07 Feb 2014

Another day closer to being done with the project.

Almost right after I finished writing yesterday Jes was able to get hold of me on her lunch break on Skype. It was happy to chat with her there. The Olympic opening ceremonies are today. They are being held in Sochi, Russia. There is a lot of somewhat funny photos circulating the internet from western reporters who have been arriving in Sochi and seeing that Southern Russia is not quite the western world. Everything from wires dangling in the showers, hotel lobbies being under construction or just not existing, toilets being across a room from another toilet with no stall walls, lighting fixtures falling from the ceiling and people getting into their hotel rooms only to find that stray dogs have already claimed it as their own. Funny stuff. There are also worries of terrorism surrounding the games this year because of its location near a politically unstable region of the world. Hopefully nothing happens and we can just enjoy some world games.

Last night I drove out to the field site with the project manager which was nice because he let me drive his truck. This was nice because I didn't have to drive with Mr. I'm The Worst Driver Ever on the way there. Driving in Canada is no different than driving in the States other than the KPH signs and signs saying how many kilometers to the next city rather than miles. Speed limits are typically lower too. I've not seen anything with a speed higher than 100kph (62mph).Though considering everything is covered in snow this is probably safe. In Calgary it wasn't quite as bad, but I guess Canadians consider Calgary to be warm. "Oh those Chinooks eh? Yeah they keep the south quite nice, ya." I guess that can't be expressed very well in text, but I love Canadian accents.

Last night started slowly. The rig was all frozen up and they just blew steam on everything for about 6 hours, but once they finally got going we were able to drill about 30 meters from 2am until 6am when we quit to drive back to town. I got to see my first oil shale. It smells like... oil... it's hard to mistake it.

After the shift I had to drive back with the worlds worst driver again. I think I have acceleration whiplash. He also does this thing where he's constantly making nose blowing sounds. It's kind of disturbing... Strange guy, really nice though, so I can't dislike him. He's just... different... We stopped to get gas in the truck. I picked up a few snacks for the night. My coworker told me about these Canadian Cheetos called Cheesies. I picked up a bag of them and they're rather awful. They taste like someone took Cheetos and ran them through a salt bath. I'm not highly impressed. I'll probably just give them to my drillers tonight. I also bought a couple Pepsis. They add an extra tax to them. It was like 17 cents per Pepsi. I wonder if this is a fat tax or something else? Also I wonder if it's national or only in the Saskatchewan province.

I'm Skyping with Jes now and really don't have much else to write so I'm off!