It Will Probably Be My Own

The countdown has started.  We have to be off this location in 10 days or less.  

I’m jumping with joy.

Today’s Exploit:

A few days ago we had a big wind storm.  It came rolling over the horizon 32.4 minutes before it hit us.  I watched as it progressed, sitting outside in the ridiculous heat of a Texas fall.  

Incredibly, when it hit the temperature immediately dropped 11.72 degrees and it almost felt like fall.

Anyway, a result of this storm was the satellite dish moving.  Now that it’s not perfectly aligned it looks as though the TV is having a seizure.  The screen pixelates and the sound blips on and off with an irritating squeak.  

I’m not too worried about the video quality, but the sound drives me up the wall.  No one else seems to care that every 1.83 seconds the sound screeches on or off.  They sit and stare vacantly at the colorful blur, or go on with their normal conversations and arguments.  

I, on the other hand, am ready to tear someone’s hair out listening to the constant cheeping.

How does that not drive them to club the screen and/or receiver with the nearest blunt object?  After 46 seconds of this I’m ready to drop-kick both across the location.

My Job is Being Quiet, Alternate Title: I will always win the quiet game

Last night I sat in the trailer and watched TV all night. It was strangely exhausting.

It must have been that time I got up to make macaroni and cheese that wore me out.

Today’s Exploit:

When Dave and Charles and Chris are all in the trailer they’re always telling stories. They tell hunting stories, embarrassing stories, fishing stories, work stories. And they talk about chickens a lot.

Every so often they notice me. The conversations go something like this:

Charles: You haven’t said much, what are you doing over there?

Me: Making a sandwich.

Charles: Just being quiet, huh?

Me: Yep, that’s my job.

Chris: How much does it pay?

Me: Not much, but it’s steady.

Chris and Charles: Hahahaha.

Now every time one of them comes in they ask me what I’m doing, but before I have a chance to reply they say, “Just being quiet?” So I just smile and go on with what I’m doing.

Today Charles was standing in the kitchen, in my usual place.

Me: You don’t look very awake today.

Charles: (nods) I’m just being quiet.

Me: Oh, taking over my job?

The Scottish and the Wannabe-s

I have recently become aware that I have a very short attention span. The news says that kids have a hard time focusing because they watch TV too much, and the image is always changing and shows are continually interrupted with commercials.

I would like to say that TV is the reason I have the attention span of a three year old, but I don’t watch it very often. And books don’t have built in interruptions. My only excuse is that I find my job very dull sometimes. I watch my instructor and pretend I’m attentive, but really I’m noticing the grass growing. Or the person playing on their phone, or the dust motes in the sunlight.

I think I may be in trouble. I have to take an exam tomorrow, and I have no idea what the instructor talked about today, or yesterday…

Today’s Exploit:

Last night I went to dinner with some friends from South America. We met in school. And they all came back for school again. So we went to the bar and had appetizers and alcohol.

Then they decided we needed to play ping pong. NEEDED.

So we found a room with a table, and set up the net. Then the guy from Brazil told us how to play Rotations. It is a very complex explanation for many, many one point games with constantly changing “teams”. But we eventually figured it out. And we had lots of fun, and spent much time laughing.

Then the new guys came in. They played air hockey for a while before they decided to join us, and try to learn the rules. That’s when things got interesting.

Some of them had never held a paddle before, but thought they were amazing. Some of them were very good, but very drunk and therefore thought they should make up new rules each point. So the structure of our game deteriorated quickly. But the humor greatly increased.

See, two of the new guys were from Scotland. So we didn’t understand much of what they said. A third new guy was from Colorado, but really wanted to be from Scotland, so he spoke with a Scottish accent all night. The guys from Scotland just egged him on, so most of their conversations deteriorated into incoherent yelling after 4.27 seconds. But they were having a good time making no sense.

The rest of us were completely in awe of the ridiculousness of these people, so we had to stop playing our game and just watch the madness.

I spent the next three hours laughing. And watching the new guys play what appeared to be a charade of ping pong. And every 5.8 seconds I’d climb off my chair and retrieve the ball for them, before they had a chance to knock me down by crawling under it. I wouldn’t put something like that past any of them.

PS Dad: I am supposed to be studying right now, so you’ll have to find your own dinner ideas.

Short Stack

I am currently addicted to Ginger Ale, Simply Raspberry Lemonade, Grapefruit juice and Original Goldfish. This is all I’ve consumed for the past three days. Somehow I’m okay with that.

Today’s Exploit:

I’ve been hearing a phone that sounds like the ice cream truck. It makes me sad every time I hear it. Because I can’t get any ice cream.

I’ve gotten to work with an engineer who, last time I worked with, I thought was shy and quiet and reserved. Apparently after the first meeting he is talkative and quite social. I’ve learned about his past seven jobs, his camera and his nephew. Maybe it’s because we live and work in the same room this time.

Both of the directional drillers are quite funny. And talk all the time. And they don’t get offended when I laugh at them, which is about every 3.75 minutes.

I miss my mattress.

I think TV on rigs should be banned.

The end

PS Dad: Today you should make Cornbread! I don’t need to link this one do i?

Squishing My Squishy

My sister likes to tease my mom about things she used to say when we were fighting. So now she randomly spouts off things like: What did I tell you? It’s her current favorite, along with the word obscene. She uses it to describe pretty much anything. Mostly it’s pretty funny, but sometimes it takes me a while to process.

