The Pipeline

[Oxbow]

Although I will admit there are some pretty decent one's here.

Meaning good welders?

 

[HEO Girl]

Shhh, Don't Tell The Operator Steward

It is finally starting to cool off a little this week! Man oh man was it freaking hot here! Maine winters aren't looking so bad after all.


Shh, don't tell the operator steward. I was pretty excited to get some seat time, it was like 10 minutes, but hey, I take what I can get! Nothing super exciting just following the guys around so they could throw rocks in my bucket. Which reminds me, we are now environmental and clean up. Which means I get to pick MORE ROCK, and sticks, lots and lots of sticks. We raked 5 apartment buildings back yards by hand because we didn't have the harley rake that goes on the back of the tractor yet, it took a whole day and a half.

A few days before this I actually got some time on the mini excavator! I wasn't able to dig the ditch for the silt fence but I was able to back fill it due to our operator leaving for the day.


Moose is baaaaaaaaack. Trying to teach him to pick up sticks off the ROW and take them off to the side and drop them. He's gotta start earning his keep after all.


The crew loves Moose... well most of them anyways. I always go by the rule "You don't like my dog, I don't like you." .

 

[HEO Girl]

The Clean Up


Mulching with the Marooka. I've never seen one of these before, last year we used the 1-ton with the mulcher on the back to go threw and spread hay. Guess they figured the ruts that the truck made weren't good on finished grade and got something that wouldn't leave any. Sure does help us out, now we don't have to go back and rake out the ruts.


We were in the yard for a few days filling rock bags and I saw this thing come in. I have no idea what it is really, but it looked big and wicked cool with a double truck crane lift.


The 2 safety guys we have out here will occasionally ride around and drop us off watermelon, pineapple, mangos, and papayas. A nice little treat for everyone.

Hope everyone has a good 4th of July. It's says it's suppose to rain here in TN. Hope it doesn't.

 

[CM1995]

It is finally starting to cool off a little this week! Man oh man was it freaking hot here! Maine winters aren't looking so bad after all.

That was just a little "warm up", it hasn't gotten hot yet..:cool2 August is around the corner, with temps that match the humidity % is coming and it's not nice to say the least.

I have enjoyed the spring like weather though.

What kind of hay blower do they have on the Marooka?

 

[willie59]

Agreed, we need a close up shot of the Morooka.

 

[HEO Girl]

Here We Go Again...

Agreed, we need a close up shot of the Morooka.

I will definitely get some more pictures for you. I'm not sure what kind of blower is on the back. I just know we've been having some trouble with it shutting down on us but I guess the mechanics took care of that. Right now all clean up has halted and we are back on environmental due to another frack out.

Here is what the news has to say about it
http://www.newschannel5.com/story/22763010/drilling-material-spills-into-sevenmile-creek

There was basically no 4th of July for us as the enviro crew had to work to get it contained and somewhat cleaned up. The only thing that stopped us was the extremely high water level. You just couldn't get anyone safely down in that creek to clean it out.

We attempted again today in a downpour. It started off as a drizzle and I was down there in the creek trying to scrape up the drill mud so my partner could shovel it into a bucket to have it carried out. Meanwhile a sucker truck was over in one of the deep holes sucking out the mud. We couldn't quite get the water all damned off and the water was still moving fairly quick so we were just working on what wasn't going to get washed down on the edges. The water wasn't over my boots... yet. It started to rain extremely hard. I was in the deeper part of the water now about to my knees. Before I knew it it was up to my waist, rising by the minute, and moving extremely fast, had logs, sticks, branches, and other random objects floating by me before we finally got word that they were calling it a day and to get the heck out of that creek. I took one step to my left in an attempt to get up on the steep banking but lost my footing and if it wasn't for someone grabbing me I definitely would have went for one hell of a ride, can't say as I would have drowned, but definitely would have gone down stream.

I wish I would have taken some pictures of what it was when I started and what it was when we actually got out. It turned from creek into a raging river in such a short amount of time.

 

[Dualie]

that big thing with the two crane pic is a pig launcher i believe. Its a launching portal for the the pipeline inspection robot/cleaning system.

 

[HEO Girl]

So the Marooka has been gone for a month. Right after I posted that we started to have issues with it shutting off randomly, apparently it's real problem was undetermined. But the lady that ran it was laid off anyways. So we went back to using a tow behind on one of the trucks. No big deal but I still never figured out what kind of blower was on the back of it.


If it's someones birthday from our crew we usually try to do something special for lunch. This time it was our teamsters birthday (orange shirt) and we got hot wings and cake!


Some of the awesome hills we get to curlex (spelling?). Someone at the top rolls it to the person in the middle who straightens it out and rolls it to the person at the bottom. Then we got a guy or 2 that goes behind and pins them. Lucky for us we had some 8 foot rolls left to do this hill. Sucks doing such a big area with 4 foot rolls but that's all they are getting us at the warehouse now.

This is our new operator :tong

You know by now I have to have a picture of Moose in all my posts! So here's another one! He was hanging out running around the yard while we filled stemming bags.


I saved the best picture for last.

I bought a new truck! 2000 F350 Short Bed with a 7.3 in it. Has a little over 200k miles but was well taken care of. Bought it off one of the assistant spreadmans The day he signed the title over to me I brought 2 pages of questions I wanted to know about the truck. He thought I was nuts but says he's glad to hear I'll be taking good care of it. This thing is clean as a whistle and I got it for a good price!

