Pump-Shop

     Today was another filthy grime filled day. Half way through it I swung by the HR dpet, office, and said hi to our HR rep (she always has good candy). I said whats up, and told her things were good. She told me that I needed to get my stuff washed, like today. I told her that yesterday I took one pair of coveralls in, and all this grime build up was from like 4 hours. I don't think she believed me.
     Yeah so pump-shop was pretty cool, saw out huge pump truck come in, the thing is just massive...anyway we worked on it for about 3 hours, then I spent the rest of the day putting together valves; hammering on A plastic ring in a vice, do it seats itself on a metal 4-5 inch valve...It was awesome. I enjoyed some of that mindless repetition that only comes around so often...
Someone brought fired chicken with potato salad, and cantaloupe-pretty good lunch. Also afternoon brought me the chance to be the DJ of the shop, because the guy with the Super Hard Rock Pandora account left. The guy was awesome, a real teacher, and a skilled pumpsmen and only 20 years old;  but that scream-o rock is not for me.
     Slept in til 6:19a Left arround 5:30-6 o'clock, and stopped  by "Home of Economy" bought some more wool socks; one always needs more wool socks. Swung by McDees, and had some McChickens; which as I was walking out I immediate wished I would have gotten pickles on them...walking in to the restaurant to walking out with bag-in-hand took about 6 min, pretty average... ahh I really should have snapped a pic; the drive-thru, was about 6 cars deep; pre-order screen, double wide, it was nuts...I didn't understand that one....


Anywho.. I got some letters to right, some phone calls to make...
enjoy tomorrow; Ill see you soon
-A

30 Hour Day

We just got off the long shift; 30 hours, with only small naps, grabbed on the fly. In my mind it was a duality of a) at 4am being exhausted, after being up 24 hours...and b) making that cash, which we all seek. There was two big things that kinda pulled me through ;a phone call from a lady friend at about 1:30am, and an  Ale81- a soda from Kentucky- which I drank at about 3am. The former having more magnitude and making me smile more. :) And the ale81 put me back in the hollers and 90% humidity of Kentucky, which was also needed. Other things that were awful- my splitting head ache, and general hunger... I guess I didn't drink enough water, or pack enough food. But some H2O, vitamin I, and corn chips with salsa cured all that ailed meh.

I was on QC-quality control today, which includes water testing. It was kind of comforting to be back in the lab again, doing titrations. In the sense that I had a background in the equipment, instrumentation, and chemicals that we used. in contrast to all the other locations I have been. I feel I worked efficiently, and made few mistakes. 

Also I had the chance to play with the CL samples and show the "company man" them, and make sure these 8-10 samples where up to his standards. The company man, as far as I know, the big-shot; the one person on site, who works for the oil/gas company directly. He knows all the ins and outs of the game, and knows when things are going right, and if they are not; how to fix them effectively. On my first day he asked me to "run to one of the trucks and grab a henway"; then you ask; whats a henweigh ?-About 6 lbs HA...good one. haha

Anyways it was not so bad after the fact. I got back at about 11am the and took 2 huge, epic naps

So if you get asked to get; a henway, an Iron stretcher, a sample of A.I.R. or a down-hole sample, a piece of cable for wireline, as far as I know these all don't exist...with probably the exception of a down-hole sample. However there is no way someone on the job for 3 days, has the knowledge, or technology to grab a down-hole sample...  

alright have a great night

and take care.

ADS

here liz have some good music; get off that drake 

day5

This provides half of the stink; the dirty; coveralls go well with my
 "better homes cookbook" 

    

This provides rest of the stink  if you look real
 close you can see Adele on iTunes

           My room smells like hydraulic fluid. After a 15 hour day, the last thing I want to smell is hydraulic fluid. I'm very sleepy. It was snowed on us twice, had to quick had to run the tarps over some equipment. Sounds like the other new guys are having about the same days as us. Long slow days, governed by how long you can stand the cold, and wind. Actually its kinda how long you can stand the boredom...Had another windy day, productive in the AM, slowed down in considerably in the PM; had about 4 hours with very little we could be   I got a sweet sticker for my hard had, from a sand hauler guy from ND. So that was good and cool...haha yeah..
         Euchre, and Forest Gump are cheering me up right now so thats also good. I just also got a txt saying the frac guys, who work with the team on a reg basis (not us engineering techs) that he can't watch forest jump, because he is still at location... suck.





