And my mind was blown...

And the road trip continues... Houston was awesome! I did one night with Jenny & Alana, one night with Miguel from Martel, and two nights at Lovett with Dave (my freshman from Sid). That was really cool because he lived right next door to Rachi, so the 3 of us hung out a bunch! Of course, I hit up all the restaurants I missed so dearly and chowed down on some delicious brownies, courtesy of the Jenny & Alana bakery :)

Then it was off to Austin to visit Bradley. We did dinner on Tuesday with our friend Michael and then went to a cafe and walked around downtown a little. We took the tour of the Texas State Capitol on Wednesday, followed by the botanical gardens and chillin back at his house. His parents cooked us dinner and we said grace... it was soooo nuclear family. I arrived in San Antonion on Thursday morning and hung out with Andy (Miguel's twin) all day. Then Tamara (old Brown President) picked me up and we went down to the riverwalk to be EXTREMELY gluttonous with our 20 oz. margaritas, then strawberry margaritas, then chips and salsa and queso and delicious. By the time our food arrived we were stuffed... of course, that didn't stop up. We walked it off a little and then went to Dirty Nellie's Irish Bar where we had beer and peanuts and listened to some old guy on a piano sing popular songs with a dirty twist! It was super fun, though most people in there were like 30 - 50ish. Friday I hung out with Andy again during the day and then met Tamara again and we just chilled and had dinner and relaxed some more at her house. It was nice, and I got some good sleep :)

Today I did the "horrible" drive from San Antonio to El Paso. Everyone kept on saying how awful and boring that drive is, but I actually loved it! I made it in 7.5 hours and saw all kinds of new scenery- desert with cactus and mesas and stuff. It was a nice change from the forest and swamp and orange groves that I saw all the time driving from Coral Springs to Houston. I arrived around 4pm and hung out with Brenda. We went to dinner at the State Line- a BBQ joint that lies on the Texas - New Mexico border! Basically, you park your car in Texas, and as soon as you enter the restaurant, you are in New Mexico! It blew my mind! And, Brenda lives across the street from New Mexico- literally- the people across the street from her have a New Mexico area code! I always thought the Rio Grande divied Texas and New Mexico around El Paso, but apparently New Mexico has land east of the river. It was crazy. It was the first time I have been back to New Mexico since we moved when I was 4. I was less exciting than I expected. Oh- and the Rio Grande is the most disappointing river ever. We drove along it and looked at Mexico- only I didn't realize it until Brenda said something because the river is basically empty and even if it were full it'd be about 4 feet across. Anyways, we went out to some bars tonight- it was good- I had a beer and a mojito.

I'm off to Tucson tomorrow! Then L.A. to stay with Rachi's parents and see Virginia who will also be staying there with her whole family... weird. Then up to San Fran for a week! YAY!

Don't do drugs,
Phill

p.s. I'll post pics of Carley's place next time I can use my computer on the internet...

Weee

Hi everyone. Another fast post before work. Sorry, no pictures yet, I just haven't had the time! Phill, go ahead and post the ones you took, if you want.

I have to admit, it sort of cracked me up to see Eric talk about getting up at 7- I try to be at work at 7, which means that I try to leave by about 620, which means I have to get up about 530. It's not so bad though, I could come in at 8 if I wanted to, the guy across the hall does, but I'd rather get there early and leave early than sleep an extra hour. I work 9 hours a day, but then I get every other Friday off, which is REALLY nice.

My job is going great. Yesterday we started a turnaround, which means that they empty all the product out of one of the units, and the inspectors go through everything and inspect it all from the inside. This means that I will probably have some good chances in the next two weeks to crawl inside pipes, go in storage tanks, see the inside of columns, etc etc. Yesterday they basically were just opening things up and cleaning stuff, so there wasn't that much to see, but it was still pretty cool. The inside of a tube sheet heat exchanger, which of course probably means nothing to you, but trust me, it was cool. ;-)

Of course, the tricky thing with turnarounds is that you never know what you are gonna find. A lot of times, the inspectors open something up and discover that this metal, or this pipe, or whatever, is corroding faster than expected. Then it falls to the engineers to figure out if it'll be ok to the next turnaround, or whether it needs to be repaired now, which of course can be extremely expensive. You can imagine how hectic things can get, although luckily, since I'm not much of a help in anything yet, not much of that falls to me. My main responsibility is to learn as much as possible.

