What The Funk?

0:00 And we're back live with the Midland boys, I guess. Got my point. The Midland Mafia. Midland Mafia, the Midland Mafia. The real CEO and city of Midland.

0:15 Shots fired. 20 seconds into the podcast. Yeah, I love it. So we've got my homie, Colin McClellan. Colin, thank you so much for stepping in as the guest cohost, as people know, at this point

0:28 on what the funk, we have different rotating cohosts. And then we have a different guest that we like to feature every week. So Colin stepping in this week for a couple reasons. One, he and Andy,

0:40 both Midland guys, Andrew Dela Rosa is our guest. And also I think you guys work together at some point, like in the field, right? That was when you were earlier on in your career call. Yeah, I

0:51 think 2012,

0:54 we started working together I think 2012 to 2013.

0:60 and Andy who ran around the oil field. We're just some little worms back then - Put it in the wire line - Nice. When you were seven years old, the youngest man ever on a rig -

1:13 That's right. I think Andy, when did you start running wire line - It was September 2011, started over at Superior Wire Line Services before they became neighbors - Yeah -

1:28 Was that the same, Superior or Frack - Yeah, their Frack was, I don't know if I can control for saying this, but pretty terrible, at least - They're all surrounded - Superior, Superior,

1:38 Superior, Frack was hands down the worst, Frack fled out in West Texas during that time. I remember the scene, one of their, they burned one of their pumps down to the ground - Oh my God - On

1:47 location - And it's funny that you say that 'cause one of the first fracks ever went on, we had to run off location 'cause three pump trucks that caught on fire I caught on fire. I remember I

1:57 stopped running and um my manager during time, he just passed me the man, keep running. I was like, you know, crap how far I got to keep going. But, you know, I was, like, calling said I was

2:07 pretty warm. I was pretty wormy back then. So I didn't really understand the dangers of it. Yeah. The one time I saw a pump burned down to the ground. It was that time of superior. And what

2:18 essentially happened was a hydraulic hose busted and then started spraying the turbo. And so you just had this huge fire and the superior hand runs over with like a little fire extinguisher And puts

2:30 the fire out and afterwards the company man's like, hey, it's like, I really appreciate that bravery, but I better never see you do that. Oh, man. Oh my God. Yeah. So this is fun already. So,

2:45 you know, I'm a back office guy for the most part. I was telling Andy some of my background, which Colin, you already know, like New England guy randomly ended up in oil and gas tech 2007 in

2:55 and I've really enjoyed my 15 plus years in the industry. But one thing I haven't done is spent a lot of time in the field. So you guys are already throwing around, what the hell is that? Terms

3:06 and acronyms and things like that. So let's start with the basics. Andy, what is Wireline? For people that aren't familiar, like I hear this term a lot, but explain to the listeners that may not

3:13 know the field and oil and gas terminology as well, what's Wireline - All right, so Wireline is just a big old, it's a big reel of conductive cable that's set on

3:30 the back of a truck. There's a command center, which we call the shooter's cab, and you run the wire into the oil and gas wells, you can run all of different types of tools, perforating guns,

3:43 logging tools, casing caliper inspections. It's been around for a little bit over 100 years, SlumberJ started off with it, some of the first Wireline tools that are running were logging tools just

3:54 to get properties of the well bore, exactly what's behind these. It's casing, this wall, this seamen, stuff like that. It's

4:04 just oil and gas exploration just to be able to run various tools and stuff off that conductive cable - Yeah - How far down does the wire line go - It varies. Like we just got a brand new drum. It

4:17 has 35, 000 feet of wire line, which I mean, we're not gonna go that deep. Some of the wells that we're going into,

4:23 they're horizontal wells. So they're true, like there'll be maybe like 22, 000 feet deep, but that's not true vertical depth Like true vertical depth, which means it's just, straight up and down

4:33 was the accurate length of it, maybe about 9, 000, 10, 000 feet, but they'll go down, they'll kick off, they'll go horizontal for maybe about two, three more miles laterally -

4:45 Jeremy, if you've ever seen Andy's pictures that he always takes from the cab, the inside of the truck, you know, you have these giant trucks or semi-trucks and they have a big shooters cab inside

4:57 and so you walk into these shooters cabs You've got your control panel, and that's Andy's job. He's an engineer, and he sits there, and he controls the spool, and then he got a whole rack of

5:09 computers, and Andy, you'll appreciate this. The first wire line truck I ever saw in 2010 was out on a drilling rig, and it was this guy in a pickup truck, and he ran a spool out of the bed of

5:20 his pickup truck, and then had the back seat essentially cut out in his pickup truck to where he could look out the window, and so that was my understanding of wire line, and then the next time we

5:32 did pipe recovery, Halliburton brought out a full-size logger. I'm like, dude, what the hell is this thing? It was like a spaceship. And so, I always think about that. How, like, my first

5:40 experience of wire line was just some dude in a pickup truck, and these trucks are pretty advanced,

5:48 and Andy, tell us about, like, what is the makeup of a wire line crew, and what is your position? Well, it varies on what kind of operations you're gonna be running. Like the stuff that we're

6:00 doing right now, it's all completion work, which is on, we're, we're doing a, we're fracking a bunch of horizontal wells. And you typically these crews, it's, so you'll have one truck and they

6:10 run a

6:12 shift work, usually about 12 hours per shift. It's 24 hour operation. So you have your day crew and your night crew. Each crew will have at least two to three people on the ground, which you call

6:21 your operators. And they'll be, they'll be there with, you know, by experience, you'll have your, your bottom of your totem pole, which is, you know, basically your worm, your, your junior

6:29 operator, then you have a middle guy. And then you have your, your lead operator, which kind of just runs operations on the ground while you're inside of the truck running it. So the leader of

