Happy New Year everybody. I'll be moving into my own little basement suite in the next couple of days, and for the first time since August I will have a home. Expect more regular updates once I gert settled in. But for now I have one more night shift to work for 2004.

Working 12 hour shifts (actually, we get paid for 12.66 now with our new, even more faraway pit, though we are away from home for more like 15 hours) doesn't give me much time to update. And when I do I am usually so tired from the 12.66 hours that I don't make much sense. And the coal mining life, as fascinating as it is, doesn't always make much sense to the non-miner. But maybe I will tell the odd story here and there to teach you guys the language.
Today I got to be a refugee, off on my own a bit. Sometimes I like to pretend I am actually a prisoner on a penal colony- an airless asteroid or moon somewhere. Where all our machinery are really big robots except for me. The minesite could certainly pass for an alien world- the stark black-and-white landscape, especially at night, really helps the illusion. But today I saw a decidedly terrestrian sight- a group of bighorns stampeding away from either a very large coyote or perhaps a wolf. The canine wasn't exactly chasing them, per se, being too smart for such a waste of energy, but was more testing the waters to see if there were any stragglers, as any good predator would. Luckily for the sheep, there weren't any today.

All the links and more- the goods from our trip to Malaysia and New Zealand.
Te Papa National Museum- the amazing national museum of New Zealand.
Weta Workshop- Didn't get to visit but I met someone who works there . . . Also, Weta's store.
WOW- only the Kiwis would combine classic cars and wearable art in one musuem, but the end result defies description, but it seriously one of the coolest museums ever.
Hobbiton- although they dismantled most of it, some of it is still there and it is a lot of fun. "As it was, as it is, sheep."
Awesome Adventures Dolphin Swim- the water is COLD but it is soooo worth it.
Milford Sound- one of the more beautiful places on Earth.
National Tattoo Museum of New Zealand- a good place to see beautiful artwork and maybe get some done on yourself.
The Film Archives- An amazing resource- every motion picture ever filmed in NZ, free for viewing. Sure you could watch LOTR, but there are many other great movies to see. Such as In My Father's Den.
Black Water Rafting in the Waitomo Glowworm Caves- good fun and worms with glowing poo!
Pelennor Fields filming location- just a tour of a field, but the guys who run it are great- they were either extras or drivers and have a lot of first-hand stories to tell.
Whale Watch Kaikoura- where you can see sperm whales.
New Zealand Herald- the best paper in NZ. The best team in NZ? The All Blacks.
Flora Bay Dive- the best dive school on the best island with the best resort attached.
There are way more but that is all I can think of for now.

A conversation I heard today on the bus at the mine, between a guy who had been laid off and one who hadn't.
"So what's changed?"
"Lots of things. Things change on an hourly basis out here."
"That hasn't changed."
"Nope."

I don't think the Honda Civic was ever really designed with snowplow functionality in mind, but Little Green Jellybean came through for me today yet again. Though LGJ looked more like a mobile igloo than a jellybean. Or a car. I think I need to add another stanza to my ode. Who needs caffeine when you can just drive through a blizzard at 6AM in the middle of nowhere? A couple of times I had to stop and clear snow from my headlights and tires, which were under about ten inches of unplowed snow. Crazy. But amazingly I didn't get stuck or even slide, and I to top it off I wasn't late for work. Work is good- some things have changed, but the job is still the same- driving haul trucks is like riding a bike, you don't really forget. I was even reunited with my old truck 31 today.
On a totally different note, I just want to express my sadness and dismay over the senseless murder of Dimebag Darrell and three others.

Here is a sort of road map of all the places Wedge took us. Well, it was the best I could do in two minutes. All told we put about 6000 kms on Wedgie's odometer. Good ole Wedgie. I miss him. I finally got used to driving on the left and now it is weird to be back on the right- and all the snow and ice right now is just making it worse. Kind of scary.
The northernmost point is Paihia and the southest we got was called Bluff. All the inbetween places can be put under the umbrella name of Middle-earth.

As Samwise Gamgee says at the end of LOTR, "Well, I'm back."
Just in time for the deepfreeze, ole Homie came home. It was a pretty great trip, and even though I cut it short, I can honestly say I have no regrets- I went pretty much full-bore the whole time (though for me, scuba diving, whitewater rafting, going to a ballet and researching Maori mytholgy at a library are all equally exciting activities, so . . . ), ran out of money and decided to suprise my girlfriend by coming home for Christmas. gabrielle remains in Kiwiland and I look forward to hearing about the many adventures that are in store for her.
Oh yeah plus I got my old coal mining job back.
It's really cold here in Edmonton, though, and I'm really jet-lagged. But on the plus side I have discovered that spending time in the arms of the one I love is even better than abseiling into a 35 meter black abyss, which is saying a lot.