"Starla Was Really ‘Barassed', as Cupcake would say

I went to the store today for breakfast.  

I ended up with pasta, pasta sauce and pasta soup.

Today’s Exploit:

Did I tell you that my last rig was on the beach?  

It was.

The beach is a windy place.  

The rig is a dusty place.

The rig on the beach is a humid place.

By the time I left the rig Starla was covered in an inch of dust.

Ok, maybe not a whole inch.  

I could barely see out my door windows.  The only thing I could make out through the rearview was headlights late at night.  

I finally broke down and went to a gas station just to use their window washers.  And I dirtied all the soapy water they had getting that mud of the rear windshield.  Also, I got to where I could tell where Starla was by the dirt in the wind.  And the fact that she was the only car that was dirt colored.  

We got home last night.  

We spent most of the drive with people staring at us.  

At first I thought that I was just passing a larger amount of nosy people than usual.  

Then I remembered the color of my car.  I laughed a lot.  Starla blushed.

So, today, when I went to get some milk I decided that I should probably wash her.  Partly because I was getting filthy every time I tried to go somewhere.  And partly because Starla was very self-conscious with all that dust.  

Walking Three Miles in New Sandals = Blisters

Yesterday someone stopped and asked me for directions while I was out running.  I was lucky they narrowed the options down to continuing on this road or going back to the last intersection.  

I have no idea where HWY 77 is.  Sheesh.

Today’s Exploit:

The other day was a casing break for me.  All I had to do was wait on the rig to finish installing casing, cementing and testing.  

So I went to Corpus Christi to explore a bit.  I found a pop-out shade for my window.  Betty-Boop.  I think Starla likes rocking the Betty-Boop look.  They even wear the same colors.  

I also walked along the bay.  They have a nice long path along the water.  I was tempted to join, but it was 11:30 am and 562 degrees.  And I only had sandals.

It was nice enough, with a Slurpee, that I walked for about 2.13 hours.  Naturally I ended up with a few splotches of sunburn where the sunscreen wasn’t up to the battle with the wind.  

By the time I got back to Starla, it was so hot I had to go find an ice cream shop.  And I had to sit outside to eat said ice cream.  Of course I ended up with half the ice cream in my hair and splattered across my face from it getting in my hair.  And dripping down my arm.

And that was my excitement for casing break.  

The Fly Capital of the World

Whew, this is three posts I’ve written today.  I’m worn out.  I think I need a nap.

Today’s Exploit:

This place is the fly capital of the world, I think.  I shoed 7 out the door, killed 10 and still had 17 buzzing around my head and landing on my cinnamon rolls.  

Gross.  

And that’s inside.  

Outside...

Mostly it’s ok because the wind is blowing at a hurricane force gail most of the time.  It’s nice because it’s some movement of the air in this incessant heat.  And it keeps most of the creepy-crawlies away.

But,

In front of our trailer, the one that is hiding behind the other crew trailer.  There was a sewage leak, and the other trailer shelters it from the wind.  

The flies gather in swarms.

Gross.

Please Don’t Call Me That, I’m Not That Old

I’m so proud of myself. I just made a menu and grocery list for an entire week! That has never happened before in my life.

Unless you count planning for Thanksgiving as planning for a week. It makes enough food for a week.

Today’s Exploit:

Have I ever mentioned that I hate being called Ma’am?

Well I do.

And I can’t get away from it.

Everyone and their dog says Ma’am automatically here.

I can handle Darlin’ and even don’t hate Baby-doll, but Ma’am…

When I first started working here it made me still want to jump out of a tall, tall window. Since it happens 48 million times a day, I’ve learned to tolerate it. To the point that I only grit my teeth. Every so often I try to ask the rig hands not to Ma’am me. It goes something like this:

Them: …, Ma’am.

Me: Please don’t call me Ma’am.

Them: Yes, Ma’am

Me: BIG sigh.

It’s on my hate list right below the heat. And just above the 60 mph wind when I try to play Ultimate Frisbee.

Retired Princess Seeks Employment

As always, when I find a new blog that I like, I am reading it ceaselessly. I have also discovered my new favoritest most awsomestest fairy tale. It’s probably one for the ages.

I’ll smile and nod knowingly when I see it in collections alongside “Cinderella”, and “Beauty and the Beast”, and “The Little Matchstick Girl”.

Today’s Exploit:

Shortly after my histrionics over Brutus the rig floor computer, when all was running smoothly, I retired from my stint as Princess of the Oilfield. I think I’d rather be an Ugly Step-Sister. The one who goes on to become famous for her magnificent secret recipe/super addicting cookie-confections (who cares what the cook looks like, the prettier/socially adept ugly step-sister gets to be the waitress).

