Monday Morning Ruidoso Time

Above are some pix of the dogs. You think they're having fun, by the way they're staring at that door? The answer is YES!. Zanna has come upon deer several times, and she thinks they’re fun to chase. We think she’s never going to come back when she takes off, but she does. I think she thinks that they’re big dogs. Zack has disappeared once himself, but he came back as well. All your training goes out the window when the dogs are exposed to new circumstances like deer, we've learned the hard way. And the terrain is just too rough to keep them on leashes, hence the e-collars.

We’re winding down on our mountain trip - we’ll leave this beautiful place on Wednesday. We’ve had a beautiful, relaxing time and the weather has been awesome here. I think we’re heading to the golf course today, time will tell!

Thanks for sticking by me during this funky time in my life!

XOXOXOXO

Name That Blogger Contest!

It's cold and wet in Pennsylvania. Here are some pictures I took on location yesterday. This is where ThatManILove has spent most of the last 74 days. Craziness, but such is life in the patch. A fallen leaf, perfectly framed in about two inches of snow.

The woods on the edge of the location. Right under the hill is an old strip mine.

New location in the Pennsylvania. This location had a foot of snow on it 2 days ago.

I could have gone skating on the fresh water pit. On second thought, naaaaahhhhh.

Ice melting on the frac tank. Took me three tries to catch the droplets. I love it.

On another note entirely, tonight, we met a fellow blogger (who is hereby excluded from this particular contest) in State College, Pennsylvania. We had a blast!

First one to guess the blogger's name gets a present from Pennsylvania – and I promise, it won’t be snow!

One Down, Eight To Go - Lives, That Is...

MLH has been working in the field lately, which means he might or might not come home. As hot as it’s been, we needed to put another tarp over Zack and Zoie’s kennel. We purchased one, but it wasn’t the correct size. Bob and Cherie to the rescue! They found one at Freight Harbor, and purchased it. They came straight over to help put it on.

Bob: Do you have any zip ties? We can secure it with those.

Janie: Yes, I think so. Come with me into the garage.

Bob: Okay.

Sound: Meawwwrrrrrrr.

Janie: Oh, no. (I’m thinking I’m going to have about a million dead kitties in this garage.)

Bob: Sounds like you’ve definitely got a cat in here.

Janie: I don’t think anyone’s been in here in like 6-8 days. It's so hot in here. Oh, my Lord. God, I hope it makes it.

I kneel down, and at the back of one of our shelves, is a gray cat. I tentatively reach my hand out, and it licks my finger. I grab it, and it immediately curls up on my shoulder.

Bob: Cherie, get the dogs in the back yard and bring us some water.

Janie: Let’s take it in to the kitchen.

This poor little kitty is definitely starving and dehydrated. We just finished a 108 degree day. It’s 8 p.m. now, and this garage is hot, hot, hot. I can’t believe anything lived this long in such heat.

We fed it some tuna chopped up in water, and that cat goes to town. It eats a little bit, then decides to visit. It’s very friendly, and looks spotless. I can’t believe it’s alive. While we're discussing plans for the cat, it finishes the food. My friend Suzan, who’s in town for the night, decides the cat should be named Gracie or Grayson, depending on what sex it is. (We were unable to tell!)

Bob and Cherie took it home in a crate for the night, and brought it back in the morning so I could drop it off at the vet. We called SPCA, and Animal Control, and no reports of lost gray cats were filed.

Vet report came back healthy, and it’s a 7 month old female. She has a date with the vet this next Friday to be spayed. I think her name is Gracie, but ultimately, that’s up to Bob and Cherie.

I’m so glad Bob and Cherie decided the time was now to tarp the kennel…and that Gracie lived, and now has a good home.

Eulogy for a Crepe Myrtle

According to an insurance article I read this morning, 23% of most accidents happen within 1 mile of the house.

After this week, I can attest to that. Maybe within 50’ of the house.

