They immediately began buzzing around our heads. Logan grabbed a hat and started swinging it around. I was cowering in the corner trying not to be smacked by the hat while Logan hit every surface he could come into contact with.

They finally flew out and we shut the windows as fast as we could.

Me: They’re monsters, aren’t they?

Logan: Yeah! They’re Killer Monster Bugs!

We drove a little further before we heard the buzzing again.

Logan: The killer monster bugs are back!

He started swing around again until he stunned it. Then he got a flashlight out to find it and squish it.

Every time we stopped or had to roll the windows down to see after that we did it as quick as possible.

Friday, June 18

Snake!

Last night I was sitting on the rig floor, out of the way, watching the roughnecks work. I try to stay out of the way, but close enough that I can see what is happening. Every so often I’ll pick up something new. While I was watching one of the company men came out.

Co. Man: You’re watching pretty intently, do you want to be pulling slips?

Me: Yes!

Co. Man: No you don’t.

Me: …..

Today’s Exploit:

A few days ago I went riding in “the Jeep” with Logan looking for mud. All of these boys like taking vehicles, jacking them up, putting gigantic wheels on them and getting them muddy.

This translates to getting stuck, thus getting very dirty.

So, naturally we got stuck.

I was closer to dry land, so I jumped out first. Logan dug around the back until he found the control for his winch. In the mean time I was examining our situation. The jeep was in mud that probably would have come up to my knees.

He finally found the control and opened his door.

There was a snake coiled on the little island in the mud pit.

It was a huge snake, and vicious and threatening, and hungry. And it was Going To GET US! It was actually about three inches across all wound up. But neither of us knew what kind it was so we avoided it. We got the winch wrapped around a tree, and I was sent back to the jeep to put it into gear.

We got free without any problem. I give the credit to my amazing skills in letting out the clutch while the winch was winding.

Wednesday, June 16

Inside Out

This morning I decided to just take a short walk. Little Buddy went with me, as usual. She chased a few of the trucks as the guys left. They all went really fast because they get to go home today.

On the way back she was nosing around in the grass. The grass is pretty tall right now, and it nearly hides her. All of a sudden she took off, running as fast as she could through the grass. When it finally petered out she stopped and came back to me, dripping.

I think she preferred this method of bathing to being tortured in a bathtub with running water.

Today’s Exploit:

Last night I was walking across the location when Uncle Mike came up to me. He asked me what was happening on the rig floor. He’d seen the company men, the toolpusher and the directional driller all go up there in a hurry. I didn’t know, so we and another roughneck went up to investigate. We were halfway up the stairs when we heard a loud clang and the rig started rocking.

Mike turned to us:  We’re stuck!

We all went inside to join the party watching Logan jar on the pipe to free it. A few minutes later Billy Joe and Knapp came in to see. While we were all sitting there the toolpusher, Chris, challenged us to turn Styrofoam cups inside out without cracking the bottom. I thought they were trying to trick me, so I just watched for a while.

Apparently it’s possible, and we went through half a stack of cups in our attempts. Billy Joe finally succeeded after about seven cups. He was very proud of it. He filled it with water and tromped around the location showing it to everyone. I got one inside out, but it leaked a little.

The hard part, after they got started, was finishing it. The tops of the cups are thicker than the rest.

Tuesday, June 15

He Can See the Future

It turns out Billy Joe is a barber, disguised as a roughneck. Recently all the guys out here have wanted haircuts. So they disappear for about 30 minutes to the magic little barber shop. When they come back, I like to tease Billy Joe about being the local professional beautician. He gets a little defensive when I said that.

Me: So, you’re the local beautician?

Billy Joe: No! I’m a BARBER. I don’t style hair, I just cut it.

Me: Haha.

Billy Joe: (A little embarrassed) I do know how to dye though, I had to do it to get my certification.