Anyway hope the sun shines,
and the wind settles down so we can get this well finished...
take care...

days 3 & 4

Good; things are going pretty great.

 

  Sun rise was pretty awesome.

    I feel like I am starting to get the hang of this stuff..Today however was new again; got to see the blender in action. When we showed up to location; there was a dusting of snow, and everything was covered up in tarps. Apparently when the sand and the snow, mix, they get messed up. All this was still in the dark, but soon enough the sun came

     So then we pumped for a while, got to see the blender, where the sand/water/gel is mixed, and it went pretty smoothly other then a bad fuel pump, so we got that replaced and finished pumping . The guy from Brigham Oil shows up and gets us all steaks/potatoes/ and pie for lunch. Soo good. 

In the afternoon it was very windy, and the wireline (cablers, which send the explosives down hole with wire) guys had called it because they have this 60-100ft crane which can only operate safely at wind speeds less then what it was blowing at today. So we replaced valves, broke some pumps down, rebuilt them, and layed low the rest of the day.

       It was kind of frustrating getting hindered by the wind, but its just like lighting on a canoe trip; better safe then sorry...Getting struck by lightning prob just as bad as tipping over explosives dangling at 30+ feet.

dinner; steaks/shrimp/mex salad

well gotta get that laundry done. 

peace

a.d.s.

Done; day one/two

Large-scale fracturing; our set-up 
 is about 1/2 this;  redwingaerials.com   

Successful couple of days on the rig site. We are about 60-70 miles west north west of Williston, past Tioga, somewhere... It has been probably about the nicest weather one can ask for, during the middle of January. ~45 F (about 45 F) today with a strong wind. which kinda shut us down for 2 hours... Gave us a chance to rebuild our pumps. 
Also today I had the chance to hone my sand delivering skills. I was running the T-belt, which puts the sand into the blender's hopper. Pretty straightforward; keep enough sand, so the blender always has enough; but not so much so it overflows. 
Then the wireline guys come in, and actually fracture the formation, using "shooter" downhole. This is where our downtime was.

Our setup at dusk

During some of the time today; a dude was asked to give his best "Iron man" holler after getting the song over the radio; he failed haha. But we're friends on facebook now, so no big deal. hahaand who after more time had past more rock music kept coming one the radio, for short bursts of time. Then I had the best great idea of playing some Adele, it would have been real funny, and maybe no one would even known it was me hahha... but as I was contemplating this, the site lead told them to cut it... So its prob for the best It didn't happen. 


Anyway we almost hit a dekfuur on the way home, when it ran in front of us but avoided it... luckily 


 have to get up at again 3:45a. 
hope your all having a good day
getting some sleep now.
-A

4:30am

Well the internet was down for about 3 days here at the camp. Folks said that is was a regional thing and that it was down in a huge area of NW North Dakota. But now it seems to be working well.


     Today we worked on "Oilfield Math", which at first was a joke. The questions ranged from how many is 405 cubic feet plus 235 cubic feet. So it was a breeze for the first half of the day. After Lunch we got into more of the detailed math problems such as converting cubic in to cubic feet to barrels and then getting pressures/PSIs and then getting into force.


 Nothing above my head, or anyone's head, just takes a lot more divided attention and more general focus. so after working thru a 200 page workbook, we started to talk about our schedule the next 2 weeks. This is when the fun should start.


    4:30am is when we report to dispatch and ride to our first well site..  I'm thinking leave here at 4:00, & get up around 330,320, if I'm looking to take a shower.... tomorrow will be a long day. But hopefully Ill be ready for it. I have 4 sandwiches, 3 things of pineapple juice, water, two apples two small bags of chips, and 6 cookies.. I hope its enough... Its not that I picked pineapple juice over anything else; its the only caned juice they serve... dont judge me. haha.


