I am David, and this is my blog.

Hill 50, Mt. Magnet, March 2010. Super secret place in the Goldfields.

In my first entry I'd like to state and clarify the purpose of this blog. This is space for me fill, and for you to visit. I'll post a photo as frequently as as I can, so that you can see things that I think are groovy.

I'll tell you about work, airports, and home. I'll describe the private joy of working in one of the world's most remote places, and I'll lament (frequently) for Dublin, where my heart ultimately belongs.

I'm David, and honestly, I am probably the luckiest person I have ever met.










....... ooooooh that was so dramatic wasn't it? Okay enough of that gay language. Where do I start? I've been living in Perth for nearly six months now and the current situation is that I'm being sponsored for four years by a company who work in the Pilbara to find them loads of ore. That's what I do, I'm officially a "Resource Development Geologist", and I drink coffee, drive big jeeps, and make scientific observations about rocks that we drill from the ground. As in, "Pink rock, pink rock, pink rock, black rock, pin... BLACK ROCK!!! BLACK ROCK!!!!!!" ... and so on. In order to have continuous production of this crap, it's necessary for people to live there on a semi-permanent basis, so every Monday I board a plane and fly to work, where I stay for 8 nights, then fly back home every other Monday for a week of R&R. I'm going to state this for everyone who's not sure: Having a week off every second week is REALLY REALLY NICE!!!!! HAH ALL YOU PEOPLE WHO LAUGH AT GEOLOGISTS FOR BEING NERDS WE R IN FAKT teh VERY COOL nd WE PWN+100 ALL UR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!!!!!!

So where was I? Oh yeah. We make sacrifices, us geos. I mean, we don't have love lives. How could we with our rosters? I heard this last week that there is actually a dating site online called "Match my Roster.com" Can you fucking believe that??? Jesus, the things people will do for a cuddle and some sex. And there's the thing about working on a minesite that you see really really quickly:

People play the hardass, but very close to the surface you can see how everyone is really really human. Yeah, cities are far more frightening places. A typical day for me is 14 hours of work, a laundry run, some food, and beer with fuck-knows-who at the camp bar (West Mess in mining lingo) then bed by 8:30.... there's no modern distractions, and no getting mugged on the walk home from the pub.

The bad side is that I live 22,000 miles from my family and my beloved friends.

So I figure I'll do this for a few years, buy a gaff in Dunshaughlin, then order a pizza.

Yeah!!