Today I walked out of the work unit(essentially a large closet on the back of a flatbed, filled with computers) only to be pushed back in and held hostage for the next 6 hours. If I were working closer to Mexico, I would actually be worried that it was humans doing this to me. But no, they were......
Thousands of bees
There were so many bees that they kept finding ways to get into the unit. We must have killed 50. This is no exageration. It got so bad that I had to duct tape a seal around the door frame to keep them out, and even so some still got through. I never realized how small our unit is until 2 grown men try to swat bees while trying not to hit each other and not get stung. From the outside perspective it was probably funny. Was wasnt funny was not being able to get out, stretch the legs, get a drink, use the restroom, etc. until the swarm moved away. Stuff like this always hasppens to me when I go on jobs with Barrett "Stanky Leg" Nicholson as the other engineer. Read how he got that knickname from one of my earlier posts about finding a "dead body" on the side of the road.
In fact, the first job I ever went with him is quite a story in itself that happened before I started blogging.
We were going to do a job in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. We had alot of luggage so we check most of to meet us in Williamsport. Our flights are from Lafayette-Dallas-Philadelphia-WIlliamsport. We get all the way to Philly and on the way the job cancels. We get the message when we land. It is like 8:30 pm so we decide that we will see if we can catch our luggage and stay in Philly for the night instead of going to Williamsport.
We were switching airlines for this last flight and apparently this was the last flight for American Airlines cause when we got off there was no AA employees anywhere. We keep searching for someone for us to talk to. We finally leave security thinking the ticket agents might be able to help us. There is noone at the ticket gate. SO we then go try to find our next airlines gate, which is no small feat when you have to walk it. We finally find United Airlines and go in and talk to someone only to be told that this was "United-National" and our flight was "United-Regional" so we needed to go to another agent. When only had an hour between our flights and this is cutting a large section into it.
We make it to the right counter and they points us to the Luggage desk. We walk over there. We now have 30 minutes before our flight. I explained our situation to this lady and added "If you cant pull our luggage we will go to Williamsport but we need to know now. What should we do." I have never seen anyone so awful at her job. She tries to get on the radio, says she cant reach anybody, plays on the computer, takes a phone call and then just stares at us. I ask again, "Should we just go get on the flight?". She says "Hold on" and goes in the back and doesnt return. So I am pissed now. We may not only not get our luggage but we may now miss our flight.
We decide that lets just go to Williamsport. We have like 10 minutes cause this lady screwed around. We have to go back through security and while I'm going through I hear the final boarding call. Ileave all my luggage with Barrett still going through security, and takes off with no socks on towards the gate. I look at my ticket and it says gate 27. I look up and I am at gate 3. Uh oh. Bercause of my peak physical condition i made it all the way to about gate 18 before I hit the wall.
I finally make it to the gate, yelling for them to wait, as they close the doors. Im sweating my balls off. I explain to them what happened. They pull the plane back to get our luggage. It turns out the baggage lady never made the call, her radio was off. So they grab our luggage off and as we are leaving they say "All 3 bags will be waiting for you." The only problem is we had 4 bags. They call the plane BACK to get our 4th one off. At this point Barrett shows up with ALL our carry on bags running down and huffing and puffing. He looked like a patrooper.
So guess where we have to go to get our luggage.....yep, right back to old Radio Lady. When we get there she has our bags and she has the audacity to say "I really saved you guys, huh? Where would you guys have been without me?".
Barretts face did this:
I swear to God he had to stop me from reaching across and:
We got out of there as quick as possible to drink the biggest beer in Philly. Apparently things like this just happen when we are on jobs together: Luggage, Bodies, and now Bees.
Im currently working 4 am-6 pm shifts outside Gainesville, TX. Its not bad work...once we got our tools set up we really dont do much but watch computer screens for 12 hours. I've played alot of XBox and watched the following films:
Get Him to the Greek-Way better than I thought it would be
Grown Ups
Inception
Jonah Hex
Machete- I was simply stunned how awsomely bad this movie was
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Robin Hood
The Social Network
Valkyrie
All 4 Indiana Jones'
The first 3 Harry Potters
Garden State
The Sorcerers Apprentice
And the whole first season of "Its always Sunny"
Tough job I know......I am running out of movies. One of the highlights is when I actually get to the hotel and flipping through and catching Mexican Channels. So far I have come up with a list that seems to be in every Show: 1) Big ass fake titties-seriously, every woman in every show has these 2) Rediculous rules for game shows
Just what the hell is going on here
Some times I just sit back and really wish I knew Spanish well enough to know what the hell is going on. I ran across this one time on a Lacrosse trip. We were sitting in the hotel room wondering what the hell was going on so I call up a player down the hall who is originally from Venezuela. I said "hey hurry down to our room we need you real quick". We hear the door bust open down the hall, heavy footsteps coming down the hall, and an out of breath Alex Perez standing in our door. We say, "Please tell us what is going on", not knowing that we woke him up from a nap and he thought there was an emergency. Needless to say he wasnt happy and I still dont know what is going on.
I know I have been absent from my blog for the past two weeks but I went on vacation from work for the Thanksgiving holidays. I would have posted at my parents house but that internet has what I like to call "a case of the SLOWS". I mean, this thing make dial-up look quicksilver.
So I leave work for vacation and head to Tuscaloosa for the Georgia State game. The next morning Hunter and I are going to the ATM for cash at about 10. We pull up to a T-Crossing trying to make a right. Hunters stops for this motorcycle and this lady makes a left onto our street and never sees him. He is going about 40 and never touches the brakes. He hits her passenger front wheel and cuts a clean 270 over the hood and lands flat on his back in front of our truck. It kinda looked like this but much, much less funny.
