Oh, Puleeeeeeez,....

At times I have to laugh and scoff at some of the posts I see on the internet. Online forums, chat rooms, or just comments left from a particular story floor me. The one thing that a lot of people like about arenas like that is that usually they're one-sided. They cannot be stopped mid sentence for clarification or to just shut them up.

People make half-hearted and usually half-thought out comments about things they know nothing about. Kind of like someone stating what they WANT to be the truth or fact (s). Oft times those perceived facts are wrong. No research, no investigation, no nothing. They only want to make themselves heard, right or wrong. Drives me nuts.

Ever get one of those phishing emails? Ever see one of those emails forwarded to everyone and their brother saying, "I read it on the drudge report (or wherever),..?" My brother is one of those who started me checking on them. I'll get these emails and I'll try to track down the source or the subject source to see if the email or story is fact or fiction. I've done it about a dozen times and every single time the email or story is incorrect. It's fiction. It's made up by someone who wanted to start a rumor. It could be just someone who's out to pick a fight and cause a lot of headaches for who they wrote about.

I wish I could tell people who leave comments on stories, message boards, forums, or wherever that they need to look at the facts BEFORE they comment so blindly and stupidly. A lot of these people do this and hide their names. Why is that? Do they know they're incorrect? Do they know they're wrong and haven't bothered to do a little digging? Or is it just being blinded by the truth, the truth they so much want to be wrong? When I see comments like that I always wonder if it would be better served to leave a comment in rebuttal or leave it alone with the thought that, "nobody else commented because they too know it's incorrect and the author's an idiot." Or would the author think, "Ha! Nobody's commented because they know I'm right!"

Freedom of speech ought to be modified to be something like "freedom of speech for those who have a brain that actually gets used."

Do People Use Their Brains? Really???

It's mind-boggling at times to see some of the dumb things I do. I mean, these are things that not only I see but everyone else does too. Kind of makes me wonder which rock some of these people climbed out from underneath, ala Patrick Starfish.

Some of these things make me mad, others sicken me, a lot disgust me, and even more have me scratch my head and ask, "What the hell are they doing???"

I know there are millions of dumbass things people do daily and I'm sure that if someone watched me long enough they'd see me have a dumbass attack or two in a very short time period. The good thing is, I try to avoid those moments for embarrassment sake. Yet they still happen, regardless how hard I try to avoid them. Stupidity? Not necessarily, just a lack of good judgment or forethought.

Like this one; pulled in to the gas station (no, not White Castle) for some Mt. Dew this morning before coming to work. I turned to get back in my truck and saw a guy sitting in his car at the pump, with the driver's door open smoking a cigarette. All the while the pump is running and pumping fuel in to his car. All I could do is high tail it out of there and wonder how such stupid people are still alive.

About a week ago I was leaving the grocery store and I spied a woman picking her nose only to look at her newly found treasure before she so kindly discarded it on the handle of a shopping cart. I can remember #3 putting her mouth on those handles not too long ago.

I passed an SUV this morning coming to work with one of those spare tire donuts. The same dinky tires that say, "Do Not Go Over 50 MPH." The lady was doing 75. I know a guy who at one time had 3 of these tires on his car at one time. He made 1/2 again more than I did yet he didn't want to spend the money to buy new tires. He lived 50 miles from where we worked and drove like that for over 3 months. Several of us shamed him in to buying new tires when we took up a collection to buy him some. We ended up using the money on ribs instead and celebrated his new purchase.

I'm sure there are many more dumbass things people do and I'm guilty of a lot of them myself. At least I'll admit some of the stupid things I do are wrong and at least make a half-hearted attempt to hide them or keep them from public view. Well, I try but sometimes fail miserably. So until my next dumbass attack,...

The Joys of the Sense of Smell

You know, it’s amazing.

I look back at my life and all that I have done and I’m amazed at everything I’ve been able to do. I’ve accomplished a lot, left a lot undone, and experienced things or a combination of that few others will be able to do in a lifetime.

Probably one of the most rewarding is being a part of EMS. I’ve been in the EMS field since 1988. Hard to imagine that I’ve been doing it for so long yet by industry standards I’m relatively young in age. I’ve seen a lot, done a lot, gotten puked on a lot, and sworn at a lot. The one constant is always, and will remain true, that every run is different. There will be similarities and likes but there will always be one glaring difference in the patient care, the signs / symptoms, incident background or scene, or patient outcome.

