Reflections on Being a Quarter of a Century Old

It seems like so much has happened in a year.  It flew by very quickly but also seemed extraordinarily long. So it feels like my life was measured in dog years this year. I swear it has been five years all packed into one. For me this past year was really March to March, not January to January as it usually is, but I suppose this is fitting as I am a March baby. A year ago I found out I got this job, received the news that my mom had breast cancer, and was proposed to all within the same week. Now I have been engaged for a year with a wedding in less than three weeks, I've been working at my job long enough to have a white hard hat (not sure I have earned one but I resourcefully obtained one either way), and my mom has proved that a sense of humor is better than a pair of boobs anyway. So here's a little review and reflection of the past year of my life. Be prepared, it is a long post and I put the funny stuff at the end.

March went like this.
Got an interview at a daycare center in Fairbanks. Not five minutes later, got a call about an interview at an oil refinery. Then got the job at the daycare center in Fairbanks. Seconds after I hung up the phone, got a call about an interview for the mud engineering job. Decided the universe was sending me a message not to work at the daycare center and so I turned down the first job lead I'd had in three months. That was a difficult thing to do. Luckily, I got the mud engineering job very quickly after the initial contact. Adding to the job search stress, I was convinced my mother was hiding something from me. I had no real evidence or reason to be suspicious but I just knew. Travis and I went on vacation to see the Iditarod (the dog sled race, the last great race on earth if you don't know) the weekend I got the job. As a child I used to build mini dogsleds out of yarn, dollhouse shingles, and popsicle sticks and then have my toy dalmations pull them; so the Iditarod was kind of a big deal for me. The day before we went to see the start of the race, my mom called and told me that the doctors had found a tumor; she had breast cancer. Needless to say, it put a damper on our vacation. Travis told me later that it was at this point he nearly backed out of proposing that weekend. He waited until the next day right before we were leaving to head home after we saw the ceremonial start and watched many of the mushers start their race. But in the end he proposed next to Mitch Seavey's truck and managed to catch the whole thing in a series of pictures. And the engagement story had the perfect finishing touch when Mitch Seavey won the race, ten days later, on my birthday. Wedding planning gave us all something to think about and talk about besides breast cancer. And that's how March passed in a blur of stress, conflicting emotions, breast cancer research, wedding planning, and travel plans.

April went like....
Honestly I don't even remember April. I think April and May all bled together.

May, the month of travel.
There was a lot of travel to Colorado in May. I visited my mom after her mastectomy surgery and also spent time in Colorado and Wyoming for work training.  There were also freak "blizzards" in Colorado that made travel even more of a pain and stressed me out to no end.

June was all about transitions
I got a few brief weeks of "summer" in Alaska finally. Though this was just a brief week or two of mild weather that required only a sweatshirt. And there was still snow on the ground when I left for Houston for mud school where I spent the remainder of the month.

July was Houston
This was the month of hellishly hot Houston weather that shot up to 115 degrees. And it was a month of living in a hotel, away from Travis and my family, the first time I'd really been off on my own. I did have plenty of fun, regressing into a college schedule and staying up too late and having lots of evening drinks with friends but I also did just fine at real life and real jobs. This was the month I went to a rodeo, encountered a cockroach, decided to jump out of a plane, and ate so much sushi that I thought I would die from a stomach explosion.

August was when I ran away to Alaska...again.
I finished up mud school and moved back to Alaska having again accumulated a ton of crap to move in too few suitcases. I got a brief couple of weeks of Alaskan summer again. But I couldn't stay in one state, that would be too easy. I also made a trip to Michigan with Travis and met all the family. This was the month I finally went out to the rigs for the first time and saw a polar bear.

September was another April.
I don't think we went anywhere in September which can't possibly be right.

October was Washington.
This was when we took our home finding visit when I started to panic about how hectic moving would be and how much we still had left to plan for the wedding. I swear I was just constantly panicked in October.

November was hockey.
November was good, we had lots of hockey dates, movie dates, and dinner dates in November. November I recall as being a good month with extra time off. Which reminds me, a post soon to come of the last few Fairbanks adventures I forgot to mention.

December/January was when time sped up.
These two month were when time warped. This could not have possibly been two separate months, it was only one. We moved, celebrated all the holidays and Travis's birthday, spent ages both packing and unpacking, bought loads of furniture, and realized the wedding was almost here and frantically planned and spent money on wedding this and wedding that. My parents also came to visit us and made us feel weird about being adults and hosting parents in our space. But it was wonderful to see my mom and hear her jokes about how she didn't feel like bringing her new fake boobs through airport security.