The helmet saved this dudes life no question. He was in a lot of pain so we kept him down until the cops showed up. We learned later that he was ok but this seriously ran in my mind in slow motion for the next couple days. It was surreal and scary.
So Darby and I end up at the Ga. State game in my parents seats. These seats are awesome. 3rd row endzone. We end up drinking a little and start just making random comments on the game and we have the crowd around us craking up. The biggest thing was us cheering for #13 Rob Ezell, the 5th year 5'9" white walk-on reciever to get some playing time. You may remember him from this:
So anyway we are yelling for 13 to get into the game and he finally does in the closing minutes...our section goes wild. He even took snaps on the last series at QB. As they are running for the tunnel (right under us) we had the whole section going "EZELL! EZELL!". As we were leaving one woman said "I dont know who yall are, but we had an awesome time" which felt really good, we were just cutting up like we do all the time.
So I basically eat too much, drink too much, stay up too late, and all the other things after the game and up to Saturday. I would have made hedonismbot proud.
On the way home sunday I am felling sick from the previous days (duh) and my tire blows out 6 miles from home. No cell service, the road has no shoulder so I am sick, changing this tire in the middle of the road. I get my donut tire on and this thing blows about 1.5 miles from the house. Bad day to say the least. I have to leave my car on the side of the road untile monday when I got it replaced. The rest of the week I spent hanging out trying to get over my illness.
For Thanksgiving we had 55 people at my parents house. Woah indeed. My Mom is one of 8 children and my Dads side of the family came too. Thais is the first time I can remember both sides being togwether and probably the last. I dont think my Dads side was ready for my Mom's side.....who are "loud and country" to put it nicely.
The Iron Bowl is the only rivalry I know of that has names for its games: 1967: The Run in the Mud 1972: Punt Bama Punt 1981: 315 1982: Bo Over the Top 1984: Wrong Way Bo 1985: The Kick 2005: Honk If You Sacked Brodie 2008: Fear This! 2009: The Drive
and it's newest: 2010: The Biggest Choke Job In College Football History
Thats all we are going to say about this game. Although the one good thing that came out of this was our recreation of Cam Newton Getting Paid (with his little "blowing kisses" thing he does):
Friday afternoon arrives and 12 people make the trip down for the LSU game here. Darby, Thomas, Tweeder, Hunter & Ginger, Will Hodges, Sarah & Will, and new friends Wes and Elaina. As soon as they get here, Darby decides to "ICE" me from the game "Bros Icing Bros". Needless to say I was not happy. Check out the rules here.
According to the rules, the following photographic evidence must be shown. I just got iced........bro
Since a trip to South Louisiana would not be complete without Cajun food, I took everybody to Randols here in Lafayette, one of the best places for this sort of thing. Everybody really enjoyed it, to the point where i thought Darby was gonna make love to his Etoufee. We go out that night to a bar near the house and partied pretty hard and got in pretty late. Everyone fit into the apt pretty comfortable between my beds, couch, and air matresses they brought. In the morning we started getting up about 8 and by 9:30 everyone is dressed and ready to go (an impressive feat with two showers and 13 people-including 3 girls).
We made it to campus by about 12 because traffic was awful. We are clearly outnumbered here. Its like that anytime you go to an away game but it seems like there are expecially few Bama fans down here. And contrary to popular belief, all the fans arn't bad down here, its just that the ones that are bad make up for it by being super awful. One guy gave us all beers and gumbo on our way to the stadium because I recognized the high school jacket he was wearing was from Lafayette. On the flip side I gave some dude a high five after the game, he then realized I was an Alabama fan and asked if I wanted to fight about it. I declined his invitation.
Thomas, Will, Hunter, Sarah, Darby, Ginger, Stephen, Will Hodges, Wes, Tweeder....Elaina was taking the picture
So we make it to the game and I am sitting with Thomas on the first row of the 17 yd line. Pretty cool seats but we speant about 80% of the game watching the jumbotron. I will say this, Alabama is a good team, just not a great team that we have been the last two years. To beat Bama, you have to play a perfect game and hop we make mistakes. USC and LSU did exactly this. They made the plays that they had to, and took advantage of our mistakes. All credit goes to those teams. We as a fanbase got a little spoiled these last two years but hopefully we will back to form next year when our defense is not so young. Hell, Bear Bryant was at Alabama for 26 years and had quite a few 8-4, 7-5 seasons. You simply cannot be great all the time.
These seats were super close to the field, so much so that you couldnt see over the players on the sidelines
After the game we end up meeting up with Darby's cousin Paul who lives in Baton Rouge. He showed us around and took us to a tailgate. They had so much food and drink at this thing it was amazing, including the best muffalettas I have ever had. They also had frozen applesauce and moonshine. Lets just say it gets you there quick. Elaina was the only one of us that didnt go to the game. She went to a bar during and.....lets just say had such a good time that this happened at the tailgate.
And boom goes the dynamite
We went out to a bar and most of the group was ready to go back to Lafayette. I gave them my keys and Darby, Paul and his girlfriend, and I all stayed at the bar and stayed the night at Pauls.
