White Elephant Interns

Another day of maintenance in coil tubing. When we arrived this morning we sat around for about half an hour before they doled us out to people and their projects. I was so lucky as to be paired with a guy helping change filters, and fix a c pump on one of the pump trucks. First he showed me around it pointing out all the highlights. Then we propped the cab up (it's an over engine style tractor... old school) and looked around... then we put it down because we determined...well I dunno I think they may have just wanted to pawn it off on the mechanics. Either way we decided to wash it. That meant I stood around and waited my turn because they gave me the task of rinsing. The rinse hose has a small range but lots of water so you get soaked trying to do anything with it. I think they gave it to me because I'm the ignorant intern and they knew it was the worst part. Whatever. Anyway, they moved it into the shop afterward and I watched them change filters. I held one so it didn't spill diesel everywhere. Big day.

Before lunch we noticed that a couple guys were unloading watermelons onto the lawn in the yard--free for the taking! So I took one. Afterward I realized that I couldn't find my Clay (there are two, Anjelica was paired with the other Clay) and I was informed he probably just went to lunch. Awesome. So I did too. We ate and Slim Chickens (again) a place we LOVE. It was AMAZING as usual. We went ahead and took our time since everyone else seems to.

When we got back we were still ahead of everyone, so we visited the bulk plant. After killing some time we went to talk to Russel and Ryan about what to do with our afternoon. Unfortunately we were told just to head back to the boom truck with hydraulic problems that had been giving them fits since Saturday. We can't really help with this so we just stood and watched at a distance. Super boring. I think they forget we're around... again whatever. I wandered off to tell Russel and Ryan this and they were going to give us something else to do after they finished their paperwork but then the truck was fixed (finally!) and we had nothing to do. After a discussion of what to do with us it was decided that them spending time inventing tasks was a waste and we'd go home and work on our videos and papers. We got to leave early because we are basically inconvenient at this point. Oh well we got a short day and I'm not complaining.

After work we went to best buy to deal with Anjelica's sad camera and then we watched When In Rome... a predictable and super cheesy romantic comedy. It was cute. We also went to Wal Mart again for travel sized shampoo bottles for when we finally go out on a coil tubing job. I'm now trying to write my paper. It's been a pretty vanilla day really. Tomorrow morning we're going to go with Russel (who is the cell leader and a cool guy) to see a job site (all rigged up) for a quick tour to keep us from feeling so lost when we go...which seems like it will be Wednesday. Today wasn't a very inspiring day...sorry if this reads as boring to you (Mom, Scarlett, Nomi, Heather... possibly other people...) as it does to me. Hopefully tomorrow will be more exciting.

We interns are cursed

Day two in the shop makes me think we interns have some kind of hex on us, at least when we're in the yard. At least me. We got split up today and I worked with Matt on rebuilding a slinger (the thing that mixes the sand and water for frack jobs) and NOTHING went the way it was supposed to. First of all people needed the crane so we sat around waiting for it for most of the day. Secondly, when we got things taken apart we had to take about another one to trade the sand plates. When we did, the water plate didn't match up with the new sand plate which has never happened before in the shop. Literally everyone was stumped by this. Once we got ANOTHER water plate and put it on, the reworked bottom and middle parts didn't fit together correctly. What should have taken an hour or an hour and a half took ALL DAY LONG and wasn't even done at the end of the day because it had to be torn down, scrapped out and re-done by the night shift. Matt was ticked. Fortunately I still learned a ton about slingers and in spite of the troubles I think I could probably rework one if I had to (under close supervision of course...). I know the difference between a road-side and a curb-side slinger (the direction of rotation of the water...and how that slurry will get to it's next destination on the truck due to it's orientation) and I know that you never re-use a slinger bolt or the bolts that connect the plates. I also know that the top, middle, and bottom parts of the slinger can be re-worked once and then they have to be scrapped. I told him I am nothing if not a good listener.

I realize I haven't put up pictures in a while so let's have a moment to go back and appreciate some of my past adventures as well as some more current ones, in photos...

The bulk plant team!

My first job! A surface (cement) job on a VERY small well. Shawn's crew--you'll note that I rode to the site in the truck with the tanks (at right) and the other truck mixes and pumps the cement (rear of said truck at left). Shawn's pick-up monitors it all!

I don't know why but it refuses to let me delete this duplicate photo of Shawn... sorry.

Shawn (unaware I am photographing him) as the cement is pumped. In the background, Jay the pump operator makes the magic happen.

My bed for my first two jobs... yep... the cab.

This is Kevin on my second job. He's fun. Not a fan of the camera but he's fun.

On that second job we found a HUGE bug. A bug of EPIC PROPORTIONS!!! Orange glove for reference and Anjelica in the background for added drama.

