So I Did This Thing

So I have decided to step out of my comfort zone a bit (I know, this is everyone's opening line!) and gain more of an online presence. The idea of a blog is something I have played with for awhile, that and a podcast. But, where does one start? Honestly, I have no idea! This may or may not take off but I just know that I have a lot of life experience for someone my age and I could probably start there.

So maybe let's start with a little about me. I am 35 years old, married with three beautiful kids. My career, like many others, has had its ups and downs. When I graduated high school, I set out into the working field and thought all was great. Well I quickly realized that it wasn't what it was all cracked up to be. Working two jobs most of the time, living in eastern Canada, with stupid cold winters and not a thing to do, I decided that out west, in Alberta, was what I needed to get me on the right track.

My girlfriend at the time had an uncle who was the VP of Operations for a drilling company. He took a chance and offered me a position working in the mechanic shop. Sweeping floors, helping the mechanics with maintenance and repair work. One thing I have for sure, is a good work ethic, so I spent a summer working there. They offered to pay for my commercial drivers licence so I could go out into the field and work the rigs. This was great, more money, more responsibility and just an all around positive change. Mind you, the work wasn't easy, from being away ALL THE TIME, to working your ass off and listening to someone yell at you because your task at hand wasn't done yesterday, I stuck with it. I actually loved it, the "brotherhood" type of atmosphere where we worked hard and played even harder.

That girl and I didn't last, which was for the best. We would butt heads all the time and it wouldn't have been a great life for either of us. While living out west, I would travel home to the East Coast maybe once a year. I met my now wife in September of 2007. Once I saw her, I knew I had to catch her eye. We hit it off right away, I couldn't keep my eyes off of her!. She would come visit me out west and I would come home when I could but most of our relationship was via Facebook, or over the phone. Instagram and all the other social media platforms didn't exists back then.

We took a trip to New York just before Christmas, with some other friends who were dating at the time, then married and now split up (not that that is important to all of this lol). Everything was going good. I was 23 at the time, she was 25. Then, we got pregnant with our beautiful baby girl, miss Ryla Val. It was at this moment that I knew I had to make a decision. Am I staying out west? Maybe mama and baby can move out with me? Or, do I move home? Well being away for three years at the time, I decided it was time to come home so I started looking into other work options.

Being a driller already, this didn't take long, I was offered a position with another drilling company, working in Northern Alberta who paid for living allowance, flights, accommodations, all things I had to pay for myself while at my previous employer. So I decided to take the chance. Even though I was going back to a helpers position, with all of the added extras, it would average out to be more money. Same type of situation happened, it wasn't long and they were offering me the Drillers position, except I was quite content where I was and the basically just said too bad. Things were going good, they would fly us home for long weekends and we worked six days on, one off, in a remote camp. All sounds great, except after New Years, you don't see a long weekend till Easter and of course the first year I was there, Easter didn't come till April! So basically my wife, P, and I were back in a similar situation of never seeing each other.

So this post is a lot longer than I was anticipating and I need to get ready to take my daughter to basketball. So, if you managed to read this far into this, sorry but I will pick up in the next post where I left off.

To be continued...

This is me...