The Next Blog Post is #500!

Hey, I have the liberty of writing whatever about whatever flotsam and jetsam I want in post #499 because it won't matter. Post #500--the NEXT post--has to be somewhat profound and, therefore, I am cornflicted as to what to say in #500. Five hundred of anything is a big deal. Five hundred blog posts is incomprehensible to me. You say WHAT?? No way I could EVER do five hundred of anything, let alone 500 blog posts. But it's true--the next post will be #500.

Oh, my, what to say? What title to give? How long should it be? I feel like a bride before the final moment. Gee, who knew?

In the meantime we came online here tonight to be yet a small part of the masses celebrating the Chile Mining Miracle. (CMM) Hey, there's CNN and there's CMM! Everyone we know has been riveted by this miracle. But what does it mean?

Pure and simple it means that the Hard Rock Mining Industry has its act together. They know WTH* they are doing. They know how to get things done. Hard Rock Mining has pretty much disappeared from the World Psyche. If it's out of sight, it has to be out of mind. Not any more! Hard Rock Miners ROCK! Pure and simple.

You can't watch this story without celebrating a busload of unsung heroes who run drilling rigs and headframes and shafts, drifts and adits. It's a real obscure niche of the world's industry but it's SO GREAT to see it being SOOOO successful under the bright lights of the World Stage right now.

It's about time the world woke up to who puts their gold in the rings on their finger and who coats their table wear with the silver plate and who puts the platinum in their vehicle's catalytic converter. It's not some robotic system.

These minerals are brought forth from the belly of Mother Earth by real people who have real lives and live and breath like the rest of us do. If you watched one of those miners get down on their knees to give "Thanks" then you should, too.

Your lifestyle wouldn't be dog doo-doo without the contributions of nameless, faceless people who go underground every day to give you the comforts of modern life.

Your Cadillac wouldn't even be on the road without these unsung heroes. Nope, you wouldn't be wearing your golden wedding band or your bright diamond ring. Nope, none of these things would be available to you if the kind and kin of those Chilean Miners didn't dutifully trudge off to work every day a half mile or more below the surface of the earth.

So give thanks tonight not just for their successful, amazing and miraculous rescue, give thanks that willing and eager men continue to descend every day, every shift 24/7 into the Belly of the Beast on behalf of you and your lifestyle.

You are the One who makes it all possible and the "they" are the "them" who reap the meager benefits of the cash flow that trickles down to their marginal lives.

Without those largely nameless, faceless people who toil in total obscurity in the bowels of our planet, we would be nothing.

It's a simple fact of life.

Cheers, jp

*WTH = New Glossary Entry = "What The Heck."