Mr. Cooper

I have a confession to make. Over the course of this blog, I have made our adventure out to be one made of the bare essentials. This, I hate to admit, is not entirely true, mostly due to a man I would like to introduce to you. His name is Greg Cooper.

Greg has been here during most of our stay, and I can't explain to you how great he has been. First, he is one of the best cooks I have ever come across. Every other night, he invites us over to his trailer where we are treated to a meal that rivals my own mothers. This is down-home cooking at its finest: every night consists of some kind of potatoes, some kind of vegetable, and some kind of meat. The meat portion has ranged from possum (very surprising how good possum is), Northern Colorado elk, Iowa whitetail, West Texas mule deer, etc. We aren't talking throw some taters in a pot and steak on the grill, either. These meals take hours to create, but only 15 minutes for us to do our best backhoe impression. In addition to the cooking (which I feel I have shortchanged, but there is really no way to do it justice), Greg has extended his housekeeper's grounds to our trailer. Every three days, we come home to the dishes cleaned, our clothes washed AND folded (are you freakin' kidding me?), and the whole trailer vacuumed and dusted. Like I said, not exactly roughing it.

I mentioned Greg invites us over for dinner. These dinners contain some of the most illuminating and empowering conversations that I have ever been a part of. Please, let me include you.

One in particular comes to mind. My dad and the rest of the execs had left about two nights before, and Greg came over after work and told us (I have been using the word "invited," but "commanded" is perhaps more accurate) that he was making us dinner, and to come over around 6:30. So, Griffin and I shower, lounge around, waste time, etc., and head over fashionably late. We are greeted by Gunny and Grizz (read "The Council of The Titans"), and as they bark and slobber all over us, the food hits us. The meal consists of elk steaks, the best mashed potatoes the American South has ever seen, and snap peas. Now, I have already confessed that I can't do Greg's cooking justice, so please imagine the best food ever, and place it in front of the Imaginary Joe and Griffin at the Imaginary Dinner that you are envisioning. Okay great. So, we sit down (Fox News on silent in the background...), and while we're waiting for the steaks to finish, I asked Greg to teach me how to make some cocktails. Happily, he obliged, and wasted a lot of expensive liquor in doing so...

The food was ready, and as we sat down to eat, for some reason, Griffin and I got very very inquisitive and pelted Greg with question after question. Here is what we found out.

Greg was born and raised in St. Louis. He spent much of his childhood on farms, be it grandpa's or uncle's or neighbor's. He told us stories about how he and his cousins would have contests at night where they would place a match in between fence posts and light it with a .22. Read that again. One more time. Ok, lets move on. He would also spend a lot of time ice-hole fishing on said farms. When he played high school football, during two-a-days, he would walk to the field in the morning, practice, stay at the field until the second practice, and then walk home (his family had 1 car, and his dad took it to work). Thats 8 hours and 17 miles. What makes this even more incredible was the common football coach practiced a policy known as "water discipline," which is denying players any sort of hydration until after practice.

He started studying chemical engineering at a community college in Missouri (which would later become the University of Missouri). He had a full-time job, so he took classes at night. Add a girlfriend, and you have a borderline insane college life. The summer before his junior year, Vietnam went down, and he was drafted. At this point in the conversation, things got really good. Everyone knows that your drafted by the Army, except us obviously, and Greg took this as an opportunity to explain to us the REAL military. The branches are as follows: the Navy, the Turds (Army), the Chair Force, the Queen Berets, and the Wannabes. I left out the Marines. Greg described the Marine Corps as the "mens department of the Navy." This man is a Corps FANATIC. From here, he regaled us with 'Nam stories (P.S. war stories are sooooooooo awesome), gave us the skinny on the Army/Marine relationship in WWII, 'Nam, and Iraq/Afghanistan. Then, he brought out the guns. He schooled us on ammo, shooting technique, killing technique, shooting philosophy, all that good stuff. This moved us to hunting. We expressed a desire to learn how to handle a gun properly, as well as how to kill an animal properly. I could almost see Greg salivating; he loves all sorts of instructing and teaching. He continued to teach us about wind, sighting-in, the kill-zone (boiler-room and gourd), the relationship between gun barrel and scope, and at the end of the night promised that the next morning he would call us in (to work) and spend the morning teaching us the Marine Corps way to shoot. Griffin and I left shaking with awe and excitement. Seriously, we were shaking. 

