Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Okay, okay...
So to explain what I meant in my little tease yesterday:
1. We're in Spring break up! What is this? It's when the weather gets so nice that all the frost that has been laying in and below the ground and which makes the soil and dirt hard enough for our humongous trucks to drive on starts to thaw and melt and mush up all over the place. Then the government starts issuing road bans which state that only vehicles of a certain weight are allowed to drive on certain roads. That means we, as a base, get to sit and twiddle our thumbs until the ground dries out enough for us to go back to work. Now, this can be a short time or it can be long depending on the weather. For instance, Mr Weatherman says that it may possibly snow or rain tomorrow, prolonging our anguish and disallowing us the advantage of working in the field. Oh, and when I say we sit and twiddle our thumbs, what I really mean by this is that management comes up with, as we used to call them in the Navy, "make-work-projects." We polished wheels and painted iron today. I'm pretty sure I lost several brain cells, and I was told a long time ago that I need to conserve those. Hopefully the weak buffalo theory still applies and only the weakest brain cells were weeded out leaving my brain a more efficient machine and better spellierer. Oh, and speaking of weeding, that may be another make work project on the go.
2. I literally had feet of clay. Management thought that we should try to do one more job that wasn't even worth very much to us before we got completely shut down. Since all the snow was melting, it looked like the patch of land we needed to go on was all muddy. Well, it was, but it was mostly two foot deep clay. I'm probably wrong on the two feet, actually. It was most likely deeper. It was funny to look at my wheel rims and see that the clay had squished up between my duallies (two wheels side by side) and come out the holes in my rims like a Playdough Fun Factory (TM). I felt like taking some home and having a Ghost moment with Michelle (only fans of the movie will get that one, and I'm not explaining it!). So it took forever to get arranged on the lease, the clay clung to us like a dirty diaper to a baby's bum, and to top it all off I wasn't able to wash my truck the next day because of my "near death experience," so the clay hardened and didn't want to wash off my truck with ease. Oh yeah, I guess that brings me to my:
3. Near death experience. Well, I may be exaggerating a tad. I could have been really, really injured but was very, very lucky. I was unloading some iron stands out of the back of a half tonne pick-up truck and was doing so very well I, I might add. Unfortunately, upon unloading the fourth or fifth stand I had changed my grip from dropping it on to my shoulder to holding it in front of me with both my hands. Now these things only weigh about 60 or 70 lbs, but they're a little awkard to carry as the weight isn't very balanced. So when I took a step back, I stumbled a little and the weight of the stand kept my momentum going so I wasn't able to correct myself. The stands are about four feet high, have upside down t's on either end and is completely fashioned out of three inch by three inch beams. I fell backwards, the joining beam fell towards my face, and I don't really remember what happened next. Suffice to say, when I did finally start realizing stuff, I was on the floor, my chin was bruised, I had bitten a gash in my left cheek and I had chipped my lower left canine tooth. The adjoining beam was now above my head (or behind me, depending on how you look at it) and the t's were on either side of my. My supervisor ran over to me and tried to get me to stand up. I raised my finger at him and gave him a look that said, "gimme a sec, I need to take stock!" I thought my jaw was broken, and I was a little bit afraid to move it. I eventually did, and realized that it wasn't broken but just darn sore. Lucky, lucky me. Apparently I also gave myself a little whiplash and bruised my tail bone. But now I'm alive and kicking. The company's going to pay for the repair of my tooth, and I'm still able to chew my food, albeit with a little bit of tenderness to date.
And that's it! I'm heading home to pack because I'm off to Calgary tomorrow to see my aunt and a friend from UVic and then I'm flying out on the 31st to see the important people in my life. Talk you all sooner or later.
1. We're in Spring break up! What is this? It's when the weather gets so nice that all the frost that has been laying in and below the ground and which makes the soil and dirt hard enough for our humongous trucks to drive on starts to thaw and melt and mush up all over the place. Then the government starts issuing road bans which state that only vehicles of a certain weight are allowed to drive on certain roads. That means we, as a base, get to sit and twiddle our thumbs until the ground dries out enough for us to go back to work. Now, this can be a short time or it can be long depending on the weather. For instance, Mr Weatherman says that it may possibly snow or rain tomorrow, prolonging our anguish and disallowing us the advantage of working in the field. Oh, and when I say we sit and twiddle our thumbs, what I really mean by this is that management comes up with, as we used to call them in the Navy, "make-work-projects." We polished wheels and painted iron today. I'm pretty sure I lost several brain cells, and I was told a long time ago that I need to conserve those. Hopefully the weak buffalo theory still applies and only the weakest brain cells were weeded out leaving my brain a more efficient machine and better spellierer. Oh, and speaking of weeding, that may be another make work project on the go.