February was wedding planning, puppies, and getting a new rig.
Weddding, wedding, wedding! Oh and then lets throw in some extra chaos and look for a puppy. Honestly it felt like deciding to adopt a child or have a baby.Where you think it will take much longer than it does and you are unprepared. I was prepared to have to wait until fall or summer before we'd have a puppy and then we had one within a couple weeks. We planned on a giant breed dog and that is indeed what we are getting. Not just a giant breed but the heaviest dog breed around. This puppy will weigh nearly half of what I currently weigh by the time we get to pick him up at 16 weeks old. Just process that for a second. And then on top of that was getting out on my own at at whole new rig.

March is a new beginning that is just beginning. I'll be 25, married, and raising 2 dogs and a husband. I'll be a Howard as well as a Gonzalez. We keep saying things will settle down for us but I'm thinking we will just see how the year plays out.

Well that's the year in review, probably with lots of big events forgotten but whatever, I probably already blogged about them. After a full quarter century of life and the past year's experience, I have learned a few things.

Stereotypes are made to be broken. You can bring a purse to an oil rig. Your nail polish doesn't have to match your coveralls. Conversely, you can swear like a rig hand and still be a lady.

 Everyone is a weirdo but people like you anyway. I really like cryptozoology. Roxi really likes feet (though does anyone else have a dog with an extreme foot fetish or is it just ours?). Yet Travis really likes both of us and our quirks.

Never say never because that's just asking for trouble and tempting fate.

Quality over quantity should be the general rule for furniture, friends, and drinks.

Read Harry Potter, skip Twilight.

Speaking of Harry Potter, the villains are never pure evil and the heroes are never perfect. Dumbledore and Snape are proof of this.

"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light." Always.

Ok I promise, that was the last Harry Potter reference.

Good books are better than good movies. But it's also ok to put down an awful book and turn on a movie.

Just because you haven't known someone very long doesn't mean they can't be one of your best friends.

The older you get, the younger high school students get. You become officially old when you look at a high school senior and realize there are still a child to you. This is also when you realize that teenagers do stupid crap. I don't even know what I was thinking for those ten years of my life. However, remember that just because someone is a teenager that doesn't mean they don't know anything.

Always tell the people you love that you love them at the end of conversations. Just in case you get that scary phone call.

You might get away with breaking a few laws. Except Murphy's law. Murphy's law is more strict than any of the laws of thermodynamics.

Family isn't always related by blood, or even marriage.

Sometimes the two year old you're babysitting will wipe his nose on someones sweater or your dog will wipe her poop on someone's lap. The people you want to keep in your life are the one's who will just sigh, wipe the bodily fluids off their clothes, then have a good laugh about it.

Drink tequila responsibly. You can sometimes get away with drinking wine or even vodka irresponsibly. But tequila is serious business.

Change is the most constant constant. This means you'll have acquaintances who morph into the best friends that get to make toasts at your wedding. This also means that whatever you are stressing about will eventually sort itself out and then something else stressful will take their place.

Nothing good happens after 2 am.

Your mother was actually right a lot. (But not always!!!)

Accept yourself, and really love yourself. And don't forget about accepting and loving other people too. But yourself first.

How I Met Your Mother has some great life lessons. How I Met Your Mother words of wisdom.

Do something crazy every once in a while.

Marry your best friend.

Last but not least, it's perfectly acceptable to only have 24 life lessons when you are 25.

Real Conversations with the AT&T Support Center

Hello all, this is a guest post from Travis as this story just had to be told.  You'll have to forgive Miriam for not posting lately, as wedding planning has kicked into a higher gear.  

Yesterday (Thursday) Miriam left home for the arctic one final time before the wedding. Flights this time have gone without a hitch and she has now arrived safely in Alaska, with plenty of time to spare. While she had cell service, she was actually able to text me for a bit.  One message caught me off guard however. "Dunno if you'll get this.... I just got a message that my data is turned off due to high international charges."

This entirely confused me.  For those how aren't certain, Deadhorse, one of the closer towns to Miriam's rig, is about 300 miles from the Canadian border, as the crow flies.  There is no way her phone is bouncing off a Canadian tower, and certainly not a Russian tower as that's over a 1000 miles away. So she forwards me the message and I call AT&T for her, as I'm at home for the night, and her signal is spotty.

