Yer Bugging' Me!

I started fly fishing when I was a boy of 11 so I can comfortably say I have been paying close attention to bugs most of my life. All kinds of bugs. Stoneflies, caddis flies, may flies and terrestrials. So I know bugs. But the bugs up here at the infamous Kearl Island are a mystery to me! Let me give you an example. The other day I was given the task of taking a welder up to do some work at 120 feet up in the man-lift. It was at the top of the surge bin on a beautiful sunny morning. The air was still cool and drifted by slowly like a meandering river only slightly noticeable as it licked past my face. Heaven! Except my skin felt itchy and I couldn't figure out why. Then it felt more itchy and even a bit crawly! 'oh oh' I thought 'this is one of those flashbacks they promised me when I experimented with LSD in my later teens!'. No such luck! Although I couldn't see them (I mean I REALLY couldn't see them) it was a swarm of tiny flies that we're eating me in a million microscopic bites! Bruno the welder sharing my lift laughed at me. 'you gotta stop eating bananas Bud!' he said with a smile, 'the bugs love potassium'. 'You're kidding' I replied in disbelief 'that's why they're eating me?'. 'Exactly' he said. 'I stopped eating bananas and started eating beans each morning with breakfast. Beans have iron and the bugs don't like it.' Of course I resisted the urge to blame his bug free situation on the cloud of gas the beans also produced but he had a point. We were 3 feet apart and I was the main course in a bug buffet while he was not being bothered at all. Apart from the chemical aspect of our discussion it got me thinking about the various insect-wildlife in the patch. For instance they have these oil beetles that have long candy cane shaped antennae and which fly. You most often notice them when they crawl up your neck and bite you! And what a bite!! Kind of similar to being shot with a BB gun! In all my days I have never seen anything like them. Then there is some kind of stick bug that get up to three inches long. You generally notice them when a co worker throws one at you as a joke. As the are huge it usually gets a classic 'aaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeee!!!' reaction from the person on the receiving end. And true to human nature that person who just received the bug picks it up off the deck and goes looking for some other unsuspecting fool to toss it at themselves. Kind of a construction version of hot potato except using big bloody stick bugs! I think the bugs that surprised me the most are the horse flies. I have seen and hated horse flies all across Canada. I have been bitten by them and have smashed them into goo for as long as I can remember. But here at Kearl they are the biggest I have ever seen. When I saw my first one I thought it was a humming bird! I swatted one the other day and it got up and swatted me back! Fortunately they are also stupid and tend to fly in circles until they land rather slowly right in front of you. So now I carry a big piece of hardened steel with me. It is a strip I cut off of something and it weighs close to 3 lbs. I have found you CAN actually kill the buggers with it but only if you hit them repeatedly! If you don't, of course, they will take it from you and chase you around with it which really is no fun! I can't wait to get home next week. Back to fly fishing and bugs I understand! :)

Wyman

On every site you work on there are people who give off good energy and others that suck the energy out of the air like a black hole. My friend Wyman was one of the positive ones. Wyman was a quiet and happy little guy from Newfoundland who ran the forklift on our site. He was an Ironworker through our hall too and I think he had been on our site since the beginning. Last weekend Wyman and another guy from our crew smelled a bit like alcohol so they were refused entry to the plane up here and subsequently fired. For anyone planning on coming up here take note that at Kearl alcohol is a no no and you aren't even allowed on the plane if you are thought to have had any (they do have bars and allow alcohol in the Fort Mac camps). So even though it was a hot and humid day in Edmonton and even though their flight wasn't leaving until later the nice cool beer that they had together finished off their employment. Perhaps getting fired was a blessing for Wyman and perhaps it was a curse. You see he died yesterday morning of a heart attack back in his home at 58 years of age. I say blessing because his last week was spent with his family. I say curse because getting fired for something so completely assenine and demeaning probably caused the stress that killed him. Either way a good man is dead today. Wyman was a Newfy as I mentioned and was gentle and quiet. I remember in my first few days I was told to spot for him while he moved loads around the site. So I confided in him: "Wyman Buddy, I don't really know how to spot. Why don't I just pretend to spot and you just move the stuff where ever you want?" his response was typical Wyman. It was quiet and gentle and sincere: "That's exactly what I intended by! You just keep people out of my road and that'll be all the help I'll need." he had on that subtle Wyman smile and his eyes sparkled with some hidden mischief. We got along famously after that. I never saw the day when Wyman was in a bad mood or was surley. Each day I'd see him he'd give a smile and say "How are you today, by?". 'By' is a Newfy thing that means 'boy' which is a friendly thing like when a NovA Scotian says: 'buddy' or a Brit says 'mate'. Just a friendly term of endearment that lets you know that the speaker considers you a friend. And that is just what Wyman was to me and to so many others...a friend. I know everyone is going to die eventually. I know that there is no plan that we on earth are aware of which tells us in advance when our time will expire. And yet it always comes as such a shock when a person passes. Especially when they weren't that old and they were a really good person. When we heard on site yesterday the whole crew were more or less silent. When we passed each other we'd say: "Did you hear about Wyman?" and we shared the moment in sadness and silence. You see to us he was still one of our crew, one of our team and one of our little family. He is already sorely missed. Well Wyman old friend, rest in peace by! :'(