2. I literally had feet of clay. Management thought that we should try to do one more job that wasn't even worth very much to us before we got completely shut down. Since all the snow was melting, it looked like the patch of land we needed to go on was all muddy. Well, it was, but it was mostly two foot deep clay. I'm probably wrong on the two feet, actually. It was most likely deeper. It was funny to look at my wheel rims and see that the clay had squished up between my duallies (two wheels side by side) and come out the holes in my rims like a Playdough Fun Factory (TM). I felt like taking some home and having a Ghost moment with Michelle (only fans of the movie will get that one, and I'm not explaining it!). So it took forever to get arranged on the lease, the clay clung to us like a dirty diaper to a baby's bum, and to top it all off I wasn't able to wash my truck the next day because of my "near death experience," so the clay hardened and didn't want to wash off my truck with ease. Oh yeah, I guess that brings me to my:
3. Near death experience. Well, I may be exaggerating a tad. I could have been really, really injured but was very, very lucky. I was unloading some iron stands out of the back of a half tonne pick-up truck and was doing so very well I, I might add. Unfortunately, upon unloading the fourth or fifth stand I had changed my grip from dropping it on to my shoulder to holding it in front of me with both my hands. Now these things only weigh about 60 or 70 lbs, but they're a little awkard to carry as the weight isn't very balanced. So when I took a step back, I stumbled a little and the weight of the stand kept my momentum going so I wasn't able to correct myself. The stands are about four feet high, have upside down t's on either end and is completely fashioned out of three inch by three inch beams. I fell backwards, the joining beam fell towards my face, and I don't really remember what happened next. Suffice to say, when I did finally start realizing stuff, I was on the floor, my chin was bruised, I had bitten a gash in my left cheek and I had chipped my lower left canine tooth. The adjoining beam was now above my head (or behind me, depending on how you look at it) and the t's were on either side of my. My supervisor ran over to me and tried to get me to stand up. I raised my finger at him and gave him a look that said, "gimme a sec, I need to take stock!" I thought my jaw was broken, and I was a little bit afraid to move it. I eventually did, and realized that it wasn't broken but just darn sore. Lucky, lucky me. Apparently I also gave myself a little whiplash and bruised my tail bone. But now I'm alive and kicking. The company's going to pay for the repair of my tooth, and I'm still able to chew my food, albeit with a little bit of tenderness to date.
And that's it! I'm heading home to pack because I'm off to Calgary tomorrow to see my aunt and a friend from UVic and then I'm flying out on the 31st to see the important people in my life. Talk you all sooner or later.
Monday, March 27, 2006
Not much time...
So I'll just tease you with this:
-Spring break up
-Feet of clay
-Near death experience
What does all this mean? Perhaps I'll explain tomorrow.....Perhaps!
-Spring break up
-Feet of clay
-Near death experience
What does all this mean? Perhaps I'll explain tomorrow.....Perhaps!
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Where to begin...
Wow! It's been almost two weeks since my last post. That's bad, Derek! Very bad! All I can say is that I'm sorry to all of my millions and millions of readers and fans. Or is it dozens and dozens? It's been so long since I've been to university that I've forgotten how to count. Anyways, after my last post I just enjoyed time with my family who visited me in the Hat and then I got stuck working out of Strathmore. More on that last bit in a sec.
We actually went skiing! After all the talk and years and years of promising to take the kids skiing we just decided to do it on a whim. Thus I've concluded that plans just muck things up, and I will now just make life altering decisions at the drop of a hat. But let me digress. We went skiing, and that's the important part.
Did you know skiing was expensive? I did! Did it lessen the impact of the cost to my psyche? No, no it didn't! But once I strapped on the boards I forgot all about the cost. And the even more important part was that all my girls were there with me, and they loved it too. They wanted to go again and again and again. But unfortunately money doesn't grow on trees (I've tried planting Loonies), and we had other stuff to do.
So we enjoyed the day of leisure on Kimberly mountain! We had actually planned on going to Fernie, but by my calculations, once we hit the road from Creston we wouldn't make it there in time for the kids and Michelle to make the lessons. So as we're passing through Cranbrook I noticed a sign for Kimberly and a little symbol of a dude skiing on it. Right then and there I made a drop-of-the-hat decision to go to Kimberly. It was only 50 or so kilometres away from Cranbrook, and if their lessons started at the same time as the ones at Fernie, we'd make those, too. Well, we made it to Kimberly after a bit of worry about finding the ski hill, but we found it and we got our rentals, lift passes and lessons (not for me...I'm the so-called expert of the family) which were actually scheduled for 11:30am as we missed the 9am ones.
