It's a Blue day

hope

2010-06-03T12:14:00.002-04:00

For the first time in months, my back didn't hurt at all last night. I was able to lay in bed with no pain and fall asleep easily... let's hope it keeps going that way and become as easy to sit, stand and walk now :P

idle II

2010-06-02T11:52:00.002-04:00

Going to the clinic everyday, getting my back and neck stretched... I think it starting to work though, I find sleeping less painful than it used to be.

Since I can't walk for more than 15 min or drive more than 30 min luckily, downtown mtl is 15 minutes away from my place so I can drive there! I spend the days watching movies or sipping coffee decaf only arg! outside on St-Denis, watching the world go by and enjoying the warm weather it's been sunny and 27c everyday since I came home! yippee!

Festival season opens today with the Mondial de la biere... technically I'm not suppose to drink either, but I say that sampling beers from around the world doesn't count as drinking... a sip of each to see what I like and don't... and plenty of water so I don't dehydrate which is the reason why I can't drink coffee or alcohol my newly plumped lumbar disks :P

idle

2010-05-20T12:38:00.002-04:00

It's summer.. too many things going on and not really any time to write about it...

I'm finally gonna get my back treated, meaning I'm not going back to work for a while...
Good side: I'll spend most of the summer in Mtl with its sunny, warm weather and frenzy of festivals, parties and activities...
Bad side: the whole stretching your spine so it stops hurting has many rules and regulations that will prevent me from enjoying or even going to most of that fun stuff :(

... and I just got a call for a lunch date so I'll continue this post later... there's game 3 tonight... I still have faith! :P

I'm home!!

2010-05-07T15:06:00.009-04:00

and deep into playoffs frenzy!!!

The whole town is bleu-blanc-rouge!!!! Every other car has Montreal Canadiens flags on their windows and 1 out of 5 persons is wearing a CH jersey, cap or t-shirt... it's freakin' electric!!!

And on the radio... well there's only one theme... :P

!!!GO HABS GO!!!

The song that keeps on giving! XD

Unless you speak french and grew up in Quebec in the 8os, you wont get this one...
but OMG! it's my favorite one!!! Gold'Halak!!! wouhahaha!!!

what the hell is wrong with 2010???

2010-05-04T21:41:00.002-04:00

There's too many good people dying or getting life threatening illness... from rockstar I had a crush on to friends and loved ones, I don't think there's been a week between each bad news since January...

What the hell is going on?!?!

Which springs again that recurrent question... Why is it that the people I know die instead of getting married?

is it too much to ask that, for once in my life, I enter a church wearing a pink dress instead of black?!

>:(

back in St.John's

2010-05-03T22:07:00.000-04:00

The rig arrived in Marystown Saturday.. we've spent 2 extended shifts 18h and 21h trying to get everything packed and ready to go... the LARS and winch finally got lifted to a boat Sunday night technically Monday morning, 2am... and we left the rig at 2pm today.

I'm now in St.john's; tomorrow is a day off, to recuperate from the hectic last 3 days, then I'll be in the shop Wednesday... and going home Thursday.

That's it for now, I'm too tired for any more details...

going dark

2010-04-26T05:09:00.002-04:00

We're almost done with this last job, so we should get under tow in the next 24-30 hours... that means we should be in St.John's around Friday! yippee!!! :D

That also means, that for the next 3-4 days I might not have internet access... our satellite signal is kinda iffy when the rig is moving or not keeping a straight heading, and let's just say that towing is not the most stable way to travel...

So I'll see ya when I see ya... but no matter what, I'm getting closer to my first return home on the date I'm supposed to! XD

on a lighter note...

2010-04-23T04:47:00.003-04:00

.... we're flat out busy and it's FUN!!!! the ROV in the water and me in the shack flying it is how I like it! :)

It should be a short job, but I'm seeing stuff I never have before.. when I see them... This glory hole is dirty as s*** so as soon as we brush something, visibility goes from 10m to 10mm.. might as well pilot with our eyes closed! and it takes 20min to go back to somewhat decent... tricky...

we've just started bubble watch again, only for the last hour of our shift, and it might already be over when I get back on tonight... then there'll be some more pulling big yellow metal stuff up, bringing big yellow metal stuff down, pulling monkeys fists, activating lever... hurray! XD

the rig is on fire...

2010-04-23T04:43:00.003-04:00

...not mine luckily... but the Deepwater Horizon down in the Gulf of Mexico is... :S

There's an Oceaneering crew onboard, but last we heard they were safe and sound.. 11 people are missing though and some were seriously injured.

A creepy reminder of what can happen in this scope of work.. when shallow gas meet sparks this is the result :

:(

I'm alive...

