Sunday, August 10, 2008
Rick's in Norway, but on his way somewhere much more remote
Ok, so no postss in a while. Sorry loyal readers, but I have a feeling I was hanging out with most of you so that makes it ok right?
Anyway, here the update. I took 6 weeks off from work in aberdeen to head to calgary. It was awsome, loads of canoeing, hiking, campling. Picked up an ultimate frisbee MVP award, and learned how to make beer. Thats the short unemotional update and all I feel like writing for now, cause I miss not working.
I went swiftly from that to.... well not working. I arrived in Aberdeen after a helish flight with a kid kicking my chair and his father next to him having no idea how to be a parent, just in time to get to sleep. Straight to work in the morning and I got some news. "Hey Rick, your going to Norway" I thaught this was my transfer and I started to loose it, but then I was told it was just 1 job and should be fast and easy and not to worry. SO that some day I was on a plane and heading East. Found my hotel and again went to sleep. Woke up the next day for offshore survival with Matt (My flat mate from Aberdeen). Apparently they wanted the entire dream team over here. After that I wne tto the base, then went binge drinking from Friday night until 3 am Sunday monring.
First impressions, Norway girls are amazing to look at, but are kept in glass jars. You cannot touch them or talk to them unless you are from here, and you can't break the glass, no matter how much you want to and how hard you try.
So Monday in the base, checked some tools. I talked to my boss and he told me to call him later, I went to the hotel and fell asleep. I woke up to a phone call saying "Your transfer is in and you are going to In Salah, Algeria."
Amazingly enough one of my oldest SLB friends works in Algeria, In Sallah to be exact, so I emailed her and got the inside scoup. I also looked it up on google maps and this is what it looks like.
May not look like much, but its worth a visit to Google maps to see for yourself. Its at least a 1000 miles fromt he middle of nowhere, and at least 2000 from somewhere. Its going to be great. I really am excited about it, only reading things like ( http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/08/10/algeria.bombs.ap/index.html ) worry me a bit. But who is going to drive a car 2000 miles to blow me up.
So there will be lots of time to talk about that, now to talk about Norway.
I was in Bergin, and like I said some good place to drink, some great place to eat, and luckily I was on expences the whole time ( I think/hope) A beer here is about $18. Yea you read that right. I pint of Beer $18.... crazy.
So after some time in Bergin doing nothing but reading about some big sand dune invading my future home on line I was sent North to Kristiansund.
We were supposed to get up here Saturday and leave Sunday, but now we are delayed til tomorrow (Monday)
So we took today to do a little sightseeing. We went to this little fishing village called Grip. It was amazing. It was about a 45 min boat ride out into the Norweigean Sea and we found this little Island. There are about 30 buildings.
Apparently they are Redskins fans (Go Skins Go)
They had a church built in the 1400's
Apparently all of the Churchs here have ships and the beginning and end of the Isle and its called the ship not the isle. I thaught that was interesting.
The landscape here is also quite amazing. All the rocks are Granite and its Islands everywhere.
Ok thats all for me. I wont be heading off to Alferia for a little while due to the excessive time it takes to get a visa, so after this job it will be back to Aberdeen for packing up and a few goodbye parties.
O ans sorry about the sideways pics, i don't know how to fix that
Goodnight all!
Anyway, here the update. I took 6 weeks off from work in aberdeen to head to calgary. It was awsome, loads of canoeing, hiking, campling. Picked up an ultimate frisbee MVP award, and learned how to make beer. Thats the short unemotional update and all I feel like writing for now, cause I miss not working.
I went swiftly from that to.... well not working. I arrived in Aberdeen after a helish flight with a kid kicking my chair and his father next to him having no idea how to be a parent, just in time to get to sleep. Straight to work in the morning and I got some news. "Hey Rick, your going to Norway" I thaught this was my transfer and I started to loose it, but then I was told it was just 1 job and should be fast and easy and not to worry. SO that some day I was on a plane and heading East. Found my hotel and again went to sleep. Woke up the next day for offshore survival with Matt (My flat mate from Aberdeen). Apparently they wanted the entire dream team over here. After that I wne tto the base, then went binge drinking from Friday night until 3 am Sunday monring.
