The Idiot
It's always the same shit, a different pile. The owner's son - Think the Bosses Nephew, only without his intelligence, good looks and charm, he's been dogging it for the last few weeks, working every other day, "Managing" the rest, which is to say in the office talking to his wife on the phone, he misses her, it's been hours, or going upstairs to visit his folks, he misses them, it's been hours as well, and his absence is perhaps the best thing about him. Customers, the ones with brains (not many, not out here), they are quick to note his insincerity, his ... well, -- something's off.
He's never worked in a restaurant other than this, for anyone other than his folks, and so his "experience" is more a lack thereof, and sometimes...sometimes...
They're going to start metering the water, and he warns me to stop giving the customers free glasses of water. I just look at him..."It's all about the costs.." he tries to tell me...
...and then, in the kitchen one day, he's doing cold side, I order a salad, split, and he tells me how much work it is, "I have to put it into two bowls!! TWO BOWLS!!", he warns me to never do it again, and I give him that sustained look of "WTF Buddy, are you an idiot?" but he merely trenches in, digs in a bit deeper, elaborates, he can see my expression, I must be stupid if I can't understand how much work that is and I get that 2 bowls, for him, that's a lot of work ...
He wants to be a politician, a few people, they say he'd be good, they don't mean it kindly, and he complains that he was bullied as a child, I can understand, but his very survival is proof that he wasn't bullied near enough...
- Details
- Category: People
The Favorite
By the director of "The Lobster", whose films seem to be a little more engaging and intelligent than most.
{embed:youtube:VhVofFGT6-U}
If, When I get back to civilization, get a place to live, I'm going to have a lot of catching up to do...
- Details
- Category: Film
Small Beryls
Finally, my 8th attempt in perhaps 3 weeks to get out and close to the areas I want. Close, closer, but the logging roads divide and multiply and I'm never quite sure where I am, I have only a rough number of KM up a logging road that becomes 2 and then 3 and then 6, and when finally I've explored every dead end the day is almost over and I'm parched and well devoured by black flies and mosquitos.
The geography up here, it's perfect, even the feldspar crystals in the granite are a couple of inches big, pyrite crystals a quarter inch, the whole mountain was slow to cool, and from here it's just get out and walk and explore...
On the way back, long road, I stop and explore a couple of roadcuts of interest, and finally find something, hard to see in the overwhelming, bright light of day, but I pack it home to check later. A white, degrading feldspar filled with smoky quartz, mica, some black tourmaline or schorl...
And, under better examination, more time:
Beryls. Small, pale blue-green crystals, some with good shape, none larger than a half a centimeter in the micah/black tourmaline/smoky quartz matrix, but what I'm here for.
Now to return, dig deeper, follow the vein up or down the mountain and see if I can't find better...
- Details
- Category: Blog
The Map is not the Territory
The past few weeks, having found abundant crystals, I've gone looking for other gems and stones of interest. And it's not been too successful, a few hundred dollars gas, a few thousand km on logging roads, and verily nothing to show for it.
The first claim, well away from civilization, but there's logging road access, and I check Google Maps and plan my routes...
Drive 10 K in route one, run into deep snow, too early yet...
Route 2, at 12 KM in, is blocked by a rockfall, sheer cliffs on either side make driving around it impossible, and if I had an 8 or 10 foot bar I just might be able to move a few and open it up again, but for the moment it's out of the question.
This day is a failure.
I choose another location for my next days off, same mineralogy, different area. And driving in, on a decommissioned logging road, up, up, slowing down for 3' deep ruts every hundred meters, and getting closer, getting closer, and then no....
Somehow the map, the google satellite view, it's wrong, and so I try another approach, follow the map on google, but am bushwhacked and slapped by a thousand saplings that have sprouted up on the clearly marked satellite view, have to stop, this is insane, and try another route...
A one mile hike in, on a clean logging road inaccessible by car, but the claim, it's just over that creek, that teeny tiny creek on the map, that just happens to be about 10 meters wide and in full spring runoff...
Fail.
(view from logging road to nowhere...)
All these failures, they're making me a bit obsessive, and the week following I go to try again, the boys here to visit, he'll love this...
But the road, no more snow, and driving further in, further in, we run into a landslide. Proper full on landslide, road closed, forever.
Still 15 to 20 KM from the target, I can write off this access point. Completely.
We've had a few of these failures, and so I take him to a few places where I know we'll find something, this prospecting, it's 99.9% looking and .1 percent finding, and he's getting a little discouraged, but I take him to few of the places I know where we can find crystals and poke about and explore, where we can get where we're going to...
Inside a very dodgy mine. Touch nothing, and limit the depth of one's exploration...
But some great photo ops, and the boy acknowledges this day isn't so much the write off other days have been...
The stopes falling over, and a ceiling, low and stooped slowly in the process of falling in...
When the boy is gone I return, back to the original quest, location 2, park at the closest access and get out and walk. 10 KM on a road that's been overgrown for 20 years, covered in deciduous saplings, had to get out and fill in ruts on the road for half an hour at a time to even get this close, and eventually, finding the claim, searching it over for minerals of interest, there are things of interest, for sure, but nothing so obvious that I can put my finger on, and 10 KM in means 10 KM out, it's a damned big area, a steep mountainside, and I've only an hour before the sun begins to set, grab a few samples, nothing extraordinary, lots to explore, but this hike in, out, it's grueling, no trail, forever being swatted with trees and branches, I won't be back here anytime soon, there are ample other places to investigate...
All in all a full month of failures, some new discoveries, but nothing I can monetize as of yet, and it's proven the old adage "The Map is Not the Territory", the map, google maps, easily 20 or more years out of date and I can't help thinking but there's got to be an easier way...
- Details
- Category: Places
Page 384 of 997