End Of June

So. I am sorry that it has been so long since I have written. Finding time to write is not difficult, but focusing long enough to do so, is. Currently I am sitting in one of the lounges where I work. Specifically, the D&M lounge, watching the first X-Men movie with my friends Oscar and James. Oscar is one of the summer help, who go around picking up trash on the tundra, painting, and doing general maintenance type of things. James is an MWD Engineer who is a little more bored than Alan and I, and who generally hangs out with all day. We all watch movies or TV together in the evenings. At first it is a “I am bored thing.” Then it becomes a “you’re my coworker, I also see you about 20 times a day, and I am just used to being around you” thing. Once again, I marvel about how meeting all these random people is really an interesting thing. They are maybe not who I would first hang out with in college, but since we have been up here I have found a ton of cool, original human beings who are just generally nice. But I am getting ahead of myself. I haven’t told you about my time off!
To be succinct, it was awesome. I got to sleep in, relax, have fun with the other interns, and enjoy being not quite a resident, yet not quite a tourist, in a strange city. I did a lot of walking around Anchorage, and went to see 2 movies (Get Smart and The Happening) with my fellow interns Amanda, Kirsten, and Robin. The guys went camping together for 3 or 4 days, so they were not involved in the fun action. On Saturday (the summer solstice), Amanda, Kirsten, and I drove down to Seward and went camping overnight. Summer solstice is a huge thing up here, because it is the longest day of the year (more of a big deal in the lower part than in Prudhoe Bay, as it has 24 hours of daylight anyway), and so a ton of people were also camping. Amanda’s engineering mentor was also in Seward with her 3 good friends, so they all came to our campsite and hung out with us for awhile. On Tuesday we went to Wittier (again) and kayaked for 6 hours in Prince William Sound. I found out that bald eagles are everywhere in Alaska (we saw 5!), sea kayaking is awesome, I really need to build up my upper body muscles, and a Sound is actually a really big bay with a ton of coves within it. Prince William Sound has over 4000 miles of coastline in it alone!! Oh, we also drove within 8 feet of a baby black bear….without a mama for some reason. It was absolutely adorable, but I restrained the urge to jump out of the moving vehicle and hug it. I would have to say, though, that my favorite thing about my week off was being outside, around trees, and able to run!!!! The average temperature in Anchorage right now is between 55 and 65 degrees in the afternoon. Absolutely perfect, for a lovely jog among the semi-vicious mosquitoes. Finally, I got to meet my FSM, Franklin Medina. He is a really energetic sweet guy from South America with a wife, little girl, and twins about to come any minute. We touched base about everything I was confused about, and he explained what I was really going to do with my engineering project this summer.
Since I flew back on Thursday, I have mainly been trying to work on my project and keep from getting bored. It is difficult to motivate myself to run, as we have 4 elliptical machines and only one treadmill at my specific camp. Some camps are nicer than others, and the one in Endicott (which you can look up on the internet) has a 1/16 mile track, basketball/volleyball court, and a plethora of weight equipment. Ours just has the basics, but for me, no matter how bored I get, the basics will be enough. To motivate myself to run, I have created a schedule and have decided to stick to it, no matter where I am at. I ran 3 miles miles today. 1 at 8:27, 1.5 at 8:19, and the last ½ at 8:00. Pretty fun, very tiring.
Finally, before I go, and I promise my next messages won’t be this long, the animals and flowers are showing up here. All over the tundra we are getting tiny yellow, lavender, and white flowers. Also, the caribou, red foxes, and musk ox are wandering Prudhoe Bay. There is a really large one that hangs our right next to our building that they call the Roadboo, as it wanders around near and in the road all the time. They have nothing to fear from us, because we can’t even honk a car horn at them, so they get pretty close sometimes. The bear should be here soon, because they come up for calving season. Yum, lunch.
I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday. I love and miss you guys.