6:37 the whole entire crew is going to be your wire line engineer, which the title is, it's, I mean, we're not really engineers in reality, we're just wire line supervisors. So that's really what it

6:47 consists of. You have your wire line supervisor, your lead operator, your middle man, and your third guy. But some companies like us, we actually, I mean, we, we don't, the workforce is,

6:57 workforce is hurting on the labor side. So we've had to minimize our crews down to only just, you know, two operators on the ground and then, you know, me inside the truck running, which

7:06 requires me to start handling a lot more workload than what I'm already used to from just running the truck. Just to be able to help with my guys. You know, there's a lot of engineers out there. I

7:14 mean, they won't even get out of the truck. They'll be just sitting there a whole entire time watching their guys in the window bust their blood out there and stuff. You and I worked with some guys

7:21 like that, right? We used to be the two guys out there on the ground doing all the grunt work and let's talk about the labor shortage here And a little bit, you know, that'll be pretty interesting

7:32 to hear from your perspective boots on the ground. But first, before we do that, you know, it sounds like you're doing a lot of perforation work on frack jobs. And so, Wireline is a critical

7:45 component of the fracking process Why don't you tell us real quick and anyone listening, you know, what role Wireline plays in perforation and setting a plug in perforation?

7:60 So with the, when you're running hydraulic fracturing, which I don't think a lot of people really realize this, they just, I mean, people, especially outside of the industry, just they think

8:08 that, you know, okay, there's a hole in the ground, then a bunch of trucks come in and they frack it and they get oil and gas. Well, they're leaving out key components out of that whole entire

8:16 process, which is wireline. I mean, you can't just go to a well and expect it to just frack, especially if there's casing, all that's going to happen is that well is going to pressure up, you're

8:24 not going to have nowhere for that fluid to be able to travel for that sand, be able to travel, all that stuff like that So what a wireline does is they go in with their perforating guns. And

8:32 usually what they'll do is once, so let's say that, it's the first, the very first wireline run on it, which normally you call it at the toe stage. It's the very first perforating gun gets sent

8:44 down whole with the plug.

8:47 The way that they're able to pump it down is they'll have something like a wet shoe or a hydraulic sleeve on the very bottom. So a pump down pumps will come in and they'll start to pressure up on the

8:55 well will once it gets to a certain pressure. that that that that what you on the bottom or the hydraulic sleeve is going to open up and it's going to allow for fluid to travel into formation. So

9:07 with that you have you have fluid displacement you're able to pump tools into the well. So you pump down the the first stage you set the plug that zone right that area behind that plug is isolated.

9:18 So you come up and you know some companies they may pressure test the plug especially if it's ball in place like that come up and you start firing your perforating guns while they're moving which they

9:26 call shooting on the fly. Those holes right there they connect your casing to your reservoir. So with that so they have you have all those perforations in there those perforations go in and they

9:36 create small fractures. So wire line retrieves their tools out of the hole they start pumping with with the hydraulic fracture and you have your your water your sand like that and all that's being

9:45 pushed until those perforations is opening up those fractures. It's just it's literally that's what it is just a hairline fracture that's what they got the term from hydraulic fracturing. Man a

9:54 question for you on these on these wet shoes because I don't think I've seen these. personally, you know, back when we did a horizontal, we would do the tow prep with like TCP guns and quilt

10:07 tubing. And so how do these wet shoes work? Now, I mean, is this installed in the casing in the production casing? And then,

10:18 you know, you got you got a sleeve that you're able to activate? How does that actually work? Yeah, it'll be on the, I guess the very, I don't know what you call it, what would it be the end?

10:27 I guess the very first sleeve that you're run down whole, I don't know the correct terminology because you know, I'm on the drilling side and all that. But what I do know is just it's it's cement

10:36 with the with the mixture of, it'd be different types of chemicals and everything. And what those, what those additives do is it doesn't allow the cement to solidify. So once they pump that

10:46 pressure, you know, or they're pumping the fluid, the pressure gets starts to build up so much that it literally just washes it away into formation. So you're able to get fluid back there. And

10:53 instead of hydraulic sleeves, you know, kind of the same thing. It's just a sleeve will open up when it gets to a certain pressure.

10:60 You wanna, y'all wanna hear a funny story? Andy, I don't know if you got to do this, but you're just talking about retarding C-MIT and keeping it from setting. Did you ever have to dump C-MIT

11:12 with a C-MIT biller back in the day - All the time - Make C-MIT on. So Jeremy, you wanna hear like how poor boy this is? It's like, we used to run, like we would run like a, we'd run a plug down

11:26 hole and set the plug and then we dump C-MIT on top of that plug. So you have this tool, it's called a C-MIT baylor and all it is is like a pipe that you fill C-MIT with and has a piece of glass on

11:37 the bottom and then you explode that piece of glass and the C-MIT falls out. And we used to, we'd get a 55 gallon barrel drum and plastic drum and we'd cut it in half and then we'd mix like a few

11:48 bags of C-MIT in there, water, mix it and then this old hand that I used to work with, his name was Mani, he'd have us poor Coca-Cola. into the cement to, he's like, yeah, this is retarded to

12:04 keep it from flash setting. And so I just always laughed that we were like dumping the cement, there was like no scientific process. It was just like, oh yeah, looks thick enough, put some

12:13 Coca-Cola - That's pretty much it. I mean, you'd be mixing the cement right there next to the workover rig with some freaking shovels. If you're lucky, you had to add a little cement paddle - Yeah,

12:23 no, the cement paddle is like, I remember when we finally got one of those, but it was always just like sitting there, mixing it with a shovel And then I remember finally we got like a paddle with

