My poor blog is starving, so I better feed it.  Sorry for the delay.  I had such a great time at home last week with all our family, I just didn't want to come back.  It was so great reconnecting with all of you as well.  Regardless, I'm back in the cold, wet, white, confusing north.

Stone cold 4-wheelin'
Let's talk about the weather, just to get things started (or to break the ice - that's a North Dakota joke.)  Today is May 30th - how can it be snowing on May 30th?  Maybe because it's 30 degrees?  No, I'm not kidding.  Didn't stick on the ground, but big white flakes were falling as I was driving from Minot to Max ND.  Could it have something to do with the numbers 48.2325° N, 101.2958° W?   Put those coordinates into your GPS and snow will start falling wherever you are.  I should have got a picture of it but it wouldn't turn out in the dark.  So once again, I'm wearing my wool socks.

So last night I was out driving in a van looking for a engineer from Canadian Pacific (in the May snow) who had somehow got off his train and they left him...  Some of these railroad people are really not all that bright.  Anyway, I was 4-wheeling around (that part was fun) in the pitch dark through farmland and muddy roads (amazing that I didn't get stuck out there) looking for this guy.  What's worse is that he was trying to direct me out to his location and I could hardly understand his speech over the radio.  I got a CP dispatcher on my cell and he was helping me, and the engineer I was trying to find kept trying to talk to me over the radio at the same time.  He just wouldn't be quiet.  It was almost hopeless.

I finally see in the distance a small light swinging back and forth - it was him and his lantern.  So I had to figure out how to get to him across acres of farmland.  Finally made it over to him and picked him up.  I also learned why I was having such a hard time understanding him over the radio.  He was breathing/speaking through a stoma (sp?) in his neck.  I felt so sorry for the guy, but he moved pretty well for an older dude and he seemed like one of those types that cheats death at every turn.  However, you know what he had to do before we left to take him back to his depot?  You guessed it - he had a smoke.  I'm not sure how he did it and I didn't want to know.

Jeepers creepers
I fancy myself a somewhat hearty and bold critter tolerator.  I can put up with most non-human creatures (and even think some are cool.)  Rodents, snakes, spiders, scorpions, insects (mosquitos and cockroaches being exceptions for obvious reasons) do not make me squeamish in the least.  Well, today I met my match.  Dermacentor variabilis, or in layman's terms, the American Dog Tick.  Oh_my_gosh.  I don't know where it came from.  I was sitting in my car talking to my wife on the phone and I noticed this, what I thought was a strange looking beetle, crawling up my sweatshirt sleeve.  On closer evaluation, I discovered what it was - this arachnid really made my flesh crawl, with its little flailing legs...  I couldn't even take a picture of it for fear that its image would somehow invade my ear whist talking on the phone.  Did you know that ticks' eyes are on their backs?  Moreover they can spread some bad diseases.  I managed to squish it with my car keys.  That's the last time I'll scratch my ears with those keys...  I got home and showered for at least an hour, even though it never touched my skin.  And yes, I checked everywhere else.  In fact, for the last few hours I still have phantom sensations of something crawling on my legs, arms, torso, and neck.  I may never sleep soundly again.

From the "Strange News" files
Well, add another point to and a cheer for workplace diversity.  We just hired a cross-dresser.  Really.  Not the girl eating soup from a cup.  The *other* one.  North Dakota is a confusing place.

Hooray for me
I was just informed today that out of 53 drivers working at PTI, I have the #1 rating for customer satisfaction with the railroaders.  Criteria is based on demonstrated safe driving, knowledge of the region, and on-time percentage.  In fact, they want me to go to Minnesota to work with a PTI branch there that is having some problems.  It's nice to know that I stand out among felons, derelicts, and reformed ax murderers.

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted for a week.  This past week has been one of working through the nights - it seems I don't get called for a run until the late hours of the night, then they keep me out until early to late the next morning.  Then I come back to my apartment and try to get some sleep with all the noise of the neighbors (more on that later.)  It's all good, but it takes some getting used to.

Let me share a few scattered thoughts:

This is my favorite SUV that we have.  When you spend hours a day driving, you tend to build preferences.  It's very comfortable, has a great sound system, sun roof, and pretty fun to take 4-wheeling.  It also doesn't have a million miles on it like some of the vans in our fleet.  It's not so fun at the gas pump though - a couple times I have come close to 100 clams to fill it up.

