Tools of the Trade

H2S sensor

This is required PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) along with my hard hat and safety goggles and steel toe boots and flame resistant clothing. It monitors the H2S level in the air and I wear it on my shirt. 10ppm is the level we can work at for 8 hours with no effect. 15 ppm is only acceptable for 15 minute intervals. 100 ppm will leave you dizzy and sick. 600 ppm will kill you by crystallizing your lungs in a second. The wells I have been frequenting are either "closed in" or not pumping and have no risk...or are pumping and have the potential for 7000-11000 ppm. I say potential because the gas is contained in the tanks and a pipeline although there is always a residual smell of rotten eggs which is a characteristic of H2S. I have no idea where the pipeline goes.

The gas flares near all the pumping wells are excess H2S being burned off. I'm not completely up to speed on the engineering and containment of the gas but I know it is present in the tanks and pipeline and could vent at any time into a deadly gas cloud. That's what the safety personnel are for. We watch the wind socks to give us an idea of which way to run if an alarm should go off. You run upwind and hold your breath. If someone falls then you find 2 emergency air packs and then go back to get them. I hope that doesn't happen.

Torque Screwdriver

Question: What kind of a person would shop for a $240 torque screwdriver?

Answer: A rich one.

We used one of these screwdrivers at my semi-conductor cable harness gig. The screws on the power supply connector required 12lbs of torque and hearing that indicator click was like an orgasm to my engineering personality. I vowed if I could ever afford one I would get one not because I need it (how many screws come with torque specs?) but because the thing is a work of mechanical engineering art and it's the best screwdriver I've ever used. King Arthur has his Excalibur; I have a torquing screwdriver.
And if you think this is a frivolous purchase you should see what other people are buying. My coworkers wonder how I can be so frugal.

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"

Peasant Sly Confinement

Worn universality from broken EGR valves and grease and philosophy

"...Well, the people of the outside world were no less proud of their bad manners, of their lack of culture and coarse vulgar humor, their peasant-sly confinement to practical, selfish aims, so that they appeared no less precious, sanctimonious and eclectic in their narrow-minded naturalness than the most affected Waldzellian prize scholar."
Plinio to Joseph when he confesses that his criticism of the monastic, reflective, ponderous, Castalian Life was premature.

I Know Why The Pregnant Robot Got An Abortion

See, the real world doesn't correspond to my style of blogging and I think that's what Mr. Pregnant Robot determined also and went into retirement. I reflect on today and it's not so much a blur, but it's character-less and lacks anecdotes and many details were banished from my mind to be replaced by actual job skills. I've never seen a spring bolt before but now I know how to instal them with the wrong side up. In fact, the grave seriousness of the situation has almost deactivated my entire mechanism for remembering and notating anecdotes. I trained myself over years to concentrate on details and read people in order to get the story behind the story. That wasn't a gift but something I cultivated by sacrificing any acceptable level of production and job ethic. Go ahead, blame the fall of the economy on me. I decided that if I wanted to be Hermann Hesse or John Steinbeck then I would have to live a fairly unconventional life and also I would have to pay complete attention to everything except what I was paid to be doing. I would catalog smells and sights and sounds and locations and all the details that must be included in a story. Work? Oh, I'd get to it eventually.