| Efficient Government! |
[May. 4th, 2009|12:37 pm] |
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I picked up my new passport today. This is good news in itself, but the shocking bit - for me - is that it arrived almost a week early. I heard there had been lots of improvements at the national passport office, but for it to reach my local post office 3 days ahead of their own stated expected mailout day... well it was a nice surprise. |
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| Air Canada finally comes through |
[Apr. 19th, 2009|02:09 pm] |
Remember how, way back last Christmas, Air Canada totalled my hard-shell suitcase? Well, while I was off on the last job, a parcel arrived for me... and it was my fully repaired suitcase. While I grumble it seems to have taken them nearly 3-and-a-half months to fix it (it was supposed to be month-and-a-half to two months), they did fix everything and ship it back in the end. I picked it up today from the manager's office at my apartment.
So, for anyone else who will, in the future, see their luggage seriously damaged... it looks like Air Canada's damaged-baggage repair service works - if a little slowly. All at their expense too, including shipping. |
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| Progressive Canadian Law?!? |
[Mar. 28th, 2009|02:54 pm] |
I was surfing around Wikipedia, on some anime related topics. One of the sections I perused was about Lolicon anime and manga, which then cross-linked to laws about cartoon-format pornography depicting minors, which then cross-linked me to this (don't click on it right away, or, if you do, open it in another tab):
http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-46.html
Yep, there is the entirety of the Canadian criminal code. The relevant section is 163.1, you'll need to scroll about one-fifth of the way down using the scroll bar.
In case the legalese isn't as clear to you, what it comes down to is this: anything, graphical or written, related to overt/explicit sexuality between anyone under the age of 18 (despite, I might point out, the age of consent in almost every Canadian jurisdiction being 14-16), IS child pornography... so long as it can be proven that it was 'for sexual purposes', whatever that means.
Then in sub-section 4.1, under "Accessing", it lists two possible punishments. For more serious ("indictable offense") cases, jailtime is 45 days to 5 years. For less serious cases, it is 14 days to 18 months jailtime.
here for example is 163.1(c)
...(c) any written material whose dominant characteristic is the description, for a sexual purpose, of sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act; or...
In other words, anyone who has, for example, accessed an online lemon fanfic about the Slayers characters, or Sailor Moon characters, or Final Fantasy characters, or Kingdom Hearts characters (all of whom are in the 14-17 years old range) - if proven in a court of law that it was 'for sexual purposes' - is potentially, under Canadian Law, guilty of accessing child pornography and liable to at least 14 days imprisonment! Dear God. The only saving grace for a lot of people (e.g. the entire anime/Squaresoft fandom in Canada), I suspect, is that it would be diffcult to prove that it was 'for sexual purposes' rather than just curiosity or harmless entertainment.
I might point out that lemon fanfics (for example), and surprisingly even explicit underage cartoon-images of sex (for example) are *legal*, if fuzzily so, in the "Conservative" United States, because of the free speech amendment, the fact that an *original* drawn/animated image has no victim, and a number of court precedents. Check out the US section in the Wikipedia page on the legality of cartoon pornography depicting minors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_cartoon_pornography_depicting_minors
Oh yes, anyone who has volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman: The Doll's House (which is specifically mentioned on that Wikipedia page in relation to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's activities and its concerns about excessively broad definitions/applications of child pornography laws) - or the Sandman volume 2 collection which includes it - in Canada, might wish to consult a lawyer.
The same goes for the (legally available, at least some years ago) Gunsmith Cats manga collection. There are quite a few depictions in that series of the character Minnie May (17 in the North American version, 14 in the original Japanese version) involved in explicit sex. One of the chapters includes Minnie May telling the story - with some explicit flashbacks - to how she met her bomb-making mentor/rescuer from the streets/eventual lover, and how she seduced him while still very much underage (like 12 or so, ew). There is undoubtedly an element of titillation to it all, meant to help sell product, but it is all very plot-relevant and the other characters express suitable shock at her precociousness and promiscuity. But if a lawyer somehow convinces a future jury that this is all 'for sexual purposes', then everyone who has read this manga has potentially 'accessed child pornography'.
I, for one, think I will go out and buy the Sandman collection from a Chapters right now... and thereby, just on principle, quite possibly thumb my nose at our 'progressive society'. I'll put it right next to Gunsmith Cats on my bookshelf.
Do not get me wrong here. I am all for making child pornography a serious crime and protecting children. I do, however, have serious issues with ignorant, overly-broad, or otherwise flawed definitions and/or applications of such laws. As far as I can tell the Canadian law is in the overly-broad category, by quite a bit. I sincerely wonder whether something as flawed/fuzzy as this is what what has put one of my good friend's life on hold for two years now. If so, I will think of it as a sign of hope that the cops keep asking for more time to investigate... maybe that the nebulousness of this law is so bad - hopefully forcing a re-write in a few years - that even overzealous law-enforcement officers can't figure out what 'for sexual purposes' means, well enough to prosecute.
Kind of disgusted,
Frostygeologist |
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| Hurry up and wait! |
[Jan. 17th, 2009|11:15 pm] |
Yup. That's the usual story in the industry end of the oil industry. So I am still at home, with no further word about when (and increasingly possibly *if*) I am next bound for the rigs.