Paul drove us back to Lafayette the next morning and when I got there everyone was up and actually had the house clean. That was a huge help let me tell you. One of the funnier stories from the weekend came between Thomas and Ginger. Thomas is uber-competitive and likes to be the best he can at anything he is doing. Ginger and he both buy scatch off lottery tickets and Ginger wins some money. She kept trading them in for more tickets. Thomas bought the same amount of tickets and won squat. He was getting so frustrated that he wasnt good.....at a game of chance. He was almost as frustrated as Tweeder was when Thomas was beating him in NFL Blitz for the Nintendo 64 after talking trash all the way from Tuscaloosa. Since i've known Thomas, I think he is, and this is approx., 800 wins-1 loss at that game.
Ovearall I think it went well. 72 hours, 13 people, gallons of booze, no accidental deaths or dismemberments in hostile territory.....i'd have to say it was Legendary
I am so pumped to return to Tiger Stadium and end LSU's season. Im mostly excited about everyone coming down and partying in Lafayette the night before the game. It should get wild
This is a map of all the places I have worked for Halliburton in the last 6 months. (click on it to enlarge) We drive everywhere, so those Penn and ND jobs take a long time to get to. Hell, the Alabama jobs take the least amont of time to get to and those were 6 hours drive away. I placed a pin everywhere I have went and they are named for the company we did work for. Im hoping to get out west and into the gulf soon.
A few weeks ago I went to Wild Wings to watch the Bama game and met some other Bama fans. One was a guy who is my age that just moved down here as well from Tuscaloosa and actually grew up about 30 minutes from me. We exchanged numbers, hoping to have somebody to watch Bama games with. Every game one of us was out of town or in ttown, so we finally got together this weekend to watch a game. He said he had some friends from work that go to the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and it they were tailgating for the game and invited me.
These guys know how to tailgate with the best of them. Just because they go to a smaller school you would thing they go to a huge one with the tailgating. In all honesty, its an excuse to drink, but who needed those in college. I say this because three different people I asked couldnt tell me who UL-L was playing. I was dumbfounded by this conversation.
Me: So who are you guys playing? ULL Fan: I have no clue. Me: Are you going to the game? Fan: Hell no, we suck. Me: You watching the game on tv? Fan: No, why?
I had no answer for him. I couldnt imagine going to all this trouble to dress up nice and pull out grills for an event I cared nothing about.....7 times a year. So UL-L is terrible. They lost to Western Kentucky 48-21. Western Kentucky had lost to their last 28 opponents. Yeah.
So we go back to Wild Wings for the Bama game then met back up with the ULL folks to go out to one of the bars near the school. I asked Jeff (the guy from Bama) what this bar was like. He said it was like The Houndstooth.
Wrong.
I have never been to a place like this. First of all, it tries to pass as a club, with club music. Not my scene first of all. Secondly, I have never seen as many different kind of people hanging out at the same place. I dont know if this is like the only bar but these people:
Were hanging out with these people:
And these people:
I kid you not when I say I am not exagerating to the diufferent groups of people in this place.
So now to the most random expeience maybe of my life (yes. i know, the ABOVE STORY does not touch this). So me and another Engineer named Barrett are heading to do a job in Arkansas. Im sleeping in the passenger seat when i hear him say "What the hell is going on here?".
I look up and this guy is trucking it out of the woods carrying something over his shoulder. He doesnt look for cars and crosses our 3 lanes, the median, and the other three lanes without breaking stride. He then dumps the package on the other side of the far guardrail and high tails is back into the woods. The package looked exactly the way a body would look if it were wrapped in a tarp. The way this guy was running we really thought it was. So we pulled over, and turned around, figuring we couldnt live with ourselves if we didnt.
This convo actually happened: Barrett: Get out and look and see if its a body. Cliff: I'm not going to get out. B:Well we gotta see if it is. C: I dont know that I really want to know. B: Im getting out, YOU BETTER KEEP A WATCH ON THOSE WOODS AND WARN ME IF THIS GUY IS COMBING BACK. C: Ok
At this point all the color has drained form his face as he is approaching the tarp. He reaches out his leg as far as he can to try to nudge this body. Looking back on it he may have been doing the Stanky Leg
So he flips the corner of the tarp with his toe and it a ton con copper wires. We look off the road and on the other side of the road is a dump. This guy had been digging in the the dump, finding copper wire to sell. At about 2 dollars per pound copper is pretty expensive. Watching the color return to Barrets face on the side of I-30 was priceless.
Halloween is coming up next weekend, and I have a few costume ideas. Halloween is always fun for me, and I pride myself on Having some of the best costumes. In years previous I was:
1) 1/2 of the Guiness Brewmasters
2) Vince from Shamwow!
Here I am with Old Greg
3)Marty Mcfly from Back to the Future, complete with hoverboard
Some of my favorites Ive ever seen:
1) Old Greg (as pictured above-if you have never seen this, its more than absurd)
2)Hardly Boys (from South Park) I never got pictures and youtube doesnt have any good clips
So I'm thinking of either going as Marty Mcfly again or maybe Antoine Dodson. What do you guys think? Leave suggestions
So I went on my lunch break to the local Chili's and sat at the bar area killing time on my phone when i happen to observe a few things.
1) The lady at the table beside me ordered two glasses of red wine. At 11:00 AM. At the same time. So I think, ok...sure its early but maybe she is meeting somebody. Well, she was meeting somebody, and when they got there that lady ordered two glasses for herself. Who orders two at the same time!? Its not like your getting a discount on these things....order one and when you finish order the second. I knew the Cajuns liked to drink but "Woo! better order two so I dont have any downtime between my frst and second at 11 AM" is a streach.
