I have been very lazy the last two weeks in regards to my Blog. Tried to upload my Ireland pictures last week. Due to the very slow upload speed we have, even after 2 hrs not one picture had been uploaded so I gave up. The weather the last week has been very, very strange. Not only has the temperature been reasonable (<90) but we have had rain 3 days during the week and although they didn't last more than 30 minutes, it did rain very heavily during that time.
Been busy in the plant area at work. One of my current responsibilites has me out and about all 9 hours that I'm at work each day. When it is all done and over with, I think I will have climbed every tower at least a dozen times and probably every flight of stairs a couple of hundred times. If I can keep my eating under control, I might even be able to lose a few unwanted pounds while I'm at it. Speaking of eating, I have become very addicted to the cafeteria at the plant. I now have a full serving of salad and veggies every lunch. In addition, my daily diet includes soup, rice and olives when I'm at work. To sate my sweet tooth, I have been fortunate in that they have diet desserts every day at the plant. Although they don't have soda fountains, if I do have a soda I try to make sure it is Diet 7Up. The food they serve is really good too (as long as you like either fish, lamb or chicken) and there is a wide enough selection of veggetarian food that if they had a larger selection of non-meat protein I would even try being a veggetarian while here (at least for a while).
Now that I have a roommate (my boss to boot!) I have had to make sure that I pick up after myself a little better and sooner than I would normally. Although I was a little trepidious about having my boss as a roomy it has work out OK so far (only been about 1.5 wks so far). We have already gotten him playing XBox with us, and to our dismay he has picked up EVERY game rather quickly. We would normally 'ease' him into each game, but after about 2 hrs, we had to take the gloves off and get 'serious' or at least as serious as you can with the games we have. Honestly, how seriously can you take a game that lets you jump 30 ft in the air, turn 180 degrees and shoot a rocket launcher across an airfield? Must admit it has been rather fun to play the games on our new 42" plasma TV that we picked up here. Since we split the cost 4 ways it really wasn't too expensive. Now if we could just get a better internet connection I could really enjoy it by playing online with all my friends!
Well, going to try and contact my parents and talk to them for a little bit, so I'm going to cut this post off here.
Hope everyone back in the States is doing well and CONGRATS to Scott and Angela on the newest addition to their family, the daughter Wren Tucker born March 30! Looks like I'm a surrogate Aunt again.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Returned from Ireland
I have returned from Ireland and am back at work. Would say hard at work, but that wouldn't be quite true. Been too lazy the last few days to do a full blog, but I figured I had better put something up before everyone wonders where the heck I've been. Took LOTS and LOTS of pictures while in Ireland (over 600!), in fact so many I filled my 4gb memory card which was quite a shock! Due to the hassle of loading photos to directly to my blog I plan to upload all of the pictures to Kodak Gallery and then add links here for everyone. However, I will select some of the better ones to add here. Need to get back to work now, but I will do a more detailed blog with my adventures in Ireland later this week (promise).
Friday, March 6, 2009
Last Weekend before 1st "Vacation"
This was my last weekend before heading to Ireland for my first 'vacation'. Been rather lacadasial in keeping my blog updated this week. This posting will be on some of the things I have observed and noted while in Saudi Arabia.
Driving
- Driving in Saudi Arabia goes against almost every thing I learned about driving in the US. Although nearly everyone I know speeds to some extent, most of the time it is only 5-10 mph above. Here, it seems like it is a challenge to see if you can double the speed limit. In an effort to go that higher speed, the traffic lanes are strictly recommendations. I have seen people use both shoulders of the road to pass people or even make an extra lane between two others. The later is normally done at stop lights. It is really interesting to see someone in a mid-size or larger car attempt (and succeed most times) to 'creep' up to the front of the line at a stop light. Or even better yet, zoom to the front of the turn lane only to speed off at the light change to go straight. The other popular pasttime at stop lights is to make two or even three turning lanes out of one. This normally means people are piled two wide in the regular lane and someone at the front of the straight travel lane has decided to turn left also. I have even witnessed people making u-turns from the straight travel lane across two 'official' turn lanes. I am very glad that I am not required to drive in country on my relocation.