I had a strangely busy week, reconnecting with my menagerie of friends who had not seen me since all of early December... and also catching up on/with ASAPA business (that's the society which runs the big anime con here in Edmonton). We met last Sunday, and we are meeting again this Sunday. Yawn! Oh well, it all adds up to an event worth attending so I gues it is worth my time.
After some hunting around, I now own the base-game of Arkham Horror, and will hopefully be hooking my gamer friends on it out here. And, it turns out, I am eligible for the free open-beta of Dawn of War II, successor to the most awesome SciFi RTS out there (Starcraft 2, eat your heart out). So if I am not out on a oil rig by the 21st, I will be playing this hopefully-awesome game on my new-built gaming PC with friends - especially IMT, who built it and is even more keen about DoW2 than I am. |
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| Samsonite 2, Air Canada 0 |
[Jan. 9th, 2009|11:06 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  pleased | ] |
Hello to any people out there,
Well one of my new-years resolutions was to keep in better touch with people, so part of that is a plan to start posting here again, at least once a week, when I am not on a job.
So I made it back to Edmonton, and, as the post title suggests, not everything was in one piece. But it's not bad news! When I picked up my luggage, my Samsonite hard-shell suitcase had a huge dent in it. Then I noticed it was very scuffed, and missing two of its 4 wheels. As far as I can figure, it must have gone flying off a fast-moving baggage cart - either in Toronto or Winnipeg - and then, quite possibly, been run-over to boot. It was, despite this, still whole and closed. Samsonite 1 point.
I thought this was inappropriate treatment for my luggage, especially since it had some of my breakable Christmas gifts inside. But, I didn't think the airline would cover it - I didn't look, but I kind of presumed they would have hidden a "not responsible for damages" clause in their fare agreement somewhere. Nonetheless, I decided to drop by the baggage office and at least register a complaint. It was a pretty serious brutalization of my poor bag after all. Air Canada -1 points.
So the chap in charge there, initially seeing just the dent, said that filing a report would be pointless. I said I thought so, but would like to do so anyway, and mentioned a couple of wheels had also been broken off. His eyes widened, he came around and checked, and said "well, then, if they knocked the wheels off, I'll file a full claim for you". He then explained to me that, once I unpacked the contents at home, and so long as I brought it back to the baggage office within 60 days along with the claim he was now writing up, it would be sent to their office in Calgary. There it would be assessed and, at Air Canada's expense, either repaired or replaced (!). Air Canada +1 points. Total score: 0.
I got home with a mild sense of dread, and began unpacking my poor baggage-[mis]handling casualty. And Lo! Nothing inside was damaged at all! After its clear mauling, it had done its job and protected everything. Bang up job! Samsonite +1 points. Total score: 2. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 15th, 2007|02:20 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | EDmonton | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | mellow | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | CBC Radio-2 | ] |
So I got back from my last job of the season on Monday evening. Somehow things got rather busy for a couple days: Tuesday I hooked up with several of my gamer/animethon-related fellows(there's a lot of crossover, surprise surprise) for lunch and, as it turned out, some LAN-gaming.
Yesterday, I drove out to Leduc in the afternoon to drop off the gas detection equipment I was using, and on the way back stopped at IKEA. And, finally, at last, AT LAST they had the center-unit of my entertainment center! Only 9 months of waiting... jeez. I will be assembling it tonight.
I also enjoyed dinner and visiting with Koldaussie. The spaghetti and meat sauce was delicious, and then I inflicted introductions to three newer anime series on them: The artsy-quirky Nodame Cantabile about music school students, the fun-even-if-it-is-a-fight-show Strongest Disciple Kenichi, and the dark-dark-dark Shana no Shakugan. Shana is a buy title, for me at least, though I am waiting for the box set (volume 3 is already out in North America). It IS good, but not quite good enough for me to want to pay for each disc separately. It takes a dang-good show for me to buy it as each volume comes out... like 12 Kingdoms, Ghost in the Shell, or Full Metal Panic franchise DVDs. |
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| Back in the saddle... |
[Mar. 5th, 2007|08:35 pm] |
... for a week and a bit.
Yep, my peaceful recuperative homestay (at home) was ended by a short-notice job. I get a call Thursday from my boss saying there's work if I want it - of course, yes! - so it's *zoom* daytrip to Calgary on Friday, to meet with the company that needs me, *zoom* back same day (just in time for the traditional free supper and anime night), hanging on the call to come out to the rig for Saturday, getting postponed twice on Sunday (which was OK, gave me time to pack and all), and now here I am west of Drayton Valley and east of Jasper Park... WELL east, greens! The government isn't letting oil companies in there yet :).
It'll only be a week/week-and-a-half, but it's all good cuz it has a gas detection aspect; it pays more per diem than what I was doing this winter. After this, my boss tells me, that's it until summertime. Even though colder weather is lingering this year, no companies prepped (i.e budgeted) for it and so by mid March it'll be Spring Breakup, even if no ice is actually breaking up yet. I just hope it stays cool until I leave... we're on a (natural) island in the middle of a muskeg swamp.
