Well its been a while since my last post because I been busy playing. The rancher told me a few weeks ago they had fired their mechanic last year. I told him I tinkered a bit so he took me back to their mechanics shop handed me a key to the tool room and said, “If you see anything broke on the ranch you want to tinker with, have at it!”. I’m like “HOLY COW, YOU’RE KIDDING!!!”
So currently I’m tinkering with a Kawasaki Mule, a John Deere 450c bulldozer, a forklift, a gas powered pressure washer and a . Everything else is waiting on parts which I ordered through the ranch office. They gave me the mechanics old truck to drive. A 2010 ram 3500 dually decked out cowboy style, diesel of course.
Then out of the blue, (Tuesday), GGS calls and says, your services are no longer required at that gate, your old rig wants you back ( the Orion Draco, the one we used to cook for). We followed them for a year straight. I was flabbergasted, got this beautiful gig going and GGS bursts my bubble. I was ready to cry. So they come and take our generator and sani trailer and we’re sitting there wondering why they closed the gate with two work over rigs and a pipeline crew on site. Found out its because they are all working for another oil company. Just as we’re ready to pack it in. The rancher shows up with a generator and says, “move away from the gate and park by that building (200 feet away). they hook us up to a septic tank and a water well and tell us there will be an electrician here on Friday to hook us to a pole. They are putting in a portable building as Ranch Security, Janet and I work the whole ranch now instead of just the gate.
So I guess we’re no longer Gate Guards, these people treat us like family. Janet takes care of the horses on the weekends when the trainer is off, about 25 of them. And we fight over who gets to mow the pasture by the gate. They brought up a New Holland 72 inch riding mower.
I’ll keep this site up for a while depending on how busy we get

NICKNAMES:
If Laura, Kate and Sarah go out for lunch they will call each other Laura, Kate and Sarah.
If Mike, Dave and John go out; they will call each other Fat Boy, Dumbass and S**t for Brains.

EATING OUT:
When the bill arrives, Mike, Dave and John will each throw in a $20, even though the bill is only $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller or want change.
When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators.

MONEY:
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item that he needs.
A woman with pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn’t need, but is on sale

BATHROOM:
A man has six items in his bathroom: Toothbrush and toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, bar of soap and a towel.
A woman has 337 items in their typical bathroom; and a man won’t be able to identify more than 20 of them.

ARGUMENTS:
A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

FUTURE:
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

SUCCESS:
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

MARRIAGE:
A woman marries a man expecting he will change; but he doesn’t.
A man marries a woman expecting that she wont change, but she does.

DRESSING UP:
A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the trash, answer the phone, read a book and get the mail,
A man will dress up for weddings and funerals.

NATURAL:
Men wake up as good looking as they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

OFFSPRING:
Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments, and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams.
A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

THOUGHT:
A married man should forget his mistakes. There is no use in two people remember the same thing!

WOW, things were looking up, I dropped about 10 pounds and got down to just 3 cigarettes a day. So I made the big leap and threw my cigarettes away. Within 8 hours I’d gained 6 pounds back, and all I had was a sandwich. So now I’m holding at 330 pounds. I just need to lose 35 more pounds to hit my goal. Of course I’m smoking half a pack a day to do it.. I’m such a wuss.

Click for weather forecast

I’ve been so busy the last month, I’ve neglected my blog. I completed my Emergency Medical Responder course and my volunteer work with the local EMS has become like a second full time job. between the gate and the ambulance, there are days I only get a couple hours sleep. The last of the people at our current two well sites pulled out this afternoon, so we have a night of no traffic, maybe even a weekend, but of course Monday will be a different story as our pipeline crews and the workover rig for the older wells will be back. They’re telling us to expect to be here a year or longer. Tonight was a real treat as the first time in over a year my wife and I got to share the bed together. I rubber her back till she fell asleep and then held her in my arms. The elation of lying beside her and feeling her body next to mine made it difficult for me to sleep, But I managed a few hours.

Beware Of Watch Dog!!