Being imperious takes too much self discipline. I have almost none.

Also I decided that the 3.62 inches of powdery dust on the floor was aggravating enough that I had to sweep. I was tired of having to lift my throne any time I wanted to adjust my royal view.

Sweeping is a very large ordeal in my micro-box. The dust is always very fine, and given to pouffing in one’s face and taking 3.8 hours to settle. The bit that doesn’t pouf is cemented to the floor due to the “traction” grooves (whose only purpose in life is to make rolling office chairs/princess thrones more difficult).

Anyway, I ended up with a 2.7 ton pile of dust, with another 4.2 tons hanging in the air. And being scatter-brained and overly ambitious I KICKED it out the door, right into a nice stiff breeze.

Cue choking and crying, stumbling out into some relatively fresh air.

Donut: an Epic Journey

Tad the Driller: Hey you guys, we should have PJ come up here more often. I’ve never seen you work this hard!


Byrd the Hand: I quit smoking in January. I traded my cigarettes for Twinkies.

Today’s Exploit:

Today I took some donuts to the guys working on the rig. They were pretty ecstatic. The first thing they did was tell the guy working in the derrick. (He’s 90 feet above the rig floor, so they only let him come down once in a while.)

He really likes donuts; they were doing their best to torture and provoke him. Then they decided they’d be nice and send one up to him. So they tied a string through it, pendulum style. Then they tied it to the handle of the elevators (the clasp that hooks around pipe to move it up and down above the rig floor).

Naturally the wind was blowing. The donut was banged against the pipe a few times on the way up, collecting spots of mud and anything else coming out of the well.

Hammer the Driller: Sorry Stephen, we tried.

Stephen: That’s okay, I’ll still eat it.

Hammer the Driller: I bet you won’t!

Stephen: I will! I’ll have it eaten by the time I rack that stand back!

By the time the donut got to him it nearly looked like a chocolate covered one, rather than the plain we sent. But, true to his word, he grabbed it and shoved the whole thing in his mouth before setting the pipe in the stand.

Everyone on the floor was looking up, to see what his reaction would be. They found him quite entertaining.

PS Dad: Today you should make leftovers!

And the Next Day

An inspired Haiku from my sister.  I'm hanging it on my virtual fridge:

haiku for you:

you know what i want?
i want a cinnamon roll.
you're sch a weirdo.
the end.

Today’s Exploit:

After I graduated, and after I played with fire for a while and when I still didn’t like engineering, I went to the family cabin. I stayed there a week. Alone. With the clouds. I’m pretty sure 98.6% of my family thought I was crazy. But, then I already knew that.
I read books and baked muffins and went hiking. But only because there was no snow and I couldn’t ski. And I chopped wood. A lot of wood. With a little axe. It was a lot of work. But I did some every day. I was very proud of myself. And Eric was jealous because he couldn’t chop the pieces when he’d tried. Rawr!



This is what I looked like, except without the do-rag, or the curl. And probably I wore an orange vest and had blonde hair. But other than that it’s exactly what I looked like.

 I had many lovely adventures climbing rocks and howling with the coyotes. And everything was very fall-y, like this:

Except the aspen leaves kept falling and attacking me.

But then my week was over and my parents came to stay the weekend with me. We had soup and toast and talked about better times. Then I slept on the porch to escape the heat. And the next day it snowed. And it snowed. And snowed. Until we almost didn’t make it back to town. But of course we made the best of it and built a turtle.

…And they all three stood, ready to fight the evil emperor with only sticks to shield themselves…

We made the turtle armed with sticks and a pair of rubber dish-washing gloves and a dog. The dog was mostly a hindrance because she thought she was supposed to bite the snowballs we were making. That was probably why we ended up with a turtle, instead of a man, made of snow. *Notice how my father is appropriately dressed for the weather in a Hawaiian shirt.

We had heaps and heaps of snow. I bet you can’t imagine what happened the next day…

Ok, ok. So it wasn’t the next DAY. It was a little longer than that.

I flew! And when I landed I was in the very spot I stood next to the mutant snow turtle.

The End.

PS Dad: Today you should make Italian Wedding Soup!

Cabbage Hunt

At dinner with my parents and my sister somehow our conversation turned to spitting. I took a sip of my drink, but they made me laugh before I could swallow. So they started joking about spitting juice and milk, and laughing too hard and having it come out one’s nose. They started arguing about what might be worst.

