Just a quick hello....

.....yes I'm still here.

Managed to get home 2 days before Christmas. I hope you all had a good one. I came back out to the Plains of Despair on christmas day. Yay!

At least I got a couple of days home. I'm just seeing out the rest of my hitch, I go home today in actual fact.

Well, I've got heaps to do, end of month reports, gas calibrations, morning reports, let alone shower, pack my bag and get the hell out of here.

I'm managing a whopping 13 days home this hitch. Am going to Alice Springs to visit my friend Jo B 1 Kinobe.

Gotta go, so so very much to do, and only 2 hours to do it in.

Bye.

Oh, and have a bloody good new year. This year I don't have to ask anyone to have a drink for me, cos dammit, I'm bloodywell drinking it myself! Yehar.

Christmas Dinner at Moomba

 

Try this at home kids.....

Go to google search engine
type in the word "failure"
press the 'im feeling lucky' button
have fun!

The days are running together...

I've been out here for 11 days now.
Only 12 days to go.
The days have started running together.
12 or 13 hour days, day after day.
I have a little daily calendar that I flip over every night when I come on tour.
This morning I couldn't remember if I had flipped it or not. I had to check the time and date on the computer to check that I had the right day.
You see, when you work 23 days in a row out in the middle of nowhere, it really doesn't matter what day it is. It's not like there is a post office that might be shut on sunday, or a shop that you want to run to before it shuts.

It's kind of strange in a way.

I'm really running out of interesting things to say.
I've had a marvelous time reading everyone's blogs. And I got a really nice comment recently. Thanks Peg.

One funny thing I remember from last hitch, well....it was funny to me at the time...

The story goes, we had finished the well and I had rigged down my unit. I managed to get my arse on a flight outta the plains of despair earlier than when everyone at home expected me.
I rang my usual taxi guy to come and pick me up. He had another job to go to so he wasn't sure if he could take me the whole way, so he was going to call his offsider to take me the rest of the way. Bugger that stuffing around, just drop me at a mates house along the way.
I got out of the taxi and my mate Tina was standing by her front door waiting for me. (Actually, she was saying goodbye to a visitor, but it sounds much nicer when you say she was waiting for me).

First words out of her mouth "You're so clean!".

Hmmnnn..... now I don't know what she was expecting, but I do shower every day.

Yeah yeah, I know, kind of a sucky story. But I got nothing else man.

Nice one....just about right!

Maleficent


Which DISNEY character are you most like?
brought to you by Quizilla

Another favourite .......

.....photo.

Me and Tripitaka.

I have photo's of him up around my lab.

Keeps me sane while I'm in the Plains of Despair.

I read in the paper yesterday that Adelaide Resources and Iluka Resources have announced the discovery of a high grade mineral sand........

Why is important to me?

Read on....

Adelaide Resources and Iluka Resources yesterday announced the discovery of thicker and higher grade mineral sand intersections on a drill at the Tripitaka discovery in South Australia.

The Colona Joint Venture parties described results at the site in the eastern Eucla Basin of far west SA as "highly encouraging".

The Trippitaka discovery - including high zircon grades by world standards - was announced last month by Adelaide and Iluka Resources.

The companies said the mineralisation might extend for up to 2km over a width of 1km, including a high-grade core of significant dimensions. Zircon is the most desirable componenet in a mineral sands discovery.

The Colona joint venture parties descrive the geological character and setting of Tripitaka as very similar to Iluka's 2004 Jacinth and Ambrosia discoveries, 90km northwest.

The companies said more closely spaced drilling was proposed as a matter of priority early next year, to provide data to enable a resource estimate to be published.

Adelaide Resources said the Eucla Basin was becoming established as a world class, zircon-rich mineral sands province.




Well, how about that. I think someone in that office was a Monkey fan just like me.
I wonder what else will be named after the boy priest.
Nice one! 

Breakfast.....or is it....

.....lunch?

Well, here is a mate at breakfast in our smoko shack on the rig.

It should really be called lunkfast because we have already been working for 6 hours by the time it arrives at 6am every morning.

When you work graveyards, you tend to have 2 breakfast's and one lunch. That is.... a breakfast when you wake up at 11pm ish, a breakfast at 6am and a lunch just after midday when you knock off. Or is it dinner..... Hmmnn......... 

And the results of the flood....

.... just a little bit of damage! 

Ok, the movie didn't work....

