Spring in Texas

"A great deal has been said about the weather.  But very little has ever been done."

Mark Twain

And so, it has been a bit of time since I added anything to this blog.  Not from disinterest, but because as the way of life, we have just added so much to our plate.  Well first, my wife Princess Persistence Incarnate decided this was the place she wanted.  It's a foreclosure in rough shape and it was pretty obvious that because of it's location, the bank was holding out for developers probably due to the size of the lot.  It's a huge house with what looks like a mother in law apartment, two car garage and an acre of land.  After a number of discouragements and rejections, it's finally looking like the princess is going to make it happen.  With thirty five grand of fixit money to boot.  It's going to need it.

This is the only pic that survived the reformat of my Android.  A huge stone fireplace exists just to the left.  With the crazy high rafters, looks more like a Viking hall.  But anyway, the place is a little rough

This is a couple miles from the house and more or less our reason for home basing here.

                            

,
This may be a bit premature, considering we are expecting another round of storms tomorrow, but last Monday we experienced a Tornado warning.  The kind that says take cover now blah blah.  Lisa and a handful of others headed to the clubhouse which is the most substantial building here.  Most folks just elected to ride it out in their RV's.  Sadly, there a some old folks been here a number of years really are not mobile, nor inclined to do anything else.  As I have said it before, the prevailing sense is if ur number is up, it's up.  When they do elect to take cover, it's usually to get drunk.  According to Lisa, this was the general conversation and disgruntlement that occurred.  Nobody had any Vodka.

I thought I would wander out in the Bronco and see what I could see.  Would like to at least have a heads up.   This is the before storm.

 The downfall however was blinding and as I watched, a lake formed in the road.  Have to warn you. miracle of miracles cuz we are in a drought.  A Gol durn Ocean fell on me.  Couple of minutes in to the following clip I check the weather radar on my G5.   The red border is the area under Tornado warning.  The Blue dot is us somewhere's near it's border.  Fortunately, and like I said probably prematurely, we experienced no real damage but are expecting another round of bad weather tomorrow night. Guaranteed I'll have some Vodka.   A tornado did touch down on a construction site about twelve miles away and tipped over a couple of work trailers and sent some guys to the Hospital, But nothing fatal.  It's a bit eerie listening to the wind howl.  

This is the after storm part.  A bunny exited from the field on the right and swam across this.  Who knew?  Well, there was that one Jimmy Carter thing.  And no, I missed the bunny shot.

                                           Have to include the random deer pics.  Taken at the location of our last job.  Which ended very nearly a month ago.  ,We worked nearly the entire year with very little time for fun.  And we have a summer ahead of us that looks to be the same.  Only of a different task.  That being to wheel and deal with contractors.  So on the eve of my sixty first birthday, I am really looking forward to much more fun times ahead.  Congratulations to my nephew Evan. and my sister Deanna getting one marred off.  Hehe.  For the first time in my life, well forty years or so, I came back from a long stint  up North working in the oil fields that maybe I should pay a bit more attention to getting my mail caught up  with me.  And that I was maybe in a little bit of problem with the law.  See I missed a jury duty notice by about three weeks.  The Court clerk was fairly understanding and I am going to have to volunteer at a later date.  No not the highway crew.  Jury duty.

I was a bit encouraged by the feedback from my short story.  My old college buddy Nan suggested an Editor.   And after looking at it again, I certainly could see why.  But Editor's can be expensive .  So what the heck, I cleaned it up a bit and submitted it to a few sites.  Have not received any rejections yet.  What the heck.  Can't win unless you try right?

Anyway, till later

Lena Horne Stormy Weather

  

Just an Update.....

. Merriweather: You're improving Jack, you just can't seem to get rid of that streak of honesty in you. The one that ruined you was that damned Indian, Old Tepee.

Jack Crabb: You mean Old Lodge Skins.

Mr. Merriweather: He gave you a vision of moral order in the universe and there isn't any.Those stars twinkle in a void there boy and the two legged creature dreams and schemes beneath them, all in vain, all in vain Jack.

Jack Crabb: You hear anything?

Mr. Merriweather: Listen to me, a two legged creature will believe anything and the more preposterous the better: whales speak French at the bottom of the sea. The horses of Arabia have silver wings. Pygmies mate with elephants in darkest Africa. I have sold all those propositions.

Jack Crabb: Or maybe we're all fools and none of it matters.

