Daily Archives: January 14, 2017
We May Have To Move . . .
Now the Oil Patch picks up,
when we’ve only got a month left down here.
About 8am this morning, my Tab tablet chirped, and I was awake enough to check it out, hoping it was a gate job. But it was just a reminder to pay a bill. Bummer. Then a couple of minutes later, another chirp, now a text, and now a job.
And a job that looks to have a major effect on us.
The gate is north of Westhoff, a little over 40 miles from here, a little less than an hour away. But it does have a lot of plusses . . . steady employment. There’s a good possibility. that this gate could keep us BOTH working until we leave Feb. 15th.
But it was a scramble this morning. By the time we knew where and when, it was almost 8:30. And we were supposed to be at the gate by 10am. Yikes.
But we were showered, dressed and out the door with enough time for a McDonald’s stop, and we got there at 9:59am. To find no one waiting for us. We had beat Todd, the shack, the generator, and the potty. In fact it was after 10:30 before they showed up. Well, not the potty.
Brownie points for us.
Today it’s only a one person gate, at least today. Jan and I shared the Gate Guard job at the entrance right off the highway, working from 10am to 5pm. Then tomorrow, we turn around to night shift, with Jan working the shack at the entrance, and me working at the pad, about 5 miles in, out of my truck.
So two paychecks.
This should hold for a week to two weeks. Then after a break for a few days, the frack will start, and with 4 holes should last until we’re scheduled to leave. But this will mean another shift change for us.
The job will drop back to just the shack with Jan and I on opposite shifts, days for her and nights for me. Not easy, but doable for two or three weeks.
So two paychecks.
That’s the plusses. Now the minuses.
The distance, of course, is one. It’s about twice as far as our farthest gate, with nearest big town, and Wal-Mart, being Cuero.
This is why we might move. There is a small RV park in Westhoff, that looks OK. It looks to be a worker’s camp, just like ours now. Not as nice, i.e. no Wi-Fi, or free laundry. In fact no laundry at all. So back to using our Splendide.
With 3 big free washers and dryers, and located 50 feet away, Jan had gotten used to using the park facilities, doing one or two loads and not five or six. But the park cost is less than 1/2 of what we’re paying here, so that’s a plus too.
Another minus is again, no Verizon phone service at the gate. Don’t know yet about the RV park location. I do have text and data, though. So it’s workable, I guess.
BUT the possibility of the move is probably going to be decided by whether or not we have Verizon phone service at the RV park. So we’ll see,
If we do move, it will be during the short downtime before the frack starts up.
The other minus is that although Jan is exempt, I will have to wear the the full FRC regalia, including steel-toed boots, hardhat, and safety glasses. YUCK!
As least it’s cooler now.
Finishing up, I want to thank all of you for your RV park suggestions from yesterday. I’ll try to get them combined and compiled as soon as I can, but it may be a few days with all the job stuff that’s come up.
Thought for the Day:
On a long enough timeline the survival rate of everyone drops to zero.
gsdfgsdfg
