Typical Firebag Schedule

The camp I live at is called Firebag.
Named after Firebag River which runs closeby.
A firebag is a leather pouch that was used by the natives long ago to hold embers from the fire so when they needed to build another one, they had some heat and coals already.
Thats your history lesson for the day.
Back to the task at hand.
This is typically what happens from Pre-Sunrise to the Bedtime.
5:00 am - alarm goes off. i hit snooze
5:10 am - i hit snooze again
5:20 am - i hit snooze for the last time. (if i don't have to wash my hair)
5:30 am - grab my robe, shower stuff, toothpaste and brush, put on my "pink goof boots" (as Biker Dave calls them- they are pink fuzzy slipper boots - i love them), stumble down the hall, hoping noone sees me in this state. Noone generally does. When they do, all eye contact is averted ....
6:00 am - go on the internet, see if theres any messages or if Mo has updated her page.
6:20 am - wonder where the time went
6:21 am - scramble around my room, get dressed in my long johns, three pair of wool socks, four layers of shirts, put make up on (yes, i wear make up here - theres very very few ways to feel feminine here - so make up is necessary), pack my bag with snacks, Storme style, an extra layer, lots of water, a book, my blackberry, my notebook, pen with lots of ink, pack up the lap top, make my bed (to have it re-made by the cleaner later), take my vita -greens and daily vitamin, grab my hard hat, safety vest, and out the door.
6:28 am - drop my overloaded bag by the boots and search for my generic steel toes. not hard. the smallest and cleanest pair. drive my feet into them, pick my bag and hard hat up, sweating already, and stomp out the door. (ever try to walk delicately in un-tied steel toed boots?)
6:30 am - arrive at the kitchen trailer. drop my overloaded bag, and hard hat, make small talk and remarks about the weather to those doing the same. slip out of my (see,,,, now are you getting it?) UN-TIED boots and go into the kitchen line up, grab some fresh pineapple, grapes, wraps, rice krispie squares, celery sticks with honey mustard salad dressing to dip them in, some ruby red grapefruit juice (my favorite in all the land) for my break snacks, then grab a bowl of cereal, toss some strawberries or something on it and inhale.
6:46 am - wish i didn't leave this to the last minute - every day.
6:46 am - make my way to the 'tent' - which is our gathering place for our morning meeting which is called a Safety Meeting, Toolbox Meeting or Tailgate Meeting. All it is is we sign in, sit on our benches (we all sit in the same spot every day - weird) and listen to Safety get up and give a little speech on something, like three point contact when exiting a machine etc. occasionally a foreman will tell a joke ... and Foreman Mike gets up, and gives us our instructions for the day.
7:30 am - get on the short bus (for reals) that takes us to our job sites. Mine is always the last site to go to, so I get the tour.
8:00 am - get to my machine. do my walk around. think its way too cold to have an outside job.
sit in machine and shiver and shake until it warms up, defrosts, i write out my time card for that job, fill in my equipment checklist and make my way across the road to my site.
8:20 am - get to my site and start packing ( I drive a packer most days) and start planning my future. For the 12th time that rotation (or whatever day I am at)
10:00 am - go for a bathroom break whether or not I need it. Sitting for that long is bad for your blood and mind and hip joints.
10:10 am - back in the packer
10:30 am - coffee time. don't know why the call it coffee time. theres no coffee in sight. and the stuff from the morning is long since cold. (thouuuuugh.... i, as a joke, told my foreman, Steve, that just like the old days when secretaries made their bosses coffee, foremen should bring their operators coffee at break time. Well,,,,, sometimes he does!)
so this getting boring, right? think about it in real time. just THINK about how bored I get - sitting, packing, only occasionally moving out of a dozers way .....
2:00 pm - another potty break -
2:30 pm - coffee time - again ...no coffee ??
4:00 pm - another potty break - look - i need the exercise and sometimes the foreman will come along and ask if you need a break and just take you to the nice bathrooms. then you get some human interaction and a nice comfy Duramax or Cummins seat.
5:30 pm - signal from the dozer to stop work.
5:30:01 pm - stop work
5:31 pm - park packer. let engine cool while gathering your not so overstuffed anymore bag and completing said time card. making sure all garbage is picked up, cab is clean for nightshift.
5:35 pm - hop in short bus, tell Wayne you had a great day, how was his ? and sit down.
5:45 pm - dump bag, hardhat, vest, 2 layers on floor of room, go on internet again before the circuits get too busy and check for messages.
6: 00 pm - shower, or every other day, change into gym clothes and get the shuttle which takes you to 8:00 pm)
6:30 pm - (stretching evening out) go to kitchen trailer
7:00 - 8:00 pm - depending on the level of entertainment in the lunch room, hang around and have a lot of crazy laughs and unbelieveable stories ....
8:00 pm - down time, reading, cleaning, organizing for the next day.
9:00 pm - bedtime .......
Ever see the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray and Andie McDowell?
Life at camp is like Groundhog Day.

Ask anybody what day it is and for a second, they will look blankly at you and peer at the sticker on their sandwich to see what day it says ... the thing is, you don't care what day it is because it doesn't even matter. all that matters is how many days until you fly out .... its the weirdest feeling.
its like living in the twilight zone or something.

thats all. thats how my days go. they ARE boring, but theres many bright moments in them. The radio talk is mostly funny, the toolbox meeting is always a laugh ....

that's all
xo
L.