Narratio

Another spring rolls around and I'm still squat in my construction office like a poisonous toad in an old tree. I'm at 4.5 years on this project with maybe another 2 years in sight. Which is weird considering we were supposed to have 'oil in' back in 2005, two years before I started. And that the majority of oil & gas projects are rolled up and done in 3 years. So the Kashagan project continues. We've entered commissioning so people are wandering around poking buttons and wondering where all ...

Originally Posted by death tribble

I blame Narratio for the riot at the zoo. I told you that dressing up as Lions in front of the Gorilla enclosure and thensinging 'Way Hey we're the Monkees !' was a bad idea.

One of the little joys I have in life is swopping 'blames' with death tribble based upon song titlwes and appropriaet lines. This one left me spoilt for choices though.

Straight off the head, I could either continue with the Monkees theme, probably via a mention of Porpoise. Or I could run with the ...

Got back on shift at the end of October, came down with a really bad cold, now in week #3 and it refuses to budge. I've been working on and off in Kazakhstan since 1996 and every 3 to 4 months I come down with a bad chest infection, clogged sinuses, swollen tonsils, headaches, bricelosis coughs, the whole shmear. I think I'm allergic to this country, or at least the western half.

I finally saw my 7 year olds first TV commercial appearance when I was at home in October. No closeups, ...

Mid September. The rains are appearing, the wind has turned direction and now comes from the North. Autumn is early this year which usually means it'll be a cold winter. Not looking forward to that.

Today is my Electrical Safety Exam preparation. Every 3 years we have to sit in front of the Kaakh regulatory body and prove that we electrical engineering types know enough about our jobs to not kill either us or others. It's partly useful and partly rubbish. Useful as it nudges the brain ...

Well, another set of Ladies Day's and Nauryz have been and gone. Ladies day is one of those Soviet era customs that will not go away. Every single female on the site gets given bunches of flowers and small pressies then takes a half day off. Now I'm all in favour of this, as it makes the ladies in question smile a lot.

I spent 11 years working in Saudi where all our admins and paper pushers were Indian men called Naidu or Ravi. This past decade I've been in the ex-USSR where ...