Oh well, we hit the slopes anyway. Rylee decided to try it out before lessons started and seemed to get the hang of it. Lessons, however, helped her learn to stop. I was a little worried about my timid oldest, Kristen, but it seemed that my worry was unwarranted. She took to it like a fish to, um, and underwater ski hill. It did take her a little bit to get the snow-plow technique down. When she seemed to start losing control she would just sit back on her skis which disabled any ability to stop what-so-ever, but she would whiz in and around people and other objects till she slid to a stop. Her instructor said, after the lesson was over, she needed to work on stopping, but her avoidance skills were top-notch. Other than a couple of tee-bar incidents with Rylee, everything else went beautifully. We will definitely be doing that again.
A couple of days later we visited Drumheller and then the next day we visited it again. It's only a 5 hour round trip back to Medicine Hat. Our specific goal when visiting Drumheller was to go to the Tyrrell Museum which is the world famous Alberta dinosaur museum. So we drove out there to visit this wonderful place, and we only stopped for lunch and to climb up the innards of the worlds tallest dinosaur (only $10 per family for 5 minutes of fun...sheesh!). After climbing this monster, I stopped in the gift shop to pick up a pamphlet on the museum we were heading to and just happened to glance at the operating hours the managed. This is what they said:
10:00am - 5:00pm Tuesday through Sunday
*closed Mondays, except for public holidays
Guess which day of the week we decided to visit. Yup! And it wasn't a public holiday either. I was intent on not coming back, but Michelle reminded me that I sort of promised Kristen, my avid dinosaur nut, that this would be one of the highlights of her visit to the Hat. So we went back the next day, and you know what? Now that I knew the name of the bloody museum I saw all sorts of signs for it along the highway with "CLOSED MONDAYS" in big, bold, hard to miss unless your me letters right there for everyone to see. GAAAAAAAAH! It was a cool place though. And the kids had lots of fun, too.
I tried to make it worth while by reading as much as I could, but the kids just wanted to see bones and stuff. I still managed to learn that the T-Rex isn't the largest predator that roamed the Earth but the Giganotosaurus was. This kind of upset Kristen a little as she is a big Jurassic Park 3 fan as well. In that movie, they had a Spinosaurus that was much larger than the T-Rex and also tended to beat them in a bloody confrontation to which Kristen would exclaim, "Sweet!" So she was convinced that the Spinosaurus was the largest predator and refused to agree with my hypothesis that Hollywood is full of crap. Half way through our tour she reasoned that the Spinosaurus must be "tied" with the T-Rex. I gave up at this point!
I was very sad to see my family go. Actually, I didn't even get to see them go as I had to be in to the shop at 4:30am once days off ended. So I just kissed their foreheads in the morning and tried not to cry...too much. I actually received a call the night before to pack an over night bag because my crew was heading out to Strathmore. So I did just that; I packed an over night bag. At that point I discovered that I had misplaced my 24 hour access card to the shop gates. After hectic and then slow paced searching I surmised that it wasn't in any of the vehicles, the apartment or my jacket where it usually was. As it was the same jacket that I wore skiing, I further surmised that the card was currently enjoying a ski holiday on Kimberly mountain. Ugh!
I managed to get in to the yard after waiting for someone else to come and open the gate, and I met the supervisor that I hadn't met before. I brought him up to speed on my card loss and he told me that I'd be able to call the office to get it replaced. I said that wouldn't be necessary as I could just talk to the appropriate person when we got back the next day. this amused him somewhat as he said, "We're probably gone for six or seven days!" I guess when he said that I needed to pack an overnight bag I should have asked how many overnights we were going to be spending. That was on the 15th, and today is the 23rd which is the day I got back. No I didn't turn my underwear inside out and backwards during that time. I just visited the local Walmart. They're freakin' everywhere! I even notice one in Drumheller on both days that we were there.
Well, the nine days went okay with a minimal amount of hiccups, and now I'm back in the Hat. It's time to get some supper and maybe play a little Playstation 2. So I'm going to sign off now, and since we might be in the midst of Spring break up, I might be able to update a little more frequently. In fact, I'll explain Spring break up on my next update. Right now, I'm hungry!
Ciao for now!
We actually went skiing! After all the talk and years and years of promising to take the kids skiing we just decided to do it on a whim. Thus I've concluded that plans just muck things up, and I will now just make life altering decisions at the drop of a hat. But let me digress. We went skiing, and that's the important part.
Did you know skiing was expensive? I did! Did it lessen the impact of the cost to my psyche? No, no it didn't! But once I strapped on the boards I forgot all about the cost. And the even more important part was that all my girls were there with me, and they loved it too. They wanted to go again and again and again. But unfortunately money doesn't grow on trees (I've tried planting Loonies), and we had other stuff to do.