Within 5 minutes I am on the line with the International Charges support line.  A very polite woman answers and asks me what exactly the problem is, and I explain the situation.  Luckily, Miriam and I already share phone service, otherwise this would have been a much bigger problem.

AT&T: "Well just let me pull up her data history real quick...... Ok sir, you say she is in Alaska? I have most recent data pinging off of a tower in..... Moroshskas? Norofjakfs?  Nicrohfpsjf?"

At this point she is just talking gibberish, unable to pronounce this area.  My first thought is that she's trying to pronounce a city in the Far East Region of Russia, but I'm not completely sure.

Me: "Well Ma'am, that can't be right, she's in Deadhorse Alaska.  Hundreds of miles from the nearest border."

AT&T: " Now sir, I have to ask, are you sure your fiancee went to Alaska? Because that's not what I'm seeing."

Me: "Yes, I am sure she's there, she's certainly not international, she doesn't even have a passport...."

AT&T: "Ok sir, let me put you on hold for a moment and speak with my supervisor."

This is a pretty quick conversation, maybe five minutes or less.

AT&T: "Thank you for holding Mr. Howard. So what I'm showing is that you currently have $630 worth of data charges on your account.  We understand that that there has been a confusion here, so what we can do is waive these fees by you purchasing the international data package for $30."

At this point, I'm a little bit mad.

Me: "No ma'am.  I will not purchase an international package. Miriam hasn't left this country in over 5 years. She is no where near a border.  There is a problem with your system, and I will not be paying any fees."

AT&T: "I understand sir.  Now I do want to ask again, are you sure your fiancee isn't out of the country?? I'm showing..... Nicarasdfjsdflj...... I really don't know how to pronounce it. But it's a country in South America."

My only guess is that this woman means Nicaragua, which is even more confusing, as this is where Miriam's father is from, and she has quite a bit of family there.

Me: "No she's not in South America.  We're talking about tens of thousands of miles away from where she is.  If she can be bouncing off a tower that far away, I need to complain about the dead spot in my bathroom."

AT&T: "Ok sir, can you tell me when she left for Alaska?"

Me: "Of course, she left Spokane Washington yesterday at 3:00 PM.  She's been flying since then, and stopped in Portland, Seattle, and Anchorage before reaching the arctic."

AT&T: "Ok sir, and when will she leave Alaska and be back in the country?"

Me: "She get's back on the........ Wait? Back in the country?? Alaska is a STATE. She is still in the US.  She never left!!!!"

AT&T: "I understand...... Then when will she be home?"

At this point I really don't want to get into the mess that is the wedding travel, and the fact that she won't actually come home for almost 5 weeks.

Me: "She gets back to Washington on March 14th."

AT&T: "Ok sir, there seems to be a problem, as her history doesn't match up with what you are saying. I'm going to need to transfer you to our Technical Services line.  Now, I do want to warn you, they are experiencing a very high call load, so I will have to place you on hold for a bit."

At this point, I am confused and a little bit tired of people insinuating that my soon to be wife has run off to South America and had the audacity to text me about her cell phone bill.  I decided to grab a glass and pour myself a few fingers of whiskey to sip on while I wait.  And it's a good think I did, because 20 minutes of texting Miriam in tropical Nicaragua Alaska later, I finally reached someone in Tech Services.

AT&T: "Hello Mr. Howard, what can I help you with?"

At this point I launch into a long story, and probably overwhelm the poor man with information that he didn't need, but frankly, I needed to remind myself of the situation because it had been so long.

AT&T: "Hmmmm, well sir, I've been reviewing your account, and I have to say, I have no clue what my co-worker was looking at.  I show her leaving Spokane, and currently in our Arctic Slope service area. And I see no charges on your account.  I do see that her data was suspended, but that must have been an error.  I've reset the suspension and you should be good to go."

Me: "Wait, that's it?? She's not in South America, and her data is turned on? And no charges??"

AT&T: "Yup, should be back to buisness as usual.  Let us know if somehow you get a charge, and we'll reverse it, but everything should be ok."

Me: "Oh.... Well.... perfect then. Ummmm..... Thanks?"

AT&T: "Of course sir, have a great day.  Thank you for calling AT&T Support."

*Click*

And that was it, 48 minutes later and we determined where Miriam was. I'm still a little dumb founded, and the fact that Nicaragua of all places was brought up makes it even more confusing.  But Miriam's data has been turned on, and everything is fixed.  Now if only should could use it up there.......  

