Lions and Tigers and Bears. But Really Just Bears.

Instead of catching a few hours of sleep for yet another ridiculously long day of travel, I am sitting in my room on an adrenaline high, occasionally peering out of my window watching for polar bears. This epitomizes a typical Miriam incident. Something rare that everyone blows off with, "Meh, I've done this for ten years, never seen anything like that," but then happens to me almost immediately.
The first hint tonight would be interesting was at the shift change meeting I go to at eleven thirty. During which, someone brought up safety around bears. Someone mentioned a bear had been seen around camp a few days ago which put me slightly back on edge as it was a reminder that it really isn't city life out here. So, walking out of the meeting, I casually asked and was told, "Oh you never see polar bears out here, only on the ice." I should have known right then. Anytime anyone makes a blanket statement around me or I have that split second thought that I won't really see that polar bear because its so rare, life sets out to disprove that notion. But I drove home about two and a half hours later  with one of my Miriam gut feelings that something was up. I just couldn't shake it. You'd think by now I would just accept it and believe it. It is the same feeling that makes me slow down on dark roads so I see that deer in time. Or has me looking in the right spot and see the mountain lion run by the sorority house. And it is the same feeling I had that made me pull off the road for a two minute break right before I would have driven through a tornado. In any case, my spidey sense was tingling enough that I was on high alert driving home. It's getting pretty dark here for a couple hours at night, and other than passing by rigs, pump stations, etc, there is not much in the way of road side lighting. I was convinced today would be the day something was waiting for me in the road. I normally switch off my radio after I pull off the pad the rig is on. Today I left it on the whole ride, just in case. And sure enough, as I pulled in the parking lot, my headlights passed over a rather alarmingly large bear maybe fifty feet from the front of the camp. Maximum distance, I am not great at estimating them, but waaaaay to close to camp. Hashtag....North Slope Problems. I was on the radio instantaneously calling the main rig site because it was the quickest and only number I know. I was shocked enough that all I managed was a "Who do I need to let know there is a bear at camp?" Security was immediately notified and then I was asked, "What color is it? Brown, black, white?" And all I could say was "Ummmm, well, it looks white to me...." I just could not wrap my head around it. I also got a few random calls back on the radio. "Yeah....we don't have brown bears around here," was the ominous reply to that statement. And my favorite to break the "You have got to be fucking kidding me" tension that was my evening (this post totally deserves a swear word), I got a snarky "You sure its not a panda, Hank?" Yeah....pretty darn sure....it isn't a koala bear either, that's for damn certain. Anyway, I just waited in my car and watched it wander around the random equipment and storage until I lost sight of it. But I could tell security had a couple trucks watching it and they radioed and said to go ahead and go into camp. So here I sit, too excited to sleep, contemplating the marvelous fact that I am using the internet, curled up in my warm room, safe and sound, eating too many late night oreos, while one of the most terrifying predators on the planet is lurking just out of site in the darkness outside my window.

I Didn't Choose the Rig Life, the Rig Life Chose Me.

I just really wanted to use that phrase. I want it on a t-shirt. The other day I realized my life has gone in some really unexpected directions. The moment happened as I was parked (in the largest pickup I've ever driven) in the middle of the road waiting for ducks to finish crossing (because they have the right of way up here on the slope) with the arctic ocean off to my right while on my way out to the oil rig I'm currently working at. I'm not complaining, but a few years back, I never would have guessed this would be my life. Also, a realization I had a day or two ago...my good fancy calculator is at least ten years old. When did that happen?

Anyway, I am now on a definitive training path for this mud engineer thing. I'll be rotating two weeks on and two off, working from 1pm to 1 am, shadowing other engineers until January. I have already seen a ton a different (and I'm told usually busy and stressful) situations. Normal drilling is just about the only thing I have yet to witness. But I get to experience all the weird and abnormal things when its more of a learning experience not one that I am totally responsible and in charge of. Which is all great for me. The first thing I had to do when I got here was go get my BP badge for access to the oilfield. I don't know what it is about ID photos but I managed to look like a violent mildly deranged serial killer with anger management issues. And the sad part is, I really did try and smile. The camera must just have missed it or something.