It is worrisome, a bit... last Saturday Spring gave it's notice of arrival to all of central and southern Alberta: it got up to about 10 degrees in Edmonton. Because of all the snow this year, and the city's lackadaisical approach to snow removal, much of Edmonton's road network became a grid-shaped lake... most of the roadside drains are still under 6-8 inches of hard-packed ice. I drove to the West Edmonton Mall, and by the time I got there, my car looked like I had gone off-road mudding (well, without the thick mud you see in car commercials, mind you). I have nothing but pity for any pedestrians out-and-about that day... EVERY car in the city was out (for some reason, Edmontonians celebrated the lovely sunny warm weather my heading en-masse to the Mall... it's parking was literally full!), so any nice drivers who normally went wide-around big puddles (e.g. me) had no room to maneuver. I wound up hitting one big puddle at speed (light changed to yellow just as I hit the intersection) and, most unfortunately, a pedestrian had decided at just that point to step to the curb (it was a bus stop, bus was 2-3 cars behind me). One the one hand, that showed considerable lack of foresight on his part (myself, in such situations, I make a point of standing about 5 feet back off the sidewalk on the side away from the street, until the bus stops... even if it means I won't be first on), but didn't reduce the guilt I felt for dowsing him :( |
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| Back in civilization |
[Feb. 25th, 2007|11:10 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | refreshed | ] |
Well, now, I am once again comfortably ensconced in my downtown apartment. I drove back on the 23rd, leaving 7:45AM and getting into town at 6:30PM. Since that was a Friday, the timing seemed appropriate for me to drop in on a fair portion of my local friends as a surprise, and so I went straight to the Friday Anime get-together. That was fun, but it left me pretty tired since I didn't actually get home 'til 1AM and then had to unpack at least some stuff. Oh well, I got a decent sleep in and turned Saturday into a day of recuperation, most enjoyable. And now, I head out to do a bit of shopping (...need ...groceries). I am already invited, in fact, to dinner with Koldaussie and Paula. Looking forward to it, I am. |
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| At last a *cool* animal! |
[Feb. 14th, 2007|01:32 am] |
Wow! Hard to believe it has been 10 days. So what cool stuff happened of late? Hmmm, this'll be a bit of a long one.
Well, to start with, yesterday I got to see a wolf. It was at quite a distance, mind you, but definitely a wolf. He was on the road, nosing about, and in fact behaving somewhat puppyish it seemed (not to mention it was 3PM broad sunny daylight). Seemed German Shepherd-sized and shaped, but took off into the trees as soon as my car crested a hill a couple hundred meters away. I slowed down to check the tracks when I got to them, and they were large-dog-size. So, I am pretty sure it was not a grown-up, just a teenager from this past spring's litter. Now this was pretty close to a large, year-round camp, so I thought it might have been a dog, but as said camp was my destination (for some foozball and pool with one of my geo-colleagues), I asked around and no one there had a dog. So a wolf it shall remain in my memory :)
Some days before that, the rig was on a long move (about 65km eastward), that ran overnight. So I chose the opportunity to once again drive into town, this time for an overnight stay. The hotel room was not cheap (they aren't, up here, especially during oil-drilling season), but very comfy and posh. For $219 with all applicable taxes, I got a mini-suite with King-size bed, kitchenette complete with cookware, four settings of decent tableware and wine glasses, couch, heater-disguised-as-fireplace, and a few other perks. Keep in mind that the Super-8 up here is in the same price range! The chain is Pomeroy Hotels and Suites, and they have been popping up in northern Alberta and BC quite a bit of late. I can recommend them heartily.
Of course the trip to town was for shopping. This time I remembered to go for skis... only to be sadly disappointed. The main winter sports shop in town - a good one - had had their supplier (one manufacturer, a good Scandinavian one) quit sales in Canada just before Christmas, and so the place was out of stock! The other sports shop, a trendy boards-store that also did skateboards and bikes, had a few cross-country skis, but very few, more like they were an afterthought item. Nothing that worked for me, anyway. *Sniffle!* So I am ski-less still, and will have to wait for ski-buying until I am back in Edmonton... at least then I should be getting end-of-season clearances.
So I dropped into the local Mark's Work Wearhouse instead, and got lucky. I mainly went in looking for thin, wool sweaters; I really like wearing them over a T-shirt and under a regular shirt in winter. Very warm, little bulk, almost like having fur. I did get one, in medium grey, on sale. In fact, everything was on sale, end-of-season clearance time there already. So, I also picked up something I had been eyeing for ages: a Wind River jacket with liner. I love my leather jacket, but I needed something that I could use on spring days when the leather is too warm or when raining, and these are also good outdoorsy jackets, with their removable pill linings and numerous pockets (Ladyiolanthe knows all about'em, eh?) It was reduced to move, too: 89.99 for something normally 259.99!
And that's about it... oh wait! I also found a copy of 'Crusader Kings', a 5-star strategy game by the same company that put out my near-favourite game of all time, Europa Universalis 2. Very hard to get, since they don't make it anymore ( but do still support it fully). It covers 1066-1415, and even has an option that lets one export the results of a game to Europa Universalis 2, covering 1419-1820! What fun... maul the map of Europe beyond recognition in the medieval era, and then see how that would affect the world through the rennaissance and right up to the very start of the Industrial Revolution. Woot! How to kill 1000 hours, right there. Small-town computer shops rock, with their 'outdated' leftover stock. |
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| NO! The HORROR! The death of civ4 on my laptop |
[Feb. 4th, 2007|07:39 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sad | ] |
Ever since Xmas, civ4 has been failing to boot up on my computer. After several sessions of uninstalling-reinstalling, trying to update video drivers, and checking for new patches, I finally gave up and called the game publisher's tech support. The fellow on the other end was surprised that, after running just fine for months it would suddenly stop. I was in the process of getting an official file number and assurances of a look into it - and part of that process, naturally, is for them to get my computer specs (clock speed, RAM, video card, etc...) - when the true problem revealed itself. When I told him my video card was an SiS, he went into mild shock. Apparently, civ4 does not, and never has, supported the SiS video chipsets. The fact it worked on my poor li'l laptop to begin with seems to have been a miracle. The rest of the call was "wow, good-on-you for making it work"(the fellow at the other end was English) and apologies, mixed with some speculation about how it worked.