Mr. Merriweather: Ahhhh.

                                         Little Big Man

So I originally wrote a bunch of political stuff here that really didn't do anything but give myself some kind of smug satisfaction.  But I'm thinking all of us in some form watch the goings on around us and to ourselves say "How crazy is this place?"  But, as the pendulum swings, I think it is going in the right direction.  Folks who ride close to the center on either side are finally starting to see past the crazy.  As much of a drumbeat there is to go to war right now by the various politicians.  I doubt this is what the average joe citizen is interested in."  Guess I'll leave it at hat.

Lisa and I are having what we are calling a year in transition.   What that has more or less meant is we have spent a whole lot of time working.  But we are starting to see some results.  Year from now I should have a boat in my own garage and the ability to head the two miles to the water to fish for Reds whenever I want.  Part of this is pulling any and all remnants from Idaho  If mission gets accomplished we have some rather spectacular plans for a reward.

I guess because I have maintained this blog means that I more or less enjoy writing.  And the last entry being a foray into short storydom of which I will comment a little later.  But the larger issue here is the business of reinventing oneself.   In the time I have left, it is my intention to soften the edges a bit.  Yes that means being less curmudgeonly.  It's time to value the experience and the maturity one gains with the years.  It did not come cheap or without scars.  But yeah, it is time for a new life.  One that is not always comfortable but with it's own rewards.   Like the song says

My next thirty years

So I got some positive encouragement from my literary experiment in depravity.  I also received some feedback concerning editing.  And thank you Nan, I might appreciate the name of that editor you suggested.  I have all kinds of twisted little ideas swirling around in my head.  

The next couple of weeks are kind of crucial in getting done what needs to be done.  A little more on that when things get a bit more certain.

So this is what 3 inches of rain in just a couple of hours looks like in drought stricken Texas

In the year 9595

   

In our heyday

"Glory days, yeah they'll pass you by
Glory days, in the wink of a young girls eye"
                       Bruce Springsteen

Read of the passing of another from my home town.  Someone I only remember as, (myself  being only a fifteen year old),  a scrappy little blond haired kid whose boxing skills belied his young age. Whacking a heavy bag with jabs and rights with gloves larger than his head. I was transported back to a small garage in an alley in the old part of town off of second Ave, that had been transformed into a small boxing gym, barely the size of a single car garage run by a, kindly old  white haired Bill Moran whose house it was located behind. A small ring with boxing posters taped to the walls, the one I recall depicting 1969's National Golden Gloves champs of which Ron Lyle, a former Colorado state prisoner was one. Seems like the season was always Winter as I also remember the cold drive navigating icy streets while picking up and dropping off various friends afterwards.  Windshield of my 61 Ford steamed up by all the sweat.  Or seeing Earl, a former Marine and if memory serves a Vietnam vet jogging up the wet sidewalks in the dark. Green nylon military jacket and old gray sweat pants not unlike those in the Rocky movie that wouldn't be made for several years, with a white towel hooding his head. Earl was the pearl of the gym, (yeah it rhymes) a boxer of considerable skill and toughness.  I'm shooting from memory but as I recall he went to Nationals on several occasions.  And though he benefited exactly zero, Earl would don the gloves and spar with each one of us and amazingly, no one ever got hurt. With skills far beyond ours, he somehow looked like he was actually sparring as hard as say with, Woody Turley, one of the other older greats. An extremely cool thing to watch at that time. But Earl, underage as you might be,  would deliver a stinging hook if you dropped a glove below your ear just to make sure you were taking all of this seriously.    My dad had said no to this whole boxing interest several times before, envisioning the Cauliflower Ears and punch drunk demeanor that can accompany long term involvement, but eventually  relented. Apparently not to concerned about my good looks.  But anyways, so myself  and many of my friends spent many evenings the winter there eating a lot of boxing glove leather, coached patiently by a number of highly knowledgeable old guys, in the hopes of learning something that could give us some kind of edge if we ever found ourselves in a random, unescapable encounter with a number of tough guys who proliferated  in our little town.   So hell, anything that might help you survive.  But there was also just that allure of the test.  Yourself and those other guys. So on any given night that ring would be full of young men from ten to whatever years  of age.   This was the heyday of boxing in the old Magic Valley.  Where some of the locals enjoyed almost as much fame as the greats of the day.  I recall an amateur match in Gooding, Idaho attended by the great Gene Fullmer .  