I get to drive the aforementioned truck from the camp to the rig every day. The first night the truck was pointed out to me and I was told the keys were in the ignition, always back into spots, and the turn off to the rig was back off the main road to my left. Seriously? It is still weird to be treated like a responsible adult. Luckily, I drove alone the first time so no one witnessed me missing the turn off, or saw my awful parking job that took much longer than it should have, or had to listen to my swearing throughout the ordeal. Now I'm a pro at backwards parking giant trucks and I can put them where I want them on the first try with only occasional swearing just for fun. Also, I've acquired the nickname Hank from wearing borrowed coveralls. Personally, I prefer Sledge just a bit more but Hank is a manly enough name to be acceptable. The engineers I have been shadowing are all pretty cool about me trailing behind them like a lost puppy. And I think I'm starting to acclimate enough to be transitioning to useful trainee mode. Plus, I had a great laugh when I mentioned the guys I went to mud school with to one of the engineers training me. Specifically, one of the Alaska guys. He replied with, "Wow, I used to babysit that kid. We'd play with trains until I'd tell him to go bed. I can't believe he's that old now." Too funny.

Even though its August, we have seen some freezing weather and little bits of snow flurry. Supposedly some giant Russian storm was going to hit earlier in the week. It never did. My theory on this is that it drank too much vodka in Russia and was too hungover to stop here. Though the Russian storm false alarm led to one of my favorite snippets of text conversation with my friend, Josh. It went something like this.

Me: I've just been informed that Russia is sending us an early snowstorm in a couple days while I'm up here on the slope.
Josh: Who is this??
Me: Miriam!
Josh: I had to reset my phone and lost my numbers. I thought you were some Russian guy talking in code about moving a cocaine shipment.

I do wish they had slightly healthier snacks. We have access to "spike rooms" anytime we want. I eat way to many oreos with peanut butter. But I occasionally have hummus or bananas, the two healthy snack options. Now I have a theory about how these food rooms were named. When we want to make a mud heavier, we mix up a small portion of fluid with a higher than the desired weight. Then we toss it in with the light mud to bring up the weight to the correct number. These are called spike fluids. Hence, spike rooms are named as they are because they weight up people.

Speaking of random terms and names, I am learning a whole new language in the oilfield. I understood maybe a third of what was said to me when I first got here. With total immersion in the oil rig society this week, I think I'm at about two thirds. For example, roll the tanks means start mixing the tanks. And picking up is the general term used when talking about putting pipe together to send down hole and laying down pipe means the opposite. In addition, I have been trying to find my way around this giant maze of a rig. I can manage to find my way in and out of the mud lab. From there I can navigate to the office area and the bathrooms; the rig floor where the actual pipe and bit go into the hole; the pit room where all the mud is stored in pits; and the shaker room where the solids control equipment is.

My flight to Fairbanks leaves midmorning on Monday. I will have the afternoon to go home, switch to my other suitcase and probably eat, shower and switch to girly wedding mode before I catch a red eye to Michigan and meet up with Travis and the Howards. Side note, if Travis ever starts a band, that should be the band name. I get to meet a bunch of future family and see Travis's hometown for the first time. Exciting! I also get to check out my wedding venue and taste test wedding cake. I can't lie, the cake testing is the part of wedding planning that I am most looking forward to. Wedding cake choice might just be harder than dress choice.

Aaaaand back to Alaska

I managed to get back to Alaska after two months in Houston.  I don't know how I did it but I managed to fit everything in two checked bags and two carry-on bags.  And my luggage definitely weighed more than I do but I got everything home.  We had a graduation ceremony before I left Texas.  So I had to get all dressed up and meet boss people.  It turned out to be pretty cool. I got to meet one of the VP's (the head of the Baroid product service line). He happened to have gone to Mines for his undergrad degree.  That made my day.  As did the fact Alaska took top four in the class! That'll show the Texans whose state is better.
Yurt life is back to normal other than our neighbors are moving soon which is utterly depressing. I'm not sure how we will explain to new neighbors that Roxi is basically a shared dog now.  Speaking of Roxi, while I've been gone she has perfected her ladder climbing technique.  And also take flying leaps off the porch which is pretty entertaining. She had not learned how to avoid porcupines, however.  Three times in two days Roxi had run ins with quills according to Travis. Luckily, I have not had to remove any. Yet.  I'm waiting for the day she bring a moose or a bear to the doorstep.
Yesterday we went and picked blueberries for about an hour.  They are the most delicious blueberries I've ever had.  So today for dinner we are trying a reindeer steak with blueberry marinade.  Some things you just can't get in Texas.  We also found some crow berries.  They are not as tasty but I'm planning on trying to make some jelly with them since they are still good.  That's about the extent of excitement for right now.  Travis and I are planning on some rafting or camping adventures soon.  Plus a Michigan trip will hopefully be happening soon.