Sold the Bravada to some guy in the yard. He hasn't come to pick it up yet but has given me half of what I asked for it. My fist vehicle... wish I could keep it just because! Haha. I'll try not to cry as he drives off in it.

 

[stock]

Well wear Katlyn............

 

[willie59]

The day he signed the title over to me I brought 2 pages of questions I wanted to know about the truck. He thought I was nuts...

LoL, he just isn't aware you went to school here at HEF. You asked all manner of questions here growing up.

 

[CM1995]

Congrats on the truck!:drinkup

That truck looks well taken care of and I would guess is mostly HWY miles. The 7.3's are great motors, I have one a '01 F250, it's had a few sensors replaced, alternator and currently needs a fuel control module. Not bad considering it's 12 years old with 150K miles.

 

[HEO Girl]

Congrats on the truck!:drinkup

That truck looks well taken care of and I would guess is mostly HWY miles. The 7.3's are great motors, I have one a '01 F250, it's had a few sensors replaced, alternator and currently needs a fuel control module. Not bad considering it's 12 years old with 150K miles.

It is, the truck was his baby. It was used to haul his camper around and when not in use was pretty much put up. It has a couple scratches that I'd like to get taken care of before they rust but other than that there isn't any rust what so ever. Even underneath looks decent for being 13 years old.

I did ask him what he's had to replace on it if anything and he said he just put brand new injectors in it a year ago. Everything with fluid in it had been flushed one year ago too; oil changed every 3,000 miles like clock work. And the tires are spectacular, brand new the beginning of this year I've never had a vehicle with brand new tires. Oh and ALL the windows work! He wasn't the only owner but the first person owned it till 20k miles so I'd say he's pretty much been it's #1 owner the whole time. And I know him and truly believe him when he tells me he's kept up the maintenance on it like no other. The reason I asked so many questions was so I could also keep up the maintenance on it like he does. Heck I'd like it to last another 200k miles :tong

 

[CM1995]

With proper maintenance and care, a 7.3 could get a million miles.

 

[qball]

You need a drag-up tank and a ground strap, you silly pipeliner!

 

[RocksnRoses]

Congratulations on the new truck HEO and thanks for the pics, there are a lot of people here, following your progress, you should be proud of yourself.

Rocks.

 

[willie59]

I'm hoping HEO and her jobsite are OK, Nashville got absolutely hammered by heavy rain and flooding today.

 

[td25c]

Looking good HEO& Keep up the fine work:thumbsup Heard the news willie59 www.weather.com/news/weather-severe/nashville-flash-flood-20130808 Thoughts & prayers go out to those in the path of the flooding .

 

[HEO Girl]

You need a drag-up tank and a ground strap, you silly pipeliner!

I got one. 69 gallon... I think. And I got to fill it up at the yard before I took it home it pays to buy something off an assistant spreadman

Congratulations on the new truck HEO and thanks for the pics, there are a lot of people here, following your progress, you should be proud of yourself.

Rocks.

Thanks Rocks!

I'm hoping HEO and her jobsite are OK, Nashville got absolutely hammered by heavy rain and flooding today.

We got a TON of rain but surprisingly my area wasn't hit like some in the news. I mean we got a ton of rain but hardly flooding in my home area or jobsite area (minus the trenches that were already dug, those were quite full). It stopped our clean up in it's tracks due to the ground being to wet to do anything with. We had 2 rain days but there always has to be an environmental crew there on standby and we were there on the first rain out which wasn't horrible, think we ended up putting 1 sock down. The other crew stayed the second rain out which was pretty bad rain wise but surprisingly not a whole lot washed. We had pretty much gotten all problem areas buttoned up, seeded, and mulched. The only thing we always end up doing after a rain is cleaning silt out of our silt sock dams at Radnor Lake. Honestly I don't know why they keep us there. Once an area washes and breaks the silt fence down there's not much we can do to put the fence back up until the rain stops and the water stops raging over that spot.

Edit: Looks like I was semi wrong. A few people staying at a trailer park ended up getting flood water in their trailers.

 

[HEO Girl]

Well the Monday morning safety meeting group sure is getting smaller and smaller. They told us today that basically there will be one more big lay off then the people that are left over will be here for the long haul so if you want to go home now speak up. I'm hoping to make it till January, who knows.

We broke the 1-ton . We were going up a steep hill and about to cross the top to get down the other side when we heard a loud THUD and we lost all mobility. Got out to check, GIANT hole in the oil pan, I mean giant. Caused by none other than, a giant rock! We were just low enough that when we hit the rock it must have gotten stuck and rolled upwards making the hole. So we turned the motor off since, well, there wasn't any oil in it. Well now we don't have any brakes to get us down the hill and no steering. So this is what they came up with. They decided that at this point they'd just use the ho in the back as to not rip the truck in half.

Sorry, no pictures of the actual hole in the pan.

A picture of the area where we were putting on rock shield. They had 2 crews working on rock shield to make it go faster. We beat the pants off of the crew that does it pretty often.


Went to my first PBR!

This was the best picture of the night. They move so fast! And the bulls are wicked jacked.

On another note, no one down here knows what an english muffin is and it's a little depressing.

 

[mitch504]

That's not true!!!

Our McDonald's have egg Mcmuffins!!!

(At least we have sense enough to know Chef-boy-ad-dee beats sphagetti-os!!!)