A post from Kris....finally

Well hello to all, it's been so long since my last post that I might have to introduce myself again. I am home tonight, back to work tomorrow, then off to Ft. Nelson soon after (a gruelling journey of more than 600 km on the Alaska highway to our destination). As Ma so knowledgeably said, I have a week left in my days on, followed by 6 days off. Working hard these days. At work we just got a new iron truck`. This one is equipped with 4 inch iron, in contrast to our usual 3 inch iron. So before, to build our temporary pump line, we would carry the iron pipes on our shoulders until we got it to its place, lower it, screw it to the last piece of iron, then sledgehammer it together. The average piece of iron weighing about 130 lbs, and some pieces being too small (in size, not weight) for two guys to comfortably carry, one guy carried one piece. NOW, that the iron is an inch wider in diameter, and consequently much heavier, it is still awkward for two guys to carry certain pieces.....meaning that now one guy carries pieces that weigh up to 200 lbs. This new iron has made life particularly difficult. The whole point of this new iron of course being that we can achieve a faster rate of pumping through larger iron. The picture I posted shows a typical setup of our iron, each union where two pieces meet needing to be hammered, and both pieces needing to be carried, you can imagine he work required to assemble and disassemble our lines at a new site each day. I do still however love my job.

As well, these cold cold days of below -40, starting an engine the size of the one on our pumps (a 2250 horsepower v12 diesel engine like those used on cruise ships) is particularly hard. They are set up with a circulating coolant heater, and still take 3 hours of heating to start. The roads we drive on are usually coated in ice, requiring our tractor trailers to put a full set of tire chains on, covering 9 of 10 tractor tires with metal spikes. The driving is stressful (and sometimes scary) enough, that so far 2 new guys quit because of it. However they were both from Saskatchewan, which is no comparison to the Canadian Rockies. So Dan, that is a glimpse at what my typical day looks like. At least ice is clean, it wont be long before this happens:

Although I enjoy work, I really enjoyed being away from work for two weeks this month (even if under the circumstances that brought me home). It was a really good opportunity for Aunika and I to spend some much needed Daddy-Daughter time. We had a fairly irregular schedule that mostly consisted of the same events every day. We would wake up whenever and walk around the house with Nonni in arms for about an hour. Wake up time was sometimes around noon because her schedule got really messed up being up all night in the hospital that night. Then after our hour we would try having some breakfast, usually apple sauce. She never had much of that. We would then find something to do...either go to town for some shopping or chores, or watch a Baby Einstein movie, or play with some toys. Then it was Nonni's naptime with mommy. During this time daddy would do his chores, like work outside (with a walkie talkie of course, courtesy of Roxi). Then Nonni would be awake for all hours of the night until about 2-3 am. One night She went to bed around 10, which we thought was awesome...thinking her sleep patern was shifting back to normal. Then she woke up at 2 am, ready to party. So I packed her up and we went grocery shopping! The first 24 hour grocery sore we went to was closed till 4:30 while the one worker took his break. Being only 3 I decided to try the other IGA. It was closed until 5:30 for maintenance. So we drove to Timmies for a double double, MacD's for a cheese burger, then back to the first IGA and did our shopping. We go some funny looks walking around a grocery store at such an hour. What an adventure. Well, time for bed for me. Hope to talk to you all soon. Take care.

Kristopher