Dream Silently

I’ve taken this last week for myself, to concentrate and reorganize my life, to become more aware of me. It’s actually been kind of rough this month, but I am feeling better today. I’m not sure if its a combination of being frustrated with Joe and I’s relationship and being home sick or if it’s something else that I’m not aware of. There’s just been so many days this month where I’ve found a need to sit and stare into space and just be. Well, either that or curl under a blanket and cry.

They’re fighting over me at work. Well, KE is complaining at least. So, monday, I went back out to Pheonix project to run some permeability tests (we managed to get a hole down to bedrock). The rest of the week, KL had me helping out in the lab. His definition of a week ends on friday.

KE’s definition of a week? Not really that hard to figure out. (His philosophy is live to work.)

Friday, KL spent an hour with me going over things for next week. I’m going to become a liner inspector. Basically, I get to sit/stand around and watch them install liner for an evap pond that started construction when I first started working for SWC. Actually, that very first day I got to go out and see the site just as they were preparing to start taking the area down to grade. One of the things that I started setting up a month ago was an organized listing of all the liner rolls being shipped to site. The listing contains whether or not the liner rolls pass specs and has been certified, etc.

He gave me a listing of rolls that have come in and I need to go through and check off things. To my knowledge, I need to have this done by monday.

I went back to the lab to work on addebergs and drag the question out from KE if he needed me this weekend. So, I actually don’t have a choice in the matter as it is (heaven forbid if KE has to help process soil samples), so I said alright, but I have to finish something else for KL (in my mind it’s priority considering he signs my time sheets). He got pissed, not at me though, at KL.

KE was like, “I thought he said you were mine for this week.” And I just looked at him and was like, “I have been yours this week. And… dude, I’m not some prized dog. I’m just finally getting a chance to finish something that’s been in the works for the last month.”

He didn’t have much to say after that. Of course, the voices in my head were muttering other possible replies, which makes me so glad I have some control over my reactions. But, the real truth? I had no desire to work this weekend. I’ve worked the past three weekends. And it’s not even my turn.

A bit back, we had a meeting about work and such. Mostly, people were being overworked and others weren’t and we needed a more efficient system. So, a schedule was put out. What do I think about it now? I think they should take all the papers printed with that schedule and use it for fire kindling. It was a waste of time.

Anyways, onto more pleasant things.

My father has finally retired after 24 years in the Air Force. Him and Carol leave this friday for OR. I managed to convince him to make Elko part of his schedule. They’re suppose to be in town sometime next sunday. I am so looking forward to seeing him. As with my mother, it’s been four years since I’ve seen him too.

I can’t wait to give him a hard time about all the grey hair he’s sure to have by now.

I’ve been looking into gathering metalsmithing supplies so I can continue practicing. I’m also looking into getting a kiln for my PMC. I find that firing with a torch is a really big pain. A really cool supply site that seems to have all the basic equipment is this place. They sell metal sheets and everything.

Shadowed Beauty is being redesign again. I feel like my sister. I can’t decide how I want things. I’ve switched it over to use joomla, which will make things easy if I want to expand it into more than just a graphics site. I can also control downloads better and eventually even build some kind of community.

However, because I am taking so long, I’m offering this to interested parties, one of the free things that’ll be offered. Meet Callista. The zip file contains a psp tube and a transparent background image of the tube. These are large by the way to make for easier manipulation. They also have minimal postwork. I’m interested in feedback, opinions, and suggestions. Such as, make the images smaller/bigger, add more postwork, etc. Be aware, if you don’t like something, tell me. One thing’s for sure, I won’t be ridiculing you for your opinions or your suggestions.

Download (12.3 mb)

Today started to feel so frustratingly gloomy. The wind is blowing outside like it did in Palmer when I was a teenager. It’s kicking up so much dust too as a result. So KL mis-told me what was going on. We’re not coring at all. As a matter of fact, we aren’t even getting anywhere with the current drilling rig we’re using.

The ground we’re working on is filled with volcanic rock. It’s the kind of rock that flows on the surface and then hardens quickly and becomes porous due to air bubbles getting trapped in the pockets. I can’t think of the exact name currently. All I know is, they’re fucking hard to drill through or around. And we need at least a 100 foot hole just to do the permeability test.

