Where did the last 7 months go?

It's been one hell of a journey. Summary: 2 weeks of orientation in Kuala Lumpur, 40 days of "pre-school" in Venezuela followed by 3 months of technical training ("school") in Egypt.

Ok, this is the plan - I will make this post as informative as possible. That means some text and some pics. The whole idea is to make a nice record of what I have been up to. I shall try and make the pics as dial-up friendly as possible. So, here goes. First pic is from Malaysia. This was the scariest experience of my life.

I underwent basic survival training. We were put in a helicopter simulator and "crashed" into the water. First exercise - the helicopter lands straight into the water and u are completely under but upright. Have to hold ur breath while u remember where the nearest window is, grab it, release ur seat belt and get out. Second excercise - everything is the same except the helicopter flips. So when it stops under water, u r hanging upside down with water pushing down ur nose. Total disorientation and u still have to rememeber the nearest window, unbuckle and get out. Third excercise - same as the second except the windows are actually closed. So, first find the nearest window, push it with all ur might, open it...become upright and get the hell out. It's all a lot of fun, especially if u don't know swimming! Note - I HAVE to learn swimmimg. Drowning ain't fun.

Moving on. Landed in Venezuela in the first week of March. Made the stupid blunder of not having any ready cash except Indian Rupees and Malaysian Ringitts. Assumed that my debit/credit cards would work in Venez. Afterall they work in India! I was asked to shell out 8$ or 16000 Bolivars (love their currency, I am a millionaire now!) as airport tax. Cash, no cards accepted. They directed me to an ATM, which gave me some gibberish in Espanol (aha, no Ingles Senor, anywhere in Venez). Asked a lady what it meant, and was promptly informed it was broken. I was stuck. She saw my pained expression and just gave me 8$, with the condition that I help someone else in the future! God bless her.

"Pre-school" was interesting. I was not allowed to be in the office any time between 8 am and 6 pm. My main task was to help operators in doing various maintenance tasks. Additionally, I would accompany engineers to rig to see/learn what I will be dealing with in the future. Here's an offshore rig. All metal, imposing structures in the middle of nowhere. We don't have any fixed work hours. All depends on the client. One of the trips to the rig was from 12 midnight till 6pm. Managed to snap a sunrise pic. This is a huge lake - Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela's main oil reserve. Ok, lets move on to Egypt.

I was sent to Egypt for 3-month technical training ("School"). These 3 months just flew by. Our basic job is going to oil wells and sending tools downhole to assess it's nature (is there oil? where is it? how much?, etc. ). Our tools fall into 3 broad categories - resistivity tools, sonic tools and radiation tools. So, as engineers we get two operators and some tools to take to the site and carry out a log. In school, we had several practical logging sessions. Lemme give one example. First, here's what our tools look like. So, in one of our logging sessions we had four shifts - engineer, operator, winchman and maintenance. Engineer shift was 21 hrs long - no breaks. All the other shifts were 12 hrs long. The latter three involve a lot of phyisical work. Between shifts we get 7 hrs to sleep. So, that is what we did for 6 days. It was fun. Time flies and u dont even know what day of the week it is. U sleep whenever u get a chance and wherever u can! Here's another pic. I am wearing the green helmet. Nice night-mode shot with long exposure settings. Everything, except Vivek and I, is in focus! This was taken during an operator shift.

Keerthi visited me in Egypt. She was there for 10 days. Seeing her after 4 months was great. We went to the pyramids. Here's a pic of us on a camel. The guy behind us is Mr. Prasanna, trying to confuse his camel with bollywood moves.

The best part of the training was the amazing people I met. All nut characters from different countries. 18 of us went through the training together and we all came out as very good friends. Hopefully, I will meet them again. Here's a pic celebrating the ETC-86 batch. Starting from top left - Frank (instructor, Canadian), Vivek (Indian), Zeinab (Egyptian, any guesses on which cartoon character she looks like?), Prasanna (Indian, South Indian superstar glasses), Handi (Indonesian), Eric (Mexican, Chamo no Hablo Espanol), AlMustafa (Iraqi, "Shrek"), Yogi (Indonesian, outright mad fellow, our official cameraman), Dimitri (Malaysian, he likes dosas though), Brian (American), Rusty (American, lone star ranger), Khaled (Kuwaiti, rides a Ducati), Tin (Burmese), Me, Dave (Aussie), Amr (Egyptian), Abu (Algerian), Dowlet (Turkmenistanian, rest of his name is unpronounceable), Iqbal (Indonesian), Fouzy (Egyptian, our friendly driver).

Well, that summarizes my last seven months. Currently I am in hometown Trivandrum, lazing. Visited my native village "Attachackal" (literarily, the name means "Sack of Millepedes"). Beautiful place. Nothing else comes close.

The Great Beginning

Some beginning this. No point in getting married if you have to say goodbye to wifey after ten days. No point in getting married if there's a good chance that you will be apart for 8 months. That's what this beginning is. Ack.

Jan 3rd was the big day. Now, she's gone back to Austin. I will stick around till Feb 14th and then fly to Kuala Lumpur. 2 weeks training at KL and then on to Venezuela.

I am curious.......