Refinery Tour

On Thursday night Holly Refinery (Norman's work) hosted an open house for members of the community and employees. For safety reasons they don't allow people to just wander around the refinery (go figure that one...yes...that was a sarcastic comment) so this was a great chance for me get to see some of the different units Norman talks about. They had set up tents and had a pretty nice dinner actually. Every 30 minutes they had a bus tour that went through the refinery. They have a really tall tower in the middle of the refinery and I told Norman that if they really wanted to make this memorable for people they should have had someone climb to the top and scream and throw a dummy off the top. Wouldn't that have been fun!?!?! That idea was shut down, but don't worry...I had more. We were on the bus tour and Norman's phone rang. He is actually on pager at work so at first I thought it was work calling him. It ended up being his dad, but I was telling him that if that would have been work it would have been convenient...maybe the bus could just drop him off by the problem. We then started teasing that he could have just answered and say

"there was an explosion where in the plant?....Oh good...I'm on the bus tour and right by there...there's a huge toxic chemical leak you say?"

LOL! I thought we were clever! Norman was worried that if he did that he may be fired. I think the other people on the bus would have been appreciative. Did you know that they would point out the environmental equipment and say what different units did, but they never pointed out the big tanks of different types of acids and toxic gasses. I just don't get that. I was impressed at how clean it was there. I know they have certain standards that they have to keep, but it really was a lot cleaner than I thought it would be. So for the most part my nausea is getting better. I still have my moments and I of course did get motion sick on our 20 minute bus ride...yes...I'm pathetic...I know. It wasn't hot, but there wasn't great air circulation and we were moving really slow and looking everywhere and after about 5 minutes I knew I was in trouble. I made it and here we are after the tour...I did have to take my jacket off because I was getting hot on the bus. Ok, and yes, my belly has decided almost overnight that it should just start expanding and I already have stretch marks!!! I figured because I was fat and I've actually lost weight since getting pregnant that I would start seeing them until closer to the end. Well, genetics have set in and I already have the little purple lines starting to form. If I would have known that I was going to get stretch marks whether I was fat or skinny I would have been skinny...yah...that's why I ate all those french fries for all these years...I was trying to avoid stretch marks :)