That night, I dreamt of a huge, fat old razorback, full of years and wisdom, waddling up to a feeder. Right as he bent down to refill his huge stomach with corn, his little offspring run up squealing and jumping playfully. They root and grunt and roll around, not a care in the world, basking in the indulgences of the ranch which they BOOMHEADSHOT. See ya pig.

True to his word, Greg called us in (since its his company and all, we still got paid for that day. I know, roughing it.) and brought us down to the rifle range. For the next two hours, he undid 19/21 years of sheltering and taught us how to destroy anything within 500 yds. And we can do it now. 

What makes Greg seem so larger-than-life to me is his unwavering resolve to give away what is his. He routinely hosts a group of Marines down here at Lost Draw and lets them hunt, shoot skeet, and drink lots of whiskey (THAT, my friends, should be a TV show). He takes the board all over the US, and in two weeks he is taking the executives and their families to Yellowstone, all expenses paid. Like his cooking, I cannot do his generosity justice by writing about it. I simply cannot. 

Greg left to prepare for Yellowstone yesterday, and before he drove off, he stopped by our trailer to shake our hands and thank us for all the hard work we had been doing for the company. 

He thanked us.

Overtime.

You ever hear that Bachman Turner Overdrive song, "Taking Care of Business, Working Overtime?" Well, Griffy and I have been working quite a respectable amount of overtime, and that was the most clever way to let you know that.

What have we been working on? Well, I'll tell you. First, let me introduce you to Donovan. Donovan is the son of one of the administrators and he has been working alongside us for the past week. He is a sophomore at South Plains College, majoring in music education. We three have been transporting and laying 8" PVC pipe down on the brine field to be used for the new mainline that should be finished sometime this weekend.

There are a few important statements in that last paragraph. First, 8" PVC pipe is friiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggin' huge. And heavy. These suckers are 20 ft. long and weigh about 60 lbs. each, and we've a country mile of them to haul and place. An aside: Yes, I did write one mile, as in 5,280 ft. To put it all together, thats 264 20 foot long, 8" in diameter PVC pipes that have to be laid in the...

Brine field. Now, I have described the brine field previously as "5 acres of desert," "a huge dried-up sponge," "a bunch of nothing," etc. Now, recall all of those fantastic descriptions and add 100+ heat and no wind. Then, add a crap ton of minerals (mainly salt), which dries out your lips and nose and skin and eyes and hair and...you get it. Its great.

I mentioned that we have to haul the pipe. 4-5 times a day, the three of us grab a busted ol' F-250 and trailer, forklift some pipes onto said trailer, and drive down a winding dirt road to the ditch that the pipes will eventually reside in. This drive is about 2 miles long, and you have to go super slow because of the rocks and potholes and such. We then cut the ropes binding the pipe together and lay them out to be glued. 

Now, I have never driven a trailer before. Neither had Donovan nor Griffin, and seeing as I was the oldest, I figured I'd show some leadership ("gimme some leadership, son!") and attempt to drive the trailer. The way down was mildly uneventful. A full-time maintenance guy named Gabriel rode shotgun to show us where to start laying the PVC, and provided a bit of technical support. We got to the spot, unloaded the pipe, and everything seemed to be going without a hitch. Then, as we got back into the truck to go pick up some more PVC, I realized that the trailer prohibited me from turning around, since the ditch for the pipe had taken up half the road. Which meant I had to back out. With a trailer. That I've never driven before. In my life. 

The next twenty minutes was spent with Gabriel watching me zig-zag the trailer back and forth, straightening out, etc. It was utterly Humiliating, with a capital H. The worst part? Gabriel just stood there. I would appeal to him for instructions, and he would say, "Just go backwards." Well, no shit. I was pretty furious, and I was also pretty sure that Gabriel hated me and thought I was an incompetent waste of space. 

