"WARNING DEATH TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS"

I haven’t blogged for over a month now. Here is a brief update, I had been “home” from Angola for a month and enjoyed 2 weeks off where I stayed in Bakersfield and just hung out with Chelsea. Then on June 5^th, I had to go to Fort Worth, TX for some specialty tool training, then on to New Iberia, Louisiana for some off-shore experience, now I am in Saudi Arabia for some hands on experience with the said specialty tool.

My time in Fort Worth was awesome as usual. A friend and I call it traincation. Since field engineers are already used to working Long hours, it’s training from 8am-5pm, then vacation from 5pm-late. I happened to go while 4 friends from Canada where also there. Chelsea also had the opportunity to come visit me for about 5 days, which is awesome because once everything is “said and done” I will be gone from home for 2 months. The instructor at the training school was nice and funny. His name was Igwe, a guy from Nigeria. I have noticed a fun loving, positive attitude in all the 3 people I have met from Nigeria – I realize this is not enough to stereotype a whole population, but just saying…

After 2 flights and 7 hours I arrived in New Iberia, LA which is only ~400 miles from Dallas. I met with a friend that I worked with in Bakersfield and Canada for dinner that night at a great place called Walk-Ons. He has been with the company longer than I have, and knows far more. He is also going to start commuting to Norway, so naturally I am jealous! Ive come to except that the grass is always greener… The following day I went out on a inland water job (Which basically means a rig in the middle of a lake) with a country guy named George. He was really nice and helpful and had an obvious passion for snuff. When we went out on this job I saw that he had a roll (like how you buy scotch tape) of cans of snuff and within 40 hours they were gone!! I said, “Geez, how much do you dip?” he replied, “However much it takes.” LOL. We unfortunately had a really rough job, having to change out equipment, tool failures, etc. At one time the moral was beyond low because we had ~16 hours of lost time I tried to cheer him up by saying, “This job is going pretty bad, but at least it’s a good learning experience.” He didn’t appreciate my comedy. Once the job started going well, everyone’s attitude changed and before the end of our job we were all good friends. He even invited me to come hunting with him on one of my off-hitches. On the drive home we saw 3 alligators in the road. So all-in-all my trip to Louisiana was very stereotypical, but nice. I love the south.

After that job I went on to Helicopter Underwater Escape Survival Training (HUET). They try to get you ready for emergencies offshore where you end up in the water either from a helicopter crash or a rig evacuation. They had a simulator that dunked you into a 12 foot pool of water, flipped you upside down, and then you had to jettison the doors, and unbuckle, then escape to the surface. It was fun. Check out the video. 

On the last exercise where you jump of a 20’ ledge into deep water, I jumped off and the pressure of the water increased too fast for me and I busted an ear drum. It sucked/sucks. The next day I went to a doctor and he gave me some antibiotics and cleared me to fly to Saudi the following day.

On Sunday, July 3^rd I started my journey from Lafayette, LA to Dammam, Saudi Arabia. I had a 1 ½ hour layover in Atlanta, then a 4 hour layover in Amsterdam, then I flew on the smallest plane ever on KLM to Dammam. When I sat up straight, my legs literally didn’t fit between the seat. I had to put them at an angle or fold them up to fit. Thankfully, the flight was only 6 hours! I learned my lesson and will only do economy plus on KLM. Just another proof that Delta rules! Once I arrived at the airport, I had no problems getting through immigration or customs. However, on the top of the immigration card it said in big-bold-red letters DEATH TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS! Now, Im not a drug trafficker by any means, but just having that on the card made me uneasy. It was my, holy crap, this is the real deal moment.

All the way through immigration, customs, and even in the baggage claim everyone is very nice. When I exited I had to wait for ~1 hour for my transport to get to the airport, then got into a black suburban (ironic) and went on to my camp “Eurovillage”. This camp is where many oil companies live, and it is HUGE. There are about 400 houses with 4-6 rooms each. There is also a hotel, tennis, soccer, basketball, swimming pools, etc.. etc..

The next day I woke up at 5am, creepily followed someone to the restaurant (I didn’t know where it was) then boarded the bus to take us back into Dammam (45 mins) to work. I am now writing this blog and am getting ready to go out to a job in 20 minutes. I will update this blog soon and more often now that things are going on.