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This is the journal of my experiences and thoughts. |
| I just left 15 years of retail sales management to work as a floorhand (entry level) on an oil rig. These are my experiences. |
| We just finished a rig move, the last one during hot weather. I started this job late in life, and when we move the rig I feel like I'm older than I really am. I got home on Tuesday, and I have been so tired I've felt drunk and delirious for the past two days. I like rig moves however. I get to work with different crews, and I learn more about how the rig works every time. My driller kept telling me how much better I have been this time. He says, he can tell that I'm getting better every day. I told him that my goal was to be his best hand withing a year. The only thing that really got to me this time is my left arm. I seem to have strained something in either my forearm or elbow. I'm sure it will be better by the time I go back. I should receive my new PDA today. I am going to get a keyboard with it so I can create Word files, and write my blog entries while on the rig when the ideas are still fresh. Enjoy the cooler weather...I sure will! |
| Many friends have passed in and out of my life. As time passes people move, pass away, or simply grow in different directions. I’ve had very few of my friends die, but we have lost some. Reflection on this reinforces, in my thoughts, one of the main principles of Buddhism, the impermanence of all things. I have been dwelling lately on the age of my parents. They are in their 70’s, and for the first time I have begun to face the fact that they will not always be around. My world will be a smaller place without them in it. But that does not mean it will be a darker place. I will always have a light in my heart that my parents created with their warmth, love, and support. Not everyone has the benefit of two loving parents for a large portion of his life. I promise myself, I will always be grateful for the time I have with those I love. Every moment I spend dreading the inevitable, or morning loss, is time I could be remembering the things they have taught me, and all the beautiful moments we shared. Just some thoughts… |
| In passing, on the rig, I mentioned to one of my coworkers that I play guitar a little, for fun. Despite my protests that I'm not very good, he talked me in to teaching him what I know. I brought my guitar lst hitch to start teaching him open chords so he could begin to learn chord progressions. The first night we drove off the site to get someplace quiet, the whole crew followed us to see what we were doing. When the lesson was over the guys started calling out requests. I played the ones I knew and threw in some that they had never heard (although I was surprised when a COMPLETE country boy recognized "Cumbersome" before I had started singing). By the time the hitch was over this turned into a nightly thing, With even the top dog on the site coming down for some tunes. Although I still don't know much, I'm learning as fast as I can. Now I have 3 students on the rig that I have to be prepared for. The other two were just waiting to see if I could teach the first anything. Two of them bought guitars so they could practice on their own until I can pick up lessons again. I get phone calls with guitar questions every day. This is just weird. I'm serious, I don't know that much on guitar. I picked it up again to give me a hobby when I'm home for two weeks straight. Now I'm teaching a bunch of roughnecks how to play guitar. Strange world. |
| It's almost time to go back to work. I've learned a valuable lesson these last two weeks. No matter how much more you make, if you don't budget you will spend everything you make. It's too easy to just spend like you will never run out. My new plan is this, pay all the bills I need to with this pay period the first day I am home, regardless of when they are due. After that, take out grocery money for the month. Set aside a little for emergencies. Whatever is left we can spend. (We will also have my wife's income for emergenciesas well) Now I just have to stick to that plan. That's the hard part. |
| OK. My writing has focused on my new job quite a bit. It’s only natural I guess to reflect a lot on my new career, especially since it’s so different from anything I’ve done before. Today’s topic: Pre- or Mis- Conceptions. Before I went to work on an oil rig, I had an idea that oilfield workers were, on the whole, uneducated and of average or less intelligence. I think this is a misconception that many of us have. The first rig I was on was an eye opener. Only two of my six man crew didn’t have a college degree (Bachelor’s minimum). Those two that didn’t have a degree were highly intelligent and still wanted to go to college. I know that I was judged by both the crews I have worked with as too old to be starting off as a hand in the oilfields. I’ve evidently changed their minds on that account. My driller is a good man, but he is from a small town in Louisiana, and shocked by anything he sees as weird or different than him. He accepts me, but he might think differently if he knew that I was a Buddhist and not a Christian like he is. Less than a year ago I removed my large gauge earrings and my tongue ring. He is forever talking about “those weirdos with their pierced noses and tongues.” I know that it would have made a difference in his perception of me if I was still wearing them when we met. One funny instance I can recall happened many years ago. I was on my first date with a girl who I would end up dating for years. I was driving down the main street of Victoria, when in a frightened voice she said, “Don’t look now, but there is a car full of skinheads next to us and they are staring!” I looked to my left and waved. The station wagon next to me was full of my skinhead friends (S.H.A.R.P.s: Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice). During that period Tim was especially menacing with his spiked leather collar and jacket. I began laughing and explained who they were. For some reason she never wanted to hang out with my friends. There are so many pre and misconceptions we all hold. Read National Geographic and see if your ideas about other cultures are the same. We all want basically the same things. We all want to be happy or free from unhappiness. If you think about it this covers most things that people want. Sometimes what we do to try and make ourselves happy and stop the pain ends up being even more destructive to us and others, due to a warped vision of the world, but the goal is the same. When other cultures or races or even just different families are doing something I don’t approve of, I’m going to try my best to see them for what they are, not what I think they should be. |
