Vacaciones buenas, mis padres...

My parents are off again to the beautiful country of Costa Rica for three weeks. They're going down to see the construction progress on our "house". It sure is nice to have the buying power of a good dollar. This place is going to rock and I can't wait to get down there in May. My uncle Mike from California is going with them too. He turns 50 on Feb 12th. I also hear that Nevin was conned into dropping my parents off at 5:00am tomorrow...what a sucker. Don't worry buddy, my bad for being gone, I'll owe you one.


You all know I'm an Oilers Fan first. Flames Fan though? Maybe second or third as long as they're way behind the Oilers (which, unfortunately, they're not at the moment). I like Iginla, I like Kiprosoff, and the other guy I liked before he was traded to the Kings was Craig Conroy. Well guess what, he's back! Apparently Iginla was asked what the Flames needed to improve their team and his answer was get Conroy back. Many Flames Fans agreed with that. Last night Conroy suited up for his first game back in C-town against...guess who...the Kings. I think Iggy must be a genius because Conroy had 2 goals in the 4-1 win. Immediately producing...wow do the Oilers ever need someone like that.

The well is going okay, dealing with some minor problems but still drilling like crazy. Helped remove the casing protectors last night so I finally got my coveralls dirty...really dirty. Don't feel so bad about all the pie I've been eating out here now.

A new day, a new place, a new well...

Okay, so I guess this is Day 4 on Phelps 5 for me. I spent the last couple days witnessing one of the coolest things I've ever seen...a rig move. I'm guessing most of you haven't been out to see a drilling rig yet and the few that have probably haven't seen one move. These things are huge. 120 feet tall, don't know now many tonnes. I didn't think it could be done but now I'm a believer.

The first step is to clean up the floor and shacks and put all the drill pipe in the pipe tubs. Next they lay down the derrick. This is one of the most impressive parts of the move. About halfway down the lateral forces really start pushing on the pins and it really starts to creak and groan...loud. A couple times it will bind and slip suddenly. I was sure it was going to fall the rest of the way. This was all done at night.

The next morning the movers showed up and started pulling the shacks away from the main substructure. Those were just left on the side of the lease since the substructure needs to go first to the next site. Moving that is the other impressive part. They first have to pull the draw works (the huge winch, blue part) off the top. They do that by putting a giant ramp beside the substructure (5 meters high) and then backing one of their huge moving trucks up it. After that they use a smaller ramp to lift the top part of the substructure (dark grey part). I may be getting into too much detail but these pieces are massive. Hopefully the picture shoes it well.

Once everything is apart they start moving it all down the road to the next site. They put down some plasic and the wood mats around the conductor (first part of the well drilled about 20 meters into the ground before the rig gets there) before centering the substructure over the well. Once that is done the whole process happens again in reverse.

They raised the derrick today. A very cool site that I was able to share with some friends. Being the nerd that I am I pointed the webcam on my laptop out the window of my shack at the rig. Even nerdier, the view was too bright for the camera and everthing appeared white...until I balance my sunglasses on top of the computer over the lens to cut down the light...it worked perfectly. So a few friends that were online at the time got to watch the derrick being raised on MSN Messenger. I was outside to watch it, take a few pictures, and turn around to look back at the camera. I may offer a couple more viewings this week if anything else interesting happens.

Hope the rest of you are having a good week. Send me some comments so I don't get too lonely out here.

Day 1 at Phelps 5...

Not all of you may know this but I'm a long ways from Calgary at the moment. Thursday night I drove up to Edmonton and yesterday I made my way out to the Phelps 5 drilling rig near Fox Creek. Didn't think the Grand Am would make it all the way out so I rented a Ford F-150 in Edmonton. Just like Nevin's but with a couple of differences (it's green, sun roof, heated seats). I really liked driving it, even if it was a Ford.

They were just finishing up the well they were on when I arrived. Ran casing through the night and cemented this morning. I wanted to be here to see the rig move (I still don't see how it can be done). We'll move out to the next site tomorow and should have the next well underway by late Monday.

Another great part about this trip (the truck being one...and the experience is of course another) is my shack. I'm staying onsite instead of in the camp. I'm in the other half of the foreman's shack so I have a big front room with a window facing the rig, a bedroom, bathroom and shower, kitchen area, and two TV's with satellite (haven't missed an Oilers game yet).

So yeah, life is good in the middle of nowhere. I'm thinking I'll be out here until at least February 10th or 11th. Hope you guys don't forget about me by then. Noel has already gotten a few phone calls to say that I miss her. She had a good time snowboarding at Rabbit Hill today.

Stay safe everyone. I will.

What a busy lazy month...

Or is it the other way around? I just can't figure out my schedule, moods, stress this month. I think Christmas messed up my mind. For my younger readers...and maybe some of the old ones...remember coming off of Christmas break and it would take a couple weeks for you to realize you're actually in school again. Or more, remember coming back from summer break or a co-op term? I think my yearly expression was "Holy S#!@, it's October!"

So since Christmas break (Dec 23-Jan 1 for me) I've been lost. I had 4 very busy days of work in the first week of January but never felt the pressure. I knew what I had to do, had a set timeline, and got it done. I also didn't have anything planned for my evenings other than some snowboard gear shopping. Then the second week of January I was in Nisku for my Well Control course. It was such an easy course (day 1: calculating volumes of cylinders, day 2: gas expansion...) that I really didn't have to study much at night. That was good since most of my nights were booked. Noel and I went to a Jubilations dinner theatre (The Gerry Steinfeld Show) Wednesday and I took my bros and Brendan to a wicked Oilers game on Friday. Not at all a stressful week but I feel exhausted. Hmm...maybe Noel had something to do with that...or maybe it's my two hockey games in the last 20 hours.

So right now I'm just being me. I'm not thinking about tomorrow or yesterday too much because I'm just too tired. I have some grocery shopping for tonight, might buy a printer, volleyball game at 9:00, and that's ALL I'm focusing on.

Good night everybody. Hope you have a peacefully hectic week!

Happy New Year...

Yes, it is 2007. A new year with a great beginning and bright future. I was home for the holidays. Took the whole week off of work but managed to fill my time. Two hockey tournaments, snowboarding, pond hockey, Christmas Eve sleigh ride, Christmas Day, Boxing Week shopping...and of course...New Years Eve. That plus a dozen movies...yeah, I stayed busy.

The biggest surprise was on the 31st. Started the day like any good holiday-day...at 1:00 pm. (long drive from Fernie the night before...I was exhausted) Anyway, went for a family shoot-around at the Nanton HUB in the afternoon with plans to head over to the community center right after for dinner/drinks/party. Halfway through the hockey my mom and my aunt Denise come out to skate for a bit and shortly after that Noel stepped onto the ice. Now this was a surprise because she was supposed to be in Medicine Hat. So I looked over, kept skating, looked again, realized something was out of place, and finally stopped skating. She just stood there, smiling at my dumb expression, and waited for me to finally figure it out, smile back, and skate over. Definitely made my day.

We went to the community party together (lots of fun, saw many old friends, danced) but went back to my place before the countdown. I'd made a Tenove Year in Review slide show that had a countdown at the end and had to see how it turned out for the family. That slide show made me realize just how many things we did during the year, both as a family and individually. I must say quite a few of my Thailand picks made it in. I liked seeing what the rest of my family was doing while I was tanning on the beach.

Now I'm back at work and going hard for 4 days. This weekend I'll head up to Edmonton and I'll be in training next week with an Oilers game on Friday. Should be fun!

Hope everyone had a great holiday.