My Fellow Americans

I've always wanted to address a large group of people like that. Maybe one day when I am the 1st female president of the United States, I will have the chance. If there was one very shallow reason I wouldn't want to be president, it is because of how much it ages you. You would go into the presidency looking like a relatively well preserved older person and then come out looking like you've had horrible sleeping habits for 40 years. I don't know if four years of that much stress would be worth it.
Anyway...the last couple of days has been really boring. I haven't gone to any rigs, or worked in the shop. I cannot work on my project yet, as no one knows what to do with it and I think I am getting a new one. The project I am supposed to be doing is "Standardization of the AKA D&M Work Processes". Sounds kind of simple, yes. However all the people who know what they're doing (including the real engineers) have told me that it's basically impossible for me to complete. Not because I am stupid or anything like that. They say that to be able to effectively do anything with that subject I have to have a working knowledge of the processes themselves. As I have only worked up here for 2 weeks....it's a no-go. The new project I might get to work on I will talk about later if we get the thumbs up for it.
I am excited, though, because I get to fly back down to Anchorage tomorrow! My flight leaves here at 12:25 pm and then I have a week of absolutely nothing. I considered the Denali trip, but I am still not sure. The Denali trip we wanted to do involves a 9 hour/60 mile drive into the park with frequent stops to take pictures of animals and such. It sounds interesting, but I am really not a fan of sitting on a bus for 9 hours. Even if we get breaks occasionally. After being up here I just really do NOT want to be inside anywhere for nine hours. Unless I am sleeping, of course. I am also leaning really hard towards a two day kayaking lessons/on your own type of deal, as it is not really expensive and I will get to be outside/doing physical stuff. Plus, it's WATER!!!! I like water. A lot.
Besides that my life has been boring. Oh yeah. To G'ma Joanie: I checked out the one general store that they have up here. It is actually just a hardware store with a room above it that you can buy cold weather gear/sweats/shampoo/knicknacks from. It has nothing in the way of film developing/uploading in it. It does, however, have a movie rental area, a large section of porn (or so I am told by the guy interns...Alan took a picture of it, but I wasn't excited enough to check it out), and the only cat in Prudhoe Bay/Deadhorse, Alaska. Sorry, I tried. :) And it also sells shot glasses, which I found rather ironic, as no alcohol is sold or can be brought up here. Unless you drove, and why drive 400 miles on a nasty dirt/gravel road with alcohol when it would only get you fired from your job? Yup.
I will write soon. I love you all!

Happy Father's Day!!!!!

11:51, my time. I am finally getting tired, but it has taken awhile. My body has been doing weird stuff since I've come off working nights. I keep thinking that it shouldn't be such a big deal because it is light all the time up here, but apparently I am wrong. I keep on being hungry at odd times and then I don't get as tired (but that could just be because it is so light). At this point I don't care about the reasons, I am just slightly annoyed with the symptoms. The food is still good, though, and the people are still really nice. I am now friends with the D&M people, some of Slickline, and half of the kitchen staff. I am planning on taking over the world with friendliness eventually, but please don't tell anyone as it might ruin my plans.
Today wasn't super productive. I ran in circles with my project that I am suppose to be doing this summer. No one really knows what to do with it. All the manager people/people in charge that are here either think it is a time waster that won't have a productive out come or that it is way to big of a project to take on in 6 weeks (Well...4 more weeks, really, because we are 2 on, 1 off). My FSM (field service manager) who assigned the project is currently on some sort of leave/vacation thing, so calling him isn't really an option. I've recieved some opinions about what I should do with it from people here and elsewhere (thanks dad), but I still am not sure and will be searching for some kind of clarification before I fly to Anchorage on Wednesday.
Speaking of Wednesday. WOOT! I like being up here because it is interesting and new, but I can see why people look forward to their week (s) off. The job isn't bad at all, it is just....time consuming. Working twelve hour shifts every day for two weeks without a day or afternoon off is kind of weird to get used to. I continue to lose track of what day it is because I don't have a week to reference from, or look forward to. Everyone here always has plans for what they want to do when they leave the slope. A summer hire is going to go camping with his girlfriend and their mutual friends, some of the shop guys are going on a boating trip together, a couple are going to hang out with their families, and getting drunk is definitely involved in quite a few of the plans I have heard. Since my week off coincides with a lot of the guys' weeks off, I have had some offers of being shown cool places in Anchorage and neat trails to hike on. All of them have advice for interesting/non-touristy adventures to go on, but we will see what the interns and I decide in the end. I know that I definitely want to go kayaking and a couple of us are planning on that, and there are some votes for a trip to Denali National Park, but that is an 8 hour train ride just to get there. There are some movies and restaurants we definitely want to go to, and basically just hanging out without having to be busy doing something will be nice.
On a side note, I took a fit test/respirator test yesterday. I would just like to thank my parents, the french horn, and running, before I go any further. Before we could get fitted with a respirator, we had to blow into a machine that measured our lung capacity. This has to be done at least 3 times with similar results before going on is allowed, and the results tell you your "lung age" or something along those lines. My lung age is n/a because, as the nurse put it, they are freakishly strong. I scored a 127 percent of the capacity I should have, and apparently after 120 percent the machine can't predict what your lung age is. My fellow interns had lung ages of 10-46 year olds but I was the only one off the charts. Aren't you glad that you now know why I can talk so much, mom? You should have given me worse lung genes. :D
And with that I am ready for bed. I will probably get up at 6 and wander down the hallway to work at 7 am (it is soooo convenient having your main job/mechanics shop in the building you live in!!!) and then proceed to be productive for the rest of the day. I hope you all have a wonderful fathers day and that somebody makes dad brownies for me. Preferably without walnuts in them, as that sullys the amazing taste. Basically, if that happens don't tell me please, because I will become depressed at the ruined brownie-ness and be forced to eat more sugar cookies (so amazing!) from the kitchen here in compensation.
I love you all!!!

