First rotation complete, and I'm home at last

I'm home in Vancouver for a whole 4 days.  Normally our time off is longer than this, but I have to get back to cover for other people going away.  I suppose working more is better for the most obvious of reasons: more work = more money. I'll just keep telling myself that.

I have to say, I'm glad to be back on the west coast.  It's just so beautiful here, that it's hard not to miss.  I went for a jog outdoors which is something I haven't done since I left.  We aren't really allowed to run (or even walk) on the roads on site because there are simply too many trucks going by.  I don't think I'd want to run there anyway because there are also mosquitos the size of the trucks, bears, moose, coyotes, and probably a whole host of other animals that would enjoy having Marlaina for dinner.  It felt pretty good to enjoy the views from the seawall, but I have to say: I'm so out of shape! I ran a few times on the treadmill at camp, but I just can't run on a treadmill for more than about 20 minutes.  It's just so boring.  I'd like to run the Fall half marathon, but I don't really see when I'll be able to train for it.  I might have to wait for the Spring half.

What else do I have to say about home? Well, it was great to see Brandon and Molly again, and I hope to see lots more people (Willow, Chelsea, Mom etc.) over the next few days.  I have a bunch of little things to do while I'm here (pay rent, get my car window fixed, donate yard sale leftovers to charity, catch up on sleep) but I should have lots of free time to enjoy the sunshine and fresh coastal air.

Things I see and do

I thought I should start taking pictures of my day-to-day life up here, to give anyone who might be interested a taste of what I see.  Well, I hate to disappoint you all, but I haven't done a very good job.  Here are a few crummy photos I've taken out of obligation.

My room

Above is a picture of my room.  As you can see it's.. well... small. I like it though.  The bed is comfortable, it has all the storage I need, it's quiet, and I even have a rather nice little view of the forest out my window.  The guys on the other side have to either look at the trailer next then them or at the parking lot.  I get the sunrise reflected off the silvery-white bark of the birch trees.  It's rather nice.

Suncor

I went for a drive on Sunday night.  Highway 63 is the main highway around here, and it leads to two of the main oil sands plants: Suncor and Syncrude.  Our company works for one of them, but I won't say which.  Above is probably the only half decent photo I got while I was on my trip.  I had to stick to the main roads and stay in my truck because I didn't have the proper PPE (personal protective equipment) or authorization to get out, walk around and get better pictures. 

Syncrude looked like a desert.  Oil SANDS no kidding! Seriously, though, there was white sand for miles and miles.  I don't recommend playing beach volleyball on it though.  The main plant is huge.  There are multiple flare stacks (basically giant pipes in the air with huge flames coming out where they burn off all the excess gas) throughout the plant and a gross haze of pollution surrounding the area.  You can smell it from miles away.  

Suncor was very much the same.  Although I didn't show any flare stacks in the picture above, you can get an idea how much crap they're pumping into the air 24/7.  But anyways, the purpose of today's blog is not to crituque the oil sands business. 



Cat 777 (I think)



Here is a terrible, blurry picture (taken from the inside of my car, windows rolled up) of one of the rock trucks I saw at Suncor at an area they call Steepbank.  The area is exactly what it's named for - it's a steep bank with a switchback road and these HUGE, fully loaded rock trucks zipping up and down.  I don't think I can really explain exactly how giantic these things are.  I recommend googling Cat 777 and seeing if you can find an image of one of them with a person standing next to it.  That'll give you an idea of scale.  They stack the spare tires on their sides three- or four-high near the work area which creates this massive wall.  It was really interesting. 

Well, I think that's about all I have to say for now.  I think I'll be heading home in about a week for my break.  I understand they can't allow you to work more than 24 consecutive days without taking 4 days off, by Alberta laws.  I left home 17 days ago. 

The tale of the full moon, mosquitos and the meeting invite from hell

It was a full moon yesterday.  They say, that makes people a bit crazy.  The abbreviated version of yesterday goes like this: we had a pickup truck crash, we had so many safety-related things go wrong on site that they actually shut everything down to talk and regroup, we almost lost our jobs because of a misunderstanding of the rules by a certain tattle-tale, rumours spreading like wildfire about which married person is sleeping with who, and a stupid amount of work for me to do in a stupidly short period of time.  Whew!