Monday found us at one bore hole going all cockeyed. The drill was bouncing off the previously mentioned rocks. We got down to about 30′ and then had to pull out. We started another hole in the same general vincity (about 5′) and then crapped out at 15′. On that hole, we managed to break 2 ogre connections. I didn’t even think we could get that much force to rip a steel eyelit off. So today, we went out there and it took them 2.5 hours to get the ogre from the previous day back out of the ground. We moved to a different location and hit bedrock at about 6′. Okay, good. At least we hadn’t broken anything yet.

We moved back up the slope (it’s kind of a gently sloping hill surface), started drilling and we’re going good, excellant; we’ve almost made it back to 25′ without too much trouble. I’m sitting on the back of the tail gate, watching. The two drillers are watching. We hit another boulder sized rock and the drill’s slowing down quite a bit, it’s almost to the point where I’m debating on telling them to stop.

Then there was this snap sound, a spark of fire, and half the U-joint that connects to the drill bit ripped off and flew.

Nobody got hurt. Thank gawd.

But that put the drill out of commission and I got to come back early. To bad I ended up at the office late. You get to trying to figure out what the hell we should do with our current situation and you just lose track of time.

On another note, KE has lost my bore hole samples for the ones done up at Midas. Three of them. We only have 1 of the 4 we completed. I was really irritated about that yesterday because he argued with me about where I had put them. I put them by the other midas samples in the lab. He was saying he didn’t think I had. Obviously, me being there and the one to take care of them didn’t say a whole lot. Or the fact I found BH4 samples in the lab, under another bucket.

We had a better conversation today. I think we both needed a day to cool. I wouldn’t be suprised if his sign is fire. It would so explain why we rub each other badly periodically.

Anyways, other things:

1. I had no heat until today. It was coooold on friday and the rest of the weekend.

2. I blew out my front passanger tire and learned how to change a tire on a big truck. Yeah, it took me about 30 minutes to figure out that the jackstand is the compacted thing hooked underneath the passanger seat. Who designs a vehicle with the jackstand underneath the passanger seat?? Who??? Don’t they know that’s so contrary to where it’s suppose to be? :sigh:

3. I’ve fallen in love with this kitty called Squeak that they are looking to give away at this one business. We share a storage unit with this company and the lady there found these kittens that were abandoned. They’re about 7 weeks. This female cat attached herself to me. We had just finished unloading a bunch of bucket samples and she came around the corner with these cats. And I shouldn’t of, but I picked the one up that reached for me and she just wanted so much love. And she was tabby colored. And she purred and purred. And then when I gave her back and we turned to leave, she started following me >_< And it was sooo cute.

I told the lady that I was going to go talk to my realitor. We do have a new owner for the buildings and I’ll ask if I could put some kind of extra deposit down just to have this critter. It might end up with me down on me knees begging.

As it is, I’ve started the Lore Wants A House Fund, so she CAN have pets. It’ll especially be in effect if I get rejected.

And that’s it. I think. There’s always so much to talk about when you’re away.

BTW, I love you Joe. And if I don’t get a call from you this weekend, expect another silly card/letter from me.

The drill we are using is called a 75 CME which is essentially the size of a tow truck. It weighs about 36,000 lbs, the equivalent of 20 tons. These are heavy trucks. Ours got stuck in the sand at one of our bore hole points. A bore hole is essentially with a foot diameter and it goes however deep it can or needs to go.

The above picture is pretty close to what I’ve been working with. The only exception is that the drill guys weren’t fully geared up. All they had were hard hats and steel toed boots (and of course safety glasses if we were on the mine site). A second vehicle usually accompanies the tow rig: a water truck.