I guess I teased him more than I thought because later I was sitting in my box when I heard the door latch move. I went and opened the door to find two shadows scrambling to get away and Chris telling me that those two tried to lock me in. Billy Joe, Knap and Chris had tied a rope to the handle in an attempt to prevent the door from opening.

Locking the door is far easier than they realize, but I’m not about to tell them that.

Today’s Exploit:

Last night I was sitting in the dog house listening to several guys talk about riding motorcycles and rock crawling and mudding. Logan tried futilely to convince me that motorcycles are safe and I should not only try riding one, but buy his.

After arguing for a while we progressed to mudding. They found out that I had never been. Billy Joe, who apparently thinks he is God, told us that Logan would take me in the morning. He also told us that if I complained that Logan would kick me out of the jeep and make me walk back.

Later I was writing some notes on my computer for later posts when Billy Joe came up and asked to see what I was writing about, and if it was about going mudding.

Billy Joe:  Are you writing about going out in the jeep? Let me read it.

Me:  No way. I cant’ write about something that hasn’t happened yet! It’s just notes.

Billy Joe:  I want to read about the future!

Me:  I thought you could see the future.

Billy Joe:  I just wanted to make sure I haven’t lost my touch.

Logan:  Just sits and watches us bicker, with a half smile.

Monday, June 14

You Should Know

When I was home, my mom wanted to do a “Photo Shoot”. She and my dad both had cameras and took as many pictures as they could. This resulted in many ridiculous pictures and my dad calling me: “you older lady”. My sister was thrilled. I was offended.

Today’s Exploit:

Last night I was the number-one-all-star roughneck. They decided that my tool wasn’t being fast enough, so they wanted to change it out. That means pulling all the pipe and racking it back. It looks like a forest of steel trees with very little foliage right at the very top. The roughnecks decided to blame me for the misfortune of extra work. Billy Joe and Juan decided that my punishment would be to pull slips and make 40 cupcakes.

Slips are the very heavy wedges that go between the pipe and the outside of the well. They keep the pipe from falling back to the bottom. I’ve posted a picture of them here. They are very heavy and rather unwieldy.

I was finally able to get into a pattern pulling slips, getting out of the way for them to rack the pipe, and then numbering it to double check the hole depth and to make sure they had as much as they thought. It was then that Billy Joe decided to start working. He was the one that hassled me the most about “roughnecking”, and then he came and took my job.

Me: Hey!

Billy Joe: Take a break; I’m afraid they’ll give my job to you.

Me: Fine.

Then he tried to start numbering them, too!

Me: Hey! You already took one of my jobs, don’t be taking my other.

Billy Joe: Oh, sorry. I thought you weren’t doing that anymore, you were so slow.

Me: Humph!

Later, when they got to the heavyweight pipe they started over again on the numbering system.

Billy Joe: This one is one.

Me: Ok, thanks.

Billy Joe: The next one is two.

Me: Really? I was a little confused, you had me all discombobulated after making fun of me all night.

Billy Joe: Discon-what-ulation?

Me: Discombobulated.

Billy Joe: You can’t use words like that around roughnecks!

Me: Haha! See what you get for making fun of my numbering skills?

Billy Joe: It goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, and don’t you forget that!

Logan: Billy Joe, draw an arrow down and write Agitator on the last one.

Billy Joe: PJ, write agitator on that one.

Me: Writing

Billy Joe: I’m glad you wrote it, I didn’t know how to spell agitator.

Sunday, June 13

People

I found out last night that most of the crew is supposed to write three stop cards each shift. I was only told to write one. That lasted for all of three days before I forgot, and then never motivated myself to start again. I probably have three hazards in my workplace:

1. Fall asleep and neglect duties

2. Trip over Little Buddy

3. Fall asleep and neglect duties (all 2 of them)

Today’s Exploit:

I thought I would write about each of the people I am working with right now. All of them make me laugh on a regular basis.

