♪♪♪

The celebrations continue on the rig... a band came to play for us!!! yeah, just like they do in jails :P
I didn't know them but apparently they are well known in NL, Jim Payne and fergus O'Byrne. They brought in guitars, mandolin, accordions and a bodhran with them on the chopper!
They do folk music, so I knew a couple of the songs from Ireland and Nova Scotia, because Solstice often plays them at Hurley's :)

Those guys are REALLY good! If my chopper lands early enough I'll go get a couple of their CDs before heading to Montreal.

They were awesome entertainers too... telling background stories to the song they were about to do... That's how I learned that "get up Jack, John sit down" in Jolly Roven Tar is an actual saying...
A sailor that has money because he's just off the boat is called a "John" rings a bell?... that what we call a hooker's client too.. guess where that comes from... :P and a sailor that has run out of money and now needs to go back on the boat to earn some more is called a Jack. So people doing business by the harbor taverns, Inns, restaurants, ladies... would tell Jack to leave, so a John can take his seat.

They played in the cafeteria for dinner and midnight lunch, and they did a real show in the cinema at 8pm.. with near-beer provided... almost felt like a real night out :)

It's kinda neat to hear sailor songs when you're offshore.. Gives you that nice feeling of being part of something larger y'know :) they wrote one called the Rig's alphabet another NL/folk tradition... alphabet's songs... If I can find it I'll post it here...

730...

... it went down the drain...

Look at him
Look at me
That boy is bad
And honestly
He’s a wolf in disguise
But I can’t stop staring in those evil eyes
....
That boy is a monster
....
He ate my heart

He licked his lips
Said to me
Girl you look good enough to eat
Put his arms around me
Said “Boy now get your paws right off me”
...
I wanna Just Dance
But he took me home instead
Uh oh! There was a monster in my bed
We french kissed on a subway train
He tore my clothes right off
He ate my heart then he ate my brain
....
That boy is a monster
That boy is a monster




I can’t believe what you said to me
Last night when we were alone
You threw your hands up
Baby you gave up, you gave up
...
I’ll never talk again
Oh boy you’ve left me speechless
You’ve left me speechless, so speechless
I can’t believe how you slurred at me
With your half wired broken jaw
You popped my heart seams
All my bubble dreams, bubble dreams
....
And I know that it’s complicated
But I’m a loser in love
So baby raise a glass to mend
All the broken hearts
Of all my wrecked up friends
I’ll never talk again
Oh boy you’ve left me speechless
You’ve left me speechless so speechless
I’ll never love again
...
And after all the drinks and bars that we’ve been to
Would you give it all up?
Could I give it all up for you?
And after all the boys and girls that we’ve been through
Would you give it all up?
Could you give it all up?
If I promise... boy... to you
That I’ll never talk again
And I’ll never love again
I’ll never write a song
Won’t even sing along
I’ll never love again
So speechless
You left me speechless, so speechless
Will you ever talk again?
Oh boy, why you so speechless?
You’ve left me speechless

xmas offshore

My first Christmas offshore was kinda cool...

We had mummers come to our van to "sing" and hand out near-beer... It's a Newfoundland tradition apparently... kinda like xmas carollers.. they go from house to house, in disguise, to sing and get drunk while people try to guess who they are under their costumes...

The xmas dinner was steak, lobsters, scallops, a full table of salads and cold cuts, 10 different kinds of cake and an overdose of chocolate, especially toffife.. who seem to be a serious obsession around here... I think our crew of 140 went through 140 boxes of 48 in 24h okay, way too many numbers here! :P

We even had an ice sculpture! a dolphin, towering in the galley.. with a xmas tree, lights and wall ornaments

There's no alcohol on board but we has near-beer, near-wine and near-sparkling wine 0,5%alcohol content :P

There was a xmas draw with loads of really cool prizes I didn't win any :(

But best of all.. we had a Christmas miracle!!! NO RE-TERM!!! Before taking everything apart, the guys on the other shift cleaned the fiber optic connection just to see... and it solved the issue!!! how easy was that?! Thanx Santa!!! :D

Ho dear....

I just realized that when I'm wearing a head set... I look like 9-volt from the WarioWare Nintendo game... don't believe me? look...



