Christmas Eve in Paris

About an hour before I was to leave for the airport in Dubai, I looked an my itinerary and realized that I was in for a grind to get to Brasil. 7.5 hrs to Paris, 6.5 hrs stuck in Paris airport, 12 hrs to Rio. To make it worse, it was all on economy class. Normally, this wouldn't have been so daunting, but I have been so spoiled with business class in the last few years.

The first leg went well. The plane couldn't have been 1/4 full (I'm not sure how they made any money on that flight). I watched a few movies and slept a bit. I really got into my new book "Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw". It's a comical social commentary on the diversity of Canada and the quirkiness of Canadians.

I arrived in Paris around 5pm on Christmas Eve. To get into the spirit, I listened to all 22 Christmas songs on my Ipod and did my best to waste a few hours. By the time I got onto the plane, I had already had a full day, but still had a ways to go. The last flight was probably the worst I've ever been on. Absolutely packed plane, baby in the seat next to me, rude stewardesses. I even had 1/2 a can of Coke dumped on me. However, I put on my best Canadian smile on and made the best of it.

My Christmas Eve celebration in Paris

In the end, I was in transit for 30hrs from when I left my hotel in Dubai until I walked through the final immigration point in Rio. An exhausting ordeal, but incredibly worthwhile as I now find myself in Cidade Maravilhosa (the wonderful city) for the next 3.5 weeks.

Dune Bashing in Dubai

As part of my ridiculous travel plans to get to Brasil, I found myself in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) for a full two days just before Christmas. After getting reacquainted with civilization on my first night, I decided to take a desert tour on my second night. The tour was mainly aimed at families and included several activities to appeal to kids (camel rides, sandboarding), but the draw for me was the dune bashing. This is a sport whereby they take a perfectly good 4WD vehicle and hurl it up and down the large sand dunes outside of Dubai. I was grouped with 5 Toyota executives from Japan. They were quite comical as they would unleash a frenzied string of Japanese shouting as we seemed to be going out of control followed by calmly saying "Good...Good" in a very sinister way.

These pictures don't really capture the ungodly angles and size of the dunes but they do show the forgiving nature of the sand. It is incredibly fine and provides a silky ride. It is somewhat comparable to snowmobiling. To get traction in the sand, they simply deflate their tires to grip the sand better. One vehicle got stuck, but was quickly tugged out by another vehicle.

Dubai's other natural resource (although, not nearly as valuable)

Happy Holidays

Christmas is quickly approaching and I can't even remember what it's like to celebrate a traditional Christmas. This will mark the third year in a row that I will celebrate Christmas outside Canada. In fact, the last two years I have completely avoided any Christmas cheer as I left Canada for work at the very beginning of December. The only semblance of Christmas I've seen this year was the dancing Santa that Costco was prematurely selling in August.

I haven't been overly fond of winter since I was a kid, but Christmas just isn't the same without snow, ski-doo boots and staying warm by the fireplace. Now, I know you won't believe me for a second, but I will be very envious of all of you eating turkey and jelly salads for a brief moment on Dec 25 while I am sitting on the beach in Brasil. The thought will quickly pass, but I guarantee that you will be in my thoughts. That reminds me, I must forward my flight itinerary to jolly old St. Nick so he knows where to find me.

From Woodstock, Snoopy and myself, have an enjoyable holiday season. Don't eat too much, drive safely on those winter roads and have an egg nog for me (I love that stuff...I don't know why they don't sell it year-round).

From the Tower

These pictures were taken from the top of the communications tower overlooking the site.

This picture is of the Camp/Admin end of the site. The cabins are the white units on the far left. The kitchen/mess hall is the larger unit on the corner by the accommodations. The lower yellow building is the administration office (where my office is). The large yellow building on the left is the maintenance shop and the one on the right is the warehouse.






This is a picture of the production facility that is being constructed. The powerhouse is in the bottom right corner.










A queasy picture looking straight down off the tower.










Funny thing. The photographer, Darren, has roots in my hometown. In fact, his grandmother used to cut my hair when I was a kid. The further you go, the smaller the world gets.

The weather is here...

The biggest question I get about working over here is about the weather. December-January is the coldest time of the year and the weather is noticeably cooler. Early morning, just prior to sunrise (5:30am), can get down to the single digits (5-10 degrees). It is cool enough to wear a jacket. Fortunately, the sun here is very hot and by noon, the temperature rises to the high 20s. Luckily, the sun ALWAYS shines. There is no such thing as a cloudy day here. It sure beats the short days in Canada right now.

Addition to my ipod family

Check out what my awesome wife gave me for my birthday (the little one on the right). An ipod Shuffle. 130 songs, 12 hr battery life, all in the size of a pack of gum. Amazing.