It used to be funny that I would be eating with friends or family and discuss some of the nastier parts of EMS and what we’ve seen / dealt with and still be able to eat our food without it making a return visit. I’ve lightened up a little on that respect but I still have no problem doing it. There are still those who don’t like those conversations, especially at the dinner table. I tend to be quite graphic in some of my story telling as I want to make sure the listener hears every minute detail of what it was I got to see or deal with.

Probably one of the funniest was a local trailer park call late at night for a drunk who was vomiting. I met the crew on the scene and they had the guy already loaded up on the cot and needed help bringing him down the steps from the trailer. This gentleman (term loosely used) was obviously inebriated and stated he was. Beer and whiskey were his toxins this night. As we were on the porch area he proceeded to remove all of his stomach contents over the side of the cot on to the porch. I was at the head of the cot as he did this.

One thing about EMS, it gives us another added sense or accentuates our already keen ones. Mine, at times, happens to be smell. At the time this guy urped up I caught a whiff of the pile he left on the porch. I knew exactly what it was. I smelled pizza from a local pizza joint. So I asked him, “You ate Pizza King pizza, didn’t you?” He gave me a quizzical look and nodded hi head before telling me he did. I couldn’t guess what kind it was as it was dark and I couldn’t see the pile, not that I really wanted to.

We get off the porch and are pushing the cot towards the ambulance. He lets loose a second time, yet not as forceful or with as much volume. And again I got a snout full of odor and it was different. Hot damn! I knew this smell too so I asked him again. “Before you had pizza you ate Cool Ranch Doritos, didn’t you?” It was just after I asked that I got slugged in my arm by one of the weak-stomached crew members and was told to stop asking such vile questions. I was told it was gross and that I needed to stop because I was making her sick.

The answer was, “yep, I shore did.”

It’s one of the “not so glamorous” parts of EMS. Being puked on, spat on, shat upon, peed on, or whatever on we sometimes have to deal with. Couple some of these wonderful instances with an occasional mechanical breakdown such as suction, air vent, air conditioning, or whatever and the situation becomes even more dire for both patient and caregiver.

Probably one of the worst was delivering a baby in the back of an ambulance in the middle of a hot, humid, terribly muggy night in south central Louisiana in a backup ambulance that had no air conditioning. Our primary unit had a/c problems and they switched us to this one for the night so they could fix it. These were type I trucks with only a pa to communicate between driver and attendant. No slide windows to easily talk to the driver which made it rougher. All I could do was tell my partner to “DRIVE FASTER!” It wasn’t because of the imminent delivery, it was because of the heat and stench in the back of that truck mixed with everything else that doesn’t smell good.

Stories? Smells? Got lots of them dating back to 1988. I’ll take a break from the nastier parts of it for now. Maybe I’ll hit some glamour later. Nah, we don’t do glamour. If you’re in EMS for glamour then you’re in it for the wrong reasons.

Ah, Fatherhood x 3

A long time ago I never figured myself to be a father. Now I have three kids and I wonder where I went wrong.

No, actually i couldn't be happier. It's not without stress and a lot of work but I wouldn't have it any other way. I used to love thinking about doing things with a son and how I'd teach him to do this or that and impart my experience to him so he would learn and not get hurt.

I thought about having a daughter and when she goes on her first date. How would I react? What would I say? Do I scare the crap out of her date and embarrass the hell out of her?

Just a lot of things I've thought about and now more things are popping in my head.

Seemingly every time we go somewhere someone asks our son if he's playing sports of any kind. "No," is the response. At times we get a quizzical look like saying, "you're kidding? No sports???" He doesn't want to and I'm not going to push him. If he wants to try something then he will. He's a normal boy with normal likes and dislikes but I want him to do some things for himself. I'm not going to push him in to things like that. if he wants to he'll tell us. We do push him a little but not to the point of forcing him to do things. I guess those things are just out of his normal comfort zone.

Now the girls, on the other hand, are all ready to begin playing soccer. Not that either of them know what it is, but they want to do it. They like running and kicking balls so they'll have fun if it's what they want to do.

What I feel really bad about is our son not playing as much as he should. He "likes" working. He says he'd rather work because it's fun. I know I didn't have the best work ethic growing up and was constantly being told to do this, do that, finish this. I was bad about not completing things, as he is today. Trust me, he gets constantly reminded about "half-assing" tasks. He stops what he's doing and finishes the prior job correctly. He likes to help and does a great job when he wants to. But I worry he doesn't play enough. We try to spend one-on-one time with him doing things he wants to do because we understand a lot of that time that should be for him is catering to the whims and cries and screams of two little sisters.

