[salinsky]

I assume all of the members have interesting stories to tell, and of course, most all of what we do in our lives are at some point related to oil usage. I'm sure that ROCKMAN has a lot of stories to tell. Perhaps he could relate to us the first time he spent the night sleeping on the ground next to a stinking stripper. I certainly will never forget my first experience alongside of one of them out in the Dakota badlands. What a night! Here's my contribution. I will add a few more later on.

The Carrington Advent
In the middle of June, 2014 an associate of mine had the misfortune of staying a few nights at a motel in Carrington, ND. It's an oil town, or perhaps, not so much anymore.
After my friend had checked in on the first night, a fellow guest told him the desk clerk was a "meth head" and was gluing her teeth back in place. Being the curious kind, he went back to the clerk and asked if she had some glue. She gave him a big smile, showing more gum than Mr. Ed. Reaching under the counter, she pulled out a tube of Gorilla Super Glue and said, "Here you go, partner." He saw that she was missing some teeth, and some were a bit sideways. He took the glue and said he'd be right back. He went to his room, waited a few minutes and when he got back to the lobby, he found that her entire family had showed up and were openly selling drugs. He was astounded to see this going on. He wondered why the hell the cops weren't aware of it, or were they?
When he related this story to me, I saw it as the beginning of the end of oil shale, at least for the foreseeable future. It may seem improbable to tie Gorilla Super Glue and loose teeth to future events in oil production, and prices, but that's how I work.

Sal

[ROCKMAN]

Sal - Off to physical therapy right now so details later. I'll match you meth head with a mudlogging junkie shooting up during a blowout in S LA when I get back.

And we have lots of folks in other industries here. So let's hear those f*ck ups...especially the ones that might qualify as Darwin Award candidates. Just something to lighten the heavy mood these days.

[Plantagenet]

Since Rockman brought up Darwin Award candidates, I've got a story about a tool-pusher on a drilling rig.

Waaaay way back before I started working as a researcher, I was assigned to sit a geothermal well being drilled in the Imperial Valley of California. My job was to check in at the drilling site every couple of hours to be sure the drilling was going OK, and that the subsurface geology and well temperatures were roughly as expected.

The rest of the time I'd drive the SUV the oil company had rented for me on little trips around the surrounding back roads and mountains and desert and find the most amazing little Mexican restaurant hidden away in old gas stations at street corners and dusty old buildings in tiny almost empty towns. Field work, I called it, but really it was having fun.

One time I was checking in at the drill site they were having a little problem with the rig, so I went down to the drill site. Drilling roughnecks are one step above animals, or so I am told, but this drilling crew was a shambolic mess. In the center of the mess was a guy yanking on some chains wrapped around a drill stem that was still turning.

Whoa, be careful there, I said to the guy.

Shit man, don't tell me to be careful. I know all about being careful, He screamed back at me.

Then he pulled off his leather gloves and held up his right hand and gave me the finger. OK, I thought, this guy is really touchy. Then I looked closer. The skin and muscle on his middle finger was gone. Stripped off, someone later told me, when a chain on a drill rig, just like the one I was warning him about, had wrapped around his finger and skinned off the skin.


it was like this, except only the middle finger didn't have any skin. truly HORRIBLE!

[KaiserJeep]

My own oily story concerns some really nasty stuff, that makes crude smell wonderful by comparison. I was wearing a USCG uniform when I had this experience, and forty years have passed, but I still remember that reeking smell.

They say you should never volunteer, but I had just spent 9 months indoors with 30 other guys, on a LORAN-C transmitting site (a former radio navigation aide obsoleted by GPS). The USCG "buoy snatcher" work boat had stopped by and topped off our diesel storage at the station, and their lone electronics tech had been medevaced on a helicopter with an inflamed appendix. The ship (with an "ice-rated" hull) was on the way to establish the (Summer only) radio station at Point Barrow, the only military station North of us (we were at Port Clarence, AK), dodging ice flows as it went North. We had a dozen electronics techs at our station, so I volunteered, thinking at least I would see different faces for the two weeks of temporary duty. I fixed damn near everything they had on that ship, from the navigation radar to the ham radio gear to the juke box.

The "snipes" (Engineers) got in trouble when the complex engine instrumentation broke, and frequently the electronic techs were called on to fix the wiring and instruments. I got such a call and showed up with my toolbag and VOM (volt-ohm-meter). The problem was, they had oil pressure sensors on all five main bearings in the big 4-cylinder marine diesel, and at least two were broken, they had swapped them out one at a time with a spare, and the circuit was still open.

So I donned a rubber suit and gloves and an OBA (oxygen breathing apparatus) and crawled into the still warm crankcase, up to my waist in used diesel crankcase oil. Then while working in there, I had to change cartridges in the OBA, which is how I got to know what that nasty stuff smelled like. It took days for the smell to leave my short hair.

In spite of this experience, I volunteered for extra duty again, because they promised me a warmer place. Which is how I got to work on the Big Island of Hawaii, following a hurricane that had taken their LORAN-C transmitter off line. There I discovered how fear can focus your attention with enormous intensity, such as when you are standing in warm salt water and tuning a 2 megawatt vacuum tube transmitter (18,500 volts).

After that I was sent to Nantucket, MA for the last two years of my enlistment, same job, different place. I met my wife there, and we own a 3-acre chunk of pine forest we don't visit much (the Mother-In-Law lives there).

[salinsky]

Caca bendita! I'm sure that nasty finger was good for a few nightmares. I'm looking forward to some more stories from you and all the others who certainly have some to contribute. We're in the doldrums right now, let's perk it up a bit with some true tales.
Sal