Today’s Exploit:

While at my last rig I was chased out of my box by another MWD watching stupid, appalling reality shows on TV. So I went to the rig floor to harass the hands. They were very good natured about it and talked to me.

They made me laugh lots, and told me about what they do on their time off. One of them builds computers from scratch: much smarter than me=what in the world are you doing in the OIL FIELD? One of them plays 7 instruments and entertains at clubs and sells “beats” to famous people: very talented=what in the world are you doing in the OIL FIELD?

Also they like to tease each other. Chris told me that Joseph acts tough but is really squishy inside.

Joseph: Yes, you know those stress balls? The blue and green globe ones?

Me: Yes.

Joseph: Well that’s what I have inside.

Me: Oh.

Joseph: People get stress relief by squishing my squishy.

Chris and Me: look at each other and burst out laughing

Joseph: Wait, that sounded bad. I didn’t mean it that way…

Chris and Me: laughing harder

I spent the next 12.7 minutes laughing until I was crying because Joseph kept trying to explain and making his story even more hilarious.

PS Dad: You should make Chicken Enchiladas for dinner. Just getting a head start here.

PPS: I wanted to call this post Squishy, but it turns out I already named one that. I am a little overwhelmed by this

I Win!

Today I had to crawl under the desk to release some cables. They were not working, so I was pulling them out to roll up. When I got back to take a survey my keyboard wasn’t working. And I had the hiccups.

So I tried to get the survey on the other computer. That keyboard wouldn’t work either. Nothing else gave me problems.

Finally, through the haze of hiccups, and people asking for printouts and the DD that talks incessantly while picking his teeth with a toothpick I solved the problem. The keyboards had come loose when I pulled the other cables out. That was all, just two keyboards out of the 4583 wires and cables and cords jumbled under the desk.

Today’s Exploit:

We lost power in the trailer today just as I was getting up. They came and banged on the door and asked if the breaker box was in my room. I told them 47 times to wait, (language barrier again) and finally got to the door. My first thought was: Haha they can’t watch TV! My seconds was: Shoot, my popsicles are going to melt!

I guess it wasn’t the breaker box, and something happened to make all the trailers lose power. I hope not too many people have ice cream.

After the meeting I went back to the trailer and ate some “breakfast”. The power was back on. It’s magic. Either that or the electricity likes me better. Dun duh duh dun! I win.

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.

"No TV"

The other night we were tripping to start another run.  I left the Box to go eat and ended up watching tv.  (I believe I mentioned the Outdoor channel.)  When I came back I found that the computer had gone to sleep.  It was the other MWD's so I had to wake her to get the passwords. 

I came back to try them.  I couldn't even get the first one to work.  I tried every combination of capitalization I could think of but nothing worked.  I finally looked a little closer.  She'd given me her email ID and password.  So really there was nothing I could do unless I wanted to wake her again.

I decided to make do with my computer.

Today's Exploit:

I went to the safety meeting the other morning.  The night Company Man was very excited because he was leaving as soon as the meeting was over.  His good mood spread and all of the crew was making jokes.

One said that he was getting old because he was sore from tripping.

CoMan: You're not old. I have children older than you.  One's 32, one's 35 and one's 31.

Roughneck: Wow, you kept her busy.  Didn't want her to leave, huh?

CoMan: We had no TV. Ok, Tom, start the meeting.

I think he was a little embarrassed by that comment because he started the meeting before anyone had time to think about what he said.

The meeting went on and the safety topic was covered, and the joking began again.

Roughneck:  Hurry, we need to park the forklift next to the Cattle Gap.

Me: Hahahahaha. (I think it's hilarious that they call a cattle guard a cattle gap)
Makes me think of 2 groups of cattle with a gap between them.
Although a cattle guard could bring to mind something like a Mountie or Royal Guard

CoMan:  You'd better not get in my way.  I'll body-slam a man.

Me: Hahahaha

He did go on to tell a story about how he had some guy up off the floor, threatening to body slam him, but it wasn't near as funny. 

Ta ta for now. I'm off to do business.

TV Adventure

Today I didn't have much to do.  I played on the computer, watched some TV, doodled...I am fascinated by the old Nashbar logo.  I can't find it anywhere, and I can't get it to look right, but I try, nonetheless.

I was going to make some cookies, but then the day MWD and DD went to bed, and I didn't want to be too loud, and I lost my motivation. 

Today's Exploit:

Instead of cooking I watched TV with the night DD for a while.  I'm not sure if he was interested in the show, or we were both just too lazy to pick up the remote.  We ended up watching the Outdoor channel for about 3 hours.  I wasn't terribly interested in the shows, but I was fascinated by the commercials.  Especially the ones for women's outdoor apparrel.  They cracked me up.  All of the women had their hair perfectly fixed, down and in the way, they wore makeup as well.  Hahahaha.  Who in the world is going to get up at 2 or 3 in the morning to curl their hair and put on makeup so that they can go out at 4 and shoot a deer or elk?  I'm sure it happens, but really.

I also entertained myself by doing dishes.  That is pretty sad, considering I hate doing dishes.  I also bleached the counters to get rid of the little ants.  The are about as big as fleas, but they're the only ones that have ever bitten me.  And it's not fun.  Also I somehow managed to get bleach on my shirt.  It was one I liked, too. Dang.