Mom: Root Beer’s the roost! (we're pretty sure she meant "worst")

Everyone else: HAHAHAHA!

Dad: And Mike’s is Yikes! (my sister and I were drinking Mike’s Hard Lemonade)

Everyone else: HAHA HAHAHAHAH!

Today’s Exploit:

After a large breakfast of Buttermilk Biscuits and excellent cantaloupe my parents and I were stuffed. My dad suggested taking a walk. I thought it was a good idea, but my mom was hesitant. So I told her she should go with us.

She acquiesced. My dad was shocked that she agreed. Usually if she says no, that’s the final answer. I joked that it was peer pressure.

My dad cracked up and started “peering” at my mom, staring with his face contorted into a rather macabre mask. He claims he’ll use this in the future. I fear for my mother.

The next conversation was where we should walk. Should we go to the Greenbelt path? Or up into the mountains at Vedawoo (Ve da-VOO). Then they came up with the idea that we should walk around the university campus looking for cabbages.

They told me that a few weeks ago campus was covered with cabbages. Today we found 7. We walked for ages and ages. And in the process we toured the new IT center, the greenhouse, and the new Anthropology museum.

We also had a pinecone fight and “walked around” meaning my dad walked really fast in circles in front of my mom and I.  I tried to get an example of his shenanigans, but he caught on to what I was doing and was uncooperative.

Another adventure was throwing pinecones at the tyrannosaurus rex. The local lore is that it’s good luck if one can get a pinecone in its mouth.

PS Dad: Tonight you should make Macaroni and Cheese

Bike Ride From Hades

Today I discovered the stats section of my blog. I can look at a map that shows me where people looking at my blog are, by country. I was under the impression that my parents, sister and maybe an aunt ready my blog.

I was flummoxed to discover that people from Canada, Australia and Denmark have read my blog. Also four people from Tunisia. I’m not sure where that is, but now I have to research it. And Luxembourg. I hope you people are enjoying my adventures.

It would be shocking to learn that I can make people outside my family laugh. Another thing that baffles me is: how in the world do you find MY blog? I’m certainly not advertising. All I can say is WOW.

Today’s Exploit:

During my holiday my dad decided we needed to go on a bicycle ride. Every night we’d say we should go the next day. But somehow it didn’t happen to nearly the last day. We finally got it together and went riding. Probably the only thing that got me back to the truck was the idea of homemade waffles.

We drove into the mountains and found a nice deserted dirt road that said: Dead End Ahead. Hoping that it was more that .173 miles to the dead end we got the bikes out and hopped on.

After .073 miles the road turned to a two track. (A little trail that has seen some four wheeling vehicles, but not safe for Mom’s Subaru or my baby Civic.) It was then that I found the first patch of sand. Sand is very difficult to ride in. The tires slide all over, and I have absolutely no control over direction. Rather like hydroplaning or sliding on ice.

But I made it through and went on to the first hill. This hill was nearly never-ending, and steep. I think we rode that way for 81.3 miles. We got to the top only to discover another hill, not quite as long, but covered in loose rocks. Rocks are just as treacherous as sand, and much more intimidating. I made it to the top to discover a fence, then a ridge that I had no desire to traverse. Maybe if I had rock climbing gear.

We turned around and went back down the scary, rocky hill to a fork in the road. We followed the fork to an even steeper, longer hill. We rode down that hill, through sand and rocks and ruts and side slopes until my hands were about to fall off from holding the breaks so tight. That hill was 103.8 miles long.

Then came the fun part. We got to turn around and go back up the mountain to get to the truck. It took me a long time to get started because I’m one of the biggest scaredy-cats anyone will ever meet on a bicycle. (I have scars to validate my reasons.) I had to find just the right place to get enough momentum to get my foot into the toe-clip, but not slide sideways into a ravine.

I finally got started and managed to ride 51.8 miles up the side of the cliff before my legs and lungs gave out. (I think it takes at least 47 days to get used to the altitude after living at sea level for most of a year.) The only thing that got me started again was the prospect of waffles.

This time I only made it .87 miles before I came to a slope that was covered with a combination of sand and rocks, and was nearly upside down it was so steep. So I decided to try to walk it. Unfortunately by this time my legs were approximately the consistency of warm rubber. I could hardly stand. But somehow I forged forward and made it up the hill. I even got my bike up there with me.

I finished the last 387 miles on the bike since it wasn’t quite as steep. I finally got to go down a gentle slope (it was much steeper on the way up) only to land in the most massive sand pit yet. I nearly ran into a forest of thistles, but stopped in the nick of time.