2010-04-19T22:17:00.003-04:00

...just a bit busy...

we're moving to a new location, which means that for the past week we've been in the water monitoring subsea tools and operations. Very little time for breaks or lunch when it's like that.

We were suppose to go to the shipyard after this job, but now they've fit in another small job, so it'll be another week before we start getting towed towards dry land...

good news is: I'll be outta here on May 6th like I'm supposed to... no choppers delay, boat ride from hell or fogged up situation! The rig itself well, the 3 boats towing it :P will take me to the coast of Newfoundland! and from wherever we "park", a bus will drive me to St.John's.

how nice is that?! :D

but in the meantime, it's anchors galore around here, going up, going down, tweeking them... awesome for sleeping :S

my psychic family

2010-04-14T16:27:00.005-04:00

It's my mom's birthday tomorrow, but since I'm leaving today and my sister left for NYC yesterday, we celebrated on Monday...

My dad surpassed himself once again, and gave my mom... this :

a freakin' Mercedes convertible!!!!!!!!!!! hers is midnight blue instead of silver...

What's really really really really weird is that 2 weeks ago I had made the decision that for my 35th birthday which, btw, is still years and years away :P I would buy myself exactly that! Figured that at 35 I'd be on my way to Cougar Town so I might as well get there in style! :P

My psychic dad beat me to the punch... meaning I'll get to practice my driving-with-the-top-down-hair-in-the-wind-music-blaring by borrowing my mom's sweet ride, before buying my own...
How cool is that?!?! XD

Sun Time!!!!

2010-04-11T20:42:00.002-04:00

With the summer weather we had last week, pubs/bars and clubs had opened their patios terrasse as we say here, so it was a must to abuse it as much as possible before it got cold again.
+
last Habs' games of the season before the playoffs
+
Sunday brunch at cabane a sucre sugar shack? it's a Quebec thing it doesn't translate :P where I nearly overdosed on maple syrup and tire sur la neige maple taffy on snow? again, it's a Quebec thing you wouldn't understand :P
=
a new picture album on the right :)

Martha wouldn't be proud...

2010-04-06T22:23:00.004-04:00

It's very anti-climactic to start cooking, then find out halfway through that you're missing one key ingredient...

It climbs up to mortifying when you realize that the grocery store closed 20 minutes ago... and you're in your PJs so you wouldn't have gone out anyway

*holds her head in shame*

erk

2010-03-29T14:11:00.014-04:00

I finally made it home after 32h of transit, most of which I'd like to forget...

After my shift, at 6am Saturday, I packed my stuff and went to the mandatory viewing of the safety dvd on boat transfer, than waited in the tv room for the Chancellor to arrive.

Got in the frog at 2pm, that's a frog -->
left the field 30 minutes later and went to bed at 3:30pm. Since I was the only female passenger and couldn't share a room with anybody, I ended up in an empty crewman's cabin, right on the top floor of the boat where things move, pitch and roll quite a lot more than in the gallows....

Woke up at 8pm thinking I'd catch the Habs game on my laptop there was WIFI internet on that boat! got some food, watched part of the game but got too tired so went back to bed... that's where the fun began... we hit a storm and 12m waves... and I got seasick! First time in my life and I soooo hope the last!!!
I usually know when it's time to take it easy, there's a ringing in my ears that says "go lie down for 10 minutes"... but this time I was already lying down! :S it got worse and worse and I nearly puked a couple of times, so I figured it was time to call on the medic for some gravols...

The phone in my room wasn't working >:( so I went down to find her, bumping in walls, holding on for dear life in the 4 staircases... she had gone to bed and didn't answer the door when I knocked. I was really dizzy by then so I went back to bed but I just kept getting worse. At some point a bunch of cleaning supplies fell down in the hallway, so when a crewmate came to pick it up I scrambled to the door and asked him to find me some pills :P

He had more success in waking up the medic and she gave me a shot I was beyond the gravols stage apparently... which kept me nauseous but gave me back my will to live. For the next 8 hours I just held on to the bunk so I wouldn't fall off it, and listened to the sound of objects falling all around while being rocked side to side and lifted off the mattress every 2min or so...
At 5am we finally entered the calm waters of St.John's Narrow, and I was instantly better. Half of the guys traveling with me and on another boat that followed us, got sick. The guys who didn't get sick were the wise and lucky one who were on the lower level, gobbed 4 gravols as soon as they got on board, then went to sleep for the whole trip... I'll remember that pearl of wisdom next time I'm stuck doing boat transfer :S

*Those of you who've never experienced seasickness, imagine the worst hangover or stomach flu you've ever had... every movement like turning your head, sitting up, rolling your eyes... makes you want to throw up... and everything around you is moving!!! But the real kicker is that every time you puke, instead of feeling better for a while you feel just as bad or worse...*

La-di-da

2010-03-27T05:01:00.002-04:00

The Chancellor is picking me up and taking me on a cruise at 11am today...
that sounds so much better than what it is :P

I'll be in St.John's Sunday morning and should be flying home straight away I better, otherwise I'm gonna start destroying stuff

So see ya soon Montreal! I can't wait to be there!!!!!!!!!! XD

Flight 441's curse

2010-03-25T05:04:00.004-04:00

18 days!!! …. 18 days of sunshine in a row... no fog, no freezing rain, all choppers on time, no backlog, NOTHING!