Somehow, I got turned around and made it back to the plant to reload. We made the trip down, unloaded the goods, and were in the process of backing up when Gabriel comes running up and tells us that the turn-around spot is now blocked by the ditch. He points a few hundred yards down the road and says, "Just turn around there." Not even joking. So, I drive the few hundred yards, try to "just turn around," and bury that stupid truck deeper than you've ever seen. As Gabriel comes down to help, a massive smile on his lips, I'm about ready to walk home to Fayetteville. As he and Robert (our leadman) pull the truck out with a huge backhoe, all I can think about is how we could have avoid this whole situation, my humiliation included, if Gabriel had just turned the rig around for us. As we're driving away, I'm venting to Donovan and Griffy about "how huge of a dick is Gabriel," "God, he hates me so much," "why didn't he just turn this friggin' thing around" yada yada yada. I asked them if he said anything to them while I was hooking up the truck with Robert...

"He said we'll get it eventually. He also said that he can't do it for us, otherwise we won't learn how."

There are times when God speaks to you so quietly that you have no idea that He's even trying to tell you something. Other times, He grabs the Holy Pipe Wrench and smacks it so hard on your head that you can't possibly mistake the *clunck* for anything other than a lesson from your Father.

The power steering was going out on the F-250, so we tried to switch the trailer to a different truck. When a few maintenance guys saw the hitch making women out of us, they came over to help try and get it off. Turns out, in the process of getting the truck buried, I had "jack-knifed" the trailer, destroying it. If you have ever thought yourself publicly humiliated, don't amuse me. Try standing in the midst of seven men, and I mean MEN, and have them chuckle at your inability to pull a trailer at age 21. What did they say to me? 

"Well, you done gone and f***ed it up. No big deal, thats minor around here. But now you know what NOT to do!"

*clunck*

Cast and Extended Crew

Cast appears in the order that I remember them.

Doug Brock-Maintenance Foreman. A red-faced, pot-bellied man with a voice that sounds like it came from the trench that the U.S. Military threw the Decepticons into at the end of "Transformers." An incredibly nice guy, he was a high school basketball standout and played against Shaq on multiple occasions. I would NOT like to fight this guy.

Ronnie Jackson-Operations Manager. Another incredibly nice guy, he has been working out here for his entire career. Has a daughter who is married to a Marine stationed in South Carolina. Always stops and chats with us, "how are things going," "you kill any pigs yet," etc. Huge Tech fan.

Vince-Maintenance. When we were first assigned to the cooling towers, Vince brought us a tool that was meant to scrape the crap off the planks. It worked really well, but we only had one, so we tracked him down and asked for another one. His response: "Oh, that scrapin' thing? I made that..." Do I need to type more?

Anthony-Maintenance. Worked here for 4 1/2 months, and seemed to be really interested in hearing about all my partying stories from college. Sadly, I had none to share.

Alton-Maintenance. Born and raised here in Brownfield, and loves the small town life. He spent 10 years in Pasadena while his dad was offshore, and he came back right as soon as he could. 

Johnny aka "Skinny"-Read our last post. 

Larry-Maintenance. By far, the most foul-mouthed guy here. When we arrive in the morning, we are greeted by Larry's "Well, its another f****** motherf****** day." Griffin was helping him put tin on the plant roof one day, and apparently got a bucketful of life lessons, some quite illuminating. He and Vince are probably about as handy as they come.

Gilbert-Maintenance. This unbelievably nice man has been working in the plant for 27 years. One more time for effect: THIS UNBELIEVABLY NICE MAN HAS BEEN WORKING AT THE PLANT FOR TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS. Also very handy, he always takes the time to chat with us, find out about our lives, etc. 

Joe aka "Baby J"-Maintenance. Read our third post.

Robert Machuca-Welder. Scratch golfer; last Saturday he went to a funeral and then shot a 70. Dude is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

Byron-Mechanic. Works on all the cars/trucks/Polari (sing. Polaris) that the yard uses. Also pretty foul-mouthed, he is at first very, very intimidating, but once you return his tools on time consistently your in like peanut butter.

Jason-Maintenance. Spells his name "J-Sin." At the company games, Jason and I actually got to mess around on the old guitars for awhile, and he was quite good. A good-looking younger guy, he has a sweet-tooth for the finer things in life, like alcohol and women. Oh, and by the way, he's a cage fighter. 

Derek-Bagging. Son of Larry, he lives nearby in Loop. I spent one afternoon taking back a compressor to a rental company with Derek, and we had a great time skipping out on real work for a few hours.

