Hello all,

I know I've been mysteriously vacant for the last little while. Ok, maybe it has been longer than that. But I am still around and my vanishing act can partly be explained. since I moved out this summer I have not had consistent internet access to satiate my daily damnyou fix. that and the black screen of death on my cell phone/ my only phone leads to me not knowing anything that I had previously entered into my phone directory (ie, all of your phone #s).

anyways, I have moved in with another buddy now. just north of elerslie road. so I should be able to stay a little better connected with his provided internet access.

I also have a a little event to promote. Saturday February 3 my soccer team is having a fundraiser, as we have spent all of our money, and are still borrowing equipment from a 14yr old boys team. We are having a pub crawl. "Gasp!!!" yes a pub crawl. it is a great chance to catch up with friends, dance the night away to some cheesy pop music, or whatever those kids are listening to these days, and drink some drinks. and now for the details.

What: Druid Fc pub crawl. Hawian themed (free leis to those who dress it up)
Where: A Bar called Jack-Union Hall-Hudsons Downtown- Squires (4 bars in total)
When: Saturday february 3. the day before the superbowl. we will leave a bar called Jack by 8 I believe.
Why: Why not! it will be a good time, and my soccer team has no money.
Cost: an itsy bitsy teenie weeny $15. gets you no line no cover, transport and drink specials.
How: onabus istheway weroll.

One guy on the team made a poster, and I'll try to hook yous all up with some visuals.

If you are interested in the crawl, or just wondering what the heck I am up to, give me a shout 218-5373.

When the oilfields slow down there will be less desire to be a mechE and therefore we will become less expendable.

I fail to see why the inverse wouldn't be true.

Ok, so here's the Mary and Ed moving plan for tomorrow:

- 11am-12pm, start moving at our apartment (#79, 5215 110 Street)
- move things to 6203 127 Street (our new place)
- eat pizza, consume various beverages
- watch hockey, or not, depending on your preference

If you need to get a hold of us, please call my cell, 264-3218 or our home, 988-1643.

Thanks so much to everyone who said that they would help!

I should say MechEs are expendable now because there are too many of us. When the oilfields slow down there will be less desire to be a mechE and therefore we will become less expendable. Kind of like any skilled trade or profession.

Well Par the economics of a fivefold increase in production does not necessarily mean an increase in pay. First the person owning the company will see an increase in profit and wether (sp?) he wants to share this profit or not is up to him.

The design of most oilfields are pretty much set a few years in advance. A fivefold increase in production will mean instead of buying 1 wellhead I designed they will basically buy 5 wellheads.

( A simplistic view for the lay people but basically they already have a field plotted off. They know what type of wellhead they want to put where. A fivefold increase of production means they just have to put wellheads on 20% of the oilfield instead of 4% of the field if it was "normal" production. They could very well extract all the oil off the field in one shot if they wanted but by holding back capacity they are able to keep the price of oil up and get more money for there effort. A good example of this would be Brazil where when oil was only $30 a barrel it wasn't worth it to extract the oil (They had to use an expensive method to extract the oil) When the price went to $50 a barrel they were raking in the money so they decided to extract.)

There is no increase in workload to design more wellheads, I basically work the same amount of time. So I'm working the same amount of hours, why should the owner pay me more? All wellhead companies are pretty much like this, so why should they want to pay an engineer more? Poaching? Don't think so, too many mechanical engineers, we're basically expendable. Only when we actually have 6+ years of experiance are we actually worth something. By this time the salaries have pretty much stabalized across the board so it doesn't really matter who you work for. Unless you are in management or something I can't see any way for you to be raking in the big money.

So to summarize: onwers make more money, workers no.

Well whatever, they treat me well here so I'll be at Stream-Flo for a while still.

Man, I should just skip the first period of every Oilers game. I turn on the TV, see a fight, then two goals in 30 seconds to give them the lead. Then they actually go out and add to rather than give up their lead and, breaking with tradition win against Anaheim.

Also, does Roloson have a different mask this year from last year? This is the mask from last year:

I'm surprised we hear of an urge for fivefold expansion of our oilsands production, but nothing of what Par already outlined: infrastructure, manpower, housing, services. There's nothing in this oil summit for the people of Alberta. Any manpower shortages will be filled by foreign workers: remember this? I have no problems with foreign workers, but c'mon! There are plenty of people trying to become police officers in this province and we're giving the positions to English bobbies??? No takers from the rest of Canada I suppose. Maybe we should import Trump for our infrastructure as Alberta is such a terrible province to live in.

I don't know, Albert. My simple math says that if there's five times the activity in the oilsands, there's at least some increase in the demand for, as an example, mechanical engineers. Given that there's a limited number of MechEs, if Streamflo isn't paying you more to retain your services, someone else in need of MechEs may well poach you from them for more money. Either way, an sizeable increase in oilsands activity affects you pretty directly.

I am, of course, neither an economist nor a mechanical engineer, so my view of this may not be terribly firsthand. I'm more than willing to be enlightened about why I'm wrong about this particular point, though.

In any case, the general point I would make about why this is a colossally stupid idea is that we simply don't have five times as much everything that we need to support that kind of expansion. Never mind the blatantly obvious environmental consequences (which we seem to do often enough), but we're pretty stretched in terms of infrastructure, manpower, housing, services, etc. with regards to the oilsands as is. Quintupling the activity out there dumps an anvil on that proverbial camel that's one straw short.

Again, though, I'm open to finding out why that wouldn't be the case.

IF you see me driving around in a Nissan Skyline GT-R then it is pretty direct trickle down. I doubt this will happen so no I think the trickle down isn't as great as some people put it out to be.

And to keep with my work brain being on I'll change my analogy:

The trickle down will be like 1000 psi of pressure trying to get thru a 5,000 psi rated BOP ram, the primary viton o-ring seal of the tubing hanger and the secondary plastic injection seals. (For you laypeople out there that pressure isn't going to get thru.)

Al, don't you work at a oil wellhead company? That's some pretty direct trickle down.