A meager attempt to explain work.

I don't think I've actually written anything since I've started going on jobs. Well, one job, to be precise. D&M goes out when the drilling begins and stays out until the job is finished. The thing is, even though they are in charge of/monitor all the drilling tools, they are not always busy. There are different stages to drilling wells. There is the initial prepping, then drilling, cleaning the well, pulling out, cementing...and then drilling another section. Wells are drilled in sections because different rock formations are prevalent in different layers of the earth. The drilling mud that is circulated down into/throughout the well is used to bring up chips, cool down equipment, power the tools, and finally, to stabilize the well and keep the formation together while drilling is going on, so no fracturing occurs in the walls of a well. However, because different formations occur at different levels of a well, varieties of mud at different pressures need to be used. Thus, a well is drilled in different sections so the mud can be changed out, added to, etc. That is my understanding, at least. The thing is, D&M engineers (also called, MWD's and LWD's) are out there throughout the entire well drilling process, even if no drilling is going on, there is always at least one to two engineers in the Schlumberger unit which is about 50 feet from the rig that switch off every twelve hours. Twelve hours is a looonnggg time. Well, it really only feels like a long time if you don't come adequately prepared for the down time. I am getting really good at crossword puzzles, looking up useless stuff online, reading, and facebooking. I have also chatted enough with the directional driller (the guy who is the head honcho of drilling on the rig) to know his kids, their names, what they like to do in their spare time, his dog's name and that she is pretty cute (yellow lab), as well as the fact that he owns a cabin in the woods and gets harrassed by bears a lot. The people are all pretty nice to me. By people, I mean guys, as I am the only female (besides the cook who is 50) that is currently out at the rig site. So of course they are going to be nice to the only girl. :D They answer all my questions, take me to check out cool places on the rig, and chat with me when they aren't doing stuff.
It's not like I am bored all the time, though. I have learned how to depth track, create reports, read the 16 graphs that are all moving simulatenously and know what they mean. I have also learned how to prep the tools before they begin drilling, what real troubleshooting is, and why geologists and mud engineers are so important. Yes, I said mud engineer. That's how important the mud really is to drilling operations. The one that works nights with us is named Jeremy, and I have also learned how to take resistivity measurements whenever he brings in samples. Cool fact: resistivity is not the same thing as resistance. I definitely did not know this until the MWD that I work with explained it to me. During the "night" shift (though it is always light) I work with a 23 yr. old engineer named Bill who is pretty nice for a human being. On days, two engineers named Eddy and Andy work, both are also very nice. Since D&M is such a small group in Schlumberger, they are pretty laidback and generally close-knit. I am actually kind of sad because the guys that work on the tools in the shop traded out with their replacements and went home, as they work 1 on, 1 off. I will not see them for 3 more weeks because our weeks off and on will not collide until then. :(
So, anyway, what I have been doing for the past week is working 12 hour night shifts and sleeping during most of the day. It was pretty hard to get used to for the first couple of nights, but now it doesn't really bother me. I'm actually kind of grouchy right now because I am acclimated to working nights, and then today I found out that I can't go back on a rigsite until I get some stupid respirator training and ear testing. They forgot to train us in Anchorage, so we get to waste a day up here instead. It wouldn't be such a big deal, but we have to drive 30 miles away (which takes about 45 min-1 hour since the speed limit is 35-45 mph here) and then wait as everyone does whatever it is we have to do. We don't really know anything, they just tell us to bring a book. Woot. The other problem with us going is that I will have to be up all day tomorrow, which will not feel good because I slept all day today and now I am not tired (except for a ridiculous headache), thus I will be tired tomorrow. It is a non-fixable issue, so I will just deal with it and have fun regardless! At least I can hang out with the other interns for a long time!!!
Well, I might as well attempt to sleep. It probably won't be super hard, as I usually can fall asleep anytime, anywhere. Have a great Friday, guys!

