Living on the moon in monostereo

Tuesday, 22 July 2008

The National AusIMM Mining Games - Post #1

Sorry for the lack of posts. Being an underground geo is not conducive to free time.

I am on my first night back at work after a rather full-on break spent in Wollongong, ~80km South of Sydney in NSW.

The AusIMM Mining games are an event that brings together University students and graduates from all over Australia, to compete in mining-based events. This year it was held at the brand new, state of the art, Southern Mines Rescue Station in Wollongong. The rescue station has a simulated underground area based on that of a coal mine.

Unfortanately for us, the games were based on coal mining, not metaliferous mining (as it has in the past) so as graduate working for a GOLD company, we were a little bit screwed.

There were quite a few events:

Surveying - survey along a certain course
Mucking - shovel gravel into a cart, push it along tracks, tip it out.
RockID - identify 10 rocks
TimberSet - cut timber into lengths and erect and dismantle a support (like in old school mines)ConveyerSet - contruct and dimantle an old converyer belt set
Drilling - airleg drill two holes and make them as parallel as possible
Gravity Seperation - coal-based activity including jigging, panning and calculations
Face TieIn - choose a blasting pattern and tie in the face as if it where a real charge up situation
Safety - go through a 3D simulation model and identify hazards in an UG coal mine

The full results will be emailed out this week, but we already know we came first in the corporate division and in terms of each event, we came first in the surveying. Talking to the judges and onlookers, we have a good idea that we were in the top 3 for most events. Admittedly the gravity seperation, rockID and face tie in were our worst events.

Here are some photos...most of the photos taken were not mine, so the rest will come when the CD is posted out to me with everyone's photos. But to tide you over...

The Practice drilling

Rhino drilling

Kirk getting his groove on while we watch on

Jem, Jimbo and Ben

The club full of boys taking their dacks off for the EAGLE ROCK song...

Casey giving us a show on the CrownSt Mall Stage at 12am-ish

Dan with someone's pornstar glasses

hanging out on the last afternoon, celebrating

Myself and Casey (our team captain)

Casey, Jimbo and Myself (take #1)

Take #2

take #3

Me showing off my LACK of pool skills

Rhino playing GOOD pool

Casey also showing her GOOD pool skills!

Wednesday, 25 June 2008

Bree, Mike and Steph's housewarming

Theme: School and Mining

ok...ideas?

Miner, teacher, schoolboy/girl, slutty miner, sports cheerleader...

........

Rock?

Needless to say i was the only ROCK there :)

A beanbag dyed and turned insideout, painted with glue and glitter to look like gold ore, stuffed with newspaper and lots of dark brown makeup rubbed all over face and limbs.

May not have looked too much like a real rock but it was the thought and effort that counts right? It was fun, anyway...especially negotiating the toilet to break the seal...but it was worked out in the end.