Logan:  Soft spoken; I usually have to be looking at him and concentrating as hard as I can to hear/interpret what he says. Likes four wheelers; he constantly talks about them asking me if I know of any good places to ride them (the more mud, the better). Has only broken 4 bones, but broke his ankle 3 times.

Frank:  Used to be a tennis pro, I received a very detailed account when I went in to ask about recycling. He talks constantly about how he hates running, but never fails to ask me how far I went.

Jose:  Speaks very little English. Says cupcakes have too much sugar, but he tried one anyway. He asked if it was ok that he took the frosting off.

Billy Joe:  Always smiles, always. Rubs his head to find his hard hat when it is lost. Will melt in the rain, but is “sour”.

Knapp:  Always looks a little lost, he mostly has a half smile on his face as if he knows something is happening but doesn’t know how to respond.

Chris 1:  Self titled Night Pusher, tour guide, taxi service, snake patrol. Will work for food, but is on a diet. He tells me he’ll run with me to the edge of location, and wait for me until I return to run back

Lee:  Claims he runs in the mornings, but backpedals to walking as soon as he finds out I run.

Chris 2:  ALWAYS smells like fast food.

All others:  Come to visit me so that they can give Little Buddy snacks and pets, sometimes I feel a little left out.

Saturday, June 12

Story Telling

This morning I met a raccoon. It was standing in the little road I was running on when I came around a corner. I saw a dark grey object and stopped really fast. My first thought was, “Crap, it’s a wild pig. And it’s looking at me.” The second thought I had was, “where’s the nearest tree I can climb?” Little Buddy had run a couple steps past me before she saw it and stopped.

The raccoon took us in, then ran to the nearest tree and started climbing. Little Buddy thought this was a good reaction and raced over to the tree where she bounced and barked until she was sure it wouldn’t come down.

Today’s Exploit:

Last night I spend a lot of time on the rig floor, because my box was very dull and I can do the same job of watching the computer up there. Logan, the driller, and Billy Joe were up there. I pulled up a stool and listened to them swap stories. Those guys were crazy kids. I think they may still be pretty crazy, but I only ever see them working.

First we talked about the flying-stinging-scorpions. That’s what they call the monster flies that chase me every morning. I guess if you take the time to look closer they have a similar stinger. I don’t think I’m ever going to take that time. They’d probably have one act as a distraction while five others went in for the kill.

Billy Joe was telling us about his adventures after breaking his jaw (he was back on his fourwheeler a couple days later doing “water-wheelies”) when he realized that it was the only bone he’d ever broken.

Billy Joe: I ain’t never broken a bone, but my jaw.

Logan: I’ve only broken my shoulder, and my collar bone, and my elbow. And my ankle, three times.

Me: Only?

Them: Haha

Me: I’ve never broken a bone, just my nose, twice.

They then asked me how I’d done that, and looked at me like I was the crazy one when I told them.

Friday, June 11

One in the Eye

Today it rained. A lot. It had pretty much stopped when I went to the safety meeting, but it was still drizzling a little. After the meeting I was behind Billy Joe as we walked out. He stopped at the door and just looked out for 37 seconds, assessing the weather.

Me: Are you afraid of the rain?

Billy Joe: I might melt!

Me: Are you made of sugar?

Billy Joe: No, I’m too sour for that.

Me: Hahaha

Today’s Exploit:

This place must have something in the water to make some monstrous flies. It also has something in the air that makes me think that they won’t bother me quite as much today.

A few days ago I was running along and decided to take a little break and walk for a few seconds. I took a step and something caught my eye. I looked down and there they were… eight of the biggest flies I HAD EVER SEEN! I think they were as big as my thumb! And they all wanted to eat me! I tried turning really fast to confuse them, but they were not deterred. They followed my poor calves like they were on leashes. I ran really fast for the rest of that outing.

Today the flies were kamikaze flies. The first one attacked me when I was looking to my right at a section of pipeline. It flew right INTO MY EYE. I turned my head so fast to escape the torture that my shoulders went with it, and my hips followed causing my knee to swing into the path of the other and making me nearly to trip over my own feet.

