Day 27 : It's Tuesday Night And I Missed Dinner

                It’s Tuesday night at camp and I have just awoken after what was supposed to be a 20 min post shower nap. I am a man that enjoys a routine and I like to keep it that way at camp. Every day after work I take my boots and put them on my mat, I undress and grab both my towels, take a post work dump and take a five minute shower. After I finish this I usually put on some flip flops and text Sarah and meet everyone for some dinner in the dining hall. Post dinner is usually a trip to the gym or hanging out with my camp family playing pool or some other game. These things are important after work because if you just eat and go to your room it becomes hard to tell one day from the other and it all just seems like one long work day. Sometimes to make camp seem more like home I try and do things that I would be doing on that particular night back home. Tuesday is my favorite night of the work nights and usually my longest. Every Tuesday after work I would head down to Gamestars and play cards with friends until about nine o’clock or so and then head to some kind of food establishment and play some more card games and gamble for small amounts of money. So tonight in homage to the Tuesday nights I miss the most I had organized a gathering at the ‘Purple Helmet,’ the camp bar named for it having a purple roof and the fact that it always is such a sausage fest. But I guess my body had other plans.

                In other news we just had our B shift crew come back off turnaround which means that other Tanner is back to camp. Yep that’s right there is another Tanner up here! I know you’re just as surprised as I am. That is unless I have already mentioned it one of my previous posts in which case forget all this. I have met only heard of five other Tanners in my life so for me not only meeting another Tanner but one that would be working alongside of me and have his room only a few doors down from mine was pretty profound for me. That or there is just so little going on up here that meeting a person with the same name as you is a big deal; especially considering two of the other Tanner’s have dogs and one was a female porn star. Speaking of names you come across a lot here working with thousands of other people all with their names displayed on the front of their hard hats. One of the things I have come to earn from observing these names is that if I wanted my kid to work in construction I would name him Chris. Everyone and their dog up here are named Chris, not literally. It has become so bad that not only do you need to refer to them by their first and last name but also their trade. Another thing you come across is people who have completely abandoned their name for a nickname that they have been given, some people I still don’t know there real name all I know is that his hat says ‘Bird’ and that apparently people have been calling him that for fifty years, I assume it has something to do with his massive schnoz. Other nicknames come from what they used to do before camp or BC, like our material handler Barkley or as he is better known ‘Captain,’ he used to captain a boat. My nickname on the other hand was given to me after my lovely friend Sarah told people about a story I told her in confidence where I was nicknamed ‘Onion’ in high school leadership camp because I asked why people kept calling me onion when they told me that where in fact calling me youngin. So now everyone over the radio can here “Come in labourer foreman Onion.” Not that I mind, I have had worse nicknames in my time.

                To close off this post I’m going to leave you some pictures I have been collecting in my ongoing journey to use every porta-potty on site and take pictures of all the wonderful things people have to write and the detailed illustrations that accompany them.

                                                                                 And remember only you can prevent forest fires, Tanner (open to suggestions)