12:31 a drill and I'm like, oh shit, we're fancy now - Oh yeah - You've got a multi-billion dollar industry with multi-billion dollar fracks. And you've got a bunch of dudes mixing cement and putting

12:44 cans of Coca-Cola in it, dumping it 20, 000 feet into the ground - Yeah, that was, you had asked me earlier about like what like, why are line consists of? And that was nothing I forgot of. I

12:54 mean, like with the hydraulic fracturing and everything, that's your completion work, but then. stuff that Colin's talking about right there, that's more like on the production side. You know,

13:02 the whole thing behind that cement is just to be a secondary boundary whenever you set a plug and stuff - Yeah, the thing with wireline, and it's really interesting about wireline is it's probably

13:11 the most versatile tool used in the oil and gas industry because it can be used in open hole, case tool, it can be used in completions and drilling and production. And so, you know, the type of

13:23 work that Andy's doing out there right now, stage work is like really popular, but you know, like Andy, when I moved down to South Texas and I was like working in old conventional fields, like

13:33 all we did was through tubing work and it was just like little, I mean, you know, three to 10, 000 jobs and you learn a lot because you see a lot of different stuff. But yeah, you know, it was

13:44 just like really interesting doing some of that type of stuff. You know, pipe recovery is super complex and takes a ton of knowledge. So yeah, wireline is just a really interesting and tool and

13:60 seeing how it's used and pretty much all fast. It's a well and guess wells -

14:05 This is really entertaining and informative stuff. So when I hear people say like, we just lost a million dollars worth of tools down hold. Does the wire line, is that what pulls those tools out

14:17 effectively? Like is that part of what you do as well or is it more of the process of going down versus pulling things out - Well, it depends on like, you know, what tools are you running and,

14:27 you know, when did you lose the tools? 'Cause you can lose tools like a drilling rig on a workover rig and then like during the fracks like, okay, we lost tools down hold. What stuff like our

14:34 drilling rigs, you know, that could be like drill string that you lost down hold, but like normally like with wire line, okay, I lost tools nine times out of 10, it's gonna be, you know, it's

14:43 gonna be on a frack and it's gonna be a perforating gun whether someone accidentally shut the wheel or they got pumped off or just it could be, you know, different types of things just to be able to

14:51 be severed from the cable itself. To be, you know, most times when they're retrieving it. The fastest way that I've seen recently is running braided line, which is another form of wire line.

15:02 It's not conductive cable. It's thickness. It's bigger. And the purpose of that is just to have the strength to be able to jar these tools out of if they're wedged in the casing or if it's stuck on

15:13 a plug or whatever.

15:16 Yeah. Jeremy, to add on, like your wire line, he's just talking about wire line being conductive Essentially, it's a steel braided line and in the middle of it, you have conductive line. That

15:28 way you can shoot electricity all the way down a well. And so you don't really have much tensile strength. Like, Andy, what's max that you can pull on your typical line and wire line? I mean,

15:39 it's not much. Well, the stuff that I run, it's your conventional cable, which is steel line right there. And the size of it is 932. When I say that, that's like the outer diameter. That's the

15:49 thickness of it But with that, the breaking strength to where the wire line itself would just snap, like, it's around 10, 000 pounds. but then you have something that's called, at the very end

15:59 of the whip end of the wire line, you have a cable head, which you gotta tie these armors back and run it through this type of brass that we call a bell, and that's called re-heading through the

16:10 cable heads. That right there, depending on the depth, depending on the weight of the tools, it has a weak point to where it just, it disconnects from the cable heading and you leave the tools

16:19 down. Like I said, it all just depends. It could be a vertical well or horizontal well. From there, you just, there's actual calculations that you gotta do for there's breaking strength for each

16:30 individual armor. You multiply and all that stuff, and it's gonna give you like, I don't know maybe like 5, 000, 4, 000 pounds. And once you get to that point, you're gonna pull out a rope

16:38 socket - Yeah, I think one thing a lot of people don't appreciate outside the industry is how much math and engineering - Good - People like you use that in the field, right - Yeah - And a lot of

16:51 people probably think that, we're just a bunch of dumb field hands, There's a lot of mathematics and engineering that go into it. And Andy, you know this, I mean, when you lose tools on Wireline,

17:05 you have to use a lot of critical thinking to think through, you know, like if you,

17:12 you know, get a rat nest up and, you know, you start getting a rat nest or what's the term called when one of your lines - High strength - Yeah, yeah, high strength. So you run into problems

17:26 like that I mean, you have to use some pretty serious critical thinking skills. And that's why people like you make the big bucks because you get in a situation like that and you have the experience

17:35 to know how to get out of it. So how long did it take you to get up from, you know, operator, from being the one turning a wrench, working the ground to being able to fully run a Wireline truck -

17:49 So I was on the ground as an operator for about two and a half years. And during that time, like - I'd say for maybe like six or eight months, I was your junior operator and I had another operator

17:60 above me. Around the time that we met, I was a lead operator during that time. So you took off from Pioneer and I can't remember how much longer I was on the ground for, but I started training and

18:11 I trained for probably about four or six months with a senior waterline engineer. He just kind of guided me, showed me everything his way and stuff like that. Went to school with Pioneer waterline

18:22 services. It was supposed to be a month long, but during this time, I mean, the barrel was 100. So I was there for two weeks. My boss came back home for a little bit. My boss was like, hey,

18:31 we're testing - That's typical oil field, right? No one else, get out there - Yeah, pretty much is. I mean, you could train, I don't know, for like I said, I trained for about four or six

18:41 months. I could have trained for a year. I still wouldn't have been ready. And that's what I tell some of the guys that are just breaking out. Now that's what you call, when you go from being an

18:47 operator to being the waterline supervisor, you just call it breaking out. I tell them now, I was like, you're not going to be ready. You're never going to be ready I was like, I wasn't ready.