Update, I probably get to head out to a rig next week! Likely for a week before getting on a normal two week on two off rotation.

Skydiving

"If God had wanted us to stay on the ground, he would have given us roots."  That's my quote of the week. Yesterday I jumped out of an airplane at 14,000 ft and free fell at 120 miles per hour for 60 seconds. And it was AWESOME.  Guess who's new favorite thing is skydiving??  I'm definitely doing that again.
About a week ago I had skydiving on my "I will never do this" list.  You know, the one that also included jobs with lots of traveling, engineering school and doing anything fluids or thermodynamics related ever again?  The one that also included never moving somewhere cold or eating food like shrimp and mushrooms. And here I am training for my fluids engineering job in Alaska.  Yet another reminder that that list is really a list of everything I will do with my life. Even knowing all that, I was dead set against skydiving and this time I was really sure I would never do anything that crazy.  100% sure this time. Then in my typical impulsive and stubborn fashion, I changed my mind in about two seconds and that was that.  Three of the Alaska guys and I signed our lives away at around 8 am and watched the quick orientation presentation and movie.  Not much fuss at all.  We had just a little time in between the safety stuff and getting suited up. We all got altimeters to wear on our wrists like giant altitude telling watches. I got a red jumpsuit (Halliburton colored!!) and was hooked into a harness.  I met my instructor, as I was doing a tandem dive so I'd be securely stuck to someone the whole time. I also was talked into the photos and video so I met my video person.  It all went really fast!  We got loaded into a plane before I could really be nervous.That was one of the strangest parts for me.  Almost no nerves. Not generally my typical experience but maybe that's just because it was too surreal to worry about. The plane was the smallest I've ever been in, I was only sitting on the floor a few feet from the door.  And once we took off, they opened up the door.  As in, I was flying in the sky with the wind rushing in, watching the clouds go by, and watching the ground get farther and farther away.  The guys sitting by the door even stuck his feet out.  The ride up seemed like it took forever.  I started to get nervous just before we went to jump.  I don't think I could have walked really. Luckily as we were sitting on the floor, so I didn't have to get up. I only had to sit at the door with my feet tucked under the plane and then we jumped out.  And it was crazy!  Really disorienting for a second or two before we got leveled out at our terminal velocity.  We got a mini little chute at first to slow us down to the speed of a single person.  Then its like a yoga pose.  Cobra I do believe.  you are supposed to arch backwards with your arms and legs lifted backwards.  I'm pretty sure I didn't have great form, I can do better on that next time.  I can't really describe how crazy it was to be up in the air like that.  There wasn't any of the roller coaster feeling that you might expect.  And the air was hitting you fast enough that it didn't really like you were falling.  And the view was really cool.  There were lots of clouds but it was still nice out.  Then after the minute was up, I got to pull the cord to deploy the parachute. That also wasn't as jarring of a feeling as you might think.  From that point it was a pretty peaceful float down.  We made a few spirals going down, you just pulled down on the handle of whichever side you were turning towards. I was also surprised at how the ground didn't rush up at me like everyone said it would.  When we landed it was pretty simple and again, a whole lot gentler than I expected.  I just lifted my legs up and we slid in.   I feel pretty hardcore right now. And now we can go back to work and be like, "Remember that time we jumped out of a plane together?"  A great group bonding experience. You get a little more respect when someone knows you have enough guts to try something crazy.  Really it isn't an experience I can adequately describe, it is a one of a kind experience and you should probably just try it.  Because what can you be afraid of doing after you jump out of a plane?