When a run is assigned to a driver, he can choose whatever van/SUV is available.  I always take the nicest ones available because it is a better image for the company and I just like driving nicer cars.  We have some that have logged more than 100K miles and they are beat up and smelly.  A lot like a sophomore classmate of mine at Borah High School.

Speaking of not-so-nice cars, here's our van that the guy used to wail on the tanker truck a few weeks back, going to the boneyard.  It will make a nice bunch of Pepsi cans.  Or whatever.

These last 2 weeks have been plagued with car incidents.  One person hit a cow with this one:

She tagged it with the front left corner, spinning the animal around and getting hit again in the left rear quarter panel.  Livestock are not good about wearing their reflective safety vests, so we drivers have to be alert.  Two other drivers hit deer, but with less damage to the cars.

Here's something you don't see everyday - Amtrak being pulled by another engine.  Amtrak is classified as a "Z" train, meaning that it has the highest priority of all trains that run on the main track.  In fact, twice in a normal day, all trains will be stopped for about 90 minutes so that Amtrak can pass unhindered.

However, when Amtrak engines go bad, it's bad press for Government Choo-choo's so they will often send a lone locomotive to follow Amtrak in case it needs to be rescued, like what happened on Monday.  When Amtrak needs a push, everything around gets stopped and schedules are all turned upside down.  Also, when trains don't move, we don't get called to drive.  So I've been poaching runs outside of my regular board schedule to get more hours.  I don't think I have to explain that more hours equal more pay.

Speaking of getting paid, here's a place I might apply - looks like it might be the Minot branch of a Boulder company:

Notice the vintage green VW Beetle parked in front.  The car had a "Woodstock" sticker on it, but you can't see it from here.  Charming place inside.  I'm pretty sure to qualify to work here, I would need to shave my head, roll around in the street for a while, and get a stud in my tongue.

While there is a whole lot of nothing here, there is one thing that they do have - beautiful sunsets.  Here's a picture I got but it really didn't turn out too well.  You could see the rays of the sun shining down just like in the movies when they show God in the heavens.  I was on my way home from Epping ND and just had to stop to enjoy it for a bit:

We discovered something interesting about the neighbor to the north of us.  He likes to get in barroom brawls.  The houses here don't offer much sound privacy - even sounds from house to house seem much closer.  When their dog barks, it sounds like we have a dog.  When he yells at his wife, it sounds like the people upstairs are yelling.  Well, the other night, he was working in his carport about 3:30am and some guys pull up in a truck and jump out and start pounding this guy.  The commotion woke up my roommate Devon the Magnificent (he's also a champion cage fighter) and he went out to break up the fight.  He took his cell phone and had 911 on the line when he approached.  A couple of guys were going to turn on Devon, and he told them it would be biggest mistake they ever made.  Anyway.... the police came and the guys took off with the police in-chase.  I, of course, was driving choo-choo fixers and missed the whole thing.  In fact, it was mere minutes of the police screaming off that I drove off and collapsed into bed.  Devon filled me in the next day.

I'll finish today's post with something fun.  Here's to living with roommates - again.  (For some reason, Blogger wouldn't let me upload the video so here's the youtube link to it:

http://youtu.be/8A6FedhPMdk

When I first heard this go off, I leapt out of bed thinking the boiler in the laundry room (next to mine) was going to explode...

Just sitting in the parking lot at work waiting to get called in and i thought i would add an experience had last night. I picked up a conductor who i was pretty sure was a woman. She was wearing a heavy perfume that gave me a headache. Her hair was in a short crewcut. I drove her around for awhile, and she asked me what name I had for her on my list (the office sends us drivers the names of the people we pick up). I told her the name, and she responded "Good, they finally got my name changed. I just got married a month ago." I congratulated her, and asked if her husband also worked for the railroad. She corrected me and said "Not my husband, my wife." So I realized that I stepped in it and felt bad that I just assumed that this poor efeminate man was a woman. Why "he" changed his name was puzzling but I didn't worry about it.

We continued talking and "he" said that he's gone from home a lot with work. I explained that I was away from my family and that it's a little easier for "us guys" to be away because the dad is usually gone for work anyway. He then responded "I wouldn't know." At which point I realized I just made another grave gender assumption error (GAE for short) and pretty much kept my mouth shut for the remainder of the shift at 4am. I should have gone with my gut to begin with.