18:55 It's just something that you learn as years go on. You have trial and error and you learn from other, from people's mistakes and your own mistakes - Yeah, no, that's super important. You know,

19:04 everyone always wants to wait until they're ready and you just like, there's never a right time - No, you're never ready - Yeah, you're never - You know, and then I can equate that too. And you

19:14 know, Colin, both of us, I guess all of us are entrepreneurs, right? We've got our businesses and like the amount of things that I've made mistakes on, have just made me realize, I'm never

19:26 really gonna know everything, right? I'll just continue to sort of make mistakes and learn as I evolve through the process, right? There's less risk with what I'm doing, with what you're doing

19:37 than, you know, a very expensive, wire-lawn job-down hole. But nonetheless, it's sort of a life lesson, right? Whether you're in the field, you're in the back office, you're running a

19:46 business, like just accepting you're never gonna know - Andy has a lot more fun because his fuck ups are like, that walk of shame over to the company man - Yeah - Just lost those - Oh man,

19:60 I mean every doesn't matter how good you are, every engineer messes up and I have some pretty good ones. It's crazy my boss who texts me up. So right now we're doing some tow preps, like I was

20:10 talking about earlier for one of our customers the first stage and we are the deepest that we've ever been as a company and they were shooting this gun at 25, 000, 15 feet in the lateral - Wow -

20:21 That's crazy - That's here in West Texas - Yeah, Andy talk about what's changed since me and you ran a lot of lines together back in 2012, 2013 timeframe. I know a lot's changed and one, how much

20:38 work has to be done for some of these operators 'cause those guns come out, man, they're spoiled, man. The guns come out. So Jeremy, me and Andy used to have to build all of our guns and so

20:49 they'd come in like different sizes, you know like three to five. what barrels and you'd have to wire them, get your subs on, wrench them together and then the test them. And the worst is like

21:02 you build all these guns, put them together, you spend an hour sending them down a hole and then you have a short and the guns don't go off. And so then you get your ash chewed out. You know, I

21:12 know today that a lot of guns are pre-built for these guys coming out. What other major changes have you seen Andy in terms of technology and you know, just anything else that's changed over the

21:24 years - Dude, just a short amount of time for whenever you work together and it's less than 10 years from the last time you're in the field - Yeah - I mean, it's like leaps and bounds. So for

21:35 example, like you're talking about, you have the gun perforating systems which well me and Colin shot back then in the day, it's they're pretty much almost 100 phased out except for more in the

21:44 conventional work. And those were for your vertical fracks with just your wells that are up, you know, just straight vertical. Those guns were called the EB pressure activated guns. And it's like

21:54 you said, you'd have to wire them up each one by one. You go down a hole and let's say you you're able to set the plug successfully, but then you come up to try to shoot the gun and you have a

22:03 misrun. None of those guns are going to shoot or it could be this, you know, vice versa. If you go down, try to set the plug and as a set, well, none of that gun is going to shoot. So now you

22:10 have that long ass of, I guess almost like a walker shame where you're having to bring the tools back out a hole and you can't bring it back out of a hole at the same speed because if that plugs, so

22:19 there, if you come out, on as you can get hung up and then rip out a rope socket. So you're just so the walk of shame is you're holding up this multi million dollar job. You got frat crew pissed

22:30 off at you. Water chance for pissed off at you, the EMP pissed off at you. Because your tool didn't work like it was supposed to. And there's all kinds of reasons. Yeah, what happened, but it's

22:41 always the operators fault. So like now, now with the perforating gun systems, you have a lot of them, which are 100 disposable. And by that means like once you perforate the gun, you just throw

22:51 it to the trash can. Like whenever me and Collin are doing it, when the gun came out of the hole, the only thing that we'd throw to the trash just to barrel itself, you'd have these things where

22:58 it had all the wiring and like another explosive and call it, we call them subs. And there'd be each individual one, some guns could have no subs at all. Or maybe just two subs like your heads up

23:08 and your bottom one because it's just one single gun. But then you could have clusters of guns that are anywhere from like, back in the day when me and Collin are doing like maybe like five, seven

23:15 guns Now you have some that are, I've heard is some operator soon as much as 30, 30 guns per string. But at the same time, I don't - Are you telling me that these guys don't have to clean subs

23:26 anymore - There is, yes, there's this. Dude, there's 100 disposal. Okay, so a pin tail wire line, they shoot 100 disposable. Whenever they come out of the hole, the guns perforate and

23:36 everything, the setting tool, trash, the guns, trash. The only thing that's deep is the frequency CCL dude. There's no redress of setting tool No cleaning the subs or anything like that even

23:46 some of them dude the guns are already have the detonator in them. All they gotta do is just pull like an interruptor out of it. With us, the perforating system we use, we clean our subs, but

23:56 they're thousand times easier than whenever we were connecting. So there's very little wiring now these days with trucks - We're gonna have to believe that back in the day - Oh yeah dude - Just think

24:07 about how much like physical manual work there is and putting guns together, wiring them together. Then you get them out, you have to break them down, you have to clean up, take off your own

24:17 rings, clean off the subs, I mean, redress a setting tool. I mean, there's a lot of work there to do - It was, the vertical days were way harder than what they are today. Like operators these

24:32 days are 100 spoiled. And this is what I believe. If you're a wire line operator and I'm not trying to knock anyone down to start an industry, because by all means we meet as many people into the

24:43 industries we can, but. Coming into a wire line now, just starting off, you're not like nowhere near the knowledge or the skill set as what the