Obviously there are more, but these are the guys that we work with most. Now you know.

By the way, Griffin and I got our first chemical burns today. Sulfuric acid. We have scars.

This job is awesome.

Johnny B. Goode

Work is getting way harder. For the past week, Griffin and I have been cleaning cooling towers. Cooling towers look like huge, upside-down trapezoid. On the top are massive industrial fans that spin counter-clockwise to create suction through the diagonal sides, which are made of wood planks to funnel the air to the bottom, which is the "cooling" part of "cooling tower." Now, these planks hadn't been cleaned in many, many years. Decades, really. The air is so salt- and mineral-laden that the planks are crusted at least an inch thick. The planks are lined up in ten columns of fourteen. That 140 planks, with anywhere from 1 to 3 inches of salt/mud/algea on them. Now, to encore my second sentence, Griffin and I have been cleaning cooling towers.

It takes about 8 hours to clean 1 side (each tower has 2). Most of the towers are elevated a bit, so the top plank is about 15 ft in the air. The bottom plank is usually about 2 ft off the ground. Right now, you're saying "Now Joe, your blog is at best a mildly-entertaining way to pass the time between the no-activity-zone on Facebook and sleep. Now, you're boring me with this useless information on the height of cooling planks. What's the deal?" Here's the deal. Half of the planks are either head-level or higher, which means Griffin and I spend a fair amount of time each day with our arms over our head, expending enormous amounts of energy from muscles neither us really have while trying to clean these stupid blocks of wood. We generally work for 15 min, stop and complain about how hard the work is, walk around and check our equipment, go fiddle with something that doesn't really need to be fiddled with, stare off into the distance, and then get back to scraping. We also add a few minutes to the beginning and end of each break (there are 3). 

During one extended break, we were chatting with a friend of ours named Johnny. Johnny aka "Skinny," has been at CNR in the bagging department for 7 years. He is truly the nicest, most engaging guy we have met here. He is loud, tall, and black as the night. If you ever hang with Griffin, ask him to do the Skinny laugh; he is quite good at it. 

Skinny has the gift of gab, so before long Griffin and I were treated to the story of his life. For your sake, I'll start 7 years ago when he started as a temp for CNR, making $7/hour, 7 days a week (he reiterated this several times, plus I had heard it 3 times before. From him.). He had just started dating a white girl (HE specified, I'm just the messenger here...), and they moved in together. He worked as a temp for 5 years, until one fate-filled New Year's Eve party at his house. The cops had received a tip that a drug deal was going down, so the PCed the place ("plainclothsed") with some recording equipment. Looooooooooooooooooooong story short, Skinny got pinned with drug trafficking and thrown in jail. He stayed in jail for 8 months, and turned down a ten-year plea bargain. This got him on trial, and the city was shooting for 99 years. Right as it is about to go to trial, they caught the actual perp (a Mexican) and Johnny was released. He sued the city, won a CRAP ton of money, and then his girlfriend (who was now his common-law wife) broke up with him and took all his stuff. Now she is suing him for "her half" of the settlement. This happened about 2 weeks ago.

I asked my dad about this whole fiasco, and he said that while Johnny was in jail, he never complained once. He did his chores told his jokes, and never made a fuss. He lost over $35,000 in the "divorce," as well as two cars and his house. I asked him how he kept smiling through everything, and he pounded his chest twice, threw up the peace sign, pointed up and said, "The Man upstairs lookin' out for ol' Skinny." He then preceded to tell me about his 80/20 rule (live on 80%, tithe 10%, and save 10%) and how God promised him 70x7. However, he had "not been  humble," so God was disappointed in him, and he was showing him how to "get back to humility." He then told about how ho loved his job, this company, and all his co-workers. He puts everything he had into his job because he knows where he came from and he appreciates the "meaningful things in [his] life."

We didn't take anymore breaks, and we finished 1 1/2 towers today.

Its ALIIIIIIVE!!!!

So Griffin and I have been here in Texas for about two weeks now, and we are pretty well settled in. We're about to start our second full week of work, and I must say, the plant has taken on a life of its own.

