What Do You Do For A Living?

[Justincase]

Really cool. My dad was an aerospace engineer and worked for Boeing and LTV/Vought his entire career. He helped design the nose cone and leading edge of wings of the space shuttle, as well as parts of the Stealth Bomber among other missiles and stuff.

I remember growing up most of it was military application and top secret and he couldn’t tell us what he was working on at the time.

Half the time we didn't know what we were working on....we would just get a part print or sometimes just a digital model of a part.

 

[Karl Houseknecht]

I work as a senior technical architect for an international company’s Salesforce.com practice. Three letters to their name and their favorite color is blue. You’ve heard of them. I’ve been in that ecosystem for almost 20 years now.

 

[tekbow]

Oil and Gas.

Still do consultancy, but that sector is shrinking and won't Be coming back, so I'm transitioning into IT (software development) while I'm still young enough to get a solid career out of it.

Fortunately my wife is in the sector and has aided in my switch, plus my base, pre O&G qualifications and previous experience are a good fit.

And when that transition is complete, I'm Buying a Mesa Mark and ESP original series M-II custom.

 

[fretworn]

Oil and Gas.

Still do consultancy, but that sector is shrinking and won't Be coming back, so I'm transitioning into IT (software development) while I'm still young enough to get a solid career out of it.

Fortunately my wife is in the sector and has aided in my switch, plus my base, pre O&G qualifications and previous experience are a good fit.

And when that transition is complete, I'm Buying a Mesa Mark and ESP original series M-II custom.

Upstream or downstream?

 

[tekbow]

Upstream or downstream?

Upstream, service hand for Drilling operations. Measurement/Logging while Drilling (M/LWD engineer) if that means Anything.

I loved it TBH, worked in the USA, Europe and Middle east. The Norwegian sector was my (everyone's) favourite.

But times change, and the price war a few years ago screwed a lot of people. I may actually be fortunate it happened to me whilst I'm still reasonably young.

It also got me some lovely toys, guitar and otherwise, a nice house and actually, had it not been for the downturn I may not have met and married my wonderful wife.

 

[fretworn]

I’ve worker with H&P in Tulsa, some Canadian frackers in Calgary, a couple of pipelines and equipment/services companies like Slumberger in Houston.

Oil and gas industry simply became a specialty overtime.

I also don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. There’s just no way.

 

[tekbow]

I’ve worker with H&P in Tulsa, some Canadian frackers in Calgary, a couple of pipelines and equipment/services companies like Slumberger in Houston.

Oil and gas industry simply became a specialty overtime.

I also don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. There’s just no way.

I've worked for Baker, Halliburton and Weatherford.

It's not going away, there's simply too much tech that relies on O&G products that are not substitutible/replaceable.

But as a major energy source at a consumer level in the big economies? Not so much. That is declining Rapidly, especially in Europe, and the Sector is shrinking to reflect that. The boom bust cycle has shortened from around a couple decades to half that, and there's too many laid off people trying to get back in to a much smaller percentage of the jobs there used to be.

With IT, I can be back to, and exceeding what I use to earn in reasonably short order, without having to leave home for long periods, or at all.

I have nothing but fond memories of adventures and nostalgia etc, But I def like my life better now.

 

[fretworn]

Won’t delve into politics too much, but I do believe Europe is going to learn a hard lesson this winter.

 

[tekbow]

Won’t delve into politics too much, but I do believe Europe is going to learn a hard lesson this winter.

Possibly, but the ultimate outcome (IMO) will be an acceleration away from hydrocarbons as an energy source.

I live in Scotland and between wind, Hydroelectric, and conventional energy generation, we're pretty energy rich and export south.

I'm not including the obvious North sea Oil in the above because it's not actual energy generated in country, and that ship has sailed long Since. There'll be no doing a Norwegian style Oil Fund. That and it doesn't Count because we export most of it.

We've personally got Solar panels, are thinking about a ground source heat pump, and are Getting a wood burning stove in as a backup. New houses are being built with full insulation In mind and Air source heat pump systems which work fine with said proper insulation.

 

[tekbow]

Won’t delve into politics too much, but I do believe Europe is going to learn a hard lesson this winter.

BTW if you feel like watching a cracking, if wildly improbable Eco-Thriller, I recommend a Norwegian film called the Burning Sea.

That film was basically an accurate representation of the worst nightmares (literal waking up in cold sweat stuff) I had whilst working offshore. Its like somebody was actually plugged in to my brain and taking notes

 

[the swede]

We've personally got Solar panels, are thinking about a ground source heat pump, and are Getting a wood burning stove in as a backup. New houses are being built with full insulation In mind and Air source heat pump systems which work fine with said proper insulation.

Bore hole or ground based heat pumps is still more effective on a give/take scale, but the latest air to water pumps are getting there.
I guess for where you are, this doesn’t matter much because of the general temperature.

But for us higher up there is still the -20C and below efficiency that matters. My heat pump (500 meter ground line) has worked great for 6 years now. It has this “hotgas” exchanger that produces warm water for free as long as there is a need for heating which is based on the outside temperature. Those periods it doesn’t need to run on its warm water producing mode.

