Where Are My Ruby Slippers When I Need Them?

Wow, it's finally Friday! I get to go home to see my sweet hubster and my lil furry babies, I'm so excited!

This week has been interesting to say the least! Let me elaborate a bit starting with my St. Patrick's Day night. (Yes the day/night thing makes perfect sense)

So after eating sushi in Elko (I know, sushi in Elko? It's true) we walk next door to this lil happenin joint where a bunch of leprechauns lured us in with their promises of rainbows and pots of gold. Of course we didn't care for the gold, I mean hello? We work for a gold mine, we could get gold anytime right? So I went in for the rainbows.


I'm all about the rainbows.





The whole town of Elko must have showed up because there were about 50 people there!






The bag piper dudes in thier kilts. They say they wore them the traditional way but I don't believe them, it was WAY to cold for that!




Oh, and I learned that all leprechauns are liars, I don't see any rainbows here do you?




Anyway, so I am a little concerned about this colleague of mine. He is from our office in Canada so I just met him in person this week for our project and he is an interestin fella!




The first day in town he made us stop at the pharmacy so he could pick himself up some booze for his hotel room. Wha? Booze in the pharmacy? I've never seen such an animal! I was definitely not in Kansas...er...Utah anymore.

So every night after work, he got drunk BEFORE we went to dinner. EVERY TIME. And the drunker he got, the worse his accent got so I couldn't understand him at all. St. Patty's day was probably the worst of his drunkenness:





So the next day at work we had this conversation:



Drunken Colleague: "I am running today."

Dumb Blond (me): "Oh, ok. On the treadmill at the hotel?"

Drunken Colleague: "No, I mean, I don't know how to say this...I am so ashamed of myself."

Dumb Blond: "Oh, don't be ashamed, everyone needs a good run now and then."

Drunken Colleague: "No, I mean...I am not feeling well, my bowels are running and I have...how you say...cramps...do you know where I can get medicine?"

Pause.

Pause.

Dumb Blond: "Oh...OH! Um no, I'm sorry maybe in the break room?"

So then I make the poor man tell someone else about his pooping issues in order to get medicine. Luckily, he found some and he was able hinder his running problem for the day.




...Anyway...




Since I already had a tour of the brothels the last time I was in town, I stayed clear of those this week. Plus I've been working long hours so I was just way too tired to go check out Sue's Fantasy Club again! And Inez's Dancin & Diddling was always closed when I got off work everday anyway. Everyone there probably missed me but hey, I can't please everyone!

So I am heading off to catch my flight now, I can't wait to get home and sleep in my own bed and spend a nice relaxing Friday night with my Hubby. Who knows, maybe we'll go a little crazy and do two puzzles tonight!

Party animals.

"I Love Goooold!"

As most of you know, I work for a gold mining company.

1. No, I don't receive gold as my yearly bonus.
2. No, I can't get you a discount on gold jewelry.
3. No, our office is not made out of gold.
4. And yes, "silver" is the equivalent of a curse word in our office.

Okay, now that we have that out of the way....

I'd like to share with you our Christmas tree this year. My Christmas tree at home is pretty pathetic and not worth posting on the blogosphere so I'm going to show off the tree from my office!


Isn't it spectacular!!!



All these trucks and tractors will be donated to the Toys for Tots Foundation.



This is my favorite part! I know we're not coal miners, but the coal goes along with the whole "Coal in your stocking" Christmas theme.

Pam must have been extra nice this year. That or she did Santa a naughty personal favor, one of the two!

I love this miner's hat on top of the tree!

And the oil lamp.

It sits in the main lobby.

The theme of the tree is

"What's Yours is Mined."

I bet you think I was the genius who came up with that one don't you? I don't blame you, I am very clever like that, but no, we purchased the tree from the Festival of Trees and it was donated by the U of U Mining Engineers.

Who knew engineers had it in them?