That's a slinger...kind of. It's 1/2 taken apart. The things that look like giant mints are the water plates. The white (new) one is bolted to the sand plate.

This is Matt... he's attaching the water plate. He's a little frustrated by now.

This is Adam putting the middle and bottom parts together...or trying. They don't fit. He's irritated because he's not the first to try and it still isn't working.

That's the silicone job I did... lots of silicone! I was told to "annihilate" that thing with the caulking gun. Mission accomplished.

Goodbye bulk plant...

Finished our stint in the bulk plant today. In honor of our last day, Mario fed us all day--cookies, a breakfast taco, peanuts... He also made me promise to come back and visit him before I leave Conway. To sweeten the deal he said if I joined the company and came back to Conway, he'd take me on a Mexican vacation. Not for a whole week, mind you. He only get's five days off and so we'd probably just for for three. Heavens does this guy crack me up. As un-fun as bulk plant work is I may miss the guys a little. They made an effort to get us involved today and we got to help out with a few extra things today. I got a proper tutorial on filling liquid nitrogen, I learned a little more about how the mixing of cement works from inside the cube, and I helped make labels for the tanks of the trucks. We also collected samples and continued to fill the hopper and change hoses. Basic day really.

I did not go out on a job this evening as anticipated so tomorrow I'll just spend the day in the yard learning things about paperwork or whatever else they can find for me while Anjelica and Nick go out to the field (on call so who knows when). Not super exciting but it's the price I pay for the weekend off. If I get done early enough I'm going to drive up after work and hopefully attend a parade with Carrie in the morning! I'm crossing my fingers. So ready to just hang out with people...

Another slow day in the bulk plant

As the title implies, I had ample time today to practice my new found skill of falling asleep while sitting on pallets of additives. I'm totally grateful that we didn't have a day like Nick had where we were stuck until 11 hauling sacks. Just don't think I'd like it much.

Today we loaded one cement job and then we spend the rest of the day doing cleaning and maintenance. We pressure washed the tanks outside and then helped them change out and clean "fluffers" on the tanks of raw materials. Fluffers are the parts through which compressed air is put into the tanks to help move the product out. I don't know if that's the main means of pressuring up the tanks because these things have rubber sleeves over the ends and Andy said when air goes through they "vibrate" to help the dry dust (cement and such) move better. These things get clogged up with cement and need to be rotated out for cleaning. There are several parts that have to be unscrewed (usually with the aid of a pipe wrench) and then have the cement cake chiseled out of them. This was where we were most helpful. We helped clean them and I helped put one back in too. Big day.

Here's Anjelica helping will get that rubber part off the end of the fluffer. Some of them are wedged on there pretty good. :)

To wash the tanks we got to climb on top of them. They're maybe three stories tall so that was kinda fun I suppose.

These are the tanks in question...

This is Justin, doing the very important job of holding the hose so it doesn't get tangled up. It's hard...

This is Mike doing work while Justin, Anjelica and I supervise. Get it, Mike!

And here I am supervising. Note the size of the truck in the background...we're up high. :) This is also my standard look--"one-sie" blues (not dirty yet), hard hat, prescription safety glasses (so I'm the only one who has to wear them 100% of the time...), and pigtail braids (they fit nicely under the hard hat...no muss, no fuss). Not attractive but whatev...

And...my custom tailoring of my PPE...they are a little big but duct-tape works just great for shortening them...

At one point today Mario was showing off with feats of strength... Justin didn't do an adequate job of tightening the wings and so Mario called him out. This was the result of the show of manliness:

Holding the sledge hammer with one hand... you have to touch your nose...without breaking it.

Of course, Mario can do it.

And then he was hot and sweaty so he had to go stand in front of the fan with his nomex open. He did a little dance for me when he saw I took out my camera. I love this guy...

Bulk Plant...it is what it is..

So today we worked in the bulk plant. We had to start our day at 7 (I think lots of parts of the yard do but lab let us come in at 8...I think because the morning prep work and paper work was not intern friendly) and we finished at 6. By finished I mean they let us go because they hadn't used us for anything all afternoon and in spite of having more work to do, we were probably irritating to look at perched atop palates of additives. Anyway... We spent most of the day waiting. "Hurry up and wait" is the theme of the oil and gas world. We made several (I forget exactly how many) batches of cement for the cementing department and at the end of the day we also filled a truck with liquid nitrogen for the coil tubing department. Mixing cement means getting a recipe and dumping bags of additives into a hopper that feeds into the bulk tanks. All the additives mix with the cement from the bulk tanks and transfer to and from a couple of the empty ones a few times to get them mixed to a homogeneous blend. We just helped empty bags into the hopper.

Loading additives into the hopper. It gets messy real fast.

