Clothes Drier

Dazzle has shamed me into posting on my blog… such a long time since my last proper posting.
Hmmm, so much has happened. I guess, first off there was the un-planned excursion with the Land Rover. The less said about that the better. There have  been a couple of trips off-shore since then, the first entirely in Norway. The second, well, I went to Norway supposedly for four weeks. When I arrived however, I was told that it would be six weeks. Two weeks into the trip I was asked if I could go to Australia to attend some meetings for a project we have coming up there at the end of the year. So, off I went, via a short visit to Buckie, Aberdeen, London, Dubai to Perth Australia. A day in the office, three days of meetings. Now I filling in the day before departing from Perth at the crack of dawn tomorrow to head back to the ship, via Dubai, Frankfurt and Stavanger. The Australia jaunt has now broken up what was starting to look like a long trip.

Sprinklers on the New Garden Area

Last leave we got a lot done around the ranch. We got our little clothes drier up, we got a lot of the new ‘adult area’ sorted out – a little vegetable garden area with some nice seating where only certain dogs are allowed and only under express invitation! We even finally put up our humming bird feeders, something that has been on the ‘to-do’ list forever!

Humming Birds at the new Feeder

So, next stop Norway, then around two weeks later, back in Colorado. This next leave could be my last one before winter sets in – I know, it’s 90 degF and we’re talking about winter – so there will be a lot of things to get done, most of which were on this years ‘Springs’ list, but have been over-taken by events.

1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me for the path is narrow.. In fact, just piss off and leave me alone.

2. Sex is like air. It’s not that important unless you aren’t getting any.

3  No one is listening until you fart.

4. Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else.

5. Never test the depth of the water with both feet

6. If you think nobody cares whether you’re alive or dead, try missing a couple of mortgage payments.

7. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.

8. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.

9. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will  sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

10. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably well worth it.

11. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

12. Some days you are the dog,  some days you are the tree.

13. Don’t worry; it only seems kinky the first time.

14. Good judgment comes from bad experience … and most of that comes from bad judgment.

15. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

16. There are two excellent theories for arguing with women. Neither one works.

17.Generally speaking, you aren’t learning much when your lips are moving.

18. Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

19. We are born naked, wet and hungry, and get slapped on our arse … then things just keep getting worse.

20. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

Bill Gates is given credit for this but it actually came from a book called, “Dumbing Down Our Kids” by Charles Sykes.

Bill Gates gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

• Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!
• Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
• Rule 3: You will not make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a fancy car until you earn both.
• Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait ’till you get a boss.
• Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it “opportunity.”
• Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
• Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
• Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
• Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you “find yourself.” Do that on your own time.
• Rule 10: Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
• Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

We had to change our cell-phone provider about 6 weeks ago. As a result we also ended up getting new Blackberries. So what do I think of the new one?

Well, the screen has a higher resolution than the old one, it seems to be a little faster for browsing, oh, and it has a 3 megapixel camera (complete with flash) built in.

The down side? well, two things really both to do with the USB charging connection. First, it has a USB plug that is completely different from every other USB device I own (whatever happened to the ‘Universal’ part of USB?) and second, the USB port is in such a position that you have to take it out of it’s case to charge it, which seems a bit daft.

It’s been over a month since my last update and a HUGE amount has happened in that time.

First off, yes, the Toisa Perseus has been de-mobilized and handed back to Sealion. The project ended (well, it was cut short eventually!) and we managed to get a good deal of the preparation for the demobilization done in parallel with the project de-mob. That meant that the vessel de-mob that was originally scheduled for 10 days was completed in eight days. After the demobilization, I spent a few days in Norway at the Dusavik base, sorting out some stuff and putting together a list of things that need done to the VLS in preparation for it to be re-mobilized on another vessel.

Then it was back home to Colorado. Dazzle picked me up at the airport, and when we got home, we found that one of the dogs had ate the sofa…

The last few days have been so cold that it’s been all we could do just to get the chores done. We’ve been working in relay so that we can keep warm!

It was our tenth anniversary on Monday. I had a surprise gift for Dazzle but, with me being me, of course it didn’t actually arrive until today. Still, Dazzle did seem to be really happy with it!

Dazzle thought we should be twittering, so now we are!

Dazzle’s Tweets

Chaz’s Tweets

bktz2cyweh

Well, I’m still on the boat in Norway.

We’ve had a bit of a hectic time. First part of the trip was installing some flowlines that had been loaded into the below deck carousels while I was on leave, then we’ve had a mobilization for a new project. That involved a reel drive system on deck, something that we are used to in general, but the specific unit is not the one we normally have. SO we’ve had to get used to a whole new set of operational ‘quirks’. Some aspects of this system are better than our usual one, but some are worse. If we could combine the best from both we’d have an almost ideal system!

While I’ve been away Dazzle got notification of the appointment for my green card interview in Denver. It’s in the middle of August. That would have been in the middle of my next trip offshore. So I spoke to my boss and with that in mind, and the fact that the ‘reinstatement’ of the Perseus is looming for the end of August/beginning of September and that my usual ‘back-to-back is now in the office running with a lot of the organisation of the reinstatement works, we’ve rearranged my schedule a bit. So this week I’ve gone from being in single figures, to only being halfway through my trip.