Ironic Changes...

It rained exceptionally hard yesterday and excepting our crew most people went home pretty early in the day. We stayed because we are installing some monorail under the surge bin and so for the most part we stayed dry. Of course putrid water that had landed in the surge and worked its way through the structure did pour into my face and mouth while I was fitting an overhead clip but that only happened a couple of dozen times so it's hardly worth mentioning. There was a pretty serious wind too which caused our red hazard tape to stretch thread thin and then break within ten or so minutes of being strung up but we were protected up on our scissor lift by a giant concrete column so we were pretty safe. Neat to see the rain flying by sideways though! On days like yesterday you really notice the lack of people most in the trailer at coffee. I say 'coffee' and not 'break' because that is the normal way to describe it even though almost no one drinks coffee at our site. There is no coffee pot and a lot of these guys refuse to drink instant. So our trailer had 5 or 6 people in it where there is usually 30+ and our table had the 3 from our work group but the other guy had gone. So it got me thinking about the makeup of our little crew/unit. Our crew, ironically, is very non-traditional. It has a Journeyman, a 2nd year apprentice and a 1st year apprentice. Making up the crew are a man in his 40s, a woman (also in her 40s) and a 20 year old big kid. Traditionally a crew like this would have the older man as the J-man, the kid as the first year and there likely wouldn't be a woman anywhere on the job site. Not here. Not this day in age. Instead our crew is made up of a J-man being Elise who is the woman and yes she is very French. The kid is the second year punk (apprentice) and I, the old goat of the group, am the 1st year punk. I find that a little ironic how that works out but I am pretty happy about it too. Elise is an excellent J-man and a good teacher. Jason (who goes by Picachoo) is a good and hardworking apprentice who is easy to get along with and I am there to learn so as long as that happens I am plenty happy with my role. Elise is a really good journeyman as I have said. Though there are women in Ironworking and some very good ones at that, a lot of them take courses and move over to safety the first chance they get. Not Elise. She is over 40 but doesn't look alike it. She is thin and in great shape mostly because she does power yoga apparently. Despite looking thin though she is solid, solid and strong. She apparently has been in ironworking for 15 years and started in Quebec. Now she is in the patch and is a true professional. She has jet-black hair that sticks out from the back of her helmet in a ponytail, really square shoulders, perfect posture, and a great French accent. And best of all for me she is great at training apprentices so I am learning lots! Pikachoo (whose real name is Jason) is a good person to work with. He has been working with Elise for quite a while so he has some excellent skills that he has picked up. That said, he picked up those skills because he works hard and stays focused. Some kids have it and some don't! He does. He is easy to work with, he jokes a lot, but is always working and getting things done. Like Mamachu (what we jokingly call Elise) he is fairly thin and is also over six feet tall. He will be a great J-man one day just like Mamma. So that is my crew and I am happy to be on it. We work hard and erect a lot of steel while still having fun. I am learning all day long and am getting better at my trade. And with that being the case a little rain wasn't going to wash the sun from our day. I am greatful to be working with Mammachu and Pikachu and I love my job!