When does it stop? … M*****F***IN' TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My flight is cursed.. somebody on it must have been a real a-h*** in a past life to get a karma like that! I can’t see no other explanation for it we're waaaaay beyond random luck now.. it's a conspiracy! … 18 DAYS of 6+miles visibility and today, ONLY TODAY, does it go down the crapper to 0-1/2 mile of viz, AND only from 9am to 6pm!!! then it gets nice again…

I just can’t f***** believe it!!!

Ho look!! it's snowing!

2010-03-23T01:05:00.000-04:00

Ho wow!! it's really coming down!
Hooo!! the 2nd ROV is turning into a snowbank!

shoot me

:/

Bubble watch

2010-03-22T10:26:00.000-04:00

We’ve been on bubble watch for a few days now… the main scope of work is fixing a sonar going round and round and round and round and round and round for the whole of our 12h shift, hoping nothing strange will appear on the screen.. if something does appear.. well… we’re f****d.. maybe..

Why bubble watch you say?
The rig is starting a new well, so until the BOP blowout preventer.. there to stop gas to free flow to surface is down on the seabed, if the drill hits a pocket of gas, there’s nothing to stop the bubbles to come right up under us and flip the rig upside down this thing floats.. if you remove water.. well.. oops…

Why not put the BOP first then drill?
I have no idea! :P all I know is that they need to drill to a certain depth, then run big pipes in the hole, then put a base on the sea bed, connect all that together, THEN they can put the BOP...

What can we do if there is a massive pocket of gas heading our way?
Sling shot the rig! for real... :P people are on standby, with a finger by the button, to make all the anchors in front pull us and all the anchors in the back go slack, so if need be the place could jump a bunch of feet forward in a split second... and the bubbles would miss us

so far we haven’t seen anything yay
let's hope it stays this way...

#&@%$* anchors!

2010-03-18T17:00:00.000-04:00

We are moving to a new location, meaning they have to pull the anchors. It started at 6am sharp making sure they don’t wake up the day people of course… and kept on all night or day whichever way you look at it, day time, but MY night.

The anchors are not though, more like massive chains that lie on the sea bed; their weight keep the rig from moving. So when they pull them up it's not subtle… one link must be about 100lbs and there’s a billion of them, coming up and banging inside the rig.

There are 12 anchors, 3 on each corner of the rig…. Guess what else is also right on the corner of the rig… my room :S

So I tried to sleep through an earthquake of 5.6 magnitude and a rumble that would put jet engines to shame…

I’m still trying to figure out the procedure for anchors, because all night it went: 30 minutes of rumbling, 5 min stop, 10 minutes of rumbling, 30 sec stop, 20 min of rumbling, 1-2h of distant to lesser rumbling (coming from the 3 other rig’s corners) and the pattern starts over.

I thought they’d pull one anchor on each corner and just keep on going until they are all up… apparently not :/

It should be finished by tomorrow morning… I f***** hope so cause 2 nights of this racket will make me very cranky…

*update: they have stopped pulling anchors at 6pm... because of bad weather conditions... the pulling of anchors will resume at 6am... because weather will be ok again at 6am sharp... strange how these things happen... perfectly timed like that so the day crew won't lose any sleep... very strange indeed...

Time to be green!

2010-03-17T11:03:00.003-04:00

Even though I wont be drinking any green beer this year... keep one on ice for me for when I land in Mtl please... :)

...and those Guiness chocolate mousse will be on the menu as soon as I reach a suitable kitchen!

