What is something interesting about you? What is apart of your story? Unless you regularly interact, it can be hard to remember others as its bits and pieces scattered all over the place. Thought I'd start with I'm a bit of a travelling Gypsy and have done quite a bit of crazy travel and jobs myself.
Im 25 and started out building houses in the construction industry in Wa state and then Idaho. Market crashed and I went to school and became a wild-land fire fighter. I wanted a degree so I continued college and started making long term plans to transfer to the east to continue my education as I have seen everything in the west but never been east.
I set up the back of my truck to live out of and settled on going to Virginia as a transfer student. Hit the road for a year in total travelling seeing the USA and working my way east. I heard about the oil boom at this time and decided not to go for the sake of education.
Find myself in Va after about 6 mo of travel. I start working a few full time jobs while continuing my education. Some scholarships fall through and I'm broke. Take a break from school again and head to Williston ND with a bud to find oil field work. Everyone is homeless as there is just no housing. I am set up fortunately for long term living in the back cube space of my truck. I also have a cousin there and park my truck on his lot.
Got a job as a roughneck on the workover rigs with wisco as a floor hand. Crazy company and hours. Worked 136 hours a week with no rotation or time off. Sundays where 1k days. makn about 8k a month with no experience. Taking four hour naps every-night. A spot had opened up for me because the guy whose spot I had taken had gottn rapped up in the rods and broke up his body. Insurance companies give you 3 months as the stat before you get killed or seriously injured for rig hands.
Two months later. Im a Derrick hand in the tower and have already had 3 close calls that should have killed me but was spared. I remember one time when I was working nights in the blasting rain and the operator was slammn pipe down hole. [He later was fired for drug use] He was hauling so fast that he was pulling the assist and throwing the slips to slow down the pipe before it crashed into the floor. This is the equivalent to driving so fast that you have to pull the emergency break and throw it in park to stop in time for the next red light. Needless to say the pipe that was being fed onto the floor got caught up in the tong and leveraged my end about 30 feet into the air. I remember looking up at it and watching it coming crashing down toward my head. The joints weigh about 75 lbs. I jumped off the cat walk backward and hit who knows what as the rig comes to a shaky stop.
So I get off that crew and onto another. Now Im in the tower throwing latches for the operator. The rig stacks out and the pipe comes flippn into the rig and misses me. Dang, number 4 that should have been fatal. A few weeks later a pipe comes swinging in and crushes my fingers against the header of the cat walk. Dang, blew out a finger and you can see the bone. Didn't make it to 3 months but my injury is nothing compared to a guy who just lost an arm today. I decide to take a vacation back to ID to see family and heal.
Come back healed but not having total feeling in my finger. Get a better job for Sun and a $10 raise. Im rolling 10k a month but hate my life. Still a derrick hand and this time have some time off [110 to 90hr weeks]. I also have the added perk of living in the man camps. Did i forget to mention that I have my dog, a golden retriever, with me the entire time? So we both move into a room with gratitude for Sun lettin me keep him there. Months later Im in the tower again after more stack outs and near misses. It was the day I worked my second longest day of 22 hrs [followed by 24 hrs] and the whole rig shakes. Im poised 50-90 ft off the ground waiting for my next latch when the jarring about throws me from the tubing board. I look up to see that the operator had crowned out. This is when the blocks of pulleys run to the top of the rig and hit the top. This normally destroys the rig with half a ton of load fallin on you and killing ya. He thinks he has hit a snag down hole and lets them down to punch it and crown out again. Crap, he can't see that he is about to kill the crew and me as it to dark out. he lowers the blocks to punch it a third time... its been a really long day. He finally hears the yelling and stops in time and we live for another day.
Next week, im on the floor and the backup derrick hand drops a 90 ft several hundred pound rod from the basket and it comes crashing down almost impaling my foot and grazes my hard hat. If it had hit my head or neck i would have been decapitated. Shoot number 5. I think its time I leave the oil field. Ill never forget the feeling of that I should be dead and not belonging in the current time. A month later winter is here ND has the third coldest city in the usa and got -70 degrees F that winter. I threw in the towel at -25 and headed back to Va having paid off debt and met my financial goals. At this point Ive been in my truck for a years worth of travel.
It gets 80 degrees warmer from ND to VA. Go back to school and decide that Id like to join the Army. Skip the following semester and go to basic training. Come back and now Im a SAW gunner in my unit and set to grad this May of 2015.
Plan on getting into the business/marketing field with my degree as well as real estate. We are set to deploy soon and after I get out I would like to either continue on into military intelligence or work for the FBI. Well that was longer than necessary, but needless to say im a kinda Gypsy and dont have any one home to settle in.