That damn heavy belt!

As you know I finally brought my belt to work with me. I figured it was a good time to start because I wasn't connecting or bolting up so I wouldn't have to fill the Kuny bags with bolts making the belt around half of its maximum weight. So I was going for the gradual work up as I knew the full weight of the belt might be a little crippling at first. The ironworker's belt is his toolbox. There are several standard items that most Ironworkers have. The belt itself is a flat piece of leather a little thicker than the one holding up your pants. If you are smart you have a back support on there as well. This makes it look kind of like a weightlifting belt. In fact some guys simply wear a weight belt. Before adding tools you need the thing that hold the tools. The first things are the Kuny Bags for holding bolts. Most folks carry 2 and each has a bullpin holder on one side. On one side of your body you have a couple of clips or caribiners that hold your 12' adjustable wrench and either a 4lb or a 6lb hammer. Usually the hammer has a nut welded beside the handle on the bottom of the hammer head that the clip goes through. On the other side of your body is your frog and possibly another bullpin holder. The frog is a piece of leather folder double that looks kind of like a cartoon frog's head. Adding to this illusion is the fact that it has 2 holes in it for your spud wrenches. Ironworkers carry 2 spud wrenches in their frog that are sometimes the same size (when you are working on only one size bolt that gives you one for the bolt's head and one to tighten the nut. Sometimes they are different sizes for different size bolts and when this happens the adjustable wrench is used to hold the bolt. Spuds also come as adjustable but apart from price they aren't as solid as the ones that aren't adjustable. My buddy Brian Gamache was torquing a tough nut with one last winter and snapped it so there is a lot to be said for the one sized units! The spuds hang pointy end down through the frog's eyes and yes they do bounce off your leg all day. But you probably don't notice it as you also have your sleever bar (like a straight crowbar with one end wider and flat and one end pointed that is used for a lot of things but mainly prying)and your sleever being longer bounces off of your kneecap! My sleever is hanging from my bullpin holder but lots of guys used spare time to weld a little clip to their frog so that it is easier to reach. And then there is the bullpin. The draw pin and the punch. Bullpins are tapered 'nails' six or so inches long with a flat end and a pointy end. When you are trying to line up the holes between a column and a clip you hammer you bullpin through one hole and it lines up the others so that you can bolt them. You then whack the pointy end releasing it and move on to the next connection. The draw pin is kind of similar but is tapered at both ends. The punch is more like the bullpin but is little and is used to make a dent in the metal for running your mag drill through. My point here is that the belt is around 40lbs with the tools and around 70 lbs if your bags are filled with bolts! So yesterday I got all suited up with my new (used) belt. For the first hour I felt manly as hell! It was a hot and. Er humid day and in the second hour as the sweat soaked everything it started to hurt. By the third hour I was hurting enough that I was considering a career change to mattress testing. By the end of the day when I stripped down I discovered that the weight had embedded the band of my underwear permanently into my hips! I had to run down to the med center and have them surgically removed! I am back today. I will wear that belt again despite the heavy rain. But when I get home I am going to look into getting shoulder straps! Have a great day!

Finding work at Kearl Lake

This is just a quick note aimed at providing a little info on how one might go about finding work up here if they aren't from Alberta. More specifically it is for our American neighbors. What inspired this was a combination of two things. The first was two American Ironworkers who commented on my blog in the comments section (thanks Spudwrench73 and John from Boston). The second reason is that I had more than 130 page views today so maybe those two guys told two friends who told two friends and so on. As I can't imagine my writing being that inspiring I figure that it might be unemployed folk looking for leads. So here are a couple. For Ironworkers (and certified welders)go to ironworkers720.com and on the dispatch page I believe that there is a phone number for interested Americans to try. I know on the same page there are a lot of good jobs listed but one must go through the process and that would be the number I mentioned. I was talking to a guy from the boilermakers union and he said that by midsummer they will have 1,300 positions that they won't be able to fill. I can't confirm this but if you type in 'Edmonton' and 'boilermaker' into google their website will tell you more. They also use certified welders by the way. The pipe fitters (and welders... seems everyone uses welders) are probably in the same boat so try 'Edmonton' and 'pipe fitter' and see what comes up. Same for the Sheet Metal Workers. The scaffolders are through the carpenter's union so not sure about them but try google. Ditto for electricians (who also use welder!). I am a union guy so there is no way that I will tell non-union people to call J.D. Driver. I refuse to encourage scab labour. Good luck all. Being unemployed sucks especially when you are a tradesman. I hope this helps some of you. Please feel free to repost this. I hope to see you in Alberta some day. :)