Most likely, it seems, the fact I have an (excellent) AMD processor helped the video card handle the problem, beyond its actual capability. Then, if I had installed an even-more graphics-intensive game, that did support SiS chipsets, the card's onboard RAM would have been reset and, in a sense, realized that civ4 was not a game it supports. AS it happens, of course, I had installed Dawn of War, a very graphics-intensive RTS game, between the last time I played Civ4 and when it stopped working. Final result: tech support can't help me, since civ4 should never have worked on my computer in the first place, and I need a new graphics card (or, since it is a laptop I own, probably a new computer) if I ever want to play civ4 again. Sniffle... |
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| The lights! The lights! |
[Feb. 2nd, 2007|03:08 pm] |
So the rig was being moved to a new location the night of Jan. 30-31. Since the shack I stay in is without power and heat during moves, I decided to drive the 15kms to the main camp to hang in the mess hall (food, coffee, and warm 24/7). While driving, in a northerly direction, I was given a short but rare treat by the night sky. Despite the almost full moon and clear night, the northern lights came on very brightly all of a sudden. Just a thin bright green band up high to start, but it stretched and drifted downward in brilliant curtains. About halfway down to the horizon, the bottom ends of the curtains started dropping spears of red - rare colour for anywhere south of 60N - and then, as it sank further, the whole bottom third of one big curtain went red. Keep in mind they were competing with a nearly-full moon too, and almost as bright. Sadly the spectacle only lasted about 7-8 mins, and I didn't get to see all of it thanks to trees. I detoured 5km to an area that has only low scraggly trees (a swamp most of the year, I'd guess), but it was all over by the time I got there. Ah well, for the second time in my life I got to see intensely red - and bright - aurorae, and that made me happy. |
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| A little nighttime excitement |
[Jan. 26th, 2007|08:13 am] |
So they were cementing in the casing for our most recent well late last night. One of the rig hands drifted over by the garbage bin, around 1AM, to dump some cement bags and relieve himself. And then, it seems, he was hissed at by a beastie rooting about inside the dumpster. No, not a rat or anything typical and nonlethal. It was a wolverine. Any further visits to the dumpster were banned that night. I wonder if the need to relieve himself was *before* or *after* the the little monster announced its presence? No harm was done, it seems, and I'm quite sure the ban on visits kept it that way. Like most other wildlife, it would probably prefer not to fight, much, but it had a food supply to guard in that dumpster. I only wish I was on top of a rig building or something - with a camera, preferably - to see the little guy. I'd love to see a wolverine, but from a safe and secure distance, thank you... much the same way I feel about tornados, in fact. |
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| No skis yet |
[Jan. 23rd, 2007|04:17 pm] |
Well, I finally saw some decent wildlife last Friday, when I drove into town for variety and a bit of shopping. On my way out, I ran into - er, figure of speech - my first ever encounters with woodland caribou. It was five young bulls (they all had horns only 6-inches long, though some actually had a second prong), what I do believe is called a bachelor herd. They were standing on the road. So, of course I slowed down. They didn't know what to make of me, it seems (these bachelors, apparently, were archetypal jocks), but as I got closer (now doing only about 15km/h) they finally started running away... DOWN THE ROAD! Yep. Jocks. For a full kilometer they just kept merrily prancing along in front of me (FYI, bachelor bulls run at about 30 km/h. One of them (he gets Cs not Ds?)had sense to jump the snowbank and run in the ditch, but the snow was slowing him down, separating him from his buddies, so he hopped back onto the road after a couple hundred meters. FINALLY, they spotted a cutline heading away from the road (forests are THICK up here) jumped the snowbanks as a group, and tore off into the woods that way.
In town, I forgot to buy skis. I DID pick up some books, DVDs and a digital camera. This one was a relatively cheap point and shoot; after I'm done taxes and know what I have to work with financially, I'll pick up a proper photographers camera (a big'ol Canon EOS or the like). Once I get this one figured out, I'll start posting the odd pic of the local land, the rig, etc.
I also ate at Ft. St. John's nicest restaurant. Moments after I sat down, a reasonably attractive young lady sat nearby and asked "Excuse me, do you have a trick coming tonight?". Uh, Nothankyou? "Oh, OK, thanks." A number of other attractive young ladies joined her. By this time I had my suspicions, obviously. There was some commiseration with one of them that the expected(?) trick was not here. Then they all disappeared... and reappeared 10 minutes later in serving staff uniforms for the restaurant!! Now, this restaurant is well known in Ft. St. John, and by those who go to that town regularly (read, geologists) for always having very eye-pleasing serving staff. I now have rather serious suspicions that it is also an escort service on the side. A pricey one at that, too... I expect, from the appearances I saw, that drugs and disease are not much factor here, and bathing and hair-work twice daily a requirement. There is a growing number of women in North America who volunteer for 'professional escorting' because it is, well, "fun, pleasurable and high-paying" (TV documentary quote, not mine!!). All I can guess is that this way, girls can come up here, practice their chosen profession in an environment that oozes money, while calling mum weekly and saying they just work as servers at this great restaurant.