I like giving him a day off from school. I like the little sheepish grin I see when he comes walking down the hall to meet me. "Daddy, why are you here? We going somewhere?" And then I tell him I just thought he might like an afternoon off to go home and play, have a shake, watch TV or do other things to get a break. The grin on his face is worth it, every single time. He's happy and I love to see him smile.

All of our kids have terrific smiles. They all have their fake smiles and then the ones that are heart-warming, letting someone know they truly are happy.

Our son gets embarrassed easily so we try to not do that unless we're making a point. The girls? Gee whiz, they don't care. The only thing they get upset about is being tickled, told they can't have something they want, or to go to bed by themselves. Sound like a normal girl? It's a constant battle but eventually things will mellow out.

So as the summer begins and one's out of school, the other looks forward to pre-school while the last of the brood waits her turn to begin reading books, learning colors and shapes, and reciting the ABCs. So for now we'll continue playing outside in the little pool we have, eating popsicles, watching one of the many kittens we have in the barn, and enjoying each other's idiosyncrasies as we grow old, all together as a family.

Oil, Oil, Everywhere

My turn, my turn!

Every other blogger or journalist has had their say on the oil spill so let me have mine. I think I’ve earned it. I worked in the oil field all over the world for 14 years. I’ve seen two blowouts with my own two eyes and had a rig close to mine blow up. Hell, two of the rigs I used to work on have been involved in catastrophic accidents after I left them. One had an uncontrolled blowout, caught fire and then sank, the other got mauled by Katrina.

Everyone’s blaming bp on this one. They’re not working fast enough, they’re not moving with enough resources and people. Just read that Transocean owned, operated, and maintained the rig and why aren’t they being held accountable.

Everyone needs to keep their shirts on. There is an investigation ongoing and it will continue to be more in depth once they can get the riser and Bop from the sea floor up for inspection to find problems. Subsea BOPs are a little different than the ones located just under the rig floor. There are a lot of remote controls compared to the ones under the floor. Hoses, wires, tubing, whatever’s used is a lot longer ,exposed to a lot different environments and pressures than that of an above water BOP.

Here’s another one; the rig WAS owned and operated and maintained by Transocean. bp comes along and “rents” the rig to drill the well. They make the final call on what’s done. An OIM, Toolpusher, Driller, or Rig Manager can make any call they want to stop drilling if something’s unsafe or they disagree on something. Yes, bp is paying for things but there’s a lot of people to stand up and say, “something’s not right” for this to have happened. Could that many people not see something happening?

Ultimately what direction the rigs take is up to the Company Man or rep from the production company (bp in this case). They, along with engineers and other people, design the well based on anticipated pressures, reservoirs, depths, and formations they think will be down there based on seismic readings, core samples, or historical data they get from geologists and engineers. This may have been an HPHT well and they didn’t know it. The BOP they had on may not have been rated for the pressures they encountered or the pressure the bubble came up with. The rams might have stuck on a collar or joint and not been able to crush or shear it. Who knows? We won’t for a while yet.

I saw a little part of AC’s interview with 5 survivors. Heart-breaking stuff. I can’t imagine being one of them, one of the survivors. I remember just how tight a lot of us were offshore, anywhere in the world I went. In the GoM we all went out drinking together when we got off the rig. Hell, a couple of them lived with me for a couple years. In the Caribbean I was the only expat on the rig yet I stayed at a couple houses of the locals after I got off the rig. I still keep in touch with some of them today. Elsewhere it was the same. We all got along. We were family. We worked together, ate together, at times prayed together. We spent more holidays together than we did with our own families. We got along and worried about each other. We had to or we didn’t last too long on the rig.

