Down side of Seismic II (The RISK)
By Dan Cote

One of the more frequent, often prayed-for and often dreaded seismic events was/is known as "Stand-By".
You all know the scenario, right? Maybe some of you Texas folks don't - but here's the nutshell:
Show up in the morning - Burn-Barrel in the rain or snow or wind. Boss isn't there yet - trailers are locked. Stand around all geared up and the fire won't burn. Kinda a crass, uncomfortable morning.
Then, the pilot comes by ... "Can't fly in this". But still no PM.
PM finally comes by - everybody is soaked. Stoned to the gilberts. PM says - "show up back here at 10:00".
Cool. For many folks, this meant a mad dash to breakfast - even if it meant a 45 minute drive thru the slush and snow to a town - meaning, in the long-run that there would be no way to actually make it back by 10:00 - but close enough to probably save your job.
For some other folks - that meant extra sleep in the dreary tent or motel. It meant a chance to finally write that letter to the "once-upon-a-girlfriend" or "once-upon-a-boyfriend" or to mom and dad or to a friend.
For still others, it meant "Party in the motel room" - which really only involved herbal-treatments and the game of "RISK"! Oh, some folks had Monoply I'm sure. Others had Gin-Rummy but on the Skyline crews, it was RISK - a game of world domination.
It was always best with four or five folks - problem being, if you really did go to work at 10:00, the whole beginning of the game was wasted 'cause it was really a five or six hour game.
Now, the good news was; we usually all showed up at 10:00 only to be told -"Well, show back up at 1:30 if we don't call you before then". Usually, that meant that the breakfast crowd got their naps, the early nap crowd went picture-taking and the RISK players got to go back to their game.
The bad news was: at least one person was already out of the game! At least one other would be out of the game within the half-hour! That left at least two people with absolutely nothing to do except hang out in a dingy motel room with no TV reception and watch and listen to other people having fun ... kinda like being first out at Monopoly. It also meant that the three people still playing were already bored with the game but stuck in it for the freaking duration.
And so it would go ... dice rolling on the board; time-after-time-after-time-after-time ... for Kamchatka - or, Afghanaghinni - back and forth and back and forth and the two early-outers dying in their chair by the windows cause their mate or friend or ride is still in the game and they're stuck there ... I mean STUCK ... like a pebble in truck-tread ... and the game goes. 12:30 ..... 1:00 - and the third wheel gets tossed - wrong wheel 'cause he/she is then stuck too - just like those other two "first-losers" have been stuck the last two hours - while two people laugh and grin and roll the dice and conquer each other silly ... and everybody is flat worn out - ready for a nap - and whoever just won is the only smiling person left in the day ... and a sucker-hole opens up right over the LZ ... and you've been warm and dry in a motel room - or tent (some of us had some BIG tents) and now ... we're going up on a sodden, soggy mountain with crap falling from every tree and rotor-wash blinding us - our lunches already eaten, our boots only half laced, our gaitors still laying on a chair back in that motel-room where we forgot and left them ... and we go up on the mountain and get our 3 hours of fresh air - our 3 hours of "whoops, not enough" pay - just enough to get worn out and eventually crash heavily in our tents that night ... except for the ones who napped early and the ones who napped after breakfast - they're not sleepy, they're only worn out.
And then, next morning, there we all are again - one after another - showing up at a burn-barrel where even the gasoline is too wet to light - and we stand, and wait for the pilot, and wait for the OB, and wait for the Party Manager ...
... and in a handful of eyes, you can see it - you can see the glow, the twinkle ... you can tell; the only thought on a handful of minds is "World Domination".
Now, it might be a funny thing that when it came down to getting to know anything personal about one another, it often didn't come on the mountainside while sitting in a circle passing an unnamed item around the circle - it didn't come from stripping our shoes and pants to wade thigh-deep in some cool creek - it didn't come while sitting out a mile in front of anybody else when two people went flagging together - it didn't come at the bar. Getting to know each other came at places like riding to the breakfast table or ... sometimes ... sitting in a boring, dingy old motel-room chatting with the OTHER person who just got tossed out of the RISK game.
So, good or bad, stand-by was often a RISK - as was the entire game of "Seismic".