No wonder I always choose him when I play the game... XD

:)

Because we celebrate even in the middle of the ocean...

term dance

ho yeah... and the good news is... that dead TMS probably means an umbilical re-termination... in gale force wind and pouring rain our weather forecast for the next week...
This means nothing to you, general public, but the ROV guys reading this are laughing their heads off right now... or maybe thanking their lucky stars they're not here... :P

and if you wonder what an umbilical re-term is click here...

oops

We're in the water waiting for yet another storm to pass... but, slight problem, our TMS tether management system, that's what we have instead of a cage is dead. So we can't unlatch to fly around, but we can't come back up on the rig either because the waves are riding a nutty 12m and the limit to come back on deck is more like 3-4m :P

We usually are in water for storms in case the rig needs to do an emergency disconnect from the well it's drilling. They have ways to do it themselves I think... I hope! but if it fails, we do it...

so hope it won't be necessary... cause if it is, we're all f****d! :D

day from hell

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!!!!

You know when nothing goes right from the moment you get out of bed? well that is today!!!

Everything I've done yesterday turned out wrong today... because all the answers I got for every questions I asked to make sure I'd do it right were wrong!!!
Why is it that when people don't know or are not sure about something they'll just make up an answer instead of saying they don't know?!?!
meanwhile I look like an idiot who can't do anything right while they float around all inflated of their own self importance!

It was raining/snowing/hailing cats and dogs and seagulls and fish all night

It's freezing

One work van has a heater, the other has speakers to plug my ipod in, but no matter which work van I'm working in, half of the stuff I need for the task at hands will be in the other one... that is if we have any of the stuff left ever heard of re-ordering shit before we run out?! >:(

People keep arguing about the 12-12 shift... IT WORKS WELL FOR F*** SAKE WILL YOU LEAVE IT ALONE?! it got rid of the "they" issue.. it makes continuity between shift much better, there's no more "who did this and why?" and, most importantly, since there's a conspiracy against me to not give me the night shift back I don't have to wake up at 3am Montreal time anymore! but could we also do like the rest of the rig guys and switch halfway through our hitch so it's not always the same people stuck on midnight to noon while the others have it easy on noon to midnight...

and there's this really annoying guy who seems to have hypnotize everybody into believing he's god or something.. they all bend over backward to accommodate him no matter who else gets f***ed over guess who that would be...

basically, the only good thing about this day is that it's O.V.E.R.!!! >:/
and if tomorrow is not better I'll scream

I'm alive!!!

I made it to the rig Saturday night...

I'm on the midnight to noon shift.. weird but surprisingly easy to get used to.. and waaaaaay better than the blasted 6am-6pm bullcrap I had to put up with for the past 3 hitches!!!
.... and when the guy doing noon to midnight goes home next week, I'll take his spot :)

The rig is now working for another oil company... who has a very weird concept of web access something like it's 1999, hackers will take over the world aaaaaaaarg!!!! We no longer have full internet in our control van, all emails site have been blocked, so has the log in part of this blog meaning I can read it, but not write it... Obviously I found a way around that I will not be silenced!! hehe but it's a lot less convenient... so for the next week or so, I might not post as often.

In other news, we have a xmas tree in the cafeteria, decorations in the halls, and singing snowmen in our control van... plus loads of candies to munch on while we monitor the structures subsea....

Christmas time offshore ain't so bad as long as you don't start thinking about all the fun you're missing on land the shopping, baking, decorating, partying, eggnogging...

♪ dashing through the snow....

♪ ... going abs'lutely no where
stuck in a hotel room
right by the heliport ♪

♪ All choppers are grounded
because of snow and wind
'twill be like this all winter
welcome to Newfoundland ♪

ho!
♪ no sleeping
spent all day
in the Comfort Inn lobby ♪

♪ cause Cougar
will not pay
for a room to wait in ♪
hey!

♪ it's boring
but for once
I'm the one stuck in St.John's
instead of
being on the rig
waiting to go back hoooooome!! ♪

:P

buhbye

Leaving for St.john's tonight...
the snow storm isn't mean enough to ground or delay flights...
I have snowmen shaped, musical lights in my suitcase to make myself believe there still will be a Christmas this year :P

luuuurve

I am sooo in love with my new iPhone!!!!!!!
That thing is so much fun and so convenient!!!
I can't believe I waited so long to get one!!!

so pretty... so slick.... *sigh*

Achmed power!!!

Guess who's going to see Jeff Dunham in Ottawa on Jan 16th?

Guess who has tickets, 6th row center, on the floor?

Guess who has the coolest lil sister for finding out about the show in time to get those prime tickets?

wouhahaha!!!! XD

DID

My weekend involved a drag queen outfit and a football game...
at least it was on two different nights...
:P

GO ALS GO!!!

