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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?