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01/02/05 |
     
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November 2004 11/1/2004 A couple quick stories 11/9/2004 - It's been a long time...Back to Chinook? 11/10/2004 Can't sleep, must write 11/12/2004 McDonald's and Phu's story 11/21/2004 Yellowcard's Back Home 11/26/2004 My sleepless week 11/30/2004 A funny family story, and Mehdi's new use of slang. A couple quick tid-bits: A really funny situation developed when I saw a good friend prepare for Ramadan by lightly washing his extremities. I asked why he had to do this, and he started telling me that it wasn't always necessary, only when you have gotten unclean since last prayer. "What makes one unclean?" I asked. He told me if you go to the bathroom, and then had trouble phrasing something else. All I could make out was "have wind". He saw that I was confused, and said, "You know, make wind," and waved around his butt....."Oh! Fart!" It was a pretty funny scene witnessing someone learn the English word for "make wind", though if I didn't have the exact phrase, make wind seems to get the point across. It was also Halloween last night, and I had a great time aggravating all the little kids in my neighborhood. I had to walk home from the grocery store, so I passed a bunch, and would always run up to them and say, "Trick or Treat!" And demand some candy. They asked what I was supposed to be (I had on no costume), and I responded -- "I'm an American dangit!" They didn't see the humor in that, so I offered them some groceries. They crowded around, because after all, I had several bags and looked like I could be carrying a lot of candy. I couldn't convince one kid to take any of my 1% milk, raisons, or peanut butter despite how hard I tried. But man was it fun seeing the perplexed/slightly disappointed/curious faces when I offered them some canned corn...We did trade some Halloween jokes back and forth though. Here's one that I liked, "What do you get when a werewolf is chewing on a bone? A three-legged dog." Also, a Russian found this link, and everyone in the class thing this person looks just like me, and I do admit there is a strong resemblance. He's in some movie called notebook. Man, it's been too long since I've updated this. Sorry for all you guys who check just to get continually disappointed...but wait, that's what happens after I update.... Well election day was fun. International relations among the students was at an all time low when they found out that 5 of the 6 Americans who came over here voted for Bush :). But it was fun all the same to get the updates every hour and the whole school talking about it. We also talked about Michael Moore's movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. Many of the students here have seen it and like it a lot, according to a friend from Yemen is it very popular. Several of the students actually believed that it was "banned" from America -- that it's illegal to buy or watch it here. I still have no clue where they heard that, but explained that it was one of the most successful documentaries ever in America. I finished my 3rd log this weekend -- started working at 10:00 pm Saturday night and finished up around 1:00 PM Sunday. I think that I did a lot better on this log than my previous ones -- but then again, I could only go one direction :) I'll get the results back Friday of how I did. This was the first log with live radioactive sources, which is kind of exciting. If you follow the procedures, and keep your exposure time low, there's really no danger at all, but if you took one of the two sources and put it in your pants pocket, approximately 50% of the people who did for 20 mins would die, and virtually everyone who did that for 30 mins would die. In other news, this is "interpretation week" where I'm in class (as opposed to in the shop or field where you work on tools or log the wells) learning how to interpret the logs that we produce. It's supposed to be the easy week of the school, and so far it's living up to that reputation. Yesterday, we got done at 4:50 pm! Pretty early for here. This extra time has allowed me to work out more consistently, and get some chores done around my flat. You know, like washing clothes, which is no small task with these stupid Scottish washers. I have now successfully turned everything to blue that once was white. See examples in my pics. I spared you all by not showing a close up of my blue underwear... Oh! I almost forgot the most important thing that I learned this week: I *might* not be going back to Williston, ND when I return to the states. We have a satellite shop located in Chinook, Montana, around 400 miles away in North-Central Montana. From my coworkers back in Williston I here that they might move me out there. I still don't know what to think about it, to read about my 10 day experience in Chinook, read 8/31/04 in aug2004.htm through 9/12/04 in sep2004.htm. If it's true, and they do ask me to move out there, I'd probably live in Havre, Mt which boasts around 10,000 people as Montana's 8th largest city about 18 miles away. Anyway, it's all in the air so I'm not thinking about it too much right now. Well, not that much has happened besides that. I'm in the middle of a long stretch with no days off, eat soup 5 days a week, and work way too much. But this weekend we have 2 days off in a row and we're taking a tour of the Highlands. I'll defiantly update you guys with some pics from that trip. Take it easy, don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy...