Last night was the Grey Cup... and what looked like a one sided game for the first half turned into the roughest ride the Saskatchewan's greenies ever had :P

Duval escaped eternal shame by exactly zero second...

For those of you who haven't watch the game first of all, shame on you! you've missed the luckiest turn over of sports history! With 5 seconds left to the game, losing by 2 points, the Als go for a field goal... and miss!!!! aaaaaaaaaaarg the agony!!! it's the end!!!!

errr...

wait...

flags? ...

wtf?! the Roughriders had too many players on the field?!?!!!

penalty! the Als get a second chance at that field goal, with 0:00 on the counter... and this time make it happen!!!!

There is one man is green that lost his job, his self esteem and his will to live last night.... too many players??? in a football game?!?! how the f*** do you make that mistake?!?!
but, hey... thanx man! the Grey Cup is coming to Montreal and will be parading on Ste-Catherine street Wednesday thanx to you, whoever you are! :D

Pics are in

Gaga was awesome!!!
Even if the show was an hour late and that the costume changes were a bit long (projections just don't cut it to keep the energy level up), the show was memorable!
Speechless is one of the best songs I've heard in a long time... Bad Romance has a good-jump-up-and-down beat to it... Just Dance is hilarious... the scenery was busy and eclectic... the props slightly schizophrenic.... the choreographies lively and her dancers seriously scrumptious...

We went dressed as different Gaga personalities... others had had the same idea, but none of them were as flamboyant as we were!
ok... maybe that one girl in her no-pants Gaga outfit that had even less pants than our own Jas, and the group that had the white spiked vampire masks from Bad Romance deserve mentions.. but we were still the best! :P

A bunch of different people asked to take pictures with us... always a good sign :D

anyway, pics of the evening are in the album section ;)

Pre-fame Gaga, no-pants Gaga, me Gaga, purple Gaga, Ziggy Gaga ;)

whatchoo looking at? ;)

Countdown to Gaga!

Tomorrow I'm dressing up and going to see the Gaga queen!!!!
Managed to get 4 tickets on the (general admission) ground floor I have friends in high places :P and we're gonna go c.r.a.z.y.!!!!
pics will follow, but in the meantime this'll give ya an idea of what I'll look like in 24h ;)

New York

The state... not the city... is where I'm going today...
hopefully this road trip on I-87 will turn out better than the last one 2 years ago...
or I will have to start calling this road the highway to hell :S

we'll see we'll see...

551 @ Lowney

My upgraded condo is signed!!!
I am now on the 5th floor, with two walls of windows, and a direct access to this :

this is the view I'll have from my living room windows!

"my" terrasse on the lower roof 5th floor level will have Asian inspired garden, sauna and hot tub

that's the "urban cabin" on the higher roof 10th floor, complete with fireplace, BBQs, kitchen,
pool table and a cinema room with giant screen

also on the roof, swimming pool with THE view of downtown Montreal
add to that a 4 seasons training pool with current and a gym on the ground floor

this is my new place, same layout as the other one, but a bit bigger, more windows and the biggest patio available directly on the terrasse!! with two steps to get on it which is always cool from a visual/design point of view :P

And the coolest thing is that this condo is unique! All the other models have redundancy in the building, but not this one. The units below are smaller with only one wall of windows; the units above are much bigger, with smaller patio and a price tag that would make your hair fall off!

Count on me to end up with the exclusive unit... ;)

I'm a girl again! :)

Since I had an afternoon to spend in St.John's before going home, I went for a walk on Water street... guess what I found... an Aveda salon!

So I went in and asked if they had time for a manicure... and they did :)

So I'm slowly turning into a girl again... the muddy scum that stained my hands for the past 3 weeks is history and I now have sparkly fingernails. YAY!

:)

in other news...

I'm in St.John's today
got off the rig this morning
will be in Montreal tomorrow at 7am
let's get this party started!

:)

♪ Adios en vaya con dios ♪

Thanx to the limited choice of tv channels on the rig and to my co-workers' strange taste in music, I now have a goddamn country song stuck in my head... 3 days of CMT country music channel, the only music channel available on the rig :S non-stop in the control van will do that to ya...

so all together now :

♪ I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand
Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand
Life is good today. Life is good today. ♪

♪ Adios en vaya con dios
A long way from GA
Hey boss dome a favor and pass me the Jaeger
And I’ll grab my guitar and play ♪

could somebody call an exorcist please? it's an emergency...

TBA

When summer fog let out... winter wind and waves pick up...

Add to that day-flights only, so from 8am to 1pm, choppers have to be back in town at sundown and it's a 3h flight and only 2 choppers available to carry people when we're lucky!

means...

