Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Today is quite literally the coldest day of my life. Temperatures stooped to -30, with -45 degree wind chill. To make matters even worse, the blower on the pick-up truck (which provides the heat) failed, so we have no heat in the pickup.

We had our first job yesterday morning at 3am and it lasted until 12:30! It was really long because the rigs out here are really small. Both crews went out to the job so that we could all see and get some experience doing the first job so there were 4 operators and two engineers. We were a little cramped. The other engineer wanted to do the job to get experience so I let him and wasnt paying attention to what he was doing during the job, but realized at the end of the job - when he quit because he was really tired and asked me to finish it - that he hadnt really done very much at all. We had to stay out there for 4 more hours processing all of the data that we had logged! Anyway, we finally got it done and set a good benchmark that will allow us to do the job much more quickly on the future wells.

Today I found out that I was still "owned" by the Bakersfield camp!! It was really disheartening because I had thought that I was fully released to Canada, but it turns out that I am not. I intended to talk with the country manager in Iraq about getting a few more percent bump to come out to Iraq, but instead I signed the transfer offer and sent it back. Iraq is next, I put my estimated start date for April 15.

Whenever I talk to people about working in Iraq I always get the same mouth dropping, "Why would you want to do that" response. In my opinion, there are many places on earth that are dangerous for Americans, white people, or being employed by my company. Angola, Somalia, Kazakstan, Nigeria are just a small few of the places that would be dangerous (and several have actually had recent fatalities) that I could get transfered to. But Iraq has a US presense, overpaid body gaurds, and from what I hear the people (overall) like us too. Yea there are some crazies, but I feel like there is alot more between me and them than if I worked in the Congo or Nigeria. With all that said, I feel like I am making a safe, good decision that will be really good for my wife and I.

I finally got my phone today too! I had never realized how cut off I would feel if I was denied to luxuries - internet and cell phone. It is nice to have the internet working again (even though its slow) and have a phone that I can use whenever I want.

I will try to take more pictures and upload them here.