BC really sucks,

So I get to travel around a lot, hey 19,500 KMs in a little over 2 months is nothing to sneeze at. Anyway lately, due to the move last year, I seem to be in and out of BC and the difference between it and its more responsible neighbour Alberta is mind-boggling. Sometimes I get mad enough to write a letter to the editor, in this case the Alaska Highway News based out of Ft St John BC. Here it is, they printed it last week, I'm not looking for an award, I just get mad enough to write letters:

Dear Editor,

On a recent trip back to the province I was once again appalled at the state of the road system in Northern BC.
I see so many signs proclaiming the Government line that they are helping northern communities through infrastructure spending. That’s fine and good but not nearly enough compared to the amount of money taken out through resource revenue and taxation that disappears into southern bureaucracy coffers.
I would like to ask who in the applicable Ministry believes that none to one road slopes are adequate and safe. When the grass can’t be mowed by self propelled mechanical means they are unsafe. I see some mowing along the Alaska Highway has been done, I wonder if the Ministry has a special danger pay allotment for that type of work. Residents of Ft St John seem to think that the recent four-laning through town is a good yet all I see are 6ft ditches that will total any vehicle unfortunate enough to enter them. They are a mess and embarrassing to look at. Since when is the Ft St John plateau considered a flood area requiring such major and intensive drainage measures? I recall some shoulder widening that took place a few years back. The method of construction was to dump gravel over the shoulder then check the crown slope with a “special” 16 ft 2x4. Totally unacceptable and recent construction activities involving tendered southern contractors (using Ministry plans I will admit) are hardly any better
It shouldn’t take 3 hours to go from the Alberta border to Ft St John, yet that is what it sometimes takes. The Highway is overcrowded and well past its carrying capacity. Compounded by regulations that require some semi loads to be piloted here and not in Alberta it seems like the Government would rather create jobs through onerous regulation rather than safe infrastructure. It must be daunting for a professional truck driver to come into BC and have to deal with frustrated drivers, unsafe passing and abominations such as the South Taylor Hill and the scale at Mile 54. The Taylor hill has been a menace for more years than I have been alive and at the Mile 54 scale, drivers’ need to pull back onto a major artery with little traffic control and inadequate site lines on a hill. Northern residents deserve more. There should be a divided four lane highway from the border to Mile 55 and it should have been done 20 years ago
Yes the Government is really looking after northern residents, makes me wonder who is responsible I would like to thank them.

Rain out

Well I got the weekend off and a few days besides. Hectic very hectic, just never know what this job will throw at me. Got the Edson job done and am now finding out that it may not be drilled at all...doesn't matter to me, but its a shame just the same, really want to see the oil company do well or there is no future work.

Moved on up to Grande Cache and just about completed two abandonments before we got rained out. I love Grande Cache, pretty little mountain town, one of the few in Alberta. They have this annual event called the Canadian Death Race, some sort of ultra-marathon through the wilderness....I want to get the front license plate with the skull for my truck, because I can do that because I don't have a front provincial plate in Alberta unlike communist BC.

Anyway on rainout day last Friday I got an email to go view a site at Valleyview that needs 500m of muskeg pad road built before the 15th of July. I have to say one of THE best purchases I made this year was a $700 progran for my GPS. Its called Patch Map from Skybase Mapping. It lets me enter any LSD and will drive me right to that site, came in very handy this time. When I think of the old days (Like last year) and using my map book or calling the survey company for Lats and Longs, this is just so much easier.

Like I said its been hectic, I also had a job up at Smoky Lake again, moved a rig in on the 12km road that we built last year. What a nightmare....the road hasn't been used or maintained all year and then all this heavy traffic really f@cked things up....I am dreading getting the final report in order because we had to spend some money and all the rain really didn't help things.

Talking (chatting) with a good online friend tonight was nice, she reads the blog and I always look forward to chatting with her...so good advice Crazy, I will be sure to try and do it.