Drinking from a fire hose

This summer's gonna be good! I got my project described to me in detail today, and I am supposed to feel free to seek out additional projects and work. I should feel like I'm "drinking from a fire hose" for the rest of the summer... Hope I don't drown!

Today I started getting my access to various files and online resources as well as getting my desk stocked with supplies. After work I went to lunch with my supervisor who is great. She's a fellow wildcat! There are several wildcats in the department as well as a very friendly longhorn (who showed me pictures of his grand-kids) and a quiet but very nice horned frog who sits at the desk behind me. Sports allegiances are quite prominent for those who have them and no one is bashful about any school pride or ribbing of rivals. It's going to be a fun work environment.

This evening I finished up my lecture for my online class and then went on a bit of an adventure. I had a happy accident when I landed at a World Market (an international food and decor store) instead of the Central Market (a grocery store). A simple mistake. It worked out. I found sugar free coconut syrup for my coffee (I swooned and hugged it right there in the store) and a mini bottle of white wine for my dinner. I also picked up a treat: chocolate covered macadamia nuts. :)

I then came home to kind of butcher my dinner plan. Word to the wise, if you are planning to make faux noodles out of zucchini you should boil them for perhaps 10 seconds. Barely at all. Just kind of warm them up. I actually boiled mine. They basically turned to mush. Oops. Lesson learned.

The plan for the rest of the night... well I'm not certain at this point but I'm guessing I don't do much. My work schedule is a match to the shift work so I go in around 6:30am and then leave around 3:30 or 4 depending on how long it takes me to eat my lunch. Hence I'm tired. Quite tired. I may go to the pool and hang or perhaps I'll just read. We'll see what happens.

That's a rap!

I am still alive. THE interns kind of own your life when they get together so I have been AWOL and I apologize. Here's the low down on our wrap up:

Monday we all presented our summer experiences and projects. I started the day off right by getting on the wrong shuttle with Chris and Donald and going to the training center instead of the office. Don't worry we got the shuttle driver to come back for us and take us but he didn't know where. Fortunately we had a dream combination of people in this predicament--Donald knew the address, Chris had an iPhone, and I was willing to talk to the driver in broken English. We got there which is the point. Luckily in spite of that start, mine went really well--I was the last of the Conway kids to go and we all had basically the same experience so I was pretty sure that people were going to be clawing their eyes out by the time it was my turn but on the contrary they seemed to enjoy my take on things.

That evening was dinner out on the company tab and this meant free food AND free margaritas. Love this. It was a great knight, hanging out with my new people and eating AMAZING Mexican food. Nirvana I tell you. Afterward we just went back to the Double Tree to hang out and drink some more in various rooms. We just wanted to hang out together... Awwww.

Tuesday we had to get up (in spite of some of us having had epic nights...not me but...well we'll leave them nameless) for exit interviews. Again mine seemed fine. It was over fairly early so us girls went to our free lunch and then decided to go shopping. Cute dresses had by all (well nearly all anyway). After shopping we collected a bit of sun at the pool before dinner at...get ready...The Hobbit Cafe. Yep. It was Hobbit themed. I had blackened fish tacos which were AMAZING and we also all had a seasonal German beer they had... it was dark and serious...like a beer smoothie. Also AMAZING. We wrapped that night by again knocking back a few at the good ol' Double Tree with all our new besties. Good times. Until people started trickling out and we had to say goodbye. It wasn't quite tearful but it was sad for sure. Crazy how much you can get attached to and miss people you only met a couple months ago. Le sigh.

I spent the whole day Wednesday driving to Wichita in convoy with Eric. It was a long day... but we made it to Justin and Kevin's and enjoyed the company in spite of the fact that the air conditioning was on the fritz and we all dearly died of heat stroke. I bandaged the wound by making PW pancakes (obviously) for all of us this morning. I rock.

I made it back to Manhattan today and I promptly went to lunch with Emily, Susan and Bre. The Palace knows how to throw down a pizza. God bless them. This afternoon Emily and I went to the new city pool (aquatic park/wonderland) and worked on our tans. Or freckles. Whatever. We capped off the day by eating La Fiesta... I enjoyed a healthy sized margarita. I seem to have missed enjoying a good bev on this dry summer...

Now I sit here amidst my stuff (I am a little appalled that I have THIS MUCH STUFF!) procrastinating putting it all away by writing this. I thought about continuing this to included the things I learned this summer, the best memories, the this I may miss or not miss... but then I realized that Kyle will be here tomorrow and my room makes me look like a hobo so I need to just suck it up and save all that mushy stuff for another day.