So, the first thing we do, or they do while I get my notes and tools ready, is lay out five foot long ogre drills. They connect with bolts, drilling deeper and deeper. I get ready some monkey wrenches, my handy dandy hammer, buckets, bags for the samples, my notes to be written, camera (if you can’t figure it out, I have to get a bunch of stuff ready). As samples are given to me of the soil, I’m analyzing it using USCS specs. I determine out in the field if it fits one of the major categories: silt, clay, sand, or gravel. Then I have to narrow it down from there. The picture below is a much more detailed overlook of what I’m doing. I think I should print it off and take it to the field with me

For this particular job, we ogred down to about 2′, then took a modifed california sample (Cal for short). The cal takes an undisturbed sample. It gets attached to the end of a center tube going down through the ogres (the ogres are hollow) and a hammer is placed at the top. I think it’s a 10lb hammer, but I’m not sure. It pounds so many times. For a cal, it can only be hit up to 80 times per 6 inches. After that’s completed, they give it to me, I break it open and then cap each of the three tubes inside (if there’s dirt in all three tubes). We did this twice, then we moved to split spooning.

Split spooning is with a long metal tube about an inch wide. It has a sand trap at the bottom to keep sand from falling out of the tube and back into the hole. The split spoon is set up the same way that the cal is set up. However, the hammer can only hit it up to 50 times per 6 inches.

Starting to sound complicated, right?

After split spooning, if we hit bedrock, we cored. Coring uses water, which is why there’s a water truck. This is where I get to sit around and watch because it takes a bit to core. They take the drill ogre out and then lower in these hollow metal tubes, one of which is a 5 foot sampler. They fill the hole with water and then it spins really fast. Has it spins, it cuts into the rock, taking a hopefully solid sample. All I do, is note the recovery of how much core we get per five feet and then the time it takes. Then I stash it in a box and take a picture with a ruler for scale.

This is what I have been doing for the last two weeks.

Next week, I’ll be doing straight coring from the sounds of it. We’re suppose to go down to about 120 ft for 4 holes. We are also doing a test I haven’t done before. It’s a perculation test, but on a much grander scale. I’ll talk more about that later once I understand it better.

For more information:

Drilling and Sampling — this has some more information concerning the equipment used for sampling as well as information on methods.
Bear Lake Methods: Coring — a site about coring. Not exactly what I was doing, but still interesting.
Boring — an article explaining boring better.
Geotechnical Investigation — a better explanation or summary of what I’ve been learning/doing since I’ve taken this job.

…to some of you this may appear extremely dull. But to me, this is definitely the thing I wanted to be doing when I finished school.

I have no social life.

I go to work, I come home, shovel dinner down, take a shower, and then go to sleep. This is how my weeks have been pretty much proceeding. Yeah, yeah, none ya better point out I’m typing an entry right now. I feel behind though. I never get to work on any of my hobbies unless it’s the weekend and that doesn’t even happens. And I’ve been trying to read my dailies… unfortunately, I haven’t been able to do much commenting. ::hugs:: to all of you.

I had to work a regular 9 hour day last saturday. I’ve been doing 13-14 hours days so far this week, with tomorrow looking even longer. I cannot wait until construction season is done. The drill guys are hourly, so their obsessed with logging has much drill time as possible.

I’m salary ::gives all the sour look:: I don’t see any overtime pay until I get my first bonus… and that’s not for at least 4 or 6 more months. I hear they make up for it. But, let’s point out, I hear, I don’t see. I actually wish there was a comp time option. Then I could take more leave during the holidays. That would be more than worth it then.

Anyways, I thought I’d try to explain what I’m doing. We’re drilling. Hahahahaha

And a bore hole is now a bole whore. Because the sun has been frying my brains and by mid afternoon, I become very dislessic (did I even spell that right?).

So, anyways, we’re drilling with a rig that looks like a tow truck rig. It drills the first few feet and we take modified california samples, which are these brass tubes (that come with various radiuses), we take a three foot sample of “undisturbed” soil. Then we take split spoon samples, which is smaller than the modifieds, continuously to about ten feet and then every five feet after. What makes this interesting is that I’m racing to keep up with the drill guys. They move quick, and some of those sample tubes are a BITCH to get a part. Cute helper guy usually gets them started for me, but I swear he skipped doing it a few times to watch me struggled. Not that I minded that much.

He’s taught me quite a few tricks. And unfortunately he’s getting switched out with someone else tomorrow

So… does the above make sense? Or should I find pictures?

I think I’m out of here. I just thought it’d be nice to drop a note.