Maybe next time I’ll listen when Andy gives me a heads up about spam. I logged onto the my site today and notice an alarming number of replies for my posts. So I’m thinking “HEY, I’m getting popular”! then I notice that none of the replies really make sense to the post. More over the replies seem like general responses that would work in any situation. And the names of the authors were links. that’s when it hit me. Andy’s warning came true. So now I gotta head over to http://myoldrv.com/forums/index.php and seek advice on stopping the flow of spam on my site. Which, I might add is an excellent source of anything Gate Guard.
If you have a forum or blog that is directly related to Gate guards or oilfield. shoot me a reply and I’ll pop a link on here

DPS IS IN THE TILDEN AREA CHECKING GATE GUARD ID”s. Also we’ve been informed that guards out of uniform are being written tickets. the only thing I can figure that is, is wearing your vest or whatever it is your company provides you to wear. Today’s date is 02/09/2012

Well I made a decision today, and although I’ve made this decision a thousand times in the last 35 years this time I think I may pull it off. I’m quitting smoking. Over the last year I’ve dwindled down the amount I smoke per day to less than a half a pack. I believe now is the time I make my active gambit. Today I went 18 hours without a cigarette. Thinking I was finally gonna be able to quit cold turkey, Our Support guy shows up and lights up in front of me. Yeah that was the straw….. He casually tells me his doc’s been telling him to quit till this past monday. He said the Doc said it didn’t matter now, best thing he could do was live life to the fullest while he still could. He said they were fixing to start him on intensive Chemo, bit it didn’t look good.
I almost started to cry right there in front of him. I mean Holy Shith, his Doc just told him he was dying and he talked like it was a trip to the movies. We wanna throw a BBQ for him, not to raise funds or anything but to get falling down drunk (its what he wants).
Anyways back to my reason for this post. I’m going to curtail my posting a bit and try and tone it down cuz my wife says I become a real *sshole when I try to quit. To make it worse I need to lose about 30 pounds so she’s putting me on a diet too. I might be better off recruiting someone else to post for a month or two.

My wife and I have been gate guarding for about two years. before that I spent 20 years trucking, alot of it in the oilfield. We have seen alot of retirees come down for the gate jobs after reading about it in Some RV magazine. I never saw it myself. Being from the area, we’ve seen gate guards our whole life.
The first couple we met, we really enjoyed their company, their gate was 20 yards from ours. It was a day time gate while we were there. Once the rig moved in they lasted 4 days. I don’t want burst anyone’s bubble but this isn’t like working a campsite or a state park. Anyone doing it will tell you its 24/7… literally. You actually have traffic 24 hours a day, every day. In the case of our friends, she was confined to a hoveround chair which she couldn’t use because they were parked in a muddy location. She either sat outside all day , which is impossible in the summer, or her husband worked the gate day and nite. If you want a good idea of whats possible I suggest you go to the site http://theforkintheroad.wordpress.com/ and read the post entitled. “When Things Went South”. Just wanted to give a head’s up.
I talked to a guy at Wheeler’s Mercantile yesterday. They were pulling out after only a week. The gate had no phone service and they had killed 11 rattlesnakes in the time they were there. That is actually uncommon. We’ve only killed 3 in the last 3 months here.
If for some reason you still feel the need for the torture then myoldrv.com/forums/ would be a another great place to go for answers to your questions.

A man's home is his, um....

In reflection, I see your point about OSHA’s requirement on random searches. That also brings new light to the argument of the gentleman’s viewpoint on employer’s rights. I recently completed a professional safety course for certification to be a safety man. OSHA’s requirements are very strongly emphasized in the course and randoms are a part of the workplace. From that point of view my argument may not hold much water. However, are these randoms being practiced on everyone on the job site. Or is it just the gate guard that’s being targeted?
On more than one occasion I have seen rig hands coming back to the rig in less than satisfactory shape after a night on the town. On our second gate I was hit by one when he sped off and the pickup truck fishtailed and clipped me. The next day they had a “talk” with the offender and that was the end of it. If you think about it, the rig is the work place, I’m just standing at the front door.
What about the rancher with the alcoholic son. Every weekend he would come through our gate with a bunch of drunk friends loaded to the teeth for bear and proceed on to drink and shoot up the place. They don’t work there but it is a workplace. At one gate I was virtually forced to drink a beer with the land owner. You don’t want to alienate the rancher. This is not your ordinary workplace. I don’t for one minute condone drinking on the premises. And I’m in agreement that you shouldn’t even have it with you. But I think if you’re gonna do a random at the workplace, you should actually do randoms at the workplace, the whole workplace.

Meanwhile on the other side of the workplace....