MLH and I went to Outback for supper. He had 2 glasses of wine, I had ice tea. MLH very rarely drinks, but on the rare occasion that he does, I am ALWAYS the designated driver. No question. This is a set agreement we have between us, and we always honor it.

We left the restaurant. We are one block from home.

MLH: I can’t believe you let me drive.
Janie: What do you mean? You didn’t drink anything.
MLH: Yes I did. I had two glasses of wine, and I didn’t even think about getting behind the wheel.
Janie: Man, I must be tired. I’m sorry. That’s not good, at all.
MLH: I didn’t even think about it, Janie. I’m sorry, too.
MLH: We’re turning on to our street now, we just have 5 houses to go.
Janie: Okay.

We pull up to our house.

Janie: Hey, do you mind turning around my truck so it will face the other way, in case it’s icy in the morning? I want to limit walking in the street if it’s slick.
MLH: Sure, hon.

At which point, he whips into the neighbor’s circular drive to better enable him to park the truck right in front of our house.

I look up, and scream “Don’t turn yet!” just as he cuts across the circular drive, right onto the top of the neighbor’s crepe myrtle bush. I swear, between my 4wd Yukon XL and the sounds of an icy tree biting the big one, it felt like we’d run over a cinder block fence.

Yesterday morning, I left at 6:30am, so it was still dark out. I ran home around 11 a.m. to clean out my truck to get ready to pick up customers for lunch. I surveyed, in the daylight, the damage we’d inflicted to the bush during the night.

The tree/shrub/bush…is dead. Waaaaay dead. I don’t even think it would live if we cut it back. And MLH had to confess to our neighbor, a local fireman/EMT. The stuff this poor guy has to put up with to be our neighbor, I swear. He’s really a super nice guy, and a great neighbor. He actually thought it was funny. Neither MLH or I do. We are sufficiently humbled. What were we thinking? It's obvious we weren't.

Anyway, I guess we fell within the parameter of the statistics. We were very lucky that’s all that happened. And a lesson was reinforced. No matter how tired your designated driver is, she’s way better than any driver who’s had a glass of wine. Or just get a freaking taxi. Thank God that’s all that happened.

Anyone know of a sale on crepe myrtles?

Don't I live in the desert?

I woke up early this morning, let Zack out, and came back in.

Later, Zack wanted out again, and I opened the door to find that rain was pouring down. It only lasted a bit, though, and it was over.

We went out for breakfast, met a friend, and then ran out to Bob and Cherie's for a couple of minutes. Came back into town, went to Home Depot and picked up some things, and started home again, and it's raining solidly now.

Sweet, sweet, sweet.

Tulsa Time

Don Williams wrote the song “Tulsa Time”… and what we're experiencing might be what he was talking about.

Livin' on Tulsa time

Living on Tulsa time

Well you know I've been through it

When I set my watch back to it

Livin' on Tulsa time...

Yup, you guessed it. I’m having a travel rerun. Left Dallas this morning headed towards Tulsa. My coworker and I sat down in our seats, just in time for this announcement:

Pilot: “Ladies and gentlemen, Tulsa is experiencing a bout of bad weather, so this 45 minute flight has just turned to an hour and 45 minute flight. We are heading west towards West Texas….”

My coworker looks at me in shock…he had just flown in this morning from Midland.

Pilot: “…and then we’ll head up Lubbock way, continuing north to Oklahoma – we are going to try to get around this storm.”

Ummmm…let’s see. That will put us in Tulsa at 11:00 am. We have a 11:30 am lunch date with our customer. I pick up my phone and call our customer and tell him we might be a bit late. He’s quite content to wait for us, so we’re good to go. We settle in and have a pleasant flight until the end, when it’s quite bumpy, but not intolerable. The flight arrives in Tulsa at 11:10 am, we get to our customer’s office around 12 noon, and have a great lunch and meeting.

