Oil Rig, interesting new life

I have now officially sold my soul to the oil industry.  After undertaking my first job as a college graduate and spending 1 month bs-ing in the office I made my way to the oil field for the first time.  The life is definitely interesting and very very different.  Imagine living at your place of employment 24/7 but only working for maybe 4 hours of the day.  Then cross that with a big camping trip, and that is about what it seems like to be a field engineer out on an oil rig.  Since not wanting an office job was my only criteria for getting a job after graduating, I realize that maybe I should have been careful what I wished for, this is the most anti-desk job I have ever seen and I will roll with it as long as I can without going crazy, but I wont be doing it forever and nobody does.  Oh the life in an oil field in the middle of nowhere west Texas…

Racewalking, Whos With Me Here??

Anyone seeing the racewalking that is going on in Beijing?  It’s 1:30 am central time here in Texas and I am hanging out watching some guys with the silliest gaits I have ever seen in my life attempt to run without getting caught running.  These dudes pop off like 6 minute miles and stuff, I couldn’t keep up with them even if i was running illegally.  Unless I was running illegally to a bike that I could ride along the course…

Terrence in Sierra Madre, Thank You

Terrence in Sierra Madre just called into the Jim Rome Show and made my work day bearable.  For that I am eternally thankful to Jim Rome for hosting such an amazing radio program and his ridiculous callers who make it even more entertaining.  The day of the smackoff is second only to Christmas.  Try and catch the Huge Call today and I would be willing to bet it is Terrence’s call!

Ok swimming is seriously ridiculous

Ok seriously, SERIOUSLY.  In the men’s 100m freestyle QUALIFYING races that crazy french smack talker set a world record.  No problem, it happens every day just like I detailed in my earlier post.  What happens in the very next qualifying race in the same event?  The guy breaks the crazy french guy’s record and sets the new world record himself.  That is how silly olympic swimming is.  That doesnt happen in real life, just in swimming.  I am still rooting phelps on though…

Nice freestyle relay…

As much as I ranted against swimming being lamer than track and field, it was AWESOME to see the mens 4×100m relay team kick a$$ against the trash talking French.  Hahaha, they talked the smack and their anchor freakin LOST it for them!!!  Nothin better than America showing their athletic superiority in random sporting events that only matter once every 4 years…  The French anchor claimed they came to “smash” the US relay team but in fitting fashion he blew his teams lead.  At least thats the story i heard from American television so thats what I am going with.  Love it.  Thats not to say I dont love France’s contribution to food and drink and Tour de ___.  I will throw the other country with red white and blue on  the flag props for the Tour De France because that is probably my favorite non-big-4 sporting event every year.  YAY AMERICA

Olympic Swimming - definitely not as cool as Track and Field

Ok, I am not going to hate on swimmers here.  In high school I was friends with a lot of swimmers, a lot of them were really dedicated and fit athletes.  I will say that there is a higher percentage of potheads on swim teams than other sports teams but whatever.  Anyway back to my point here.  I am watching the Olympic swim meet and it seems a little ridiculous.  The background stories that I hear about swimmers seem to deal with the upgrades in swimwear technology.  This makes me question whether the swimmers are beating each other or whether their swim suits are doing the winning.  Obviously the swimmers in each race are beating the other 7 swimmers in the pool with him/her.  The thing is 3 summer games ago the men would wear the bikini speedo’s and the women would wear the traditional 1 piece suits.  Then it seemed that swimming gear technology took over and became the reason that swimmers would attain records.  Both men and women started wearing those full body suits - some even covering their arms.  The chevron pattern was supposed to make you go faster, the tightness of the suit would make you more streamline, blah blah blah.  But NEVER have I seen a sport where people are breaking old records on such a consistent basis!!!  I just watched a womens race where the 1st and 2nd place finisher BOTH beat the previous world record.  Phelps just broke the record.  I think all but one of the races I watched tonight set world records.  This leads me to presume that these swimmers are setting records because of the suits they are wearing.  Obviously they are better than anyone in the pool with them, but are they better than swimmers from the past who did not wear full body suits?  Its just like steroids in baseball, can you compare eras?  How are swimmers just breaking records left and right like its nothing?  If you watch track and field (I used to run in high school so that shit is MY JAM, especially distance running - this is where i throw some props to my old teammate Bobby Curtis who was in the trials this year) you will not see athletes breaking records in nearly as many events or at the pace of the guys and gals in the water.  The technology on the track and the field does not help these athletes nearly as much as it does the swimmers.  Let me go into a very basic technical rant to finish off this post - I am an engineer so its in my blood, sorry.  Friction based on movement through water is much much greater than the friction that occurs when moving through air; therefore, technology that reduces friction in water will make a much bigger difference to a racer than technology that reduces friction in the air.  There is just more opportunity for technological improvement when dealing with water resistance.  *** O look, another second fastest time in history, IN A SEMIFINAL swimming event***  Also, the technology curve for runners is not increasing like it is for swimmers.  12 years ago, unlike the swimmers, the runners were basically wearing the same gear as they are now, maybe the shoes are a little better now but the technology was there then whereas with the swim gear it was not.  This leads me to my final point that it is much more impressive to see a track and field record broken than a swimming record.  The track and field records in my eyes are more based on athletic ability than the stupid ass new technology driving the deluge of swimming records.  In conclusion, maybe everyone should just partake in the Olympic games in the nude as it was done back in the original Olymics.

