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.