Right, lastly, on the way back from town I met MORE WOODLAND CARIBOU! And road-running, apparently, is endemic in the local population. This time it was about 20-25, cows and yearling calves, and yep, there they were, just outside of town, trotting single-file in my direction along a major (but only 2-lane) industrial highway. At least they were on what passes for the shoulder... mostly. So I slow way down, again, to 15 km/h. Now I've got the idiot beasts running beside me, while every so often one dashes in front and across the road. Me, 10 km/h, caribou 20km/h. Definitely caribou, from their shape. Fortunately, my lights made them pretty obvious to oncoming traffic, and it slowed down too. At last there's a short gap, when a pair decide to run across behind me, and I pull ahead and out of the ungulate-jam.
So, I finally got to see some beasties beside partridge. Sorry I asked, or, next time, can you beasties please get OFF the !$# Road?!? |
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| No beasties yet |
[Jan. 10th, 2007|08:16 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | disappointed | ] |
Well, it might of been the lack of snow cover until last Friday, but so far my wildlife viewing up here has been rather sad: 3 partridge one day, pecking along the roadside, and last night a single white hare. What *may* have been an owl blew across the night road, just above my high beam field, the first two evenings I was here (I think he had figured out the headlights highlighting yummy mice thing), but I have not seen it since. That's it. Oh well, I'll be buying skis this weekend I hope, and once it gets a little warmer (-28 right now), I'll start excursion-ing and hopefully see more. |
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| Highway of Horrors? |
[Jan. 10th, 2007|11:04 am] |
Highway 43 in Alberta has a bad reputation. It is a major industrial highway, with oodles of oilfields, and also any and all truck traffic bound for the Yukon and Alaska. It even has a stretch of 100 km, through muskeg boreal forest, called Moose Row... for the obvious reason (I've yet to see a moose along it, but deer? Always!) HOWEVER, a lot of work has been done to make it safer: it is now doubled and excellently graded, along it's whole length except for three stretches of about 20-30km each. Two of those are in various stages of being doubled, and the last is through a large First Nation and looks like it may never get doubled (I think the local band is worried a double highway would effectively cut the reserve in half)
So, in my experience at least, you have to be pretty dumb for anything to happen... or unlucky enough to have someone who is that stupid run into you, or run you into the ditch. I got to drive up to this year's winter job along this highway on Jan 2nd, though, and got to see the aftermath of post-New Years-celebration stupidity. Tally along the 100 km stretch running from Whitecourt, past the hamlet of Fox Creek, and including half of moose row: 4 cars just in the ditch/median, upright; 3 cars in the ditch/median, on their roofs; 1 car in the median, on its side. The rest of the highway - nearer the larger centers of Valleyview and Grande Prairie - were clear of road carnage... but, I suspect, that was because of better weather and that they had already cleared much of it away. And guess what? More than half the casualties were nice spankin'-new pickups, which gives a good chance they were being driven by drunk young oil-workers. Maybe they should rename Highway 43 to "Darwin Highway"? |
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| Waiting Walking Working |
[Feb. 7th, 2006|03:34 pm] |
Well, this last well took more than a week, and there are pretty good odds it will not be much of a producer. Things started out well enough, but only a few meters below surface casing, there was a gravel & artesian aquifer... meaning, lots of water flowing into the well. It took 3 days to figure out how to deal with all that water (they cranked up the drilling mud density, viscosity, and pressure, until the water stopped coming in), but the resulting very gooey mud slowed drilling right down. Then, when all looked to be going well again and we were sampling merrily away in the target zones, the directional crew came over and said, basically "oops, sorry, we overshot the target and are about to cross out of our legal zone for drilling". I had to make the call - an obvious one, mind you - to stop all drilling until I could reach the Calgary geologist in charge of the project. They agreed that stopping was the only choice -huge fines if you drill too far into a neighbouring land block! - even though we were only a little more than halfway into the interval that has gas. Such is the way of things in the oil patch sometime. I suspect at least one directional driller's head might roll once all this plays out. Not my concern, I suppose, as that is between Burlington Resources and Precision Drilling, two rather large companies.
So, with all the days I had to sit on my hands, I found other stuff to do. Jarrod, the senior Cabra geologist out here this year, moved almost next doors (about 2-3 km away) the day after we moved to our location. He took up cross country skiing a couple years ago, and three of the four rigs up here are now all in the rather scenic (unlogged!!) western reaches of the project area where he likes skiing. Plus, my rig location happens to be right on the seismic line he used to get from his rig to the Gutah Creek (almost a river) valley. He's been through a couple times, and both occasions I joined him for a walk. The valley is indeed very nice, all nice tall trees, mixed species, never logged, with the very tortuously meandering Gutah Creek wandering amongst them. We walked (OK, he skied) right on the river. Didn't see much actual wildlife, but lots of tracks. Something like a weasel crisscrossing the river multiple times, and, methinks, trotting lynx tracks. Ladyiolanthe? Large rounded prints, almost single file, looking like there was concerted effort to have hind feet land in the same spot just abandoned by forefeet. I think that is a cat characteristic. They had been snowed on a little - almost an inch - so there was no real chance to see details of pads/claws retracted or not/etc... so just the stride (a few feet, like a large dog) and the placement of prints to go on.