On a completely unrelated note, I am being eaten alive my mosquitos.  As much as I’m trying to work on my will-power to NOT scratch them, I still seem to scratch without even knowing it!  I’ll scratch in my sleep and when I’m working at my desk and I don’t even realize it.  At least the after-bite I bought before I came is coming in handy.  That stuff sure works.  Other people here say that it’s not just the mosquitos that are biting.  We have deer flies and some other bugs called oil sands beetles.  There are also TONS of black dragonflies here, but I don’t think they bite.

Now, I'm trying to take on more responsibility now that I'm getting the hang of my basic job description.  I was asked by a coworker to send out an invite, using MS Outlook, to a bunch of people I don't know, about a meeting that I'm not invited to, in a place I've never heard of.  Long story short, I had to send out 6 updates - two were a mistakes of mine and the others were just plain old annoying changes that needed to be made.  Needless to say, I drove everyone crazy.  I apologized and explained that I'm new (even though most of it was not my fault).

Today was definitely better than yesterday.  It's no longer a full moon, we have these burning coil things in the office that chill the mosquitos out, and the meeting is a go.  I even got my entire to-do list done! How's that for an improvement?

In case you're intereted, this is what I look at all day.  For the record, this was taken on break.

I'm starting to be more of a help than a burden, I swear!

Since we got rained on so hard yesterday and last night, hardly anyone showed up to work this morning.  The roads and site were too muddy for the trucks to operate safely, so only a few people came in with excavators for water management and with laptops for paperwork.  That definitely made my life easy! I only had to keep track of a few people and pieces of equipment, all of which I knew the names of.  Overall it was a good first day without the PM by my side.  I got lots done, and was able to lighten the paperwork load from other people.  That makes me feel at least like I'm helpful.

I spent about an hour today away from paperwork to go on a tour of the site.  Originally, it was just to be a tour of our landfill site, but it ended up being a huge tour of the entire oil sands area!  Boy was that ever interesting. 

The type of oil sand mining they're doing up here is called SAGD: Steam Assisted Gravity Draining.  Basically what they do is drill two wells in an L-shape with one horizontal part about 5m below the other.  Picture them as nested L shaped wells.  They blow super hot steam down the top well which heats up the oil (you science folks know that heat reduces viscosity) so that it runs downwards through the sands and collects in the lower well.  Then the crude oil, and whatever water ran down from the steam, is pumped out from there up the second well.  The horizontal wells are maybe 100m below the surface, which is pretty impressive!  Above ground you see the wellheads and some piping, and sometimes a steam generator, storage facilities for the oil, and some buildings for workers. Anyways, if you're interested in this stuff, it's probably best to just google it.

Tonight we had steak & prawns for dinner.  I've been told we have something special like that every Saturday night.  The food is so good here, I have to say.  Luckily they always offer a ton of fruits and vegetables, including healthy snacks you can take with you whenever you want, otherwise I'd be getting really... large.

I wish hiking was a possibility around here.  The forests are so beautiful and I'm getting pretty tired of riding in trucks and never walking anywhere.  We aren't really allowed to even walk on the roads because there are too many trucks going by.  Maybe there is somewhere I can go to and explore.  Perhaps on my day off.  When we went in to town the other night, I saw some of the things you can go and do.  It's exactly what I thought: rodeo, gun range, racetrack.  I might have to try the gun range.

Well, now that I've bored you readers to death, I'll stop talking. 
Goodnight!

Hello Fort Mac

It’s Friday: Day 2 of being on site.  I suppose since I haven’t blogged since Vancouver, I should start there. Apologies in advance for a long blog.

I left Vancouver Monday morning, picked up my new hardhat and the company truck, and started off down the road.  The truck was nice, but much larger than I’m used to.  I drive a sporty little Mazda3, and this was a giant Chevy Silverado.  I got used to it by the time I’d driven out of the parking lot though, and it turned out to be a rather comfortable ride.  I can’t say much about the drive on Monday, except I saw a black bear near the side of the road.  It was just small, so I bet it was a baby.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures. 