Everyone at work is really friendly and nice. I'm starting to make some friends at work, yesterday I went running with one of the process engineers. She's about three years out of school and lived in Houston working in a refinery down by the San Jacinto Monument until last October. She's really nice. We ran four miles and I actually made it without stopping, although I was running reallllly slow. Heh.

I'm also getting friendly with the other engineers and the inspectors in my group. They are all great guys, and I'm getting to the point where I feel comfortable joking around with them a little bit. A lot of time is spent hanging out in people's doorways and chatting about things, sometimes engineering, sometimes not. It's nice.

Anyways, must get to work. Hope everything is going well with you guys!

Carley

A Haiku by Phill the Poet

The road trip finally began... 3 days late against my will thanks to wind, rain, and tropical storm, flood, and tornado warnings... after Tampa, Epcot, and Gainesville, I ended up in Baton Rouge for an evening. Carley was definitely playing the role of perfect hostess! I arrived before she got home from work and I was greeted with a nice note telling me to shower or nap or whatever. Then we had dinner at a Louisiana-ish restaurant- which wasn't too Louisiana-ish that I couldn't find anything on the menu- so basically perfect. Then we hung out with wine, poundcake, and ice cream, and she gave up her bed so that I wouldn't have to sleep with the cat. So... if you are going to visit Carley, please visit me first. That way, I don't have to follow her example and you won't be disappointed because you won't know any better.

Tonight I'm at Jenny & Alana's--- they are definitely trying to beat Carley by offering extra blankets and refreshing glasses of ice water. Ha- it ain't happening, though I still love them much. Also, we visited Jiin-yu and Austin tonight and had many wonderful discussions about mint juleps, nausious vs. nauseated, and the note that Jenny and Alana left for the "cute" waiter... ask them about that one. Also, I saw a Louisiana Sheriff's car wrecked and standing straight up leaning against a tree somewhere near Lafayette. There weren't any ambulances, so I'm assuming the officer was ok. It was raining and the roads were really wet- I assume he was speeding and wiped out off the road into the trees. Irony... I bet all the other cops gathered around were making fun of him.

In summation: (1) In Houston until Tuesday... then to Austin, followed by San Antonio (2) For a good time, visit Carley Petrie's Bed & Breakfast (3) A haiku for you:

Cop car in a tree
No ticket for me today
Speeding to Houston

-Phill

New Job + New City = Stress!

Hey guys,

Everything is going great here in Baton Rouge. Phill is visiting me, he stopped and stayed the night. He doesn't like the cat. Apparently he is allergic. Oops.

Anyways, I am enjoying my job, but it is fairly stressful. Not because the work is particularly hard, but because I'm such a worrier and this is my first job that really matters, if that makes sense.

So far I've been doing a lot of training, including a computer tutorial of "The Code" which is all the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) code which gives requirements as to how you have to build things, in my case, specifically pressure vessels and heat exchangers and things like that. I've also been learning how to model said pressure vessels into a program which will then crunch through all the numbers and tell you if the vessel is up to code the way you built it. This involves a lot of digging through old files. A lot of these vessels were built in the early 70s, and have only paper files. Also, the engineering drawings are these sheets which someone once wrote at by hand, which is incredible to me. For those of you who have never looked at engineering drawings, they can be incredible complex and detailed, and for someone to have to sit there and draw these things by hand is amazing to me. I guess that's why there used to be professional draftsmen.

The plant where I am working seems really great. To get to my office in the morning, I walk through the plant, surrounded by all these huge columns and vessels and everything. It's neat, but loud. Also, I can walk to my office in the morning, and back in the evening, without a hard hat, but if I leave the building to go anywhere during the day, I have to wear my hardhat and safety glasses. Yesterday I got a CO monitor, because there are apparently places in the plant where that's a concern. Also ordered my FRCs (Flame resistant clothing), which is the equivalent of my Schlumberger blues.

Anyways, things are going great, but I've gotta sign off now. Will write more later. And post pictures because if I don't, Phill will, and I don't want him to beat me.

Later all!

Home Sweet (Temporary) Home

2 posts in a row! So today I reserved an apartment in Seattle. Its a furnished studio that I can rent month-to-month so when I get a job I can quickly look for a new unfurnished apartment and move into it without being locked into a contract at this place. The community is right on the border of Downtown and Capitol Hill, the gay district of Seattle. I can basically walk to all kinds of things, including the whopping 56 Starbucks that lie within a 2 mile radius of the building! I'm not even joking- woohoo! Check it out if you are so inclined:
http://www.capitolstepsseattle.com

YAY!
-Phill

Oh how thy summer's breeze can knock me off the interstate...