Just as I regained my balance another attacked my ear. It buzzed around for 0.26 seconds, until I could swat it out. I was very tempted to kill it, but then I probably would have gotten FLY GUTS IN MY EAR! Eew.

A few others put on their kamikaze hats, too, but none were as successful as those two.

Thursday, June 10

I Saved the Day, Twice!

I went and explored the rig today. I watched the roughnecks fix a motor on one of the shakers, and I watched them clean the rig floor. I also decided to be really compulsive and clean out and organize our kit box and logging unit.

Today’s Exploit:

While I was cleaning and singing at the top of my lungs (because no one can hear me but Little Buddy, and she pretends she can’t) the motor man came in and asked me if I had tweezers. He had a lock with a key broken inside. I think he may be more compulsive than me, and in order for the world to be right he had to get the key out of the lock.

So I went and dug around in my car for a while. I discovered that I have three homemade first aid kits in there. I may have to consolidate. In the end I found my surgical tweezers by catching my finger on them. They are quite sharp. But I saved the day!

While I was watching the lock surgery another roughneck came in and told us about a bug bite he’d gotten. I understand it was from a grasshopper. He didn’t want to tell the company man because then he’d probably have to go see a doctor. Lucky for him in my searches for tweezers I’d seen some insect bite and sting relievers. So I went and dug around until I located them again. I saved the day, again!

Now I’m known as the local Jack-of-all-trades. So far I have Doctor, Baker, and MWD. But soon I’ll be able to add Motor-Repair-Person to that list. They have to fix another shaker motor and they’re going to let me play, as soon as it arrives on location.

Wednesday, June 9

Verbal Ejaculations

Today I took some cookies to the safety meeting. I set them on the table so that everyone could pass them around, then I went to find an open seat. The only seat left at the table was next to Billy Joe. This kid cracks me up. Not only does he have the name Billy Joe, he never, never stops smiling. The night before I left he was moving a drill collar from the catwalk to the rig floor and crunched the gate called the v-door. It didn’t even cause the smile to flicker. He spent the rest of the night enduring all sorts of teasing without ever toning down the wattage on his smile. This kid is also very nice, and probably the biggest hillbilly I’ve ever met.

Anyway, my seat was next to him today. When I sat down, he turned to smile at me.

Billy Joe: I was supposed to bring your tin back down to you this morning, but I forgot.

Me: I know, I had to walk all the way up to the rig floor to get it today.

Billy Joe: Yeah, I got chewed out by the driller and the toolpusher because I forgot.

Me: You should remember next time.

Billy Joe: I will! I’ll bring it to you as soon as it’s empty.

Me: Good, because if I don’t get it this time I won’t make more cookies.

(I just played on the roughnecks’ biggest fear here: NO MORE COOKIES! Ack!)

Toolpusher: He’ll bring it to you for sure this time, smelling like roses!

Me: Haha, I don’t care if it smells like roses, I just want it to be shiny clean.

Billy Joe: I can do shiny!

Today’s Exploit:

My sister has a very interesting logic behind most of her actions, logic that I usually don't understand.  For example:

• We were sitting at Olive Garden, waiting for the waiter to bring the check. Suddenly she throws up her hand in salute and yells, “To the Bat-Cave!”

• We were driving down the road when suddenly she starts singing at the top of her lungs (her car radio doesn’t work)

     All the women who are independent
     Throw your hands up at me
     All the honeys who makin' money
     Throw your hands up at me
     All the mommas who profit dollas
     Throw your hands up at me
     All the ladies who truly feel me
     Throw your hands up at me

• At our first concert she would randomly shout out: “Save the environment, adopt!”

She claims that all of them have a good reason, but usually I don’t understand. The last one is the only one that had any context for me. While we were waiting for the gate to open we overheard a couple young girls talking (probably 14 or 15 years old).

