♪♪♪

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