Finally!

We arrived!!!! They flew us up here on a shared services plane Tuesday afternoon. We did all the normal stuff like checking our bag(s), walking through security and getting lost trying to find our gate because it had been changed in the 20 minutes since we printed out our boarding passes. Because we are smart kids, we just decided to look for the most male dominated section of the airport and then ask at the check-in counter there. We won. The flight was nice with just a little bit of turbulence, and I was asleep for most of it. After getting off the plane, I went through the smallest terminal I've ever seen and then we got driven from Deadhorse to Prudhoe Bay, about 1/2 a mile.
Everything is flat here. Everything. They say on a clear day you can see for 35 miles in any given direction. We are only 5 miles from the ocean. The reason the are we are in is called the North Slope, is because the land slopes continually down from a way-far-away mountain range to the ocean here. And it is north of the mountain range. I haven't seen any mosquitos yet, but I have seen some cute arctic foxes (do not pet either...they carry rabies) and a bunch of birds. Nothing is green here, it is technically an arctic desert and the tundra is just grassy and brown with lakes plopped in it, connected by streams. Usually this would be frozen, but the top layer of earth melts in the spring, turning everything into a marsh/swamp thing. I would put up a picture, but I cannot load my pictures onto the computers here as they are schlumberger's.
The other unique thing that I have seen is that this place only exists for one purpose. Work. All the buildings either house parts, machines, or humans. A lot of them are propped up on stilts because due the the freeze/thaw action, the ground isn't stable enough to build on. When something isn't propped up, it is because it is built on a "pad" which is a built up gravel surface. All the main buidings and roads, as well as the rig sites, are built on these. That is a lot of imported gravel.... Another thing that amazes me is that everywhere you look around, everything that is not tundra or wildlife was trucked up here. All the buildings, food, water, storage, trucks, parts, etc. And the only road up here is a very long, mult-hundreds of mile dirt road with little or no gas stations.
Lunch is happening, so I am going to check out the buffet line. That is the other awesome thing about this place...the food is AMAZING. This might not be a good thing though. Thank goodness they have ellipticals here.

To the Slope!

It is only about 30 minutes now before I leave the apartment for to pick up my coveralls and BP badge. I should have had them both, however the coveralls were delayed to begin with, so they just arrived in Anchorage this morning, and 3 of the intern's (including me) paperwork wasn't sent over to BP until too late yesterday afternoon. They are the only two things left that I need to go up to the Slope. I got my NSTC (North Slope Training Co-operative) badge yesterday after watching powerpoint slides for 8 hours. Again. I think that I have had the same safety information drilled into me abou 4 or 5 times now, so if I do screw up and do something stupid, like petting a polar bear, it will be entirely my fault. Seriously...what idiot would actually try to pet a polar or grizzly bear?! Do they not think it could hurt/kill them? Anyway, I am all packed, awake, and ready to really begin what I came up here to do. I will talk to you guys later!