So we enjoyed the day of leisure on Kimberly mountain! We had actually planned on going to Fernie, but by my calculations, once we hit the road from Creston we wouldn't make it there in time for the kids and Michelle to make the lessons. So as we're passing through Cranbrook I noticed a sign for Kimberly and a little symbol of a dude skiing on it. Right then and there I made a drop-of-the-hat decision to go to Kimberly. It was only 50 or so kilometres away from Cranbrook, and if their lessons started at the same time as the ones at Fernie, we'd make those, too. Well, we made it to Kimberly after a bit of worry about finding the ski hill, but we found it and we got our rentals, lift passes and lessons (not for me...I'm the so-called expert of the family) which were actually scheduled for 11:30am as we missed the 9am ones.
Oh well, we hit the slopes anyway. Rylee decided to try it out before lessons started and seemed to get the hang of it. Lessons, however, helped her learn to stop. I was a little worried about my timid oldest, Kristen, but it seemed that my worry was unwarranted. She took to it like a fish to, um, and underwater ski hill. It did take her a little bit to get the snow-plow technique down. When she seemed to start losing control she would just sit back on her skis which disabled any ability to stop what-so-ever, but she would whiz in and around people and other objects till she slid to a stop. Her instructor said, after the lesson was over, she needed to work on stopping, but her avoidance skills were top-notch. Other than a couple of tee-bar incidents with Rylee, everything else went beautifully. We will definitely be doing that again.
A couple of days later we visited Drumheller and then the next day we visited it again. It's only a 5 hour round trip back to Medicine Hat. Our specific goal when visiting Drumheller was to go to the Tyrrell Museum which is the world famous Alberta dinosaur museum. So we drove out there to visit this wonderful place, and we only stopped for lunch and to climb up the innards of the worlds tallest dinosaur (only $10 per family for 5 minutes of fun...sheesh!). After climbing this monster, I stopped in the gift shop to pick up a pamphlet on the museum we were heading to and just happened to glance at the operating hours the managed. This is what they said:
10:00am - 5:00pm Tuesday through Sunday
*closed Mondays, except for public holidays
Guess which day of the week we decided to visit. Yup! And it wasn't a public holiday either. I was intent on not coming back, but Michelle reminded me that I sort of promised Kristen, my avid dinosaur nut, that this would be one of the highlights of her visit to the Hat. So we went back the next day, and you know what? Now that I knew the name of the bloody museum I saw all sorts of signs for it along the highway with "CLOSED MONDAYS" in big, bold, hard to miss unless your me letters right there for everyone to see. GAAAAAAAAH! It was a cool place though. And the kids had lots of fun, too.
I tried to make it worth while by reading as much as I could, but the kids just wanted to see bones and stuff. I still managed to learn that the T-Rex isn't the largest predator that roamed the Earth but the Giganotosaurus was. This kind of upset Kristen a little as she is a big Jurassic Park 3 fan as well. In that movie, they had a Spinosaurus that was much larger than the T-Rex and also tended to beat them in a bloody confrontation to which Kristen would exclaim, "Sweet!" So she was convinced that the Spinosaurus was the largest predator and refused to agree with my hypothesis that Hollywood is full of crap. Half way through our tour she reasoned that the Spinosaurus must be "tied" with the T-Rex. I gave up at this point!
I was very sad to see my family go. Actually, I didn't even get to see them go as I had to be in to the shop at 4:30am once days off ended. So I just kissed their foreheads in the morning and tried not to cry...too much. I actually received a call the night before to pack an over night bag because my crew was heading out to Strathmore. So I did just that; I packed an over night bag. At that point I discovered that I had misplaced my 24 hour access card to the shop gates. After hectic and then slow paced searching I surmised that it wasn't in any of the vehicles, the apartment or my jacket where it usually was. As it was the same jacket that I wore skiing, I further surmised that the card was currently enjoying a ski holiday on Kimberly mountain. Ugh!
I managed to get in to the yard after waiting for someone else to come and open the gate, and I met the supervisor that I hadn't met before. I brought him up to speed on my card loss and he told me that I'd be able to call the office to get it replaced. I said that wouldn't be necessary as I could just talk to the appropriate person when we got back the next day. this amused him somewhat as he said, "We're probably gone for six or seven days!" I guess when he said that I needed to pack an overnight bag I should have asked how many overnights we were going to be spending. That was on the 15th, and today is the 23rd which is the day I got back. No I didn't turn my underwear inside out and backwards during that time. I just visited the local Walmart. They're freakin' everywhere! I even notice one in Drumheller on both days that we were there.
