Still Alive
India bloody sucked the life out of me. I was bored, but still couldn't must the energy for an LJ post... then again, there wasn't much to post about. I last wrote back in April, after I had been in India 6 months. Well, I didn't end up leaving until mid-September, for a grand total of 11 months there. I expect that UOP won't consider sending me back there. Actually, of the 3 managers in FOS, 2 left, to be replaced by 3 others. We've had quite an increase in workload and people, so it's justified. My new immediate boss is quite reasonable, and is actually looking to keep me happy, which is quite refreshing. And he's Scottish, which is just fun.
Ai-Lun did visit me in Panipat for the last 6 weeks... it was her summer break. Such a trooper. We did get to see some of the stuff she hadn't seen the first time, such as the Golden Temple in Amritsar. It was quite nice, but already my 3rd trip there, and it was quite hot in June.
By the end of the assignment we had quite a large crew. srwalshon was still there, along with around 14 other folks. Some were real cool, some were a bit irritating, but with a crew that big, you can generally avoid the annoying ones. We even had one guy who took the role of "social coordinator" and we had an Indian-themed party. As much as we all hated the place, it was still nice to dress up in saris (for the ladies) and kurta pajamas (for the men). See my user pic for this entry. I'll post proper pictures "soon"... like in 2-3 weeks. Then again, I'm currently working night shifts, so I should have more free time with less distractions than usual.
Now why was I let out in mid-September when my visa didn't expire until the end of the month? Imran's wedding, of course! It was a marvelous event, and I was (and still am) insanely happy for Imran & Sharmin. Ai-Lun visited me in the US for the 2 weeks centered around the wedding, so she wore the sari she bought in India, and I wore the same kurta pajama I wore at the aforementioned party. Even my mom wore a couple saris. The ceremony was definitely interesting, and I got my fix of Bollywood music at the various functions (henna, pithi, and reception).
While Ai-Lun was in the states, we visited Niagara Falls for 5 days before the wedding, St. Louis (for one of her cousins) right after the wedding, and only ended up with 4 days to tour Chicago. Very rush-rush. But still very nice.
After being in Chicago, I was sent to Haifa, Israel, in the north. This is when UOP was repopulating a job that was evacuated when the war with Lebanon started. The cease-fire seemed to be holding, so I was quite excited to go. There wasn't much left to do there, so 2 weeks of work, and then 1 week of vacation, which allowed me to spend Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) at the family banquet. We have quite a bit of family living in Israel. It was great to meet many of them, as well as see those I had met previously. During my vacation, I didn't do much sight-seeing, mostly because I had been to Israel twice before, so I've seen all of the major sites. I spent 1 day on the beach in Tel Aviv, 2 days with my cousins in Meitar, just south of the border with the west bank, and an afternoon in the Old City in Jerusalem, mostly to go to the Western Wall and leave my prayers.
Then back to Chicago for another week where I weaseled my way into getting assigned to a job in QingDao, China (famous for TsingTao beer. Same word, different romanization). I also got UOP to fly me to Beijing 2 weeks before the assignment. I dropped off my crap and flew straight to Taipei to spend 10 days with Ai-Lun. All good.
So, now I'm in QingDao. I was also able to get FOS to get me working as a process advisor, instead of doing instrumentation work like I've been doing for the past 3.5 years. I got sick of doing IA work, especially in India. For what we do, there are only about 5 major instruments we have to worry about. Many of the others are either ancillary or analyzers supplied. For the analyzers, I basically just have to be sure they're installed. It's another person's responsibility to make sure they work (either the customer, contractor, or more likely the analyzer vendor rep.). But for those 5 major instrument classes, there are a lot of them. Covering the entire complex, I had on order of 300-400 each of flow meters, control valves, and transmitters. Even more thermocouples. So it's just a matter of checking the same things on each of these instruments. Just mind-numbing. And having to work with such difficult people as we found there, it was enough.
Well, that's all the news for now. I'll try to update a little more often than 6 months.
Ai-Lun did visit me in Panipat for the last 6 weeks... it was her summer break. Such a trooper. We did get to see some of the stuff she hadn't seen the first time, such as the Golden Temple in Amritsar. It was quite nice, but already my 3rd trip there, and it was quite hot in June.
By the end of the assignment we had quite a large crew. srwalshon was still there, along with around 14 other folks. Some were real cool, some were a bit irritating, but with a crew that big, you can generally avoid the annoying ones. We even had one guy who took the role of "social coordinator" and we had an Indian-themed party. As much as we all hated the place, it was still nice to dress up in saris (for the ladies) and kurta pajamas (for the men). See my user pic for this entry. I'll post proper pictures "soon"... like in 2-3 weeks. Then again, I'm currently working night shifts, so I should have more free time with less distractions than usual.
Now why was I let out in mid-September when my visa didn't expire until the end of the month? Imran's wedding, of course! It was a marvelous event, and I was (and still am) insanely happy for Imran & Sharmin. Ai-Lun visited me in the US for the 2 weeks centered around the wedding, so she wore the sari she bought in India, and I wore the same kurta pajama I wore at the aforementioned party. Even my mom wore a couple saris. The ceremony was definitely interesting, and I got my fix of Bollywood music at the various functions (henna, pithi, and reception).
While Ai-Lun was in the states, we visited Niagara Falls for 5 days before the wedding, St. Louis (for one of her cousins) right after the wedding, and only ended up with 4 days to tour Chicago. Very rush-rush. But still very nice.
After being in Chicago, I was sent to Haifa, Israel, in the north. This is when UOP was repopulating a job that was evacuated when the war with Lebanon started. The cease-fire seemed to be holding, so I was quite excited to go. There wasn't much left to do there, so 2 weeks of work, and then 1 week of vacation, which allowed me to spend Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) at the family banquet. We have quite a bit of family living in Israel. It was great to meet many of them, as well as see those I had met previously. During my vacation, I didn't do much sight-seeing, mostly because I had been to Israel twice before, so I've seen all of the major sites. I spent 1 day on the beach in Tel Aviv, 2 days with my cousins in Meitar, just south of the border with the west bank, and an afternoon in the Old City in Jerusalem, mostly to go to the Western Wall and leave my prayers.
Then back to Chicago for another week where I weaseled my way into getting assigned to a job in QingDao, China (famous for TsingTao beer. Same word, different romanization). I also got UOP to fly me to Beijing 2 weeks before the assignment. I dropped off my crap and flew straight to Taipei to spend 10 days with Ai-Lun. All good.
So, now I'm in QingDao. I was also able to get FOS to get me working as a process advisor, instead of doing instrumentation work like I've been doing for the past 3.5 years. I got sick of doing IA work, especially in India. For what we do, there are only about 5 major instruments we have to worry about. Many of the others are either ancillary or analyzers supplied. For the analyzers, I basically just have to be sure they're installed. It's another person's responsibility to make sure they work (either the customer, contractor, or more likely the analyzer vendor rep.). But for those 5 major instrument classes, there are a lot of them. Covering the entire complex, I had on order of 300-400 each of flow meters, control valves, and transmitters. Even more thermocouples. So it's just a matter of checking the same things on each of these instruments. Just mind-numbing. And having to work with such difficult people as we found there, it was enough.
Well, that's all the news for now. I'll try to update a little more often than 6 months.