Note from Miriam:

I am most certainly not in Nicaragua. I'm definitely in the far away  "country" of Alaska. And my employers could vouch for me. This does make me question the existence of Dopelgangers and/or time travel. That's the only explanation I have.  That would also explain today's dinner. Apparently it's thanksgiving on the rig as I am eating a meal of turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. Luckily I don't actually mind this because I love stuffing. I do feel like I'm having a surreal day though. Clearly the next three weeks until the wedding won't be ordinary!

New News: New Rigs And New Additions

This hitch I was switched to a new rig. It's an exploratory well. Which means we are far outside of Deadhorse.  And this is a well drilled to see how well this particular area produces, hence, exploration.  Since I am a contractor, working on a different rig means working with different companies. So a bit of a different routine and change in paperwork. Which means it is taking me a bit to catch up and reorient myself. Additionally this means I am working with different mud engineers. So far they have been laid back, nice, and very helpful. However I don't ever work at the same time as any of them, so I won't get to know them as well as my old night engineer buddies. Luckily my old engineering mentors are often working the same time as me and don't mind a middle of the night inquiry about something mud related. Also, the rig layout is totally different than my previous rig. Luckily, this rig is a lot easier to get around. It is much smaller and has less stairs and confusing turns. All the third party contractors are in there own little buildings. Now that means I am alone in my little office/lab building a lot of the time. I still go wander around especially when we are busy and I need to be checking up on things and communicating with everyone but the majority of my time is in my little box.  Its probably 20 ft long by 8 ft wide. The width is just long enough to hold a bed at one end of the lab. I don't sleep here though, it is just a leftover from the times when just one engineer worked on a well. They would sleep on site when they weren't working so they would still be available for the important things. Now that there are two engineers on duty, sleeping is frowned upon. The rest of my box (I would call it a cubicle but it isn't technically a cube. I might call it a boxicle because it sounds more fun. Technically, it is a rectangular prism. I suppose I could call it my prism, but that might cause a misunderstanding and imply I am in prison. But it is a funny pun....I will decide what to call my boxicle prism later. Apologies for getting carried away with this parathesis.) is my desk along one wall with my mud testing equipment lined up against the other. I even have a window, however it looks out at a different little box and is covered with a blanket for added insulation. So I still don't see much of the sun, and I wouldn't even if I had an open window with a view as the nights are still dark. I do get to see the sun when I arrive and leave work. It still is a tad bleak, more flat and white and ferociously cold than anything else. So sometimes I take a few Vitamin D pills and sit in front of my space heater and dream about being on a tropical island. I did hear there are 4 (!) women on this rig. I haven't met them all, I believe a couple work during the day. But it surprised me since that seems like a lot comparatively. But it was exciting to hear that. My least favorite part of my new rig....no cell service whatsoever and no internet except at work. Which means not only am I bored out of my mind at camp, but it's also lonely not being able to stay in regular contact with my family and Travis. I am working on emailing everyone during slow times when I have a break. But that is always an unpredictable method of communication. And it also means I can't add a picture to this blog post. I'm hoping that's a fact my readers can forgive.

And for not rig news....Travis and I are expanding our little family by one!  We are excited to add a sure to be adorable little one after the wedding. Not sure if it will be a boy or girl but either is fine with us, we are just happy to be getting a little bundle of joy and happiness.  I'm excited to announce we are....not pregnant. I hope I fooled at least someone for a second. But we are planning on getting a puppy after the wedding.  In fact we were second in line to get a female Leonberger puppy but the litter was so small, we didn't make it high enough on the list which made me very sad. This was our top breed on our list we were considering but they are a rare enough dog that we probably won't get another chance at one for a while. They are massive dogs that look like lions, but they are know to be really sweet. We planned on naming one Mufassa or Nala.  Since Leonbergers aren't likely to happen for us soon, we are looking instead at Mastiffs (our joint second pick), Newfoundland (my personal pick), and Saint Bernards (Travis's pick).  We plan on chatting with breeders of these three dogs and seeing who has puppies available in the near future. And whichever of these works out is just the dog we are destined to end up with. When in doubt, let the universe decide.

My Not So Haunted House, Oilfield Time, And Wedding Dress Ruffles

The curse of Miriam continued on to the end of my hitch. My flights home were both delayed and I was starting to consider human sacrifice to appease the gods of the oilfield. However, I made it safely home even with the drunk and disorderly conduct of the man sitting in front of me who made in flight phone calls yet somehow was still served more alcohol and never had his phone confiscated. He was amusing when he couldn't tell that the plane was still in the air and he kept emphatically yelling about how smooth the landing had been. Other than that, my flights were uneventful. I was just saying a few days ago that I'd never had my credit card or account number stolen. Ironically, my account had been stolen a few days previously. Which racked me up well over a thousand dollars dollars in charges and fees. I discovered this fun fact the same day I discovered there was an issue with my paycheck and I had only about half of it in my account. It was the perfect ending to this cursed hitch.  Luckily it's over, I managed to not get sick, and now I'm enjoying some off time.