A cause for celebration

It finally happened! We have some semblance of a schedule! This morning we went to the Anchorage office of Schlumberger and met the majority of the management for Alaska (yet again, all of them were really nice and friendly) and we had meetings until lunch, and then were set free for the day. After they fed us, of course. Hearing country music in a barbeque place in Alaska is a bit odd, to be entirely honest, but the food was amazing, of course. I am getting off topic, however. We found out today that we will be getting two weeks on and one off. However, we will not know until we reach the Slope (flying out on Wednesday afternoon!) which weeks they will be. So I might actually only have to work one to start with, or I might work 3, get one off, then come back for 2 and actually start a real schedule. The nice thing, is that I will always be off at the same time as at least one other intern, so I will have someone to hike with when I am in Anchorage. My coveralls (or smurf suit...) haven't come to Anchorage yet, but I really hope they will arrive before I head up to Prudhoe Bay, or else they will have to be shipped and I will have to wear borrowed ones until then. :(
We also learned that even though we were given green hardhats by Schlumberger, they won't ever get to see action, because BP is now requiring that all nonpermanent workers wear orange hardhats while up there. Since Schlumberger is basically a contractor for BP...oh well. I get to keep the green hardhat, though, so I think I might just wear it for the entire trip back Kansas. Planes are dangerous places, you know!
Anyway, I am going to start unpacking because we have finally been put in corporate apartments (WOOT!) and I need to find out where all the stuff is I randomly shoved in my suitcase this morning in the hotel. I kind of woke up later than I wanted to. Oops.

A really long sunday.

So it is Sunday evening, almost Monday morning. We got back from Wittier, AK about 2 hours ago. This has been an incredibly cool(in multiple senses of the word) day. We hopped on a train in Anchorage and then rode south along the coast, through the longest car/train sharing tunnel in North America, until we arrived at Wittier.
It is a super small town that is big on kayaking, hiking trails, and glacier tours. I think the kayak rental and tour arrangement businesses actually outnumber all other buildings in town. Oh, and almost everyone basically lives in the same apartment building. So really, theses people do know all their neighbors. I also wandered around and found an old military building that is no longer used. All the windows are broken out, and it is covered in graffiti. It looked very lonely and sad. I briefly thought about adventuring inside to see what there was to see, because a door was entirely broken in. Then I saw the clean blanket, and bag of belongings, and tarp about 10 feet away, and all of my adventuring-ness was abandoned. I may like to try new, exciting things, but being stabbed by a desperate Alaskan hobo is not one of them. Finally, as it was raining outside and the temperature had dropped to around 45 degrees, I decided to head back to the train and eat some wheat thins (yum!).
The ride there and back was absolutely incredible! As we left Anchorage the mountains became larger and larger. The words beauty and majesty truly cannot describe the mountains or landscapes we passed. Right now all the snow is melting and running off in small to relatively large streams that fall as mini-waterfalls over the rocks. All the flat, sea level area has melted and with the added runoff has turned into a marsh. Also, a large portion of the mountains are turning a huge variety of green shades, so there is something new, everywhere you look. Basically, Alaska really is as beautiful as they say! I will try to add pictures next time I have time.
Finally, I have to say that the one thing I truly love about Alaska(besides the awesome scenery) is the genuinely nice people that I have met. A bartender that I met at lunch today off (don't worry mom, he didn't hit on me) gave me his number and email and said that he would take my friends and I hiking when we come back from to Anchorage on our weeks off. Our tour guide on the train gave us her number and email and told us she would take us go-carting when we had time off. Finally, our taxi driver (a grizzled looking old man, who worked in Prudhoe Bay in the 1970s and early 80s) dropped us off at a Wendys (which was about 6 blocks from our hotel) so we could get dinner. Then, he realized that we couldn't get in the doors (it was closed) so he came back in the parking lot (even though there were other restaurants around) and told us he would take us through the drive through. He said he was done for the day and was heading off to drink, so not only did he drive us through once, he did it a second time when somebody forgot something. THEN he (while hardcore refusing our offers of payment) drove us the rest of the way back to the hotel. All the while he told us really cool stories about working on the pipeline when it was first being built. I was kind of in shock, to be entirely honest. Everyone I have met here is so incredibly friendly it is unbelievable. Plus, the Kaladi Bros. coffee is really, really good and not very expensive.
So, this is the end of this post. We get to start our training at the Schlumberger offices in Anchorage tomorrow and hopefully we will get to go out to The Slope on Wednesday!!!!!! Thanks for your comments and well wishes, my wonderful relatives (I totally count you as a relative Mary :D). Grandma, I promise I will do my best not to play with any type of bear/moose (even though I saw a HUGE one today). Also, Uncle Charlie, where did Scott get the list of trails from? I know I probably won't be able to do very many of them, but I really really want hike some.
I love and miss you all!