Too cool for school...

Day one of our training was kind of intense. It was also a bit of a cluster. We started the day by attempting to get on the bus (the only one we were initially told) but because we are engineers, we know that 80something people will not fit on one bus and so we don't try very hard. Another bus is soon to arrive we are told. Ok but there are still like way more of us than will fit. Ok so bus driver numero dos tells us he knows this is a problem and he called for the first to come back...in 30-45 minutes. So we wait. I napped next to my new Canadian friend Donald (Donny, RapMaster D... ok that last one is my own creation and he may not be on board with it...) both in the lobby and on the bus. I think it made him vaguely uncomfortable but we've since become closer (I asked him lots of random questions in order to get to know him). ANYWAY... We arrived approximately 30 minutes late and missed some of the safety info--no worries, we caught the most important bits about Tornadoes and the tail end of the brown recluse spider lecture. Awkward start to our day.

We were split into four groups (red, blue, yellow, and green) and the red group (my group, obviously...) spent our day learning about fracking--hydraulic fracturing. It's quite the deal. Here's what I learned in a nutshell (aka Scarlett and anyone else not really interested in the oil industry should skip past the tilde's):

~Wells sometimes don't produce as readily as they should (due to plugging of various origins and natures that you don't really care about or because the rock is not as permeable as you would like) and so you must frack them.

~This means you pump first a substance that is essentially water in at such high pressure, that it cracks the rock around the well.

~You then follow up with a slurry of sand to prop it open. It's called propate. Yup... prop for short. Not sure about spelling but yea you get the idea.

~Under some circumstances you would frack with acid that erodes the cracks open.

~These new cracks can reduce the "skin" of the well (the random hindrance to the wells production) to less than zero, meaning you can force the well to produce more than it would naturally.

~Fracking is an intense endeavor (that may just be my opinion).

So there. Now you know. And so do I.

Once we completed our day (including about an hour of walking around outside in full PPE and turning ourselves into sweaty beasts) we sat and waited to get on a bus again. This time for 1.5 hours. Yep. Add the half hour drive and we wasted two perfectly good afternoon hours. Oh well. When we made it back we ate and went to WalMart and saw a woman with teal boots, a jean dress complete with jean jacket, and a teal hat complete with giant teal feather. It was epic. I also found the little kid hair ties that have vanished from all Manhattan retailers. I bought two packs.

Tomorrow we get to sleep in a little and just catch the second edition of the bus run (interns get the shaft...jk we literally clapped when they announced this) and we are hoping and praying some kind of similar arrangement will be made in the evening so we aren't sitting on the sidewalk like second graders waiting for the bus. Fingers crossed on that one. Also on tomorrow's agenda: Dinner and Glee at Jennifer's apt. She's making tuna helper and we're a bit excited about it. There may even be wine. Because we're classy.