Hump day

2010-03-14T10:15:00.002-04:00

Today is hump day... meaning it's my 11th day offshore, so I have only 10 left before going home providing the helicopter gods keep on smiling. Time goes at an upward crawl for the first 10 days, then hump day is at a stand still, then it's down hill from there until home is in sight :P

It's fairly relax these days, no big emergency or catastrophic failure always a good thing :), we're filling the days with maintenance and regular dives. The pace should pick up this week, when we start getting ready to move to another location... there'll be more diving, less tinkering. :)

:P

2010-03-12T10:18:00.001-05:00

same ol' same ol'

2010-03-10T22:48:00.002-05:00

I made it to the rig Sunday afternoon, after a boomerang flight >:( that's when we get to the rig, the chopper can't land because of low visibility and we go back to St.John's arg. The second try was a winner, but I ended up doing a 24h day... again... check in at 6am, at the heliport/in the air all day, on the rig at 4:30pm, work at 6pm, bed at 6:15am :S

Nothing much is going on here, we did one dive for bullseyes but otherwise it's been maintenance and inventory... f.a.s.c.i.n.a.t.i.n.g. *yaaawn* The most exciting thing has been 2 days going on 3 now without rain or fog or snow or wind! It's dry, calm and not even that cold... mom nature must be smokin' to be that mellow on us! now let's see if it lasts! :P

Rumors are flying about when the rig is gonna go in to get re-fit god knows it NEEDS it! it could be next week or in April or in May or in June and last 30 days or 45 or 60 or 120 days, we Oceaneering people might stay on board to fix our own stuff, but could be pulled out of there or not... as usual, information is very clear and precise...
Anyway, on board or on standby in the shop, since the rig will be right by the Newfoundland shore, it means at least one hitch where we'll get home on the day we're suppose to! yippee!

A day at Cougar

2010-03-06T14:44:00.006-05:00

When weather is s*** and we're waiting to go offshore, here's what the day looks like

05:00am, Wake up
05:45am, Go to heliport
06:00am, Check in
06:30am, Watch safety video
07:00am, Sit in lounge and wait to be called
07:15am, Look outside, realize that visibility stops right outside window
07:30am, Hear rumor that we're not going anywhere
08:00am, Get a pager but still have to call the hotline every half hour in case pager does not work :S and voucher for breakfast and lunch, dinner + hotel room if you're on night shift
08:30am, Go to Comfort Inn for breakfast
09:30am, Go back to room to sleep or sit in lobby if you're on day shift
10:00am, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
10:30am, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
11:00am, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
11:30am, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
12:00pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
12:30pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
01:00pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
01:30pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
02:00pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
02:30pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, go back to sleep
03:00pm, Call Cougar hotline to see if there's any change, hear that all flights have been canceled for the day
03:30pm, Go back to Cougar to get luggage,
04:00pm, Go back to hotel

End of day

Repeat until the choppers fly...

the wonders of nature

2010-03-05T18:13:00.002-05:00

After freezing rain and freezing drizzles, please welcome this Newfoundland gem : freezing fog!

I'm in a hotel by the airport, waiting to go offshore... the last 2 days have been very creative in finding ways to ground the helicopters... First time in my life I see ice specks hovering still in the air... like walking in a shining 3D futuristic animation... freezing fog... go figure makes the landscape all white and sparkly though... very pretty... :S

Pics are in!

2010-03-02T18:14:00.005-05:00

You can see them in the Photo Albums section...
They include Sonia's birthday party at LaTulipe Friday night, La Nuit Blanche a Montreal on Saturday (the all night party I was talking about in a previous post) and Sunday afternoon at a friend's place to watch the final game Canada-USA for the GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD!!!!! we SO won!!!!!

a very full weekend... :)

Here's my favorite pic, click on the album for the rest

Skaters in old Montreal, on a background of city lights, Bonsecour Market and Ferris wheel... love the colors of that one :)

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD!!!

2010-03-01T22:20:00.004-05:00

AND WHAT A GAME!!!!

I can't remember the last time I got so worked up over a sports event ok, the Saints victory was something, but it didn't have any national pride edge for me :P and damn I love that kid Crosby!!! Stupidly talented, humble, good looking.... He knows kids look up to him and always act accordingly unlike whatsisname Ovech*cough*

After 2 weeks of fast, high quality play, it's gonna be hard to go back to NHL standards...

This image is my favorite of all the games! both gloves and mouth piece flying in 3 different directions after his winning goal in overtime! A gear firework! :P

I've never been that patriotic or so happy to hear our National Anthem :P in my life than in the last 2 weeks...

You were all great... I loved you all... now come play for the Habs so I can love you still!!!

They are so freakin beautiful!!!! anybody selling one on ebay?! :P

all nighter

2010-02-27T12:57:00.003-05:00

Tonight's Montreal coolest winter party! La Nuit Blanche starts at noon today and ends around 6 or 7am tomorrow. There'll be a million different activities all around town, with free shuttles to go from places to places. Art exhibitions, ice skating, DJs playing outside under a heated dome, fireworks, slides, short films... the list is endless! check the web site here for more...

It's the 7th year this goes on, as part of a "let's re-appropriate our shitty winter people!!!" movement. It used to be that from January to April we'd roll the sidewalks and hibernate.. NOTHIN' was going on in the city in the harsh of winter.. to the point that a lot of restaurant and clubs would go bankrupt every summer saw a bunch of new names, that would only last till December to be replaced again come May :P.