Last year, Jarrod saw a wolf on the river bank, in broad daylight. We didn't see anything like that, but one can hope. I'll be near the river for a couple more weeks...
So, one thing I am thinking of doing is, once paid, going into Fort St. John and getting myself a pair of skis. It'd be awful nice to get back into that after a 20 year hiatus :)
Anyhow, I am done all my work for this well, got that all tidied up at 4AM, and we should be moving tonight sometime, or very early tomorrow at the latest. Ah, back to straight holes! I'm really good with the concept of 3-4 day drilling jobs now. 8 days is just too long, it saps motivation and enthusiasm like there is no tomorrow... which is why I am feeling motivated and enthusiastic enough to update my journal, now the end is in sight. |
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| What I do |
[Jan. 28th, 2006|10:02 pm] |
OK, Sorry all, I lied, and the wait was *longer* this time... at least I friended ladyiolanthe in a spare moment.
This last well I sat was pretty typical, other than that it was a directional well (meaning the hole is drilled in a parabola and/or with doglegs, in order to reach a target that is inaccessible from directly above), so here was my day breakdown:
Day 1 (Jan 24)
The rig was torn down, moved to a new location, and set up again for a new hole. Geologist's job during this process: a) go to main camp and shoot the breeze/watch TV/read/work on thesis, etc. OR b) watch the rig tear down and move process. I did (a) for the first couple moves, and I have done (b) for the last two. The rig is all in short-trailer sized modules (e.g. one for the boiler, one for the diesel generator, one for the mud pump, etc) so they are shifted apart by winch-equipped bed trucks (basically a flatbed, but fixed to the cab and not a separate trailer), then picked up by regular flatbed semis, moved to the new spot, and then the process is reversed. It usually takes two trips by 6 trucks for all the various pieces of the rig, and the at-rig staff's shacks (like the geologist & consultant's shack I'm in).
Once everything was ready to go again, the new hole was 'spudded' - the term for when the rig first drills into the topsoil.
Tear down start to completion at new site, plus spud (starting the new hole): 10 hours, the middle chunk of which I am exiled from my shack for the move.
Day 2 (Jan 25)
step A: Drilling surface. Basically, the first leg of the hole, which goes through all the soil, till, and top few layers of naturally eroding bedrock. Usually, 'surface' also tries to go past any known trouble layers... a different kind of bit is used, one that isn't wrecked by large gravel or gummed up by loose clay and soil; the surface bit also has a larger diameter than the main hole's bit. This part of the hole is also usually drilled with water as the lubricant/support fluid. Once 'surface depth' is reached (122m down, this last hole, taking ~3 hrs), go to...
step B: Surface casing. Heavy gauge metal pipe is run down into the hole and then cemented into place. This is to (i) hold back all the loose soil, till, and cruddy bedrock so it doesn't fall in and clog things up and (ii) protect the soil, water table, and other such important things from the goop that goes into drilling mud and, of course, the gas and oil that could come up (blow outs are rare these days, but once into deeper rocks, a little gas and oil always seeps into the drill mud). Running in the pipes, waiting for the cementing crew, pouring the cement, and waiting for the cement to dry: 18 hrs. The last 2-3 hours of this are spent running all the pump, pressure and blow-out prevention system tests. Finally, go to
step C: 'drill-out'... self explanatory, methinks. Drill out the few feet of cement at the very bottom of the surface hole, and on into the real -unweathered- bedrock.
Geologist's job during all this: spare time. I usually spend it writing up the parts of the current well's report that I can (like name, location, and anything related to the surface drilling & casing that I am supposed to include), which fills in 2-3 hours, and the rest is spent catching up on sleep and R&R.
Day 3 (Jan 26)
'Drill ahead'... in exploration wells, like the ones I sat during training, the geologist is pretty much on the go from this point onward. Samples start being caught by the rig crew from just a few meters below surface casing, usually every 10m or so, until the zone(s) of interest are reached, at which point sampling is increased to every 5m or 2.5m. HOWEVER, up here, we are doing development wells: we're deep inside (doing 'infills', upping the density of wells to get at more pockets of gas) or right on the edge ('stepping out', seeing if the useful reservoir extends further out in a certain direction) of a known gas pool. The resource and reservoir formations are known, the oil company has a pretty solid idea how deep, and they know what (or what little) resource there is closer to the surface. So, the geologist just sits back until the target is reached... around here, usually 700-800m down (= about 150-200m below sea level).
This last well was, as already mentioned, a directional well. We're at the top of a narrow stretch of the Kahntah River valley, too hard to reach with big heavy vehicles and rig components - plus, I surmise, BC quite sensibly doesn't want wells, with their potential pollution, being drilled right next to a significant watercourse. The target, however, is down under the river in its narrow valley (this is a step out well, seeing if the Kahntah gas field extends this far west), so we drill down a couple hundred meters, then, using a special set of equipment which allows trained staff to steer the course of the hole, start bending in the desired direction. The special staff, a directional driller (the navigator of the steerable bit) and MWD tech (mechanic/engineer/monitor of the steerable unit's systems) were brought in just for this... and the next well I head to, the only two directionals being done up here this year. Anyhow, long and short: the constant adjusting and monitoring of the steerable unit slows progress by about half. Plus, since we're at an angle and not straight down, the target is effectively quite a bit deeper... same depth below sea-level as the rest, of course, but sampling starts at 900m as a result of the slant. Geologist's job during all this: try and help the directional driller figure out what formation and rock type he is in, if there are difficulties, and beyond that... as usual. R&R, some thesis work, and sleep.