| I am up. Later than late. I have to get my body used to late nights, because when I go back to work on Tuesday I'll be working 6 P.M. to 6 A.M. This entry is very short for me, but I'm mainly trying to stay awake for just a little while longer. I'll write more when I'm properly awake. |
| I was riding my mountain bike through our local park the day before yesterday, and I was shocked. A baseball game was going on and a few children were taking turns riding a skateboard on the sidewalk next to the road. One of them tried to do some kind of trick and the board flew out from under him. Another one of the boys laughed and said, “You sure f****d that up!” I had to look again as I rode by. These little boys couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 years old! They even said hi to me like nothing out of the ordinary was going on. When I was a kid we did curse. We said every swear word we knew, and sometimes a few we didn’t really know the meaning of. This was among our friends, but we always made sure that an adult couldn’t hear us first. My friends and I would have been in serious trouble if an adult had heard us, any adult. If I had been swearing in the grocery store, someone would have taken me to find my mother and explain why I said what I did. I would have been punished. I am an adult and I swear frequently. The funny thing is I still have enough respect for my elders that I tend not to curse around anyone older than me unless they start the sailor talk first. When did it become acceptable for grade school children to swear and say the F-word without any concerns? When I looked at it deeper, it is our fear of each other as adults. I could have taken that child to find his parents, but I stood a good chance of either having to fight his dad, or look like I was trying to kidnap him. Either way, I’m the only one who would have learned a lesson. Don’t interfere! We insulate ourselves from other people’s lives saying quietly under our breath, “I can’t believe I just saw that. Someone should do something about that!” The courageous few intervene when someone’s life or physical welfare is on the line, but anything else just doesn’t seem to be worth it. Maybe it’s time we changed our attitudes. Look what it’s doing to the F*****g children. |
| I started my new career as an oil field worker around 3 weeks ago. I’m getting ready to go to my permanent post down south of Corpus Christi (400 miles closer than my last post out by Pecos, TX), and I will definitely be more prepared. Last time I didn’t take a coat, a rain suit, a hardhat, a blanket, soft drinks, or nutritious food. I was filling in for an employee who had knee surgery, at the last minute so I wasn’t sent the instructions on what to bring, I just received the directions to the site over the phone and took off. My mother-in-law had advised me to spend more money on my boots, but I didn’t have enough extra money lying around to pick up a pair of $149 boots. I bought $29 lace up boots. HUGE mistake! We use oil based mud in the hole to keep any natural gas from escaping, and it gets everywhere. My laces were so saturated with the mud, after a few days they wouldn’t stay tied. The worst part was that while everyone else had boots designed for this kind of work, I tended to look like I was ice skating. I slid around on the mud covered metal deck constantly. It wasn’t safe to simply walk in those boots, so I would have to slide my feet, much to the amusement of the rest of my crew (good natured humor). I didn’t have a hardhat, so the Tool Pusher (foreman) loaned me a red-orange visitor’s hard hat. This earned my first oil field nickname, “Mater.” As in “Tomato” (my crew was from either Louisiana or Mississippi, and had incredibly thick accents). The maintenance guy loaned me his coat since it snowed while I was there, and they loaned and later gave me a blanket. The guys really look out for each other. You have to have the attitude that you are going to take care of yourself and your crew, or someone will get hurt. It’s amazing how much everyone looks out for each other. One more reason I’m glad I left the retail life behind me. Everyone was always trying to put a knife in someone else’s back, or creating factions or cliques like they never left high school. Sometimes you have to move on. |
| My wife and I finally broke down and signed up for satelite TV. I am looking forward to watching all the cold case files and FBI shows that I have been missing for the last couple of years. We originally cut off our cable, because the price kept going up, and we couldn't afford cable and internet. I have a much better paying job, and satelite is much cheaper than cable. I have to admit it surprises me how much we like to be entertained. The television has grown to be more than just something to watch, it is companionship. I now work two weeks on, two weeks off, and I wanted the dish so that I could have something to do while my wife is at work. She wanted the dish so that she would have something to do during the two weeks I'm at work. When we spent the majority of our time off together, we didn't need TV. Over the years, it has evolved from entertainment to a part of the family. Some would argue that this is a bad thing. Others would argue the opposite. Myself, I try not to cling to concepts like good or bad. It just is. I accept it. |
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