Tuesday

Tuesday I woke up early because a storm was coming through and a huge clap of thunder went off right over the staff house. It also rained so hard it created a 6 inch puddle that took up the entire parking lot. I got up and showered, ate breakfast (mmm leftover pasta from the night before, no ants) and took the car to the base. I breathalyzed into the base (Again, sober) and went into the office.

Once again, I ended up in the back room. I locked down my computer and went and said hi to some of my friends who came back from days off. Then I sat around for a while. I read a little, I paid bills, I talked to coworkers. When I’m at the base with no current job there’s not much for me to do. That’s not completely true, I do have some re-certifications to work on online and some new training to do, but I’ve been waiting for a nice quiet rig to work on them.

Finally, at around 2 we had stuff mostly ready to discuss my next job. They were still missing a lot of information from the client, which happens a lot, but we knew the basics.  We talked mostly about what frequency to program the tool with so that it could send me information up the hole and I would actually receive it.  Low frequencies travel further, but can get lost in the ‘noise’ the mud pumps create.  We finally came to a decision and got other critical information figured out. 

The next step is always to get PPE (personal protection equipment) from the base store. I also ordered new coveralls (yay!) and rain boots (which are two sizes too big, but better than wet feet).  We always get plenty of gloves, ear plugs, safety glasses, duct tape, electrical tape, and WD-40.  The necessities.

We packed up everything from the office and got in one of the vans we use for transport and stopped to pick up everyone’s stuff. That usually takes an hour or more. Then we shop for groceries.  Lately, all of my rigs have been ones where we cook for ourselves. I’ve gotten better at figuring out what meals are that people like to eat and what it’s possible to make on the rig. But it’s always nice when there’s someone around who actually enjoys cooking and does it well. One of our three person crew assures us he can cook rig-gourmet and so we leave the major shopping decisions up to him.

Monday

I’ve been wanting to try something a little different for a while now and I think I found a good chance to do that.  After being in Colorado for a while I’ve realized how hard it is to figure out what I actually do day-to-day. I’ve decided the only way to give a picture of that is to actually write about the day-to-day on a day-to-day basis. Of course I’m under no such delusion that I’ll actually be able to do that all the time, so we’re going to try it for a week.  Originally I wanted to start on Monday because I was in the base and figured I’d start a new job and you’d get to see all aspects of my job, at the base and in the field. Of course I was correct and thus it’s already Wednesday and I’m at the rig after being up all night and I have no internet to post. So I’m going to still start with Monday, but you probably won’t be reading this Monday. Or Tuesday. Or even Wednesday depending on when my internet gets here… So think back to Monday. Pretend its Monday.

Monday I woke up to someone slamming their door downstairs. I looked at my phone and realized I didn’t set an alarm and the car to the base was probably arriving in 5 mins.  I got ready super-fast and sure enough the car was there. They didn’t have to wait for me very long and we were on our way to the base. I breathalyzed into the base (I was sober, not a surprise at 9 am) and went into the office. 

We have a million trainees right now, and a lot of them are at the base getting ready for school or getting their training done so they can go to the rig. Because of this the engineer room was full and I went back to sit in the conference room at the back of the office with a few others. I arrived back from a job on Sunday, so in addition to my computer, I was also responsible for the two work computers we had with us on the job.  I locked up all three computers. I also introduced myself to two new trainees we (more Americans! I’m not alone anymore!) and checked in with another trainee about to take his pre-school test.

Week of the Mariachi

Have you ever been to a really tacky Mexican restaurant? Or to a really good Mexican restaurant?  If there was a live band playing (without an accordion) chances are it was a mariachi band.  Guadalajara is famous for them and believe it or not, actual real Mexicans do listen to mariachi music. They even occasionally hire mariachi bands to come play at special events. On rare occasions, somebody drinks a little too much tequila or Corona or Modelo or whatever and decides that a Tuesday night at the staff house is a special enough occasion to warrant a mariachi. Or a half mariachi because a proper mariachi is 10 or more and our mariachi was only 5, or so I’m told.

First, some background:

This is actually from a different party,
But the hat is awesome. 

This last week there must have been some strange alignment of planets because a very rare event occurred. There were about 20 engineers in from the field.  Normally, when I’m in Villahermosa I’m surprised if I see 4 or 5 of my other field engineers. For 20 engineers to be in from the field all at the same time has never happened in the (almost) year I’ve been in Villahermosa. Usually when it does happen, it’s because the rigs have been evacuated or something. This time was much less dramatic. Of our normal 15-20 rigs, only about 4 of them happened to be drilling. Which meant all of us sitting at the base on standby, waiting for a rig to need us.  Now, as you can imagine of people who work 24/7 in a demanding job, we usually blow off a lot of steam during our time in the city. We go to the movies, we play video games, we go out dancing, we drink wine, and we get together in normal clothes and try to have a kind of normal life for a few days.  However we are not normal people and attempting this occasionally creates confusion and strange situations.

My Legacy

On June 16^th, the day before Father’s Day, my grandpa passed away.  He slipped away quietly that afternoon after about three days of, for lack of a better way to say it, dying. It was fast and relatively painless yet not unexpected for those of us left behind.

I was, where I always am these days, on the rig and because I had an entire night of hard and stressful work ahead of me, my parents waited until the next day when I was on my way back to my apartment in Villahermosa to call me. I cried a little (probably confusing the driver who might never have seen someone crying to be leaving the rig) but mostly tried to process through what this meant.

I’ve always been very proud to say that my grandpa is the strongest grandpa in the world. I say this with the weight of his two world records behind me. (Bench press in the 80-84 division and another bench press in the 85-90 division). Fitness was always very important to him and he was always telling my mom that he wanted each of his children to be able to bench press their own age (much to her amusement).  The last Sunday my grandpa spent here with us was passed working out in the gym and then sunbathing afterwards. He was 94 and everything he accomplished in those 94 years leaves a legacy for his children and grandchildren. 

My grandpa made my mom who she is and she in turn made me who I am.  Without my grandpa first getting his civil engineering degree at Notre Dame I can’t say that I’m a third generation engineer. If it weren’t for my grandfather working on the Alaska Pipeline for ARCO, I couldn’t talk about how the oil industry is such a part of my family I feel like it’s in my blood.  And if it weren’t for my grandpa continually pushing me make sure I “graduate with a BS and not just a MRS” who knows what might have happened to my Mines career! 

As time began to rob my grandpa of his memory it became easier to see his priorities. He began to forget conversations events and eventually all sense of time and place. I remember visiting him and talking with him, replaying the same conversation over and over again. How’s Mines? How many women are in your program?  Do you go to the gym? It was in these conversations that I can see where my Grandpa laid his priorities.  School and education. Health. And finally family.

The best legacy left by my grandpa I think was the way he loved his family. I never for a minute doubted his love for us. I remember living in Luanda, Angola and him coming all the way over from Dallas, Texas to visit us.  Now without him around I wonder what will happen to our spread out across the country family. Will we manage to gather without him? What will he think now watching our lives and seeing what we’ve done? What would my grandfather have told me if he had full awareness of my life? Is my grandpa with my grandma watching us, finally seeing what his memory has clouded out for so many years?

In the end it’s what my grandfather left for his family that brings me comfort. That part of us that comes from him hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s still a part of my family even if he’s not here and so we will always have a piece of him.

I’d rather pay the gym than pay the doctor – J.R. Heizelman