Our Christmas party is tonight at the Grand America Hotel and I plan to take LOTS of incriminating pictures. Especially at the end of the night after everyone has had a little too much to drink, it is an open bar you know!

That way I have evidence to blackmail my bosses if I ever screw anything up at work! Which of course NEVER happens, but just in case I'm framed

er somethin.

Gold, Lobsters & Brothels Anyone?

I bet you didn't know I was a Gold Miner did you? Well here is proof!

Okay okay I'm not a real gold miner, I'm just an accountant-wanna-be-miner. But I do work for a gold mine and this week I was able to take a little business trip to Nevada to go on a mine tour. It was fricken awesome, I really want to be an underground miner now.

Forget about crunching numbers, I want to crunch rocks!

Before entering an underground mine, everyone has to have their brass. Why you ask? To identify your burned remains when the mine catches on fire and you are left there to be burned alive! Brass does not melt in fire so you always have 2 identifying brass pieces, one to keep on your body and one to put on the brass board so that they can keep track of every person who has dared to enter the mine.


So here is our group of nerdy accountants trying to squish into this tiny elevator shaft to travel 1000 feet underground. Good thing I didn't forget my deodorant that day, too bad I couldn't say the same for the others!



First place we visited was Fragal Rock! Yes it does exist!


See?


This picture isn't easy to see but I guess it is an example of how dark and scary it is underground!



Especially if you turn the corner and one of these is coming right at you!




The underground is full of extremes, in some areas you are freezing your tail off then a couple seconds later you are sweating to death! In some places it was pitch black and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, but in other places it was as bright as day.

After the underground, we went to see the open pit. Wow, it was huge!



I couldn't believe the size of the equipment they use! Pretty amazing huh?



Before I could take one for a test drive I had to make sure it lived up to my standards.





This is when we were down in the pit, I thought the shovel on the right was big until I saw it next to the red one! This is probably something you have to see in person, the pictures don't do justice to the size of these monsters!

They had to kick us out of the pit for the daily blast. Everyday they blow up another level of the mine to access more ore. See those perfect looking ridges in the pit? Those are created by strategically placing the explosives so that when the blast is over, you are left with a perfect ridge. All this is done in the computer first so they can analyse the area and make sure the blast will do exactly what they need it to.

So here we are waiting for the blast.



I am so mad that I didn't get a good picture of the blast because it was huge! All I have is this wussy picture of a little bit of smoke long after the blast.

I was so tired and worn out by the time we left the mine and all I did was walk around, I can't imagine how the miners feel after they've worked all day! After we got back to our hotel, we had just enough time to shower and clean up to go to dinner.

In Elko Nevada, the only place you need to eat is here:

I've never heard of basque food until I took my first trip to Nevada. I'm not too familiar with the background of these restaurants but I know it is where the sheep herders live which is why most of the food is prepared family style.

If you like lobster then you have to eat at The Star! Best lobster ever, even better than the lobster I had in Boston! Crazy, I know but I think it's the way they cook it. Delish!

And what else is Elko known for? Well the brothel houses of course! Just next to the Star are these two brothel houses that we absolutely had to get pictures of. Me from Utah, and the others from Toronto have never seen anything like it. We couldn't help but be curious!




There was this guy standing outside Sue's Fantasy Club and when he found out that most of us were from Toronto and had never seen brothels houses, he invited us in for a tour. Yes, I took a tour of a Brothel house! It was so weird because they were giving us a tour of the place like it was no big deal, just like giving a tour of their house or something.




Well we stayed just long enough to snap a couple of pics to prove to the folks back home that we actually stepped inside, then we ran like hell away from there!

Funny there was an article in the newspaper about the brothel houses in Nevada because they are the only ones in the US that aren't suffering from rising gas prices. Most brothel houses rely on travelers for their business so the higher the gas prices get, the lower their clientele gets. But this is not the case for the Elko brothels, why? Because most their business comes from the miners.

Go figure!