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!