The 11 that died perished doing a job they probably enjoyed. I loved working offshore. For a Midwesterner it was a truly different lifestyle that I miss. I loved the schedule, I loved seeing new parts of the world, meeting new people, experiencing different cultures. It was fun. I had a great job that paid very well plus I got a lot of time off from work.
The spill is tragic, yes, there’s no doubting that. The fouling of the beaches and marshes is catastrophic for economic reasons. The moratorium of drilling is going to create more hardships in a fragile economy than we’ll be able to handle. We’ll lose even more US jobs as the drilling companies move their rigs elsewhere to work.

bp has to move cautiously to take care of this. They have stressed over and over that these methods are untested at depths and pressures like these. ROVs are doing all the work, not divers or sat divers. It’s a lot different. There are a lot of variables and unknowns. It will end. It will stop or be stopped. The cleanup will ensue, bp will pay hefty fines and damage claims and probably change it’s name. I wouldn’t be surprised if bp is given some sort of ultimatum to get out of the US because of this; similar to Occidental in the North Sea after Piper Alpha blew up and killed over 160 men in the worst drilling accident.

Me? I worry about the survivors. I worry about their jobs and if they’ll be able to go back to them having witnessing such a disaster first hand, seeing their co-workers die, hearing one man describe a crane operator being tossed around like “a toy” after an explosion. Could I do it? Possibly but I’d think long and hard. We all have to survive. We all have to take care of our families and for me my family comes first. Jobs always have risks; some are calculated and acceptable, others are not. In the end even though we have lots and lots or rules and regulations, we as people, decide to follow them or not. If this was a human error then shame on that poor soul. If it was a mechanical failure, than shame on the poor soul who didn’t catch it, if it could be caught.

Accidents don’t just happen; they are caused. Pray for the survivors and pray for the families of those who are no longer a part of the oil patch.

Deepwater Horizon

“BP has blamed drilling contractor Transocean Ltd., which owned the rig. Transocean says BP was responsible for the wellhead's design and that oilfield services contractor Halliburton was responsible for cementing the well shut once drilled. And Halliburton says its workers were just following BP's orders, but that Transocean was responsible for maintaining the rig's blowout preventer.”

That was copied from CNN’s website this morning. I’m at a loss when I see reporting like this. It stymies me because people don’t take the time to dig deeper and find the fine print, the details, the “other” things that most people fail to find to make reporting more factual and credible. One would think that CNN would at least do a better job and not blindly allow such reporting to point fingers and sway peoples’ opinions.

I’ll put in my two cents even though it won’t be read by a journalist anywhere simply because I know a little bit and I’ll say it. I’ve worked in the oil field. I did for 14 years all around the world. I worked for Transocean for 2 years and know the company well as well as lots of people who still work for them. I know some of how a rig works and the paperwork and the signatures and the approvals processes that go on during daily operations of a rig. Not much has changed in those respects.

I will say that I’ve never worked on the Horizon. I’ve never worked on a semi or drillship. All I’ve worked on are jackups, platforms, platform rigs, and land rigs. The MMS governs the operations of rigs offshore in federal waters and mandates a lot of tests that are to be done. I guess it just irks me that nobody has looked in to some of the details about these requirements.

One’s blaming the other and I’d expect to hear nothing but that in a case like this where 11 people perished while at work and oil’s spewing from a broken riser and non-functioning BOP 5000’ below the GoM’s surface.

The MMS requires a weekly test of the BOP. The Blowout Preventer is a critical safeguard used while drilling a well on every type of rig. It can help stave off a potential catastrophic event but sometimes there are failures, such as this one. Why? Nobody knows just yet. The BOP has different types of “rams” situated in it that do different things. Shear rams cut the drill pipe as a last ditch effort to secure the well, blind rams crush the pipe, pipe rams wrap around the drill pipe, casing rams wrap around the casing. I’m sure I’m missing a couple but those are the ones most predominantly used.

The MMS requires a test on the BOP every 7 days. Due to certain rig tasks a test can be put off for a maximum of 7 more days with the MMS’ approval. During these tests if leaks in the pressurized hoses or parts of the BOP are found the test stops until the leaks or problems are fixed. Then the affected areas are retested until they pass.

Once the test is completely over and everything passes the rig’s OIM (Offshore Installation Manager) signs off on the IADC log that the test is complete and everything passed. That is then passed on to the production company rep, bp in this case, for his approval and signature that he’s satisfied with the test, it’s results, and that everything is working fine and all fixes (if any) have been carried out and all is functional.

In my eyes it comes back to the production company for accepting responsibility even though the BOP is owned by Transocean. A lot of times the production company supplies or purchases different rams that may be called for because of odd sized pipe being run in the hole that isn’t a standard size.