I
am
never
leaving
this
place
:(
ever!

my flight today doesn't have a departure time... if all the other flights like 5 of them that couldn't go yesterday and the day before come back to town before 1pm, then I might leave today... if not it might be tomorrow... or not...

E-I-E-I-O

There's a guy on board that's called Joe MacDonald... and they keep calling his name on the PA...

so every time they say Joe MacDonald call control, the voices in my head sing ♪ had a farm ♪ over the end of the message

:P

Time's relativity

These last few days are d.r.a.g.g.i.n.g.!!! it's not even funny!

I guess it has a lot to do with the fun ratio on board... when I get here the crew is at about 95% good... but as time passes and crew changes happen, that ratio slowly drops to about 20% when it's finally my time to leave.

That makes the beginning of my hitch fly by and the last week or so drag on forever even though I got lucky again this time and the worst possible scenario has been avoided, plus I only had to suffer the other major annoyance for a couple of days... but these were painful days which I am still mentally recovering from!

There is hope of a change though, when we go back to work for Husky we're working for Suncor aka Petro-Canada at the moment there should be changes in the schedules... I cross my fingers I'll get the lucky number and enjoy the job for the whole 21 days instead of only 2/3 of it.

I guess I'm just not a people person after all... though I prefer to say that I'm just very picky about who I consider to be "people" :P

hurray for me!

I launched.. and more importantly recovered... MAG 148 the rov that goes in/out of the moonpool without getting it stuck!!!! My first try and I nailed it!!!

this rov is tricky i.e. a pain in the a** to recover, because it goes up on guide wires. When we reach the height of the rig those wires become steel posts... and the guides on the rov tend like every other time to get stuck, as in jammed good, wont go up or down and we have to slide a weight on them to act as a hammer hoping they will go free at some point :S

Two tons of equipment, 2 inches of play is what it comes to...

and I didn't jam it! woohoo! XD

and it's looking good for Thursday weather wise... but unless the chopper gets here at 8am instead of noon, I will have to spend the night in St.John's the last flight on Thursday is at 1pm... and come home Friday morning ; first flight for Montreal is at 5:45am :P

4 leaf clovers anyone?

With the way we recovered the ROV this morning, we'll need a couple of lucky charms to survive the afternoon... *sigh*


:P

fact of life

when the wind blows so hard you suddenly walk 4 times faster holding on to your hard hat that went flying 2 times already today

when it's snowing, and piles of it accumulate everywhere

when the sun sets at 3:30pm

when the temperature is around -8°c but the wind factor brings it to about -8000°c

when all this happens on November 12th...

you know you're offshore in the North Atlantic.. aka the armpit of the world weather wise

remembering

on this day where we're suppose to remember the dearly departed... I'll just rant about mom nature who goofed big time on this one!

People should have a life span according to their greatness

awesome people would live forever

monsters, jerks, liars and other psychos would die before they can do harm

one day I will rule the universe and make things right

one flew over the cuckoo's rig

we came out this morning, innocently thinking we'd just keep on pecking at things on 172...
the night shift guys had other news... 2 re-terms!!! cue dramatic music here

the chinese fingers click here to see what it is on both systems have been banged up pretty bad and need to be replaced..

to do that we have to "unplug" the tether and its 500 connections on the sub, take the old CF out, put a new one on and these guys are designed to do the exact opposite i.e. not slip but grab on so they take the weight instead of the tether... very nice, until you try to remove one!, and replug everything.. hoping we didn't break any fibers optic or caused new faults...

we're halfway through the first one.. broke one fiber %&@$#!* and are now trying to find the source of a ground fault that magically appeared when we reconnected the wires :P

at least we're not in a rush... nobody's waiting on us to do something urgent...

let's break into song!

♪ He's a maniac, maniac! that's for sure
when he's making us clean all the walls and floors

He's a maniac, maniac! when he's offshore
a psychotic like I've never seen before! ♪

today hump day... I've cracked.. ma brain no good anymore byebye

store store, scrub scrub, rince rince, repeat...

It is a bad thing to have slobs and OCDs on opposite shifts...
unless you're on the slob shift.. which I'm not...

raining on my parade

it's onemillion degrees below zero outside

it's fivehundredthousand degrees below zero inside

the wind blows at 80km/h (for real!)

it's snowing, icing and raining at the same time, coming from above, the sides and below with winds like that it's like being in a snow globe, minus the pretty scenery

the sub is in the water for as long as the storm will blow so for about 4 days :S

there are no heaters in the control vans but we have air conditioning though, how useful!