Well, the nine days went okay with a minimal amount of hiccups, and now I'm back in the Hat. It's time to get some supper and maybe play a little Playstation 2. So I'm going to sign off now, and since we might be in the midst of Spring break up, I might be able to update a little more frequently. In fact, I'll explain Spring break up on my next update. Right now, I'm hungry!
Ciao for now!
Friday, March 10, 2006
Hello from Creston, BC!
This is my second day off, and as the rule goes, they seem to be flying by because of all the fun. It is actually quite a bit of a shock to the system to work fifteen days in a row and then cease and desist all work related activity. I'm not complaining, mind you, it's just a bit of an adjustment.
So I'm in Creston, and man is it beautiful here. It is literally mountains 360 degrees around us. Bee-yoo-tee-full! I am quite envious, actually. Not only is this place wonderful but the place I drove through to get here were awe inspiring as well. I mean, Fernie seemed to be lodged into the face of a mountain, and Crows Nest Pass had the bulk of their town at the foot of a ski hill (I think).
Person 1: Whatcha wanna do today? Skiin'?
Person 2: (exasperated) Again?!
Man, I'd love to ski that much that I just got tired of it. Or snowboard. A friend of mine, whom is an avid snowboarder, called skiers "wanker two-plankers." I've tried both now, and I have to say I'm pretty torn. I've spent 99.9% of my time on the hills with a pair of skis, but I have tried snowboarding once. It was awesome! I've never spent so much time on my a-, er, rear. Take my advice if you're going to try it for the first time, though. Take the wrist guards! I was chided out of taking them with my rental package when I went becasue the guy who rented the equipment rolled his eyes at me when I asked for the guards and said sarcastically, "Yeah! There sure is a lot of powder out there!" I don't even know what that means! But I declined them none-the-less.
Let me ask you something: when you fall either forwards or backwards, what do you think you fall on first? Your butt? Nope! Your knees? Guess again. Unless you've got some serious brain damage, aren't fast enough or have suffered a severe accident causing the loss of both of these appedages, you said your hands. Now let me tell you this: the day after snowboarding and falling down several times, and I mean a lot, a bunch, and too many times to count, the next day my baby nephew Luke could have arm wrestled me into submission with how sore my forearms were. So take 'em! You've been warned!
Oh, and to most people my snowboarding story is old, yet humourous, news, but I have to say that getting off the chairlift has got to be one of the most difficult things I've ever tried to do. In fact, I bet 28 out of the 30 times I tried to get off the lift I fell down causing the lift operator to slow the lift down and say, "Please clear the path!" Do you know how easy it is to roll out of the way with a freakin' surf board strapped to one of your feet? Not easy, my friends, not easy. And just for added measure, I decided that most of the times I fell I should take my friend Chad down with me. After all, it was his idea to go in the first place. Lucky him, eh?
What was the point of this? No really, I have to go back and check! Oh yeah, beatiful scenery, lovely little towns, and mom and dad live blocks away from the Kokanee Brewery and bottling plant. There's a sasquatch on the front lawn! Rylee thought he was pretty cute. I suggested he might make a good husband for her. She said that would get in the way of her many other boyfriends or something to that respect. I am reminded that I must keep working out to remain a noticable threat to any prospective boyfiends.
Oh, another point was that the kids are going to try skiing for the first time tomorrow. I will ski too. My father reminds me that I can not afford to hurt myself. I will not be doing any arial freestyle as a result of this reminder. Thanks dad! That was a close call! So I have to wrap this up quickly because me and the girls have to be up early to head for Fernie. Hope the roads remain clear.
Now comes to my embarrasing story, but looking back on the snowboarding story makes me want to call this my second embarrassing story. This story is how I tried to take down a tank with a spring. I will try to explain this in words that make me look less dumb than I felt, and I won't be using any names to protect the somewhat innocent parties involved.
As a new employee, I am eagre to get myself in there and learn as much as I can. I am also aware that at some point I will make a big mistake and be shamed and such, but I'm not sure this is it yet. There is a unit that travels out to site with us that is actually three units in one. I'm still working on getting a cheap digital camera to take pictures of this stuff so you'll have to use your imagination. It is a pumper unit, a blender and a chemical van all in one. Plus it has a command centre where all the operators hang out to, um, operate it. It's huge; massive! I do not look forward to driving it around corners.
So the day before my last field day when we were back in the shop, I offer a hand, or both hands, to two guys wo were changing out the valves on the quintiplex pump to ensure that it remained in running order for the next crew coming on. They readilly accepted, asked me to hop up and told me that it was essential that all parts that come off of the unit must remain in order.
They show me how to pop the top off the valves, how to pop off the valve covers, take the springs out and remove the warn valves. I do this and make sure that all parts that were to go back ramained near their designated areas and that I didn't knock them to the ground. New valves are supplied and dropped into place. I place the valve cover on the nearest one and while that's being banged into place I put all the springs in their designated spots on the valves of the four remaining open areas. We bang everything back together and go for dinner where we get to know each other and have a merry time. The end! I wish!