Not anymore! Even winter-hater me will be out there tonight! tis gonna be fuuuun!!! XD

my own pics will be posted tomorrow probably not long after the Canada-usa finals, but this is what the festival looks like :)

ice slides that run the length of Place Jacques Cartier in old Mtl

heated dome to keep warm while eating, drinking and dancing

GO GO GO!!!!

2010-02-24T16:41:00.004-05:00

Canada vs Russia tonight!!!
Come on!!! we can do it!!!
Let's knock down that goddamn toothless jackass Ovechkin!!!! damn I can't stand that guy! arg!

!!!!GO CANADA GO!!!!
XD

woohoohoo!!!

2010-02-21T22:51:00.002-05:00

I went to Lowney today to get some ideas on what to choose for my condo's colors...

and while I was there, the woman in charge of sales asked me when I was leaving again... and then booked me an appointment to choose the finishes on my unit!!!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

I thought it'd be in Spring!!!! they're well in advance!!!! and now I have to decide NOW on what I want?!??!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!!!

decisions decisions... so-much-fuuuuuuuuuuun!!!! :)

tick tock

2010-02-18T13:31:00.001-05:00

I'm home
Having fun
Planning parties
No time to write blog

:P

w.h.a.t.e.v.e.r.

2010-02-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

what-ever!

2010-02-12T15:48:00.003-05:00

All flights canceled today...

the more I learn about all the many restrictions for flights, the more I realize that it's when the choppers fly that should be considered weird...

-when the visibility is under 2 miles, no flights
-when there's freezing rain, no flights
-when it's beautiful now, but there's a RISK of freezing rain at some point, no flights
-when St.John's is nice, but the secondary landing site in case of emergency that's the city of Ganger is not, no flights
-when the pilots have been waiting to long (like 6 hours :S) and they "time out" so they are no allowed to pilot hence we end up with no pilots no flights
-when the choppers might have a mechanical problem every other day, no flights
-when the choppers have fixed that maybe mechanical problem but still have to complete 4 hours of test flights, no flights
-when regular maintenance needs to be performed, no flights
-when the winds are too strong or blowing the wrong way, no flights
-when the waves are too high or the rig/vessel moves to much, no flights

and I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple in there...

conclusion: I'll see you some time in Spring >:(

Don't hold your breath....

2010-02-11T05:03:00.003-05:00

The choppers have been backing up since Monday... my regular flight is at 6pm tonight a freakin joke since they never fly pass 3pm... but I'm not even on it... me and 6 others have been bumped to an "ad hoc" flight aka if we have time at some point when all the others have gone maybe we'll come for you... so I'm not going anywhere.. ever...

There's a storm coming Friday, so nothing's gonna fly, and it should end Sunday or Monday... so.. yeah.. don't hold your breath waiting for me to get in town.. it's not gonna happen... :/

snow day!!!

2010-02-05T01:11:00.002-05:00

I'm having my first day off-offshore :P

We went out as usual tonight I'm on the 6pm-6am shift, but around 8pm came this announcement on the PA system "all personnel please stay clear of the main deck because of strong winds, that's all personnel, do not go outside until further notice"

So we went back in... and that's it! Winds are getting stronger and stronger... with high seas and snow blowing everywhere... all this is suppose to peak around 10 tomorrow morning and slowly come down during the day I'm very glad to be staying inside... with choices of tv in the lounge, Wii in the cinema, internet in the conference room and endless food in the galley... and since I have a room to myself this trip, I can even go for a shower and nap if I want :P

tough life really... but considering I froze my ass for 12h straight the last 2 days, I'll say I deserve the break :P

frozen solid

2010-02-03T22:44:00.002-05:00

I've been working outside for the past two nights.. it's -7c, windchill of -28c... I'M COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD!!!!!!!!!!! Even inside the rig it's freezing... my room sticks at 14c if I turn the heater off.. so that's the temperature I face outside my door :(

And outside, along with fighting the blowing snow and icy sidewalks, I need a friggin heatgun to loosen the quick disconnects who are frozen shut the heat gun also does a good job of warming my fingers and face :P

this job would be so great if it was 27c instead of -27c

v.e.r.y. u.n.p.l.e.a.s.a.n.t. >:(

off I go

2010-02-01T09:25:00.002-05:00

Going offshore today, for the rest of my hitch...
hopefully they haven't cut internet and the phones they always get a bit touchy when drilling a new well
I should be back in town Feb 11th
wonder how fast 10 days instead of 21 out there will go by :)

Made it this far!

