7000 ft underground!

I was at SNOLab. Actually I didn't get to go to the lab, it was the mine training, so I went to the mine, which as luck had it, was even deeper than the lab level. We donned the full miners' suits, complete with coverall, hard hat with light, radio, steel toed boots etc and went 7000ft (yes seven thousand feet) underground. It was beyond cool really! The Vale Inco's Creighton nickel mine is an active mine, so we got to go with real miners. Amazing... The miners themselves, reminded me of those in my old experiment, back in Soudan, the way they talk, their laid backness etc.

Oh I did have a foot in the mouth situation with one of the miners: so the miner who led the training told me when I asked that there are ~4-5 serious accidents a year in that mine. So when I was talking to another miner later, I asked 'so this is a pretty safe mine, eh?'. He somewhat hesitatntly said, yes. I then go like 'you don't seem to be convinced, has anyone you know being injured?' and he says 'yes, several'. 'Badly?' I ask (like a dork) and he's like 'err... they're not on wheel chairs, so I guess it's ok'. Dang dang dang indeed.. I felt so bad... like I somehow trivialized these accidents so long as someone didn't die. When I thought about it later, I would have been ok if there were like 2 fatalities a year. This not because I think it's ok for people to die, but because I think mining is a pretty dangerous bussiness and 2 ppl dying a year seems ok. Having said that I do understand that if it was one of my friends that dies, just one a year would have been too much for me... So my thinking is skewed like that... but I swear I didn't mean it as bad as it sounded!

But the miners were nice to us overall. They said I could bring visitors down there - so when are you guys coming over?

Oh this bitchy security guard scared the life out of me by taking away my camera the first day, so I dared not take the camera to the mine the other days. So you will have to take my word for it, it was indeed pretty cool.

The whole trip turned out to be a nice experience, contrary to the first day. Well nothing like putting 3 strangers in a little car for 8 hrs! And I do still stand by my first thought from when the 3 of us went to Los Angeles from Minneapolis, 'there's something that binds you close together if you are stuck in a little corolla for 1500 miles and share a room every night for those 1500 miles - it's an experience you will never forget and you will never be the same again with those people'. Even though this was no where that, it was still somewhat a bonding experience.