I love a good rant Archives - Page 2 of 2

Crystal Power Revisited

Months back I went on a bit of a rant about my contempt for the myriad metaphysical powers that some people ascribe to crystals. Kundalini tickling, energizing chakras, transporting you to alternate dimensions – apparently there’s nothing a nicely formed kyanite crystal can’t unlock. And according to some ~~charlatans~~ believers, the common ore-forming minerals – the ones I’ve spent my career exploring for, like galena and chalcopyrite – also possess amazing restorative powers which I wish I’d known more about in my first incarnation as a humble field geologist.

It’s all bollocks as far as I’m concerned, but each to their own.

Then an old colleague, Kirsten, forwarded me a wonderful link to a comedy sketch about, yes you guessed it, crystal power mumbo-jumbo. I won’t bore you by trying to describe it; just click on the link and enjoy. Suffice to say, I have renewed respect for rose quartz.

(Update: If you’re outside Canada & having trouble viewing the video, my friend Karen sent me a second link that works in the UK. I’ve posted it below.)

Geologists Gone Bad

Sex, lies and phone calls.

Geologists aren’t born deviant. We usually start out as normal people. But prolonged isolation – weeks and weeks in the field without a break- can do strange things to otherwise normal people.

*I was normal before I became a field geologist*

I used to work 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off. I did it for a couple of years. My longest shift stretched to 7 weeks which is a long time when you live somewhere nice, with a fiancée you miss. Three weeks in, with 3 more long weeks to go, it’s hard not to let the mind wander off to contemplate the finer things in life. A fine cup of coffee and a newspaper perhaps. A good British comedy on TV. Sex. A juicy steak paired with a robust glass of red. Sex. Did I mention sex? (Yes. get on with it. Ed.)

Most of us bury these things away in the back of our heads. It gives us something to look forward to when we get back to civilization; that special feeling when you can finally sit down in your favourite bar, with the paper and a glass of the local brew, or maybe with friends at a dinner party.

How To Finance Your Mining Company. Part 1

I Love Pain.

This week I’m diving head-first into the murk, to take an unpleasant look at the slimy underbelly of the junior mining world. Yes, I’m talking about an ugly hidden world of prostitution, ritual humiliation, sadomasochism and betrayal, also known as junior mining finance.

For the last few years, trying to finance a junior ExploreCo has been a thankless task. Bumming for change outside Starbucks would’ve been more fun; at least that’s spiced up by the odd half-finished Americano and discarded smokes. No such luck in the finance world.

Faced with a world of apathetic investors who couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss about junior miners, how do you finance your resource company? How do you pay the lifestyle salaries, the bills, and keep the lights on through the down times without the pain of actually exploring for anything? Like an old C90 cassette on repeat, we blather on about hoping to raise $500k here, $250k there, while the world spins, uncaring and increasingly oblivious to our fiscal pain.

*Not sure I’d have this on endless repeat.*

How To Survive A Bad Market

Serious Advice For Resource Investors

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.

“This is worse than a divorce. I’ve lost half my net worth and I still have a wife.”
Anonymous Stock Trader.

Some things are inevitable. Death. Taxes. Sagging testicles. Gout. And market downturns: 4 of the last 19 years have seen hefty declines on the big boards.

The junior resource markets are mired in the absolute worst of times. It’s hard to remember when raising money was so difficult. First-time resource investors could be forgiven for thinking that losing money is the new normal. Nose pressed to the glass of the fancy restaurant windows, they stare wistfully at the caviar-gobbling wealthy inside who avoided mining stocks and bought cannabis instead.

The promised land of ten-baggers.

Things Geologists Do. Part 1

Report Writing.

In an earlier blog post, I took an unpleasant but necessary dive into the murky waters of earth science to ask the question “What Is A Geologist?” All very useful if you spot one in the wild, but it left many questions unanswered. At the top of the ask-list is something you’ll hear whispered by the senior management of every major mining company. Skulking in Blenz in Bentall #5, sipping on their triple shot, half-sweet, non-fat, caramel macchiatos with extra soy foam, contemplating the latest quarterly compensation figures, someone finally looks around the group and asks: “What the bloody hell do our geologists do anyway?”