I've been racking my brain for the past 2 hours, trying to make sense of the auto-patch and its labeling I think I'm done though, all 32 channels (X2) are now ID'ed properly.. until someone comes along and changes it all :S

the rig is swinging happily on massive waves

did I mention that it's a million degrees below zero? somebody shoot me please :(

blackout

when all the lights go out on a rig at night... and all goes black and quiet... well, it's eerie...

and when they don't come back up after 5 minutes and you only have emergency lights on and a page on the PA systems tells you to stand by... and everybody gets dressed and come out of the accommodations to talk in the hallways.. well it gets down right creepy and kinda scary...

that was last night...

arr

this week just flew by!

we're at a new location.. got 30 hours of anchors going down... that sounds like an 18 wheelers running in pot holes on the ceiling of our rooms.. but make it a 50 000 wheelers.. walls shaking, stuff falling down, beds rumbling... fun stuff, no sleep

mag 172 got its first dive and 2-3-4 and 5th.. things keep tripping out because all the kinks haven't been ironed out since there was no time for test dives before real dives were needed :P
it's getting better though.. one alarm at a time :)

551

I got a call on the rig today...

Unit 551 has been set free by the person who reserved it...

guess who's getting it now....

yay pumpkin day!!!

This year my costume is a pumpkin... all orange :P... I even have green boots for the stem... if I stand on my head it works...

not bad hey?! I'm already delirious... that's not a good sign :P

There were carved pumpkins throwing up candy at lunch today... don't even need to go trick or treating to get some XD

evil evil day

Made it to the rig yesterday... I'm on day shift arg!

I missed all of the mob... mag172 is sitting pretty on the skid, wired up and comp'd, waiting for its first dive... which will be later today! at least I get that!

the mob was a pain in the a**, it rained for the whole week, things went boom, things got broken.. maybe I'm glad I wasn't there afterall :P nah.. would have been a good learning experience.. too bad :(

we're still smoothing things up in the vans and all.. plenty to do so I wont get bored to insanity like last time yay!

fly fly away?

Looks like I've been moved to an earlier flight...
if all goes well I'll be flying out at noon tomorrow...

:)

doh!

all flights have been canceled for the rest of the day...

So only 4 went today, leaving 8 or 9 for tomorrow... mine's still last...

I gotta feeling that I'll still be in this hotel room tomorrow night...

ready... set... ... ... no go...

Helicopters have been grounded since Monday! And weather out there has been awful so no boat transfers were possible either.
I've also been told this morning that the rig is under tow... which would explain why I couldn't reach anybody by phone last night at 1am when I got in St.John's and had no idea when my flight was since there was 12! of them listed on Cougar's website.
So I went to the heliport at 7am, to be told the chances of me going out today were about as likely as a heat wave in the North Atlantic...

On a good day it's possible to squeeze 6 flights... but today only 4 have gone, though there is still time for more before sundown.

So I might go tomorrow evening... or not :P

Somehow it's a lot less frustrating to be stuck in a hotel at the beginning of a hitch than stuck on the rig at the end of one... and since I was delayed going home by 4 days last time, I wont even feel bad about it! :) call it karmic equilibrium

so long, farewell

got my plane ticket for tomorrow... going back to Mr Goodrich if only he was good and rich... and an actual human being :P

I wonder if the new sub is there yet or if the whole thing was pushed back to a remote date... we'll see we'll see...

saturday night

7pm :
watching the hockey game 5-4 in overtime!!! go habs go!!! :P with the buddies, drinking beer, eating bbq wings and hotdogs

11pm:
watching Sex and the City, the movie, with more buddies and drinking cosmos specially made, martini glasses, pink enough, but no cointreau!

What does that make me? well adjusted or totally bi-polar? :P

crooks

could someone explain to me how it is possible that Lady Gaga's tickets were already on resale by scalpers who now have websites and all for double the original price 24h BEFORE the tickets were on sale on Admission?

and, when the tickets were on sale at 10am, how come there was no floor seats left at 10am?

There is no way I'm gonna pay 125$ for tickets that were originally 49$!!!

this is bullshit!!! >:(

already?!

It's the weekend again??? so soon???

why is it that 3 weeks go by so fast here and so slow out there? I know it's 19 days home, 23 days offshore because of transport and all but can 2 days make such a difference?!

:S

fall cooking

It's October... a month to bake and freeze for later all sorts of goodies...