I planned on grabbing lunch with some of the guys in Anchorage during my layover there on my way from the slope to Washington . It was at this point that I was nearly tricked into going to the strip club. If not for the fact it was not open that early in the day, I wouldn't have seen it coming. Earlier in the week, I sent out a group text to a few friends about meeting up for lunch, asking for suggestions. And since I don't know Anchorage well, they sent back a few strip club names. Me being the sometimes gullible and oblivious person that I am, didn't catch on that they were joking with me. Instead I just agreed that, "Sure, the Bush Company sounds fine." No one confessed the fact this was a strip club until I had already been picked up from the airport. These are the perils of working in the oil field, you meet such nice people. But I have to give it to them, they flawlessly pulled off the trick without so much as a smile to give themselves away.

Sadly, the new house is likely not haunted. If any house would be haunted it would be this one; 100 years old with the funeral home in the backyard and the black cat that appears often on the property. We even have a creepy attic door in the office that I have yet to venture towards. But generally the deer are the only visitors.

Roxi was very concerned about these intruders. They were not impressed with her ferocity. Also note, the building in the back right corner behind the car, that's the funeral home. 

Travis's new theory to explain the lack of haunting is that the townsfolk are immortal. Apparently no one has been at the funeral home the entire time we have lived here. And he claims statistically speaking, we should have about one death a month. But maybe the immortality will wear off on us. While the non haunted house has been a disappointment for me, I have made one exciting discovery. I found Bigfoot hair. It was on display in the local secondhand shop and apparently found nearby in 2012. The one disappointment; it is not for sale. I'll have to keep looking for my own.

Speaks for itself.

Other than immortality, the people here have been very friendly.  I only met one odd man who seemed to think we were all turning into cyborgs because of smart phones and we were being spied on by the government through our contact lenses. We have attended a "new grass" (apparently the genre for newer blue grass music) concert at the local brewery already, Lindsay Lou and the Flatbellys, a band from Michigan.  They were really good and entertaining, I was totally impressed. We bought several of their CD's and found a song we might use in our wedding.

Now that I'm home, I have unpacked the rest of our stuff in the new house and discovered the movers did an impressive job. Impressively odd that is. Somehow they did the packing in the most random/disorganized order I have ever seen. They packed everything, including all the things we thought they would refuse. The one last bottle of unfinished bottle of alcohol was packed with the spices. I found my shotgun ammo in a box with my Harry Potter books. The kitchen magnets ended up with the bathroom things. The legs to our couch disappeared entirely but we somehow ended up with the legs to a chair owned by our previous land lady. The couch thing is almost an improvement at least. So last year we bought our first couch.  I fell for the sale couch trick, it was incredibly cheap since there was a three inch barely noticeable rip on the back. We decided we could overlook the fact it didn't have any arms. Lesson learned. By the time we got it home (the memorable six hour drive from Anchorage where we managed to fit the couch, six chairs, and a dining room table into the Trailblazer), it had a noticeable tilt from the snapped board on the underside that must have happened in transit. It is the most uncomfortable couch in existence. Which was weird because it was wonderfully comfortable for about a month. But now without its legs, it sits flat and almost feels like it provides more back support, I do thank the movers for that one.

The couch I detest, its lack of arms and legs makes it rather useless as a couch. 

The scariest thing I found was the propane tank we had next to the garbage in the arctic entry (luckily it was empty) that ended up in a box of office supplies. I found an empty tissue box, thank goodness we didn't forget that. And the coffee grounds were still in the coffee machine. But the house is coming together well now and we are getting all the life essentials together finally. Like I said, it was impressive. I finally have my coffee table and end tables. They are made out of old barrels and the we put a chalkboard top on the coffee table. The chalk paint works splendidly.

Painting the coffee table with chalkboard paint. An end table is in the back right corner, we put gold pans on the tops.

The chalkboard table works great! The spiral in the middle will soon become a cribbage board.

A new nerdy buy, a 200 mL flask.

I filled it with gold and silver colored gravel and sand.

Now it is a nerdy vase for dead flowers. Totally my style.