Religion
- Prayer times are VERY VERY important to know whether you are Muslim or not. As there are 5 major prayer times every day with three happening after the lunch hour and the times change by the week it can become rather combursome to keep it all straight. All of the stores and shops will close for prayer time, which can make going grocery shopping or dining out a real challenge at times. Currently, evening prayers are at 3:15pm, 4:45pm and 6:30pm. Most times, we have found you need to plan to be at the store or dinner by 7pm or later to do anything. Some people take this so seriously that they will stop nearly anything they are doing to attend prayer. The scariest example of this was related second hand to me. A man was an acting fire captain at a chemical plant when a compressor fire broke out. When the fire captain for the area where the fire was happening showed up to assist (he didn't run the fire crews as the company had a policy to have someone from another area do it to exclude any potential conflicts about stopping the fire versus saving equipment). Anyways, the acting fire captain was constantly looking at his watch as the fire was being worked adn then abruptly told the area fire captain that he had to leave as it was prayer time. The guy actually left in the middle of the fire and didn't even really do anything. I am going to assume this was a really extreme case and not to treat it as 'normal'.
Smells
- For me, Saudi Arabia has a very distinct odor to it. I think it is a combination of the number of people, the prevalant use of spices (for food and drink) and tobacco that combine to give a very unique ordor to nearly every place you visit. I may grow to like it the longer I'm here, but right now it is very strong and noticeable to me when I go outside my apartment compound to the plant or into the city. Nearly every outing into the city or shopping areas include visits into some of the spice/coffee shops. They have bins and bins of spices, coffees and numerous other things that I can only identify as dried 'something'. The mixture of so many different things is overwhelming for me and I can normally only be in the shops for a minute or two before I have to get out.
Overall I am enjoying my experience in Saudi Arabia, but it as started to highlight things that I have taken for granted growing up in the States.
Driving
- Driving in Saudi Arabia goes against almost every thing I learned about driving in the US. Although nearly everyone I know speeds to some extent, most of the time it is only 5-10 mph above. Here, it seems like it is a challenge to see if you can double the speed limit. In an effort to go that higher speed, the traffic lanes are strictly recommendations. I have seen people use both shoulders of the road to pass people or even make an extra lane between two others. The later is normally done at stop lights. It is really interesting to see someone in a mid-size or larger car attempt (and succeed most times) to 'creep' up to the front of the line at a stop light. Or even better yet, zoom to the front of the turn lane only to speed off at the light change to go straight. The other popular pasttime at stop lights is to make two or even three turning lanes out of one. This normally means people are piled two wide in the regular lane and someone at the front of the straight travel lane has decided to turn left also. I have even witnessed people making u-turns from the straight travel lane across two 'official' turn lanes. I am very glad that I am not required to drive in country on my relocation.
Religion
- Prayer times are VERY VERY important to know whether you are Muslim or not. As there are 5 major prayer times every day with three happening after the lunch hour and the times change by the week it can become rather combursome to keep it all straight. All of the stores and shops will close for prayer time, which can make going grocery shopping or dining out a real challenge at times. Currently, evening prayers are at 3:15pm, 4:45pm and 6:30pm. Most times, we have found you need to plan to be at the store or dinner by 7pm or later to do anything. Some people take this so seriously that they will stop nearly anything they are doing to attend prayer. The scariest example of this was related second hand to me. A man was an acting fire captain at a chemical plant when a compressor fire broke out. When the fire captain for the area where the fire was happening showed up to assist (he didn't run the fire crews as the company had a policy to have someone from another area do it to exclude any potential conflicts about stopping the fire versus saving equipment). Anyways, the acting fire captain was constantly looking at his watch as the fire was being worked adn then abruptly told the area fire captain that he had to leave as it was prayer time. The guy actually left in the middle of the fire and didn't even really do anything. I am going to assume this was a really extreme case and not to treat it as 'normal'.
Smells
- For me, Saudi Arabia has a very distinct odor to it. I think it is a combination of the number of people, the prevalant use of spices (for food and drink) and tobacco that combine to give a very unique ordor to nearly every place you visit. I may grow to like it the longer I'm here, but right now it is very strong and noticeable to me when I go outside my apartment compound to the plant or into the city. Nearly every outing into the city or shopping areas include visits into some of the spice/coffee shops. They have bins and bins of spices, coffees and numerous other things that I can only identify as dried 'something'. The mixture of so many different things is overwhelming for me and I can normally only be in the shops for a minute or two before I have to get out.