24:53 operators were back in the day whenever I first started or whenever calling was doing it. Just because I was there Paul, that's just advancement in technology. It makes sense, yeah. Well, so I

25:04 wanna take a step back here a little bit. So Andy, man, first of all, you could teach a class on this, like this is pretty impressive stuff. But how did you get into this? Like, give me your

25:15 background a little bit. Did you grow up in West Texas and sort of always saw the oil field around you and realized it was a good opportunity to make money or were you always interested sort of in

25:25 the science and the engineering? How did you build this as a career and what was your upbringing like? So I graduated from Lee High School in 2006 and as soon as I graduated, I started working with

25:37 the independent school district for like three and a half years. So that's where I got my CDL at. From there, I transitioned to construction. a mom and pop company called Midwest Glass, which was

25:46 commercial and

25:49 it was a residential installation of Glass, doors, stuff like that. So the guy that I was under, he took off and he became a Packer Hand, which those are downhole isolation tools in the oil field.

26:02 And I was kind of getting burned out. And like I said, the oil field's always around me, but I didn't want to work in it. Like I was just, I was like, I'm never telling myself, I'm never going

26:10 to work in the oil field above the law So he had been gone for a little bit and I guess I was getting burned out. And I told him, I do, I want to do something else. Like I'm just burned out here.

26:19 He's like, man, you ever heard of a wire line? I'm like, no. It's easy, man. All you're going to do is just drive a truck. I was like, shoot, man, I can do that. You know, I haven't used

26:25 my CDL in like two years, but I still drive. So he told me to go look for this place, which it was called Wood Group Wireline. And literally I know that during the time they got sold out and

26:34 became GE Wireline. So I'm there driving up and down business 20 on the front of the road looking for, you know, Wood Group Wireline I know I'm passing it the whole time, which is called GE. So I

26:44 turned down the street and I see this place called Gray Wireline. So I get off, go to open the door, it's locked, whatever. Right next door to me is another wire line shop called Superior. I

26:54 walk in and madre saw me and told me, hey man, I'm interested in applying. You asked me if I had any experience, I told him no, I'm willing to learn. He's like, we have your CDL. I'm like,

27:03 yes sir. It's like, shoot man, you already got half the battle won. Back then, there was the barrels, 100. Everyone was trying to find drivers and all that, but just not a lot of people have

27:13 their CDL It's even worse today. It's way easier to get your CDL back then than what it is today. So it was way easier back then? Oh, to get your CDL big time, dude. Now to get your CDL, Texas

27:25 just implemented a new law that just passed, I think last April, I believe somewhere right at the beginning of 2022. You have to take these courses before you can actually go to, I guess, and

27:36 start taking the test to get your CDL because back then it was just, you took like, I think like four or five computer tests and then you actually drove.

27:45 I don't know how long the course is, but you have to do that. Then you can go and start taking those classes. Then you have to go and take your tests to pass. And the driving tests now, you

27:55 pretty much have to be, I guess like an amateur mechanic to be able to do it. 'Cause there's been such a high influx of wrecks, especially here in Midland, Odessa, that I think that they started

28:04 passing all these laws to make sure that we don't have all these amateur drivers and stuff like that on the road - It was already pretty tough back in the day. I failed the first time I failed the

28:14 general knowledge test every single time until I actually studied. When I studied in the past - I failed the general knowledge. And then I failed my first driving test too. I was like, Yeah, I

28:22 don't know shit about driving a truck - I knew that. So when I took my CEO, I took it on the automatic. And now, if you take it on an automatic, that's all you're allowed to drive. So you have

28:33 to go and take it on a manual. At least here in Texas, those are the rules. I don't know when it comes to other states and stuff If been haven't who listening people for.

28:42 to Midland, Texas, it's some of the scariest, craziest driving out there that you've ever seen, right? So you really do or should have a high bar for getting a CDL just because of how insane the

28:55 roads are out there. I mean, you, you hear about accidents and sadly people dying all the time. But I mean, you're talking about big heavy equipment going down roads at 100 miles an hour. It's

29:06 scary, man. Now, that really took me by storm the first time I was out there like, wow, this is crazy. Yeah, I mean, it's a bad max in the Thunderdome, you know, you're on these two lane

29:16 roads, you know, and you're just zoom and pass semi-trucks. And what Andy was saying is a lot, you know, especially the sand haulers and water haulers are notorious for just being, you know,

29:30 kind of balls to the wall and super dangerous So I'm glad that, you know, standards for driving are being increased a bit because like, you know, you're driving a 50, 000 pound truck, you should

29:41 know what you're doing.

29:44 Oh yeah, for real. So Andy, let's talk about what you've been doing on the content side of the last, I don't know, two years or so.

29:54 You know, I think it's super important work because, you know, our company Digital Wildcatters, our mission is to change the way the world thinks about energy. And part of that is raising energy

30:04 IQ among society because so many people don't understand the energy industry, which is easy to be upset about, but also if you put ourselves in their shoes, you know, if you grew up in New York

30:15 City, why would you know anything about energy? Like you've never had a medium to learn about it. You don't know anyone that works in energy. You know, if like guys like us that grew up in

30:26 Midland with the oil field right there in our backyard, you know, it was easy for us to be connected to it. And so now with social media, we have the ability to create content and show people.

30:38 And you've been able to build up a nice little following on Twitter and tell your story and

30:47 talk about what drove you to start doing that

30:52 and just kind of talk about that journey and process - Man, what really made it take off for me was just the engagement that I had from it. I would have never guessed in a million years that oil and

31:02 gas would be this popular, especially on Twitter. I mean, the whole reason I even made it was to keep up with the MMA and a lot of bands I like to pay attention to. So I had it for, so I think I

31:13 started really getting involved in EFT just like right after, I guess kind of post COVID in 2020. And the first person that I followed off to the community, which people aren't familiar to,

31:24 there's this big following on Twitter, which is the oil and gas professionals from every single sector, whether it's guys in the field or on the finance side, called EFT, which is short for energy

31:33 finance Twitter. It's just another subset of financial Twitter I found Colin, he's the very first person I ever saw following.