Here is a terrible self portrait of me in front of the company truck

I arrived in Jasper Monday night.  It was exactly how I thought it would be: a little tourist-y mountain town with spectacular views and fresh mountain air.  My Dad told me to promise him that when I got there, I would look up.  He meant that I must have a look at the stars at that elevation, and away from the city lights I’ve been amongst for so many years.  Unfortunately, these are some of the longest days of the year! It was 11pm, and the sun had barely gone down.  If I was going to get a good night’s sleep, I’d have to save the star-gazing for another night.  I did wake up in the middle of the night and try looking outside, but the clouds had formed a cover.  Bummer.

It sure was beautiful on the way to Jasper

On Tuesday morning, I woke up early and started out on the road again, knowing there was a Tim Hortons in the next town about an hour away.  I loooooove my Timmies! I had only driven a few kilometers when I saw them.  Three sets of antlers were crossing the river.  Of course I had to pull over and check it out.  They say you shouldn’t get too close to the wildlife because you might stress them out, or sometimes put yourself in danger.  I wasn’t too close to I got out of the truck and brought my camera.  The next thing I knew, three beautiful elk were climbing onto my side of the riverbank, shaking themselves off and walking right towards me!  They munched on the grass and came very close.  I suppose they see enthusiastic tourists like me all the time, so they acted very tame.  I got lots of pictures, of course.




Wait a minute... are those antlers swimming across the river?

Here are two of the three elk

I tried to keep my distance to avoid stressing them out, but they came right up to me!

The rest of the drive on Tuesday wasn’t nearly as interesting.  I headed towards Edmonton, bypassed it, and continued northeast towards Fort Mac.  After Jasper, the landscape changes drastically into flat, grassy prairies.  Beyond that, the landscape was still fairly flat, but covered with thin, white-barked, leafy and sometimes burnt trees.  I found out later that these trees are called Aspen trees.  They smell fantastic, except of course when they’re burnt.  I suppose forest fires are rather common in those areas. 

Crispy trees

Tuesday evening I arrived in Fort Mac.  Luckily, my employers put me up in the Quality Hotel which is quite a nice hotel, it turns out.  I didn’t do much else that night except relax and have dinner.

On Wednesday, I had my H2SAlive training all day.  Evidently, hydrogen sulphide (H₂S) is very common in oil sands projects and landfills.  It can knock you down and stop your breathing at certain concentrations, and it a killer for workers on these sorts of sites.  We were taught how to avoid it, detect it, and rescue others when they encounter it.  It was pretty interesting, actually. 

After my H2SAlive, I drove to site.  Tom met me at the gate, and I was glad to see someone whose name I knew.  It turned out, he didn’t look at all like how I had pictured him… but then again how many times are you right when you’ve only talked over email?  Tom is fabulous, that’s all I’ll say.  Oh, and we saw a coyote.  That was pretty cool.

Thursday was my first day on site.  I met many of the people who I’ll be working with, all of which are really great.  It’s not very often that you immediately get along with everyone in a workplace, but I think I’ll fit in just fine.  As with most first days, I was confused a good portion of the day.  But that’s all part of the learning process, right? I think the highlight of that day was first thing in the morning.  Two moose – a momma and a baby – were walking around on site.  They were too far away to take any pictures, but they sure were funny-looking creatures, even from afar.  The mom had spindly little legs and a huge upper body, and the calf bounded along energetically behind her.  That was the first moose I’d ever seen.

Today was much better than yesterday.  I was understanding a lot more, and actually contributing in some way.  I think I had better mention the weather today, though, since it was different from the hot and sunny weather we’ve had for the rest of the week.  We showed up on site at 6:45am for our morning safety meeting, and by 7:30 it was dark out again - the rainclouds had moved in quickly, blocking out the sun.  Thunder and lightning crashed through the clouds and raindrops the size of gumballs poured down.  Our dirt roads quickly turned into mud so deep that even the largest rock trucks and dozers couldn’t drive in it.  Progress was shut down numerous times throughout the day, and almost everyone went home by 1pm.  I stayed until 5, but I work in the office so weather doesn’t affect my work as much.  If you’re wondering, the moose were spotted on site again this morning.  I think they hang around every morning, then go back into the forest when we turn on our noisy trucks.

