Monthly Archives: October 2013
Happy, Happy, Happy . . .
Birthday!
First off, Happy Birthday to my friend Nick Russell, although by the time you read this, his birthday will be yesterday.
But it’s the thought that counts, right?
And Nick thought of me today when he called because he needed help with his black tank.
I figure he called because when he thinks of #2, I’m #1 on his list.
Don’t I feel special.
Well, after things slowed down here a bit, they’ve really picked back up. We had almost 80 vehicles today, a big jump from the 25 of a few days ago. Turns out the drill rig about a mile south of here, but on the same land, is finishing up and now they’re getting ready to frack. So they’re getting set up to pump the water from our frack pond up to another one closer by the new site.
Under the heading of a problem solved and a problem found . . .
Our cooling mist system does a great job of keeping us cool on the hotter days, but it does have a downside. It tends to get your glasses wet. Normally this isn’t a big problem, but combined with the caliche dust blowing around, it becomes a problem.
Caliche is basically limestone, and when it settles on your wet glasses and then dries, it turns hard as rock. And becomes very difficult to get off. So you end up with a hazy film on your lenses. A truck driver last year told us to soak them overnight in a solution of Dawn Dish Soap and water, and while this helps, sometimes a bad encrustation just won’t come off.
So after thinking on the problem for a while, I finally remembered some basic chemistry. Most acids will eat limestone. And vinegar is an acid, acetic acid, so I thought I’d give it a try.
And it worked. I dampened a rag with some vinegar and then carefully wiped the lenses several times, and that took care of the problem. And we probably won’t have any more problems with that this year, because with the cooler temps, we haven’t used the misting system in a week or so.
Jan fixed two of my favorite dishes this week. Well, one of them is a new favorite, anyway. First up was a big batch of her Crockpot King Ranch Chicken, big chunks of chicken, beans, Rotel Habanero Tomatoes, and pieces of corn tortillas.
HMMM Good. And really spicy, too.
My new favorite is a 7-UP Strawberry Cake, iced with CoolWhip. We both decided it would be even better with crushed pineapple in it, so next time a small can of that goes it too.
Finishing up, a Landon fix, what else. Landon loves Starbucks. He and his daddy Lowell have been going there since he was a baby.
Of course, Landon gets hot chocolate, but he tells everyone he’s drinking coffee like his daddy.
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Thought for the Day:
Nostalgia just ain’t what it used to be.
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A New Low . . .
or Why We Hate Louisiana.
Today (Saturday) set a new low vehicle count for here at the gate. We only had 40 logged vehicles through. And that eclipsed yesterday’s low of 49. Of course that really means 80 or 98 since there’s an In and Out for all of them. At least eventually. Some vehicles (and the drivers/riders too, of course) stay overnight or even days/weeks at a time since there are living quarters (trailers) onsite.
And of course, sometimes a large piece of equipment will come in, followed by a pickup truck. The equipment is left, sometimes for several weeks or more, and then the two drivers leave together in the pickup truck. That means days, weeks, months? later when it finally leaves, we’re left madly pawing through old logs trying to find when the equipment came in so we can log it out. The new drivers aren’t any help because, either they don’t remember, or they weren’t the ones that brought it in in the first place.
Ahhh, a day in the life of a gate guard. This is one problem I’m hoping my new computer logging system will fix.
And as far as vehicles go, it will be interesting to see how Monday’s Federal holiday affects things. We might end up with a new new low count.
The reason we hate Louisiana (well, not whole state, just the DMV part of it) is that they don’t issue front tags. And Louisiana being a big oil state, a lot of the vehicles that come through here don’t have a front tag, which means we have to try and recognize vehicles by make, model, and color. And sometimes we get it wrong. And then the truck goes by and we realize we don’t’ recognize the tag number.
So we have to mark the description info down on the log and try to catch them on the way back out. More fun.
I called Tan Mar yesterday to get a vacuum truck out there to pump out our sewage system tank.
The overflow is starting to fill the small white tank which means it’s time to pump it all out. Since the overflow tank contains a large dose of chlorine tablets, the liquid is considered ‘gray water’ and can be dumped out on the ground, but it’s better to get a pumpout if you can.
Brandi sent over some new Landon pics. Yesterday was ‘Spooktacular Pajama Friday’ at his daycare, so here’s his contribution. BTW his shirt says ‘Trick or Treat. Smell My Feet’
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And today they went with friends to the Katy Rice Harvest Festival and Landon got to ride some of the carnival rides.
Looks like he’s having fun.
Working on my Gate Guard Logging Program (Patent Pending) has renewed my itch to try my hand at writing an Android app. But every time I think I have a good idea for one, I find someone’s already beat me to it. Case in point, when we go to the movies, I always silence my cell phone so Nick can’t call me in the middle of the film, (well, he can call. I just won’t hear it) as he has a couple of times. (I don’t know how he knows.). But then after the movie’s over I sometimes forget to turn it back on until hours later, only to find I’ve missed a couple of calls, usually from Nick because he’s broke something else.
So I thought there should be an app for that, and that I should write it. But one again someone beat me to it.
It’s called Silent Timer Free. And it looks like this.
It allows you to set a duration that the phone is silenced, or a start/stop time. And you can store your settings. Neat little app. Check it out.
Now I have to think of another app idea.
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Thought for the Day:
TSA – handling more packages than FedEx
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