Back From Second Rig

WOW what a stint away from reality. I was back in Laredo Texas for a 13 day run. I would have been there longer had it not been for 2 test I have to take next week. I was on the Orion Haley's Comet rig drilling for natural gas. I found out I was flying out the morning of. I was in the car on the way to work looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend when I got a message saying that I have a 10am flight. So we got to the site around 4pm and luckily the tools hadn't arrived. We drove the 40 miles back to town for some groceries and finally made it home around 11pm. Just as I went to bed I hear that the trucks are pulling up. Needless to say I kept sleeping till 4am. at 4am as I was walking out of the trailer to the logging unit I heard a loud long horn blast. In the back of my head I knew something wasn't right. Long story short we took a huge kick and they had to shut off the well. Oil based mud sprayed all over the drilling floor and covered most of the other equipment. So basically this happened for a week strait of drilling ahead a few feet and the circulating out the gas. Anyways we ended up putting our tools in the hole the day we were suppose to be done the job so I was wondering when this would end.

Sorry if the oil talk wasnt entertaining. So since our rig was 2 miles from the Rio Grande we had boarder patrols crawling all over the local roads. We were pulled over 3 times and one time had the drug dog in the car smelling us. I thought it was entertaining but thats only because the last time I thought I was actually getting a speeding ticket.

The second cool part about being close to the boarder is the stories of wondering fence hoppers. The rig crew said that a frail guy wondered onto the site in tattered clothes and said he had been lost for 140 days. The rig crew gave him some money and water and sent him on his way. Good times in South Texas.

Back From First Rig

This is my desk and computers in a small shipping container called the logging unit.

I'm Backkkkk. My trip was a little shorter than expected. I was suppose to be out there for a week maybe two but drilling went well and we hit our target smoothly. If it wouldn't have been smooth I would not be happy and it would mean more work. By work I mean tracking depth and taking surveys.

I got to the site Saturday afternoon and had a brief run down of what my duties were. By midnight I was all by myself in the unit. If something did go wrong I only had to wake the manager up, but really define a problem severity that warrant's waking someone who you just met whose has just fallen asleep after a 12 hour shift. Needless to say no waking up was done and I didn't get yelled at. I think, maybe, possibly, probably I did a good job. For 12 hours I was basically in charge of running the tool and making sure it didn't die in the hole.



A brief description of my job is you have a train on tracks and it has a computer. You've told the computer to tell you the temperature outside and where exactly on the tracks it is. the train has a string attached to it so you can measure how much string is let out. I basically make sure the trains not lying and that the string length is correct. It gets a little more complicated but not much more.

A little excitement arose when some rain fell and then some hail and my manager told me there was a tornado warning. I asked him what I should do and he said sit tight. I then asked if I should go anywhere and he told me I was in the best place to be. My faith in the logging unit was not very much. So there was no tornado but there was a lot of mud. By mud I mean a few inches of thick sticky red clay. I almost kicked my boot off when it was fully laced up. Anyways that is about all that happened that I care to write down so...