    So yeah Williston is just as busy as ever, loads of trucks everywhere, walmart is a buzz always. I swung in there this weekend to pick up some cheep white socks, toothpaste (which is still in the truck) and headphones. I also was in the market for a haircut, which one can also get in the Williston walmart. Who knew? anyway so I stopped by, and then there was these two guys with this..well it looked like a tv, or a microwave, in a box i couldn't really tell, but they had this box in the cart, and they're explaining it to this old lady working as the greeter, and then some crackeling over some radio somewhere, and then both of them get carted away in hand cuffs, it was pretty nuts. Then got myself a buzzcut for $16 and an hour wait. and got the eff outa there...


    Things are wild here. Everyone's looking back, or forward; talking about the good days' or talking about how they are gonna spend there cash when they get home. Every dude that we trained with has been out to the field so far; I think we are some of the last ones to get out. The guys who i trained with offered good advice, and wish me luck; but most of them just say; be safe. And I guess that's the key; be safe.
wish me luck
-andrew shay

internet was down... new post tonight

internet was down... new post tonight

gac:wins

What a game last night... OT, buzzer beaters, and little lizze got some clock! It was awesome to see her play, and better to bounce to st Peter, and help little bitsie celebrate her big 22.

Make it snow

sunny in mpls MN today, ~30° F out/ feeling nice.
cloudy in Williston ND today 1° F; -14°/ wc 




Well today, was a sleep in, go to the coffee house, down the block, and do "oilfield math" and listen to music day. It still seems a little wild that 3 days ago, I was up in the rolling hills of ND, talking to an engineer about well depths, and pressure. The transition to mpls; was smoother then I expected. I suppose that in to weeks, you can only pick up so much. Old habits, of sleeping in, going and eating fancy food (and paying for it) with friends, fade slow. What I guess I am thinking is that this scheduled time off may be a mixed blessing; With time to hang and chill, it kinda dulls the fact that I am going to be doing hard, work in cold, windy, sloppy conditions. Well maybe that's the point. Let the ends justify the means...Or more; like let the one sunny day feel good, and pull you threw the week of rain. Yeah I think that's the rub. 


       K might get sap-tastic but here goes; I feel pretty great, that I have the family support to go and work, far away, and have a comfortable place to take respite, and re-charge. It is invaluable. I like my fam alot. good people. 


...Anywho I think i get to see my baby-sister play some bball tonight down at GAC so that should be some fun times. Also if you get a chance to check out kikugawa, over by riverside in mpls, do it. Some pretty good food over there... Id use a Happenings book. buy one get one dinner, is the way to win the game. allright
have a happy MLK day.
-a


qestion off the day;
A) is english grammer beter ?
B)like my attempt at java? did the blog just get classy?

So I made it home. 12 hours on the train, and here I am, back in the land I know eating Perkins, drinking coffee, and seeing the MPLS skyline. Its kinda like I never left. It's weird. The Amtrak train, was a pretty comfortable, albeit, bumpy ride. Huge seats, pretty good dinner, and fun vegan Canadians to hang out with. Sounds like people made it home safely.

Today I have started my geo/perto/chem online classes. They seem pretty straightforward, pressures, and temps, and parent rocks make oil under the right conditions. Well its Saturday night so I better find something entertaining to do. Stay Warm. A-from MPLS

So got done with all these training classes. Work cell phone ordered . So I guess the pregame is over and now the funtimes start. Today it was actually colder, but the wind was pretty calm so the -5 @ sunrise felt 10x warmer. We ate porcupine meatballs tonight with tortalinii; I had to ask if it was real porcupine. But turns out its more economical to put rice in bbeef meatballs the to go hunt and clean and serve porcupines. Its super late : better get some rack so ill be ready to meet the boss man tomorrow. Peas -A

