Dark Thoughts

Yesterday was another of those surreal days when something gets thrown to you out of left field and you are expected to catch it. In this case, I was asked to give a speach to Turks about the impending heap leach operation at Çaldag here in Turkey. Half a day to prepare everything including the display and then to speak to people who can't understand a thing I'm saying was a bit of a task. What I didn't know however was that the TV camera's were going to be there from CNBC.

Anyway, I did the speach, got my mug on the TV (or will do when the finally show the piece on the box) and it all went well. I don't know how much of it they'll show, but I think the only thing that will go in is me sticking my hand into the leach solution to demonstrate that your fingers won't drop off when you do so.

It's funny, because such a thing can send mixed messages to people, because now they may think it's OK to go sticking their hands into concentrated acid streams, which is very uncool, and will in fact cause your fingers to drop off. Overall though, I think that it was more important to dispel some of the fear surrounding this project.

It's amazing the knowledge that we take for granted. Being from a country with a long and proud mining tradition, it's difficult to imagine what it would be like to be witnessing one of the first mines being constructed in my country. This coupled with a relatively low education level, and some blatant scare-mongering by some greedy lawyers and journalists has created a near panic in this region. True, there will be some dangerous chemicals on site here, but the safety systems that we are designing will hopefully keep people safe from the worst of them.

The general solutions used in the plant are relatively harmless if you get them on yourself, though you will experience a little discomfort when the contact your skin. Many people are worried about what will happen if the liquors leach into the subsoil, but seriously, two layers of 1.5mm HDPE coupled with the leak detection system all sitting in ground which is nearly pure limestone should keep this place pretty safe. If I was a local I'd be more worried about the raw sewage that gets discharged from the local latrines into the rivers and irrigation channels. I think that is a far greater risk to the environment, and everyone's health, but people have lived with this for hundreds of years, so it's a non issue for them.

Anyway, birthdays.

After trying to organize flights so that I can be with Jodie, we've given up. Flights are criminally expensive here in Australia. For the same price of a flight to Broome from Perth, I could fly from Perth to Europe, and have change for a hotel room. Not that I was going to let that stop me, but Jodie kind of refused to do the booking for me.

People have been warning me about women and money, but I think I'm one of the lucky ones who's girlfriend is actually stopping me from spending money. In any case I'll get to see her soon afterwards, and we'll do something special to celebrate.

The only other downside is that I won't get to meet Jodie's friends and family in Derby at this time. I was kind of looking forward to getting up to Derby for a bit of an unwind and to meet some new people. Heck I'm even missing out on cold beer - the injustice of it all.

It looks as though I'm going to be out of the country for my 30th which is a real pain, because I'll have to postpone my bouncy castle party :(

It will happen, but if I'm paying for the friggen thing, then I'm going to be there to enjoy it, dammit!

Anyway, I've got a big report that needs my attention that summarizes my work over here in Turkey, so till next time...