We also have an ancient washing machine named Thor who stands guard on the front porch. He came with the house, the owners were hoping not to have to move him, as they aren't sure its possible. The landlord used to repair washing machines. But luckily we think he's pretty cool. We do have a working newer washer and dryer inside though.

Thor, the beastly ancient guardian of the house.

Thor's handle, hence his name.

This weekend I'm getting my wedding dress!!! I'm starting to experience the weird health condition (mental condition?) caused by wedding planning. The condition that makes you irrationally worried about weird things and causes odd dreams. I dreamed the other night about having to develop wedding pictures with my mud lab rheometer. A combination of work and wedding nightmares. Travis dreamed about finding all the wedding invitations returned to our mailbox. He's always the practical one. As of now, I am the only one who has fallen prey to irrational fears. Like this one about my dress. My wedding dress has layers of overlapping organza (it is a sheer fabric) ruffles, one layer is pleated, one layer is straight, and they repeat back and forth like that. During my initial dress fitting, I was told to steam the dress before I wear it, but to be careful not to straighten out the pleats. So I started to worry obsessively that sometime either in transit to Michigan for the wedding, or during the steaming process right before hand, the pleats in the ruffles were going to come out. My rational mind says, "Miriam, why are you even thinking about the pleats in the ruffle on your dress? It shipped from Colorado just fine. This is a little much in the worrying department, you sound kind of like a crazy person.What kind of strange sounding word is pleats anyway?" My irrational mind says, "The pleats are of utmost importance and your dress with 100% not work if you mess up those pleats, and everyone will notice and then mock your lack of ruffle pleats."  But we only have two months to go! Real time months, less than one month of off time. So I feel justified in getting a little crazy as time moves differently for me.

To explain, working in the oilfield is sometimes like working in a different dimension or a different suspended timezone. I have started calling it oilfield time. Since half of my months are spent on the slope, working most of the time, I don't get a lot of time during those two weeks to get home/wedding things done. Often, Travis and I can't talk much because we sleep and work opposite schedules. The same goes for friends and family. So my personal life and tasks get condensed into the two weeks I'm home. It makes my time fly by in odd chunks. And it means I have only four more weeks off until I am married. Just three before I fly to Michigan for the wedding. So really it stretches out the "Just two weeks!" type excitement out for twice as long. So I really should stop talking and get back to business. Three weeks to go!!!

Bodily Function Truck Driver

From my scientific (ish) observation of the world, I have come to the conclusion that being held in isolation or near isolation in a small box will drive normal human beings completely bonkers. The prime example of this phenomena and focus of the following post is Bodily Function Truck Driver. Here on referred to by the acronym, BFTD.

I first met BFTD while on the first well I worked on. I believe it was even my first hitch. He started out normal enough, as truck drivers go. A little awkward maybe, but I put it down as a quirk of sitting in the truck cab alone all day. Can't exactly find fault in a guy for being awkward when you're engineer.

See how awkward I was? My parents claim I picked those glasses. I ddon't agree. Luckily, I'm wearing a neon pink hat so you can't see the crooked bangs that go all the way to my ears. And my adorable little brother is almost blocking out the gaps in my teeth.

Yep, still awkward

Anyway, it was clear BFTD was trying to be nice, his execution just a bit. Then things begin to get weird. 

One he comes up to the lab for a chat about H2S. He wants to know what it is and how it's formed. Certain bacteria form it, Mr. BFTD. It is a byproduct of decomposing organic matter.

"So bacteria poop it out?"

"Well, I've never heard it put that way exactly, but sure."

Another time we called BFTD up to tell him we would be emptying a tank out to our cuttings box outside and he needed be ready to clean it out. BFTD seemed to have difficulty processing this.

"So it isn't going to trickle in steadily? It's just all going to be there at once?"

"Yep, the tank filled up, now we are going to empty it all to the box."

"Huh. So basically the rig has a bladder and now that it's filled up, it needs to pee?"

Silence for a few seconds while we process his thought process.

"Uhhhh....Yeah? I guess so..."

This is the point we dub him Bodily Function Truck Driver, because he relates everything a bodily function.

Eventually BFTD disappears and becomes just another story we tell around the rig. Until yesterday. I go to fill out a manifest to send a truck driver out for disposal. I hold normal conversation with this guy for a minute or two before it dawns on me. BFTD is back! I immediately run to tell my mud cohorts who he is and why he seemed familiar and spend the next minutes recalling ridiculous tales of BFTD wondering what he'll come with next.