We go to our first job the next morning and I ask to be present in the command centre area to see what goes on. What goes on is this: They pressure test the lines and everything is fine! They start to pump fluid at a higher rate and the whole unit starts to shake. It starts jumping up and down! It is mad, and it is trying to throw the riders off. What the heck is happening? We try to maintain the rate for a while but it is evident that the unit will shake itself apart if something isn't done. We are informed by an individual outside that the pump doesn't sound right. My heart immediately sinks as my stomach does flip-flops because I am praying that this whole ordeal isn't my fault.
We are instructed to remove the valve covers and the culprit is revealed: there is no spring on the first one I put together. I let them know it was my fault after sweating for a bit. I feel like dirt and am told by the supervisor that this incident was my "free one." I do not go back in the command centre even though I appologize to the guys whom I helped the evening before fix up the pump. They are okay about it and even say it is no big deal. Worse, much worse, has happened before. None the less, I still feel like crap.
I wait till the next job to appologize again. I am reassured by the same individual that it's no big deal. Come back into the command centre and be merry, I am told. I am also told by another individual that it still isn't my fault. I'd never done that before. The individual who was responsible for the pump should have check over my stuff. It was 100% his fault. I say that I still feel badly that I got him in trouble. It's still no big deal, apparently. No equipment was wrecks, no one was hurt and all it cost us was time.
And just to show that it wasn't the only thing that went wrong, several trucks got stuck, the computer system went down for an hour and my supervisor damaged my truck. Hmmm! I didnt feel too badly by the end of it at all. Also, I was given a spring as a souvenier to remind me never to do that again. They even drew a dry erase mural in the command centre of a spring saying, "Please don't leave me behind!"
Sheesh! I gotta go to bed! We're skiing tomorrow. Or snowboarding. Whatever! Just know that we're surrounded by scenery with a gaspability factor of super high. It was so nice to see my mom again, but it sucked that my pop wasn't here. When Michelle and the girls travel back to the island they are going to stop back in for a visit again when he returns.
Well, night all! Hope you are all well and that you wear your wrist guards at the right times. Ciao! Oh, and please forgive the spelling and grammar mistakes. Pop has some sort of weird pop-up blocker on his computer that I am not about to get familiar with at 11pm that prevents me from spell checking. So when you come to a mistake just hum and pretend it makes sence. Or you don't have to hum. I just thought it would be nice to have some music while you read. Excuse me for caring about your entertainment!
So I'm in Creston, and man is it beautiful here. It is literally mountains 360 degrees around us. Bee-yoo-tee-full! I am quite envious, actually. Not only is this place wonderful but the place I drove through to get here were awe inspiring as well. I mean, Fernie seemed to be lodged into the face of a mountain, and Crows Nest Pass had the bulk of their town at the foot of a ski hill (I think).
Person 1: Whatcha wanna do today? Skiin'?
Person 2: (exasperated) Again?!
Man, I'd love to ski that much that I just got tired of it. Or snowboard. A friend of mine, whom is an avid snowboarder, called skiers "wanker two-plankers." I've tried both now, and I have to say I'm pretty torn. I've spent 99.9% of my time on the hills with a pair of skis, but I have tried snowboarding once. It was awesome! I've never spent so much time on my a-, er, rear. Take my advice if you're going to try it for the first time, though. Take the wrist guards! I was chided out of taking them with my rental package when I went becasue the guy who rented the equipment rolled his eyes at me when I asked for the guards and said sarcastically, "Yeah! There sure is a lot of powder out there!" I don't even know what that means! But I declined them none-the-less.
Let me ask you something: when you fall either forwards or backwards, what do you think you fall on first? Your butt? Nope! Your knees? Guess again. Unless you've got some serious brain damage, aren't fast enough or have suffered a severe accident causing the loss of both of these appedages, you said your hands. Now let me tell you this: the day after snowboarding and falling down several times, and I mean a lot, a bunch, and too many times to count, the next day my baby nephew Luke could have arm wrestled me into submission with how sore my forearms were. So take 'em! You've been warned!
Oh, and to most people my snowboarding story is old, yet humourous, news, but I have to say that getting off the chairlift has got to be one of the most difficult things I've ever tried to do. In fact, I bet 28 out of the 30 times I tried to get off the lift I fell down causing the lift operator to slow the lift down and say, "Please clear the path!" Do you know how easy it is to roll out of the way with a freakin' surf board strapped to one of your feet? Not easy, my friends, not easy. And just for added measure, I decided that most of the times I fell I should take my friend Chad down with me. After all, it was his idea to go in the first place. Lucky him, eh?
