Here is a list of jobs that I have had:

My first job was mowing my grandfather's grass. Here is a picture of my brother and I driving his lawn mower around the yard at the age of four.

Between the summer of my 4th and 5th grade, I got a newspaper route with the Clarksburg Exponent Telegram. Every day for three and a half years, I delivered 40 or so newspapers. When I entered high school I quit because of after school extracurricular activities that I was involved in, such as band.

The next summer, I got a job at the local McDonalds where I worked for three years. I did a bit of everything but one thing that I hated doing was breakfast. Before I started working there, I loved McD's food, however now I would walk 100 miles just to go to a Wendy's.

I then worked for the West Virginia Division of Highway (a.k.a. State Road) out of Tunnel Hill located on Route 50. We only dealt with Route 50 from Bridgeport Hill to the caution lights at West Union. Some people I knew from McDonalds loved working inside, but they just did not know what they were missing. For instance, you cannot get tan under the heat lamps. We mostly jack-hammered, drove, picked up trash, drove, swept intersections and bridges, totaled a car (it wasn't my fault), drove, cut down trees, painted, drove, laid black top, installed road sensors, and drove some more. In the end, this job beat flipping burgers.

We drove a 1990 GMC crew cab that had close to 172,000 miles. The truck came out of a junkyard and was fixed up. It was so beat up that it looked like it had rolled over in a salt pile because of the amount of rust on it. The only thing that worked on the truck was the AM / FM radio, which was always tuned to WFBY 106.5 Classic Rock n' Roll. If you wanted to go somewhere in this truck, do not bother looking at the gas gauge, instead you need to look to see how much oil you had in the back. It burned two quarts of oil a day just sitting there. Every time you had to back the truck up, the cabin would fill up with smoke because of the oil being burned.

The next summer I again worked for West Virginia Division of Highway, but this time I worked out of the Harrison County office. Instead of working on the highway, we just worked on country roads. There we mostly fixed potholes or refurbished roads by laying tar then rock chips. I meant to take a picture of this method but I never did.

I took this picture to work and we were like, "Where is Nate?" There he was on the right side doing what he did best. Could you tell what he is doing?

While cutting down trees one day, Nate cut his leg with a chain saw (wasn't wearing chaps) and we both got Poison Ivy. We both required a Poison Ivy shot because it was all over us. The next week, a guy from the Safety department made me fill out a 6 page accident report detailing how I got Poison Ivy. I then got a lecture on what poison ivy looks like and how to avoid it. Meanwhile, Nate was outside BS-ing with people. He should have gotten a lecture on how to use a chain saw. Contrary to what Nate thinks, you should not swing a chain saw like a bat.

Then in the summer of 2000, I received an internship with A.T. Massey, now known as Massey Energy. (Check out my Massey page.) Since I lived far away from any Massey Operations, I was placed in company housing with free room and board at Rawl Sales & Processing located in Matewan, West Virginia. They even had cable in the apartment with HBO, but I never watched it because I usually fell asleep before the movie was over. To top it all off, I even had a cleaning lady come every Tuesday and Thursday to clean the apartment.

I told a few friends that I was going to Matewan and their responses varied. Everything from laughter to them saying, "You better bring some protection." Well, I am here to say that Matewan and Williamson are two of the nicest towns I have been in. You might meet some strange people, but they are all good people.

I am now out of college and received a job with Massey working out of Logan County Mine Services . I start in January 2002 as a Staff Accountant. My first few months, I will be working at a Lab, Preparation Plant and then at a surface mine. Massey has offered this program in the past, however only a few people have participated in it. I requested to go through this program because I want to learn how Massey operates and what the numbers mean such as sulfur content, clean coal tons, Tons Per Linear Feet, B.T.U. Recovery Rate, sink-float levels. I also want to fully understand this state's best resource: coal.

Last updated Jan 7, 2001