Before we leave our customer’s office, we decided to check our flight status. Sure enough, the flight’s been delayed a bit. We waste some time in Tulsa, then check again. Our flight is leaving at 4:45 pm, so about 3:50 pm, we head about 10 miles to the airport, return our rental car, and get to the check in counter to print boarding passes. The computer is down. Matter of fact, the air conditioning is down. The wireless is down. Evidently the airport suffered some storm damage late last night.

Our flight is not leaving until 7:50pm. In 10 minutes, things changed dramatically. I was able to get online (much to the jealousy of other business travelers who don’t have aircards) and check the radar maps on Weatherbug. After looking at the radar, we are glad to stay in the airport for a while longer. The line of huge lightning strikes runs all the way from Abilene past Dallas. If I were a pilot, I wouldn’t go there either.

If we don’t catch this flight tonight, from all reports, we are unable to get home to Midland until 6pm tomorrow. And that's reliable Southwest (really!). Were we traveling via Continental or American, we'd never get to Midland.

So, we’re sitting here…living on Tulsa time…

052507 update: We got home at 1 am this morning...arrived at the house shortly thereafter. House was dark. Power outage. At this point, I didn't care. Let Zack in, found the flashlight, went to bed, got up at 5:45 am (power back on!), unpacked what I needed for the day, got ready, and made a 7 am meeting. Yeehah.

The Bad Boy Blast Blasts Past Expectations!

Sunday evening, getting ready for Monday…I cannot believe it is almost May! This year seems to be zooming by.

The Bad Boy Blast shoot went well. My new scoring system was virtually seamless, and I think we left the facility around 6:30 p.m. That is a new record! Another new record - 750 shooters! A large time was had by all and we greatly appreciate our community’s support. A HUGE part of our success were all the volunteers that showed up to help with the event, such as our fellow blogger, George, who was so busy he forgot to look me up (we’ve yet to meet.) Or maybe it was I was so busy he couldn’t find me. Or maybe I was so covered in dirt that he couldn’t see me. Or maybe it was that I shot 83/100 and he was scared I was on an emotional high…but, no, that didn’t happen until I won a plaque for High Overall Lady and this!!! My husband was talking to me via cellphone, and then all he heard was screaming and laughter, and he didn’t know what happened. I had to call him back. He got a kick out of that. I also won (purchased?) a $200 value gift certificate for a car alarm system and a travel golf bag at the silent auction. MLH was happy about that, for sure!

(Hmmm. Wonder what he’ll think about all the $$$ I donated to gun raffles?)

George, thanks for volunteering, and also, for noting our event improvements over at Sleepless in Midland. We knew we had to find some method of improving the flow of people and the awards. We were very excited about how everything progressed. I look forward to meeting you soon. By the way, did you catch your hat?

Speaking of losing things in the wind, somehow, my Maui Jim ™ rose colored Sandy Beach sunglasses pulled a Dorothy and spun off into the sunset…and the way that wind was blowing, I doubt they slowed down at Kansas.

It was an excellent day for an excellent cause.

It's a bird, it's superman, no wait...that's...our son!!

The long suffering readers of this blog know our boys can find themselves in the wildest situations. This one ranks pretty high in the “What? You did WHAT? TELL ME THAT AGAIN, SON?” (as MLH’s heart fibrillates…)

I’m so glad we knew about it already, because this bulletin was sent out from Younger Son’s MySpace ™ account.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s a bird, its superman, no wait, that’s T’s plane falling…

so yesterday around 4:30 i was flying solo, practicing stalls, and on my last one i ended up entering into an inverted spin (the plane was spinning horizontally while upside down). it's a good thing i was just over 5000 ft, bc it took me about 2000 to recover. i still dont know how i lived considering we aren't trained (our ground school teacher told us one time last semester) how to recover from spins, and there's a less than 20% chance of recovery, but here i am.

so hallelujah.

bc i'm convinced that skill had nothing to do with it

...one love-T

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And once again, his father and I say, “Thank you, Lord. Your mercies are neverending.”