What was the point of this? No really, I have to go back and check! Oh yeah, beatiful scenery, lovely little towns, and mom and dad live blocks away from the Kokanee Brewery and bottling plant. There's a sasquatch on the front lawn! Rylee thought he was pretty cute. I suggested he might make a good husband for her. She said that would get in the way of her many other boyfriends or something to that respect. I am reminded that I must keep working out to remain a noticable threat to any prospective boyfiends.
Oh, another point was that the kids are going to try skiing for the first time tomorrow. I will ski too. My father reminds me that I can not afford to hurt myself. I will not be doing any arial freestyle as a result of this reminder. Thanks dad! That was a close call! So I have to wrap this up quickly because me and the girls have to be up early to head for Fernie. Hope the roads remain clear.
Now comes to my embarrasing story, but looking back on the snowboarding story makes me want to call this my second embarrassing story. This story is how I tried to take down a tank with a spring. I will try to explain this in words that make me look less dumb than I felt, and I won't be using any names to protect the somewhat innocent parties involved.
As a new employee, I am eagre to get myself in there and learn as much as I can. I am also aware that at some point I will make a big mistake and be shamed and such, but I'm not sure this is it yet. There is a unit that travels out to site with us that is actually three units in one. I'm still working on getting a cheap digital camera to take pictures of this stuff so you'll have to use your imagination. It is a pumper unit, a blender and a chemical van all in one. Plus it has a command centre where all the operators hang out to, um, operate it. It's huge; massive! I do not look forward to driving it around corners.
So the day before my last field day when we were back in the shop, I offer a hand, or both hands, to two guys wo were changing out the valves on the quintiplex pump to ensure that it remained in running order for the next crew coming on. They readilly accepted, asked me to hop up and told me that it was essential that all parts that come off of the unit must remain in order.
They show me how to pop the top off the valves, how to pop off the valve covers, take the springs out and remove the warn valves. I do this and make sure that all parts that were to go back ramained near their designated areas and that I didn't knock them to the ground. New valves are supplied and dropped into place. I place the valve cover on the nearest one and while that's being banged into place I put all the springs in their designated spots on the valves of the four remaining open areas. We bang everything back together and go for dinner where we get to know each other and have a merry time. The end! I wish!
We go to our first job the next morning and I ask to be present in the command centre area to see what goes on. What goes on is this: They pressure test the lines and everything is fine! They start to pump fluid at a higher rate and the whole unit starts to shake. It starts jumping up and down! It is mad, and it is trying to throw the riders off. What the heck is happening? We try to maintain the rate for a while but it is evident that the unit will shake itself apart if something isn't done. We are informed by an individual outside that the pump doesn't sound right. My heart immediately sinks as my stomach does flip-flops because I am praying that this whole ordeal isn't my fault.
We are instructed to remove the valve covers and the culprit is revealed: there is no spring on the first one I put together. I let them know it was my fault after sweating for a bit. I feel like dirt and am told by the supervisor that this incident was my "free one." I do not go back in the command centre even though I appologize to the guys whom I helped the evening before fix up the pump. They are okay about it and even say it is no big deal. Worse, much worse, has happened before. None the less, I still feel like crap.
I wait till the next job to appologize again. I am reassured by the same individual that it's no big deal. Come back into the command centre and be merry, I am told. I am also told by another individual that it still isn't my fault. I'd never done that before. The individual who was responsible for the pump should have check over my stuff. It was 100% his fault. I say that I still feel badly that I got him in trouble. It's still no big deal, apparently. No equipment was wrecks, no one was hurt and all it cost us was time.
And just to show that it wasn't the only thing that went wrong, several trucks got stuck, the computer system went down for an hour and my supervisor damaged my truck. Hmmm! I didnt feel too badly by the end of it at all. Also, I was given a spring as a souvenier to remind me never to do that again. They even drew a dry erase mural in the command centre of a spring saying, "Please don't leave me behind!"
Sheesh! I gotta go to bed! We're skiing tomorrow. Or snowboarding. Whatever! Just know that we're surrounded by scenery with a gaspability factor of super high. It was so nice to see my mom again, but it sucked that my pop wasn't here. When Michelle and the girls travel back to the island they are going to stop back in for a visit again when he returns.
Well, night all! Hope you are all well and that you wear your wrist guards at the right times. Ciao! Oh, and please forgive the spelling and grammar mistakes. Pop has some sort of weird pop-up blocker on his computer that I am not about to get familiar with at 11pm that prevents me from spell checking. So when you come to a mistake just hum and pretend it makes sence. Or you don't have to hum. I just thought it would be nice to have some music while you read. Excuse me for caring about your entertainment!