Years later I would meet Matt whose dad, a one time pro of some stature raised his kids with a good knowledge and experience base of the manly arts.  That journey over several years led to various boxing gyms around Boise.

 I would meet the great Harry Kidd Matthews from Emmett, Idaho,  a one time foe of Rocky Marciano in a fight considered one of the greatest.  Ok, he was presenting trophies but still I got to shake his hand.
  
  Still later, I would get to meet and talk with George Logan  (Toughest Cat in Boise).   George, a one time great would drop by the gyms and spar with some of the better amateurs. The conversation was short but I had the opportunity to talk with him about his fight with Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali)  in 1961 and who had beaten one time champion Ezzard Charles.  Of Charles I remember Logan, a really polite self deprecating guy saying "he was past his prime."  But Ali? I remember the words "really great" spoken.  Yeah I know, it's a little different from the article but remember, George was talking to a kid at a local boxing gym and it was pretty clear he had a great deal of respect for the man.

  This was very heady stuff  in my youth but certainly credited to an interest that I had that brought me experiences that you couldn't buy from me now. Then I rarely gave a second thought to.   Memories like before a match I once had, my buddy  Matt loaned me a cup that he said was once owned by Archie Moore. Another great champion. Jeez.  I'm not sure if it was true or not or he was just trying to give me an edge .  Think about being the guy who fills those shoes, or cup so to speak. All of us played a sport or two, we might reminisce a bit about "back in the day" but there's just something about the connection of being in a ring in a solo encounter with  another whose abilities were at least as much as your own.  And really something everybody should experience.  My few fights were bloody, each time.  Sometimes the other guy a little more.  It didn't matter so much.  Boxing was a sport that tested your will as much as your toughness. A sport touted in the seventies by Playboy magazine of all things to be the toughest of them all.  Yeah, there's comparative sports now (think MMA)  But I don't think that option is as available to guys of questionable athletic bent as we were.  Nor are the kindly old coaches willing to spend time to teach the finer points of an art that they themselves had loved and were willing to pass on to anybody who'd pay attention, not just the prodigy. (As I myself have) But boxing and all of us old guys who share a little bit of that history, from those small towns, who at one time or another put it all up there,   there is a treasured corner for all those shared memories  and believe it or not a feeling of community.  And when an old great like Joe Frazier, Ron Lyle or Ken Norton, to just a local standout like Rick Adams passes, There's a communal wail from a bunch of guys, not a one under fifty who shared a time some thirty to forty years ago when in  our minds, the real glory days of the sport were. 

,

 Harry Kid Matthews vs Rocky Marciano

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You can't go back

Nor would I suspect, want to

I like to scourge the Internet to find quotes that suit my mood, moment or day.  My usual suspects, Mark Twain, Will Rogers or even Unknown meet the "thought for the day" category pretty much, but now and again I find a gem that gobsmacks me right to the bone.  Such as the case of this one stolen from one of the other blogs I occasionally read.

 "You never know when it will be the last time you see your father, or kiss your wife, or play with your little brother, but there is always a last time"

Written by some guy John Trooper, whom I've never heard of let alone read one of his books.  Little explanation is needed and one surely can expand this meaning to other loved ones.  It's just one of those little truth's in life.   So, 

Yep, we're outta here tomorrow.  Whether it's to our usual roosts or not, who knows?  Most unreliable schedule I've ever known.  Get a call at any time and if you take the job, you got a couple of hours to get there and set up.  Can be a real pain sometimes. Especially at night. As far as on call though, well, I'll put it like this.  Young guy shows up not fifteen minutes ago.  I thought I recognized him out of the couple hundred guys I deal with every day and asked if he had left some time during the day,  (being not new round here was  the question). He says he left about 3:00AM.  Yep that's my gig.  He had to come back because some "Jagoff" (and isn't there always some jagoff whose name we never hear?) had screwed some (insert a thingamabob that I haven't the faintest idea of recognition or purpose)  Then he added "Don't you get bored doing this?".   I thought back over the years, to all the years owning jobs that I was on call for?  And two memories leapt instantly to the top of the heap.