Girl 1: I think I’m going to adopt

Girl 2: Yeah, I want to help the environment, so I’m not going to add another kid to it.

Girl 3: I don’t want the pain or stretch marks, either.

Girl 2: Me too. I know adopting one or two kids doesn’t seem like it makes much difference, but at least I’ll be doing something.

Girl 1: Yeah, I want to help too!

Girl 3: I don’t want to have kids or adopt; I just want to live in Africa.

Tuesday, June 8

Sleep Deprivation

I had a very rough morning. So I thought I’d chronicle it. But the chronicling spiraled out of control and ended up being a very detailed description of my entire weekend. I was even able to focus my eyes long enough to edit a little, but not too much.

Today’s Exploit:

My trip back to the mountainous regions of Denver and Laramie was very eventful. So many activities paired with the night schedule I’m used to equated to very little sleep.

First was the excitement of going home. That meant that I went to bed late in the day and only slept 3 ½ hours before anticipation of leaving the rig took over. That morning I decided not to remove my contacts because putting them back in my eyes in a few short hours would be excruciatingly painful. This idea resulted in really dry eyes on the three hour drive to the Dallas airport (that means I had a really hard time focusing. My eyes would randomly get really blurry and I’d have to blink 23 times to be able to see again). The other option, taking them out, would have hurt really badly and I still wouldn’t have been able to see for the tears streaming down my face.

Of course as soon as I got to the airport, where I could take them out and use my glasses, they stopped bothering me.

When I arrived in Denver I spent 18 minutes trying to convince my sister that it didn’t matter what terminal she went to. I tried with all my might to get her to tell me where she was and sit tight. She didn’t believe me, so we ended up wandering all over the place trying to find each other.

On the drive to our lodgings, in addition to Cupcake’s random yelling directed at her GPS, we came across a drug bust. We had stopped at Good Times for some food and 1.68 blocks later we discovered 19 cop cars, lights flashing, surrounding one lowly, beat up, Honda.

We finally stopped talking at 12:43 am and went to bed. It was lovely to sleep, until I woke at 5:30 am. I ate some frozen custard and talked to some very excitable dogs and one disinterested cat.

When Cupcake finally got up at 7:30 we went to the waffle place around the corner. Then we walked around looking at houses for the next three hours. We then decided to go see the plasticized bodies on display at the Museum of Natural History, which meant more walking. After ogling at muscles and hearts and spleens and embryos we decided to leave for our concert and beat rush hour traffic. We arrived two hours before the gates opened, so we walked some more. And took “senior pictures”.

We then stood/danced for 4 hours.

The concert ended at 12:04 am, or somewhere around that time. We stopped for food again and went back to our beds, probably at 12:47.

I woke at 5:30 again.

This day also consisted entirely of walking and/or standing:

Walked to the store
Walked around a farmers’ market
Walked around the mall
Stood in the kitchen while Mary cooked some amazing Greek lasagna
Walked to the Theatre
Stood for the concert
Walked back to get the car

I then got to sit for a while, the problem with this was that I had to stay awake long enough to drive home. My sister said she’d drive half way, but she was not about to be woken when we got to that point. That left me with the option to continue driving, or sleep in a dark parking lot.

I finally got to sleep at 2:43 am. I then woke at 8:06. Luckily this time, after staring at the wall for 27 minutes, I was able to go back to sleep. I woke at 10:21. We were supposed to be at my parents’ house in nine minutes. I still had to wake myself, wake my sister, get her moving, and we both had to get dressed. Then we had to make the eight minute drive. Amazingly we were only six minutes late.

After eating toast and potatoes and ½ a slice of bacon, we took coffee or tea and sat on the porch. It was so nice out, under 83 degrees for sure! We sat there for a while, and then decided to go for a drive to the mountains. On the way there we talked about dandy antelope and spleens affected by leukemia; we also were hit by a hail storm. This storm came on very suddenly with huge chunks of ice beating on the car. We had to yell at the top of our lungs if we wanted to communicate verbally.