2010-01-30T12:08:00.006-05:00

I just realized that Wednesday was my one year anniversary of working offshore! So I found an orange cake to match my ho-so-fashionable coveralls and jacket! 8)

A year ago I was on the Atlantic Osprey, facing 17m waves, listening to stuff banging around and wondering if it was the norm out there :P

The year has gone by waaaay too fast! Something about splitting your time in two makes it go at lightning speed. Good news is, I wouldn't have it any other way I'd rather die than do the whole 9 to 5 bit though I wouldn't mind crunching all the offshore time from January to May and then take the summer off :P
3 months off, 3 months on sounds better than 3 weeks on 3 weeks off... .... especially if you can do the 3 months on somewhere around the Equator hehehe...

try it without gps...

2010-01-28T16:24:00.007-05:00

I've been navigating the crazy, narrow, winding streets of St.John's in both a minivan and a massive pickup truck. I wanted to find a way to convey what this means.. and while browsing google map it kinda jumped off the screen.. :P

...so here's downtown Montreal... and here's downtown St.John's

click on the pics for clearer/bigger image :P

and please note that this map does not display the many one ways and the elevations (everything is slanted, from mole hill to ski jumps angles) that are found all over downtown St.John's :P

Mystery solved... somebody took a regular city's map, crumpled it and turned that into St.John's layout!
:P

All hail the iphone!!!

2010-01-26T17:20:00.007-05:00

I've been tackling the streets of St.John's for the past 2 days yes I now have one of the company cars to scoot around! ... driving around here is a serious challenge for any outsider... it has something to do with the absence of straight, flat roads. Everything either :
a)twists
b)turns
c)goes up
d) goes down
e)all of the above

And this morning I learned another tip... don't follow signs for the TransCanada Highway! They will not lead you to it, but will make you follow it two streets below, where you get traffic, street lights and speed limit of 50km/h!! :S I wasted 20 minutes following signs, before yelling screw this and opening my phone fitted with GPS

So, with maps not showing the ups and down, signs getting you away from where you're trying to go and streets changing names 3 times along the way and Google Map forgets to mention this! :0 the only option for expats like me is.... the wonderful, beautiful, reliable IPHONE!!!! or a GPS My "around me" application has been showing me the way all day! How to get on the highway, where to find lunch, how to get to the hotel from a co-worker's place that I just dropped off...

♡♡♡♡ I LOVE MY PHONE!!!!!!!! ♡♡♡♡

un-be-lie-va-ble!

2010-01-23T15:26:00.004-05:00

I found one thing St.John's has over everywhere I've been before except maybe Ottawa...

You can close your eyes and cross the street anywhere corner or not without getting hit by a car or yelled at by the driver!
I was waiting to cross, when two guys just passed me and kept walking... and all the cars stopped!!! I mean they really s.t.o.p.p.e.d.!!! and did so BEFORE getting within hitting distance!!!
In Montreal those guys would have been pancaked! O_o

I was just standing there, my mouth open, thinking out loud "you can do that?! people will stop?! wow!" :P

make the most of it they say :)

2010-01-22T17:09:00.003-05:00

I may have reached total decadence...
considering that I should be offshore, in a freezing, alcohol-free environment, but that I'm on standby in a hotel downtown St.John's instead.. and that I just called room service to order a martini...
hum... maybe not so much total decadence as total laziness :P

It can never be simple

2010-01-21T16:22:00.003-05:00

I was all pumped up at the idea of going back to the rig.. I was on 6-6 nights, would be working with the people I get along best with.. no changing schedule halfway, no not knowing what's going on.. all good and fluffy...

So, of course, it had to fuck up

When I got to the airport hotel, I was told the guy I'm releiving on the rig had been there earlier in the day huh?! and that he had canceled the reservation... Since I've been at this hotel regularly they just rebooked me for the night.

Once in the room, I checked my email.. to find out that I was supposed to go at the hotel downtown instead, cause the rig was down manning and I would be on standby, maybe going on the Osprey, maybe going to the shop... so I canceled the room, took a cab downtown and called the rig.

Somebody realized the lifeboats were planned with people weighting 75kg... a lot less than the average rig worker! so until they figure out what to do with this, they've sent about 20 people home.. and since I was coming today, they sent my opposite home a day early and I'm staying in St.John's.

So I'm going to the office tomorrow, and I have no idea what's gonna happen next. All my gear is on the rig so it will have to be sent in town if I'm going to work in the shop... but one thing is sure, my night shift is now history since one of the day guys will have to go on nights now and won't want to change back when if I get there >:(

not happy...

Saturday night reflection

2010-01-17T03:01:00.005-05:00

Sometimes I wonder...
Am I leading a straight life in a lopsided world,
or do I have an askew perception in a straight world?

wouhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...

2010-01-16T13:19:00.004-05:00

Saw Jeff Dunham yesterday...