Hey, I'm just a simple naive boy from Idaho. This world is just too complicated for me.

Quick update on the last few days.  I chose Sunday and Monday as my days off.  Had a nice time at church on Sunday.  Testimony meeting here was uplifting and I felt impressed to bear my testimony.  Following church, I did some reading and enjoyed a couple of general conference talks.

The Poulsens invited me and my roommate to dinner again tonight, so we went upstairs and ate with them.  They are really a nice family, I hope that you will have a chance to meet them.  Devon, my young roommate is a good guy, but quite a talker.  He dominated the conversation for a couple hours with his exploits as an amazing race car driver, a championship bull rider, all-american athlete, and a cop-charmer.  I call him "Devon the Magnificent".  Not to his face though.

I bailed early and went down and talked to George for a while on the phone.  He was out in Connecticut with Mikaela and her family having a good time.

Monday I did some wash and got a few groceries.  I also talked to Tim Ricketts from Halliburton regarding the directional drilling engineer position.  We set a phone interview time for Wednesday morning.  He said "it [the interview] shouldn't take too long".  I was encouraged by that.

Tuesday was a discouraging day.  I got on the call board at my appointed time, and went the whole day without getting a run.  I called the office several time to see what was going on, and they said that the day had been very slow.  I found out later that BNSF is doing some repair work on some of the lines and that was likely the cause of the slow-down.

I was somewhat pacified by that, but when most of Wednesday passed without getting called, I started to panic.  Here I made this decision to come out here for work, and thought I had a good interim job that would allow me to find something better.  While I was wallowing a bit in my misery, I got called in at 7:30pm to go up to Canada.  The run turned into an overnighter, logging 15 hours of work.  That was awesome!  I was with some great people from Canadian Pacific and the time flew by.  I didn't get home until 11am the next morning.

Driving back, I saw an enormous bull moose by the road.  I startled him as I drove by, and he took off in the opposite direction   He was probably 6 feet tall at the shoulder, and his legs were so long that at a lope, he was probably doing 30 MPH.  I estimated his horn rack was some 6 feet across too.  I so wished that I could have got a picture.  What I'm told, moose don't display much of the silly personality of the moose of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" fame...  They are aggressive, dangerous creatures that can smell fear and will eat you with their enormous, venomous mandibles...  Actually, I'm not sure that information is exactly substantiated, but I do know that a moose can ruin your day.  (No George, I did not dance with it.)  And they are quite plentiful up here, along with deer, skunks, jack rabbits, and various rodental pests.  No bear (they prefer more wooded areas) but there are mountain lions.  GO, COUGARS.

I got some sleep Thursday afternoon and went back on the board Thursday night.  Didn't get any call though.   Looking forward to getting out on Friday and Saturday.

Almost forgot to mention - had a very good interview with the guy from Halliburton.  We spent most of the time talking about the lifestyle and responsibilities of the role.  None of what he said particularly surprised me because I have seen similar circumstances out here.  Seems that the role has good long-term potential.  He is going to schedule a face-to-face in Casper WY within the next couple weeks.  Meanwhile, I continue to look for other opportunities.

I miss home but I'm so glad we can use video calling to stay in touch!

I went for a jog around the neighborhood tonight since it was nice out and I haven't had any calls for taxi runs for a few hours.  The first picture I sent of the house wasn't so good.  This one is a little better.  The open door you see by the garage door is the entrance to my apartment in the basement.  My car is parked over on the right side of the house, out of view and off the busier street.

The neighborhood is very tranquil and quiet, but people really keep to themselves.  Even when you pass someone on the street while walking, they seem surprised when you greet them.  People sitting in their yards kind of look the other way when I pass.  Maybe it's just me.

Just by the looks of the area (small town) I would assume that everyone knows everyone.  But since there has been so much growth here over the past 3 years, lots of these people here are all strangers themselves.  Locals say that the city of Minot is really at capacity at about 25,000.  Over the past couple years, more than 25K people have relocated to and/or are using the infrastructure and services of this little town.  While I was driving around today, I was trying to cross the main street and the traffic was at a crawl.  The delay was caused by a policeman who had pulled over a motorist about 2 miles up the road.  Also, train crossings can cause big delays in traffic as well, as the trains cross on some of the major thoroughfares.  Trying to go somewhere on Friday night?  Forget it.  Getting into BurgerTime, the movie theater and the bowling alley keep traffic in check for hours!