The massive downpour of ice chunks did abate before we arrived at a good spot to take pictures of me and the snow. I got out long enough to take four pictures, and throw two snowballs. Then they made me get back in the car because I was shivering.

On the drive back my mom slept in the back seat. I sat in the front with my dad. It was very difficult for me to keep my eyes open. I had help though: every time I would fade out my dad would turn to look at me with something to say. I could feel the thoughts burning into me: hey, I have something to say! So I’d open my eyes half way and he’d tell me about how Delta Nu might be hiring soon, or that at nights the Cowboy cutouts on the new firehouse light up.

After eating fried burritos we went to the viaduct over the train tracks. My mom wanted to take photos of Cupcake and me for a frame she has. Mom, I hope you like all my pictures with puffy eyes and rings around them. We stayed up late looking at the pictures.

It rained that night. Hard. I was on my feet trying to get to the window to save the photos all over the floor before I registered that it was actually raining. I think I’d slept for 2.46 hours. I was able to sleep fitfully for a few more hours, until my dad woke me at 5:30 to go for a run. The one where the antelope blew raspberries at us.

I made it to the airport and through security in time to sit for seven minutes before boarding started. I was also able to sleep on the plane with my head under the head rest. The head rests were the ones that can fold up on the side, but also give you a crank in your neck because they make you lean forward so far. I also occasionally started awake when the person behind me kicked the seat.

I escaped the tangle of highways in Dallas and arrived at the rig with just enough time to put on some coveralls and run to my box. I was able to stay busy for most of the night, talking to the driller, the roughnecks, and doing prep work for another run at drilling the well. This all went smoothly until 4:49, when my eyes would start to cross if I focused on anything longer than three seconds and my arms stopped responding and my ear decided it really liked my shoulder. My only problem was that I was supposed to be conscious for another hour and 11 minutes.

I spent the rest of my shift staring blankly at the computer occasionally realizing that seven minutes had lapsed without my awareness or telling my hand it should reach out and click the mouse for that computer.

When the day hand arrived I walked to the trailer like a zombie on autopilot. I made it into my room and may have taken off my smurf-suit and brushed my teeth before falling into bed.

Monday, June 7

All About Antelope

This weekend I got to go home. It was the first time since my birthday! I went with Cupcake to see the John Butler Trio at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. It was brilliant, and we made some crazy new friends. Then we spontaneously got tickets to La Roux. That was lots of fun, but instead of making friends we got pushed around by adolescent girls.

It was a good workout, though. In addition to climbing the stairs at Red Rocks 4.7 times, we hiked up the street to the Ogden Theatre twice. And we stood/danced the entire time for both concerts.

Today’s Exploit:

After the concerts we drove to Laramie, and finally some cooler weather. I got to go with my parents on a drive to Lake Marie. I threw snowballs and shivered. Then we got ice cream

On the way up my mom saw a field with dandelions.

Mom: Look at the dandelions!

Dad: There are some dandy antelope, too.

Me: Haha.

Mom: The dandelions must be stalking the dandy antelope.

Me: I think in this case the dandy antelope are probably stalking the dandelions.

Mom and Dad: Hahahahahahaha!

The next morning, since we didn’t have time to go skiing before I flew back to the seventh circle of hell (also known as summertime in Texas), I went for a run while my dad rode his bike.

Thirteen steps into the “real” run, after we got off the pavement, I heard a funny noise.

The Mystery: Pththfffttt

Me: What was that?

Dad: A bird?

Me: It sounded like your elephant impression.

Dad: It did!

The Mystery: Pththffftttphft

Dad: There’s an antelope over there, maybe that’s what it was.

Me: Maybe. (I wasn’t wearing my corrective lenses, so it looked like more dirt and rocks. Maybe a bush)

The run continued and my traitorous lungs tried to make me turn around at least every 2.45 minutes. My ankles held up nicely, though. The trail had lots of loose rocks.