slapped by winter

So our instructor at the safety school, went to Wilderness canoe base back in the 90s, for like 3 winters. wild. Today was a bitter cold day. It was ~15F when we started, and was about 5F at the end of the day. They say the windsock indicates +20 mph when its getting enough wind to stay inflated. Well today it looked like a cone, sideways. The whole day. Even being from MN, it was cold. The wind would cut any place you left uncovered for more then 30 sec. Even with a face shield, and a neck/head wrap the wind seem to find my forehead, and ears. More rigging-setting up pipe, and working up, down rigging. pretty quick today. Everyone was pretty motivated to go quick and did their jobs well. Also, prob my fav part of today was fork life operation. So we watched our video, but then yeah they just let me take hold of this Huge, lift truck/tractor thing. Also went to Halliburton hq, and followed cam(erman) to dispatch to he could turn in his log books. I see this phone ringing in this hallway meeting room, and it rang like 2 different times. So I piked it up. And this dude Tayler was on the other line. So he was trying to reach dispatch, but had the wrong number, So I gave him the right number. Mission accomplished.

  k night, 

I found this pic. Its pretty close to what we drove. 

also talked haz chem.

Touch of ND winter

Joe&Brian in proper PPE

 Sleepy today. Coffee fixed that. 
















Worked on rigging-setting up/down. 7a-7:30p long day. Rain came shortly afternoon. Chilled  me down quite a bit. We took a short break, put some layers on, then warmed up. To me that 27-35 rain/snow mix is the coldest. the wind picked up later, but the rain subsided. Im pretty sleepy. So yeah, ill throw up some pics then its off to bed for me. 
~a

SAF-T, AED CPR

Goal 2: stay warm, as the temperature drops to ~30 with
 the possibility of snow rain mix, and 11+ hours outside tomorrow. 
Goal 3:get blog theme music 

 Well I think today went real smoothly for the 7th day in a row. Today I'm would be right near ~70 hours worked. Mostly all training. Today was the Marathon Oil (who apparently had a fatal accident in ND yesterday), CPR, First aid, and "save a back" training day. When you mash all that into one day, people get kinda jittery, and wary. Yes other days went longer, however the lack of breaks, and many videos back to back made today seem like forever.


Marathon Oil training was pretty much a recap of all the PEC (Precision Engineering and Consultancy, I belive...) training. But yeah, whenever we are on a marathon rig, we have to have their training on top of all the other courses. So upon completing this additional 2-3 hour class we get a sticker so everyone stays happy. CPR was just a simple review, it looked like just about everyone had taken CPR/First aid at some point. Get and AED, call 911, 30 compressions, 2 breaths, grasp first glove, gently pull the glove away from the palm, and toward the fingers, turning the glove inside out. remove the second glove inside out, trapping the first glove inside...AED was pretty much the exact same as any other AED training that I have had previously; Allow AED to analyze heart; stop all movement. Near the end of all the classes every one was restless, and attention spans are only so long, even added with multiple coffees...The training got me all learned so now I can lift things, sit in good posture (I just sat up straighter, as you probs did too), and many other random general safety things.


 Other then that tomorrow we all seem to be looking forward to "SAF-T" training, 7a-7p on site safety work outside. I checked the weather and it looks like ~38 and rain/snow mix coming down... so it the first day we might get some push from the sky. They said "it ain,t real trainen if it ain't rainen". Yeah a warm shower tomorrow morning may be the warmest Ill be tomorrow. But I am not too worried about it. When dudes came up from Florida, and have no idea, I kinda have an advantage. The Grand Marais winter+Morris winter, probs isn't too far from up here.


 Well thanks for reading I hope every one had a pretty ok Monday, and as excited for Tuesday as I am.
 Peace/love 
AS

English grammar

Goal one; Spell, and use English grammar, correctly; if only to appease the multiple requests from my fellow oil comrades. here goes;

First day with the steel-toe boots, hard hat, and red cover-alls. Yeah it was a good day of working outside, and getting a little sweat going. A great change from the classrooms and Power Point presentations we've been getting non-stop for the past 6 days. I still feel like I'm spinning. There are endless places to explore and speed up the pace of life. No mater your reason for being here....
I have just walked back from the man camp sauna. Not the same with no cool lake to jump in. However it was a sauna, in the middle Williston ND, an oil boom, and 700 miles from the winter sauna on the Dominion Isle. So in other words; it was great to sit, sweat, and have some solitude. It seems that every place is crowed here. Very few quiet places to sit, reflect, and catch your breath. There has been a never ending stream of info (however relevant or not) that we have been getting streamed to us via HR, word of mouth, and our instructors.  And I know that it is only going to get ten times crazier, working 80-90 hours a week, as to this weeks, 59.
  
