Top Secret Mission

With the economy in the toilet and oil and gas prices down in the dumps, Brent and I are temporarily out of work. However, when you are self-employed, you are never unemployed....right? Now is time for my dad's joke about being self-unemployed. All that being said, we are doing a little side work for ourselves during the down time (with Karla). The project is top secret, and all I can tell you is it involves a giant pencil.

Site Inspections

Yesterday afternoon, we went on some site inspections, which is always a nice break in this job. At least, when it is a beautiful day like it was yesterday.
Well, someone needs to call the OERB on this one, the storage tanks on their sides were are first clue that it's no longer producing. ;)

Chris was able verify that his 3 wells were pumping...well, one was actually being reworked. It was neat to see the rig out there. Karla found one that was clearly abandoned, and I found one, or actually didn't find one that was from the 40's and looks like it was probably abandoned a long time ago.

All in all a productive trip, except that we got the call last night that the client has pulled the plug on this project....so on to the next one.

Slow Day

Alex and I have been spending our morning waiting for one of the managers to return to the office...you can see what good spirits Alex is in...possibly sarcastically. Well, there are worse situations to be in. It looks like I will be either back in Watonga or out to Anadarko, which are both not too bad.

Working in Watonga

After our Due Diligence project ended, I got a section to work on in Watonga. It's a great place to work...large vault in the courthouse, delicious cheese soup at the Noble House, and you get to come home every night. Here's a little bit of the scenary from the drive.
The section that I am workint on is Held By Production, which is some of the more difficult work, and I am training Alex on it. You can see here, that he is quite a character.

Karla was with us on Friday. She is very adept at blocking anyone from taking her pictures, as can be seen here.

Finally making progress...sort of

We have finally gotten the due diligence in full swing. It's been kind of crazy. Chris Elam's expression shows how some of us have felt today. On the bright side, Smithee is actually working, instead of just lying about working.

I on the other hand am waiting for a file to download to my computer, so I'm making good use of my time, by posting some fun pics to my blog. :)

More Due Diligence Fun

So we went to lunch at Ted's, here's some beautiful pics of that affair. Notice that while Aaron and Chris are smiling, Smithee is mouthing off to me.

Zach is paying a moderate amount of attention to me, while Ryan is ignoring me.

Ok, a little blurry, but Karla is smiling on the far right.

After returning from lunch, we perused David Melton's display shelf. You will see here a lovely authographed picture of Celine Dion.

And here is one of his judo pictures.

Now, we are still waiting for disks to come so we can get to work. May be posting again soon if they don't arrive soon.

UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that David M. may not participate in judo, others believe that it may be Aikido or Jujitsu. I amend the above comment to say, "one of David Melton's martial arts pictures."

Due Diligence Fun

I'm at work and we are doing a big Due Diligence project. About 20 of us were called to the office this morning for it, but now we are waiting around to get started. Here are some pics I took on my iphone while we wait. Karla having fun on her iphone while waiting.

Smithee claims that he is working, but you look at the web page and see what you think.

Eric making important phone calls in his purple shirt.

I love my job!

In Denver

I'm in Denver this week...no, not to see the Democratic National Convention. I am here for work. I can't complain...I can see the mountains from my hotel room. The picture above was taken from the window. And I have a jacuzzi tub in the room. I'm pretty sure all the other rooms were already reserved because of the convention, so they had to give me a jacuzzi suite. I guess I'll take it.

I love my job!

I love my job, and I know that makes me really blessed. I know this because I spent most of my adult life hating my job. I even thought that surely no one really liked their job...that's why they pay you to do it, right? Because it is so horrible.

But I'm now one of the lucky ones that loves their job. It always presents a new challenge. If I'm starting to get bored with one project, I can guarantee it won't be long until I'm on to the next project. I'm always working with different people which keeps things interesting....and I really like a lot of the people that I have worked with. I've gotten the oppurtunity to train others, which can sometimes be a headache, but I've always enjoyed teaching and this is the perfect oppurtunity to get some of that enjoyment without some of the typical problems that go with teaching. I owe a lot to my dad who got me into this business. Thanks, dad!

Here are some pictures that I have taken at courthouses that I have worked at. I'm trying to get a collection of black and white's of as many courthouses that I can, but only on days that I actually worked there.

Blaine County (Watonga) - a great place to work, except that apparently the cheese factory there has been close :(

Canadian County (El Reno) - great place to work - ugly, ugly courthouse

Grady County (Chickasha) - another great place to work, communtable, and Napoli's, Jake's and A&E Grill (landmen measure a courthouse by the places to eat in town)