HMG!!!! I've never laughed so hard for so long in one single show!!! The guy is insane!!! And we had the best places of all! 6th row center!!! There was a giant screen for the poor people sitting in the bleachers, but we were up close for the real deal! :P The show was 2 hours, felt like 5 minutes! no lull, no breaks, all the material kept on the same level of hilarious for the whole show!

Walter, the grumpy old fart, had one of my favorite quote of the show... talking about the wii fit...
"Is your wii white? and it corrects everything you do? I have one of those... it's a wii-ife" :P

I found parts of the show already online... visual sucks, but you can at least hear the text :P
you can find other bits easy enough by searching Jeff Dunham Ottawa :)

One impressive part... at the end he brought out Bubba J; he didn't have new material for him, but did a patchwork of his usual skip.. until he realized people in the crowd were calling the words before he did! He was speechless for 10 seconds and then just built on it, improvising as he went!

and here's a condensed version of Peanut's sketch, that was presented on Letterman a while ago:

holy crap...

2010-01-15T03:05:00.000-05:00

... I wish I could keep this calm when speaking of the pile of s*** that is Rush Limbaugh... not that I speak of him often... I prefer to deny his existence as much as I can

Following that moron's and Pat Robertson's declarations on the Port-au-Prince earthquake/catastrophe, MSNBC news anchor Keith Olbermann gave this reply... he just made a fan...

But seriously... do these people have no shame?! deal with the devil?!?! what is this??? 1676?!?! can somebody PLEASE take the mics and cameras away from these moronic inbred haters!!! >:(

PC gone bad

2010-01-14T23:40:00.003-05:00

When people are trying too much to be politically correct they end up being more offensive.. to my ears anyway...

I was in a pub and a bunch of guys were talking loudly :s about mixed race relationship... to avoid having to specify race or color because hoooo it's so not pc, one guy started saying that he'd dated a "non-Quebecoise" only once... WFT?! and to make it clear, the woman he was referring too was born and raised here
Maybe it's just me, but people who are born here, and live here, well, they are Quebecois and Canadian! The fact that they are a different color or that their ancestors or parents came from somewhere else doesn't change that fact one bit!

idiots...

Rig workers' alphabet

2010-01-12T02:34:00.006-05:00

I told you here about Jim Payne and Fergus O'Byrne, who came to the rig to sing for us...

There was this song that I really like even if, yes, it IS a banjo you're hearing! so I decided to add pictures and youtube it :)

So, here it is, the Rig Workers' Alphabet, some pics are mine, some belongs to friends and Google Image provided the rest... :D

double click to see it bigger, without my background image messing up the visual :P

Mamma Mia!

2010-01-09T18:05:00.002-05:00

That's how I spent last evening.. singing to Abba, admiring white spandex and platform shoes, along with 5000 other crazy people, who were also singing :) It's quite something when the actors end their song and the crowd keeps on going :P

The movie was a good adaptation of the musical.. but a bunch of hot guys in wetsuit will always be better live hehehe

That was fuuun!!! XD

Avatar

2010-01-04T22:28:00.004-05:00

Just came back from seeing it in 3D... I am floored!!!

It's been ages since a movie mesmerized me like that! Beautiful, magical, from start to finish. The whole story line wasn't even necessary, the f**** military just made me want to jump in the screen and destroy them!!! So evil, but so close to reality... I don't like that :S
I would have been content with a 3h Nat Geo on the life of the Na'Vi... They are so sexy!!! 12ft tall, pointy ears, lion eyes... *sigh*

And Pandora, their planet.. it's like being underwater but in a jungle.. all the bio luminescent that make the ocean so wonderful is there... all over... even on the Na'Vi themselves... plants that react like coral, seeds that are like jellyfish... animals reminiscent of dinosaurs, fish and mammals... all mixed together.

Now... how do I get cryogenized until 2154 so I can go on Pandora and become one of them?

Go see it!!! Everyday!!! On the biggest screen you can find and in 3D!!!!

♪wow♪

2010-01-03T20:03:00.002-05:00

Borrowed from Jas...

A mashup of the Billboard top 25 pop hits of 2009... awesome job Mr Earworm!!! :)

If you don't swing to it check your pulse, you must be dead!

36h

2010-01-03T16:47:00.003-05:00

I'M HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME!!!!!!!!!!!!! XD

My chopper flight was canceled after a day of waiting on 31st I was ho-so pissed!
Flight was canceled again on the 1st goddamn pilots were too hangover from the night before >:(

And I finally left the rig at 9am on the 2nd!

