And so it ends

As I reach the last few hours of my time in Yemen, I have been reflecting on my experience over the past 4 years. Getting the opportunity to work in this country and culture and to work with all of you, and others who have passed through this place, has been a pleasure. Professionally, I have developed a very unique set of skills that will serve me for the remainder of my career. Personally, I take away memories, friendships and a real sense of accomplishment.

I would like to thank my rotational partner, Frank MacDonald. So often I have seen rotational partnerships become barely functional and even detrimental to the goals of the company. Seeing this has made me very appreciative of my relationship with Frank. Any success I have had is shared directly with Frank.

I would like to thank the nationals who have worked directly for Frank and I the past few years. I am specifically referring to Dhulfaqar Rashid, Riyadh Washali, Ahmed Bashrahil, Saeed Al-Hareizy and Jalal Al-Khader. In my career, I have never seen such a hard working, ambitious and dedicated group of guys. Routinely, they go above and beyond the job requirements without complaint. Any success that Frank and I have had is directly attributable to them.

To the nationals, I would like to thank you for welcoming me as a guest in your fascinating country. I hope that I have given back as much as this country has given me.

To the expats, I would like to thank you for the good times we have shared over the years.

Farewell and best wishes to all of you in the future.

Photos of the Fortnight 1.6

Pictures this time are from my trip to Nexen's Marine Terminal last week. This facility is where all of our produced oil is transported to and loaded onto oil tankers for shipping to eastern markets. The facility is critical to the Yemen economy due to the country's heavy reliance on oil exports. Being so high profile, the facility has been targeted twice in the last 6 years (2002 and 2006) by terrorist groups. I was actually in Yemen when the second attack happened.

I was lucky enough to have the chance to visit the Terminal for some meetings. I did get a chance to take the terrorist tour of the place with a guy who was at the site during both of the attacks. Here are some pictures.

This is an oil spill response boat. Luckily it has never been used in anything other than exercises.

Tug boats used for position supertankers and to haul distribution hoses to the tankers.

Storage tanks. Each of these holds 500,000 barrels. There is another that holds a million.

A French tanker was actually loading while I was there. This one holds a million barrels. This facility can handle tankers up to twice that size.

Haircut...real job

For those who haven't heard, I've officially resigned from my job in Yemen. In two weeks, I will be returning to Canada permanently amidst very mixed emotions. I have accepted a new job very near our residence in the Crowsnest Pass. It not only provides a sharp career advancement opportunity, but it means that I get to stay at home and be a full time dad to our expected little one (don't know if it is a boy or girl yet, can't wait to find out in 6 weeks) .

I will breakdown the decision when things slow down enough for me to try to figure out how it happened myself.

Oh, and I got a haircut.

Photos of the Fortnight 1.5

Stuck in Yemen with nothing overly inspiring to take a picture of, I'm going describe the photos that make up the banner at the top of this page. At the time I made this banner, I think the only photos I had access to were from our cross-continent trip we took in the summer of 2006.

This picture was taken in the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York very near Lake Placid. Beautiful part of the world.

This picture was taken at a campground very near the Hopewell Rocks in New Brunswick. Oddly, my back is to the Bay of Fundy in this picture. Instead, the lighting over this slough was more appealing.

With the "what's up w/marty?" sign, it is clear to see that some photo alterations were made. The original picture was taken in Gatineau park just north of Ottawa. The sign was added.

This picture was taken about 10 minutes into the trip in the Crowsnest Pass. The perspective is westward into the Pass. The picture fails to show the massive Frank Slide on both sides of the highway.

Fill Me In 1.4

Best work related story?
When I was in the first or second year into my career, I volunteered with my employer to be part of the Campus recruiting team. This included strategizing about how to attract University students and new graduates to the company I was working for. A big part of this was attending University Career days to promote the company.

Well, I was asked to attend a Career day at the University of Saskatchewan, my alma mater. This was my very first business trip of any kind and I was feeling pretty important. I flew into Saskatoon and took a cab to the Sheraton down by the river (and I never take cabs, but I had an expense account all of the sudden). I checked in, made myself comfortable, went out for a nice meal with friends and went to bed at a reasonable hour as I had an early morning the next day.

The next day, I was awoken nice and early with a wake up call from the front desk. As I had plenty of time to spare, I thought it would be a smart idea to order breakfast from room service to give myself energy for the day. I still remember that I thought eggs benedict and some freshly squeezed orange juice would do the trick.

When the breakfast arrived, I took my time and enjoyed it. When I was finished, I thought it would be courteous of me to put the tray in the hallway so that the cleaning staff could return it to the kitchen. I took the tray out into the hallway, bent over to put it down and distinctly heard the door click behind me.

Normally, this is really no big deal, except that I am standing in the hallway in my freaking underwear. Big shot, eh?

What to do? I looked around quickly for a phone of some sort to call down to the front desk. No luck. I walked quickly down the hall to find someone from the cleaning staff, but it was too early in the day.

I realized that my only choice was to bite the bullet and head down to the front desk to get another key. I'll never forget going to the desk in my underwear, asking for a key and having the receptionist ask me if I had any identification! I can't imagine the look on my face.

This is the day that I lost my ability to be embarrassed.

Last item purchased on the internet?
University transcript.

Any magazine subscriptions?
National Geographic, Wired, Esquire, Outside.

What is your guilty indulgence?
Email. It seams that I can't go 1/2 a day without checking my email which is weird because no one ever emails me.

Perfect winter activity?
Cross country skiing.

New Joel Plaskett Fan

I've mentioned it a few times that I am a big Joel Plaskett fan. On Sunday, I was lucky enough to see him for the first time in concert in Calgary at the Juno Songwriter's Circle concert along with 6 other up and coming Canadian artists.

I haven't been to a concert in a while. I think I forgot what I was missing out on. The show was really enjoyable.

The best part was when Melissa told me the baby kicked furiously during Plaskett's songs and less so for the others. It seems we share the same taste in music.