I also have a wood stove placed in a open furnace that warms up plenty, so I set the water radiators vents to turn off at 20C.

Oh how much I want solar panels, but as for now i only see it feasible if I had that money in the pocket and didn’t have to take a loan on the house.

It will be rough economically, my electric bill has already gone up plenty. It’s time to turn the heat pump down 2 degrees and put on socks

 

[HotRats]

Last time I've check, current gas price for new contracts here in Italy is 5.4 times 2021.

That's scaring.

 

[tekbow]

Bore hole or ground based heat pumps is still more effective on a give/take scale, but the latest air to water pumps are getting there.
I guess for where you are, this doesn’t matter much because of the general temperature.

But for us higher up there is still the -20C and below efficiency that matters. My heat pump (500 meter ground line) has worked great for 6 years now. It has this “hotgas” exchanger that produces warm water for free as long as there is a need for heating which is based on the outside temperature. Those periods it doesn’t need to run on its warm water producing mode.

I also have a wood stove placed in a open furnace that warms up plenty, so I set the water radiators vents to turn off at 20C.

Oh how much I want solar panels, but as for now i only see it feasible if I had that money in the pocket and didn’t have to take a loan on the house.

It will be rough economically, my electric bill has already gone up plenty. It’s time to turn the heat pump down 2 degrees and put on socks

The main reason we initially went solar over a heat pump is that we have no central heating system, all the radiators are standalone electric units, upgraded to high efficiency German ceramic tile units shortly before the previous owner sold, but still electric.

To actually get a heat pump, we'd also have to install a full interconnected heating system, and it would likely have to be underfloor for best results.

So the final cost wouldn't be far off what we're paying for solar, if not more.

We reckon Solar combined with a wood burner in the main Lounge, possibly with a warm air vent network running into the rooms would make a fair dent in energy costs.

Good to know ground source can be done via borehole though, most firms I've looked at do the radiator array style thing a meter or so down over a large area. Now we've got the space for it, but I don't fancy having to dig up the whole front or back yard of the house to install it.

We don't get Scandavian levels of cold for sure. A really cold winter here would be -6 centigrade, excepting that really bad snap we had a couple years back, but I still feel like Ground source would be more reliable/consistent over air source.

We've got a 7kW system in with what are called N-type panels, plus a 7kW battery and emergency power switch to isolate us from the grid in the event of a power cut. That should effectively see us off grid in Summer, and reduce grid usage by 30% at the height of winter, and that's before you add in the stove.

I should imagine ground source plus the stove knock a good chunk out of your energy Bills though?

 

[la szum]

I worked in aerospace for 20 years...mostly military stuff. Alot of that time was prototype machine subcontract work for Boeing phantom works. Lots of different DARPA projects.



Also machined alot of parts for F-18, F-15, C-17, F-22, F-35, Slam-er cruise missile, j-ucas, and apache longbow. Spent 8 years building Horizontal Stabilators (wings in the back) for F-18 hornets and super hornets.

Now Im a stay at home dad. My wife is an accountant....I love my wife

Wow! So you were bussed into AREA 51 on the regular.... and just broke the NDA you signed.

Nice knowing you??!!!

 

[la szum]

Half the time we didn't know what we were working on....we would just get a part print or sometimes just a digital model of a part.

SCI Much? Sensitive Compartmented Information?? :lol

 

[la szum]

Won’t delve into politics too much, but I do believe Europe is going to learn a hard lesson this winter.

There is an old saying, " A little pain now, or a lot of pain later."

Seems to apply to a lot in life, from health and exercise, to saving money and investing, to.... well..... maybe other things.

I wish Europe (and Europeans!) nothing but the best. Besides, they have been doing this a lot longer
than those of us in the US.

 

[Justincase]

Wow! So you were bussed into AREA 51 on the regular.... and just broke the NDA you signed.

Nice knowing you??!!!

Tried to carpool with Bob Lazar...he was just a little too out there for me though. Lol

Just kidding...worked strictly in STL.

 

[Gearzilla]

Possibly, but the ultimate outcome (IMO) will be an acceleration away from hydrocarbons as an energy source.

In my opinion we won’t see a functional energy revolution until Tokamaks are up and running at scale.

 

[Jarick]

I've been in finance for the last 15+ years specializing in financial systems, reporting, and data analysis. Been with the same company for almost my entire career. I'm 39 so I have a long ways to go.

The last five years or so I've been working on a huge software project, with a bunch of different roles. I've got to try my hand and several different things, and currently specializing on report development. Got an opportunity to take on a bigger role as a product owner as I've been moonlighting in that for that the last couple years, but not sure yet if I want to go that route. Would be less hands on work and more meetings for design and QA and what not.

 

[Jarick]

In my opinion we won’t see a functional energy revolution until Tokamaks are up and running at scale.

That sounds interesting. I'm not convinced of the long term ROI of things like wind, solar, etc. I've been thinking the solution has to be an evolution of nuclear, something highly efficient.