First impressions, Norway girls are amazing to look at, but are kept in glass jars. You cannot touch them or talk to them unless you are from here, and you can't break the glass, no matter how much you want to and how hard you try.
So Monday in the base, checked some tools. I talked to my boss and he told me to call him later, I went to the hotel and fell asleep. I woke up to a phone call saying "Your transfer is in and you are going to In Salah, Algeria."
Amazingly enough one of my oldest SLB friends works in Algeria, In Sallah to be exact, so I emailed her and got the inside scoup. I also looked it up on google maps and this is what it looks like.
May not look like much, but its worth a visit to Google maps to see for yourself. Its at least a 1000 miles fromt he middle of nowhere, and at least 2000 from somewhere. Its going to be great. I really am excited about it, only reading things like ( http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/08/10/algeria.bombs.ap/index.html ) worry me a bit. But who is going to drive a car 2000 miles to blow me up.
So there will be lots of time to talk about that, now to talk about Norway.
I was in Bergin, and like I said some good place to drink, some great place to eat, and luckily I was on expences the whole time ( I think/hope) A beer here is about $18. Yea you read that right. I pint of Beer $18.... crazy.
So after some time in Bergin doing nothing but reading about some big sand dune invading my future home on line I was sent North to Kristiansund.
We were supposed to get up here Saturday and leave Sunday, but now we are delayed til tomorrow (Monday)
So we took today to do a little sightseeing. We went to this little fishing village called Grip. It was amazing. It was about a 45 min boat ride out into the Norweigean Sea and we found this little Island. There are about 30 buildings.
Apparently they are Redskins fans (Go Skins Go)
They had a church built in the 1400's
Apparently all of the Churchs here have ships and the beginning and end of the Isle and its called the ship not the isle. I thaught that was interesting.
The landscape here is also quite amazing. All the rocks are Granite and its Islands everywhere.
Ok thats all for me. I wont be heading off to Alferia for a little while due to the excessive time it takes to get a visa, so after this job it will be back to Aberdeen for packing up and a few goodbye parties.
O ans sorry about the sideways pics, i don't know how to fix that
Goodnight all!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
if u don't like Calgary, then i probably don't like you.
It's also means you're likely a moron and have bad taste in tunes.
Thats all for now!
Thats all for now!
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Long time no blog.... plus Nats Game update
So first a quick update on life since my last blog. Work, move to a different job in schlumberger Aberdeen that is basically my old job plus some new stuff :-( Work Work, 10 days at home for New years, Work, Work, Big Promotion from Senior Field Engineer to General Field Engineer (Which while it sounds like demotion is actually a pretty huge promotion and now puts me at the highest level of Field Engineer Schlumberger has). Then I worked for 8 more weeks and now, finally I am on my 2 weeks off that I was promised back in November.
So now that you are up to date with my life lets start up this blog thing again.
Alright, if you don't know Washington DC has a baseball team. They are the old Expos and they still are not very good. But if you don't have a good team you may as well draw a crowd by having them play in the middle of the wrong part of DC. Wait a minute, that sounds crazy..... but its working. and the reason why you ask????? New Stadium. That's right folks the Nats have a new stadium and the city is energized. The team does also have a lot to live up to because Washington's other big 3 pro teams were all int he playoffs this past year, and while the Skins were 1 and out, the Wiz will collapse as always and the Caps are down 2-0 in game 2 of the series as I am writing this, they all made it. Will the Nats..... after yesterdays performance my prediction is No.
Anyway as for my day yesterday, it was awesome. I don't think i have ever had a bad day when i got to watch baseball live, especially in a new stadium. We had awesome seats and got to see quite an offencive explosion. The Braves put up 4 int he top of the 4th and the crowd was going nuts. i guess part of not having a team for 30 years means that lots of people start rooting for other teams. and if you started rooting for teams int he 90's the braves were a pretty good choice. Quick side note. 95% of the girls at the park wearing Braves jerseys were smokin hot, and because of this I decided my next girlfriend will be getting a Braves jersey to wear around, actually it may not have to be a Braves jerseys, I'd even say that an average girl in a Baseball Jersey moves up a point on a 10 point scale just by having the Jersey on.