We also swept the shop a few times as it gets pretty dusty with all the bags being ripped open. We also helped hook the hoses to the trucks that took the cement to the jobs. That is trickier than it sounds because the hoses are heavy rubbery numbers with iron wings to screw them to things. Sometimes it takes two people to do it. I did it by myself pretty quickly once which made me feel like a beast.

Like I said, we sat around a lot today because they recently hired a bunch more guys for the bulk plant and a move to day/night shifts is imminent. There are more than enough people to get things done so the little intern girls get to watch. Because it's hot we're pretty ok with this (but it was fun to get dirty for a change...I'm sure I'll eat those words later).

Anjelica, modeling our dirty blues. Work it girl!

Today we met:

Mario--a Mexican man who's basically second in charge (in charge of us interns and the guys lifting sacks into the hopper). His English is dicey but we get the point most of the time (he uses a lot of charades). He keeps things going in order and make sure we measure things up right. He's also got mad forklift skills. Seriously he whips that thing around with such precision!

The one and only Mario. He was making fun of me by striking poses while I took pictures of other things but then this is what he gives me when I point my camera at him...

Justin--nice guy, has a couple little girls and his fiancée is working nights in the dispatch office.

Nick--also nice. An Arkansas native.

Will--very new (a week I think), nice, and learning along side of us. Receives most of Mario's life lesson style speeches about how to do things and why we do them the way we do. This means he is the cause of at least 1/2 of Mario's little dance numbers which crack us up.

Andy--He says in the air conditioned cube in the corner of the shop, running pumps and giving signals. Don't know much about him but he seems nice.

Several other guys who's names I never heard or forgot--all seem pretty nice. I think they are going easy on the only two girls in the shop. I'm only vaguely offended but the heat makes it hard to notice.

Will, Mike, and... Brandon? I hope that's his name...

The guys try to include us but at some point it's hard to do that without stalling the process and we respect that. Tomorrow I'm going to try to weasel my way into the cube to see what goes on in there. I have to try to learn something good to put in my journal. Also it's air conditioned which I don't hate.

By the way...here's the lay of the land...

That's the main building (offices, dispatch, mechanic's shop) and part of the yard. Just beyond it near those trees is parking lot. Slightly to the right...

...is the rest of the yard... lots of trucks. All large and special purpose for the most part. That's basically the yard but there are a few more trailer-y buildings behind the main office building (like the lab...).

And if you turn around in that spot... the bulk plant! Over yonder is the cube and just beyond the fork lift is the hopper. Also notice all the palates of additives for the cement we make to the left. Outside behind all this is the series of big tanks. I don't know why I neglected to photograph that... tomorrow!

All good things must come to an end...

Today was the last day of lab. It was a crazy lab day. We had a million tests to run and most of them on some kind of rush. We had to run "mud push" tests all day long-- the spacer I mentioned before is kind of a guessing game and it's important to get it right. It's what gets pumped in front of the cement to clean out the drilling mud (mud and cement get along about as well as the Capulets and the Montagues). It has to have all the right rheology numbers AND be compatible with the mud. The compatibility test is where you see if you need to redesign your spacer. This particular job's spacer was redesigned 8 times before we left (all night they worked on it) and it still wasn't quite right. Lost of good smart people working to try and tweak the recipe to come up with something that was up to standard.

In the mean time we interns helped run rheologies on the cement samples from the bulk plant (special shoutout to Dr. Wang who taught me about viscosity...the focus of my time in the lab), did "dishes" and helped clean up the lab. Mark (who sounds like my cousin Bobby) is super nice and told us we were really helpful. I informed him that my number one priority was not to get in the way and my number two priority was to try and contribute something useful. Apparently it worked. We also met Marcus and Obaid today. They also work in the lab but they were off this weekend. Marcus is ornery but lots of fun. I'm a little sad we didn't get to work with them more. I plan to try to make it back to the lab if possible.

As I said, all good things must end, and tomorrow we go to the bulk plant. Nick has been staying there until 10 or 11 each night so I'm not super excited about it. The good news is that we're girls and apparently they've been waiting for us since they heard they were getting interns at Conway (which explains why I feel like I'm wearing a funny hat or have something hanging out of my nose every time I walk the hall or out in the yard) and so they MAY go a tad bit easier on us. Also I plan to do what I'm told and do it with a smile so they don't feel the need to be rough on me. It's these thoughts (lies?) that keep me optimistic about the next three days. That and the fact that I requested my weekend off to be this weekend for the 4th of July. I don't know what I'll do with it yet but I want to travel up north either to visit people in Fayetteville or maybe as far as KC (depending on what people are doing and if I think I can really pull off the trip). Over the next three days, I may be AWOL (I could be working late and pass out the second I crawl out of the shower) but don't fear for me. I'm probably still alive.