So it's just after midnight, and this is the first time that I'm having trouble sleeping since being in Scotland. My sleeping irregularities used to be very bad during my undergrad days, and for the last couple of years it has continually gotten better, so that now I often go a full week or two between "episodes". What to write, what to write? Later tonight after work several of us are going on a "ghost tour". I'm looking forward to this because on the trans-atlantic flight I read about such tours in the travel magazine and they're supposed to be pretty fun. It's a walking tour where guides give you histories of the ghost stories of Edinburgh and the real-life events that these stories are based upon. Heck, maybe tomorrow night I'll have trouble sleeping too! In other news, my coworker Armando, the one who literally talks and acts like a pirate from Brazil, is getting married! Congrats Armando! Here's a list of common phrases that I've had to explain to "non-Americans" this past week, along with their comments to me after I spoke them: "Make a mountain out of a molehill" (what is a molehill?), "Sharp as a bowling ball" (but a bowling ball isn't sharp, Boone), "You gotta just keep pressing on" (pressing on what?). Maria, from Spain, has to literally put her hand to her mouth to keep from laughing when she hears me say, "I'm trying to think" when I'm trying to remember or figure something out. She at first asked, "Is that hard for you Boone?" with a smile. It's ok, because when she gets mad at someone she calls them "mister" rather than their name, but not the way that Americans say "mister", but more like that lady from Happy Gilmore, "meester meester!". That cracks me up. I wish I had more to say, but for the moment I do not, unless I start talking about the Brothers Karamzov again, which in combination with Crime and Punishment, is causing Dostoevsky to rival Tolkien as my favorite and/or talented author. But I'll leave you all with something a coworker sent me. I don't agree with everything in this poem, but there is a lot of truth in it: When the earth was created, the power above Gave each man a job to work and love. He made doctors and lawyers and plumbers and then, He made carpenters, singers and confidence men. And when each had a job to work as he should, The Lord looked them all over and saw it was good.
He then sat down and rest for a day, When a horrible roar came to his way. The Lord looked down and his eyes opened wide, For a motley collections of burns stood outside.
"Oh! What they can want?" the Creator asked then "Help us" they cried out, "find a job for us men, We have no profession," they said in dismay, "And even the jails have turned us away".
Said the Lord, "I've seen many things without worth, But here I find gathered the scum of the earth". The Lord was perplexed, and then he was man, For all the jobs, there were none to be had!
Than he spoke aloud in a deep, angry tone, "Forever and ever you mongrels shall roam. You shall freeze in the summer and sweat when it's cold, You shall work on equipment that's dirty and old,
You shall crawl under raised floors and there cables lay, You shall called out at midnight and work through the day, You shall work on all holidays and not make your worth, You shall be blamed for all downtime that occur on the earth,
You shall watch all the glory go to software and sales, You shall be blamed by them both if the system should fail, You shall be paid nothing but sorrow and tears, You shall ever be cursed and called FIELD ENGINEERS!"
Everytime I write a date now I have to force myself to write the month/day/year format as opposed to how I do it for work: day/month/year. I finally became an official American tourist yesterday I'm ashamed to admit. Yes, I come to Scotland, land that produced the first English Novel, place of the oldest liquor license in the world, home of Golf, motherland of the inventor of chloroform, geology, william wallace, and countless other cultural knick-knacks -- and I ate at a McDonalds. Now why would I do that? I don't even eat there back in the states? Does it have something to do with the comorodary that I now share with millions of other Americans visiting exotic places? Maybe. Would it have something to do with the fact that the golden Arches of comfort were whispering to my deep feelings of insecurity, "Come to me, I will present food items that you can identify with, greesey food that will make you feel good, items that won't scare you the way that the word "haggis" does, the level of service and food quality that you expect for your 3 pounds, 50 pence, besides, I'm foreign too, after all, my name is Scottish..." Probably. Could it possibly have anything at all to do with the fact that this is the first place in Scotland that I saw free refills? ABSOLUTELY. Phu Thein Den Tong. Ok, let me give you guys a little background. First of all, he is a coworker from Vietnam -- the one that makes weird noises at random times (see 10/24/2004 in October). You could make a sitcom based on this guy -- he's an Asian version of Kramer. One thing that he says when you ask him a question, or look surprised at what he said is, "I am SEEREOZZZ!" (A weird accent saying, I am serious!) He says it with such force you can't help but laugh. Anyway, I returned from the Asda (English Wal-Mart) last night and my phone rang. It was Phu! He's never called me at home, so I was surprised. I'll go to conversation format now: Phu: "Boone! How you doing man?" Boone: "Pretty good Phu." Phu: What you doing Boone? Phu: Sit down and relax. I have funny story FOR YOU! Boone: Ok Phu, what's your story? Phu: In University, dormitory very bad, very bad. Eight people one room, you know what I mean? Boone: heheheh Phu: WHAT YOU LAUGHING AT!? Boone: It's funny! Phu: Ok, good. So it is very messy. I was studying one night, and a rat came in our room! He came in with 4 legs, but left with only three legs, you understand me? Boone: hahah, yeah, I understand. Phu: WELL WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPEN? Boone: (scared to answer my true thoughts about what happens to wayward rats who enter vietnamese dormatories)...uhhh, I don't know Phu! Phu: He left our room covering his nose with one of his legs! Boone: THAT'S THE FUNNIEST THING I EVER HEARD! HAHAHAHAHHAHA Phu: Ok then! See you in the morning! And that was it. It was so surreal, so random, so Phu, that I needed to share it with you all. I have a little device that can record your voice. If I figure it out, I'm going to record him saying, "I am SEEREOZZZ" so you all can see how funny it is. In other news, I just finished a 4 hour radiation test. It was open book, just a lot of very specific detailed questions. I also passed my first log (I got the grade back today). So now I'm officially passing the class, which is good. This is the first of two complete weekends that we get off, and tomorrow we're going on a tour of the Highlands. So hopefully I'll update the pics page with some good stuff sometime next week.
As I sit here listening to Yellowcard's song, "Back Home" I feel that the song can describe my situation. It's ironically (or not so ironically) about a guy that leaves his home -- which happens to be jacksonville -- for bigger and better things in California. But he still missed his home a lot. I just got done taking a walk around my neighborhood here in Scotland. Though I work way too much, I still love my job, and realize that it can take me all over the world if I want it to. Hmmm...I wander if there's a relation between the timing of my difficult tasks with my job and my "reflective" moods. See, I have the hardest "log" of my training that starts at 2:00 am. It's 10:30 am now and I still have a good 4-5 hours more of preparation. Yes, now that I think about it, I believe that there is a strong relationship between thinking about back home and times when your job gets really hard. I mean, that's just human nature, right? Anyway, my job tonight consists of lots of preparation, most of which I already have done. At 2:00 am I'm going to "log" the well (drop my tools down the well on wireline cable) 3 times in a row with various different tools. I have 12 hours to do that. Then I have to "finalize" the data -- process it, make it look clean and pretty, fix any problems with it, and print it out with lots of paperwork. I have 9 hours to do that. So I need to have everything done 21 hours after I begin, which I guess means 11:00 PM tomorrow. This is the 2nd longest log that we have at our training school. (The longest is 27 hours.) But what makes this one hard is that several times during your job, the instructors slyly come over and "mess up your job" to test your troubleshooting. For example, they sneak up, and maybe unplug some random cables. Or they might just cut power to your operation to see if you've been backing up well. The trick here is too look at this as a challenge -- sort of a game -- because you can either fix the problem or not, nothing more you can do. But if you panic, you get stressed, stop enjoying what you're doing, and start messing up bigtime which adversely affects your grade and overall experience. But that is much easier said than done when you've been up for 30 hours straight doing things that you've either never done before, or done just a couple of times. But onto a more enjoyable subject: I visited the highlands last weekend! It was AWESOME. I have so many stories and pictures, but I haven't had time to update my blog yet. I wil defiantly do that later this week, after my turn at logging is done and things slow down a bit. To all my friends that I've been trying to keep in touch with (eric, tim, bethany, jenny, jax-crew, chris, John, etc) I'm sorry I've been unable recently to talk very much. Well, I gotta go, enough delay already. Peace out fellas!
