My friend in Uganda got a rude awakening. His wife was ailing and in desperate need of medical attention, so he borrowed a car from a friend to drive her to the hospital. He was stopped by police, and he offered an expired driving license when asked. They locked him up, then and there. “90 days judge! Thanks a lot!” as the Jerry Reed song goes. But no judge involved in this deal. Just the police. Ninety days for driving with an expired license. In the end money talked. Took a good bit of $$$ to get him out.

Tony is cured of driving without his license, and he renewed it.

I don’t think we give 90 days for grand theft here. Maybe for using the wrong pronoun.

You can help me provide Christmas for orphaned kids. We buy sleeping mats and shoes and clothes and mosquito nets and food. Doesn’t take much to change a life. 100% of your donation goes to them. If you’re willing, email me – arp02300@gmail.com

On another note, it’s election season again. Reminds me of the plague and makes me want to wear a mask again. Better yet noise-cancelling earbuds, but since I’m from a middle-class family…

I rarely watch television anymore. I recommend it for what ails you.

Until next time. God speed and peace.

Everyone has been to the doctor, right? Make an appointment and go. Today, if you don’t have an appointment, or know a doctor, you can still go. Just pop into an urgent care facility and they will hook you up—sometimes literally, to a machine. In an emergency, drive to a hospital, leave your car running under the portico, and stagger inside. They’ll ask you what’s wrong. What’s ailing you? Do you hurt? Feel like you’re going to die? We got you baby.

My friend in Uganda took his ailing wife and one of their orphaned boys for medical help, urgent help… to 8 hospitals. Four hours of taxi rides looking for someone to treat them. 

Then, once inside, they had consultation for $100 behind door #1. Labs for $200 behind door #2. Beds for $200 behind door #3. Doctors for $300 behind door #4. Well, I’ll take door #3, Bob. Sorry, but you don’t have a choice. Run out of money before door #4 and you get shown the door, the one that leads to the street where the rest of the ailing who don’t have money suffer and die.

My friend’s wife roomed with a pregnant woman who the hospital staff told needed an emergency C-section. They gave her a price she could not pay. They walked out and left her crying where she lay. My buddy found out and gave the last of the funds he had for his own wife to the docs. $100 for a C-section. A boy was born. He was 2 months premature. Thank you Lord, mom and baby are doing fine.

Sounds crazy, but check into a hospital in Kampala, Uganda for treatment and run out of money, still owing for services, and they won’t let you out. They won’t let your kid out until you pay. Like debtor’s prison. Can’t get out until you pay but can’t pay until you get out to make money. Just nuts.

Mammon-to-manna.com. Join us. It’s worth it.

I just visited 17 countries in two weeks and didn’t go anywhere. Wait, I did go somewhere. I went to work. The first morning on the rig I went to Poland. Two of the dynamic position operators on the bridge are from Poland. I’ve been to Poland in person, so we had a good conversation in English about my travels there. Good thing they spoke English too. 

When I went to the rig floor, to the main side of the derrick, I visited Latvia. Never been there, but the driller, Vasyli, gave me a good tour, in English, thank you very much. Afterward, I turned around and visited Scotland on the axillary side of the derrick. I’ve been there too, so that visit didn’t take long. Then, as I debated whether or not to go back to Latvia, the door opened and Lithuania, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine walked in. Those visits were quicker since the Texan I speak is not readily understood.

Siri even asks me, “What,” sometimes.

On the way back to my office I stopped in Denmark to visit with the captain of the ship, then he and I went to Canada to see the technical section leader before I had to go Egypt to see the derrickman in the mud lab.

When I get hungry, I go to the Philippines, not Hungry. All the catering staff is from there. They’re good cooks too.

This place is nuts. Seventeen countries represented—added to those previously mention is Brazil, Croatia, Holland, Indonesia, Romania, Azerbaijan and Louisiana. 

And I’m working with Doobie again. Nope, he doesn’t do dope, but he acts like he’s on crack.

Well, time and Covid has passed since I mused. We stopped testing on the rig and have not had a case of Covid since. Imagine that. All of it had to do with cents and none of it made sense from the beginning, but whatever.