A time in the early nineties when as a newly divorced, broke Dad with two small children living in a remote location, middle of winter with two plus feet of unplowed snow outside.  Odds of getting out in 4X4 50/50.  Getting a midnight call that I had to deal with, no getting around it.  (This stuff happened alot back then.) because some "jagoff" probationer or parolee was "struttin his stuff".  (yeah i was a PO, another term that needs no explanation)  And also fresh from child custody court and here I am having to find some midnight babysitter's because I really hafta handle whatever bullshit is going on.  Loading the kids up and dealing with that little nightmare, picking up a couple of sleepy little ones a couple of hours later to go back for a few minutes of precious sleep to then start the day again.  Cuz, well I needed the job.

And.............

For thirteen years give or take working at Skywest Airlines,my coveted second job,  bless her soul for doing so much for me, yet taking so much as well.  Many, many nights of walking into a terminal full of screaming angry passengers because, well, because God thought this was a great night for a snowstorm to trap them all in some small town they had never heard of, midway during their flight to whoever knows where.  Sometimes hundreds of them.  Yeah I know, a lot of folks have to do this stuff.  But this was betwixt and between the other stuff.  And the gods of coincidence just loved to make them all happen at once. And to me.  To work eight hours overnight in freezing weather, go  home change clothes, drop the kids at school and then, exhausted, go sit on a witness stand for a couple hours in some courtroom scattered between eight counties. There are limits though.  One prosecutor from a northern county some five hundred miles away faxed a subpoena about quitting time for the next day.  OK, he would be a classic "jagoff"  I called him and the dude really expected that I was going to hop in the state ride and be there AM.   Such is the abuse a state employee gets.  Dismiss or deal dude, it ain't happening's what I told him.  It's been nearly eight years since I retired and wouldn't return on a bet.   Folks who abuse state workers should walk a mile in their shoes.

So anyway, to answer the guy's question, No, I don't get bored here everyday.  Matter of fact, I kinda like it.  Fer now anyway.


 "What day is it? It's today squeaked Piglet. My favorite day said Pooh."

             AA Milne

The Alamo, San Antonio

Between really lousy weather,   Countless contacts with the loan guy at the bank who seems to need more and more stuff while gathering up crap to complete our taxes,   And frankly I am bored with talking about life on a Caliche road in South Texas, oh yeah where the winters are milder, you just have to deal with the consequences of the occasional ocean of water that falls on you seemingly every week during the season. Plus we have been trying to make ourselves available for every emergency or short term job that comes around in an effort  to stretch out this employment as long as possible as the companies sort things out.  My understanding is the more curmudgeonly ilk among us are hard pressed to find work.    And  Oh yeah, my last computer took a crap.

So last Saturday, the planets came together and we were released on perhaps the nicest day we have had around here for weeks.  Ashamed to say, we had never been to the Alamo, although sometimes not more than an hour's drive away.

Though one could argue this place is the reason Texas ever came into existence and provided the rallying cry "Remember the Alamo" allowing the Texians to push the Mexican Army back.   I experienced the  same humbling reverence I  felt while visiting the resting place of the USS Arizona in Oahu.  Though things didn't start nor end here, some 200 to 250 "Texians" died in a Battle with somewhere's near 3000 of Santa Ana's troops on March 6, 1836.  After repulsing two previous attacks, they were overrun in the third attack. The Mexican soldiers swiftly executed the survivors or those who surrendered.  Over 600 Mexican troops died during the battle.  Another stroke of luck, we happened to visit during the annual reenactment that had been rained out the week before.

The Alamo is located smack dab in the middle of San Antonio, Downtown.  Entrance is free but good luck finding parking under 15.00 for the day. 

Tha Alamo chapel itself is not large.  Photography is not allowed so folks will have to google images themselves.  It now has a roof but gazing at the top of the walls with the small walkway,  well, imagination tells the rest of the story.  The inside is currently home to a massive display of early flintlock weapons and Bowie Knives or "Arkansas Toothpicks",  It's said David Crockett, one of the Commanders secluded himself for a period to settle with his maker before the battle.

The Walls still bear scars of the attack.

Lisa got some folks to smile, well me not so much.

     

What?  I'm a friendly guy and I promise not to mug you.  

We also had Dinner on the River Walk.  A meandering walk along the San Antonio River lined with many many restaurants.  A lot of the prices seemed a little steep with the exception of the Mexican variety, which incidentally is what we went with.  Otherwise about every type of food in the spectrum is available.   .

I just have not settled on a platform for the Panoramics yet.  Yes that is the top of Lisa's head.