Ok, I know that I've been promising these "hilarious" stories from my trip to the highlands, and yet have not delivered. I apologize, and am afraid to say that you guys should get used to disappointment :(. I just haven't had the time recently. I made a quick "time sheet" for me since last Thursday, below are the results: 11/18/2004 - Thursday, Prepare for my log all day 6 hours sleep 11/19/2004 - Friday, Operate from 7:00 am till 8:00 pm, no lunch/breakfast, 7 hours sleep 11/20/2004 - Prepare for log, various meetings, 8 hours sleep 11/21/2004 - Saturday. The torment begins. Wake up at 8:00 am despite my most sincere attempts to sleep in. Prepare all day for log. Star log at 3:00 am Sunday without rest. 11/22/2004 - Sunday. Log from 3:00 am till 5:00 pm. Finalize from 5:00 pm till 3:00 am Monday. 11/23/2004 - Monday. Turn in my package around 4:00 am. By the time I get home, it's just after 8:00 am. Still haven't slept since Thursday night. For only the 3rd time in my life I've stayed up 48 hours straight. Slept for around 14 hours off and on all day. 11/24/2004 - Tuesday. Operate for 12 more hours, get only 5 hours of sleep that night. 11/25/2004 - Wed. Operate one final time. Get only 5 hours so to be back the next morning for clean up. So it's been a sleepless week. In more exciting news, this week I also got my mouse that I won off of UK Ebay with a winning bid of 1 pence. Shipping was 9.99. So on to the "office gossip". So my good friend Phu, the crazy vietnam guy, needed a high score on this log to not get fired. So I volunteered to help him as his operator. He was so excited when we started to log, because he brought a cd in the logger unit. "What you got there Phu?" I asked. It was an original copy of the Backstreet Boys. He woke me up about 30 mins later -- apparently I knocked myself out I was laughing so hard. Well he got high enough to stay on for the next job. He really is a great engineer, but his English suffers, so he has a very hard time here in school. Also, we were just notified a few minutes ago, that my roommate Awadh, was released today. He's the first person to be fired from here -- so now we're down to 19. Usually the pass rate by this point is around 75%, we're now at 95%, so our class is unusually strong. What's kinda surprising is that Awadh had one of the highest grades in the class. He was let go because of an accident and how he handled it. We have a speed limit on the winch of 4000 ft/hr. He wanted his operator to go faster. She wouldn't, so he told her to step aside and pushed it up to 8,000 ft/hr. The instructors found out about this, which they obviously didn't like, nor did they like his way of handling the situation when they confronted him about it. So he's gone. I'm all alone now in my flat. No more late night conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What can you do? Well now I only have 3.5 weeks left of what is the weed-out process for this job. After this, I'll be returning to either North Dakota or Montana (still don't know for sure yet, but probably North Dakota) where I'll be doing jobs under supervision till Feb. After which I'll "break out", and then the fun starts: a two-week on, one week off rotating schedule. That'll be sweet... I've also updated my pictures to include some of the highlands. Later my people!
Ok, I don't have a lot of time this morning, but *really* need to update this with two very funny stories. First of all, Mehdi's new slang. Now let me warn you, this story "borderline cuss's". Now I don't cuss myself, and that's both habitually and intentional from my part. I'm not even sure that I would repeat this story in person, but since it's only "borderline", I'm writing it and not saying it, and it's really funny, I'll proceed. But please note -- I don't condone cussing in any way! Ok, so Mehdi is this very nice, well spoken, well groomed Iranian. He's a perfect gentlemen with great manners. Also, because of the embargo status of Iran, very unfamiliar with American culture and customs. In other words, someone perfect for corrupting :) So the Canadians and Americans have taken turns trying to improve Mehdi's vocabulary with North American slang. The Canadians already have him saying "beer" for both singular and plural, such as: "Did you guys have about 4 or 5 beer last night?" Well some American, I believe Jeremy from Louisiana, has taught Mehdi say, "Do you want to throw down?" It has a very humorous effect because not only is Mehdi someone that would never fight, he comes up to you with a big smile and asks you if you want to "throw down" in a similar manner as "would you like a piece of gum?" So several other students have been working on his "edge" when saying this phrase. Well, now he asks people at the most random times (e.g. right after you say "good morning to him"), "WANT TO THROW DOWN B-OTCH???" He still smiles as wide as can be, and there is not hint of anger in his eyes, but he says it loudly and raises his hands and shoulders. It's pretty funny. Ok, now onto a funny story about my hilarious family: Dad: There were so many homeless people over here the other
night. Also, while I have you attention, it looks like for my 2nd and final weekend off during these three months, I'll be going with some other guys to London. That should be fun. We'll only be there a day and a half, but I really want to see Trafalgar Square. Why? Because it has been on *every car-racing video game that I have ever played in my life*. So that will be really cool to see. Later guys!
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This site was last updated 11/30/04
