SNOWMAGEDDON!!!!

[Something about breaking trail feels awesome, and tiring. Awesomely tiring?]

[cue a deep, drawn voice that would be guilty of being totally annoying, but thanks to Hollywood is "only guilty of being awesome" (if you can cite that reference lets be best friends, unless you are a female and single, then when do we get married?)]
"Narrator: This is the Earth, at a time when the dinosaurs roamed a lush and fertile planet.
[From behind the camera, a giant asteroid appears, speeding towards the Earth ahead of it]
Narrator: A piece of rock just 6 miles wide changed all that.
[Blazing through the atmosphere, the asteroid impacts with a spectacular display of fire and destruction]
Narrator: It hit with the force of 10,000 nuclear weapons. A trillion tons of dirt and rock hurtled into the atmosphere, creating a suffocating blanket of dust the sun was powerless to penetrate for a thousand years. It happened before. It will happen again. It's just a question of when."
Narrator: The peaceful East Coast was comfortably enjoying Winter winding down and the premier of the final season of Lost (finally), but little did they know that they were in the deadly cross-hairs of a force far greater than they could ever imagine. Only one man, a weatherman, was able to identify this catastrophe rocketing towards them, but everyone just wrote him off as a lunatic (because, well, he was). But before millions could see The Who take the halftime stage (who? The Who? Who wants to see a Who nip slip?), they would be pounded by Snowmageddon!!!
[dun-dun-duuuun!!!!]
(on a side note, I once graded a college level paper about asteroids and the kid cited "Armageddon" the movie as a scientific reference! Granted Bruce Willis legitimizes that, but Ben Affleck destroys all credit. But not only did he reference it, he plagiarized the narrator word-for-word. The real crime, however, is that I did not even fail him, barely.)

Other than being short by about 15 feet of snow, a little fire and wrath, and Bruce Willis wasting his life on a total loser (who's only good movie inspired us all to drop out of school, get a library card, solve equations on our bathroom mirror, start eating apples, and recognize the importance of a retainer) who was smitten for Bruce's daughter (who would be totally smoking hot, except every time you look at her you see flashes of her father half-painted in black body-paint zipper thing, while a guitar solo drowns in the background), this was pretty much nothing like the Armageddon of snow storms. But it DID bring a lot of snow over night.

Realizing that running in knee-deep, wet snow did not sound totally awesome, unless, of course, I was training to fight an 8foot Soviet with "Eye of the Tiger" playing on repeat and wearing an awesome leather jacket, I went for a ski. But it is never a "normal" ski when you are in the vice grips of Snowmageddon (no, "snowmageddon" will never get old, and if you think it is, you need to watch this again).

Things I learned from other people while out skiing:
1. When Snowmageddon is pounding the countryside, it is not wise to take a "short-cut" through the woods on a forest road in the middle of the night.

2. After you get stuck on a on a forest road in the middle of the night, before spending the night in your truck, maybe you should realize that you are only about 4miles from a major road.

3. When you are driving in the next morning to pick your friends up after they spent the night in their truck all night after getting stuck on a forest road only 4miles from a major road, don't get yourself stuck also.

4. When Snowmageddon hits, driving in knee deep snow to go sledding in the middle of the forest is not be the most productive use of your time after you slide off the road, get stuck on a rock, and never actually go sledding.

5. When you are skiing along a forest road after Snowmageddon hits, you are no longer a skier, you are road-side assistance on skis (I learned that one from myself).

Cliff Notes of today's post: We got a lot of snow. I went skiing, then got a milkshake. Thanks for reading.

Disclaimer: No nuclear warheads were set off in the writing of this blog.

BLACK GOLD!!

Imagine a place that has ocean views, surrounded by hundreds of pristine lakes and ponds, and carefully nestled in ecologically fragile and heavily protected land. It is not uncommon to see herds of caribou and musk ox crossing roads, and you always have to be on the lookout for bears. In addition to the multi-million dollar state-of-the-art facilities, there is unlimited free food including ribs, steak, lobster, salmon, freshly baked cookies, ice cream…I’ll stop because it is making me too hungry. Did I mention all this doesn’t cost you a dime? Sounds like the most incredible eco-tourism resort, right? Well, its actually the North Slope, Alaska.

When the plane dropped out of the fog (literally) onto the runway in Deadhorse this morning, the thermometer read in the high 30’s. First impression: probably the flattest place I have ever seen, a strong cold wind, everything looked dirty, and the white sky melted into the thick fog cloaked the land. AWESOME!

Over the course of the day we visited a rotary and coil drill rig. I’ll spare you the details of the difference because I doubt you really care. What is cool, these rigs cost at least $200K PER DAY, even if they just sit there.

Lets put this in perspective:
1. If an error is made and the drill bit is damaged and needs replacing, at the rotary rig we saw today, it would take about 24hrs to pull up the bit ($200K), then you would have to replace the bit ($20K). Not a cheap mistake.
2. Ok, suppose no major mistake is made. A drill project could take a month to couple months (remember that’s at >$200K/day!).
3. The drill rigs are actually on wheels. This enables them to “easily” (at a couple miles/hr) drive to a new wellhead. The price of this move runs around a cool million.

Ok, ok big money, so what?! Keep in mind, they wouldn’t be doing all this if it wasn’t profitable. Wow!

I can’t finish this without talking about the food. I’ve heard that people who survive experiences when they nearly starve have a tendency to hoard food the rest of their lives. While I have never been close to starving and likely never will, I do have the tendency of hoarding food when its free. When the ribs are free, why not fill your plate? And when you are going home, why not take a doggy bag full of cookies? Good thing I don’t work up there, or I would definitely grow a nice gut.

By the end of the day, I touched the Arctic Ocean (Prudhoe Bay to be exact, but it’s all the same, right?), the sky cleared to beautiful blue, I had a full belly, and bag of cookies. Oh yea, not only was it all free (to me), but I actually got paid for it. I like it!