2)These 4 guys were about 3 beers deep (im noticing a trend developing) when one guy just routinely kept saying "YOU DONT HAVE TO LIE CRAIG!!!" from the movie "Friday". He did this in his most awful female voice. He then goes on to declare that the movie was pure genius and that it should have won an oscar. Hold the freaking phone. I mean, I like watching Debo clock people and hearing "You got knocked the F@#& out!" as much as the next guy. But if an oscar is what your after, dont premise your movie on weed. And dont cast Chris Tucker. I'm just saying.
By the way, how did this guy (Straight Outta Compton)
turn into this guy
And for the record, "Braveheart" won the Oscar that year, so yeah
Its been pretty slow this past week. Last Monday I went to Conway, AR for a job with a guy who just got promoted. The way Halliburton works is, when you hire on you are in training until an arbitrary time has passed until you "break out". I am still in this training period. To "break out as an engineer" you have to accompany other engineers on thier jobs, basically learning everything about how to do W&P in the oil field. Once they are satisfied that you can do a job by yourself (usually you convince one of the guys to let you run it and they supervise) you do a presentation back at the base and then you are "broken out". Distinct advantages come from this:
1)7% raise in salary...i mean, who wouldnt want almost 10% more money per year 2)A bonus right then and there 3)Eligibility for bonus on job tickets......basically whatever we charged the client, I get 1.5% of it as bonus. Usualy we charge 30-40k for jobs, so thats almost 600-700 more dollars in my pocket per job on average. Not too shabby.
Anyway, it was this guys first one by himself after the break out. He was nervous, as im sure i am going to be. It hits you that you are solely in charge of a couple million dollars worth of equipment, 4-5 personnel, and have to get said equipment and people across the country sometimes. This was a pretty simple job and should have taken about 7 hours to do. Because he was double checking everything, and we had some tool failures, the job took around 15. I wasnt complaining, I went on days off last Wednesday and that meant that we would be getting back right when I go off so I didnt have to do anything else. It supoposedly takes about a year to break out ao Im expecting to do it around March or April next year. Im supposed to do a 6-month presentation in Nov to show what I have learned, and I get a bonus for that as well.
So Im finally spending a set of days off in Lafayette. I still dont know anyone here as of course im on the road so much. One guy I went to Bama with also works for HAL down here but he is in training in Mississippi currently. I never knew how hard it is to meet people, when you dont know anybody anyway. All the folks I work with are 30+ and married, plus they spend so much time on the road as well its hard to organize anything.
About a month ago on my way home from work I saw kids playing lacrosse next to this high school. I stopped and introduced myself and asked if they could use any help. So I am now a coach of the Lafayette High Lions Lacrosse team. I'm really enjoying it.
Observations from said endevour:
1)I'm really glad I stopped and talked to them, not only does it get me out of the house but i get to stay around the sport I spent all of college playing and coaching. I thought moving down here i was going to be removed from it cause its still new here.
2)These kids try harded than college kids. Idk if its because thier parents are watching or what, but they really give 100%
3)You cant talk to these kids like college kids....you could joke around and play with college guys but these kids call me sir and stuff so its best I just act like an adult haha.
4) Parents are really involved. This is an awesome part I wasnt ready for. Parents asking me what thier kid can do to improve, asking me to explain a concept to them so they can reinforce said scheme at home. Having parental support is a must for a growing sport down here.
I'm really excited to take these kids to see LSU and Bama play in Feb in Baton Rouge down here. Most of these kids are LSU fans so they give me some ribbing but I know Bama Lax is going to destroy LSU and I kinda selfishly want these kids to see it haha. Plus I want them to see what exactly I've been teaching them performed at a higher level. Darby told me that Bama won its first fall game vs Georgia State 20-3 or something like that, so I'm really pumped for them this year....maybe this is the year they make it to ATL for the SELC playoffs. If your unfamiliar with lacrosse, just check out MCLA.us. That is our league website and you can check all 200 teams or if your just interested in Bama go to tidelax.ialax.com
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light, And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.
We all knew it was going to happen eventually. Im still very proud of this Alabama team and honestly this may be the best thing to jhappen to us this season. Last year all our boys wanted to do was get to Atlanta to play Florida. I think they may want to get there to take on South Carolina now. No excuses, they earned it and beat us all the way around for the entire game. Its been so long since we felt a loss it puts things in perspective for you. I'm still going to be repping my bama hat down here, so lets see how work is tommorrow with LSU being 6-0.
EveryDayShouldBeSaturday.com is an awesome blog written by a Florida grad by the name Orson Swindle. He is the funniest writer and you really need to start visiting this site. Here are two posts about this weekend. These are long but worth it. Keep in mind he is a Florida fan:
Shackleton said the first and most important element of group survival was to keep morale up. Shackleton put this into practice during his Antarctic escapades by organizing soccer matches for his men on the pack ice, and by allowing them to date seals so long as they made no promises or babies. Most of the men, being British, honored their agreements. The stiff, formal manner of the seals surrounding Elephant Island to this day remind locals of that British sojourn a century ago, especially when they wear bowlers as they are wont to do.
The assembled miserable denizens of visitor's section NN6 in Bryant-Denny Stadium followed Shackleton's advice.
For instance: Alabama could use some more pregame montages. A coked-out Oliver Stone clearly consulted on their pregame, because Alabama's pre-game montage is preceded by its own pregame montage, which in itself has five successive pregame montages. All of them are set to the theme for Requiem for a Dream, and half feature Bear Bryant narrating solemnly over the footage.
None feature Bear Bryant becoming hooked on heroin and getting electroshock therapy, and that's a shame since it was a really important part of his life.