Dinner visitor.  Tried to get my foot in the pic.  He was just a bit skittish.

And Back.  Note the Caliche dirt road.

My earliest memories of the Alamo, other than high school History.  I must have been five or six when I watched this on old black and white television.  It's worth the eight and a half minutes worth.

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The quintessence of manliness is fearlessness, readiness to defend one’s own pride and that of one’s family.” –Julian Pitt-Rivers, The People of the Sierra

Because of my ability to NOT generate an original thought.  the following are random ramblings of occurrences in our lives the past couple of weeks.

He said "Im the pretty one" and I said "you're right, you're a damn handsome man" In a joking comment how I was to discern him from the previous driver.


My last jest with maybe the last truck driver I checked in the last  night of work.


0530, after about five weeks of repetitive trying to sleep during the day through the sound of not one, but several diesel engines, chemical and diesel fumes,  various men yelling greetings ten feet from where I am trying to sleep,  the sound of gas station bells going off nonstop throughout the day, all day, and several nights of hard decision making.  Skinny armed Rob Lowe or peaked in high school Rob Lowe, our time came to an end as the Company Man drove to the end of the road and said "Hate to be the asshole, but you guys are released".  One of my favorite guys he said, "it wasn't up to me.   Sorry".  "Your company lost the bid"

Accumulated sleep deprivation has virtually "kicked my ass".  At first, with the help of Nyquil's  Zzzquil  I might get somewhere's of six hours sleep during the day.  I may be fooling myself on that one.  It's like "when did sleep become so hard?"  Am I going to be able to stay awake, this fortieth consecutive night?  At the end, I seem to be tired all of the time.  Eventually, I guess a cumulative effect, I'll sleep a straight eight hours and feel more or less refreshed.   But that is only one in every seven or eight days.

Driving the 120 miles or so home, I literally poured water on my face and then leaned out the window for the cold shock of wind on my face to revive me.

Sleep deprivation is not a new phenomenon to the Oilfields.  There have been a number of high profile accidents involving several fatalities in the last few months.  Most recently a rather grisly accident in Dimmit County involving several oil workers.  The Eagle Ford  counties boasts the highest number of driving mishaps in the state of Texas. But.  Last night with the expectation that we would be on the same job another ten days, I drove the twenty plus miles to Kenedy for groceries.  A small town that seems to have more or less had a construction boon to accommodate the massive rise of temporary workers.

For the very first time I drove without the proverbial numerous trucks full of workers, heading somewhere, with the most leadfoot of the bunch driving "Up my Ass'.  In fact I was alone the entire trip.  Probably much like someone who drove that route twenty years ago might experience.  In the HEB, I could count the number of other customers on one hand.  Something also unusual.

Newspapers on sale at the HEB headlines read "QUAKES ROCK KARNES".  The county we are in.  Hmmm.  Didn't notice.

Saddest of all.  I have met guys I know to be at least (you know, the "New Forty" ) in their sixties and who have been working non stop the past many many years but who are now going to be unfamiliarly unemployed.  Yeah, they have made good money, but they earned it.  One really needs to experience this world down here.  The extremes in climate and demands of the job these folks were doing. Twelve to twenty four hour shifts.    A hilarious local commercial coined it spot on,  "Yeah, you, Chicken Mcnuggets, who lives with twenty other smelly dudes.  You! are the backbone of  America's Energy".  These guys have survived in a world where mishaps ruin careers. More likely at times to get yelled at than complimented.   Wearing full protective gear when the temp is in the three digits and humidity nearly the same. I mean full protective gear.  Overalls, hard hats, heavy gloves and boots and safety glasses.  And not just men but women as well. Well, the past two weeks we have talked with many, many extremely nice folks who have lost their jobs cause of the downturn.  Numbers in the thousands around here I suspect.  Lisa, well what can I say.  A stickler for detail she has become extremely popular with the higher ups.  I was told in confidence. While decisions are made concerning contracts in other places.  Consensus is that she should run winning bid's company.  Yeah, she's that good.

So anyway, pulled up to the beach.  Temp is in the lower 80's No telling when or if we'll go back to work.  Did I say the sky is gorgeous with just a mild breeze coming from the Ocean.  Course the campground is crowded with other winter texans. and I guess that's kind of a hardship.  Didn't want to paint a picture rosier than it is.  Somebody has to hold the fort down.