Transocean is no slouch of a company. They harp on safety and have made safety one of their core values, one thing that was drilled in to my head incessantly when I worked for them. Time, schedule, and money are second to safety. They do not take chances, especially when it comes to the safety of all the personnel on a rig. Certain rigs may not have the best equipment but they’ll make things safe. A piece like a BOP is the “end all, be all” of safety. If it fails people usually get hurt. In this case, 11 people lost their lives.

Could it have been a bad ram? Could it have been lost system pressure? Could it have been a battery problem? Could it have been a downhole tool that failed to see the bubble coming up? Did the sensors pick it up and warn people in time? I’ve seen two blowouts in my 14 years offshore and they both scared the shit out of me. Once was a gas bubble pushed out all the mud from the well up to the crown and water table (highest points on a derrick). Alarms went off and scared the crap out of the people on the rig floor. The other was while plugging an abandoned well gas unexpectedly shot up pushing 1000’ of drill pipe out of the hole, in to the air, and it came crashing down all over the rig and surrounding water while all the gas alarms were blaring on the rig. There was no place to hide when you have 1000’ of drill pipe, each joint being 33’ long flying up in the air. It was pucker and hope time. Thankfully the BOP worked, the well was shut in, and nobody was hurt. Just a lot of dirty underwear that day.

Quit blaming everyone. Find out what happened. Find the problem, make a solution, try it, and worry about the future safety of everyone in the oil field. Fingers will be pointed for a long time as suits are already being filed. It happens when something of this nature unfolds. It’s a shame, however, that the parent companies are also involved in the catfight as nobody wants a black eye from it. On a BOP there are different safeties. For some reason all of them failed. Find out what failed, make a backup and move forward. Save lives. Protect workers. Pray for the families of those who still work in the oil field that this doesn’t happen again, especially to them.

http://www.deepwaterhorizoncondolences.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P16TDF9qEKo

Leaving Home

This little 4 year-old girl couldn't let go of her daddy while he stood in formation getting ready to be deployed to Iraq for a year. This reservist had another daughter and one on the way as well. According to news reports the CO of this group allowed Paige (the little girl) to stay with her daddy until they finally left Ft. Dix.

I saw this picture and teared up. It reminded me so, so much of when I used to work overseas and how heart-wrenching it is to leave family, especially kids who don't always know what's happening or why.

My biggest fear was that I'd leave for my hitch and come back with my son forgetting who I was. That was always in the back of my mind. Was he old enough to remember? Was he smart enough to know who I was, that I was his father? Very valid concerns by me and every other parent who has to leave family behind.

The one time I came home I got very upset because it took a couple days for my son to "remember" me. I came home and we left the very next day to fly down to Florida. He didn't want a lot to do with me and always looked at me with a far away look, a distant look like saying, "you're here but I don't know who you are. If I did know you, you left me at home all by myself!" It bothered the hell out of me.

Until one day we were down there and it was nap time. I took him up to our room as he bawled and screamed while mommy went out to do some things. I held on to him and talked to him quietly yet he still screamed and writhed in my arms. Finally I laid down on the couch with the nice warm Gulf breeze coming in, covered both of us up with a beach towel and he then fell asleep on my shoulder. I woke up a little more than an hour later thinking how peaceful it was with him sleeping soundly, knowing that he'd remembered me and that it was all right to fall asleep on this guy who was holding him, knowing that he knew who I was. I remember tearing up thinking of that as I held him and wondered just how other parents who worked away from their families dealt with it. Did they worry like I did? How did they cope?

One thing I did was to make a video tape of me reading a book, reading the words and describing the pictures. I did this for my son so he'd see me whenever he wanted and could read along. There are a couple pictures of him eating lunch on a blanket watching his tape of me, which he wanted to do a lot (so I've been told).

One of the last times I left to go overseas to work was the hardest. Hearing, "daddy, daddy, noooooooooo! Stay home!" That had to be the deal breaker. I got on the plane thankful that nobody was next to me and bawled like a baby. I felt like I'd left everything that was anything behind with the thought of never seeing any of it again. It hurt like nothing else ever had, even to this day.

Leaving family is never easy for any reason. Even so much as a day or two on a trip can be tough for some, easy for others. A lot of it, I guess, depends on what kind of relationships are formed and the amount of bonding one has with their families. It's hard to leave, harder to be gone, but undescribeable to come back to waiting open arms that don't ever want to let go. That type of hug makes it all worthwhile.

Just one of those smallish things that I love about my kids. I get hugs and kisses and they couldn't be more filled with love than if I'd done it myself.