Sweeping, and picking up trash today. Sunday our first optional first day off. I figured I had little else to do. I came here to work, so why refuse a learning experience, and  pull chance to pull another 10 hours?
 We arrived there and the grounds guy who we worked with, knew about the jobs, we all we were going to do. This dudes nick name would be definitively bubba, but its not PC for nicknames. however "Bubba" defiantly had some non-PC things to say... But yeah he told us common pitfalls, all about the opportunities, and about the web site. He also shared his aspirations to work in the employee relations. He talked to us about the actual rubber/road dynamics of safety, and how safety is above all else. No matter what color your hat ( new employees have green hats) if you see something unsafe it is your responsibility to enforce the "stop work" policy. 
Well its getting late... I better catch some rack. 
-a


also... I ask the lady every day, if she has stamps, shes all out, always. So those looking for that ND postage stamp, will have to wait until I get to the Post Office.

sunday, even

Addy;

Andrew D. Shay 208

BearPaw Lodge 

13589 57th St. NW

Williston ND 58801

"Have you found me yet? good". says the truck driver to the service tech. Tonight we found some pretty great pizza at the Wildcat pizzeria. "Wildcat" the specific pizza we had, Mushrooms, sausage, pepperoni, and green peppers. Very tasty. So there was a picture taken of the taps. not by me, but yeah it was a pretty great picture,(took down)

Prior to that we finally got some details about the job we are doing, as well at a tour of the grounds. We checked out the Pump station, the shop, the engineering dept, and got a quick and dirty 20 min fraking crash course by Jay, the grounds crewman, who seemed like he knew just enough about every thing to help us green hats out. Also he offered work tomorrow, over our first day off, which would be all overtime...pretty temping, I think I'm on board. 

     DDC-defense driving today, went smoothly, with a big chunk of time waiting for people to get their behind the while stuff done. The course was pretty simple, just driving around Williston, and keeping the speed limit. 

   I'm excited to get a little more of the yard layout tomorrow, and to just try and absorb some more info. I could really use the sleeping in, but I think I have hit a stride at the 6am alarm. any-who, I better get some words with friends done, and try to get more of this log in Internet thing done. 

Hope alls well with where ever you are this Saturday evn.

-peas/love, 

A

chrispy

The camp was pretty quiet tonight. A game of cribbage and some Bon Iver, all that took place with any pomp tonight. Found my address ; Andrew Shay bear paw lodge 13589 57th. NW Williston ND 58801, so if someone wanted to send a mix of some Iver, id be down, ill send you a post card with FracFluid on it...   
      Lost my first "words with friends" game. Lost cribbage. Won at dinner; Today was steak night apparently at the camp. Huge like 16 oz steaks cooked to your request. pretty neat. Fish, mashed potatoes, steamed veggies, and a salad with some choco dipped straw berries... I dont know how the economy works, but yeah I'm happy all the people got dinner this figured out..

      

OSHA/1billion

I choose; you bottem left, with the cherries, the apple
looks all sad and alone; I think Dick Cheney shot it.

OHSA training is done. The Doughnuts were steller per the ussghh; I can know approach a helicopter from the correct sides, Know how to read HazMat signs, get the eff outa the way of moving cranes, and how to swing by swing rope from a ship to an Oil rig, but only when I'm ready, and when the waves are at their crest. Also there are 6 different lvls of explosives, and 3 lvls of flammable Hazmats... We also got to look up chemicals which if spilled have different evac/safe zones... and the guy asks who has a chem degree, Well I sorta kinda raised my hand... well a minor degree...

yeah ferballs, and funny we're the norm during
 haz chem awarness...or just the class breaks.