Let this be a cautionary tale for those who think they prefer solitude the company of others. Don't be bodily function truck driver.

Hold Onto Your Hardhat

This past work hitch has been awful. Even during the trip, all the little things that could go wrong, did go wrong. It was the first time I flew out from Washington. Side note...I realized that it now takes me three plane rides, a ferry ride, and a three hour car ride to commute to work. But back to the cursed hitch. Travis was driving his rental and I had the Trailblazer, the plan was for him to drop the rental off, then take the Trailblazer from me so he could head home. Naturally, the fog was so bad that I got lost for a while first. Then as I tried to go through security (The TSA lady was in a foul mood and was incredibly rude to me for no reason.) I heard over the loudspeakers, "Travis Howard, please return to (couldn't understand this word) to pick up lost items." So I called Travis, trying to figure out what he left behind and where it was. This delayed him for another hour as he drove back to the airport to collect his house keys from the rental car company. On my first flight, someone had apparently left gum in my seat. Of course I didn't discover this until I had gum all over my pillow and sweatshirt. So in my extremely short forty minute layover I had to go buy a new pillow and sweatshirt. By that point I was extremely disgruntled and frazzled.

Since I was thinking I would be working nights, I stayed awake through my overnight flights to try and adjust. However, upon arriving, I discovered I was working noon to midnight. So I braced myself for just stopping by camp and getting coffee before work instead of sleeping all day. Normally to get to camp, I have to drive past a checkpoint and scan my work badge. For background, we classify weather up here in three phases. Phase one being normal travel, phase two for travel only in convoys of multiple vehicles, and phase three for "Have fun being stuck at your current location." It must have turned to phase two during the few minutes I stopped at our mud plant and didn't have radio on me. So I was stopped at the checkpoint and not so nicely informed by security that I was missing a convoy and had to wait there. It took a good half hour before I found a convoy that took me as far as the camp across street from mine. I could see my camp but I couldn't get there. After more than an hour of phone calls, a convoy from the mud plant came get me. We tried to make it to my camp, but the roads were blocked by snow drifts. So we convoyed out to the Halliburton main camp. I hadn't slept more than two hours in more than a day and I was starting to hate my life. Or at least question my career choices. I borrowed a bed at the Halliburton camp for a few hours until the phase was over and then I swung by my normal camp before heading work.

Up until this point, work has been non-stop busy and chaotic. We finally have a break today but I odoubt it will last. My third day here may have taken the cake for worst day. I came out at noon (having had only one normal night of sleep thus far) and worked until midnight. At that time it looked like we would be cementing the casing for that section of hole within two three hours. So I stayed to watch that. Twelve hours later we were finally cementing. After that twenty four hour tour (oil slang for shift, it is pronounced, "tower" and I know it doesn't make sense), my fellow engineers took pity on me and let me sleep for sixteen hours.

In addition to all these things, I have been locked out of my room, broken a glass flask, and had evacuate the rig after a fire alarm went off. The wind has also been brutal. It will rip things out of your hands. And don't try and go outside without a firm grip on your hard hat or it will fly off. I dread the walk into the rig up three large flights of stairs. You can see exactly how far up you are through the grating and rails and the wind pushes you towards the edge of the rig before you turn the corner around to the rig. I'm afraid I will actually accomplish human flight soon. The black death has also invaded the slope. More accurately it should be described at the Spanish flu or something. But really, everyone is getting sick and I try not to go near anyone or touch anything that hasn't been disinfected the recent past.

We had another phase two earlier this week and I convoyed back to camp with the rig crew. It is a completely disorienting and eerie sensation to drive in total darkness but somehow still whiteout conditions. You can see just the taillights of the car in front of you and one or two side of the road markers. The road is curvy and you are trying to stay on it while snow is blowing across the road constantly. The movement makes to want to drive with it instead of perpendicular to it like you need to. It is almost like driving in midair because all you see is white, no differentiation between the road and the air.

The other terrifying event of the hitch...putting pesticide in the mud pits to ensure no hydrogen sulfide forms. Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is the rotten egg smelly gas that forms when organic material is decomposing. It's lethal in relatively low concentrations and it's fast. So you want to make sure no bacteria can grow and create H2S. So I had to suit up in rubber apron and gloves, and put on a bulky face mask, all in addition to normal PPE like hard hat and coveralls, and go dump twice my body weight of this stuff in the mud pits. And even in the arctic I got overheated carting all the jugs around in three layers. And I had had enough of this ridiculous hitch by this point so I was solidly grumpy. I felt like Dexter the serial killer stomping around angrily with the giant wrench I was using to open containers. The rig hands thought it was hilarious to see me all worked up and angry for once.