Houston

Three words, humidity, heat, and food.  That pretty much sums up the past few weeks.  I have been pretty busy with work.  Really, I have.  But busy in the,"I have to go work some late night weird schedule rotations," or "I'm going to go eat 17 pound of BBQ with everyone," type of busy rather than the, "Excuse me while I go cry over my kinetics book for the 27th time this month before I work on my 14 transport homework assignments all due this Wednesday," type of busy. So that means I've done lots of exploring bonding with work people.  We don't have cooking options so we eat out all the time and I've discovered great Houston restaurants.  I ate at this sushi restaurant one evening (then came back the next day and the next weekend...) and ate my body weight of the best sushi I've ever eaten.  The BBQ here is fantastic.  I've also tried out a lot of seafood. I've eaten alligator, crawfish, and I can't even remember what else.  Halliburton has seriously high quality food at work too.  Strawberry peanut butter smoothies are my morning staple, they sounded weird but they aren't.  That's probably enough about food though.  

Travis came down to visit and we made an adventure down to the Galveston beach.   The warm water there surprised me, it felt like bathtub temperature. We also spent a lot of time visiting friends and family but the visit was only a couple of days and flew by far too fast.  My mom is planning on visiting The weekend before I leave and do some bridesmaid dress shopping.  I'm pretty excited for that! I've also now been to a rodeo (guess who's going to force their future children to ride sheep all the time) and the Galleria, the most upscale huge mall I've ever heard of. 

The heat here is craaaaaazy.  I caught the thermometer at 115 the other day.  I'm not a fan. not at all. And when we work in lab, we wear coveralls, which makes it infinitely hotter.  It's also been weird to dress like a grown up every day.  Someday's I really wouldn't mind wearing my old college kid clothes to work every now and then. Some days I mix and match and wear coveralls with high heels. I think I already said but there are three Alaska guys in my class.  I really like our crew we have going and they even told me I am now one of the Alaska boys.  I feel so proud or something.  

I've gotten a reputation for being dramatic since I say variations of the phrase "I could die,"  too often. As in, "I'm so hungry, I might starve," or "It's so hot, I'm dying," or so on.  Apparently I also say ridiculous a lot and I use my eyebrows a lot.  And best of all, a couple pictures have been made into Miriam meme's.  I had to explain that one to my mother.  Her response was great, "You mean like grumpy cat or the Dos Equis man?"  Exactly, mother.  I'm hoping to write a post Sunday morning, I have some pretty epic Saturday plans!

That one time I tried to kill Travis

I was 95% certain for about 10 minutes the other day that I killed Travis.  Normally, before he leaves work everyday he sends me a text that he's leaving.  And I ALWAYS pay attention to the time.  This day I was being ambitious. Being a wonderful fiancee I had laundry going and I was trying to finish making a calzone and berry crumble before Travis got home. At some point I realized I had completed all my chores. Everything was cooked and the dishes were cleaned and put away. The laundry was done and folded. I started to wonder where Travis was.  I looked at my clock and realized he was a full hour late. An entire hour and a forty five minutes had gone by without me noticing my fiance was not home.  For a second I wondered if I had somehow blacked out an hour or been abducted by aliens or something.  I have not been so shocked in a while. And clearly my phone would have only 2% battery that lasted long enough for me to try and call Travis before it died.  Then I had to wait ten minutes for it to charge enough to even turn on and reach Travis' voice mail.  I knew immediately that he must have flipped his car down off of one of the sharp turns.  He was definitely lying at the bottom of the hill with no way to call for help with his broken arms and legs.  His only hope was that his loving attentive fiancee might notice when he wasn't home and would call for help. Pffffft. I went straight to the neighbors in a total panic as I knew Kim was home with Sven. But then of course there were no cars available on yurt hill, since our other halves were either at work or dying in a ravine. So I had Kim ask Beth to come home for a Travis finding trip. Luckily by the time I arrived home to grab my phone for the trip Travis managed to get the "Got a flat tire in a dead spot" text through.  I immediately poured myself a strong drink to congratulate myself for not killing my fiance. Travis came home expecting an extremely angry Miriam (a fair assumption as one of my pet peeves is un-returned texts and call that lead me to assume people are dying) but instead he's been capitalizing on the whole, "Thank God, you're alive!!" thing for a while. I'm just extremely grateful that my phone died before I called the police and told them I accidentally killed my fiance.