Alabama should add a solid hour to two hours of pregame montages in front of these montages, and charge admission. We decided this could be done with movies, which for a nominal fee and with some fairly easy digital tweaking would feature Bryant himself. The version of No Country For Old Men featuring Bear Bryant as Anton Chigurh would be reviewed by the Birmingham News as "The finest and most uplifting comedy ever filmed."
There were other ideas. They distracted from the wreck of a game happening three hundred feet or so below us. Watching games from the upper deck feels like you digest everything at a clinical but still delayed distance. The effect is one of watching football on cough syrup: crowd movements and cheers aren't synced up, everything but the play itself feels delayed, and still there's a kind of precognition you have from up on high that other don't. They can't see the safety overplaying the run fake, but you can.
The effect is not a good one in a blowout, especially when you can see the proverbial runaway baby stroller of a play rolling into the semi-truck traffic of the counterplay. We watched a lot of strollers roll into traffic in the first half of Saturday night's game at Bryant-Denny Stadium. They were all Florida's.
It was brute, negative football. Watching from up high you could see the safeties flex into the plays before they happened, little dots of Crimson meeting Florida Blue at every point. It was exactly like every other game we'd watched Florida play on offense since the 2008 SEC Championship Game: a series of eleven tangoes arranged so that at any point on the field one defender was matched up with one offensive player. Good offense dislodges these romantic moments: it takes those dots and puts them in space alone and unpaired. Good football offense is bad tango. This was excellent tango, and bad football offense.
Everything was designed around making you screw up first, a simple but effective wager that your opponent would jab, and then you countered, and then your opponent was on the mat spitting up teeth and talking long distance to imaginary interlocutors in Shanghai without the use of a phone or other wireless communications device. They called screens, because you were going to overrun them. They called simple, one cut runs with brutal blocking. If they didn't break one way, they took one simple cut and went the other way. You didn't need anything fancy when your opponent willing stuck his member in the bear trap each time.
They played like they didn't even like football: like it was a job with three or four simple, clear-cut rules. All the work had been done beforehand: the tendencies, the formations, the technique. The simple plays were executed with scalpel-sharp precision. The patterns were calmly nodded at and countered. On five wide sets defensive backs stood their ground, since the ball was going nowhere deep, nowhere close to deep, and would in fact be parked on a route somewhere in the three to five yard range (provided that the qb was not sacked, rushed into a bad throw, or otherwise beaten within an inch of his life.) On run plays no fakes were respected since they did not merit respect, but were faked anyway.
It was so efficient you might think Alabama hated football, and wanted less of it by turning a potentially competitive game into a suffocated and forgone conclusion. They might have hated it if they hated boredom. The only thing of any real consequence that happened in the second half was John Brantley getting the shit knocked out of him scrambling unsuccessfully for the first down marker. They might have hated it because those who excel at what they do hate easy things because they are boring and a waste of time.
This was both easy and boring.
Failure really can be fun provided you have the right attitude and a complete lack of involvement with the failure itself. Take Saturday night, or the past year and a half with the Florida offense. You know logically that this is something you have nothing to do with, no control or sway over, and little besides a general consistent bleat in the din of general public opinion. You are excepted from this statement if you are so wealthy you can write checks to build things at Florida without feeling them too much.
You have no control, and in a moment of remembering some kitchen wall copy of the Serenity Prayer you remember the bit about accepting things you cannot control. When Florida ran a screen that looked like an invisible moped accident, we thought this. When we ran John Brantley to the short side of the field on an option he would never, ever keep in any billions of probable realities, we thought this. It would have made us feel better if the Serenity Prayer worked. It also would have made us feel better if there were a shred of hope of this changing, but there isn't. They should point this out in the footnotes of the Serenity Prayer, but unfortunately David Foster Wallace is not its author.
Toward the end you run out of ideas and people to bounce them off of in a blowout. The clock wound down. Alabama courteously ran the ball to kill the remaining useless minutes left. Leaving before double zeroes is the only superstition we have about football games: you don't leave with time on the clock. Consequently we have spent a lot of time sitting by ourselves at the end of games. The gentlemen in front of us left, but said they wouldn't mind taking part in the impromptu discussion group again under better circumstances.
We concurred. "Got to keep morale up. Shackleton's first rule of survival in the Antarctic."
"What's the second rule?" they asked.
"Get the fuck out of the Antarctic."
And this one is hilarious about LSU this weekend:
You know a classic piece of live football atrocity when the highlight film begins with a converted 4th and 14, especially when it's against a Tennessee team that has no business being in the game in the first place, a Tennessee team playing a lawn chair at center, a Tennessee team with linebackers whose ACLs explode for no reason, a Tennessee team whose depth chart just reads "NOPE" at no fewer than seven major positions. Tennessee's there, and like a novice climber stranded in the death zone on Everest, you know it's a matter of time before they run out of oxygen, take off their clothes, and begin rolling in the snow like dying men suffering from mountain madness and cerebral edema.
Tennessee's already doomed in theory as the inferior team late in the game even on basic football princlples before you activate the computer worm capable of crippling the entire football matrix as we know it: Les Miles.
Some men just want to watch the world burn. Others set it on fire accidentally and call their friends to come over and watch. Les Miles is both.