The Project Manager is away for the weekend, attending a wedding, so I’m left alone to figure out my job for the next few days.  I should be fine since there are lots of people I can ask, including the PM on his cell phone.  I should be fine.

As I write, I’m in my room in camp.  It’s small, but comfortable and clean.  It’s very stormy outside.  The thunder and lightning are about 7 seconds apart.  I was trying to read, but kept finding myself listening and counting the seconds.  Each thunder clap sounds as though the sky is made of wood and that wood is breaking, tearing open and the rain is rushing out.  The water is hitting the roof of our portable homes hard, and I can see from the view out my window that the water levels in the ditches are rising quickly.  Even living on the west coast, I don’t think I’ve seen this much rain before.  It’s running off the roof in a giant sheet, so it looks like I’m viewing the outside from the backside of a waterfall.  It’s great!

Thanks for following! Please comment if you like.  I’m interested to see who’s following.

To Alberta I go

It's Sunday.  Tomorrow, I leave for Fort Mac.  Well actually, tomorrow I leave for Jasper.  You see, I've volunteered to drive one of the company trucks up there.  There were two trucks that needed to be moved up there, so I'm taking one and our H&S guy is taking the other.  I figure it'll be a great way to see the landscape change, rather than being shocked when I get off the plane.  Besides, I get to stop wherever I want for the night, (it's a 20 hour drive, so I'm definitely breaking up the trip over 2 days) so of course I'll stop in beautiful Jasper and enjoy the scenery! 

I have to say, I'm pretty excited! I got a really great email from a fellow named Tom, an employee from the Lower Mainland who is already up there in camp.  He is new to the company too, having just started a few weeks before I did.  He gave me some info about what camp is like, and some of the things I might want to bring.  It was a rather lengthy email, but here are the main points:

1. You get a small, private room while you're there equipped with a bed, desk, dresser, shelf and TV.  

2. The ladies get a separate area, and our own washroom.  I think there are three women in total, including myself. All the living areas are really clean.

3. The food is really good.  This has been confirmed by a few folks!

4. There are moose and bears in the surrounding forest, but they are sensible enough to stay away

5. "There are also mosquitos," Tom says, "the size of helicopiters (either that or I'm being bitten by helicopters)".  He suggests I bring bug spray and some sort of after-bite remedy, unless of course they really are helicopters, in which case bug spray likely won't work.

The other details aren't really worth mentioning, except to say that Tom stressed how great it was up there.  He said he was nervous about the camp too, but it turned out to be awesome.  That's comforting.

Well, I guess I'll talk a bit about what the rest of the week at the office was like.  I think we left off on Tuesday? Well, I finished all my safety training.  That took a while, but it was reasonably painless.  I have also been familiarizing myself with the software I'll be using.  It's called HeavyJob, and it basically allows you to track man-hours, equipment, materials, subcontractors and expenses.  It can then help you make projections as to what you final budget will look like, figure out where you need to make changes, and let you play with different scenarios.  My job will be to simply track all the costs and input them into the software so the Project Manager can do all the fancy stuff with the numbers.  Now, tracking all the costs may not be as easy as it sounds.  It involves chasing people around, asking them about their hours, who they had lunch with and where the receipt is, how much gravel they installed today, and all those sorts of things. Apparently there's already another gal up there doing the job while I'm on my way, and she's a real hard-ass and gets the job done! 

On a completely unrelated note, I'm especially excited to see the stars again.  I've living in the city for so long that I've almost forgotten to look up.  I remember one time, just outside of Duncan, BC I was with my Dad at a folk-fest.  We went out, away from the camp, into the darkest spot we could find, and looked up.  Wow.  That was my first time seeing the Milky Way, and boy was it every spectacular.  I can't wait to see that again. I suppose I'll also be in Aurora Borealis territory, since I'll be so far north.  I've never seen that before, but I hear it's rather... magical.  

Well, I suppose that's about all for now.  I'll try to blog again when I reach Jasper tomorrow night.  I hope I won't arrive too late.  I expect it to be about a 10-hour drive + breaks.  If I leave around 9am, I should be there before nightfall.  I'll try for some photos too! 

Cheers!