Tailgating

I live and work in the old oilfield, an oilfield that involves spinning chains, oily blue jeans and t-shirts, aluminum hard hats and dirt mud pits. A place where if the tong band breaks during a tubing trip you man-up and finish the job with 24's. I've seen cool-down trailers but we don't use 'em where I work. They're for weenies. Sometimes you get to cool down around dark thirty in a beer joint, otherwise you better get your ass home to feed the horses and get ready to leave the house again at 4:30 the next morning.

My pickup is my home away from home. I sleep in it and use it occasionally to get out of a hail storm, or to warm cold hands. In it are underwear rags, Joy dish soap, gauge lines, calipers, 18 inch Cresent wrenches and at least two Halliburton red books, one on standby at all times. I use it's engine block to warm up tamales, its hood to conduct business over and its always an adventure to open up my tool box to see what the hell I threw in it before leaving the last location. Back in November I found four petrified doves in my shell bag from opening day in September. Didn't even stink; or at least didn't stink as bad as the old dirty socks in my work bag.

In this photo I am using my pickup tailgate as my office desk. I've been up for 28 straight hours dealing with lost returns, finally getting to TD, logging and shooting side wall cores all night. We're laying down drill pipe now and the casing crew is on location. Its 10:30 and already 93 degrees but I scrounged some shade and its damn right pleasant. I am on my eighth cup of coffee since midnight and wired like stuck slick line. I might get it a nap while circulating but it will be tomorrow morning before I can go home and get in my bed.

The cores looked good under the black light and there was free oil on the pits. I've made a well. But I am a structurally low and I cannot figure out why. Here I am slipping offset logs trying to find a fault cut somewhere. I am feeling very...lost in relation to my structure map. Funny how that happens. People keep asking me questions about float equipment and water in frac tanks and I can't stay focused long enough to figure it out. I spool it all up and put it away. I am a sleepy sumbitch with a long way to go. Right now the three best letters in the alphabet for me are POB.

Art by Mikey

.