Jarrett Lee throws a pass into triple coverage to start the sequence. Jarrett Lee, he of the multiple pick sixes and benching two years ago. He's back, and that's how bad LSU's offense is at this point with Jordan Jefferson attempting to "make pass go that way into hands." They now use him as a kind of running quarterback, which he's not. That would be Russell Shepherd, who is now a wide receiver who never gets the ball. Jordan Jefferson, the non-running QB, scored LSU's only TD to this point in the game on a wholly uncontested 83 yard run through the gut of the Tennessee defense. You knew the demons were in charge of this game from this play forward, and also that when you run on offense as nonsensically as LSU does, the only logical cure is to face an equally nonsensical defense. Tennessee rose to that challenge, and we toast you for this, Volunteers.
LSU gets the ball on the two as a result of a pass interference penalty (natch) and does what any good coach would do with three downs and a running clock with 32 seconds left in the game: call a quarterback sweep with your non-running running quarterback. Like much of Dangermouse and Cee-Lo's work together, the matchup of Gary Crowton's playcalling and Les Miles' attitude makes for sometimes nonsensical but always disturbing, affecting work.
The clock runs. You do two things when you might want to stop the clock on the goal-line down 14-10 with a running clock. You may spike it---wait, that's not happening. There's a thing about spiking the ball at LSU, if you'll recall. They could call time out, but they have no timeouts because Les Miles is pretty sure the federal government demands those back at the end of the year if you don't spend them all. Though they've been on the two yard line ever since the pass interference penalty, the LSU offensive staff suddenly remembers OH MY GOD WE HAVE A GOAL LINE PACKAGE and sets off a fire drill the People's Republic of China would call "disgracefully hurried and chaotic."
Huge men sprint off the field and onto it. The clock winds. Les Miles is seen throwing live chickens onto the field. Who knows where he got them, but they're all part of the plan now. The LSU sideline's complete anarchy triggers a disproportionate reaction on the Tennessee sideline. They send off three men, put in four, and one of the three sent off rushes back onto the field like a child terrified of missing the school bus for a field trip. (This child then ends up in the wrong town because they got on the wrong bus.) Derek Dooley wraps the headset cord around his neck and attempts to choke himself to death rather than watch what's happening. The crowd silences itself by placing a eighty thousand bourbon bottles in eighty thousand mouths at once and draining them simultaneously.
Then the most magnificent part of the play happens. This sentence appears in its own box because everything about it is spectacular:
Then the ball is snapped with the game on the line between two major college football powers with one team having 13 men on the field and another with a non-running running quarterback who watches in horror as the ball is snapped over his head and covered for a game-ending busted play. THIS ALL HAPPENED IN REAL LIFE.
Competence is overrated as a form of entertainment while incompetence can be side-splitting stuff. I watched this in a bar full of people in Tuscaloosa, and the reactions were giddy not because of any real mass hatred toward both teams, but because they knew that with a quality arsonist like Miles on the sidelines something was getting set on fire: LSU, Tennessee, or possibly both. Oh, and LSU scored on the next play when a penalty was called on Tennessee for too many men on the field because a 9-4 defense is effective but highly illegal, and Tennessee players started weeping on the field.
I'm applauding, all of you, as loud and as hard as I can in your general directions. We shall not see another ending to match this beautiful hatchet job until next week when LSU beats Florida at home 7.5 to 2 on a blocked extra point and a half a point awarded for hitting all three crossbars on a single missed FG attempt. It's in the rulebook, look it up.
A few of my friends asked why I named my blog "Crimson in Acadiana". Here you go:
Acadiana, or The Heart of Acadiana, (Cajun French: L'Acadiane) is the official name given to the French Louisiana region that is home to a large Francophone population. Of the 64 parishes that make up Louisiana, 22 named parishes and other parishes of similar cultural environment, make up the intrastate region.
The flag can be seen in various uses around the Acadiana area. Some local governments will fly the Acadian flag with their respective local colors and the American flag. Many residents of Acadiana will fly the flag on their homes or businesses. To many it is seen as a unifying image of the historic and present socio-economic ties that bind the region.
So I got really lucky and got to go to the Bama-Fla game this past weekend. A top-10 matchup ended with us blowing out the reigning SEC East Champs 31-6.
On Friday at 3 my boss tells me I'm going to go on a job in Demopolis, Al. This is only about an hour south of T-Town. So I call up Darby and ask if he can possibly pick me up on Friday. My dad's last week of work in Baton Rouge is this week, so again I got lucky and could ride back with him. My plan was to finish the job, get the crew to drop me off in Demop and send the crew and equipment back to Louisiana and meet them back at the shop on Monday morning.
My boss tells me we need to be on location at 6 friday morning. So i go home at 3 thursday to try and get some rest. After packing and cleaning it was already 8 so I decided no sleep and met the crew at 10 to drive. We arrived at 6 and shot the job until around 4 in the afternoon. At this point I have been up 36 hours straight. Everything is going right until we start to leave the rig and one of my drivers gets the truck into a ditch.
It was actually alot worse than the photo shows, it was really close to just falling over and then we are in serious trouble cause there goes a 500K truck. So we end up getting it pulled out and im on my way to ttown. I man up and go out, eventually making it to a new record of 42 hours without sleep. While out I ran into an old high school friend, Sarah Pace. We graduated together and our junior year of college she transfers into engineering so she is still in school after 7 years. She tried to tell me she is ready to get out and leave college and I gave her this almost verbatim:
So I got to see alot of good friends on Sat. We were celebrating Hunters 25th birthday which made us remember when we were 21 making fun of Darby for turning 25. Sad day. I got to catch up with Darby, Tweeder, Blue, Hunter and his gf Ginger, Cross, Perez, Steve, Glover and his gf Sarah, Chuck and his wife Laura, and new folks like Cross' friend Mitch and Steve's friends Desh and Garrett. It was Desh and Garrets first game and I ended up sitting with them in pretty good seats in the upper deck. They loved every minute of it.