Some Things Are Bigger In Texas

Like the cockroaches.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Megan came to pick me up from my hotel this Saturday morning for some girl time bonding and catching up.  While we were having lunch Megan noticed an alarmingly large cockroach wandering about the room.  Needless to say, table after table started jumping up and lifting things up off the floor. It was a horrifying way to track the cockroaches progress around the room.  And just our luck the roach was finally intercepted and squashed right next to our table.  I can't even pretend I didn't have a shameful response of lifting up my feet and freaking out pretty hard.  But I felt ok about it since everyone else did it first. The waiter who smashed the cockroach got a round of applause.
We also went shopping before this horrifying cockroach incident and as one of the many salesladies came over to help.  The conversation went something like this.
Megan: "We are both brides and both getting married this next year!"
Me: "We both have our dresses, we are really excited. We are getting married in the spring! "
Saleswomen: "To each other?"
Megan: "Oh no, not each other. Though weirdly enough both our fiances are named Travis."
I'm not sure the saleswoman quite knew what to do with us.  I'm not sure how legit we sounded. And just to clarify, we went to the Galleria.  It was gigantic. And we barely went anywhere inside it.  Basically it was a giant mall with plenty of stores I wouldn't feel comfortable going inside without dressing nicer.  Like Chanel, Coach, and Tiffany's. And its has its own ice rink, it is that big.

Texas is way too warm and humid.  I can stay outside for about ten minutes before I go running inside.  But at the same time, people keep the buildings way too cold. It's rough.  Though I do think if I had to pick between dry or humid heat, I'd go with humid.  I've also been told not to go outside because the mall next door is the "Gunspoint" not "Greenspoint" mall.  Feels like Greeley to me. I should probably make another shank.  The other uncool thing about Houston, the driving.  Everyone is aggressive and the traffic is awful despite the 14 lanes.  And forget about trying to find your way anywhere.  People keep asking where I am and I can't really give tell them anything specific.  I also got to see my aunt, uncle, cousins, and meet their triplets!  They were adorable. Very easygoing as three year olds go.  Plus about three times as cute.

The plane I rode to Texas on was larger than normal too.  I rode one of those dreamliners. I was already sitting on the plane when I realized I was on a dreamliner. It was just last week I was thinking about how I'd never want to ride on a dreamliner because I'd be paranoid about battery problems.  I resisted googling plane crash statistics on my phone and played with the tint settings on the large size windows instead.  I also found out I had a usb port and my own electrical outlet. There were almost forty rows with three sets of three seats in each row.  Which means like 330 people could be on that plane according to Boeing. So we sat on the ground for almost an hour during boarding.  Then, because I bring a trail of bad weather with me when I travel, we had to sit on the ground in Houston forever during a thunderstorm.  Naturally, once I trekked through the airport for miles I arrived to find my bag was mysteriously missing and I would not be refunded my 4 dollars I spent on a luggage cart.  Not that I cared about the four dollars, it was the principle of the thing. However, I was assured I'd be returned a quarter if I returned the cart.  Thanks a bunch.  Something like three hours of my life were wasted in the Houston airport.  My hotel is awesome.  You could fit a house or two in the lobby alone.   And I made a great first impression wandering in with no luggage in the previous day's clothing (I took the red eye from Fairbanks to Denver).  But United had assured I would get my luggage by nine that evening.  Luckily other Travis (Megan's Travis) was free to come rescue me and drive me for dinner and for buying a nice set of clothes in case my luggage did not arrive.  Shockingly enough, my luggage had not arrived by the time I went to bed at ten thirty.  Less than perfect air travel service but what can you do.

The next day everyone took shuttles over to the training center for class.  It was all intro and orientation the first day.  I met the last two Alaska guys I hadn't met yet and saw the other two I have already met.  There are 28 people total in our class, 7 of which are women (assuming I can count correctly which is not guaranteed). People are working all over the place, Venezuela, Thailand, Canada, Scotland, all over the US....I'm probably missing places.  And everyone's from different work and educational backgrounds.  Mines definitely over prepared me for hard work but under prepared me for socializing. This first week we've been learning the basic tests we use when running a mud check and we worked some basic hole volume problems. (See? that whole taking fluids twice was on purpose...) Next week we get to do mass balances (this also makes me pleased because the only test I ever got 100% on was a mass balance test). Overall, I'm really pleased how much I'm actually getting to do something related to what I learned while feeling so much less stressed than Mines made me feel.  But I'll have to decide if that's still how I feel after the first test!