Day 4 (Jan 27)
Same as day 3 :)... Late in the day, the really curving parts of the directional well are done, and they 'trip-out' - haul all the drill pipe back to surface - and switch the special directional bit (designed for better cutting to the sides, but slower in the straight-ahead direction, necessary when steering a lot) for a more standard bit (minor sideways capability, good at drilling fast and straight). Then, because drilling rate fluctuates so much at times, I'm up and down all night, cchecking the current depth reached, making sure I'm awake for sampling.
Day 5 (Jan 28)
Part A: [Geologists' job] Sample depth finally reached at about 8AM. Sampling starts at 5m intervals, stays that way for 70m, then switches to 2.5m intervals for the remaining 60m. The directional guys steered us in somewhat high, so I (joy) get an extra 30m of sampling to do... anyhow, the rig hand (most junior guy on the staff, gets the dirtiest jobs, like collecting samples) brings me the (usually half-frozen, it has been -20 around here for the last few days) little bags of drilling mud and cuttings to me 2-3 at a time. I wash the rest of the drilling mud away, dry the samples in frying pans on a stove, examine them under microscope, describe them, figure out when we're in the target zone, and, once the right marker is reached (in this case the top of the Montney Formation, which was, of course, the subject of my M.Sc, so I have no trouble spotting it), let the consultant and rig crew know where to stop drilling (at a certain depth below the Montney top). Drilling is finished by about 3:15 in the afternoon, though I'm I'm still cleaning, drying and describing samples until almost 6PM. After supper, I fill in a bunch more information on my report (like TD = 'total depth' of the hole, and the true vertical depth of my formation tops, and such). Then I R&R for a while and write this :)
Part B: [not Gelogists' job] Once TD is reached, the rig crew pulls all the drill pipe out-of-hole, then runs it in again, then out again, then lets the drilling mud circulate on its own for a few hours. This is called a 'wiper trip', basically it reams out any places where drill cuttings have gotten stuck or balled up, less rigid/durable rock layers have collapsed or been squeezed into the hole, and then 'rinses' all the rubbish out by letting the mud flow. just so you know, drilling mud is very thick and viscous, much like wet high-quality cement, except not as heavy. The pressurized drill mud is what keeps the surrounding rock from just squeezing the hole down to nothing AND keeps any gas down in the reservoir unit and not bubbling up and out into the air, where, if it gets there, it usually explodes and burns... a classic 'blow-out'. One of the most senior rig crew members is the guy who looks after that mud and the mud pumps. Then they run down another set of casing, which is also cemented in, and the hole is finished for the nonce. This process will, likely, take all night.
Day 6 (Jan 29)
Finish cementing the hole, and the tear down the rig for the move to our next site. At this writing, tear down is expected to be ready for the trucks (they have to disconnect all the hoses and cables and such first, of course) to move around 7-8AM.
Usually, though, there is an extra half day between end-of-sampling and running of casing, during which the geophysicists come out and log the hole from bottom to top with a variety of sensors. This is called open-hole logging, because the sensors can be put right up against the rocks, giving better results. Because this was a directional hole, with lots of bends and doglegs, it was decided that running the $30 million or so string of logging sensors down there was in too much risk of getting stuck and/or lost. So, instead, this hole is getting cased first and a set of 'cased-hole' geophysical logs will be run instead... not as informative (with a couple inches of steel and cement between sensors and bedrock), but safer financially.
Geologists' job during all this: when open hole logs are run, we usually meet with the logging crew and give them a rundown on the hole's vital statistics and warn them of any soft or problem spots where their logging array could get hung up for a bit. This time, though, I won't be doing that, so I get to sleep (much needed at this point). Then, tomorrow, after rig move, I'll probably run the last set of tests on my samples for this hole (check how they fluoresce under UV dry, which shows residual oil stains, and then when doused with organic solvent, which dissolves out any trapped oil/gas and gives a hint as to how much is in there), write'em up, and then go back to Day 1... start again from top.