After perfecting the apple pie, I've decided to go rogue on the pumpkin pie and try it with butternut squash instead... something like a butternut/dulce de leche/pecan mix in all-butter-picture-perfect-pie-crust...

I also created a spinach-mushroom-parmesan-mascarpone soup that I'm still rolling-on-the-floor-screaming about! DAMN it's good!!! that one is so going in my in-the-making cookbook!

another all-vedgies-left-in-the-fridge soup is cooking right now

and next will be a cranberry loaf with ginger and chocolate :P

only bad thing.. I'll be back on the rig before I have time to eat it all.. or maybe that's actually a good thing... if I wanna keep on fitting in my clothes :P

slow down girly

After a day of brunch and shopping with only 5 hours of sleep due to major party gallore last night...
now it's time for couch-popcorn-The Simpsons, Family Guy and all other cartoons on Fox!

:)

brain bubble

Every time I drive somewhere wearing heels... when I shift my foot from gas to break I hear Alicia Silverstone in Clueless saying "you try driving in platforms" :P
driving in heels IS a challenge!

back to normal!

3 hours dinner at a fancy place
in the company of 10 beautiful people
drinks at a newly renovated pub
good music, good beer, good times!
more drinks and some dancing at a trendy club
and some laughs at the expense of a drunken idiot on the dance floor :P
finishing off with some wild beats in an afterhour
should've changed shoes though... broke one of my Mary Jane! high heels and techno DO NOT mix...
getting home at 5:45am
tired but not exhausted
life is back to what it should be!
:)

Happy birthday Sean!!! love ya forever!!!!

marathon

two and a half weeks are not enough to see everybody I want to see!!!

I'm double/triple booked every day till I leave again!

The question is.. when will I sleep? I've been pushing it back to "next time" since June...

I'm tired... entertained.. but tired...

take that Martha!

Nothing smells better than an apple pie just out of the oven...
and it's even better when it cools off in your car, on your way to a dinner with friends!

Today I have perfected the apple pie to a summit... it can't get any better... verdict reached by all the guests at dinner
so.. now what? start over with pumpkin pie? plum? pear?
ho no... I know just which one to elevate to higher ground: KEY LIME PIE!!!

yum!
:P

commercials influence

♪ home owner ... helping home owners ♪

ho yeah.. I've gone wack... but I'm a home owner now!!!! weehee!!!

easy morning

bucket-size mochaccino... check

newspaper... check

quiet house... check

big fluffy dog asleep on my feet... check

perfect

:)

I MADE IT HOME!!!

FINALLY!!!

and today... I'm going to the Lowney office... to sign the official buyer's contract for...

WOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

third time's the charm?

Am I gonna leave this place today?

and if I do will there be a seat for me on the plane to Montreal?

when the %$#&*@! am I gonna get home?!?!

*sigh*

shoot to kill

I'm f***** stuck on the f***** rig cause the f***** helicopter company is too f***** moronic to take care of the f***** maintenance on their f***** choppers and now they only have one left that doesn't lose some f***** parts of its fuselage in the f***** Atlantic!!!

and tomorrow's weather is s*** so nothing's gonna f***** fly and I'll end up getting home on f***** Sunday!!! and I'll miss my f***** appointment for my f***** condo!!! >:(

now excuse me, I will go bash my steel caps in stuff until there's nothing left.

hoohoo

I was put on the earlier helicopter tomorrow the supposedly non-existent one that is now listed as alive and well :P

so there is good chance I'll be outta here after all.. I just don't learn this don'tjinxitstupid thing don't I?!

huho...

I jinxed it :S

Tomorrow morning is still looking good... but all's suppose to slowly go to s*** after 12pm... doh!

So if I'm lucky and the chopper gets here early I'm good to go... if not.. well it'll be hit or miss... if it finds the heli-deck or not...

shouldn't have said anything.. t's'all my fault now :(

counting down...

It's looking good for Thursday don'tjinxit!! don'tjinxit!! weather wise... 6+ visibility... only for Wednesday and Thursday.. it's been foggy as hell for the past week and will return to the same status starting Thursday night after I've gone of course!

I don't think one chopper flew out in the past 4-5 days :S everybody got in and off by boat... getting here or home 2 days late.

Since I have a "pre-appointment" appointment to sign for my condo on Saturday... I DON'T WANT TO BE LATE!!!! come on mom nature! you can do it!!! bring that sun out and keep it there 'till the chopper lands in St.John's!
... actually... leave it out a bit longer so my plane to Mtl can take off too! :P

offshore ROVing = hallucinations?

