Off To Sunnier Climes?

I just got back from northern Quebec and the vibrant greens of Newfoundland are a warm and welcome sight. It's like being on vacation, yet in just a few days I'm off again even further south, all the way to Las Vegas! The City of Lights! (and 40+ degrees!) That is a bit of a turnaround from the snowsqualls of Raglan. I've included a photo of Heidi in front of her house, just to show the beautiful greenery that I am enjoying so much, but I guess next week it will be the red and browns of the desert and the neon lights of the Strip. Heidi is off on Saturday to Toronto to visit with Caroline for a few days and then I fly to Toronto on Monday, I'll drive to Peterborough for the night to visit my cousin Ian, and then finally, we meet up for our flight south to see Grandma and Grandpa, and Phantom of the Opera! Yay! We'll update from there. Happy Canada Day!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day Dad! For those of you who don't know him, that's my Dad sitting between me and my brother Paul. We are in Dad's backyard in St. John's, a couple of years back. The other photo is in PEI when I guess I was about 6 or 7, I'm the one in the front trying to reach the water with my paddle! I wish that I was around more so that I could see him, do more together these days. He is a generous, loving, caring man. I'd be lucky to be half the man he is. Love you Dad.

Spring Comes to Raglan

Spring has finally announced its arrival, and it did so with torrents of rain and wind! Last night was a miserable night as the usual Raglan blizzard transmutated into a veritable rainstorm. The result was a lot of leaky windows in camp. We spent sometime just mopping up the water and trying to stay ahead of it but this got tiresome. We told Angie, the camp manager, about it and she mentioned that she had seen a trick using a bit of string and a bucket. So we got some string from a mop and an ice cream tub. We fixed the string to the window sill with a thumbtack right where the water was pooling and let the string hang down into the bucket. Voila! the water soaked the string was eventually slowly running down the string and into the bucket. Thanks Angie! I was skeptical at first but it works like a charm. I woke up with 3 inches of water in the tub! Better than on my head or in my laptop. I'll try and post a picture of the setup later.

Another Day In Paradise

Look, it's Tom! He's the man responsible for my being here north of 60! He's my good buddy who gave me the contact to start with Crone. You can check out his blog here. It's another easy day here in Raglan, no drills shutting down means no surveys to do. Today was pretty relaxed, about 2 or 3 degrees and no wind. A nice day. The geophysics we do here is pretty simple: we lay out a large wire loop that is a 600m square and when we run about 12 amps of current through it. This produces a large magnetic field that in turn produces current in any conductive bodies in the ground (such as sulphides, ore). Inside the loop there is a drill that has drilled down about 400-90om or more. We send probes down into the hole which can sense the magnetic field produced by the conductors in the ground. We have probes that measure in all three directions (x,y,z) so the company that has hired us can then model where the body is and what size it is. That's it, pretty simple, huh? Well, with all six drills still drilling, Ismail (my operator) and I were out laying a loop in preparation for a drill shutting down in a few days. So for now it's a waiting game until the drills all start shutting down, which will likely be all in the space of a few days meaning fast and furious work with little sleep. It can take between 10 and 20 hours or more per survey. But being busy passes the time a lot faster, and the countdown to Vegas will accelerate!

Miracle Worker

It takes a special touch to bring something back to life, but here I am working my magic! Perhaps nobody will read this as it's been comatose for quite some time, but hopefully word of the miracle of resurrection will spread! Very brief update: Heidi is cluing up another busy school year, her recital for private students is coming up this weekend, and then it's off to Vegas baby in July where it will be slot machines, blackjack and roulette for 1o crazy days! Ok, not really. We're actually going to visiting her grandparents, hopefully avoiding the casinos as best we can (except for the legendary buffets!), maybe catch a show and go for a hike in the Red Rocks canyon.

Where is Neil you ask? Most of you will know that I have been working in the subarctic, just north of the 60th parallel in northern Quebec, working for Crone Geophysics. It means that I'm away for 4 weeks at a time, but that's not too bad. Not sure how long I'll be able to do it, but it's a good opportunity for the medium-term. I should get to see some pretty remote and interesting parts of the country and even the world so it's worth sticking with for a while (the $$ is ok too, I guess, but that shouldn't be the only reason to do something).

This is a picture of where Neil is now. He really is in the picture, the little black speck. Click to enlarge it if your eyes aren't good enough to see him.

This is how Heidi and Neil stay in touch these days.

Here are a few pictures taken with Heidi's new camera (did I mention that it's pink?).

At Neil's Mom and Dad's when Neil got back from Raglan for the first time (maybe he's not smiling because she's choking him?).

Here is Heidi reading Murder on the Orient Express aloud during the drive back to Winterland .

A rainbow that appeared late one evening over Creston South (the sunlit community across the water from Creston North where Heidi's parents' house is located). Apparently it was a double rainbow, seen just to the left of the chimney, but it went unnoticed at the time. I guess Heidi is the pot of gold!