I know, I know...
It's been a few months since I've last updated this, as several people have pointed out to me.
Since the end of January my life has consisted of:
Regular stints in the bush. I've been working a schedule of two weeks in the field followed by a week at a time in the office. This has been pretty much unbroken since mid-January, with the exception of a two week period in April while I was away in Sudbury completing the last course of my masters program.
February and March were occupied with running a drill program, but since April I have been doing underground exploration at the site of what will hopefully be our first mine. It has taken some getting used to working underground, but like many things, it became routine surprisingly quickly.
For the underground work, we have been working on two levels, one of which is about 75 m straight down from the surface, and the other which is 100 m down. We access these by walking or driving down the decline/ramp, which goes down at a relatively gentle slope, and loops back on itself. The main part of the job is going down two or three times a day to access an ore heading, map and sample the most recent face that has been blasted, and giving direction for the next round of blasting such that the miner's can stay on the mineralized structure.
As mentioned, in April I was in Sudbury for the last class of my program. It went fairly well. I got to go on a tour of Copper-Nickel-PGE (Platinum Group Elements) mine, and was about a mile below the surface of the earth (which is kind of cool). I also had a bout of stomach flu (not fun), but somehow managed to make it through. I ended up with 89% in that class, and an average of 87% from all of my courses, so that's not too shabby. Unfortunately, I still have my project report to finish before I can put this masters behind me. It's taking a little bit longer than I would like, but I'm trying to be done by the end of August (before the wedding). We'll see how that works out.
In other news: my sister finished her PhD of History not long ago (congratulations Jen!) and Christine got a job as a Publicity Assistant for the television show Corner Gas, which is kind of cool. My buddy Steve finished his first full marathon this past week, completing the 42.2 km course in 3h24m10s, placing 22 out of 205 participants. I had been coaching him, so I rode along the course on my bike, made sure he got the food he needed at the appropriate distances and yelled at him when he was running too fast or too slow. Good times. I figure I logged 50 or 60 km on my bike that morning, so I got my exercise, too.
My summer is looking busy between field work and weddings. In addition to my own wedding in September, I have at least two weddings to go to, and possibly another two or three.
Well, that'll have to do for now. If I think of something later, I'll add it.
Uncle Travelling Matt out.
Since the end of January my life has consisted of:
Regular stints in the bush. I've been working a schedule of two weeks in the field followed by a week at a time in the office. This has been pretty much unbroken since mid-January, with the exception of a two week period in April while I was away in Sudbury completing the last course of my masters program.
February and March were occupied with running a drill program, but since April I have been doing underground exploration at the site of what will hopefully be our first mine. It has taken some getting used to working underground, but like many things, it became routine surprisingly quickly.
For the underground work, we have been working on two levels, one of which is about 75 m straight down from the surface, and the other which is 100 m down. We access these by walking or driving down the decline/ramp, which goes down at a relatively gentle slope, and loops back on itself. The main part of the job is going down two or three times a day to access an ore heading, map and sample the most recent face that has been blasted, and giving direction for the next round of blasting such that the miner's can stay on the mineralized structure.
As mentioned, in April I was in Sudbury for the last class of my program. It went fairly well. I got to go on a tour of Copper-Nickel-PGE (Platinum Group Elements) mine, and was about a mile below the surface of the earth (which is kind of cool). I also had a bout of stomach flu (not fun), but somehow managed to make it through. I ended up with 89% in that class, and an average of 87% from all of my courses, so that's not too shabby. Unfortunately, I still have my project report to finish before I can put this masters behind me. It's taking a little bit longer than I would like, but I'm trying to be done by the end of August (before the wedding). We'll see how that works out.
In other news: my sister finished her PhD of History not long ago (congratulations Jen!) and Christine got a job as a Publicity Assistant for the television show Corner Gas, which is kind of cool. My buddy Steve finished his first full marathon this past week, completing the 42.2 km course in 3h24m10s, placing 22 out of 205 participants. I had been coaching him, so I rode along the course on my bike, made sure he got the food he needed at the appropriate distances and yelled at him when he was running too fast or too slow. Good times. I figure I logged 50 or 60 km on my bike that morning, so I got my exercise, too.
My summer is looking busy between field work and weddings. In addition to my own wedding in September, I have at least two weddings to go to, and possibly another two or three.
Well, that'll have to do for now. If I think of something later, I'll add it.
Uncle Travelling Matt out.
posted by Matt at 4:04 p.m.
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