The price of everything is skyrocketing, present tense. Oil, for one, has doubled or more than doubled and that affects the price of everything. Plastics, fertilizers, IPhones, even toilet paper, and I hope this comment doesn’t start another run on non-skid.

It’s amazing to me that the president released several million barrels of crude again from the strategic oil reserves to lower the price of gasoline at the pump, what, 2 cents? What is it about the meaning of strategic that was missed? And too, that oil doesn’t just appear in those reserves. It was purchased on the open market from those terrible big-oil companies, or from that terrible Russian, or those discriminating Arab fellows who no longer talk to old men.

Let me see. When oil is released from our reserves, who is it released to, to make gasoline? Is it sold back to big-oil or does Sam pay to have it refined then give it away? Does big oil get to make a profit on the oil they received?

I am curious what our world leaders are smoking these days. Sure not cigars. I suspect it’s placed in a pipe and will get you hung by the neck in most countries and beheaded in a few others.

Nero fiddled, Zelenskyy pleads, Putin smirks and we’re concerned about teaching little boys and girls they might be girls and boys or both at the same time…and not know it. Looks can be deceiving.

Everyone has a “he/she-died story.” I have several, more and more every month as this plague persists. Hate that kind of story. None of them make a lick of sense.

I know of a drilling contractor who decided not to test “vaccinated” rig employees. But the great “unvaxed” were required to subject their nostrils to swabbing the day they went out, day three and day five. Wasn’t long and half the rig (dozens) were infected with covid, and half of the infected were vaccinated. So, who spread it? I wonder. No I don’t. They’re back to testing everyone now.

The mandates are in effect. Get the shot/s or lose your livelihood. I’ll call them Bob and Billy-bob. Bob had covid in May. Got the shots in August to keep his job. He got covid again the first week of October and died soon after. Billy-bob was deepwater with me and was worried because his company wanted him vaxed and he was past the due date. We finally flew him in, and he complied. Then, he went to the ER with heart problems, at age 35. Myocarditis. Danged if you do and danged if you don’t. So can Billy-bob sue the company he works for? Bob can’t.

I caught it six weeks ago. Had not been on the rig long, so probably contracted it from someone on the commercial flight to Houston—the flight where everyone is masked up and social distanced until they cram themselves into the plane and eat and drink with the mask-Nazi patrolling the aisles. I thought I had a head cold. I’d tested negative 12 hours before so no way I had covid. Colds are not uncommon to me, so… Nope. Tested positive 2 days after thinking I had a cold. I was around 160 men. Inside the elevator, the drill shack, the offices, the galley, name it, for 2 days. No masks. I was the only one who got it. So, I got it from the masked and didn’t give it to the unmasked. Makes sense.

I credit the cow wormer, as the media calls it. And it is. Works on horses and pigs and dogs and humans. All critters. Are we not animals? Compared to most, my case was mild. Still packed a punch, but I’m back to abnormal and, yet again, feeling good as used.I hoped this would be my last musing about this plague, but now we have Omicron, the super variant. Won’t be long and they’ll have to name the variants like they do hurricanes. Or Rocky sequels.  

I think I’m going to treat myself to some dog food to celebrate my recovery. A medium-rare ribeye.

Flatten that curve. Alone together. Sounds like advertising for female undergarments.

Yes, Covid is still a thing. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

The rigs we work test everyone who comes out. Then, several days later, test them again. I know of a couple of rigs where numerous people tested positive 3 to 5 days after testing negative. They were quarantined and flown off the rig immediately. These people had no symptoms, so … if they didn’t test them …? And they are testing the vaccinated … and flying those who are vaccinated, who test positive, off …  If everyone on the rig were vaccinated, would the tests end, and if not, would they still fly off those who test positive but are asymptomatic?

Unlike a thermos, how would they know?

The internet has no end either.