The plant is visible from a mile away, and I'm not being figurative. When you first see it from said mile away, it looks like a giant, black wart on a skin of desert. The lake that it pulls brine from (more in a sec) is about 5 acres. Just in case you didn't know, thats friggin' huge. The plant works by pulling brine (heavily mineral-ed water, with excessive amounts of salt) from the dry lake through strategically placed  wells. A dry lake, for your purposes, can be loosely equivocated to an old sponge after being left out in the sun after two many car washes. All of the runoff from the surrounding region ends up in this washed-up sponge (ooooohh, I couldn't resist...), picking up its goodies on the way. CNR has drilled wells in the places that produce the highest brine strength. They are of a simple design: 100 feet of galvanized steel straight into the earth, with a pump and a motor at the bottom attached to 100 ft. of PVC, which is routed into the mainline.

Now I've spent a fair amount of time among these wells. They break down a lot, and then they need fixin'. You do that by commandeering what is known as the "Well-Puller," which is a 70's-era Ford (I swear, CNR endorses them...) with a 30 ft. crane attached to it. You back up to one of the wells, put up the crane, and pull out the PVC/motor and pump. The first time I went down to work on one of these was with a guy named Vince. Painfully quiet, Vince was born and raised here in Brownfield. He's worked at the plant for 24 years/3 different companies. He has a son and daughter, both who live and work in Brownfield, and 3 grandchildren. If only you can understand how difficult it was to obtain this information; Vince likes to keep to himself. He was very understanding of what Griffin and I are doing and put up with all my questions, and even started to volunteer information on his own.

Like this nice little tidbit: Black widows really enjoy dark, wet places. Coincidently, the brine wells are both. So for the next paragraph, if I type "brine well," you read "100 ft.-of-space-that-is-black-widow-heaven." Right as he told me this, we pulled up the last length of pipe, and lo and behold, the Woman Scorned herself. I ended up working with Vince and the brine wells (...) a lot that week, and we saw two more. Grand total of black widows I've seen here: 3. Grand total of black widows I've seen in my entire life: 3. 

From the wells, the brine is pumped back to the plant, where it undergoes a complex cooling process involving enormous machinery and large amounts of concentrated anhydrous ammonia. Lets take that in two parts:

Enormous Machinery: Everything is super-sized here. You know when you're working at home, and you need a 5/8 wrench? As in 5/8"? Everything here is at least 11/8". The wrenches are HUUUUUUUGE. Very popular is the pipe wrench here, and the King of the Pipe Wrenches is the 24. As in, a 24" pipe wrench (ohmuhguuuuuh...). Gears are twice the size of my head and turn with enough force to slice me in two and not miss a rotation. The chains that turn said death-gears are like super-sized bike chains, with links bigger than my fist. Loose tin is lying everywhere, usually from being blown off by the Texas wind. The noise is like nothing you have ever heard. Every little part (little meaning massive) seems to be speaking to every other little part (again, massive...) in a complex code of squeaks, rumbles, groans, and roars. The system is so complex, and absolutely dependent on every aspect, no matter how seemingly insignificant, doing its job. The nature of the plant is to destroy itself, merely because of the raw power that it produces. CNR runs it around the clock, 24/7. All night and day, the operators and maintenance crews struggle to keep the plant from breaking itself down into a million rusted shambles. The scene from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (book, of course) where Hagrid and the trees are trying desperately to restrain Grawp seems to be the best illustration for the temperament of the plant.

Ammonia Anhydrous: This crap is nasty. Its useful as a refrigerant because in a liquid state, it boils at 0 degrees F. CNR uses it to cool down the incoming brine and make certain elements bond to others. I failed Chem 1, so I'm not going to able to BS my way through that explanation. However, I do know that coming in contact with it will burn you somethin' fierce. Oh, I forgot to mention that there are ten of thousands of gallons of this potent liquid flowing through the veins of the plant. Sometimes it leaks, and when its not under pressure, it turns to a gas, making it almost untraceable, save for the smell. I blacked out the first day, due to a leak of the sort.

As we spend more time around it, Griffin and I are learning that the plant has moods. If you push it too hard in one area, it throws a tantrum in another area, and then you spend the next 5 hours calming it down and fixing its cuts and scrapes. The operators continually amaze me, as they have learned to keep a watchful eye on the emotions of this plant, and to say or do the right thing at the right time, keeping the plant in a workable mood and keeping the production on schedule.