Good night. Any questions? Ask, and it will probably result in a decently quick reply or even another entry. :) |
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| An update at last ?!?... |
[Jan. 17th, 2006|12:25 am] |
Well, it has been a few days, mostly hectic. It turns out I got the veteran, competent rig and we have been, up until tonight, coming in steadily under our prescribed time on each hole. We were scheduled for 4 days for each hole, and have been going from spud (the moment drilling starts at ground surface) to rig release (after all drilling and post-drilling work is done) in under 3 days. This is good for Burlington Resources, the oil company doing all this work up here, since the other rigs are all a few days to a week behind schedule, but in a way bad for me since I am seeing a lot less spare time than expected. Of course, I count R&R/sleep time - especially catching up on sleep after an all-nighter logging samples and preparing the perlim report that goes to Calgary for each hole) against 'spare' time. Anyhow, the current hole ran into a gravel layer, which tore the drill bit being used to shreds (it is not designed for gravel drilling), and the rig had to pull the damaged bit out, put in a different kind of bit (one that *can* eat through gravel), drill past the gravel, and now they are cementing things in so the gravel doesn't dribble back into the hole later on and eat up the regular bit again. Net effect: a little more than half a day of avoidable effort. Of course, as geologist, I'm supposed to keep abreast of these things, but mostly it means I have an extra half-day of laze-about time before we hit sample depth and I get to work like the blazes again. The rig boss anbd crew aren't too happy though :)
So, up here, one might think it is wilderness, but it is not, really. For one thing, the whole area (this *IS* B.C.) has been logged over at least once, probably in the 70's to early 80's, going by tree size and the time this gas field was discovered. Things were mostly replanted, and there is even quite a variety of trees about, though they come in large blocks, and not scattered one among the other or in small clumps as would naturally be the case. Then, there are all the cut-lines, survey cuts, seismic cuts, pipeline cuts, and roads. Not to mention the acre-or-so that must remain cleared around every completed and operating gas well, and well density up here averages 2 per square kilometer or so. Every well has a little aerial, and about a third have an orange streetlight-like illumination. And there are all the compressor stations, pipeline junctions and control points, and such, which are also electrically lit 24/7. Not to mention the flare stacks here and there. Despite all this, it is easy to stand at any one spot and be in pitch darkness that feels like wilderness, at night. And also despite all this, the area is crawling with wildlife: moose, woodland caribou, deer, and the reintroduced free-ranging woodland buffalo herd. That's the big herbivores. For big carnivores there are wolves (I've heard them once or twice - when I am away from the rig, that is. It's always noisy at the rig.), lynx (wanna see one wanna see one but haven't yet!), and at least one cougar (who was seen nosing about where he shouldn't, i.e. near people-filled camps and at an operating rig -in daylight, no less -last week ). They haven't shot him yet. Maybe his curiosity has been satisfied and he decided to scoot off to less busy, quieter environs deeper amongst the trees. All the usual smaller beasties are around too. I myself have seen: deer (big surprise), buffalo (lone, clusters of 2-3, and one small herd of 6-8), red fox (numerous times, up here they tend to be dark and just a little infernal-looking), one small-ish low-slung silhouette, in dawn twilight on a road, that may have been a slinking bobcat or a large weasel (maybe a marten?), and a northern hawk owl (repeatedly, around my first rig site; they are diurnal owls and s/he was hunting in the slash and brush along the lease roads - big, chocolate brown beastie swooping low out of trees into the snow, and then up and out into a tree).
That's my update for now. I doubt the wait until the next will be as long as this last one was... cheers! |
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| Getting here |
[Jan. 7th, 2006|10:26 pm] |
Righto! So, I drove up here on Jan 2nd, one long haul from Edmonton to the first camp I stayed at, for a total of 950 km and *way* too many hours. The first bit was through ice fog (which, while a hazard to drivers, made the countryside rather more attractive than it usually is by covering it in a 1-inch hoar frost), and it was all done on 3 hours sleep. Packing + excitement, I guess, kept me up untill 2 AM and I had to be up at 5:30 AM. Ah, well, lots of coffee solved that problem. On the plus side, just driving up north made me $1500 richer (or will, when I invoice at month's end).
Once past the little rural highway (to a dinky town called Rose Prairie, north of Fort St John, BC, for those of you with a decent Canadian atlas), the roads all become radio-controlled. This means that *all* vehicles on a given road must report their type, travel direction and location every 2-5 kms; the roads themselves are mileposted in one direction, with km-0 usually nearest civilization, extending to km-xxx at the far end. The radio-control system was first developed for forestry, so we all pretend we're logging trucks to announce our direction: "loaded" means we are travelling towards milepost zero of the road, "empty" means we're driving deeper into the back country. We also need to announce whenever we are coming up to a bridge, since they are all one lane, and to announce whenever we turn onto or off of a stretch of road. Big trucks also need to announce whenever they're coming up on a steep hill, so everyone knows to expect a slow-moving vehicle there.
Oh, yes, and every road has its own radio frequency. Thank God we geologists get pre-programmed radios. There are about 100 frequencies being used in this part of Canada, of which we are using 5 depending on which road, or road plus branches, that we are on.
The main ("Fontas") road is actually quite good, wide as a 2-lane highway with decent shoulders except at bridges, but it is of course surfaced in ice and not asphalt or gravel. Plus, for safety (no railings or anything to keep you out of ditches, and there's also the wildlife), everyone travels down the middle. Even so, it is quite safe to be going at 70 km/h or more (posted limit is 80). You always know when traffic is closing in from the other direction, because of the radio announcements, so both parties can slow down a bit and pull closer to the sides of the road and safely pass by.
The side roads, however, are pretty fun - think one-lane track thick with trees about 2 feet to either side. Every couple hundred meters, though, there is a little pull-out area where you can go in order to let a semi go by in the other direction :)
I'll talk about the non-wilderness I am in, and despite that, the considerable amount of interesting beasties running around in later posts. |
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| I can't believe I jumped on this bandwagon, but it's cheaper than phoning |
[Jan. 7th, 2006|10:18 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  crazy | ] |
Well, now that I am in the not-so-isolated deep north of British Columbia, and I will be doing wellsite geology for a while, I guess setting up an LJ makes sense. Even when it DOES conflict with my usual avoidance of rampant trendiness. Anyhow, I'll try and post daily, so that those who care can keep tabs on my frosty work with the Oil Patch. |
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frostygeologist's journal