Thursday, March 17, 2011

Home at Last!!!

Goodness, my life feels like it has been going 100 miles per hour! We finished up our project early, drove back to Edmonton, then I flew to Jacksonville to surprise Chelsea and my family. I got to Jacksonville on Friday at 5pm and met up with my family at Mario's Italian restaurant. It was awesome and great to see everyone! The next day was the Gate River run - I ended up running with Chelsea, Becca, and my mom! It was really fun and awesome to do things together. All the while, I had been talking with people from Iraq and Canada figuring out the details of my transfer, then I got hit from left field - I was no longer going to Iraq!! (Mom - applaud here).

I was called by the segment manager for Angola, asking me if I would consider working in Cabinda. A country that is surrounded by the Congo. I knew a few friends there, and they say the camp is incredible. Supposedly there is a 9 hole golf course, and much more. Not to mention they put an offer on the table I couldn't refuse. So I am now going to Angola.

Chelsea and I stayed in Florida for Sunday and Monday and relaxed. It was good just to spend time with her and go to the beach and sit by the pool. On Tuesday we flew home. Chelsea's mom picked us up from the airport then we went to REI to get traveling backpacks. I will try to upload a picture of our backpacks soon. We finally got home and the dogs went crazy. They were very excited (and so was I) and there was much jumping. We went out with Ash and Ryan to dinner at Urrichios! Woohoo, I love that place! I got the same thing I always get, pescadora. (seafood spaghetti) The next day was really busy with haircuts, Dr. appointments, many  vaccinations, and much more. Apparently, getting the Visa to go to Angola is really hard and is super complex. The craziest thing about it is, once the consulate here in the US issues the Visa I have 72 hours to enter the country or else the visa is void!!! Craziness!!!

Chelsea has a marathon this weekend and one of my best friends, Anthony, is going to be around too! Its going to be a good weekend! Icing on the cake - were going to New Zealand on Sunday night!!! =) We'll definitely keep the blog updated with our travels and lands that we visit! In the next month we plan on going to New Zealand and Australia - if anyone has been or has any advise, please comment!

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Awesome News!

I found out three awesome things in the last 2 days! First, I officially got paid... finally, even though it is in Canadian dollars. Second, the Canadian dollar is soaring above the US dollar, meaning that on top of the fantastic pay I will get 3-4% bonus for the conversion! Third, I found out that I will only have to do this staying out of the country thing for one year, but it will apply to next year also.

The last five days since I have blogged have been pretty boring. Were noticing things starting to slow down and they will start releasing rigs soon. There are three type of jobs here: short, medium, and long. The majority of the jobs that they are requesting are short, so it only takes us ~4-5 hours of work, then were back home enjoying movies, tv shows, and books. Whats more? We only do one job every two or three days!

The Senior Vice President of this company came up to visit the camp and congratulate everyone for doing a good job, safely, etc, etc, yada, yada, yada. After his little speach, he talked with all of us from my company (about 8 of us) and specifically said that he heard we were doing an outstanding job and that next year we would be back. He was really down to earth and about 40. I am amazed at how many executives of major companies are relatively young... I would think that they would all be older men.

Im not sure if I mentioned it before, but I had a hell of a time getting paid. Since my company is so large, its people are like any other asset in the computer. Well glitch after glitch, and problems with Iraq HR etc, a month later I finally got paid. But it had to be into a Canadian bank account - which adds more headaches. The only good thing is that the CAD is trading higher than the USD, 1.0266 higher today! Now I have to figure out how to get a fairly large amount of currency from CAD to USD. Anyone have any advice?

I finished off "Delivering Happiness" from the maker of Zappos talking about the Zappos culture and his opinions on happiness; and "Decision Points", George Bush Jr. I know there are lots of haters out there, but the guy is pretty interesting and its cool to see his decision making process. They were both pretty good and now Im looking for more books to read. I would take advice on this too. =)