I dragged myself the last 3 miles to flop in the truck and ride back like an abused rag doll. I dreamt of waffles the whole way. They would be heavenly, with buttermilk and homemade chokecherry syrup. It’s one of the most amazing breakfasts in the world. Who cares that it was 1:30 pm by the time we got home?

And they were amazing and delicious. And I’ll dream of them for years.

The bad part was that my parents made me cook them in my state of soft, pliable rubber. Possibly by that point I was the consistency of Jello.

Cheating

When I am in the mountains I like to sleep outside. I usually sleep on the porch at the family cabin, but when it is occupied I have taken to sleeping in a cot near the campfire.

This works quite well, except on the nights we have campfires. Then the drunken boys hang out there until the wee hours of the morning playing with fire. Then they spend 38 minutes asking me if I’m sure I don’t need any more wood for the night.

All I really want is for them to go to bed. And I’m very tempted to point out to them that I did just fine last night, with no fire at all!

But it probably wouldn’t sink in. They’re drunk, after all.

Today’s Exploit:

While in the mountains I went for a hike to the almost top of Kennedy Peak. I went with most of the other kids. (The definition of Kid, in this case, means under 50, Ok, ok. Probably 35)

Anyway, the kids asked the adults how far the trip from the cabin to Kennedy Peak would be.

Parents: Probably .75 miles from the bridge to the turnoff, then another 3 to the peak. It’s about a 5 mile trip from here.

Kids: We’ll drive to the turnoff and hike from there.

Parents: Ok, we’ll see you later.

So the kids drive off into the sunset.

It was more along the lines of 3 miles from the bridge to the turnoff, and the sign said another 6 to the peak. So we decided to drive a bit further. No one thought to look at the odometer. So we stopped when we guessed we’d gone 3 miles. Eric parked the truck, we all piled out and strapped water to Brian’s pack and headed off toward the peak.

A good long while later Larry cruised buy on a four wheeler. He went to the peak and on the way back tracked the mileage. We had 2.9 miles to go. Then he went back to the truck to see how far we’d come. He came back and announced that the truck was 3.7 miles from the peak.

Everyone was a bit disgruntled about that. We’d been walking for hours! Ok, maybe 38 minutes.

After a few more dust showers as Larry drove by showing off, or playing, he told us we could cut off about half a mile by getting off the road and climbing straight up the mountain. So we did. We cheated. We blithely struck off into the little bit of scrub clinging to the side of the mountain thinking we’d make it to the top in no time flat.

Eric and Lindsay and Brian had no problem jumping up the hill like Billy goats. Elissa and I have been residing at lower elevations, and had a bit more trouble.

And then came the wind.

Over the course of about 10 steps the wind felt as though it had tripled in ferocity. At that point I wanted to put my sweatshirt on, but was afraid to untie it from my waist. I thought I’d never see it again. The wind would take it to Timbuktu before I even registered it was no longer in my grasp.

I also was afraid of moving too quickly, less the wind grab me and through me down the steep mountain we’d just climbed. I’d probably end up in Timbuktu as well.

We decided that the wind was too much, and didn’t make it to the top of the peak, and didn’t get to see the fire lookout. But we did make it back to the road without anyone flying away. So we thought it was a successful trip.

PS Dad: Tonight you should make Beer-braised Beef with Onions.

Oh, The Heat!

My work computers have a program that allows access by other computers. The Directional Driller on this job has been using this program to monitor the angle and direction of the well. At first he was pretty good about just looking, but lately he’s started to move windows around, and make changes to my logs.

I find this very irritating, and finally had enough when he did it while I was working in another program on that computer. I had to shut him out. Luckily I can check a box that lets him see, but not touch, or move, or change. I love that little checked box.

Today’s Exploit:

I am still attempting to run every day. But things have gone down hill since the rain. The following day I couldn’t go because my shoes were still wet. After that I ran, but I’m pretty sure it was a shuffle that was slower than my walking pace.

That day I went right after work. I don’t know what the temperature was, but it was hot enough for me to drip sweat while sitting in the shade. But I ran as much as I could.

I was doing alright, until I stopped for a break. That’s when I felt the heat kick in, mostly in my face. And my head felt like it was going to explode. I couldn’t escape, because it was 158 degrees in the shade, with 182% humidity.

I walked the rest of the way.

Last night I waited until almost eight to start. It helped tremendously. And the breeze picked up when I was almost finished. It was amazing! I have decided that I love the wind. I’ll probably hate it again when I visit home in cool weather, but for now it’s my bestest friend.