Texas T, Bureaucracy and Baked Potatoes

Rumors abound that a new play is about to open out west. Fueling the rumors and adding to the excitement is all the infrastructure and equipment already in place in the Permian Basin. Oil; Texas T or Black Gold is what they’re after; especially sites that can produce 2000 barrels a day or higher. Big money and thousands of acres of land have changed hands in recent months. I’m not sure; but my source says they do use gate guards out that way. Maybe someone in the gate guard community can comment on that. In the meantime, the Sunday San Antonio paper had a front page article on the Eagle Ford Shale and the goings on in that area. It looks like we will be in business for a while. And, even though it currently isn’t selling well (due to depressed prices), we do have dry gas in abundance. If we could ever get the pipeline completed that might help make it more cost effective. On that note, there are gate guard opportunities on the pipeline. From what I’ve heard it does not pay as much; but the hours are shorter and the workload lighter. I even heard some gates allow you to lock up at night and roam!

We completed the involved process to become eligible to bid on government jobs. You can browse through my blogs and find updates. Basically it is a two step process requiring you to bare your soul. In short, you have to get a Dun’s number, then register the Dun’s number on the Sam’s site and then hope it is approved. Once approved you are assigned a CAGE (commercial and government entity) number which is how the government identifies you. The difficulty we encountered was that certain sites don’t recognize the browser we use. Had we known that things would have gone much smoother. Also, some of the questions you have to answer are posed in a manner only a bureaucrat could think up. The goal of all this was to try to win a bid to work as a Gate Attendant for the Corps of Engineers. Ultimately we want to be able to work winters down here and summers in the Midwest.

Yesterday the rig held its customary spud meeting and had food catered in.  This time was exceptional as ribeye steak was on the menu. The stars of the show; however, were the baked potatoes. They were eight to ten inches long and a good four inches in diameter! Unbelievable, and with all the trimmings. We also learned that they are adding more pads here and that our rig’s sister will be moving in. Unfortunately; due to the pay we already are receiving, we won’t be compensated for the extra work.