In addition to the widows, machinery, and liquid death, the other hazards of this monster-that-is-called-Plant includes rattlesnakes (they're EVERYWHERE), and what Mr. Cooper calls, and I quote verbatim, "NFGs: New F***ing Guys. They get you killed."

Just in case, he is referring to Griffin and I.

Hi Ho. Hi Ho.

Friday was our first full day at the plant. Oh man.

We pull up about 30 minutes before our shift starts. First mistake. The guys at the plant are notorious for showing up a bit after 8 and skipping out on small tasks. Great. We're fitting in so well already, even before we've officially started. The guys start pulling up, and as they step out of their old, beat-up Chevys and Fords, they're not even trying to hide the fact that they're totally sizing us up as we sit in our little Honda CR-V.

So the way that the maintenance crew works is after clocking in, they all head over to the welding department and wait for Doug Brock, the maintenance manager, to give them their individual assignments. Griffin and I had been trying to psych each other up the whole ride over, and as we stepped into the welding building, I honestly felt like we were ready to do this. 

Let me take you back, to a time which you may have tried to forget. Indulge me, and pull out from the "Never Remember Again" lobe the years that you spent in 5-8 grade. Specifically, the lunchtime/recess memories. Walk around in your reveries until you find that awkward new kid, who was dead silent, didn't know anybody, and kind of stayed to him/herself. Maybe his/her family just moved to your city, and the poor kid had to start making new friends in middle school. Maybe his/her family got black-balled by another school district because of a communist-sympathyzing scandal. Whatever, I'm not judging, it works in theory ok? Everyone knows that kid. 

We step into the welding department like we were fresh out of a 1999 small-town commie uproar. Right when we step through the door, every single eye is fixed on us, and every single left corner of every single mouth curls up a few centimeters (the same side at the same time, it was quite impressive...). It would be impossible for two more-different groups of people to meet. These guys were diiiiirty. Their uniforms were caked with salt, their boots were ripped and scuffed, their teeth were gone, and they were real happy to see us. My dad has told us about the type of people that he hired for the maintenance crew: these guys can do everything. They all have their CDLs, they can re-wired a motor, overhaul a pump, work over a transmission, do I need to continue? Their hands are thick and calloused, with more scabs and cuts than I thought were possible at one time. In the mean time, Griffin and I are standing there in our Buckle jeans, brand new long-sleeve t's, our unscuffed boots, and pure white, unadulterated hard hats. Oh, if you could only have seen the predicament we were in. It was truly like middle school again, and if possible, worse. So Griffin and I stood, off to the side by ourselves for a good 20 minutes, while all the guys joked, pranked, and made fun of each other in between menacing glares at us (truly, I do not embellish). A few of them were passing around an oil dipstick, quizzing each other: diesel or unleaded? For the sake of my time and your growing boredom, I will save a full character profile for the following few posts.

Doug gave us the job of loading a boxcar full of pallets of sodium sulfate with a guy named Joe Nolan. Joe was born and raised in Brownfield (the nearest town), has a wife and four kids, who are studs at basketball (his 9 year-old just got second in the Little Dribblers national tournament). He is 33, but looks not a day over 20. I guess this would be the reason for his nickname, "Baby J" (technically, his full name is Joe Baby J Big Daddy Nolan). He has two gold teeth, and a penchant for dirty rap and Crown. Joe was wonderful to work with. He told us about the town and company, he taught us how hook up a semi, and let us try to drive the fork-lift (a big no-go as I was later told). It was a long job, and while I am totally positive that we slowed him down immensely, Joe never complained nor made us feel unwelcome. When we got back, he introduced us to a bunch of the other guys, and let us follow him around the rest of the day.

We clocked out, and when we got to the car, we looked at each other and surveyed ourselves. We were COVERED in salt. You know how when you sweat, and then it evaporates, and you're left with salt rings? Imagine that on every inch of your body. My longish hair was crusted together, and our pants were as stiff as stainless steel. 