I’m going to be doing a 6 week trip this time, then having 4 weeks off and then back for another six weeks. Heavy workload, but hopefully lots of extra days by the end of the year. The same day as she received the appointment letter, Dazzle also got a summons for jury duty on the 27th July. That would have been the day before I was due to leave with the old schedule, which would have made things difficult for her if it carried on and I was gone, so that’s now going to be during my leave too.

Feeling a bit apprehensive about the green card appointment, but excited as well.

Wow, it’s the middle of June already, where has the year gone? Not only that but it’s almost a month since my last blog.. So what have I been up to??

Well, I was on my way back to Colorado when I last posted. It was another short leave, not as short as the one before but still not even three weeks. We got a fair bit done around the ranch, we sold a few critters, including Izzy the last of our llamas, so we’re now llamaless. The Blossom Art show has been and gone, though I did get a chance to pop into the Fremont Art Center before everything was taken down to have a look at all the exhibits. June had been when the planned ‘Fusion’ exhibition was to be for local fiber artists, one that Dazzle had been looking forward too. But it had been canceled and in it’s place they are having a “Strut your Stuff” exhibition. We were going to pass on it, but at the last minute we found out that there was still space available so Dazzle and I got a ‘double’ section to display our creations. The opening seemed to be fairly well attended and there was even a reporter from the local paper on hand who decided that shed like to interview Dazzle and I for the paper. This link is a transcript of the article that appeared the following Monday. The opening night of the exhibit was my last night at home, so we had a good evening there, followed by a meal in one of the local hostelries.

One of the reasons behind my my short leave this time was that, as my L1 visa was due to expire at the end of the month, I had to return to London and visit the US embassy there and have it renewed. It’s always a bit of a tedious effort, with a great deal of waiting involved though in the past I’ve always been fortunate enough to get through the experience quicker than a lot of my colleagues have. I have to be particularly careful as any issues with my visa could end up having long term implications for getting my green-card.
Anyway, along the route, I found myself having to explain to one of the embassy staff the differences between US and UK domestic wiring. Not, as he repeatedly pointed out, that this was part of the interview, just a problem with a light fitting that he had at home! The interview when it came was simple enough:

Embassy: You work for Subsea7

Me: Yes

Embassy: How long have you worked for them?

Me: 19 years

Embassy: You’re renewing your visa?

Me: Yes

Embassy: Okay, your visa’s renewed, it’ll be sent out to you in a few days.

So that was me done. I had expected to have to spend an extra day in London, as the crew change wasn’t scheduled until the Wednesday, but the ship was going to be in early, so at the crack of dawn the following morning, I was off on my travels again. Hard to believe, but if you want to be in Stavanger before noon, you can’t fly there direct from Heathrow. I had to fly first to Copenhagen in Denmark before getting a connecting flight to Norway.

Anyway, I’m now back on the ship and my first week is in, only another three to go!

I’m writing this courtesy of the free WiFi in KLM’s Crown Lounge in Amsterdam airport. It’s the first time that I’ve managed to get in here in all the times that I have been through Amsterdam. The key this time, was my ‘Flying Blue – Petroleum Club’ frequent flyer card. We had all been asked by the company to get one, obviously not for the benefit of access to the lounge but, because having the petroleum card is proof that an individual is eligible for ‘seaman’ discounted air fares – thus giving the company cheap options for crew-change flights!

As I said, I’m in Amsterdam, en-route back to Colorado. I actually got of the ship yesterday, but had to stay in a hotel overnight, as my arrival on-shore was too late to get a flight home that day (i.e. after 12 noon!) It was an early start, and I’ll have almost exactly 25 hours traveling (airport to airport) and almost exactly half of that time will be spent hanging around either Amsterdam or Minneapolis airports. Hence why I’m quite excited about actually being able to get into a lounge, where I can a least sit down in relative comfort for a while. Of course, free internet access and cappuccino on tap are additional pluses!

Minneapolis has always been less of a problem as, like almost all American airport hubs, my American Express card seems to get me into most airline lounges. (You just slip the card between the door and the door jamb, and slide it up until the card pushes the latch in… hey presto! – only joking)

So, what all has been going on between now and my last posting? Well, to be honest, not much of interest from my perspective.

The project that we were on with the Perseus didn’t have much involvement for us for the last few weeks, so we’ve mainly been catching up on maintenance and the like. Even that is a bit thin on the ground given that there has been a tailing off of interest in the Perseus’ systems in the last few month… everyone seems to be on a count-down to the de-mobilisation. There has still been the occasional questions from the office relating to the new-build vessel, Seven Pacific, but even those seem to  be tailing off as I think we’re at the stage where what they’ve decided already is what we’re going to get.

There has been an announcement about redundancies within the company owing to the global down-turn. Nothing specific as yet, other than the figure of 85 staff positions has been mentioned (along side an unspecified number of ‘contract’ positions). Of course, nothing on whether those are ON-shore or OFF-shore positions! The cynic in me is sort of assuming that they are on-shore positions, as there would have been little announcement or publicity if it were only the off-shore animals that were being laid off.

Anyhoo, more to the point, I’m on my way home. For that I’m happy, though perhaps with a little trepidation, as Dazzle says that this leaves job list has 45 items on it…..