I keep wanting to say, "At least it can't get worse," but I know that's asking for trouble. I just hope I can make it through a few more days. As my wise friend David once told me, "Sometimes life just gang rapes you. But it will get better soon."

Gonzaward/Howlez Christmas Letter

Dear family and friends,

Happy holidays from Republic, Washington/Deadhorse, Alaska. I was planning on sending out a cute Christmas letter this year. But then I realized we had enough envelopes to address for wedding invitations. And our printer is probably still in a shipping crate somewhere in the Pacific ocean. This is the second year my things are scattered about the country on Christmas. Maybe I should stop making this a trend. 

For Travis and I, this will be our second Christmas with just the two of us. At least until my parents come to visit the day after Christmas. While we have a lack of company, there are packages arriving or shipping out every single day. 

Our impressively magical pile of expanding presents on our breakfast nook. Included in the pile is a Bigfoot print shaped beef jerky tin (with collectible trading card), pint glasses, and two suspiciously shaped packages that just may be Toblerone bars. We already ate the white chocolate covered Oreos. It is a very feeling to have a Christmas corner when we don't have much else with us right now. Makes me feel very grateful for having family that cares about us and knows us terrifyingly well. :-)

The equally impressive pile of package boxes.

We have an empty house and a hotel room but we will at least get heat in the house in time to be able to make Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve. Best Christmas present ever. I almost cried when the lady at the gas company said they were ten days behind and we needed to order gas when our tank was half full. I think we got a boost on the list when I explained we just moved and didn't know the tank was low and therefore had no heat. I carted home an impressive amount of cookie making supplies in preparation for tomorrow (an eighteen pack of eggs, a sack of flour, a sack or sugar, and cookie sheets just to start off with) without breaking any bags along the walk. We already have a single star shaped cookie cutter that Travis somehow accidentally bought the other day. Sometimes I wonder about him. There won't have a tree or decorations as those are still in transit as well. I will miss last year's growler tree topper, it was super classy.  However we do have all those gifts to open which will be fun. But I digress from traditional Christmas letter format. Here's whats up with out little clan. (I think we should probably just make a new last name after we get married. But Travis says Gonzaward and Howalez sound dumb. And I guess he has a point, Gonzaward sounds like we belong in a mental ward. Howalez sounds like we are werewolves.)

Roxi remains as odd as ever. She is not a fan of the salt used to melt the snow. She hates her paws touching it. We witnessed her walking along casually on just her front two legs while on a walk the other night. 

Not like this dog.....

More like this puppy gif but even more amazing and for a much longer time.

It was even more amazing than the ladder climbing. Neither Travis nor I understand how she managed this incredible feat of coordination. The physics do not make the slightest bit of sense. She didn't shift her center of gravity at all. I keep thinking she can't surprise me more, but I was wrong again. 

Travis is adjusting to his new job at the mill here. He says everything is similar but on a much smaller scale. Also that the attitude about the process is different because in Fairbanks, the ore was low quality so the goal was to process a lot. Here the attitude is let the ore take the time to process and extract all the gold because there is less ore, but it is a much higher quality. Travis will be giving my parents and I a tour on Friday which will be interesting. I'm becoming a regular mine tourer. Travis is becoming a regular at the local brewery. He has already acquired a mug on the wall, managing to sneak in without being on the six month waiting list. 

As for me, I am recovering from my cross country journey and regular schedule switch. I discovered naps are bad after I woke up at two thirty in the morning this weekend (on the ONE night I have ever heard Travis and Roxi not snore...great timing). On the plus side I enjoyed several hours of survival reality TV. I am enjoying my off time and getting excited for family to come visit. It will be their first visit since I have become a legitimate adult. Should be interesting. I am also busy plotting ways to decorate our house and furniture to buy or get Travis to make for me. We found a coffee table and two end table set make out of barrels at a thrift store for under a hundred bucks. We immediately bought those and are looking at ways to update them from their slightly too retro look. So far the plan is to put chalkboard paint and a cribbage board on the top of one. And maybe old grinding wheels or something on the two end tables. 

Barrel end table!

I didn't mean for this photo to be artistically slanted. I just am not awesome at picture taking. 

That's all the holiday excitement we have going for us at the moment. We all sincerely hope everyone is having a good holiday season!

Love,

Miriam (and Travis and Roxi)