So my first day of 2010 started at 4:40pm (3pm Mtl time), worked until 6am, got on the chopper at 9am, waited at St.john's airport for my St.John's-Halifax-Mtl flight at 2:30pm.. there was a major snow storm in Halifax and many flights were canceled basically all flights that were coming from Halifax and back were grounded in Nova Scotia, but not mine!!! It was delayed by an hour though.
When we reach Halifax where I was suppose to get off the plane and transfer to one for Mtl we circled for 10 minutes, but the runway was snowed in, no way to land, so we carried on to Toronto!

In TO, that's where the fun really began... in the plane they said "people who were going to Halifax, when you get off the plane, go to gate 120 they'll tell you what to do". But when I got out the plane, a little lady was waiting for us and said "all luggage will be taken out, so you have to go get them first and we'll have a booth set up by the carousel to tell you where to go next".

Of course there was no booth by the carousel, so I went to ask at the "luggage trouble" counter, they told me to go on the 3rd floor at the Air Canada ticket counter.

Got there, waited in line, 15min later a guy told the line up that the Halifax people needed to go to the ground floor where a booth was set to sort things out (by then it was known that people wanting to go to Halifax were getting a hotel room and a rebook for a flight the next day).

Downstairs the line up was a mile long and not moving at all for the next 20 minutes... since I wanted to go to Mtl, not Halifax, and didn't need a goddamn hotel room, I eventually got pissed off of waiting pointlessly and left that line up to go back to the ticket counter where the line up had almost disappeared when everybody went to the ground floor :P.
Some guy in an Air Canada suit tried to tell me I was to go downstairs for my rebook, but he eventually coward away under my glacial stare I had been up for 29h by then and wasn't in the mood to take any bull**** from anyone.

After more wait and some magic tweaks from an awesome AC employee, I finally got a place on the 5pm flight to Mtl, even though it was now 7pm... all those flight delays finally played in my favor! I ran through security well not REALLY ran.. I'm not that crazy! and made it to the boarding counter... at gate 120 ... seriously...
Of course, boarding had not started yet... things were delayed some more...

The plane finally left TO at 8:30pm... got in Mtl an hour later... got my suitcase... found my car that my parents had left for me at the airport earlier that day and made it to Alex's party/dinner just in time for his classic coffee!

I was somewhat zombie-like by then, so I went home around midnight, unpacked my stuff, talked a bit with my family that had just arrived from a family party and went to bed at 3am... 36h after the beginning of a most definitely complicated day!

But what matters is... I made it to the last party of the Holidays!!! woohoo!!! XD

♪♪♪

2009-12-29T04:58:00.003-05:00

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...

2009-12-28T00:03:00.005-05:00

... 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

2009-12-26T22:32:00.003-05:00

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....

2009-12-25T15:29:00.003-05:00

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

:)

2009-12-25T00:05:00.001-05:00

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

term dance

2009-12-22T11:14:00.002-05:00

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

2009-12-22T10:11:00.001-05:00

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

2009-12-19T11:04:00.003-05:00

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!!!

2009-12-16T10:47:00.002-05:00

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....

2009-12-11T14:35:00.005-05:00

♪ ... 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

2009-12-09T17:02:00.002-05:00

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

2009-12-03T23:32:00.002-05:00

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!!!

2009-12-02T19:25:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-30T18:23:00.002-05:00

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

GO ALS GO!!!

2009-11-30T17:39:00.006-05:00

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

2009-11-30T14:30:00.003-05:00

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!

2009-11-26T15:11:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-23T07:53:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-21T18:32:00.008-05:00

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! :)

2009-11-20T17:10:00.002-05:00

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...

2009-11-20T13:25:00.002-05:00

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 ♪

2009-11-20T13:14:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-19T05:10:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-17T12:59:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-16T07:45:00.004-05:00

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!

2009-11-15T15:57:00.002-05:00

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?

2009-11-13T11:30:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-12T15:44:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-11T13:23:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-10T13:52:00.002-05:00

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!

2009-11-08T15:37:00.004-05:00

♪ 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...

2009-11-07T07:56:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-06T13:55:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-04T04:30:00.000-05:00

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

2009-11-04T04:16:00.001-05:00

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

2009-11-01T14:48:00.005-05:00

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!!!

2009-10-31T10:30:00.006-04:00

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

2009-10-31T08:26:00.002-04:00

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?

2009-10-29T20:41:00.002-04:00

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

:)

doh!

2009-10-29T14:43:00.000-04:00

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...

2009-10-29T14:23:00.001-04:00

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

2009-10-27T13:57:00.002-04:00

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

2009-10-25T14:56:00.003-04:00

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

2009-10-24T12:17:00.002-04:00

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?!

2009-10-23T13:51:00.002-04:00

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

2009-10-20T19:58:00.002-04:00

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

2009-10-18T18:40:00.003-04:00

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

2009-10-18T18:30:00.003-04:00

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!