Overall I am enjoying my experience in Saudi Arabia, but it as started to highlight things that I have taken for granted growing up in the States.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Fourth Week
My fourth week in Saudi is nearly over, which means I only have two more before my first 'free' European trip. I still need to book my plane tickets and try to find someplace to stay while in Ireland. Plan to go to the Guiness brewery, the Blarney Stone, St. Patrick's Cathedral and not 100% sure what else. If I'm really, really lucky, I might be able to catch some local rugby matches too, which would be awesome.
Spent this work week out in the plant getting VERY, VERY dusty. Another 'dust bowl' rolled in on Sunday and took most of Monday before it cleared out. Somehow, I have become sick and ended up staying home on Monday, but was feeling a lot better today and was able to make it for a full day of stair climbing and jungle gym work around the scaffolding. They have so much scaffolding erected in the plant area it is almost unbelieveable. I don't think you can go more than 10 feet outside the two major walkways and not have to step over, under, or around some. They even have some placed partially in the stairways, which can make going from floor to floor really interesting.
After being here for four weeks I have begun to notice a distinct lack of female voices. The only time I hear a woman's voice is if it is on the TV. That is something that I don't think I will get used to. Although I know some people who would probably pay good money to be in my situation (oddly enough, I think they are all married men!).
Other than the good food over here, I am enjoying the fact that I get to watch rugby on live TV without having to pay for an ultra-premium cable package. Get to watch both Southern and Northern hemisphere leagues and national team matches! Woot! Woot! The downside to that is that I'm also stuck watch that other European sport, Cricket, if I can't change the channel fast enough.
Weather is starting to warm up, but still stays below 90 so far. Don't think I have but maybe 4 or so more weeks of that. Which is another good reason to take my time off in cooler climates.
Well, I should sign off and get ready for work tomorrow.
Miss everyone in the States and hope y'all are doin' fine!
Spent this work week out in the plant getting VERY, VERY dusty. Another 'dust bowl' rolled in on Sunday and took most of Monday before it cleared out. Somehow, I have become sick and ended up staying home on Monday, but was feeling a lot better today and was able to make it for a full day of stair climbing and jungle gym work around the scaffolding. They have so much scaffolding erected in the plant area it is almost unbelieveable. I don't think you can go more than 10 feet outside the two major walkways and not have to step over, under, or around some. They even have some placed partially in the stairways, which can make going from floor to floor really interesting.
After being here for four weeks I have begun to notice a distinct lack of female voices. The only time I hear a woman's voice is if it is on the TV. That is something that I don't think I will get used to. Although I know some people who would probably pay good money to be in my situation (oddly enough, I think they are all married men!).
Other than the good food over here, I am enjoying the fact that I get to watch rugby on live TV without having to pay for an ultra-premium cable package. Get to watch both Southern and Northern hemisphere leagues and national team matches! Woot! Woot! The downside to that is that I'm also stuck watch that other European sport, Cricket, if I can't change the channel fast enough.
Weather is starting to warm up, but still stays below 90 so far. Don't think I have but maybe 4 or so more weeks of that. Which is another good reason to take my time off in cooler climates.
Well, I should sign off and get ready for work tomorrow.
Miss everyone in the States and hope y'all are doin' fine!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Dust Bowl?
We had our first sand storm yesterday. When we headed into the plant in the morning, the visibility was probably only 50 yards or less. When I first looked out the windows I thought it was just really hazy out. No such luck, instead it was the air being full of really fine dust/sand. Once we got to the plant and went inside for the training class, the visibility in the building was nearly as bad as it was outside. We were able to look down one hallway and it looked just like a smoke filled bar or something. The building we were in is not sealed all that well and people have a tendency to leave doorways open which made it even worse. One of the South African's in the class was joking that any time he washed his car it would either rain (what little bit they get) or a sand storm would roll in. The wind blew all day and the visibility never got any better that whole day. Didn't have my camera on me at the time or I would have tried to take some pictures.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Various Pictures
OK, I see none of my picture captions came through. Will do my best to describe what the *bleep* that thing is in the pictures.