All in all it was a pretty good weekend. It was also a pretty good day at work down here after the LSU debacle this weekend. Somehow fitting, one of the guys caught an alligator yesterday and brought it in hog tied on the back of his truck. I guess gators are just not doing well all around this weekend.
This about what I felt like watching the bama game yesterday. I just couldnt believe our piss-poor play in the first half. After that second interception by GMac I felt like Gmac=Tyrone
We eventually pulled it out and let me tell you, there were a lot of pissed off people at the Bufallo Wild Wings in Lafayette. Its good to be the King.
I was literally on the floor laughing at last nights Community. Expecially the very end with Betty White as the Anthropology teacher.
This is of course remeniscient of the rap they did for Spanish class last season
Afterwards I caught up on How I Met Your Mother, which always makes me laugh, but this had me rolling. This is the Halloween Episode when they are all getting thier costumes
Barney is by far the best character on the show. Here is his playbook for picking up women
My 7-day 11-state tour is over. I am finally back home and it feels good. The funny thing about the whole trip is that we had to be in ND on Tuesday to attend a 3-hour safety class for a 1-hour job on friday. So 60+ hours worth of driving for 4 hours of work. We couldnt fly because we had to take equipment with us up there.
We were hoping to be back sooner as the job was supposed to start at 7 am. This means that we had to be ready at 6 am. Since we spend about two hors rigging up on thursday all we had to do was drop the tools on depth on friday, which still takes an hour to get to around 10,000 ft. So we needed to start dropping tools at 5 am. Since the nearest hotel was 90 minutes away we had to leave at 3:30 am. All this is well and good as the job was supposed to last 1 hour. The other crew didnt even show until 7:30, took them until 10 to rig up, had a few problems so the job actually started at 3:30 pm. They finish around 5 and we have to monitor for another hour so we start our 2 hour rig down at 7. Long story short, we were hoping to leave by noon but we left at 10:30 pm.
We decided to drive straight through again, another 1800 miles. 3 guys who had worked all day and not showered going for a 30 hour car ride. To say the truck was a little funky at the end is an understatement.
Since im the new guy I had the dreaded 2 am-8 am driving shift. The only saving grace is that there is nobody on the roads of SD at 3am and the speed limit is 75. BTW, if you ever find yourself driving through Fargo do not stop at the Pilot station off the interstate. Within 5 minutes I saw/heard these things:
1)A guy in full canadian tuxedo (denim, on denim, on denim) 2)A guy ask the clerk for a glass of water because his quarters were thirsty. Seriously. 3)A dude buy, literally, all the beef jerkey in this place.
So I'm on this lonely road with the other guys sleeping and I have a lot of time to myself to just think. This song called "Turning Home" by David Nall comes on. Awesome song, its about this guy remembering all the good times he had in his home town/ friends / first love. I don't know why it got me thinking but it did. I don't know if it is because I came from such a small town or that I didnt really enjoy high school that much except for my senior year, but unlike the song when I think of all these things I think of college.
Usually take one last pass through town Stop the car and touch the ground Watch those streetlights swayin’ in the breeze Decorated store fronts Rusty old gas pumps Try to fill my mind up With somethin’ before I go Picture postcard memories You know they always make for good company
I don’t know no town Like the old town Even when the miles are many I feel like I’m still around Deep inside me Like rings through an oak tree Yeah, there something ‘bout a Sunday when I’m gone That keeps me turning home
To me this just described Tuscaloosa for me. I really do love that town, as ready as I was to leave it. As an alum, its a totally nastolgic feeling when I visit. Since my parents moved away from the town I graduated high school from, there is not much of a reason to go back, plus the fact that I truely had the best time of my life in Ttown is why I really will always consider it "home".
I’m standin’ here beneath these billboard lights Takes me back to those autumn nights Hometown bleachers packed real tight As we marched down the field My feet would swing from a dropped tailgate Out on Airport Road real late No one could walk a line too straight We usually made it home alright And glory days I cant re-live Stories I’ll never forget
And I don’t know no friends Like the old friends I never seem to laugh now Like I did with them But deep inside me A piece of history Yeah, I hear their voices even though they’re gone And it keeps me turning home
While he is talking about playing HS football, I think of attending Bama games. More specifically, pre- or post-gaming for games is where I cant remember laughing like I did at Stadium Apartments my freshman year, 701 13th st my sophomore year, the fraternity house my next two years, and my apt the next two. Everyone just drinking, eating, and laughing are the times I truely miss. Ive attended a game as an alum and really there is just no comparing to having 30-40 of your best friends at one place while you are all in school to tailgating on the quad with families.
Never twice the same way does it start And sure enough she stole my heart On the old gym floor, spinnin’ round and round one night And though we both tried hard to wait We sure did love the taste Of the sweet love being made and prayin’ I got it right Graduation came and went Along with all the time we spent
And I don’t know no love Like the first love When I think about the best times She’s the one I think of Deep inside me All though the taste is bittersweet I see her smilin’ even though she’s gone And it keeps me turning home, yeah And it keeps me turning home
This one probably got me thinking the most of all. Like most people, I had my first serious relashionship in college. And like most people, it didnt last. In my case it was two people who were finally having to face the world after 2-3 years together and realizing that they were headed in opposite directions in life when not given the commonality of college. And in all my life I have never had regrets except on this issue. I don't regret the relashionship, I loved her and I knew she loved me. I don't regret the breakup, in hindsight it was the right decision. The thing I regret is that my relashionships to people changed over the whole thing.
