cytotoxins
I had a nasty surprise over the weekend. I found a blister beetle on my doorstep. I have heard about these things for years, but have never seen one, much less sitting at my door.They are a class of toxic insect that is found all over the world, some more toxic than others. The ones that are here are shaped like the one in the picture below, but the ones here have a brilliantly colored thorax, like a rainbow. I read that is a defense mechanism of some species. It announces to predators that 'I am very toxic if you try to eat me'. In this case, it is true. The body fluid is a cytotoxin which destroys the cells of whatever skin it gets on, like a flesh eating virus. Nasty bug.
Tomorrow is half-way. Woo-HOO! The end of last week and the weekend was pure hell. Problems on two offshore vessels (with comms). Lots of aggravation for me. I have help here during the week days, but nights and weekends I am by myself and on the hook. The production out there is over a half million barrels a day, so it gets a lot of attention.
I just don't need the stresses of the job, isolation, etc. it gets old after a while. February will mark a year and a half that I have been in this particular job. I am about 90% sure that I am going to give it up next fall. That will be 2yrs and enough. I like the extra money, but really don't like the stress and time away from home. I know that I am off six months of the year and that is very nice, but being here six months is getting to the point where it is not worth it.
Besides, it is easier for me to think in terms of two years, rather than three. I got woke up by the monitoring computer because it thought that the temperature got too cold (<50deg). That peak is over 11,000ft. and there is absolutely nothing that I can do about the temperature. To make things worse, I cannot change the set points. Very irritating. It got me up at 4am and I could not go back to sleep, so I got up, dressed and went down the hill to the office and made coffee. It sucks to start the day that early. It is hard for me to get to sleep in my cave at night, so being startled awake is not a good thing.
The only good thing about this place is that I have gotten to where I just cannot eat 90% of what they serve in the cafeteria. It is the same old crap, day by day. The caterers are Spanish and we cant get any competition here because of the graft in West Africa. In order to do business in these countries, small contractors like that pretty much have to be 'wired in' to some ministry official in the particular country. This one has figured out how to cover their tracks, pay the bribes and operate here. We still sign contracts with them , but we pay them about $40 per meal per ex-pat. Trust me, we don't get that in return food. It is the same old boiled shit every day. Always rice, potatoes, pasta, boiled corn, boiled carrots, boiled cabbage over and over and over. The meat changes from beef to lamb to chicken, fish, pork etc. But it usually is very gristly and chewy, or in the case of the chicken 'desert chicken'. It is so dry you can take a piece of the cooked meat and pick up spilled water with it like a Bounty towel. Just tasteless crap. They served 'beef stroganoff' last night. It looked ok, but the meat was tough and the sauce tasted like mustard. Just inedible. So, my point is that I am on a diet when I am here. I do go exercise pretty much every day, usually 60-75 minutes at a clip. I do weights, elliptical and treadmill. While I do it, I listen to my iPod on some Bose headphones. I find that 60s-70s guitar rock (Deep Purple, Lynard Skynard, Steve Miller etc) is excellent for maintaining a pace and forgetting about time. It just feels good.
I hope that I can keep that up when I return home. That is the real challenge. There are excellent restaurants in Houston, not to mention my own cooking. I starve for those things while I am here and when I return, it is like a kid in a candy shop. Good food, snacks, fast food, outdoor grilling/smoking, on and on and on. The contrast from West Africa to American culture is like going from Mars to the Earth. When you have been deprived for so long, it is almost inhumane to force yourself to not sample such bounty when it is only available for such a short time!
Tomorrow is half-way. Woo-HOO! The end of last week and the weekend was pure hell. Problems on two offshore vessels (with comms). Lots of aggravation for me. I have help here during the week days, but nights and weekends I am by myself and on the hook. The production out there is over a half million barrels a day, so it gets a lot of attention.
I just don't need the stresses of the job, isolation, etc. it gets old after a while. February will mark a year and a half that I have been in this particular job. I am about 90% sure that I am going to give it up next fall. That will be 2yrs and enough. I like the extra money, but really don't like the stress and time away from home. I know that I am off six months of the year and that is very nice, but being here six months is getting to the point where it is not worth it.
Besides, it is easier for me to think in terms of two years, rather than three. I got woke up by the monitoring computer because it thought that the temperature got too cold (<50deg). That peak is over 11,000ft. and there is absolutely nothing that I can do about the temperature. To make things worse, I cannot change the set points. Very irritating. It got me up at 4am and I could not go back to sleep, so I got up, dressed and went down the hill to the office and made coffee. It sucks to start the day that early. It is hard for me to get to sleep in my cave at night, so being startled awake is not a good thing.
The only good thing about this place is that I have gotten to where I just cannot eat 90% of what they serve in the cafeteria. It is the same old crap, day by day. The caterers are Spanish and we cant get any competition here because of the graft in West Africa. In order to do business in these countries, small contractors like that pretty much have to be 'wired in' to some ministry official in the particular country. This one has figured out how to cover their tracks, pay the bribes and operate here. We still sign contracts with them , but we pay them about $40 per meal per ex-pat. Trust me, we don't get that in return food. It is the same old boiled shit every day. Always rice, potatoes, pasta, boiled corn, boiled carrots, boiled cabbage over and over and over. The meat changes from beef to lamb to chicken, fish, pork etc. But it usually is very gristly and chewy, or in the case of the chicken 'desert chicken'. It is so dry you can take a piece of the cooked meat and pick up spilled water with it like a Bounty towel. Just tasteless crap. They served 'beef stroganoff' last night. It looked ok, but the meat was tough and the sauce tasted like mustard. Just inedible. So, my point is that I am on a diet when I am here. I do go exercise pretty much every day, usually 60-75 minutes at a clip. I do weights, elliptical and treadmill. While I do it, I listen to my iPod on some Bose headphones. I find that 60s-70s guitar rock (Deep Purple, Lynard Skynard, Steve Miller etc) is excellent for maintaining a pace and forgetting about time. It just feels good.
I hope that I can keep that up when I return home. That is the real challenge. There are excellent restaurants in Houston, not to mention my own cooking. I starve for those things while I am here and when I return, it is like a kid in a candy shop. Good food, snacks, fast food, outdoor grilling/smoking, on and on and on. The contrast from West Africa to American culture is like going from Mars to the Earth. When you have been deprived for so long, it is almost inhumane to force yourself to not sample such bounty when it is only available for such a short time!