Finally

I'm going underground! Woooo! I was innocently sitting at my desk this morning and got shouted at to get into the boardroom...after spending 2secs wondering what I'd done wrong and whether they were gonna sack me I went and got told that as the only engineer in the building that isn't completely stacked with work I'm being sent to one of the oldest and most established coal mines in the country to do some troubleshooting. It turns out that we've been supplying rigs with dodgy seals for well over a year and the quick-fix of new seals isn't working out so me and one of the draftsmen who designed it (no engineering knowledge!) are being sent to try and work out what's causing the seals to wear and essentially fail. I'm excited about going but slightly nervous after reading through dozens of e-mails today that have gone back and forth between us and the mine. It looks like there are gonna be some very hacked off production managers and operators there as the dodgy seals have cost them mega-big-bucks in lost production time....

For those of you that haven't worked it out that means I'll be spending my 22nd birthday hundreds of feet undergound watching a rig go up, then down, then up, then down, then up, repeat *ad infinitum*. It's a 4-5hr drive home so I should be back in Newcastle just before midnight and the end of my birthday, hardcore! I was meant to be doing my motorbike training on the 4/5th but have to postpone that now for another few weeks... damnit.

So this weekend I've got a work xmas party, on the 1st November! WTF? I'm not gonna complain though, is a good excuse for a piss-up and should actually meet some people from the office I spent 3weeks at in September. Unfortunately my favorite pub has been shut down by the police so the closing party I was going to won't happen, need to find something else for tomorrow night now...hmmmm.

That's about it for this thrilling installment, my sunburn has faded to a nice brown tan so will be hitting the beach some more this weekend if the weather holds. Saw a whale off the beach to day too, go me!