Restroom pic - Yes, that is a 'standard' Saudi toilet. Yes, it is a toilet seat situated directly on the floor. No, you don't actually sit on it. Yes, I'm glad my living quarters has an American sytle commode.
Me in a tent. This was taken at Khalil's family's tent at a 'campground' outside of Bahrain. The base carpet in the tent was HUGE and spotless (not sure how they managed that one!).
Picture of part of the 'campground' outside of Bahrain.
Group of co-workers out for dinner at the Brazilian place.
Random city art located around Bahrain.
Raymond in front of the mosque that was located near Ric's.
The mosque located near Ric's in Bahrain.
Ric's dinner in Bahrain. Good American style food.
All of my stuff for 9 months in Saudi.....is that all I really need? Why do I have a house if that is all I need?
Dad and I at the airport in Tri-cities. Two 'large' pieces of luggage, one 'carry on' size piece, one backpack and one brief case. Not a lot of volume for my stuff, but I got all the neccesities in there (XBox, personal laptop, video games...oh yeah and clothes.).
Restroom pic - Yes, that is a 'standard' Saudi toilet. Yes, it is a toilet seat situated directly on the floor. No, you don't actually sit on it. Yes, I'm glad my living quarters has an American sytle commode.
Me in a tent. This was taken at Khalil's family's tent at a 'campground' outside of Bahrain. The base carpet in the tent was HUGE and spotless (not sure how they managed that one!).
Picture of part of the 'campground' outside of Bahrain.
Group of co-workers out for dinner at the Brazilian place.
Random city art located around Bahrain.
Raymond in front of the mosque that was located near Ric's.
The mosque located near Ric's in Bahrain.
Ric's dinner in Bahrain. Good American style food.
All of my stuff for 9 months in Saudi.....is that all I really need? Why do I have a house if that is all I need?
Dad and I at the airport in Tri-cities. Two 'large' pieces of luggage, one 'carry on' size piece, one backpack and one brief case. Not a lot of volume for my stuff, but I got all the neccesities in there (XBox, personal laptop, video games...oh yeah and clothes.).
Second Week in Saudi
Worked 6 days the first week here (5 days of operator training and one day of misc.). A group of us (Raymond, Rodney, Paula (Rodney's wife), Jorge, Bill, Tom and I all went into Bahrain on our day off to eat out and do some shopping. Well, realy only three people shopped the rest of us just looked at all the neat stuff. We started off the day by leaving town at 7:45am and were able to make it across the dreaded causeway without incident (it has takn upwards of 8 hrs to make this trip in the past). Upon arrival in Bahrain, we ended up at Ric's (a dinner Rodney knew about) for breakfast. They had a very extensive menu and we all ended up eating an American style breakfast. I had the blueberry pancakes and actual pork sausage patties and it was all very good. Next stop was to the shopping 'center', which in this case was an area of town with a bunch of shops all squeezed in together in the same area. Unfortunately, since it was Friday (Saudi's Sunday) all of the shops were closed until 4pm for prayer. We all piled back into the vehicles and headed to the "Gold City", sort of an indoor mall dedicated to jewerly and such. Can't count the number of times I had to say "I don't wear a watch" or "I don't need a watch" to the guys behind the counters as we walked around looking at stuff. I don't wear watches and when I do, I hate paying $20 for an authentic one in the States, let alone paying $100+ for a knockoff. Looked at lots of neat jewerly and such and was rather grateful (for once) that I'm not currently seeing someone, cause it would have been easy to spend a lot of money on several pieces for her if I was! After looking around the stores we meet up with Khailil for an early dinner at a great Brazilian resturant. For those who haven't been to one, it is heaven on earth for anyone on an Atkin's diet. They basically keep bring out skewers of different meats (chicken sausage, pork sausage, chicken rolls, chicken wings, beef brisket, lamp, steak, etc.) until you say no more. Me being me, I was the last one to finally say no and I didn't pass up on ANY of the meats as they came out!
I have added some pics from the trip to Bahrain and hope they come through OK.
I have added some pics from the trip to Bahrain and hope they come through OK.
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