MapMyRun.com pat yourself on the back

I would like to take this space to rep a new favorite website of mine.  Mapmyrun.com is awesome!  I signed up for an account a while ago and then didnt think anything of it, didnt act on it or anything.  Yesterday I decided in my boredom to log on and… MAP MY RUN!!  It worked, it worked wonderfully.  There are so many different options for a person to choose from and its not only for runners.  Any activity where you would like to track distance, time, calories, etc.  I think you can even do elevation changes and you can definitely track how many miles you log on the equipment you use.  That is a really neat feature because in the case of my running, I can figure out exactly when I hit that 500 mile mark and begin to think about retiring my shoes.  It even gives me a cost per mile dividing the price i paid for my shoes by the amount of mileage I have used them for.  I bought a new pair of shoes and I think that was the reason I decided to use the website.  So now I am at 14 dollars per mile but just wait, haha.  It was not long ago when google earth was the only software I could find to actually create my customized route online and map the distance, but now all sorts of websites do it and its such a good tool.  Get on mapmyrun.com and look up some routes around your house, you might just find your way down a road you have never seen before and you might just become a little bit of a healthier person doing it!

What can you do in Midland Texas?????

Hello Midland!!!!  Please great people of the city of Midland, Texas find this blog entry and tell me what there is to do in this foreign land.  I found my way into Midland on Saturday and realized that it is not as deserty as I was expecting - there are trees here even though none are taller than me.  I got to see it rain here so that was interesting because you can see the clouds roll in forever!  That brings me to the next point, this joint is flat and that reminds me of the most famous phrase of the 530 House (530 Euclid Ave. Lexington KY), “I like my women like I like my pizza - hot and flat” spoken by my former roommate John Allen.  Midland can most definitely be described in the same way as new york style pizza and some women - it is hot and flat here.  It is also BORING considering I don’t really know anyone and am staying at a hotel that isn’t even in the city.  If you live in Midland and do things like play ultimate, run, hit up happy hour spots…. breathe, have a pulse, or exist let me know because I haven’t found you yet.  There are a TON of abandoned buildings in this city by the way, so that makes it kind of lonely.  But yea if you’re from Midland sound off and tell me whats up and where I need to go because I have certainly not noticed much human life yet!

An Unfair Review of Oklahoma with Broad Generalizations

I flew into Tulsa on Sunday and thus began my whirlwind tour of the great state of “Ooooooklahoma where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plains.”  The Trade Winds Central Best Western housed my weary body and did not impress my homesick (for the bluegrass) heart.  When the girls in the group have to stay in certain motel rooms that are “safer” you know its not the most coveted place to rest your head in town.  On the plus side, there is a biker bar attached to the motel!!  On the minus side, the view out of my tinted window is of a burned down abandoned house (sad face).

A group of us tried to go see The Dark Knight while in Tulsa but had to rely on taxi service in order to get to a theater.  One of my personal quirks is that I HATE using taxis - I would rather walk 2 miles than get a cab because I feel so helpless when I am stuck somewhere and cant walk / publicly transport my way out of the situation.  I digress, but I also hate cabs because I am cheap.  Anyway we got to the 12 screen theater and they were sold out, but luckily there was another 20 screen theater about 2 blocks away.  Theres no way I would miss the movie now right? Wrong, this is the moment when the ticket guy told us that 2 theaters in close proximity cannot show the same first run movie… HOW LAME IS THAT????  So I didnt get to see the movie, and I had to get a cab back to the hotel and began disliking Tulsa.

The next thing on my list of dislikes is the fact that Tulsa has toll roads.  Like my views on taxis, I have a hearty distates for toll roads.  When possible I love to take surface roads instead no matter how much less efficient it is just so I can stick it to the toll man, whomever he may be.  On the plus side to Tulsa I did get to do a little riding down Route 66.  That is a cool road and I aspire to travel the length of it one day in the future.  It also brought back some nice memories of my family’s trip to Arizona when I was in 8th grade where I got my first glimpse of Route 66.

Other randoms: I hit up the town of Sapulpa and almost got to Kellyville.  I did not make it to any indian reservation casinos but I heard that they are a little more stingy than the major casinos around the nation so maybe I am not missing out on anything.  I got to attend a “Pool Party” at the hotel with an Oklahoma metal cover band headlining, so I can tally one in the ‘weird experiences I never expect to be involved in again’ category.  I have been waking up for classes at 5 am every morning so I can tally one in the ‘what the hell have I gotten myself into’ category as well as the ‘humans are supposed to wake up when the sun does, NOT BEFORE’ category.

You see that Astros walk off?????

Like the title of my blog, i think the beginning of the second half of the baseball season signifies that the CUBBIES are BOOM, OUTTA HERE (sorry, just not a big cubs fan ever since a 8th grade as I cut my teeth on my very first major league game when I got to see the white sox). Just like that walkoff single scoring Tejada was Boom, Outta Here (the infield that is). War the astros winning since it was the first game I ever saw at Minute Made Park. Also got to see the post game fireworks, woo woo.