I'm having the weirdest dreams again...
It seems like every time I'm offshore, after 2 weeks I start dreaming strange stuff. Vivid dreams I remember clearly. Last night I dreamed I was applying Ceasar's the dog whisperer training technique... but to a cat and a kid! :S and that dream went on forever... with shopping involved, to socialise both of them... wtf?!

And it's not just me... almost all the guys have those very clear, weird dreams, after a couple of weeks spent here... it was the same on the Osprey... except that they were horrible nightmares, but then again, the well we were working on was going straight through one of Hell's gates so it might have been some demons playing tricks on us :P seriously, that thing was cursed!

So... what's the cause for those dreams? stress? isolation? we're 140 people on board.. not exactly alone... something in the tap water? afterall it IS orange... slow-take food poisoning? godamn meat and potatoes everyday >:( rov pilots are crazy to begin with and the offshore environment just brings it up more? that might be it :P

any ideas all you shrinks out there?

it's the pit... the mud pit

The well is still being stupid and dancing a cha-cha with some hot piece of mud it met at a low bar...
so guess what... MORE DELAYS!!!

I'm leaving in 4 days yay! and it looks like I wont see anything of the mob boo! :S

in the meantime, I'm dreaming of cold beer, foamy mochaccino and good food though my standards are at an all time low at the moment cause anything that is NOT meat and potatoes sounds just delightful...

I can fly!

... there's a rumor going around saying that I'm a good pilot... :D

now who's gettin' a big head about it? it's me! it's me! XD

time goes by... so slowly...

5 days!!! 5 days and I'm going home!!!

Good news, the weather channel seems to agree with my going home but still has 5 days to change its mind about it

Bad news, I will more than likely miss the mob... or see 2-3 days of it.. the taking stuff apart part which I can already do pretty well :P and nothing of the putting stuff back together which would have been useful to learn :S

The crew on board now is pretty laid back and nice, makes for a good atmosphere to be around...
all that good stuff might take a gloomy turn soon though... crew change is not always a good thing...

no angry mob

the mob ilisation of the new system has, again, been pushed back... something's going on in the well they're drilling some sort of toxic gas threatening to escape and kill us all is my favorite theory :P so all is on hold until they can figure out what the hell it is...

So it's more inventory for me.. some modules... maintenance on 148... zzz z. z.. z... z...

The irony is that Adam and me are the only two employees who want to be part of the mob... since neither of us have done one before (switching rovs on a rig is not something that happens that often) and chances are we won't see it because of all the delays :S the thing should have been finished when I got here 2 weeks ago...

Anywho.. maybe delays will keep piling up and it still wont be done when I come back here at the end of the month :P

ok, back to the inventory list now ... 1 bolt.... 2 bolt....arg... 3 bolt... 4 bolt.........................

inventory delirium

we now have an aft camera on the new sub

at the end of the day, aft sounds a lot like ass...
most of the guys don't even try to pronounce a-f-t anymore

:P

the angry mob...

... is finally coming on Sunday probably, maybe

After loads of delays and push backs, the rig gave the ok for the new system to come on board... should be here on Sunday... meaning we can start unplugging Mag33 Friday or Saturday or tomorrow.

That'll make my last week here very busy and interesting... and no more time for inventory YAY! I'm not delusional though.. I know the list will be waiting for me when I come back cause no one else will want to do it :S

and I'm coming home in 8 days! woohoo!!!

more whaaaaaaales!!!!

There was one right beside the rig!!! could almost have touched it if my arms had been rubber and able to stretch 26m to reach water below :P

She waved goodbye with her tail before going deep :)

and to think I was piloting 2 hours before... it came this close to a face to face well camera encounter! XD

and it sunny and I didn't have to do inventory today and we finally managed to fix the laptop to make it less tedious

YAY!
:D

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaales!!!

I saw whales!!!

FINALLY!!!

On night shift you hear but don't see them...

During fire drill, at 10am, there was a couple of them blowing air right by the life raft :D

YAY!

how do you do? WHO CARES!!!

I find it so annoying when people say "how's it goin'?" instead of "Hello"...
they don't wanna know how I'm doing in most case they don't even stop walking to hear the answer...
Anyway, no matter how you're doing, you're gonna reply "good", and there's no time to return the question 'cause the person is already halfway down the corridor by the time you say something.

