I'm leaving!

I'm finally going to get out of here, for real this time! They finished drilling the well late last night and I'm going to Vancouver this weekend. I'm leaving early, we won't really be finished until around Tuesday next week. I need to get back to Portland to pay my rent by the 1st and I wanted to see some friends in Vancouver so I'm taking off on Saturday. The backhoe driver is giving me a ride down to Pemberton after he's done on Saturday and I may end up staying at the Pemberton Hotel Saturday night if I miss the last bus out. That's just fine with me, I hear they've got a band that plays in the bar next to the hotel and that can't be any worse than sitting up here for another night.

May 26 Hike Up Mt. Meager

May 26 Hike Up Mt. Meager

These are some pictures I took on my hike up the mountain. Going up from
the rig there isn't a trail so it's a little more difficult than walking
down the logging road a few kilometers. Also, it gets a bit steep as you
get up near the year-round snow cover. In fact, I wasn't sure how I was
going to get back down when I got up there. I was really wishing there
was two feet of snow and that I had a pair of skis, it would have been a
piece of cake then. My hiking boots would have been nice too, Merrell
clogs really didn't cut it. Beautiful view from up there. For the most
part, I was hiking right along a ridge that dropped off into a cirque to
my left, and I really mean dropped off.

May 26 Hike Up Mt. Meager

May 26 Hike Up Mt. Meager

Monday Morning

Monday Morning
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

May Snowstorm!

May Snowstorm!
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

No plane on sunday...

Damn it! They are going to run another bit. They aren't even going to pull this one until after midnight. I'll be here until Wednesday now probably. Dick is all happy, he was trying to get them to run this bit until dawn before pulling out. Man it pisses me off. Just when I thought I'd be out soon too.
Kind of funny that I'd be listening to the Jimmy Buffett song No Plane on Sunday when I heard the news though. Good song, but I wish I was stuck somewhere down in the Caribbean where I could just grab a beer and kick back on a beach somewhere. That wouldn't be such a bad thing. It's not all bad though, I will make a little more money which is nice. Money isn't everything.
Tonight was the third night in a row that it has snowed... it all melts during the day and I wanted to get a picture but I left my camera down in camp and the cheap ass 4 pack of zinc chloride (not alkaline or anything normal like that...) batteries I bought for $2.50can died after about an hour of use.

oops

So I decided I would do all my laundry last night. Dick said that after 11pm would be good because noone else would be trying to use the washer. I didn't get down there until maybe 12:30 to throw my stuff in. I had just one load of wash to do, my jeans didn't come out clean on the first try so i put them in the washer for a second cycle and the rest in the drier. By the time I got back down to check on it again, it was about 5am. I ran into the guy that does laundry and other stuff around cam, Carl, and he said that every guy on that side of camp wanted to know who was doing laundry so late, apparantly it was a bit loud. Oops. Well it wasn't quite done yet and he said don't worry they're all awake already just let it finish. So when I came down to breakfast at 7:30 he told me they took all my stuff up to the rig to see who came to get it. I didn't believe him and went and looked in the laundry room and it was gone. He recommended waiting until my shift tongiht to get it but all I could think about was these guys throwing my bag of clothes into the sump pit! This is, of course, basically all the clothes I have with me except for what I was wearing. So I'm walking back to my room thinking about whether I should try and sneak up there and make off with my clothes or just wait. Carl is sneaky old bastard though, he had brought my clothes back to my room while I was eating breakfast and just played a little joke on me. I'm just glad to have my clothes back! I can sleep easy today.
In other news, we hit a fracture last night and lost a lot of fluid (this is really good for a geothermal well and what they have been hoping would happen all along). That's nice, but they may decide to run another bit. That would mean I'd be here until sometime next week. I really really hope they decide not to. Today marks my 5th week here without a day off. I'm ready to get the hell out!
Hopefully my next post will be to say they aren't going to and I'm on my way.