Years ago, I had been hunting in southwestern Colorado and was headed home. I drove a 4×4 pickup and pulled a 4-horse trailer loaded with gear and two critters. Lizard Head pass is 10,246’ at its crest. On this day the road was snow-packed and icy, the temperature hovering in the teens. Right at the apex I encountered a traffic jam consisting of five vehicles stacked up behind a pickup and 2-horse trailer jackknifed and blocking the roadway. I walked up to help where I could and eyed the scene—older man, two-wheel drive pickup, New Jersey plates, no chains. Next thing I know I’m installing my chains on the guy’s back tires. In the process I noticed the pickup shake, so I back away a second and took notice of the trailer again. Not two-horse, bigger, and fully enclosed. I enquired about its occupant. A camel. A Dromedary camel he’d purchased from the zoo in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was delivering to a man in Montrose, Colorado.

I asked about the man’s misdirection and was informed rather directly that he was not lost.

I’m with Jimmie Buffet. No vaccine for this.

A couple of months ago, a good friend succumbed to Covid related pneumonia. He was tested before symptoms arrived, so he knew something was coming. Then he woke with chills and a fever late one night, but he went back to sleep and felt fine the next morning. Within a day or two he developed a cough. He’s healed now. Home. At peace. Will never suffer again. I miss him. Since his passing many I know have suffered from and survived the scourge, and several more are fighting for their lives right now. No doubt more to come. Me included.

Yes, the virus is real, but Lord help us. The world’s leaders, save a few, are in cahoots it seems, steering down the road to only the Lord knows what.

I worked for a rancher during my younger years. One morning he asked me to ride with him to check cows. Wasn’t long and I figured out “Why me?” Lots of gates to open on this spread. Lots of gates. Doesn’t take much for brains to open and close gates. I was an automatic opener. Anyway, he drove into one pasture and watched a herd of critters for a minute. He mentioned one cow in particular and pointed her out. Head high, looking our direction, snorting, bug-eyed and ready to bolt into parts unknown. Wasn’t just a moment and the rest of the herd had caught her fever. Took some doing to get her corralled, but he shipped the old gal off to market and cured the herd.

That’s an apt cure for the crazy circling the globe right now. Sanity is not contagious but crazy is.

I mentioned what the Lord knows. Shut off the news and open the Bible. You’ll know too. Pray. Be at peace in the middle of the battle.

I awoke one morning, excruciating pain inside the lower right quadrant of my torso. It wasn’t a familiar feeling because I’d never had someone gouge my insides with an icepick, so you can imagine my concern. Kidney stone, they said at the hospital. See it all the time. I thought, Well, not from me you don’t. They gave me a shot of “Duck Dynasty” medicine after which I was happy, happy, happy, and sent me home. All turned out well, and I was good as used the following day.

During the course of all of this, after the stone passed out of my kidney releasing the fluid and the pressure and thus relieving the pain, I went to the pharmacy. Oh, I failed to mention, I lived in Saudi Arabia, so, it so happened, the place was full of Saudi women and an untold number of little kids. Saudi women of course wear, what appears to be at first glance, a large, black, plastic trash bag, covered head to toe. Anyway, I sat a respectable distance away, waiting for my name to be called, observing the goings on. Typical of Arab child-raising, the little girls sat, minding their Ps and Qs and the little boys ran amok. Boys and men pretty much do what they please and women not so much. Anyway, (again,) one kid ran up behind a woman, grabbed her black covering and jerked it up to inspect her shoes. Nope. Not mom. He sidled to the next one, lifted, inspected, and moved on to the next, until finally, the ruby slippers he’d been seeking.

Not one woman reacted to the kid’s query.

Okay, all of the above to get to masks. Took me years of living in the Middle East to grow accustomed to talking to people who covered their heads and faces. Men not women. Men. I talked to men. Can’t see their lips move or their expressions, and I was unable to gauge any emotions from a man’s eyes without the other indicators. I don’t remember when, but one day that changed when I recognized the evil intent of a man’s soul in one 10-second-long stare. (Another story.)

Last week I checked into a hotel at Raceland, Louisiana. Yes, I had on a mask, a scarf I had pulled up over my mouth and nose, and a cap. I went to my car for something and walked back toward the entrance. Another man was digging out bags from the back of a SUV. As I approached, the man turned. His face was covered in camo, topped with a matching cap. I said, “Hey Ricky.” He said, “Hey Dave.”

Had not seen Ricky in 5 years.

Recently went to the doc’s carrying my 6^th kidney stone. He asked what he could do for me. I told him I had a kidney I wanted to donate to someone I don’t like.