Coming soon: Lessons learned in the oil field, Things I'll miss about Conway, Things I won't miss, and a Greatest hits list of memories. Look alive.

Dun da-dun dun DONE!

I am done in Conway! I presented my project today and completed my exit interview and now I have a day to pack and I leave for Houston on Saturday. Glorious!

My presentation went pretty well, twice as long as it is supposed to be but other than that it was delightful I'm told. I can totally trim some fat so I'm not super worried about it. We took cookies to people as a thank-you for having us and I think that made some days. Not gonna lie here, I think we set the bar kinda high for future interns. Sharron tells us that she tried to dig up dirt on us (talking to people we worked with to assess our performance) and there was none to be had. These people seem to have loved us. Thank you Mom and Dad for my old fashioned, Midwestern upbringing--they loved that we SHOWED UP. It baffles me that this is apparently a recurring problem. I would think that would be the easy part of any job... go to the place of your work. Whatever. Bottom line, they love us. We got parting gifts too! Ok just a little "log book" type notebook (us girls got PINK), some hand sanitizer on a key chain, and a pocketknife (all company promotional items). I'm most excited about the knife. Being a lady of the Midwest I am used to the men in my company to carry them, and I know that I'm never expected to, but now being a piece of oil field trash I feel the need to have one to pry things apart, dig into and cut things, and just use for all kinds of good manly tasks.

Tonight, Anjelica and I celebrated being done by going to dinner at a Japanese steakhouse down the road for sushi. It was pretty tasty. If you're reading this in a timely fashion, my twit-pic should still be over there >> on the sidebar. Or you can see it on Facebook. It was pretty. Not to pretty to eat though. Very tasty! Nick, on the other hand, celebrated by leaving for Texas IMMEDIATELY. This whole damp county thing is suffocating him.

Tomorrow's agenda:

Sleep in (because I CAN!)

Get my car once-over'ed for all the upcoming driving (so much driving!)

Get my nails done (I need to feel like a girl again... very much need)

Pack all my stuff (which has spread out and settled in famously in the past month. Ugh)

Look up, write down, and draw out my directions for Saturday (many MANY times)

Countdown...

Houston: 2 days (ish...depending on how you count Saturday...whatever)

Manhattan (Manhappiness): 7 days

Francie: 10 days

I made it!!!

Also special shout-out to one (of 4) of my readers: Happy Birthday Heather!!! :)

I'm running out of clever titles for the boring days

So we decided not to work in the office today because the work to be done didn't require it. We slept in, I made PW pancakes for Anjelica and I, and then we went in to the yard just long enough for her to talk to someone about her project. I spent that time in the parking lot reading a book so no one would see me sitting around doing nothing (they don't like that... they prefer you to hide).

I polished up my presentation from the comfort of my couch and then I went to the pool to try to correct my tan lines (I swear, one burn, one time and you can't fix it! You either have to re-torch yourself or live with your circus pattern) before I bonded with the couch some more.

Productivity spiked again a little before 4 when I took Anjelica to the hair dresser. I came home and baked thank-you-cookies to kill time before I went to pick her up. Knocked out two tubes (one of them JUMBO sized thankyouverymuch!).

And thus brings us to the present, where our heroine sits on her couch watching Sinefeld. I'll finish baking at some point, perhaps read some more, watch SHARK WEEK and then go to bed. Looking like an intense night. Risky since I present tomorrow at 1pm but I like to live on the edge.

Cashing in my foregone air conditioning

I spent today working on my presentation in the office again. I touched up my "project" a little more and edited photos (which are a HUGE player in this presentation). I did that between Facebook checks. It was a boring day. Luckily, Anjelica finished early so we were home by about 3:30. I took a nap (not because I NEEDED it but because I was vaguely drowsy and I COULD) and after I ate leftover Papa Johns (I pledge allegiance to Papa Johns) we went to Wal Mart to get sour cream for THE Pioneer Woman pancakes we're going to have for breakfast tomorrow and cookie dough for our thank you treats we're bringing on presentation day.

Ok now if you're still awake after reading about my fascinating day...

The countdown to Houston: 4 days

The countdown to Manhattan: 9 days

The countdown to SFKS: 12 days

So close!

I used to long for days like this...why?