Passages

Thanks so much for all your prayers over the last few days.

I returned from Lubbock tonight, after attending the funeral of my son's friend. The huge church was, of course, full of young people, and their parents, and people whose lives had been touched by this vibrant young lady and her family. It was a beautiful service, for a beautiful one.

Elder Son helped the family plan the service, and served as a pallbearer. I went to the funeral, just to be there for my son. Yesterday, we were able to spend an hour alone, prior to Elder Son and others playing guitar and singing at the goodbye gathering last night. Both sets of parents (the young lady’s parents, as well as the parents of the young man that Elder Son rescued) hosted the get-together. Though many were nervous about it, I believe the gathering will further the young people gaining closure.

I know that I am breathing better after spending some one-on-one time with Elder Son. We just sat in his truck, and he talked, I listened, and marveled that he is alive. He has scratches all over him. He described the entire ordeal. It’s helping him to talk it out, I think.

We are all proud of this young man. He showed great courage and presence of mind – in calling 911, in running for help, and then, realizing something else had transpired during his short absence, running back and rescuing his young friend. This has been a very intense, adrenaline-driven ordeal. I asked him once again, before we parted, how he was doing, overall.

He said, “I’m okay, Mom, as long as I’m busy, during the day. When I try to go to sleep, it all happens again. I just keep reliving it - over and over.”

I know that the Lord, and time, will heal him. For now, as his Mom, my heart breaks.

The Ice Man Cameth...and Wrecked.

At breakfast this morning, we met a lady who is working for FEMA. She said she was waiting on today’s assignment – and about that time, her cell phone rang. As we ate our breakfast, I noticed two other gentlemen, sitting at separate tables, wearing FEMA jackets. Okay, I’m curious. And then it hits me…the damage from the ice storm. If the trees are any measure, I can only imagine what happened to houses. And these little birds are wondering what happened to their house, too.

The field trials are being held at the Robert E. Talbot Wildlife Reserve. It is a beautiful, huge amount of acreage, and is actually public land outside of Mount Vernon, Missouri, with acreage for shooting turkey and deer, and lots of available fishing. Unfortunately, the trees suffered tremendous damage in the past ice storm, and trees are down all over this state, as well as on the Talbot Wildlife Reserve. This stand of trees is at the Talbot Wildlife Reserve. The stuff at the bottom of the stand is a tangle of broken branches. We thought a tornado had swept through the area. I look at those trees, and my stomach hurts…I can almost hear them screaming. Though tragically wounded, the broken trees seem to only accentuate the land's beauty further.

Random Monday thoughts...

On the road again, but it’s been a fruitful trip.

Well, other than the key card situation at the Crowne Plaza - Addison. Their key card system is down, so you basically must be escorted to your room and let in by the MOD (manager on duty) or the security guard. That should make you feel safe…until you realize that tonight (the second night of my stay) is the first time they have asked anyone in my midst for a picture ID, prior to escorting me to my room and letting me in. Sleep easy, all you wanderers. The hotel does furnish a sleep kit, complete with drapery clips, sleep CD, earplugs, linen spray, blah, blah, blah. The mattress is the very best I’ve tried in all my travels. So that’s all good.

The weather has been delightful, and is slated to be, tomorrow, as well. Had meetings today in the town of Pattie's place, and tomorrow’s meetings start at 6:30am close to Foo's town. Unfortunately, I was unable to slate time to hook up with my fellow bloggers in the Metroplex, but maybe we’ll be able to get together next time.

Had dinner last night with customers at Trulucks in Addison (and if you get a chance, try their specialty, stone crab claws) , and tonight at Del Frisco's. I’m so full, I’m going to bed. Another early morning, and a potential late night scheduled for tomorrow.

Sometimes, I look at the search key words that lead people to this blog, and here’s one of the best thus far…every time I see it, I get tickled.

“Cumbia By Here, My Lord”

Well, if anyone can do the cumbia, my Lord can!