And now im listing to Adele,Someone like you www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLQl3WQQoQ0 The roomate is currently singing along; albeit poorly. So yeah, mancamps, adele, and Sewing kits ( backpack was kinda ripping at the zippy zipper). So the internet is slow, we have a mini fridge, and the kitchen cools all the food, and im meeting alot of new ppl. So its like a dorm/hotel... so in a hotel you never have your door propped open, but in a dorm ya do... so I just had it open for a while...but it seemed kinda weird. This kinda reminds me of freshmen year, with less girl-ies, and less pHDs, and alot more work in general getting done. The town itself is super busy, the dude said "just Halliburton puts 400,000 miles/week, and NPR said in 2010, 1,000,000,000 thats a billion with a B, miles more then 2003...Effing Crazy...  Saturn is only 940 million miles away. bizzarow...

     Williston ND is the town in which I reside currently. I am in a 600ish bed "man Camp"- which is strikingly like college, with less homework, more 30+ 40+ dudes. The food in wonderful, but I haven't got the courage up to take my Cellphone out and get a picture.. I mean there is alot of huge dudes with huge beards... You dont want to be that guy right? Anywho...Ill work backwards...tonight was steak tips, with egg noodles, pork chops, and rice pilaf with a side salad... super good food. like really, for men just needing like calories they seem to take some time and put some extra energy and make this mass produced food taste good good like. sometimes when you use a word twice it means double.

    So today in class we went over alot of OSHA stuff like don't use your drill in a pool, with a metal later.. and what not... learning all these guidelines, which keep one from getting killed. H2S is hydrogen sulfide and with concentrations +1000 ppm you can die ultra quick so to reduce death, and what not you wear a H2S monitor on your collar, and also they have these masks that every one got fitted for, I saw this sign as we all got tested and snapped a quick picture; pretty funny, me thinks;

Halliburton gas mas facial hair guidelines

     So after that we had a talk by the HR rep (female gal to like 32 guys/2 gals) about sexual harassment. So she gets into the talk about not making and noises, "hooting/cat noises/whistling ect." So then she starts talking about how you should not make unwanted passes at ppl like asking them to date and whatnot... she says "you can ask someone out on a date, but if they say no thanks, then drop it" immanently" then one dude ~45 years pipes up and says " well what if she plays hard to get?" and every one starts like looking back at the HR rep, and she kinda laughs then every one laughs... it was pretty funny. But kinda a rediculous thing to say at a meeting like that...  Anywho the rest of the stuff went smoothly.. and yeah. OHhhh so another funny time is when dude whos training all of us always, at the start of each period like plays funny falling down videos, or cats running, or what not plays this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnThfJU57sk which shows Dick Cheney killing an Easter Bunny. (D. C. former VP, and CEO of Halliburton..)

-sars for the long post.

-peas+love from ND

- Andrew Shay

So this is the first post in the new blog. I better start it with A super neat, captivating sentence. "Some times a sentence, or life for that matter; doesn't always go how you octopus". There so thats the start. Training day today, learned about PPE, PSL HES PCR HSE PPR and JSAs. As well as many other TLA (three letter acronyms).  So to be honest i did have to look up at that TLA worksheets... Oppsydups... Anywho they got me set up in the Bear Paw Lodge; which is a 500 bed camp for mens. The place has a sauna *Saa-Unn-Ah* and about 4-5 card tables with leather chairs, a work out room, and bomb.com food.
Tonight I ate some roast beef, with fried shrimp, and collered greens. aww yeah paulliD they have us set up. Today I also packed my own lunch and had an pretty sweet time learning things from the teachers, and those around me... Im on the sleeping at 9:45pm yeah its not bad... the rooms are about 144sq feet, for two ppl so they're small. but with more then enough space to chill in shared spaces, it works out. Okay with a few more things to do before bed; I should bounce. Take care and thanks for stopping by.
-shay, Shay