Im 25 and started out building houses in the construction industry in Wa state and then Idaho. Market crashed and I went to school and became a wild-land fire fighter. I wanted a degree so I continued college and started making long term plans to transfer to the east to continue my education as I have seen everything in the west but never been east.
I set up the back of my truck to live out of and settled on going to Virginia as a transfer student. Hit the road for a year in total travelling seeing the USA and working my way east. I heard about the oil boom at this time and decided not to go for the sake of education.
Find myself in Va after about 6 mo of travel. I start working a few full time jobs while continuing my education. Some scholarships fall through and I'm broke. Take a break from school again and head to Williston ND with a bud to find oil field work. Everyone is homeless as there is just no housing. I am set up fortunately for long term living in the back cube space of my truck. I also have a cousin there and park my truck on his lot.
Got a job as a roughneck on the workover rigs with wisco as a floor hand. Crazy company and hours. Worked 136 hours a week with no rotation or time off. Sundays where 1k days. makn about 8k a month with no experience. Taking four hour naps every-night. A spot had opened up for me because the guy whose spot I had taken had gottn rapped up in the rods and broke up his body. Insurance companies give you 3 months as the stat before you get killed or seriously injured for rig hands.
Two months later. Im a Derrick hand in the tower and have already had 3 close calls that should have killed me but was spared. I remember one time when I was working nights in the blasting rain and the operator was slammn pipe down hole. [He later was fired for drug use] He was hauling so fast that he was pulling the assist and throwing the slips to slow down the pipe before it crashed into the floor. This is the equivalent to driving so fast that you have to pull the emergency break and throw it in park to stop in time for the next red light. Needless to say the pipe that was being fed onto the floor got caught up in the tong and leveraged my end about 30 feet into the air. I remember looking up at it and watching it coming crashing down toward my head. The joints weigh about 75 lbs. I jumped off the cat walk backward and hit who knows what as the rig comes to a shaky stop.
So I get off that crew and onto another. Now Im in the tower throwing latches for the operator. The rig stacks out and the pipe comes flippn into the rig and misses me. Dang, number 4 that should have been fatal. A few weeks later a pipe comes swinging in and crushes my fingers against the header of the cat walk. Dang, blew out a finger and you can see the bone. Didn't make it to 3 months but my injury is nothing compared to a guy who just lost an arm today. I decide to take a vacation back to ID to see family and heal.
Come back healed but not having total feeling in my finger. Get a better job for Sun and a $10 raise. Im rolling 10k a month but hate my life. Still a derrick hand and this time have some time off [110 to 90hr weeks]. I also have the added perk of living in the man camps. Did i forget to mention that I have my dog, a golden retriever, with me the entire time? So we both move into a room with gratitude for Sun lettin me keep him there. Months later Im in the tower again after more stack outs and near misses. It was the day I worked my second longest day of 22 hrs [followed by 24 hrs] and the whole rig shakes. Im poised 50-90 ft off the ground waiting for my next latch when the jarring about throws me from the tubing board. I look up to see that the operator had crowned out. This is when the blocks of pulleys run to the top of the rig and hit the top. This normally destroys the rig with half a ton of load fallin on you and killing ya. He thinks he has hit a snag down hole and lets them down to punch it and crown out again. Crap, he can't see that he is about to kill the crew and me as it to dark out. he lowers the blocks to punch it a third time... its been a really long day. He finally hears the yelling and stops in time and we live for another day.
Next week, im on the floor and the backup derrick hand drops a 90 ft several hundred pound rod from the basket and it comes crashing down almost impaling my foot and grazes my hard hat. If it had hit my head or neck i would have been decapitated. Shoot number 5. I think its time I leave the oil field. Ill never forget the feeling of that I should be dead and not belonging in the current time. A month later winter is here ND has the third coldest city in the usa and got -70 degrees F that winter. I threw in the towel at -25 and headed back to Va having paid off debt and met my financial goals. At this point Ive been in my truck for a years worth of travel.
It gets 80 degrees warmer from ND to VA. Go back to school and decide that Id like to join the Army. Skip the following semester and go to basic training. Come back and now Im a SAW gunner in my unit and set to grad this May of 2015.
Plan on getting into the business/marketing field with my degree as well as real estate. We are set to deploy soon and after I get out I would like to either continue on into military intelligence or work for the FBI. Well that was longer than necessary, but needless to say im a kinda Gypsy and dont have any one home to settle in.
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