We were almost back when we heard it again

The Mystery: Pththfffttt

Dad: It was an antelope!

Me: Hunh.

Dad: I’ve never heard an antelope before!

Me: Me either…pant, gasp.

My lungs: Stop right now! Or I’ll never work again!

Update: My lungs are still rebelling. They’re pretending that it’s my shoulder muscles that hurt. But I’m on to them.

Wednesday, June 2

Biting Flies

This morning I read an entry in EPBOT, the new blog by the author of Cake Wrecks. She listed some blogs that she likes, so I scanned through a couple of them. They were okay, humorous, but none really grabbed my attention until I got to Hyperbole and a Half. This one sucked me in. My eyes blurred and I had tears streaming down my face before I was halfway through the first post. Hyperbole and a Half is my new favorite blog, which means that I will spend the next 11 hours and 37 minutes reading it incessantly. This also means that I will forget to do anything remotely connected to my job.

Today’s Exploit:

This morning I went for a short run. I wanted to warm up for today’s workout video. I grabbed my hat, to divert flies from attacking my head in swarms and headed out. I made it 16 ½ steps before I nearly inhaled my first fly. It was one of those flies that will take a huge chunk of your flesh and leave a welt the size of a small marble on the back of your head. I choked and gagged and spit it out, covering myself in saliva in the process.

I cleaned myself up and started out again. I covered 0.0237 miles before the second fly hit me in the face, narrowly missing my mouth. I gagged and spit and slobbered all over myself in remembrance of the first one.

I got another 3 steps in before the next one flew into my mouth. I hacked and gagged and choked and, finally, spit the dang thing out.

Me: WHAT IS WITH THE FLIES TODAY?!

Little Buddy: *Head cocked* (was that a squirrel I heard?)

I ran the rest of the way with one hand in front of my mouth and the other swinging furiously at any fly, dust mote or sparkle that came within range.

I still managed to nearly eat three more flies, each time slobbering all over myself. When I returned from my 20 minute run I was drenched, but it was mostly drool.

While I wasn’t choking on flies I spent the rest of my run changing directions. I met 3.75 more cars than I had any desire to (4 passed me). The only way I’ve found to get Little Buddy out of the way is to turn around. That’s the only way I can get her to actually come to me on a run.

UPDATE:  This post really tickles me, mostly because of the title.  It makes me giggle with the double meaning every time I look at it.

Today I'm Marley

I went running this morning. Little Buddy came with me. Usually this is not a problem unless she leaves with someone before I go, and I catch her. Then she gets really excited and jumps on me and tries to make me fall down. Today, though, I decided to do some agility moves. Cutting from side to side, for example, or shuffling to one side and turning that into a sprint forward or backward. Little Buddy thought these were fun. She really wanted to be between my feet when I tried to change direction or behind me when I backpedaled. I used to think she was scared of feet.

Today’s Exploit:

The other day I was sitting in the safety meeting, minding my own business and twiddling my thumbs. I happened to look up at Joe, a company man.

Joe: I’m sorry Marley; I shouldn’t be talking about going home. You don’t get breaks like us.

Me: Haha (I had no idea what you were talking about.)

Joe: Well, I’ll wait to talk about it later…nanana Nana na na na Ma nama na…

(This is where Lee, another company man, catches my attention and raises an eyebrow. I shrug. Meaning: I thought your name was PJ. Why, yes it is, but I answer to whomever is looking at me while talking)

Later on the radio:

Joe: Pick up, Marley

Me: Yes? (muffled by laughter)

Joe: Oh, wait. That’s another rig. You’re PJ. What was the TVD for that last survey?

Me: (I’m glad you cleared that up. I had forgotten who and where I was) 5438.91

Joe: …ks

These guys haven’t learned that you have to press the mic a couple seconds before their voice transmits. I’ve gotten a few calls that sound like this:

Caller: …ay
Silence

Caller: PEE JAY. With. Schlumberger.

Me: Yes?
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