The Goldfish's Logbook

This week I've been 'commuting' from the lodge to Fort McMurray everyday for training. It's a two-hour drive along 'Suicide 63', one of the deadliest highways in Canada. On the previous phase of this job, Exxon-Mobil was losing an average of one employee each month due to fatality on this road. That's why they fly us in from Calgary now, rather than asking us to drive up.
But since I have training to do, I've been driving back and forth. It keeps me on my toes. Way too much traffic on an undivided highway. From what I've seen, I don't think they install turn signals in Canadian cars. My vehicle has them, but it must just be a fluke. There's a lot of high-speed tailgating and cutting people off. It's intense.
In good news, I'm finishing up my week+ of training today. Basically all week was just a continuous cram session. The funnest part was using the rescue gear for toxic environments. Once I put on the air tank I felt like the Rocketeer, then when I put on the air mask I sounded like Darth Vader. But I couldn't play around because this was serious business. I hope I never have to use this stuff and as frightening as the possibilities are, I feel more comfortable being knowledgeable about it rather than completely ignorant.
And before I left the Fort, I stopped at the northernmost Wal-Mart in the province and FINALLY got all the little things that I've been needing for the past week. Like soda (or as they call it, pop). My caffeine withdrawal was starting to get pretty bad, yup. ;)
I'll have some idle time this weekend before the drillers start up on Monday.

( Oh, btw, a couple (boring) pictures )

I'm NOT going to bitch about work. I'm not. I'm not going to gripe about the cartoonishly swollen bump I got today from falling off the drill rig. I'm not going to whine about the ugly ugly rumor that we're shifting to a 24-hour work schedule (one driller actually had the guff to joke, "You better bring a sleeping bag tomorrow!"). I'm not going to admit that I was so tired that I laid down and fell asleep in the middle of a dirt road. I'm not going to--wait, stop. I said I wasn't going to do this.
I officially hate golden-cheeked warblers and environmentalists now. I spent ten years in Boy Scouts, so I've got a healthy respect for nature and all that crap. I've done my time picking up litter, doing wildlife conservation projects, etc. But damn, these environmentalists are driving me nuts! Everyday, there's at least one of those tourists on our jobsite and everyday they seem to think of some new regulation or rule that we have to follow. We can't drive our trucks because they'll rut the dirt road. Our drill rigs have to wear diapers in case they leak. We have to walk half a mile to the nearest port-a-potty. We have to paint any trees that we hurt, use a streetsweeper to clean the road outside the gate, install erosion controls, count salamanders, use vegetable-oil-based hydraulic fluid, collect our mud and label it with my name and phone number, etc etc ETC! And all of this has to be crammed into a compressed schedule because some little birdy's mating season begins exactly at 12:01 am, March 1st. AGGGGH!
Friggin' hippies. I figure, if you enjoy air conditioning, highways, electricity, and flushing toilets, then shut up and let us do our job. If the environment's so precious to you, why don't you come out here and do this job? We'll see how long your idealism lasts then!

( The devil )

P.S. I'm not really angry. I'm too tired to be angry. I've just had this bottled up for a few weeks now and after working four NIGHTS in a row, the time seemed right to vent.