Sitting and setting, pigging lines/out, traffic stops

I have spent eight hours each day for the past two workweeks sitting. I did not realize just how much I enjoyed the activity and the freedom I had during the past year as I struggled to find a job. I am not complaining. I just miss the hours of movement I have lost in taking this job. But I have to realize that God is setting up the perfect circumstances in my life to bring about the blessing He has for me and Mama. I just have to be patient, obedient and willing to follow along as He leads. There are many times in life that we end up just having to wait and continue to do what the Lord has us currently doing. I believe it is called, faithfulness. 

At work we got to talking about pigging lines today. Pigging is a process where a “pig” is sent down a line in order to push out contaminants and debris in order to clean the line for service. A pig is a plug of any material that fills the line and compresses without letting the air pressure behind it to leak past as it moves through from its starting point to the open end of the line. Some pigs pretty crude and others are very sophisticated. When I was in Argentina we pigged a line and aimed it to blow all the contents out to sea - since the entire facility was built on a barge. When we pressured up the line and opened the valve to blow the pig through it  we blew several dozen pigeons out into the open water, whereupon the sharks had a very messy feast. The water looked like boiling blood. 

My supervisor and I knew about pigging but the rest of the crew did not. She shared her stories of line blows using pigs and several injuries that resulted from poorly placed personnel. While I was working in the Decatur office for ConocoPhillips a man in New Mexico on one of our worksites was killed because he was looking down the line as the pig shot out at him. It was a sophisticated, reusable one. It was a sad incident to report. Fortunately, that is not normal. My colleagues agreed that the only pigging they were aware of was pigging out.

Mama went to the feed store in Muenster after she got off work this afternoon. On a round about way back she stopped at Grandma and Grandpa’s to visit with them and with Norman and Seth. That is where she was when I called just after getting home at about 5:30. Soon enough she was on her way home but got stopped in Bowie on her way home and got pulled over by a Bowie Police Office. It appears she had failed to come to a full and complete stop at one of the many stop signs as she wove her way through town on the back streets. She did not get a ticket, just a warning. Breaking down, sobbing uncontrollably probable helped out. Just kidding! She said the officer was polite, as was she, and he felt like a warning was sufficient. We will see.

The only traffic ticket I can remember getting is for the same thing - failure to make a full and complete stop. When I went to the Justice of the Peace to talk to her about it - I thought it was unfair since I was the third car in line stopped at the sign - she threw the ticket out. Turns out that the same office had written twenty five tickets for the same offense at the same stop sign on the same day.

I did not want to be there when the officer got a dressing down.