Wellllll, that was all written two weeks ago.  This is what she looks like now.

So I snuck down to the beach to take a few "Angry Ocean" Pics

Waves have eroded nearly half the Beach.  County is gonna be busy next week.

 




Oh yeah and this whatever it is.  Reminded me of Star Wars.

It was really motating through the channel

The past two weeks have been filled with preparations for the two year old grand daughter to turn three.  K. this consisted of a rehearsal or "practice birthday party" over a two day period and then the real thing.  Think we need more grandkids huh?

And........ wait for it....... Lisa turns fifty this week!!!!!!!!!   My joke about looking for an "Old Lady Store" have not received the positive reception proof of my "wit" I thought they would.  Anyway, I had to search around Amazon to locate her favorite perfume, Jean Nate stuff.  I'm so comfortable that she won't read this that I can tell it here.  Although she felt extremely comfortable dictating her birthday requirements.  Sleepover with the aforedescribed now three year old.  Spicy chicken and shrimp and coconut frosting that is on double fudge cake.  Not German Chocolate.

And still providing stuff to the Bank trying to get their approval to buy stuff.  Property stuff.  And so while we wait.......and wait.  I thought I would toss in a few links of some of the most interesting stuff I have read this week.

The first, provided by James about what our personal microbes say about us.  TED talk.  And my personal two cents,  it's this kind of knowledge that I find comforting, a sense of community and immortality.  Listen...

How our Microbes make us who we are


AND

TRAILER FOR CITIZENFOUR

The second, after watching Citizenfour which was shown on HBO last night.  (The above is a Trailer)  I followed up with this. Also a TED talk.  Which delves a bit deeper into the subject matter.   If folks like myself, previously thought privacy only matters if you are doing something wrong,  there is a lot more to it

Why Privacy Matters

And the last being the 3P's of Manliness, for which the last paragraph best suits me.  "Not a clickable link) http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/02/24/the-3-ps-of-manhood-protect/

As Gilmore points out, the imperatives themselves aren’t really bad or good as far as being categories of encouraged behavior. It’s how they’re applied, enforced, and segregated exclusively to the male sex that people take issue with. Some who are very traditional will say we should carry these charges forward pretty much untouched. Some will say they are offensive, sexist, and wholly outdated and should be dropped as markers of manhood altogether. And some (and this includes us) will say that they do still have value, and that you should retain the best parts of these manly duties, discard what doesn’t work, and not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I actually respect someone who will take any of those particular sides more than someone who doesn’t want to have the discussion at all because “manhood is meaningless.” At least have the discussion. And when you do, now you know where to start.

And this final quote about sums it up best on this cold, rainy, wet day.

The one thing that does not abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

-- Harper Lee

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All things must change

Been thinking alot about how we got to here.

Two years and roughly five months ago Lisa and I set off in a popup trailer from Twin Falls with a couple of bicycles with no destination and no real intent of ever coming back to Idaho in any substantial manner other than to visit.  We had just survived a short sale of our house and had come through an extremely hard time in our relationship.  I think at the time the plan was just to travel endlessly.  Healing was needed and though it was unrealistic, I thought to myself when we were living in the Rockies 75 miles outside of Denver that yeah, if we were still in the popup in five years living in just such free a manner as we were, hell why not. Was there a life better than to amble through a beautiful forest each morning to buy a paper. Leisurely mornings next to a lake or stream.   Explore by bicycle in the afternoon and visit with the other residents of the campground.  Many memorable people and conversations.  There was also the East Coast, Canada and Alaska to visit.  There was also overseas trips to be made on the cheap.  By thanksgiving we'd already traveled to Mexico and Costa Rica for two weeks to stay with relatives.  This was after long stays in both Missouri and Arkansas.  Then after a six week stint with an odd assortment of folks, we stopped at Port Aransas and loved it.  It and the area.  Shortly thereafter we learned of the possibility of fairly good money in oil field security.  Basicly a second career was born because the last seventeen months we have been working a whole lot more than we haven't  And maybe we should have worked on some financial goals beyond that month long trip to Europe last year.

