Day two--A Flat Creek Journal

This morning, while driving to work, I was thinking about what the President said in his message to congress. There was plenty of stuff in it, and there was a lot about hope and attitude. It occurred to me that our attitude has a lot to do with how we prosper and even how we react to various things that make up our workday. Add that all up and it means a country with hope will succeed. It works right down to every individual. I've had days where I hit the office running so to speak and knocked out an unbelievable amount of work before noon. Other days would find me in a crump and it seemed everything I tried to do was like pouring molasses. I thought back on a day which had an unending series of problems which seemed to overwhelm me. I was working in the Libyan Desert as a geologist in charge of evaluating whether the drilling rig I was on encountered any oil or gas. Well, a couple of days prior to that screwy day, a camel had fallen into the mud pit by the rig and had drown. The Exxon man in charge paid the owner of the camel a nice sum, considering the condition of the camel. I guess he paid too much, because the next morning we looked out, and much to our disbelief, we saw a large herd of camels heading our way, urged along by the same owner and his men that we'd paid off the day before. You guessed it. They were trying to drive the camels into the mud pit, and if spite of our attempts to stop the stampede--Land Rovers circling like cowboys on horseback---drilling crews waving sacks---six of the camels made it into the mud pit and drown. The Exxon man listened to an outlandish lie about the herd being driven to an oasis, but finally paid for six more camels. That afternoon the roustabout crews spend the afternoon fencing in the mud pit. I thought that was a hell of a bad way to start the day, but that was nothing compared to what hit us a few hours later. About an hour before noon, a roaring giblie hit. A giblie is a dust-sandstorm, and it can last for days. I wore a breathing mask for the next twelve hours as the winds roared, and at lunch I ate what was supposed to be pot roast with carrots. I can still remember chewing that gritty pot roast and wiping sand and dust from my plate. Then problems hit the drilling rig. The crews stopped drilling to get dust masks on and when they tried to start back drilling, they found the pipe stuck. Days later we were able to restart drilling after getting unstuck. One bad day---But today, after watching the President, I've got hope--maybe the market will rebound---. But maybe it won't. However, one way or the other, I'll keep slogging on hopping and that I won't have some joker drive any camels in my mud pit today.


More tomorrow.