....but this is a photo of around about the same spot the next day.

Damn the flood was impressive.

I chose that day to walk the dog and return my already overdue videos. I didn't realise the river was in flood untill I went to cross the river, and my bridge was underwater.

Damn good excuse for avoiding late fee's tho! 

The Gawler River in Flood....

This was taken a few weeks back when the Gawler River flooded.

It is supposed to be a little movie, I don't know if it will work, I've never posted movies before.

It's my mate Sal doing a bit of a piss weak explanation.

Enjoy, if it works that is! 

Mmmmm.....Sugar....

....in the form of Jarrah coffee.

If a certain mudlogger on a crew change happened to come to the rig bearing a couple of packages of any type of Jarrah coffee (can be found at coles), it would make another mudloggers day.

Of course, said mudlogger would reimburse the logger bearing the coffee.

I have gotten myself dependant on it, and I have about 2 spoonfulls left. Bugga.
I fear caffine withdrawls will hit about this time tomorrow. Bugga bugga!

A beautiful mango morning....

......ahhhh......beautiful sunrise this morning, and it's going to be a beautiful day.

The drilling is slow, and the supply truck arrived yesterday, so I'm going to have a fresh mango for my breakfast.

Yum! 

The magic photo program....

Ta da.

It's called picasa and it is fabulous. You can do anything to your photo's. Even turn a bad day into a good one.

Highly recommend it. To get it, just click on the colourful little icon next to my photo. Then just download it and.....
you can have many good hours of time wasting at work.

Just thought I'd put in this baby to counteract my sick day.

Am feeling much better now. It's amazing what coffee will do! 

Hmmmnnn......shoes.......

I'm not going to be home for christmas, so what am I going to do to celebrate the silly season.....

Buy shoes off the internet.

Check out what I'm eyeing off.....

http://www.heirsandgrace.com/catalogue.html

Come to mamma baby!!!!!!

Yehar!

Two great books.....

.....that I have just finished reading.

Don't tell mum I work on the rigs, she think's I'm a piano player in a whore house

and

Sharon Osbourne's bio "Extreme"



The rig book was just fucking hilarious. I laughed out loud all the way to Perth. The passenger in the next seat must have thought I was a wierdo.

Sharon Osbourne's book was one I just couldn't put down. Fucking fascinating life that woman has lead, and she's only half way there.

God damn you gotta love it when you read a great book. Highly recommend them both. You'll enjoy them even if you know nothing on the subject in the first place.

What is lucky.....

......for some, is not necessarily lucky for others.

Luck may be a wonderful relationship followed by
a wedding ring
a beautiful bouncing baby

That's great.

For some it may be falling pregnant accidentaly,
then discovering that their partner feels guilty enough to feel as though they have to marry them.

Lucky for the girl, not quite so lucky for the guy.

I guess I'm just lucky that I've never been in that situation, or maybe I made my own luck by
being careful in the first place. Very careful.

Don't get me wrong, I know accidents happen, and I'm not shitting on anyone who has had some very tough decisions to make in their very young lives that will affect them till the day they die.

I am just making a point that what is considered lucky for some, is not necessarily considered lucky for others.

I consider getting to travel the world with my great job, being able to pay off my house in the next 5 years, doing what I want when I want without any burdens what so ever and having some fucking fantastic mates lucky.

Personally for me right now in my life, being barefoot, pregnant, poor and dependant on others to be a little unlucky.

But that's just me.

I'm sick....

.....sick as a friggin dog, so here is a photo.

I don't look sick, but my projectile vomit prooved otherwise.

It's one of those headache things that just get worse and worse till you chuck, then you chuck and feel a little bit better, well, not nautious anymore at least. But the headache just sticks around to piss you off.

I hate everything at the moment, so let's just leave it at that hey! 

home for a bit longer....

.....till Sunday. Then I'm going to perth for this environmental course. Then I'm home tuesday night, then back to work wednesday morning. Am not going to have enough time to do the HUET this hitch, will do it next hitch. Works out well cos I can catch up with my brother in Perth next hitch. He does the same kind of fly in fly out work on one of the mines up there.

Bed delivery is on monday. Yehar. I can put it together and sleep in it on Tuesday. Good friend is going to housesit and take the delivery.

Good thing I'm only home for a few days this hitch, what with the bed and my car rego due, I got no money left. It only took me 3 days to spend my entire months pay. Bugga!