Ironworking belt

I started ironwork at the end of January and today marks the first time that I will have worn my Ironworking belt! The main reason for this is that I have been working with and for the welders so the belt was unnecessary. But now I am working in an ironworking capacity so I took it from my room and have it with me on the bus. The belt is an important symbol in ironworking much the same as a carpenter's belt or a doctor's scrubs. Our belt holds all of our tools and has pouches for various. It's and bolts. It has a piece of leather with a couple of holes in it. They call this a 'frog' and that is used to hold our spud wrenches. Spud wrenches have a wrench end and a pointed end. One end is used for lining up holes in columns and the other for turning nuts to tighten them. Ditto for the 'bull pin' which has a bullpin holder. There is a clip for our 12" adjustable wrench and two Kuny sacks for bolts. Usually there is a clip for a 6 lb hammer and another for one's 'sleever bar' which is used to lever things into position. Some have a back support (mine does) and some have shoulder straps (mine does not). Most veteran Ironworkers say you should wear your belt always. Even when working with the welders. I understand their point about this. But this was my first job and I was put on a welding crew so I followed the "when in Rome..." principle and didn't wear it. Maybe that is why they assumed I was a welding apprentice, lol! Today that all changes and the belt goes on. Have a great day! :)

I'm baaaaaaaaack!

I have been away for a little while from my beloved blog. Lots of reasons for that and mostly good ones. For instance the last time that I posted was June 19th and it was raining. Actually it had been for several days and I ended up both sick and tired. So I went home and spent the next two days at camp in bed. Then I flew home and spent another two days in bed. Finally I was able to knock the bug out for good. I went out golfing with my Dad and sweated profusely to the point that I must have sweated all remains of that cold out into my golf shirt! I did really enjoy my time at home. I felt more connected with my wife but that may have had to do with us facing a common foe that being our daughter. Don't get me wrong, we both love our daughter but sometimes sweet little Hailey takes advantage waaaay too much! So we had an unending stream of young people through the house 24 hours a day. Every time I put gas in my truck it disappeared from the driveway and never returned Until all the gas was gone. My wife had a very important interview out of town so Hailey took the truck, drained it of gas at the side of the highway, and then called to tell us about it twenty or so minutes after we were supposed to leave for the interview! Thoughtless stuff! At the end of the turnaround when I usually head back to camp I instead flew to Edmonton. I had been able to fulfill all the requirements for membership to my union so I went to the Hall for the orientation. It was great because several of my best friends from Kearl were going through with me. So Brew was there and Matti. Achie and Big Mitch were there. Dally was there as were Christine and Curt who I know from our pre-apprentice course from waaaay back in January! It was fun to see everyone again. Afterwards a few of the guys and myself went out for some food and beers. It's funny how you can sit with people every day up here in camp and never drain a tankard of ale together but it happens. So it was fun to get out and do that in a nice place like Edmonton! I spent Saturday and Sunday with relatives. My niece and nephew live in Edmonton and split a house. She has the upstairs with her man Justin and her son while Jason my nephew has the basement where he has his bedroom and his man-cave. The middle floor works out to be common area. It was a nice visit for sure! :) Yesterday we flew back to camp. I am in main and on the main floor so pretty good. I have my routine pretty much in place so that I can get my bags and unpack in minutes flat. The rooms are basically all the same with the only difference being which side of the room the bed is on and whether you turn right or left to get to the dining hall. Otherwise it's all pretty much the same. We are pulling up to work now so I have to go. Have a great day! :)