31:42 on EOT and I was like, oh man, it's calling. You know, hey man, we worked together. We went to high school together. We grew up in Milan, Texas together. Well, sorry for following them. And

31:51 I started noticing in pattern that if I would post something that was oil and gas related, especially from wire line, like calling would retweet it. And it would get a lot of engagement. I was

32:01 like, what the heck? And this is back when I had like, I think like maybe like, if I was lucky, may a hundred people are following me during that time or whatever So I was like, okay, cool.

32:10 Then I started getting a lot of follows. Started noticing, you know, that all these people that were following me, like they weren't really who they were, like some of them just had like all

32:18 these cartoon pictures on the outside. These are A-nods and I started really, okay, that's a freaking A-non, whatever. I made a video one day and I was explaining this, this third party power

32:31 pack that we use on our trucks during the long fracks and stuff. Put it out there and it just got a crap load of engagement start getting a bunch of DMs and stuff. What the heck people telling me,

32:41 man, you should make YouTube channel this, that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, folks and more stuff. So, sorry, posting videos just explaining wire line tools. And it just, it caught me

32:49 by surprise how many people were really interested in stuff. And a lot of them, the, I guess the highest engagement came were from people that were the oil and gas industry, but they were on the

33:00 finance side, or they just were, you know, just in the offices and all that, you know, and they might have seen the terms wire line. I'm sure they heard, I mean, everyone knows what fracking

33:09 is even if you're not an oil and gas. So they're finally, okay, this is what's, this is what's going on in a frack. This is why this is happening on a frack. And I was, you know, just

33:17 explained like simple things like logging tools or CCLs or perforating guns or the wire line truck. And it just took off from there - Yeah - Yeah - You know, it's, you made an interesting comment

33:29 about how you were surprised that people were interested in that type of stuff. And, you know, it's easy when, you know, wire line, You know why I like the back of your hand. like, you know,

33:41 you could run it with your eyes closed and you know, you don't get excited about a Baker 20 setting till you've been dealing with a per pretend you know - But it's like you get in your own little

33:52 bubble and you don't realize that, hey, like actually, I do some really interesting shit and people outside, you know, have interest in what we're doing. And you know, I remember Bill Bailey

34:03 coming up to me, you know, Bill Bailey's a great finance guy and oil and gas And I remember him coming up to me, I think in 2021 had some event. And he's like, man, to Hano Brown, like what

34:15 he's doing, like showing us stuff out in the field, like he's like, that's so cool. He's like, I've never got to like see it. You know, he's always been so far disconnected. Like these guys,

34:24 you know, finance oil and gas, but they don't actually get to see where the rubber meets the road. And so, you know, that was what's pretty cool about Twitter was like bringing different

34:33 perspective and education and having like these collisions of people meeting. Yeah, you know, and I think that's like super important work. Like, yeah, it's cool to get followers and likes, but

34:48 it's more important to like actually educate people and show like, hey, this is complex shit that you do in the energy industry with really smart people doing it. And, you know, I think a lot of

35:00 people in the world think that,

35:03 you know, electricity just comes out of the wall and they think that you just like stick a straw on the ground and, you know, oil just, you know, shooting out. They don't understand the physics

35:15 that go into this and just the amount of engineering. And so giving people, you know, that first hand look like, hey, boots on the ground, cell phone video. Here's what we're doing, you know,

35:26 we're reheading or we're sending guns down hold. I mean, that's super important - 13 years for me and oil and gas in the first time

35:39 perforating guns or wire line in action was off of your Twitter feed. I mean, that's the real - And I'm sure there's a bunch of people that I could say that same exact thing - What I like about

35:50 being able to share content is you're able to show people like, okay, the oil field isn't what you think it is, like especially the people that don't know what it is, it's not just a hole in the

35:59 ground and the oil comes out. Like, hey, man, some companies, they frown upon it, putting a recording video out there 'cause they don't want it to be shown out there. It's like, but man,

36:10 stuff like that, that's educational that Colin talks about. We're not just drilling a hole in the ground and pumping a bunch of stuff and polluting this and that. I was like, okay, man, this is,

36:19 we're protecting our, we're able to show we're protecting our ground tables. There's multiple sets of casing in the hole. It's not just one pipe, it's three pipes that are cemented in place. And

36:27 people are like, oh, we weren't aware that how environmentally conscious that oil and gas companies are oil and gas operators are starting to become - Yeah, I mean, that's been one problem. this

36:38 industry, it's no secret. It sucked at storytelling and actually contributing to changing the narrative. And they always have this like, oh no, we don't want to show videos of what we're doing on

36:49 location. And we just can't play that game anymore. Like we have to be able to show the world what we do. Andy, I know that you've worked for some companies where the company men are, they may be

37:01 lurkers on EFT And so has there been like any, do you walk on location now and you're like a celebrity? Or people follow you -

37:14 So there's a company which, obviously I can't say who they are - Yeah - And the safety guy came out there. He was a wire line integrity safety guy, which means that that was his main job was just

37:25 to go out there and cover all wire line companies that go out there and make sure that they're doing things by the book and especially by their rules and stuff and I was in the truck I was going down

37:35 hole And he's just behind me sitting there. I go, hey, what's going on, man? You know, we're talking blah, blah, blah, shooting the shit. He looks at