About 5 weeks ago, a PTI driver was coming back to Minot with one of the vans after dropping off a crew. he fell asleep at 65 MPH and crashed into the back of a tanker truck that had just turned onto the road.  He was seriously pushing the limits of what his body was capable of.

Here's a pic of what's left of the van:

It's amazing the guy lived.  He broke his pelvis in 2 places, messed up his arm, and had various cuts and bruises.

I don't post this to frighten you - I'm posting this because this is the anti-marketing we're doing by parking this wreckage out in front of our office while an investigation takes place.  Here's the message:  "Come visit our office at PTI (Professional Transportation Inc.).  You can find us right behind the van that one of our drivers almost died in."

Some of you have asked about these "man camps".  They are literally encampments where men live and work - and almost nothing else.  Here's some pictures of what their living environment looks like:

Generally there are 6 men who live in one trailer.  (Rumors of men living in actual tents instead of trailers are unsubstantiated at this time.)  The trailers have no kitchen, stove or refrigerators.  The company prepares food for the men and they eat in a central pavilion.  The trailers do have water hook-ups for bathrooms, I think two to a trailer.  The trailers are mobile, so if they need to move the camp to another location, they can do that.

Here's another picture of a few trailers together:

This picture is a little harder to see, but if you look closely, you can get a sense for the size of this camp, just outside of Harvey ND.

They just roll the trailers into a field and situate them in rows.  The men living there work in usually work in 12-hour shifts.  2 weeks on, 2 weeks off, depending on their job role.  The workers are bused back and forth to the work areas.  Usually they are working at a rig site (called the 'well head') or in a coal or other mineral mine.  It's rigorous, dangerous, high-brawn, low-brain work.  The men work, sleep, rinse, and repeat.

I took a picture of the bustling Main Street of Harvey, ND.  As you can see, there's pretty close to nothing to do, and this was on Saturday.  Harvey is one of the larger towns that has more than one stoplight.

Enough said.

Good morning...  It's 1:45am and I'm waiting for a call.  Breakfast eaten, lunch and backpack packed, dressed to kill (or at least work.)  I feel more rested today than I did yesterday at this time.  Yesterday I had a really hard time getting to sleep, and last night I didn't have any problem going to sleep.  It was a good, long 15-hour work day.

Yesterday was interesting.  I experienced everything you would experience during an award-winning movie - I laughed, I cried, I was almost taken into custody by the Canadian border patrol...  So yesterday was my first time riding with/shadowing a driver on an OTR (over the road) trip.  I connected with the woman who referred me to this job in the first place.  Her name is Karen Younce-Guynn, a sturdy, talkative woman of about 65 I'd say.  (On the first Sunday I was here in Minot, she passed me a note in church saying that PTI was hiring drivers and that I should apply.)  She is an ex-bookkeeper who has been doing this driving job for about a year and a half.  I had only met her once at church a couple weeks ago, and wasn't even sure I'd recognize her (she's in another Minot ward).  Since we trainees are responsible for setting up our two OTR and yard shadow trips, I thought I'd connect with her and have her train me rather than one of the flea-bitten former Hells Angels riders working here.  After all, I didn't want to be confined in a van for 12 hours with a reformed ax murderer.

So I call her, and she asked if I would pick her up at a car repair place in the morning.  Fine, it was on my way to work anyway.  She was having them clean her car engine...  First clue.  She seemed pleasant enough and we went into the office and picked up our binder and instructions.  She had drawn a trip up to Portal, ND which is at the Canadian border, about 3 hours away.  Typically, it's good to get longer trips like this because it allows you to use more of your "on-board" time - meaning the time that you are available to be called for a run.  Usually, the railroader requests the trip with a "need time" - a time during your on-call time that they need to have the van ready to pick the crew up.  This trip, however, was an "asap" meaning that they need the van as soon as humanly possible.

We throw our things into a Suburban in a bit of a rush because it's a long trip up there.  As you leave for a trip, you have to do some setup with the on-board GPS that tracks the trip and sends you information about the trip request.  Well, the GPS wasn't working properly, and it delayed our time to leave by about 30 minutes.  She is somewhat a techni-phobe, an impatient, indiscriminate button-pusher (only us computer support folks know what that means.)  According to Karen, much of the time the GPS in the vans don't work properly and it's a hassle.  She started ranting about how nobody does their job at this place - cars are never cleaned, fixed, etc. and she also was constantly bad-mouthing the people in the office and the fleet manager...  Second clue.  Evidently, there is some truth to her ravings and she gave me excruciating detail about why the office staff up and quit their jobs last month.  Of course, it was all the District Manager's fault.