It's a bird! It's a plane! No- It's a hurricane! And its gonna cross paths with me... What luck, right? The last time a hurricane hit Florida in June or July (early in the season) it was 1997. Before that it was in the 1960's- so I guess we were due. Anyways, I am still leaving here Friday on schedule and heading up to Tampa to see Angela Wise. We're going to EPCOT on Saturday to ride the new "Mission: Space" ride and then back to Tampa at night to party a little. But instead of heading to Baton Rouge on Sunday to see Carley, I'll be stopping in Gainesville and staying with Rea until Tuesday or Wednesday- whenever the rain has cleared up and Hurricane Dennis is safely inland. So, I'll be delayed by 2 or 3 days, but I'll still have 4 or so days in Houston!

In other news, my Jewish grandma's meddling has maybe paid off a little. Her friend's grandson's friend's sister (I don't know how she hears about these people) just graduated from UPenn and is moving to Seattle just like me (no job, never been there before, etc.) My grandma gave me her e-mail address, so I shot her an e-mail and she responded. We're gonna hang out when she arrives August 20th- so I have somebody to explore the city with until Della arrives! The best part: this girl's cousins live in Seattle- and one of them works for a staffing agency (like an employment agency, but judging from the website, I think it's one that hires more qualified people to major corporations and such.) She told me to e-mail her cousin and that she would try to help me find work. Woohoo! I like this girl already :)

Anyways, that's my life. It's been non-stop packing for a few days now- I'm about half loaded up and still am trying to figure out the best arrangement of crap in my car. I actually think it might all fit so I won't have to ship anything... we'll see how that goes... Assuming I don't get blown away by Dennis, I will see some of you soon!

- Phill

p.s. Hurricanes blow! Get it??? I'm so punny...

celebrating the 4th of July ... in Canada

so I'm in Vancouver to celebrate the Fourth of July. sweet scheduling, Northwest League.

last night was a barrage of conflicting emotions and sensations. It was a perfect night for baseball again, one of those "I love my job" moments. But the people back at the studio were really airheaded, so instead of my normal pregame show 15 minutes before first pitch, I got on the air five batters into the first inning. Our starting pitcher walked 5 and hit 1 in 2/3 of an inning, facing 10 batters and allowing 8 runs. So we were down 8-0 before we even came to the plate. And this was in front of our biggest crowd of the year (2,296, which felt really big). Things were so bad and I was so out of it that I miscounted and said it was 7-0 going to commercial. Then in the next inning, this guy grounded out but was sent to first base on catcher's interference. Nobody realized it, though, and I thought he was out and went to a commercial break. The Spokane broadcaster, this legendary veteran, did the same thing. It was awful. 14-1 after three innings.

After that everything settled down and it was an okay broadcast aside from the 17-3 scoreline. And the fans stayed the whole time because they were there to see postgame fireworks, and despite the score it ended up being pretty fun. So after the game, I was doing the postgame show with the fireworks exploding overhead, and it just felt so perfect. Classic minor league baseball, with our mascot just sitting on the third base line watching with everybody else. Tried to capture it with pictures, I'll post them tomorrow or something.

So afterward, since it was the last night of a homestand, our whole staff stayed around to play ball on the field. The reason we all work in minor league baseball. Midnight on a Sunday night and we're playing under the lights. I threw BP to most of the staff, and my arm got really tired, but it was so much fun. Scraped up my leg sliding for a groundball, and just had a blast.

We didn't leave until like 1 a.m., though, and I still had work to do and packing, so I decided to stay up all night until meeting the team bus at 6:30 a.m. So I headed back to the house, with my host family away for the weekend. And I couldn't get in through the garage! I messed up entering my access code and tried to hit cancel or something to start over, but instead hit a button that like scrambles the signal or something. I don't know, but I was freaking out. 'Cause nobody was home. And all my stuff was inside, and my host and her kids were away. Oh man. It was like the worst time for that to happen. I was more than a little unnerved. So I called my host at 1 a.m. and she basically talked me through breaking into her house. I literally pried the screen off a window and climbed in through an open window. I felt SO sketchy. But at least it all worked out.

Anyway, so I'm in Vancouver now. I get my own room on road trips, which is cool but kinda lonely, as expected. I'm getting to have a lot more jokes with the players, though, from hanging around the batting cage. I can even carry on a gestured conversation with the Latin players, mostly consisting of a lot of grins and fist pounds. So I've got to do a game tonight on about 90 minutes of sleep. Should be a blast. Best job in the world.