37:43 me, he kind of squints his eyes. He's like, man, are you - he's like, you're named Ela Rosa? I'm like -

37:50 I'm not exactly at all, dude. And he's like, no, he's like, man, you sick. Are you sure? I'm like, yeah, he's like, yeah. He's like, you're at the on a round. And I was - I don't want to

37:59 say anything. I just kept kind of like denying it. He went to his phone, started looking at his Twitter. I was like, yeah, I'm in You know, that's cute. That's cute. He goes, oh, man, dude,

38:08 you post good stuff, dude. He's like, I'm a follower. He's an aint on. Yeah, I asked him. Oh, yeah. And he's like, man, you post really good stuff. And I was like, yeah, I really

38:18 appreciate it. And I was like, don't film out here. And I was like, oh, I know, man, I'm not doing that. It's just - That's awesome, though, man. I mean, one,

38:28 it's cool to see people engaging like that. I was out in Midland I don't know, it's either earlier this year or last year. And I was at some, I don't know, they're doing some event at the

38:39 horseshoe and there was like Casey Donahue concert and we went up there and someone's like, Hey, you're fresh, that, and ended up being one of Andy's boys, one of his waterline boys. He's like,

38:50 I'll follow you on Twitter. And so the internet's pretty cool that one, it gives us a platform to show the world what energy's about, but then allows us to connect with people all over the industry.

39:01 So that's cool to hear that some safety guys, he recognizes, he's like, No, I don't know,

39:08 I can't lie to me motherfucking - Both of you guys deserve credit for that. Colin, I know you pushed me really hard to do this podcast originally, while tripping over the barrel and now

39:20 subsequently this one. And it's been huge for my brand and I think the thing that is awesome about it and both of you guys are aware of this is there's a lot of people that are aware of you that you

39:31 don't even know, right? They might have anonymous accounts. They may be watching all of your Twitter or your LinkedIn stuff or listening to a podcast like this. And what happens is they start to

39:41 build a personal connection with you and with your brand. And then when they come up to you and see you at a conference or in the field or at a bar and they meet you, they feel like they already

39:53 know you, right? When you're just like, Hold on, who are you? Right? And it's kind of cool. Like many celebrity within an industry that needs more personalities, frankly Oh, so it's got to be

40:03 powerful for, you know, Andy goes out on location and his work already speaks for itself, but then, you know, a company man knows you or engineers know you.

40:11 Like that's pretty dope. Yeah. Andy, tell us about your little tradition you got. So Jeremy, you'll appreciate this. One day I tweeted at Andy, I was like, Hey, I was like, write my name on

40:24 a plug and send it down to the left. Yeah. And see, right? It's fry-slap. And now all of a sudden, that's like his thing. is sending people down ahold to a frack. Andy, how many people's

40:35 names do you think that you've bitten on guns now? I mean, it's gotta be in the hundreds - Oh yeah, dude. Most of my followers and then just some people that, or not most of my followers, but

40:45 most of the people that I follow and then like, you know, a lot of my followers would DM me. And so that one, that one tripped me out, dude. 'Cause it's like, you know, you're talking about

40:52 earlier, I live in my own little bubble. So Wirelines and me, it's just like, Yeah, it's Wireline and it's just, I was writing a name on a perforating gun Like, okay. I mean, people, they

41:01 really liked that. That one took off. I kind of see where they're coming from. 'Cause it's like, Hey man, you're kind of like, part of the history of this well - Yeah, no, it's like, yeah,

41:10 it's like, dude, I'm like, it's like, I mean, I know this isn't like technically or literally right, but it's like, yeah, my name's like, cemented in that well now for history -

41:19 Oh yeah. So that's funny how that took off so much. 'Cause yeah, I'd agree with you. It's like, I was just writing names, But I think that's like one of the most. It's probably like one of the

41:32 most creative things that I've seen from content creators of like getting people engaged with content because like, you know, some like no Instagram influencer can, you know, do that. And, you

41:45 know, so we're gonna write the name on, I don't know, I'm just gonna use cheese like, hey, I'll write your name on my butt cheeks or something. But,

41:53 Andy's over here -

41:56 That's like something I'm gonna do - Yeah, that is, don't give them any ideas. I don't need to see that But, speaking of that, let's talk about, did I see something that you're getting a water

42:05 burger tattoo - I'm gonna have two manos.

42:09 They get about the other day. And I was like, oh man, I freaking forgot about that bed. But, you know what I mean? And so, I got one, I got a EFT tattoo on, you know, on my right leg on the

42:21 outside of it - Yeah, what was the, what is, what is, what was the bed or the wager for that one - The EFT one?

42:30 I said if this if this gets 1000 likes which during that time like that was unfathomable amount likes for me I will get a EFT tattoo and so It got added on like I got like three in total It was a roll

42:43 call which is Kenny lee EFT which is the whole community and then landman life Which is yeah, that helped me come up with within EFT - I forgot 1000 I forgot how many likes they got do but it went

42:54 well over a thousand and sure enough I read my word I retweeted it a few times to make sure that it got there so Well pushed it over was definitely you and for sure can you lay dude? Yeah, the uh

43:06 Kenny what? Andy likes throwing it in my face now that he he commits to his his bets and I don't so Yeah, I got a lot of work for you You got a smoke man He's a he's a man of his word and I'm not Oh

43:24 man but no, getting things tattooed on you is. That's definitely next level - Amazing - So - This is gonna be the last one for sure, dude - You

43:36 can be careful with this. And it's awesome. I don't know if people, you know, like Mike Umbro did an in and out video yesterday. Dude, in and out is trash. I don't know if you guys would - Yes,

43:47 in and out logo - This isn't even, the season even biased for me just 'cause I come from Texas. Like I legitimately try to enjoy in and out. I'm just like, it's not good - It's not good - It's so

43:58 mid that it's not even funny. Now, look, Waterburger, I think Waterburger is best when you're intoxicated - Right - You know, two o'clock in the morning - Oh - These french fries hit different.