It's a long drive up to Portal ND.  Generally, any day at 2:30am, I don't have much to say.  That didn't seem to discourage her through.  Our conversation up there consisted of long, arduous threads of her prattle with some of my "uh-huh's" strategically uttered.  She told me about her childhood starting at age 3.  She told me about her 2 broken marriages.  She told me about vacations she took in Florida, Jamaica, Bermuda, Mexico, Tobago, the New Heberdies... and I zoned out on a few more.  She told me about her illnesses and her sister's illnesses.  Did I mention that it's a long drive to Portal ND?  Riding with the reformed ax murderer was looking better and better.

Well, we get up to Portal and gave the crew a ride back to their depot.  Then they discovered that they had locked their keys in their truck, so we spent about 2 hours doing nothing while their conductor tried to get roadside assistance out to unlock the door.  Well, there are no street addresses in Portal (population 121, probably including domestic mammals) so the roadside assistance was not capable of assisting.  They said that they couldn't dispatch a driver unless they had an address, and no address for Portal would work.  I suggested that they get the sherriff to come out to do it, and finally they were in to their truck.

They asked us to shuttle one of their guys to the depot in Portal, Canada (just across the border.)  So, we loaded him up in the van and left.  Well, we got to the border and there was a very nasty dispositioned Canadian border guard waiting for us.  She demanded our passports, and I and the railroad guy had ours at the ready. However, our driver Karen said that she needed to get hers from her bag in the back of the van.  The guard lady became very snotty and dispatched a guard out to the car while Karen exited the vehicle and got her passport, which she gave to the guard.  The guard lady became angry because she found a $50 bill in Karen's passport, and the guard thought that Karen was attempting to pass a bribe.  Then the story gets good.

Karen, the sturdy, talkative woman goes into a nervous, wandering narrative about how she was just traveling to Florida and Jamaica and that she always keeps some emergency money in her passport, and that a customs agent in Florida questioned her about the money, as well... giving WAY too much detail about everything.  I was starting to wonder what Canadian jail cells were like.  Anyway, the guard came up to me and told me to wait in the van.  She had already cleared the CP employee (a Canadian citizen) riding with us.    Well, I didn't hear/understand what she said to me (she spoke English with a heavy French accent) and that aggravated her more.  Then she repeated the command to me and I complied.  She was carrying a little .38 caliber service revolver, but I think I could have taken her.

About 30 minutes later, Karen comes back to the van and says that she can't go into Canada because of "some things in her past".  Oh great, and I gave up a chance to ride with a *reformed* ax murderer, and now I'm riding with Door Number 3.

We dropped off the CP guy and they sent us home.  Another 3 hours of the former topics, except broken down into more detail.

Got back to the office in Minot and I went out to ride in the Burlington Northern marshaling yard (called the Gavin yard) with another guy, David  Decker (he didn't seem like an ax murderer) and had a really nice time with him.  He reminded me of my wonderful father-in-law, and Mr. Decker was very knowledgeable about train operations (he had worked in and around trains most of his life) and I took pages of notes about the yard.  This is where they receive trains in, unhook them, them put them back together with the appropriate configurations that are needed for the next run.  It's all very systematic, process-oriented, and interesting to watch.  It's very similar to what I used to do with my HO-scale railroad set as a kid, except the cars here weigh a bit more.  Some of the locomotives (they call them 'power') can be run by remote control, so it's much more efficient to drag the cars around without having to get up into and out of the power.

Our job is to shuttle people(s) back a forth across the yard, which occupies several hundred acres and is traversed by 50 or so lines of tracks.  (I'll try to include pictures next time.)  There are many rail switches (which guide the train forward along a track or switches it to another track) and all these switches need to be set manually.  You listen on the radio for crews to call.  The language they use on the radio and in conversation is mostly very technical and leaves me feeling a bit intimidated (they'll say something like, 'crew release up diesel to hump 12 E' - that means drive over to where they fuel the locomotives, pick up whomever is there and take them to track 12 on the east hump side, where the cars are sequenced and hooked together.  Why can't they just say that instead?)  I guess you just have to listen and learn.

