Two steps forward, five steps back

Aug 29, 2008 13:02

In my last post, I didn't realize that I wasn't taking enough steps backwards. As the 4 day long jobs that were running when we first got onboard the vessel, we started seeing something in our data quality control checks that just blew my mind literally out of the water! In the first several sequences, one of the streamers of the ten we are recording from had issues with electrical crossfeed contaminating the data. The observers noted the crossfeed in their logs, the qc guys checked some of them (though their check left a lot to be desired!) and the first processing step by my opposite crew was supposedly checked. Yet on the first two sequences what was noted as "light crossfeed" actually was obliterating the data for that streamer for virtually every shot! How it got past everyone until we got on the boat just floors me!  Because of how long the lines are and the amount of data recorded, the qc guys onboard now are having to check all of the early sequences on a catch as catch can basis (since we are still shooting monstrous lines) and are finding the same problems. On the first two sequences, the data for that streamer is no considered Not To Be Processed, with still more data to check. When I first found out that I was coming back to this boat, I was kind of excited about it, but now I am beginning to wish I had never heard of the project we are on now!

There was also another problem that I am still trying to work out a solution for where (again an early sequence) where there was a large block of data in the middle of a streamer that was edited. In general that would not be a problem, but one of the processing steps we are doing on this project involves a transform (mathematical procedure that I won't make your eyes bleed to read all of the esoteric details about) which does not get along at all well with edges. So what had been good data on the edge of what was edited ends up getting hammered by the transform "edge effects."  I have worked out a way to limit the problem via interpolation across the bad data channels. The problem is that though I have worked out the solution in theory, I have yet to get a successful implementation of the processing module to interpolate the data after two days of fighting with it!  Of course, when I emailed the onshore processing supervisor asking his advice, I got an out of office reply saying he won't be back until Tuesday.

I had received an email from him earlier in the week as well asking if one of the crew would be available to do an extended handover of about a week in the office in Oslo. One of the guys will be getting married the Friday after crew change, the other has plans, though might be available for a few days and I have an appointment with my cardiologist on the 22 September. So I told him that I could possible do an extended handover for the Thursday and Friday after crew change or could conceivably come to Oslo the week after that, but have the third part of my leadership course in Houston that first full week of October. (Interestingly enough, the supervisor is also busy that week with a technology review workshop in London that I was "invited" to, but had to decline because of the conflict with the other course.)  Anyway, the supervisor was only sounding us out about it and was not going to be too concerned if we had plans. However, his boss emailed my boss asking for one of us to do so without waiting to get word from the processing supervisor about whether we were available or not.  Anyway, it not seems that I may be going to London instead for a day or two after crew change to load some test data onto the system at the MegaCenter (long story about that, but made short, Oslo which is the main headquarters is only a satellite center for data processing where the data is actually processed remotely in London from Oslo). That plan may not happen though, as only time will tell.

One the health note (since I had mentioned the appointment with the cardio-sadist) the medic onboard has some new "health monitoring" equipment that she wants to play with and it is actually part of the company's latest HSE level guidelines that she do so. On Friday, I let her do a baseline on me which showed mostly what I expected. My weight was a bit higher than I would like (though less than the last time I was on this boat), my Body Mass Index was 26 which indicates I am slightly overweight, my visceral fat and percent total body fat also indicated that I am slightly overweight, but not getting overly excited about value. The things which were surprising were that my oxygen saturation in my blood was at 97% which was better than I thought it would be, my resting metabolism was 1411 kcal/day which was better than I would have thought and the real surprise was that my blood cholesterol rating on her machine was below the detection limits which is a very good thing, especially considering the heart blockage issues right after the last time I was on this boat.

Some more work related irritating emails came yesterday as well. Right before I left home, there was this big rush to get my Brazilian visa all sorted out for my next trip. The rush was such that I did not get my passport back until the Friday before I left home.  As it turns out, yesterday I got an email telling me that the consulate in Houston had issued the wrong visa in my passport. Once upon a time, the office had applied to get me a visa to go to Brazil to work on the Ramform Valiant. However, that plan was changed after the visa was approved and I was the scheduled to go to the Ramform Sovereign. Anyway, even though the visa for the Valiant was approved and then cancelled and the visa for the Sovereign was approved, the consulate put the visa associated to the Valiant in my passport. So now it seems I may have to go with an agent of the visa service to the Brazilian consulate in Houston to get it sorted out.  I emailed the travel/visa coordinator in Houston about my plan to be in Houston for the course 7 - 9 October and suggested that maybe I should come a couple of days early to get it sorted out.  She said it may not be necessary and it may be that all I have to do is send my passport and the visa service can get it sorted.

In yet another visa related cockup:  Alba was a last minute fill in to help out the qc department on the Sovereign this trip since the company didn't really have any place for her to go. The Sovereign is currently about to finish up a job in the UK sector of the North Sea and they didn't bother to check that Alba still had a visa for the UK. As it turns out, her UK visa expired in July, so she had to dance through some hoops to try and get an appointment at the UK embassy in Bogata, Colombia so that she could get a business visa. Lo and behold in the best Murphy's Law sort of way, she can't get her UK visa until 2 September. The Sovereign will finish its current project on the 8, so it now is a case of "What's the point?" and we have to find something else for Alba for what is left of this trip.

And still more stuff on visas...apparently the Atlantic Explorer (the boat that had the fire while I was on the Ocean Explorer last trip) is possibly going to the Gulf of Mexico in December. My processing team is considered an alternate to the "regular" crew for the Atlantic, so I get to help make sure that my non-American (Alba from Colombia and Alastair from the UK) have B1-OCS visas for the US. So something else for Alba. (When I first worked with her, she made a comment that everyone likes Colombians, they can go anywhere.  That comment has since come back to haunt her on so many occasions. First the two screw ups with getting her a schengen visa for the European Union, then problems with India, a second problem with schengen visa, the UK SNAFU and now she gets to sing and dance with the process in the US.)  Oh well all of this extra stuff I have to help deal with as a team leader is why I get the extra 10% pay increase for the days I am on the vessel.

work, visas, health

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