I was having a ton of fun and was really good friends (and I mean friends) with a lot of girls when I entered the relashionship. I allowed myself to disengage those friends to be more focused on my gf. This may be the biggest mistake of my life. I just cut and dry was not a good friend to the people. Even after the breakup, friends that we had as a couple I suddenly no longer had, because I guess they felt they needed to choose sides or something.
Through it all, I've had my best friends stick by me, and for that I am truly blessed. I have to use two hands to count my true friends and even I know that is unusual. And a few of those people I wasnt good friends to have forgiven me and we talk or text pretty frequently now, which doesnt take away my regret but does make me feel better about.
Hey, if all life is is a collection of experiences im well on my way, and I thank all of you for being a part of it, no matter how large or small the part.
We were rigging up on location today when-and I'm not lying here- thousands and thousands of birds flew over us. This picture is only what i could cover in one picture. I would have to have taken 10 or 12 of these to show you all of them (there are alot of the ground in the back of the picture).
Now for the kicker, these birds were seagulls, in the middle of north-central ND. Needless to say we were all in shock and this face was abundant.
New Season of Always Sunny in Philadelphia starts on Thursday. Super pumped. Maybe I can watch it but if not I'm definitely DVR'ing it. If you don't watch this show you really should be.
I get to travel a lot with my job. It has its ups and downs. The downside is that I'm gone from home alot. And I mean alot. I so far have spent 51 of the 90 days I've been employed in hotels. The good news is I get to see the country for free, and I am racking up killer Holiday-Inn points.
I am currently sitting on a job on an Indian Reservation in North Dakota about an hour south of the Canadian border. Hey, I never thought I would get to see this part of the country and its pretty cool. So far I have came to the following conclusions:
There are about 100 people living in ND and SD. Seriously. I think this must be where the FBI sends the winess protection program.
This is what the whole state looks like. There is just nothing out here. Expect for the road and a little barbed-wire fencing to keep the cows out of the road this place is untouched by humans. As you are driving its really not hard to imagine the Souix Indians following buffallo through here. You almost expect to see them crest the hills.
The main exports of this state must be hay, sunflower seeds, and horses.
Its currently 3 weeks away from snow up here. Its Sept and its 95 today at home.
My god ND is a long way up here-30 straight hours of driving, I think any more and the truck would have caught fire. We seriously did not turn it off except to fuel.
We took a 30 minute detour while in SD and got to see Mt. Rushmore. Guess what-it looks exactly like this picture. Seriously, other than to say youve ben here and seen it, you've experienced it. Don't get me wrong-its cool and all and I'm glad I did see it, but there is nothing to do here.
Step 1: Look at the Faces
Step 2: Leave
This is the third cool thing I've had a chance to see on Big Red's dime. I saw Independance Hall and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and Carlsbad Cavers in New Mexico.
This started me thinking, what else would I like to see. I had alot of time driving so I cae up with a little bit of a Bucket List.
Watch Alabama win a National Championship in person-CHECK
Graduate College-CHECK
Go to a World Cup-currently planned for 2014 in Brazil
Attend a summer and winter olympic games
Visit Europe (Ireland, England, Normandy France, Italy)
Octoberfest
Go to NY and LA-1/2 there
Visit Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef
Skydive
This list will keep growing I'm sure. Post comments and let me know some other things I should do.
For those of you who I havn't spoken to in a while, I thought I would make my first blog post about what I've been doing lately. I graduated from UA in May with a degree in Electrical Engineering. I took a job with Halliburton, and oil-field service company, in Lafayette, LA. Let me tell you, if you have ever hard the words "Cajun" or "Crawfish", this is where both of them live.
Lafayette itself is a pretty good sized town, about 3-4 times larger than Tuscaloosa. The thing that gets me though is that 30% of the people speak some sort of French (at least phrases in everyday conversation that I don't pick up) , I can't pronounce the road names (I live on Kaliste Saloom, pronounced "Call-ee Saloom", and forget about anyones last names, i.e: Savoi (Sav-wah), Guillott (Gey-ott), and Bellager (Bell-on-jay). On the reverse side of that, the food is excellent, and the city itself is actually very nice.
****WARNING-NERD ALERT****
THIS IS PRETTY BORING
So I was hired by Halliburton Seismic Services, a Sub-PSL (product service line) under the W&P (Wireline & Perforating) PSL. Because Halliburton is like the 5th biggest company in the world, it has lots of PSL's and sub-PSL's, basically broken down like this:
Sperry Drilling- Drill the wells and run casing
Cementing- Cements the metal casing in
W&P- Places different tools down the well to record anything and everything about whats down there. This can include what kind of rocks are there, the porosity and permeabiliy of said rocks, how much gas/oil is to be expected there, how much radioactivity there is at certain levels and of course Seismic.
Completions-Starts producing from the well
My buddy Darby says I work for Conglom-o (if you remember the Nicktoon Rocko's Modern Life). He is about right.
So basically Seismic services puts a tool down the hole. These tools have microphones in them. We then get a huge source (airgun, dynamite, or most likely Vibrosis Truck), to cause an event at the surface so energy waves can enter the earth. Our microphones pick up this energy. Since we know how deep our tools are and when we set off our source, this gives us the travel time of the energy wave. From that we can tell what kind of formation our tool is at (because energy travels different speeds through different materials-like sound through water and air). And thats basically it.