Back to the Blog. so Yea the Nats got shelled, but it was a fun day at the ballpark.
John Smoltz pitched for the Braves and did very well. As you can see. We had pretty awesome seats. Half way between 3rd base and the foul pole about 12 rows back. I missed 3 foul balls by about 12 seats each and even better I got on the Jumbotron for the first time ever in my sports watching life. And what a jombotron it is. Its the Biggest HD TV in the world. I don't know the exact size, but as you can see.
It is huge. What did I learn by seeing myself in HD and that big. Well other than the fact that I was the best looking person in our section, possibly the whole stadium, HDTV isn't good for guys with short hair. It makes them look like they are going bald.
One last thing to note, in between innings these guys come onto the field to make sure people won't do anything stupid. First off, i think i could outrun this guy,
second, I thought Tiger was shooting a 68 at the masters but clearly he was stopping the drunk guy in the first row from spending a night in SE jail. Which by the way is all anyone needs to know to act proper at Nats games as all the White people from the burbs love going to a game in SE, talking about how nice it will be one day and how the stadium will bring up the area, but non of us EVER want to go the the jail in SE because of being stupid at the baseball game 'cause that same jail houses people that live in SE and we spend our whole lives staying away said people not trying to get into an 8X6 with them.
that's it for now folks, Will try and update again soon.
So now that you are up to date with my life lets start up this blog thing again.
Alright, if you don't know Washington DC has a baseball team. They are the old Expos and they still are not very good. But if you don't have a good team you may as well draw a crowd by having them play in the middle of the wrong part of DC. Wait a minute, that sounds crazy..... but its working. and the reason why you ask????? New Stadium. That's right folks the Nats have a new stadium and the city is energized. The team does also have a lot to live up to because Washington's other big 3 pro teams were all int he playoffs this past year, and while the Skins were 1 and out, the Wiz will collapse as always and the Caps are down 2-0 in game 2 of the series as I am writing this, they all made it. Will the Nats..... after yesterdays performance my prediction is No.
Anyway as for my day yesterday, it was awesome. I don't think i have ever had a bad day when i got to watch baseball live, especially in a new stadium. We had awesome seats and got to see quite an offencive explosion. The Braves put up 4 int he top of the 4th and the crowd was going nuts. i guess part of not having a team for 30 years means that lots of people start rooting for other teams. and if you started rooting for teams int he 90's the braves were a pretty good choice. Quick side note. 95% of the girls at the park wearing Braves jerseys were smokin hot, and because of this I decided my next girlfriend will be getting a Braves jersey to wear around, actually it may not have to be a Braves jerseys, I'd even say that an average girl in a Baseball Jersey moves up a point on a 10 point scale just by having the Jersey on.
Back to the Blog. so Yea the Nats got shelled, but it was a fun day at the ballpark.
John Smoltz pitched for the Braves and did very well. As you can see. We had pretty awesome seats. Half way between 3rd base and the foul pole about 12 rows back. I missed 3 foul balls by about 12 seats each and even better I got on the Jumbotron for the first time ever in my sports watching life. And what a jombotron it is. Its the Biggest HD TV in the world. I don't know the exact size, but as you can see.
It is huge. What did I learn by seeing myself in HD and that big. Well other than the fact that I was the best looking person in our section, possibly the whole stadium, HDTV isn't good for guys with short hair. It makes them look like they are going bald.
One last thing to note, in between innings these guys come onto the field to make sure people won't do anything stupid. First off, i think i could outrun this guy,
second, I thought Tiger was shooting a 68 at the masters but clearly he was stopping the drunk guy in the first row from spending a night in SE jail. Which by the way is all anyone needs to know to act proper at Nats games as all the White people from the burbs love going to a game in SE, talking about how nice it will be one day and how the stadium will bring up the area, but non of us EVER want to go the the jail in SE because of being stupid at the baseball game 'cause that same jail houses people that live in SE and we spend our whole lives staying away said people not trying to get into an 8X6 with them.
that's it for now folks, Will try and update again soon.
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