Well, I also learned that the Gavin yard is a very dangerous place and you really need to be alert and watch where you're going - the most obvious is that you need to take great care when crossing over the many tracks that cross the yard.  And since many of the tracks merge into one another, if you're not careful your van can be crushed like a soda can if you drive into the wrong place at the wrong time.  Trains don't exactly stop on a dime, as you can imagine.  Also, there's lots of important stuff, like switches, that if you accidently run over one, you disable a van, possibly mess up train operations, and ensure that you get no Christmas card from Burlington Northern. And the best part - locomotives make a lot of noise when they move, so you're alerted.  However, empty oil tanker cars make *no* noise as they get unhooked, pushed, and glide down the track to the "car man" maintenance shed.  They're also painted black, so at night it's doubly scary.  What this means is that occasionally  the crew will unhook a car and let it glide down the track to a brake area.  This reduces effort and time spent pulling the car down to the car man shed.  If you're not paying attention, all of a sudden a 212,000 pound, unmanned, gravity driven rail car rolls into your lap without warning.  That could ruin your day.

I finished my satisfying workday about 8pm and headed home alone.  Grateful to be alive and to have nothing but the classic rock radio station wearing away at my ear drums.

It's 2am.  I'm sitting at the table, all set to go.  Basically on-call.  I'm on a 02:00 to 14:00 hours shift (that's 2am to 2pm military time, for the lay-person.)  So here's the rub - you make yourself available for your 12-hour shift and just wait for a call.  In any given shift, you may work the full 12 hours, or you may not.  I'm told that generally, you do more than 40 hours in a week.

Today I'm riding with/shadowing the church member who referred me to PTI.  Her name is Karen Guynn.  She's been with PTI for a year and a half.  I have to do two OTR (over the road) runs before I can go on my own.  When she calls, I'll dash out of here with my lunch, backpack with warm clothes, and meet her at the office.

Following my first shift, I'll meet another driver out at the maintenance yard for Burlington Northern railroad and do another 4-hour shift shadowing him.  I'm eager to get these out of the way and be working on my own.

Well, it's 02:35 and she just called.  We're going to Canada somewhere, so that means a good long drive, hopefully taking up most if not all of the shift.

More later.

One more thing before bed - I just went to Walmart to pick up a few groceries, and as I was leaving I recognized several cars out in the outer parts of the parking lot...  Did I mention how grateful I am for my living conditions?

Note to followers - For those of you dying to post feedback to my blog, you now have free access.  Keep in mind this is a family channel, so behave yourselves.  :-)

Just finished my first day of orientation.  I learned today that there ARE many, many little-known safety nuances (99% is common sense, but since we've witnessed the departure of common sense over the past 20 some years, I guess the points need to be reviewed) of maneuvering a mini-van full of choo-choo fixers back and forth from Dunkin Donuts.  The class today was about as boring as anything I have ever done.  We poured over three books of various regulations, guidelines, and downright stupid how-to's.  Example:  Don't leave the van unattended on the railroad tracks.  That's one I'm going to have to write down and refer to frequently.

We had a driving test at the end of the day.  It was like being back in drivers ed.  Three of us trainees got in a van with the teacher (a kid who's about Sam's age.)  I passed with flying colors, but one of the men seemed to have some eye problem, and it was scary riding around with him.  At one point, he went the wrong way down a one-way exit of a park.  The other guy who drove was so nervous his hands were shaking on the wheel.  I'm glad to be back on solid ground alive.

BTW, I should mention that this morning that the instructor today kind of started the class off by telling us that about 4 weeks ago, all the front office staff walked off and quit their jobs without warning.  So all of the people working at the Minot branch of PTI are brand new.  I asked (I was the only one of the three who asked any questions today) why they left their jobs, and he said he didn't have a definitive answer.  I guess they just all found other jobs all at the same time.

So tomorrow I'll go back in and try to finish off my shadowing drivers.  I have to go on 2 over-the-road (OTR) trips and 1 trip in the rail yard.  Then I can go on my own and the regular pay scale kicks in.

However, Halliburton has been keeping in close touch with me and wants to talk to me tomorrow or Friday...  Things are sounding good with that.  One more phone interview with a more technical person, then they would like to bring me in for a face-to-face.  It can't happen soon enough!

Thanks again to all who are following my adventures and lending love and support.  It is felt and appreciated.