We wake up before the sun rises. We wear hardhats and steel-toed boots to work. When we got home, it took us both 20 minutes to get mildly clean. I may be premature in saying this, but I think that we are going to accomplish what we came here to do. Its going to be awesome

*Skills Learned*

Shoot Skeet/Trap

Hookup/theoretically operate a semi

Drive a forklift

Load/secure a railcar

The Council of the Titans

We arrived at the Lost Draw Ranch at around 8 Wednesday night. Now, before you read any further, I want to think of every single Southern stereotype that you can. Remember all the Clint Eastwood/Robert Redford movies, all the Laura Ingalls-Wilder books, all the Marlboro commercials, etc. Keep those in the back of your mind.

We pull up to the ranch, which is essentially a group of tricked-out double-wides with a bevy of 4WD vehicles and enough ammo to take over the Union (more on that later...). As we drive up, we see a group of people shooting over at the skeet range. I mean, this is the story of our experience here. Opportunity after opportunity to humiliate ourselves. It is obvious that Griffin and I are going to shoot skeet, which neither of us have done, and it is also obvious that we are going to look like the last kid you would want to pick for a schoolyard football game. Imagine Shia LaBeouf in the first 30 minutes of any movie he's in. 

The shooter consist of Vaughn, the company CFO, Randy, the logistics/IT manager, and Sue, the president/founder's wife. After the "you've gotten so biiiiig!"s and "are you ready to work?"s, they asked the question that we knew was coming, but were hoping to avoid:

"You guys ever shot one of these before?"

 "Of course!" (Definitely not.)

The next hour and a half looked like an episode of MXC. Misfires, leaving the safety on, almost dropping the gun from the recoil, etc. After Griffin shot his first pair of shells, he opened the gun, which was an auto-eject. The shells popped out and hit him square between the eyes. I had gone through a few stations before I mentioned that my shoulder was starting to get sore, and that my gun felt pretty heavy. Vaughn looked at me, sort of intrigued, and says "Really? Thats Sue's gun..." 

That night was sort of a welcoming dinner for Griffin, my dad, and me, as well as a few members of the board. This dinner was absolutely outrageous. Keep those southern stereotypes in your mind, as I introduce to you the players at the party.

Greg Cooper: President/founder of Cooper Natural Resources. Marine Corps sniper in Vietnam, he served 9 months before being injured by shrapnel, for which he received a Purple Heart. Possibly one of the most interesting men I've ever met, he has more stories than you can possibly imagine, and if he were to run out of those, he has an even bigger collection of racist/sexist jokes.

Jack Clinton: A member of the CNR board, Jack has been a major player in the oil and chemical industry for the better part of the last 50 years. Served many years in the Air Force; my dad told me stories in which he bartered for drilling rights in Saudi Arabia with enormous amounts of livestock. A very nice heavier set man, I can't even begin to guess how much this guy is worth.

Jeff ?: Jeff was serving in the Air Force as an aircraft maintenance specialist when Clinton began to dismantle the military. His group got cut, so he formed a business that did the exact same thing he did in the military (same guys and all), got a few government contracts, and made tens of millions of dollars. 

Gunny: A rhodesian ridgeback, his ancestors were used to hunt lions in Africa. An incredibly athletic dog, he is considered to be one of the family and is allowed to beg, eat, and sit on the couch like a human. 

Grizz Bear: A yellow lab that I have known for over ten years, this dog has been Greg's right-hand man for almost 17 years. He has been slowing down the past few years, but he retains the legendary status and respect that he commanded in his younger days.

The stereotypes of the south are in full force here. Fox News is running 24/7, on mute, almost more like a badge of honor. I mean, there is no point in watching the news, because these guys know how things are and how things should be. The liquor is way expensive, and the beer is light and cheap. The conversations range from old war/business stories to Obama's recently outed Muslim heritage (the irony was intentional). Dinner is an 8-pound possum that Greg killed on the way to the ranch (I'm not even joking). Griffin and I are just about as out of place as possible. We were sitting on the couch near the end of the evening, when Greg walked up, vodka club in hand, and began to tell us a story about the unwritten rules of the cowboys, specifically the ones prohibiting spurs being worn in town and walking into a building while "covered." Obviously, we sat there wide-eyed, not understanding a word, for a good 7 minutes before someone yelled "He wants you to take off your damn hats!" We haven't even started working yet.