Scout and Surveyors

Whew! What the heck? I guess I haven't posted in awhile

So I have been out and about, I am back in Alberta working with a crew of surveyors getting another site ready for eventual construction....just need to see the L/O (landowner) and I should be able to book it back to BC.

I talked to the foreman I worked for this summer on the phone last night and put my name back in the hat for an operating job as this work I am currently on will not start for another month or so.

The weather hasn't been the greatest and I am actually glad that I got held over another day...lots of freezing rain the night before last and the roads got a bit dicey.

Regarding the work right now: I had the opprtunity to view it without the surveyors and just get on my merry way, thank god I didn`t. Turns out there is a major elevation change across the new site, like +20m and that woulld have been a very big red flag to the ERCB....slow the application and possible denial of well license.....we had to shift the well center and get the boundaries up on to better ground....hell if I had it my way the bigger the cut and fill the better, but thats the way it is in this environmental age.

Travel Daze!?

So I made it back to Ft St John and my own bed late last night and let me tell you the travel is getting to me.

I sometimes surprise myself with my ability at road ragery. Is it too much to ask that some either go with the flow of traffic of get off the road and let the rest get to where they need to go without following you and your slow farmer ass? I logged into my facebook page and one friends' status was aptly put: "Traffic, how bout Traffuck"

Getting back to the days events. After leaving the hotel in Edson I took a route to get me into the general area of the site my boss wanted me to look at. (At some future date I may want to actually look at the map or get the proper coords before leaving town.....thats all I have to say about that.) Got the Edson sites viewed, sent some pics via wireless email and I was off to the next site near Grande Cache. Oh yeah... I got a call from the Conductor bowl outfit, wondering why I didn't drop the bowl off in Brooks...told him Brooks was three hours out of my way and I really didn't feel like making this a twenty hour trip. Turns out they have a drop off point in Hinton and I will be passing right through so problem solved. The next job at Grand Cache was about the same as Edson...Go look, communicate, leave.....but I may get some work cleaning these two site s up next sping, however there was the added excitement of having my pickup toboggan down a hill semi out of control in the snow, which then left me at the bottom wondering if even 4x4 would get me back up to the highway and relative safety. ( I made it back up, not as bad as I thought and I found one set of new tire chains where someone drove away without picking them up, see that hill was a bad one!)

Got back home around 6:00pm

Travel days

For me travel usually means work, and while I get paid to travel (right now the rate is a $1.10 per Km), that travel means crisscrossing Alberta in a rather hectic fashion.

This morning I left Pincher Creek at 9:00am (a little late I know) and took Hwy 22 north. After several stops to talk with friends and drop paperwork for another job with a contractor. I arrived in Edson at 4:30 PM. Supposed to view a new jobsite, but that late start got the better of me and I lost the available light to properly view the job. The oil company wants to see if a new site could be placed next to an existing well. Kinda hard to do when the sun goes down. Thats just the way things went, I didn't even get to drop a conductor bowl off that has been rolling around in the bed of my pickup for a couple of days now. I was looking forward to getting home and getting some time off, but here I am in my motel room (Comfort Inns at Edson, great room and reasonably cheap BTW). I was hoping to get by without having to get yet another room but what can you do? I wanted a shower and all the other amenities, I can sleep pretty well in the Ford if I have to, but why bother, I don't want to crap in the woods if he don't have to.

The picture is from when the Waterton Job at Lookout Butte was ratholed, that where I come from and if you have seen Edson country you will know why I picked this pic instead.

It has to start somewhere....

I have recently become interested in blogging and this will be the inaugural post. I don't expect a lot from this and maybe that's the best way to approach things for awhile. I think it will be a public diary sort of thing. I hope to post my youtube films and maybe some pictures of life and family.

A few quick notes: I have linked to a few blogs that I respect and find interesting, go check them out if you have time.

Sometimes my penchant for pissed offidness gets the gears turning in my brain and I write letters to those in the media and public life that I think could learn a thing or two...so be warned, when I get time I will be posting those as well. You the reader may notice that I abhor following the pack and most forms of political correctness. If you want to debate by all means have at me. Well that's it for this "first" post. Cheers and be well.....