change of vocation

After years of trying to fix my back and the obligatory downtown it entailed, I have found a new vocation that is quite different from ROV, but as much fun... I now work in a zoo! :P

You can follow its stories here: www.parcsafari.com

and on Facebook.

And because I like to blog and love to cook... I started a new foodies blog.  In french and english, you'll find recipes, restaurants and bars recommendations, special events and cool products ideas.

No need to live near Montreal to appreciate it... well maybe for the restaurants, but it'll be useful when you come visit.. because you HAVE to visit Montreal, it's an awesome city!

Hope you'll like it,

Food for thoughts it's all there :)

and if you have any questions, reach me here: info@foodforthoughts.ca

farewell peeps!

hope

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

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

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!!

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???

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

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

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...

.... 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...

...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...

...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

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!!!!

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...

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

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

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

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!

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

shoot me

:/

Bubble watch

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!

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...