Ethnic Night At Camp Wapasu

The food here is good and sometimes not good, but the culinary staff are, at the very least, adventurous. Tonight’s menu had butter chicken, basmati rice, dal, and ginger beef (and several more selections). I made it a good ethnic mix by having a Greek salad as well.

I wonder what sort of excitement the kitchen will produce tomorrow!

Also, in other news, I’m doing laundry tonight. If you’re wondering where I keep my laundry detergent, wonder no further!

I neatly line up my laundry pods in my closet. Notice the lack of hangers. If you’re new to camp Wapasu, don’t forget to bring a few coat hangers!

Now…back to my recliner and my knitting.

Wapasu-tastic Double Doubles!

As mentioned previously the fabulous camp Wapasu has its very own Tim Horton’s

A double-double here tastes just like a double-double anywhere else in the country. Now, I’m a coffee snob and I usually don’t enjoy Tim’s coffee, but it’s better than construction coffee.

Since I was hear last (back in June) a second grill has been added to the site kitchen, but this one is for vegetarian or vegan fair. Look…

I used the meaty grill today. I grilled up the “German Butcher’s Sandwich” from the bag up room. I’m not sure if it was made by a German butcher, or made from a German butcher, but it was pretty good.

It’s Like A Palace

To get to the IOL’s Kearl Lake site, and the fabulous camp Wapasu, I send an email to the camp & flight coordinator and they give me a flight and a room. The room I get is solely based on availability. Apparently, there was some room on the palace this time around…

That’s right, I have a recliner in my room!

I could have a party in this place! It’s huge! On second thought, maybe a party isn’t a good idea. It’s a dry camp…not that you need alcohol to have fun, but sometimes it helps.

Meals are still the same. I’ll have to remember to have a lighter breakfast tomorrow.

Return to Wapasu

Hey! Guess who’s going back for an all expenses paid trip to the fabulous Camp Wapasu? Me! Guess who’s going to be excited to read my riveting blog posts? You!

Here’s me on my way to the very poorly named “Executive Flight Centre”.

Updates from Wapasu

Over the past week or so, the Fort McMurray area has been subjected to heavy rains and flooding. This has made it difficult for Wapasu Lodge to get resupplied and serviced. One of the many things they’ve had to cut back on is water. Here are some of the highlights passed on to me:

• disposable paper plates and plastic cups are now used in the dining rooms as there is not enough water to wash dishes
• dining room menus have been changed to a “low water use” menu (whatever the hell that means)
• water services controlled in order to conserve water (this means no showers)
• bus trips take an additional 15 minutes to 90 minutes

Another amusing story from camp…a bus broke down/got stuck a short distance from the camp drop off. This bus was filled with workers who just finished a long, and probably wet day, on the job site. The workers were not allowed to get off the bus and walk to brass alley, but instead, they had to wait for a replacement bus to pick them up and shuttle them the last 100 ft to the brass alley drop off. This wait took an additional 45 minutes.

All this information comes from very reliable, highly placed sources.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Back In The Office

I’m back in my Edmonton office. I’m not going to say the view is better than the view at Kearl Lake, it’s just different. Here’s a photo taken from the floor of my office…

This is another office shot, taken from eye level. It’s substantially less exciting…

My office does afford me a lovely view of the chillers and new loading dock. Bonus: the chillers hardly make any noise at all when they’re not running.

Job Sites and Career Paths and Choices

Site was nice. I enjoying working on job sites, but I also enjoy coming home every night. At this stage in my life, being home every night (or most nights) is  important to me. I’m a construction engineer, I’ve worked my way up from assistant construction engineer to senior construction engineer. My career path will (hopefully) take me to the top position in the engineering department one day. I won’t be a project manager, construction manager, general manager, vice president, president, COO, CEO  or anything like that…and that’s fine with me, that’s what I’ve chosen. I’ve been with PCL for almost 15 years now. Some of the people who started around the same time as me are moving up, and I know some of those people are heading for GM, VP or president positions one day. They will (do) make substantially more money than me. These same people have put in a lot of time (years) working out of town on remote job sites. This is what they have chosen. Hopefully when these people hit the big-time, they’ll remember the little people like me and fly me out to their private islands on their personal jets.

This is why I like to be home every night…

My girls!

…even though they can be difficult sometimes (I’m never difficult). Iris didn’t get the memo. They were all supposed to wear black, not fluorescent pink.

Camp Life and Reality

I tried to paint a picture of life when you’re based out of a remote work camp. I hope my friends and family have a better picture of this life. One thing to note: I was only there for 8 days in a row. The standard shift is 10 days work and 4 days off. That’s 10 hour long days, and 10 of them in a row. The guy I was covering for has worked about 5 of those shifts. Other people on the same site have worked shifts like this for 5 years, or 10 years, or 20 years. So, when you think about it, me whining about mediocre horseradish on an 8 day stay is rather petty. A lot of these people who work these shifts also love their jobs…but a few people don’t, it’s just like any other work place. Something I’ve seen about the construction industry: you don’t need an MBA or Ph.D to succeed, a lot of people have made it to senior positions without those credentials, but everyone who’s made it to the top has spent a lot of time working on job sites.

Day 8–Last minute heroics by the VP

I write this on the bus to Shell’s airstrip. I’m on my way home, but I almost didn’t make it. I decided to leave my backpack with all my PPE (personal protective equipment) at site. I also accidentally left the contents of my wallet in the backpack. I realized this on the bus back to camp (to get to the airstrip from site, you have to go back to camp first) and I panicked!

These are the thoughts that went through my head: DAMMIT! F*CK! BLARRGGHHHH! F*CK!

I sent a few messages, hoping for a miracle…I knew if I didn’t get my ID, I couldn’t get on the plane. Luckily, a miracle happened…

Roger Keglowitsch, PCL Senior Vice President of Heavy Industrial, brought me my stuff. He was at meetings on site during the day and caught a truck back to camp shortly after the busses left. Would your company’s VP do this for you?

Day 8–Meating It Up

Remember Matt? He’s the guy who’s shift I was taking while he was on vacation. He’s back, and he shared this awesome lunch tip with me. Matt takes a vegetarian wrap from the bag up room as well as a package of lunch meat (yes, there are packages of lunch meat in the bag up room). He unrolls the wrap and delicately arranges the extra meat (he prefers ham). I call this “meating it up”. I’m certain that this term will catch on.

Chris does something similar. He the turkey out of a turkey sandwich and puts it into the vegetarian club sandwich. It would be so much easier if they just made a proper turkey club sandwich.

Day 8–Fruit Loops

Along with the eggs, sausage, bacon, more sausage, and more bacon, the dining room also has a selection of cereals available for breakfast.

I had fruit loops this morning. Got a problem with that?

Day 7–Boredom & Return of the Jedi

Dinner was ok, but it was the company that made the dinner hour interesting. I sat at a table with 3 new Canadians, all from Africa. Dinner conversation consisted of a deep discussion into African politics and root of corruption in many African countries. I mainly sat back and listened (really). Excellent dinner company. I also walked out of the dining room holding a double scoop ice cream cone. I walked with impunity.

Bored

You can’t have a wild night every night and tonight is my night to do nothing, but instead of enjoying it, I’m just feeling bored. I see my knitting project in the corner, and that would probably alleviate the boredom…but it’s way on the other side of the room. The remote control is right beside me though…

Awesome, Return of the Jedi is on TV. 

Seeya.