I may look back at these pictures some day with nostalgia.  With but a few breaks, the austere gate guard life has pretty much dominated our life the past couple of years.  Kind of like a career only more of a lifestyle.  Living full time in the oil patch described as somewhere in North, South or East Texas.  To be honest we have not worked in North Texas yet.  But we have been here through two summers and two winters.   Although Winters tend to me much muddier and nastier they are my preference given the brutal nature of the South Texas summer.  I used to list our locations, but now I suspect the number is approaching three digits. A whole lot of other folks are in a tailspin over the current events.  Lisa is a bit more bummed than I.  Myself, meh.  Kind of like I reminded my late old buddy who would relate ambitious plans he had in his after career career.   Did he think he was going to live forever?

Over the past couple of years after countless visits with Oil men, young, old, executive and grunt, we have a better than passing understanding of what is going on down here.  And a whole lot of innovations like horizontal drilling.  Lisa and I pretty much recognize the different vehicles and equipment and know how they are used.  What "Gel", "Mudd" and "Flowback" terms mean.  The difference between "Workovers", "Fracs" and "Rigs".  What "Wireline" and "Coil Tubing" are. We've been through some training and even recieved our H2S certification. These guys have to communicate these days in order to not collide with another well located a mile away.  Folks my age remember the old JR Ewing and Dallas television series.  That old program was based on the oil boom that went on in Texas for many years but busted out in the early eighties.  Those old rusted relics are all over texas sitting idle in fields so overgrown with weeds there is not even a semblance of a road to them anymore.  Like a whole lot of things that are built in Texas, stuff is put up but rarely taken down.  That's why there are old vacant buildings everywhere.  Unchanged from for instance a gas station from the fifties. Watch the 1971 last Picture Show to get a sense of this.  So anyway, when Oil crossed the sixty something dollar threshold, then fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, a process of extracting petroleum from rock now became economical.  And so began the hair on fire time in Texas.  Well, like JR Ewing, that period of time seems to have come to an end.  Although to us, there seems to be the same level of activity, the reality from conversations and sense of foreboding from everyone we meet, well is just a bit of a bummer. Some of these guys we have known the better part of two years. Like one guy said "it's kind of hard to pick another career out of thin air when I have so much invested here". For us anyway as the companies are rethinking how this job will be done in the future.  Sitting in a shack twelve hours a day next to an outhouse with a hundred mile round trip is not something we are up for.  And also, while we have been hearing of Frac related earthquakes in other areas, we got hit by a #3 earthquake the other day.  Lisa and I some fifty miles away did not feel a thing.

We are working a Frac right now, likely the last for awhile.  Even overnight one can expect to be writing in trucks about every half hour or so.  Peppering the drivers with questions, H2S Certification up to date?  Arrived with and in possession of all protective equipment.  A reminder of prohibited items and behavior on site followed by the instruction to sign in at the safety trailer and check with the "Company Man" , or the onsite manager.  

For the most part, with power, water and sewer dump, your RV is pretty much self sustained.  Last night in the middle of a rainstorm the Diesel generator decided to die.  Damn, forced to forgo TV and I had to light the propane refrigerator manually.   It's difficult to get a sense of how much dust really gets into your rig, all I know is it is unlikely that we will ever sell this rig or purchase one that has been used in this fashion.  That being said. I am in a little awe how trouble free our equipment has functioned, particularly when we have learned how many equipment difficulties others have experienced with stuff much newer than ours.  

One of us, usually me heads to town once or twice a week for a grocery or laundry run.  Usually meaning one of us after our 12 hour shift gets to lose sleep to get this done.

In Texas, as I have explained to Lisa while driving, there is never a shortage of trucks "Up my Ass" everywhere I go more dumbass speeding drivers here than anywhere I have seen.  Folks run fifty in School zones for chrissakes.  Seriously though, the influence of Oil production is everywhere.  Somewhat immuned to it I had an eye awakening experience watching a fifty some foot flume over some trees the other day. One also becomes accustomed to the never ending structures and facilities everywhere.  Including huge drilling rigs set near and in some towns.  At least fifteen big drillers from Karnes City to where I am sitting. 

This is a great bird watching area though.  I did manage to take a pic of these beauties.

OK they're Buzzards.  Pretty day though huh?


For the life of me, how kids are raised today, contrasted from mine, and others of my ilk.  I suspect in some ways it is better, but I don't think I would trade.  In this day and age I think, truthfully that most of our parents would be jailed or tied up in some Child Protection thang.  Truth be known, as a Tadpole, I don't think I woulda missed any of those things on a bet.  Eh Glenn? Sad.  Remember this from the day when things, well, were just a little simpler?