Have a great rest of the week!!

Tales from the Mile High City

We stayed up way too late packing to be grabbing bags and zooming to the MAF airport to catch a 7 a.m. Continental flight to Denver, but finally, we arrived in the Mile-High City, rented our car, and trekked on to the hotel. Exhausted, we ate a late lunch and hit the hay! Last time we were here, the weather was delightful, middle of summer, hot in the daytime, cool at night. This trip is somewhat different. Denver has endured some major snow here – all along the road are 5’ mounds of snow, artwork de la snowplow. And all the locals are griping about it.

It. Is. Cold. In. Denver.

The average temp since we arrived has hovered around a cool 24 degrees…and it’s supposed to drop below 10 degrees tonight, and snow. I did not bring enough warm coats for that.

Ready for some inside scoop on this oilfield gal? Janie. Hates. To. Shop.

It’s hard to believe, but I do. I dislike going in malls, and always have. Maybe it’s the tomboy in me – at heart, I’m a jeans, ropers, cute t-shirt, and ball cap with my ponytail pulled through, and hanging down my back kind of girl. (Oh, yeah…I cut my hair, some years ago – so that doesn’t work anymore.) I hate shopping. I will go into an anchor store that is in a mall, but rarely will you see me in the thoroughfare of a mall. I probably should sign up for therapy. My disdain of shopping adds a measurable degree of difficulty to dressing in a professional manner. We live in a smaller town, with only a few name-brand stores, so when we go out of town, time permitting, we might plan a shopping trip.

To get past my hate of shopping, I:

(1) Shop online, when necessary.
(2) If I physically go shopping, I plan ahead – which store, etc. (especially if it’s in a mall.) And that’s where I shop. No meandering.
(3) MLH goes with me. He has a great eye, and helps me tremendously

All that said, we had a lovely day yesterday. We were very productive in the morning, working on our respective projects. MLH closed an oil deal that he had been putting together. Time to celebrate! We enjoyed a late lunch at the Kona Grill, and were served by an absolutely awesome waiter.

We then shopped at three stores (two for me, one for MLH), grabbing Starbucks on the way out. Two stores were in an upscale mall – the other, in a very upscale strip shopping center (Maybe planners are catching on that malls just don’t work!). The sales clerks were absolutely charming. Talk about favor – all three stores graced us with extra discounts, over and above any sales prices, and then shipped our purchases home at no charge. Now that, my friends, is the ultimate in shopping.

At noon today, my national board meeting begins. Later in the afternoon, the meeting will morph into the Denver board meeting, and we have all been invited to the Denver chapter meeting. This will be an Operator Forum, where the local operators sound forth on their 2007 Drilling and Production plans and budgets. Operator Forums are usually very entertaining – the Bakersfield chapter calls their Operator Forum the “Liars Club”. MLH and I always look forward to meeting more of our peers and making new friends, so this should be fun!

So far, I like Denver. Onward, through the cold!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful!

It’s cold here. It’s supposed to drop as low as 16 degrees tonight. All my Texas blogger friends are writing about it, from their respective necks of the woods. These guys and gals are funny. Us Texans just can’t handle the cold (I can say that, 'cause I is one.). Well, we probably can handle the cold, but we will whine about it. We could all be in the running for some trophy team roping buckles, we are all whining so much. Did I tell you it’s cold here? Colder than a…

Never mind.

Go ahead, take the tour…slide across Texas with us!

Local to Midland, Jimmy makes a politically cold statement here, and in Houston, Bret's playing weatherman/news anchor here, and back in Midland, George took some winter pics – check them out.

Wallace was inspired by the cold to recount stories of his younger life almost cut short, Kyle's waxing poetic down Austin way, and somewhere called Fake Cow County, still in Texas, Spooky's taking pix of funky trees and wild cats! Back in Houston, Karen's writing in the rain about MLK, and home again, Eric's thinking it's outside, inside. Snuggle up, bunnies. Stay warm.