Not to worry. Urbancrows is here to help with Part 1 of an interminably long series of posts “Things Geologists Do.” I promise by the end of the series you’ll have a renewed appreciation for them. You’ll gasp at their daily trials, and you’ll end up pushing HR to big-up their annual salary increment. Really.

*Trust me, I’m a geologist. A bit greyer now though.*

Do You Have Wind?

My friend Brent posted a link on Twitter today to an article about the inexorable growth in wind power capacity in the US. It reminded me that I’d been sitting on this piece about wind power for a month or two because I couldn’t figure out how to finish it properly. But ending be damned… the stats speak for themselves. They’re an interesting counterpoint to the Trump government’s continued idiotic obsession with bringing back carbon-heavy fossil fuel power generation. His antiquated energy policies look dafter and dafter as every month passes.

Sandbanks and Seaweed.

Growing up in southeast Kent, we spent our summers on the beach, assuming we could get past the great piles of stinking, rotting seaweed washed up on the tideline. When the tide is low, a large sandbank –the Goodwin Sands- emerges a few miles off shore; a 10 mile long yellowish-orange strip of sand rising up gently out of the sea.

*Low tide on the Goodwin Sands, 3 miles offshore.*

Mining Clichés Explained

A Cheese Primer for Investors

There’s nothing like a cheesy marketing cliché in a news release to make you immediately buy a bucket-load of a company’s stock, right? Spend five minutes talking to any IR professional at an investor conference and see how many clichés you can spot. This is the kind of stuff I mean.

“We’re undervalued relative to our peers and poised for success.”

“Our management is best-in-class with a proven track record”

“That’s the steak, now here’s the sizzle.” (wtf?)

*I’ll buy 20,000 at 2c above market, because…sssssssssssizzle.*

Anyone who follows the junior mining sector will -just maybe- have spotted the odd cliché tucked away in marketing materials, or in one of the many stale corporate PowerPoints that end up unread on a dull home page. The judicious use of meaningless phrases is an art form that our industry has perfected, and sadly we all use them, UrbanCrows included. I admit it -guilty as charged- before you start pointing fingers. It’s hard to come up with marketing copy that sounds fresh without delving into the bloated lexicon of hackneyed phrases at some point. So as a public service to my readers, I’ve polled some mining friends (thanks, you know who you are) to compile a short list of the ones that we see regularly, and that we love to hate.

Mining Stocks Are Crap.

Q. How to make a small fortune in mining?
A. Start with a large one.

This is an update to an article I posted a few months ago on urbancrows.

It’s an old cliché but very apropos at the moment. To put it in simple terms, the prevailing climate in the resource world I inhabit is beyond crap and has been for a few years. There’s been a slow, persistent drizzle of shitness scaring speculative money away. Investors have all but abandoned the mining and exploration sector. The TSX Venture Composite Index has drifted up a little recently, but the reality is, it’s simply inching its way slowly up from a 10-year low. The amount of investment capital available to the sector has shrunk, and as a direct result the pace of new mine discoveries has slowed to an historic low.

*Mining stocks: flushing your cash down the gurgler.*

It’s Crop Circle Time.

Spring is here in its inimitable, slightly-sodden Vancouver fashion. Growing up in Kent, in southern England, I loved it. Every year, the warmer weather brought profound changes to the ancient agrarian landscape around the cathedral city of Canterbury. To a bubbling soundtrack of larks high above, the farmers would sow their fields, bringing a riot of green and yellow to the chalk downs. And then, in another timeless annual rite, crop circle time arrives; the first circle is found smack in the middle of a wheat field in Wiltshire, and suddenly every idiot and conspiracy whack job in the country wakes up sporting their alien-spotter hard on, looking for 15 minutes of fame.

A Point Grey Rant.

Death By A Thousand Cuts.
Me.

If you’re a non-resident of Vancouver, specifically my neighbourhood Point Grey, chances are you won’t find this blog post remotely interesting. Look away now.

Yeehaw. Point Grey Living is Here!

Every month, the kind publishers at Best Version Media, ensure that I‘m kept up to date with all the local goings-on by stuffing the shiny Point Grey Living Magazine into my mail box. Billed as An Exclusive Magazine for the Residents of Point Grey and West Point Grey (barf), this colourful publication is full of colourful articles about the colourful characters of our ‘hood. Lovely. And a big thank you to the publishers for including my house on the mailing list.

Category: I love a good rant

Crystal Power Revisited

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