44:07 So there's definitely some elements to that, but yeah, the whole Waterburger versus in and out, it's not even - It's not a really big - No, it's not. Yeah, it's not. And we got in and out here

44:17 now too, right? 'Cause Colorado's like the new California, so - Dude, we got one out of here - We got one in Houston - Really - Yeah - And they just need to step away in that water burger have

44:27 their territory. I don't know. I'm going to take a picture because 90s texted me. Yeah, Bunby's got his new burger franchise, Trillburger. And he's trying to, he's trying to take over. So we

44:40 only support, support Trillburger's from now. Bunby used in legend. Great, great. So, um, Tano, two things. Tano, Andy. Um, I want, I want my, uh, my Twitter, that funk on a, uh, uh,

44:57 going down hole. And I want you to put a star at David on it. Right. So speaking of that, you have a, I'm Jewish. You have a star of David tattoo on you. Talk about some of your like passion

45:08 for religious theology, because we've gone back and forth a little bit and talked about that early on. But where did sort of your passion for learning different religions and the history of it come

45:19 from? Man, um, as I told you earlier, um, I grew up Catholic for like 21 years and, um, I gave it up. I got into, you know, I just, it's stuff I really don't ever really talk about, but I

45:32 got into some trouble, some pretty bad trouble before I got into the wire line industry. And I tried to just keep away from that old lifestyle that I was living before - Sure - And I started, I met

45:45 a group of people, some local churches here in West Texas. And I just got real caught up with the Christian theology and everything. And I fell in love with the old law and the new law And this is

45:56 actually, I always forget about this. Before I did wire line, I wanted to be a youth minister, but that dream kind of escaped. And I became a heathen and got into the oil field. Now you need to

46:07 generate -

46:12 That's pretty funny, man - Good for you, man. Well, I appreciate it. And it kind of blew me away. I'm like, here's a Latino dude in West Texas that works in the oil field. And you said

46:22 something like, Happy Hanukkah. And you're like, Yeah, here's my tattoo - Start at day. The other thing I wanted to talk about, 'cause I know we gotta run here in a second, is your kids, like

46:32 your son is like a top ranked distance runner in the state of Texas right now, right - Joey's crushing it - Dude, so in the district, my son and my daughter are number one - What - Yeah, in

46:43 our district, my son and my daughter are number one, and the region, my son is the 15th, which we have a huge region, it's West Texas. So I can say this without like, this is just fact, my son,

46:54 Joey, he's 16 now He's the number one runner, long distance runner in the middle of the decid, it doesn't matter what age group and all that. So I made a post about this the other day, and we're

47:04 gonna apply it to my daughter, we're doing a trial run right now. My brother, who started off coaching my son, he was a stud in the late nineties and the 2000s, and so was my uncle with running.

47:13 So my brother was my sons and my daughter's, I guess first coach. So he has a lot of connections with pro athletes, pro runners, people that actually run in the Olympic Shout out Bryce Hoppe of

47:24 Midland, Texas.

47:27 My son is going to have a professional coach now guiding him and we're about to have our 20, 20, 30 track season. And man, we're just really hoping for the best man. Like we're just we're me and

47:36 his mom are super like focused when it comes to that. It's it's blown us away big time. Like just the stuff that he does, like he holds the record for the fastest mile at SJ. He holds the record

47:48 for the fastest 5k of the freshmen and just and just to be able to like the times that he was running, like this his PR for the 5k this past season was a 1543 and he run like a 15

47:59 years old dude. I mean, this is like, hold on. What's his mouth? Are you are you fast? No, I'm bad. I

48:10 just got to subtract the letter.

48:13 So so you're sounding like your dad and your brother are fast and runners and the kids got got jeans from your side of the family - Yeah, I ran, but you know, I didn't take it serious. It's just,

48:24 man, I don't know, it just, We knew him was gonna be good in seventh grade right before COVID hit but then you know He trained his once our offseason COVID sacrifice summer and then just He's just

48:36 killing it at his races man And then my daughter came out of nowhere man. She just like ran it like okay Well, I guess I'll start running and you know like the past few years they both gotten I

48:45 think she got Have it right here. This is Just knock something over so this is year number two for her of right here and then It's year number two for my son of like MVP and then last year my son was

48:58 the only one from Midland Texas to make it to Disc or to regionals. I mean just to be able to I mean he didn't go hit anything But just to be able to do that at the ages at I mean that's that's

49:09 incredible Man, I'm like the only the only people that are beating him are kids that are this is their last year They're seniors. No there you have scholarships that they've already signed in us So

49:17 that's the only people that are being our kids that are going to freakin college to go run over there Yeah, he's barely here a sophomore year and know they've been on varsity. So my daughter's a

49:25 freshman. She's on varsity. My son's, you know, he's been on varsity since he was a freshman and stuff like that. That's amazing. Well, Larry, a family of runners, the kids running track in

49:36 Andy's run a waterline. Yeah, man. I knew that was coming. Well, thank you. Tohono Brown is the Twitter feed T-E-J-A-N-O-B-R-O-W-N. You got fracks lap over here. I'm that funk and I'm going to

49:51 put this out on LinkedIn and Twitter. Andy, thank you so much for coming in for schooling us on water, water, water, water burger and all the other things that are passionate in your life. But I

50:01 appreciate you coming on, man. I really appreciate you having me on, man. Appreciate you calling? Yeah. Thanks.