Friday, March 03, 2006
I never claimed to be REALLY smart...
...Just smart. Um, ish.
So I took the van into the Chevy dealership where I bought it like I said in the last post. The next day, I get a call from the female auto technician (when did they stop being mechanics?) and was told that they couldn't emulate any of the symptoms that I told them and that the windshield washer fluid pump worked fine. I was perplexed!
So I go in there, and the technician took me to my van, and I tried the fluid again, and it still didn't work. That's when the lady said that I wasn't doing it right. First, before I look the total fool, let me explain what the purpose is of the stick attached to the left hand side of the steering column for which one is to operate the wipers. It is used for:
- high beam/low beam
- windshield wiper speed
- cruise control
What I failed to notice was that there was a little tab on top of the shaft that I had to press back to operate the fluid. Gah! I was actually trying to operate the mist setting for the wipers. Just a clue here! The "MIST" setting on the wiper controller is for when you get mist on your windshield, not for when you want to create a mist to remove dirt and grime from it. You can see where I got confused, right? Um, right?
I'm still a little miffed that they couldn't find what was wrong with the other symptoms I mentioned. However, if the symptoms persist I can always get the Chev dealership back the only way I know how: bad word of mouth!
I would like to say "Hi!" back to Tymen! Hope all is well with you and Tina and family. Don't be afraid, as everyone should not be, to email me at dmohninger@gmail.com. I'm already getting spam sent there, so I must be super popular, eh? What a humongous ego I have to fit in my giant melon.
I'm enjoying work a lot, to tell the truth. Not quite using the degree yet, but I will be talking with the head of technologies during my days off. I have been reassured by him that I am not wasting my time. The company is really good to its employees, and I have been brainwashed into joining the cult of Rah. We worship the evening sky and play hacky sack with mice skulls. Well, that last part wasn't true! Honestly, the company seems to be on the level and keeps coming out with benefits for the employees. Here I am, I just finished 10 days of my 15 day set, and I hardly noticed the time go by at all. My driving is improving and they trust me by myself. Now if only I trusted myself as well. My biggest step was being able to take one hand off the steering wheel to drink my green tea. Baby steps, Derek, baby steps.
So what do I do now? I guess since I'm off work, taking a rest day from the gym, and have nothing left to do but buy some granola bars for my lunches, I'll go home and veg. I don't really get to do that too much any more. 3am comes early. I guess it always has!
So I took the van into the Chevy dealership where I bought it like I said in the last post. The next day, I get a call from the female auto technician (when did they stop being mechanics?) and was told that they couldn't emulate any of the symptoms that I told them and that the windshield washer fluid pump worked fine. I was perplexed!
So I go in there, and the technician took me to my van, and I tried the fluid again, and it still didn't work. That's when the lady said that I wasn't doing it right. First, before I look the total fool, let me explain what the purpose is of the stick attached to the left hand side of the steering column for which one is to operate the wipers. It is used for:
- high beam/low beam
- windshield wiper speed
- cruise control
What I failed to notice was that there was a little tab on top of the shaft that I had to press back to operate the fluid. Gah! I was actually trying to operate the mist setting for the wipers. Just a clue here! The "MIST" setting on the wiper controller is for when you get mist on your windshield, not for when you want to create a mist to remove dirt and grime from it. You can see where I got confused, right? Um, right?
I'm still a little miffed that they couldn't find what was wrong with the other symptoms I mentioned. However, if the symptoms persist I can always get the Chev dealership back the only way I know how: bad word of mouth!
I would like to say "Hi!" back to Tymen! Hope all is well with you and Tina and family. Don't be afraid, as everyone should not be, to email me at dmohninger@gmail.com. I'm already getting spam sent there, so I must be super popular, eh? What a humongous ego I have to fit in my giant melon.
I'm enjoying work a lot, to tell the truth. Not quite using the degree yet, but I will be talking with the head of technologies during my days off. I have been reassured by him that I am not wasting my time. The company is really good to its employees, and I have been brainwashed into joining the cult of Rah. We worship the evening sky and play hacky sack with mice skulls. Well, that last part wasn't true! Honestly, the company seems to be on the level and keeps coming out with benefits for the employees. Here I am, I just finished 10 days of my 15 day set, and I hardly noticed the time go by at all. My driving is improving and they trust me by myself. Now if only I trusted myself as well. My biggest step was being able to take one hand off the steering wheel to drink my green tea. Baby steps, Derek, baby steps.
So what do I do now? I guess since I'm off work, taking a rest day from the gym, and have nothing left to do but buy some granola bars for my lunches, I'll go home and veg. I don't really get to do that too much any more. 3am comes early. I guess it always has!