Here in the desert

I am nearing the end of my shift and I've been here barely 2 weeks. Granted, it is only a 3 week stint so I can hardly even call it a shift. It's been busy though. A few days after I got in, there was a senior management contingent out here. I was tasked with putting on a presentation for them (four layers of management above my head). It went well enough.

I've been drafted by the ERT (Emergency Response team). It's been interesting. We are learning a lot about first aid, rescue techniques, and fire fighting (that is me on the hose). I always did want to be a firefighter (maybe it was cowboy...I can't remember).
We had a very near miss out here the other day. One of our guys got electrocuted with 2400 volts. It is an absolute miracle that he is alive. Once the charge hit him, his muscles tightened and he couldn't pull off the source. Thankfully, a trained electrician was working a few feet away and had the presence of mind to pull him off by yanking on his coveralls, undoubtedly saving his life. A real wake-up call considering it was carelessness that caused the accident. Don't worry about me though, the highest voltage I deal with is my calculator (and I think it is solar-powered).

As this is my second home, everything around here seems normal. However, I want to try to portray what life is like here for. the problem is just that I am not sure what you are all curious about. Having my camera handy, I can show and explain almost anything. All you have to do is let me know. I'll start with the picture below. This is my locker

Here are some various pictures from around here.

The rig on the left is replacing a downhole pump. Each time we do that, it costs about $150K. We've had 4 this month already. A run of bad luck.

A Quick Recap

Before I begin my real-time blogging, I'm going to go back a month and a half to give a recap of my busy month of November. I left Yemen on Oct 26 after an exhausting 42 day shift. Rather than go straight home and relax, I flew directly to Toronto for 8 days to take an SAP course (SAP is the financial software package that we use here). Thankfully, Melissa flew to Toronto for the weekend and we had a great time.

Our time in Toronto was uneventful, but very relaxing. One funny thing happened. Melissa and I went to an Indian buffet on Queen Street. Since I was on a per diem, I decided to go all out and get a mango juice. I am not sure the chain of events, but shortly after I got the drink, at least 80% was in my lap. That marks the first time I've ever been in a restaurant bathroom in my underwear, washing my pants in the sink and drying them with the hand dryer. Thankfully, I don't have a whole lot of shame. Other than that, the course was good and I made it home just in time for my parent's annual visit. At the same time, my in-laws were in town for a few days. Made or a hectic week.

**Random Thought: Toronto was still in the midst of its colourful Autumn foliage when I was there. I didn't realize that the leaves hung on the trees longer out east. It was nice because I've missed the last two falls out west the last 2 years.**

Once we kicked everyone out, we went down to the Crowsnest Pass to take possession of our new house (pictured). We were pleasantly surprised to find the place had much more charm than we even remembered when we purchased it. We spent 3 nights there sleeping on the floor and soaking up the area. It is amazingly beautiful and we are looking forward to spending much more time there beginning in the spring.

The other highlight of my November was my annual trip to the Grey Cup. This is my fourth Grey Cup in a row and fifth overall. Every year, I meet up with my GC traveling partner, Jeff Banow, and we have the most ridiculous weekend of the year. This year we were joined by my brother Dean and another friend, Chris, from Minnesota. Highlights included getting free tickets to a Vancouver Canuck hockey game and getting down to the locker room area to chat with some players (entirely due to Jeff's uncanny ability to get backstage anywhere, anytime). The other highlight was the Spirit of Edmonton Breakfast. A buffet of greasy breakfast coupled with unlimited 'Sluice Juice' at 8am makes for some good memories. I don't remember all of the details, but apparently I lead the Conga line. Good times. Usually, Grey Cup weekend is about the parties and the game is anticlimactic. Not this year. One of the most exciting football games I've ever seen.

Keeping with the incredibly hectic month that was, I got home just in time to get on another plane to head back to work. In all honesty, I usually look forward to coming back to work just to get some rest. The trip back was uneventful and 40hrs after leaving the house in Calgary, I was back at my home here in the desert. Home sweet home.

Scenes from the Spirit of Edmonton breakfast at Grey Cup.

Festivities shown take place well before noon. Makes for a long day when you giv'er that early in the day.

Begin blog...

Never in a million years did I ever think that I would be introduced to something so cutting edge as blogging by my father-in-law, Jim. However, here I am starting my own blog, a few months after jimeh's blog hit the information super roadway (Check Jim's out at http://www.pocketmail.com/journal and do a search for "Jimeh").

The idea behind a blog is to publish anecdotes, experiences, random thoughts, photos, etc. to a central site on the web where anyone interested can check to see "What's up with Marty". I haven't given it much thought as to what I am going to post, but I figure I owe it to my family and friends to give you all some idea as to what is happening in my life since I am not the easiest guy to track down.

Anyways, I hope that I can stick with this and keep you all somewhat updated.

...end blog.