American Made

I asked for the "Top Gun" haircut and that's what I got.

The next thing you know I'll be trading in the van for a 2013 Super Duty Diesel truck with 18'' rims and a sticker on the back that says "Oil Field Trash And Proud Of It"



Today was payday and I got the biggest check I've ever seen in my life...and it was only for 2 days that I worked last week. Of course I've never worked over vats of hydrogen sulfide either. Today I was in the danger zone and a few strands of my bangs fell in front of the respirator. I vowed I would either cut them off myself or go to a barber. Fortunately we got back to the hotel early and I paid double for the barber to stay open late. Those stories I heard about 22 year old kids with $5000 of casual cash in their pockets are completely true. Suffice to say that I won't be volunteering to pick up trash in Walmart parking lots for a long time.
I'm training myself to be a crew leader and I am mentally picking my dream team of people I want to have the company pay to have sent here to work on my crew. One has a kid who would cry if his father never came back. The other is a loose cannon/maverick. And one other just got a gig at the Navy Yard refurbishing the U.S.S. Miami...which means he'll be sipping coffee for 8 hours at $20 an hour and that's hard to walk away from. And the other was half blind and is dead now so my dream team is probably not going to materialize and I'll be left with men from the valley on the border. I'm jealous because the Mexican Americans all know each other and are friends and it makes all the difference with inside jokes and lighthearted amusement. They make horrible mistakes with running wires but are basically protected by their association with the crew leader...who could train them better but has no time. If I had my dream team of 4 close friends we would clean up like bandits in an abandoned bank and we would have the best time in the world for no longer than a year...at which point I will seriously be retiring to Costa Rica.

But taking one thing at a time I am only at 90% confidence level and when I'm at 100% then I might be making some serious phone calls to assemble the A team. Stay tuned.