It's funny how when I was in the filed I used to dream about an office day, sitting at my laptop in the air conditioning wearing jeans and regular shoes and no hard hat. Today I had my dreams fulfilled and it was kinda boring. I think it would help if my project was a little more involved but I'm not complaining because the alternative is sleeping in a truck and lugging hose while sweating like a yeti.

I researched flow meters online, talked to people to get information, and started putting together my final presentation. I also Facebook'ed (a lot) and read some news online (Lindsey Lohan was released from prison last night in case you missed that earth shaking event) and listened to my iTunes. Don't worry I'm progressing just fine; I talked to Sharron and she told me so. She even thanked me for my enthusiasm. I'm glad she wasn't directly monitoring me...

Tonight is another Papa Johns night which makes me super happy (oh and lunch was Holly's--I had roast beef, mashed potatoes, and FRIED OKRA...yea...it was good!). I think I'm going to go to the gym tonight, too (who am I?). All in all this day (and likely this week) would be erased from the movie of my life but for now I'm ok with that. I'm just plodding along, looking forward to presenting on Thursday, packing all day Friday, and driving to Houston on Saturday to begin the final festivities with my new intern friends (who I miss a lot)! You know what Loverboy said: Everybody's working for the weekend... :)

Easy like Sunday morning...

So today I didn't get to sleep in, I had to go to work at 8. It was a little rough to get up because Anjelica and I went to see Dinner for Schmucks last night and didn't get home until midnight meaning I got only 6.5 hours of sleep or so. Not ideal but considering my recent patterns pretty darn good. We went in for a "class day" with "Mama" Sharron which meant we talked all morning about our projects (and what they would be if the ones we were given were garbage) and our experiences. It was a pretty informal conversation, she just made sure we took turns and all talked about everything. I like Sharron.

We determined that my project was going to be a cost analysis of getting flow meters for the liquid chemicals so that it would reduce the discrepancies between the inventory records of the bulk plant and the coil tubing department. That is if I get the ok from Tommy for the project. I couldn't do that today because he wasn't there. I'll talk to him tomorrow. Because of this I just worked on getting my journey management registered and my reimbursement paperwork printed. So still a productive afternoon.

We ended up home by 2:30 which made up for missing mass this morning because I got to go to evening mass in Little Rock. It was particularly good today because they had a bunch of kids doing the music rock band style. Nice change from the slow, sad organ.

I polished off my leftovers from Los 3 Potrillos for dinner as I watched the old Shark Week coverage leading up to the new stuff for this years Shark Week. I really can't complain... my life rocked today. :)

Conway, Conway, where for art thou, Conway

So here we are at the end of the Kellyville training experience (kind of a decent band name there...) and we are all preparing (and by this I mean drinking by the pool) to head out to our locations. I am basically done packing and I have taken the Canadians to Braum's (they don't have it up there) so all that's left is for me to join the merriment down at the pool. I plan to play it pretty low key because I agreed to drive one of my fellow Conway-bound interns to the airport in the morning at the early hour of 6:30 (I'm so nice), but I can't skip out entirely because somehow, in three weeks, I have become friends with these some odd 70 of us. Who'd'a thought (who'd a? who'd of? who'd-a?...whatever)?

Brief recap of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday:

All you need to know about Sunday is that Toy Story 3 changed my life. I'm normally stone faced in any movie but I was a little misty at the end of this one. I'm crazy--I've accepted it. It was just that good.

Monday was a long and boring day of learning about D&M (drilling and measurements)...we basically sat around and waited for the bus between 3 and 5... so fun. Monday night we went to The Melting Pot for birthday fondue (Anna's birthday to be exact). It was AMAZING. I've never had a dinner of multiple courses or one that was mostly fondue style. Delicious!

Tuesday was even more boring that Monday (I didn't even think that was possible)--at least in the morning. The afternoon proved more enjoyable as we got our summer projects assigned to us. My project (drum roll please) is to come up with a volume chart for a new tank in Conway. I'll basically be dusting off what calculus I retained and integrating for volume and correlating it with the depth of the substance being stored. Feel free to be impressed (or vomit...either way). I can't quite decide if I'm excited about this or not. It's totally doable and practical which I like but it does have that element of calculus (the devil's work) to it. We'll see how I feel about it in the morning and in the coming week.

Now tomorrow I head to Conway to really get down to business. As excited as I am to get to work and really apply the things I've learned (how to lift heavy things properly), I'm going to miss hanging out with all these crazy interns here in Tulsa. The good news is that I'll see a lot of them in Houston in August for wrap-up. *Sigh*