Things Are Winding Down

I'm getting excited about leaving! As it stands right now, this is the last drill bit we'll run. It should be done either tonight or tomorrow. Either way we should be rigging everything down and packing up on Sunday. I'll then be heading down to Vancouver on Monday, not sure yet whether I'll have a ride all the way or if I'll be taking the bus from Pemberton, but I don't care!!!! I'd hitchhike if I had to at this point, just get me the hell out of here! I may spend a day or two in Vancouver before heading back to Portland but that's neither here nor there. I really can't wait to get back to my apartment and cook my own meals, things I actually want to eat. It may be a short lived vacation, unfortunately. They are going to move the drill rig back to one of the wells they drilled last fall to pull a liner out of it and will need H2S monitoring. I'll be the closest Tecton geologist which means I'll probably be back up here after a week off. I've heard estimates on how long that would last ranging from a few days to a few weeks. I wouldn't mind a few weeks because it would mean I'd get paid in July. But I'd also be going crazy again by the end of it. I'm still really hoping I'll be able to go to Cape Cod in July, but I have a feeling I won't know if that's possible until July is here.
Tomorrow, Saturday, is the highlight of my week up here. We get nice steaks for dinner. They also make a nice caesar salad, only thing missing is some beer and a few friends. I have met some nice people up here, frustrating things is that I'll probably not be seeing them after I leave here. They're all Canadians and work on oil rigs. My company doesn't do oil, and this is the only geothermal project in Canada and if it doesn't pan out (and it's not looking good) I doubt I'd ever work on the same rig as them again. Unless I bag my position with Tecton and get a job at a well for some Canadian outfit. I don't see that happening though, I don't think I want to live in Calgary or Edmonton. Although I've heard only good things about Calgary and actually know a few people there.

Meager Creek Rig April 2005

Meager Creek Rig April 2005
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

The end is in sight!

Well, I just found out that this is the last bit they will run on this well. That's welcome news. They are drilling it slow to extend it's life so we'll be drilling for another 3 or 4 days. I'll probobly be finished here a few days after that. Thank god.
Carol returned to camp yesterday. She cooks much better than Barry does, even though from the looks of Barry food is pretty important to him. Barry can cook, and he makes lots of different stuff, but none of it is really really good. Carol makes good food, even when it's food I don't like it's better than it could have been.
Dick, my trainer, would like to stay up here for ever, I think. When we found out we'd be done soon he said, "I wonder if we can convince them to run another bit after this one." He's got a family, and you'd think they'd want him to come home at some point... but after working with this guy for a month straight of 12hr shifts I can see why they don't mind his absence. He's been up here for like 6 of the last 8 months. I could rant all day about Dick, but I won't. Let's just say I've had enough.
I already know what I'm going to have for dinner my first night out of here, pizza and beer. It was the last meal I ate before coming into the camp from Pemberton come to think of it.
They've been testing one of the other wells here for the past 2 days and I don't think it's going too well. The president of the company is here and he sure doesn't seem happy. It'd be nice to see them get a productive well, I don't think Canada has any geothermal wells at all. And this sure would be a good place to find one, we're right above a subduction zone and there are hotsprings all over. They have heat here, they just need fluid movement in the rocks.
As soon as the sky clears a bit I'll get some pictures of the mountains around here. It's a huge change from when I got here and everything was under 6 feet of snow.

Meager Well Site 9-04 small

Meager Well Site 9-04 small
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

Bored as hell on Mt. Meager

This is my 30th day at the drill site on Mt. Meager in British Colombia. I've been ready to leave for a while now. It's gotten a bit colder and rainier since I arrived and that's not helping. I went for a walk today because I feel super lazy. I get up and eat dinner, head to work and sit around for 12hrs getting up to catch a sample every half hour or so, then I go have breakfast and go to bed. Not too much physical activity.
Life in the camp isn't too bad, we have satellite tv and slow internet. The food isn't bad, but they seem to have a 1 week rotation on the menu and I've had enough of it. For the most part I've had a room in a trailer diconnected from the main camp, but they're moving me around from room to room now and I'm not enjoying that too much. I can't tell which of my clothes are clean and which are dirty. I should probobly just wash it all.