Jay’s Realm

Out here the air is clear and crisp, can see far more stars than I can from the city, and the snow outside our site flows in unbroken dunes as far as the eye can see. We have a little fox who has taken to running around the site looking for food. He’s almost tame. Got within a foot of him when I went for breakfast today (at 7pm). So it is a beautiful morning

Working 12 hour days 7 days a week away from home is the nature of oil field work. And it is, I believe, the biggest reason it pays so well. It’s not too bad once you get used to it. It’s work sleep and eat. The days just fly by once you get into that routine.

Now I don’t really work 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. I work from whenever they need me until we’re done. Which can be anywhere from a single day to several months. This job should last from two to three weeks. Before that I was sitting on my duff for six weeks because it wasn’t busy. Summer is very slow, winter is very busy, spring and fall fit in the middle. It averages out to being home 1/3rd of the time.

These days I’ve been helping make a really big hole We’re currently 2753m deep and have another 700m or so to go. I’m off around Grande Prairie so it’s quite beautiful country. Lots of hills and trees and snow. Some moose and elk. No bears, which is nice. I don’t want to get eaten. I enjoy the occasional nibble from time to time, but no blood flow from arteries and the like. That just leads to pain and death, and as a general rule I’m none too fond of pain and death.

I’d love to go back to Europe. I’d like to see Scotland when I go back, maybe live there a year. With my job there’s opportunities, if I want them, to go and work around the world. It’d be nice to go spend a few months working in Cuba or the middle east or Brazil. Might get shot, but that’d make for a good story