Baby its cold out here!

I realize that my last post was a little scattered - satallite internet is unreliable and I just wanted to get something up! Plus, I may have been a little crazy after a few days of work.

For those of you who don't see me on a regular basis, I finally started a "real" job at the begining of January as a future geophysicist. For the first two weeks I mostly did safety training and perfected my office wardrobe. Then for the past 9 days or so I've been in Fort MacMurray collecting data for an exploration project. Its a far cry from office work, but I'm enjoying it (mostly).

My work involves all things that make field work good and bad - quads (good), cold weather (bad), equipment troubles (normal) and lots of work hours (good and bad). Lately things have been more on the cold side with a string of -40 days. Quads won't start, equipment has been breaking and my quad helmet frosts up into a giant snowball. I refuse to take it off when its this cold, so I just wear it everywhere in the field. Several pictures have been taken of me by our co-op student so when I return to the south you'll all get to see what my crew has to stare at all day. Production has been low (I shot the same 2000m for the past 3 days) but my co-workers are a blast and its not all bad.

I'm living in a camp slightly north of town - its wonderful to have someone cooking my breakfast, making freshly baked goodies for lunch and serving me a hot dinner when I return from 12 hours in the cold. My room is actually quite nice with its closet, desk and single bed. Its a lot like res, if res had been filled with male rig workers. After the cookies, the highlight is the home made soups and fancy herbal teas!

The downside of remote work is that I do miss my "home" (husband and dog) and wish the weather would just warm up (-20 please). But, I'll be home in less than a week for a break (yay) and will be ready to deal with it all over again!