I was supposed to go to test prep this past week. They call it well control school, but it’s not a school anymore. I’ve mentioned this before and it’s still a sore spot with me. Don’t problem solve. Learn the answer to the test questions. Drives me nuts, or depending on who you ask, nuttier.

The industry regulators require us to attend 40 hours of instruction every two years. After 40 years on the rigs and attending school, real school, every year for the first 20 years, I’d rather have a root canal. I’ve selected a tooth I don’t like just in case that’s’ an option in the future.

The school said I could not attend because I was tested for COVID. I took two tests, and both were negative, but they would not allow me in the building unless I quarantined 14 days first. I tested again 3 days later and that one was negative.

Brilliant. What does that tell you about the tests? FYI – COVID tests are inaccurate 60% of the time.

We had a guy on the rig who tested negative before he arrived. He was tested on the rig and tested positive, which forced us to fly him off via MEDEVAC. Not cheap by the way. He was tested again that day and the result was negative. Guess what he’s doing? Yep. Quarantined 14 days to see if he gets sick. If he does show symptoms, he has to test negative twice with 60% inaccurate tests before he can return to work.

Just brilliant.

I’m on the rig now. We’re sailing west, southwest, at the ocean-eating pace of 7mph, trying to get on the west side of two approaching hurricanes. The west side is the weakest side of a hurricane, but not to be confused with docile or calm. Still formidable.

Everyone is masked up inside the living quarters unless seated at a table in the galley eating. The rig has a central air-conditioning system. Everyone here tested negative.

Again, brilliant.

Is the mask deal an IQ test? I can’t say much because I’m on a slow boat playing chicken with two hurricanes.

Don’t confuse the rioters who wear their masks with upstanding citizens trying to do their part during the pandemic. They’re running the asylum.

I’ve seen stuff on the rigs over the years—dropped blocks, blowouts, smashed fingers, split skulls, and broken arms. Stuff. Lots of stuff. Never seen a lazy man get hurt, unless it was his feelings, or seen him for very long either. Lazy ones don’t last. It’s the good hands who are injured most often. Sometimes a man gets too close to his job and gets bit.

Seen stuff in the oceans too—whales, thousands of dauphins or porpoises traveling with purpose, sea snakes by the too-many-to-number or even guess at, whale sharks, one alligator and one turtle.

Bet you can’t say “sea snake” four times quickly without saying “snee snake.”

A whale shark is big as a whale, but it’s a fish that has gills and filters its food from the water.

I’ve seen many gators, but only one offshore. They’re freshwater creatures, and this particular beast was 200 hundred miles offshore and headed farther out to sea. Lost for sure.

It may be a surprise for you to hear that we employ whale watchers. That’s a profession, whale watching. Anytime seismic work is done with air guns, whale watchers are brought out to the rig to … watch for whales.

Now we have to watch for turtles, 24/7/365. Any sea turtles sighted in the moon pool, the opening in the middle of the ship where we do drilling stuff, must be reported. Until a month ago, I’d never seen a sea turtle. My wife asked me when she heard about the new requirement whether I’d seen one. Nope. Never have. Never say never. We named the little rascal Dale Earnhardt. He’s about a big as a large dinner plate and swims around and around to the left. I think his flippers are shorter on the left side.

The critter was reported to the proper authorities of course. They wanted to know if Dale appeared to be distressed. Now I ask ya … Distressed? They live in the ocean with sharks and whales and barracudas, and Dale comes and goes as he pleases.

I think I’d recognize a dead turtle, but a distressed turtle might slip by me.

I was on the bridge talking to the marine crew about Dale. What are the odds? New regs out and one shows up. As if he was planted, a secret agent sent to test our work ethics. During the conversation I mentioned that someone would have to attend turtle resuscitation class. (True story.) The regulators want someone on the rig who is trained to resuscitate turtles. Well that really got the comments flowing. Have to be lipless or carry lip guards, and turtles pull their heads inside so … and on and on. Then, one of the guys, who’d been conspicuously quiet, interrupted and said, “I’m qualified. I went to turtle resuscitation class.”

That’s some stuff there.