I wonder what the person would do if I started wailing that my day is crap and I don't know what I'm doing here and a good friend of mine is in the hospital... and just kept on going like that for 5 minutes... might be worth a laugh :P

so here's a list of suggestion... next time you walk down the corridor and see someone, just pick one!!!

hey
hi
hello
g' morning
good evening (preferably with a Transylvania drawl)
g' night

lady ocean

I wish I could film the water out there right now... it's having a tantrum...
We are at 6-7m waves (19-23ft) and it should go up to 9-10m (29-33ft) during the day/evening plus a bit of wind.. like 80-90km/h

It's beautiful to watch.. but also a reminder that lady ocean is not someone you want to piss off :P

makes walking around tricky though no I still don't have sea legs apparently I'm back to walking in a drunken pattern, from wall to wall, occasionally crashing in pieces of equipment like doors, chairs, bench and getting bruised shoulders, arms, knees :P and that's INSIDE! add to that outside, wet, windy, slippery walkway and have a laugh :)

and now it's time to go load a container with all the stuff from the old system we don't need for the new one... so I'll be bobbing around with 30lbs of equipment in my arms... good times!

wish me luck! :P

inventory from hell

Everything that belongs to MAG148 has to be logged in two inventory systems Lighthouse and CBI... This should have been done at some point while it was in the shop... but it wasn't... and in the months of tweaking with it in the shop, everything that was there got moved around...

so now guess who's stuck with emptying all the 5 millions cabinets of their content, one at a time, write on a piece of paper all that's in there, and then try to find it on one or both list and correct the location/how much is left, on 2 different computers...

I'll be at it for weeks... and I am pretty sure that what's left will be waiting for me when I come back do I hear DVDs, a repeat?

2500 different f***** items... tools, bolts, motors, tape, grease, pencils, glue, thrusters, bags, screws, light bulbs, light envelopes, glow sticks, safety glasses, paper towel, o rings, heat guns... shoot me...

told you so

Flock of seagulls

I'm in a Hitchcock movie... the group of birds floating/flying around the rig gets bigger and bigger everyday... there must be at least a thousand of them now...

The birds II... this time it's personal... :P
maybe we'll finally find out why they attacked 46 years ago....

There is a fifth dimension....

...beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the twilight zone...

Yesterday was a figment of my imagination... it didn't exist in this reality... everything I've entered in CBI has gone to the Twilight Zone...

>:(

zzzz

I lack time and material to write anything in here...

A new sub is coming to replace good ol' reliable MAG33... but the mob date keeps being pushed back (it was supposed to be finished before I got here.. now it might be Tuesday.. maybe...)

and the crane is under repair... laid down right above our launch system... so we can't dive...

and we're doing inventory of everything in MAG148's work van... b-o-r-i-n-g and frustrating, cause nothing is where it should be, ID numbers are missing on 2/3 of the material and CBI is a piece of s*** software to use (that's one of our inventory database)

and to top it all.. it's been beautiful and sunny for the past 2 days, but we're cooped up inside doing this...
I predict the next rain storm will start as soon as we're done and have to go work on the subs outside... mom nature hates rovs me think :P

pics are up!!!

at least some of them... :P

I'm nowhere near done, but I don't have time to do more here.. it'll have to wait till I go home...
but there's a bunch to begin with here :

Disney.. first draft click on the picture to get to the album :)

~>:(

I f***** hate day shift!!!

my brain and whole system are rebelling against this sleep deprivation torture >:(

they ran...

And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldn't get away.

This morning's massive flock of seagulls have left the premises... I hope they're hiding from the storm somewhere sheltered 'cause this place is rockin' like a roller coaster! nice wave action I tell ya! :P

Man you should here the wind right now! worse than "hurricane" Bill... mom nature sure is pissed at something I hope it's not me!

fidouda

I'm back on the rig

on day shift :(

we're waiting on the new sub that's 3 weeks late in getting here

there's a storm warning for tonight

we're setting up for presumably Mag33's last dive

I'm still tired

I'll eventually catch up in all the backlog news

There's about 600 seagulls floating/flying around the rig... but no whale sharks or manta rays or regular whales for that matter under them... what's the point of all those birds if they don't signal something cool?! :S

my condo...

.. is finally online!

check it here : http://www.lelowney.ca/
I'm in 351... hoping for 551... and Jas is right next door, in 349!

Have a look at the "specifications" too.. it'll make any sane, city dwelling, person drool :P

first pics

I'm still going through all the pics, but here's the first 2...
Official pictures taken by Mickey himself while we were in the rides :P

Splash Mountain, dropping in the brier patch at lightning speed :P

Shooting aliens is a serious business (especially when the laser beam isn't precise and the targets are small and moving!!!!) I'm a lousy space cadet and Isaac is Galactic Hero!!! I suck :(