On my way to the North...

Today I am flying again back to UK, after a break of 7 months! I will see again Scotland's green land and be back on the platform, in the middle of the sea. :(
And do Medical Examination and some Safety training and also, more importantly Work!

Hopefully I will be back in 2 weeks...Hope there is!
See you next time, dear Madrid, dear Sam!
:p

Geology Rocks my Life !

MORE articles here !

I am daily taking care of her, of this beautiful Azalea..

Upside down

Miquel Barceló

Delayed

Stage 1: When I get a phone call saying that the plans have changed and I need to wait a bit more until I go to work. Sometimes, most of the times, it´s great! I get the chance to stay more at home, chill out(or study for my Master, like´s the case this time).
Today I don´t know really, for the moment I´m glad I´m not going to travel to UK (long and tiring travel), as I wake up with a terrible headache. I can stay in bed and drink a lot of green tea with lemon. :) But, I am conscious that if I will leave later, I´ll be back later...And I´ve kinda wanted to be back until the 15th of May, when it´s a major holiday in Madrid (St. Isidro).
Let´s see what happens these days..heheheh.

Types of oil drilling rigs

Getting down to the basics, there are several types of offshore oil rigs designed to work in a variety of locations, on certain kinds of wells, and differing environments: Jackups are moveable drilling structures with bottom supports. Jackups have open-truss or columnar legs in support of their main deck or hull area. Are one of my favorites, together with fixed platforms.



I used to work on this jack up for many months, I had a really awesome team, good food, good weather, good geologist to work with, was ok.

Platforms cannot be moved like Jackups. They are immobile. Platforms are typically made from steel or cement and are used to drill new development wells.


On this big platform I worked all year 2009 until my last day of work. It was massive, at first I was getting lost all the time, there were 170 stairs to climb from my room to the working unit...
was a good rig, good memories, nice people to work with, the food was not the best, but you could survive with it.

Semisubmersibles drilling units, or Floaters, stay afloat offshore on giant pontoons or hollow columns. When filled with water, the pontoons or columns will partially submerge the unit to a desired depth. Floaters are reliable in rough seas and most frequently used for drilling new wells. I hate them!!! THey are moving all the time, I am sea-sick and I throw up all the time at first, the medic has to give me pills especially for this reason, I remember not but the people was worth it. Some of them were misserable, the food was horrible, I got indigestion twice, ah that Artic 2...that no longer drills! Finally..!



THis semi was not bad, actually was barely moving, I liked it as I was working with terrible great persons. I felt very good there, though there were some guys from Malta who were stocking me all the time...it was frustrating!

Well, there are also the drilling ships. I have never been on one, but I have seen them.
I guess they are moving too...I couldn't like this.

Two choices so far..

As I already mentioned(or not), I started doing the old job(Logging Geologist) for an American Oil Services company, being based offshore North Sea.
Well, these days I got the call, on Monday I'll catch a flight from Madrid to Aberdeen (via London), do my medical examination and some safety trainings and then I might go to Harding Platform or fly back to ENgland, in Norwich and from there to a jack up, Noble Byron.
Harding Platform is situated some 320 km away from Aberdeen

Teaching

I thought writing about the 5 months in my life that I was an English Teacher.

Well, firstly it was not difficult to get the jobs;yes, plural, I worked for two academies, in the last month in the same time...
I have different views, opinions, favorite classes..
There were two very different methods of teaching, of seing the world, trying to know the persons one works for...Anyway, in one academy I disliked the fact that I was all the time doing compromises, not behaving the way I should, the directors had their stupid (in their mind it was an incredible approach) idea of spoiling students (pupils of 11 years old) by giving them good feed-back even if it was not the case, all contrary. Some students were just too spoiled, nasty talkers, nasty in attitude towards me (the teacher), towards other fellow peers..sometimes even getting to annoy me so much...(receiving insults is not nice at all)...There were days when they were incredible nicer, one boy asked me if I have any friends in Madrid (he knew I was a foreigner here), I told him I have very few, and he said: " No, you have more 13 friends, you have us" ! That was cute...but not enough.

Now, the situation was rather different at the other academy, where there were 4 groups of students, my favorite class was the adult class, only conversation, was a delight talking with these mature people (in English!), it was a friendly environment, and even students told me I was their best teacher up to that moment. That really touched me...

In the end, I had to leave as I am coming back to the oil industry..for now.

lambando estarei ao lembrar que esta amor por um dia um istante foi rei

Me encanta Lambada! Desde siempre....

Whoopi and the Sisters

I remeber watching over and over Sister Act 1+2! how great is this movie! how funny is Whoopi Goldberg!

When ?

I wonder when Iĺl go back to the rigs?
WIth all this volcano situation, now it's difficult to make any predictions.

One of my collegues who lives in Scotland was brought up by boat to the rig. This is horrible (for me), as I would definitely prefer the helicopter...and also, choppers were canceled, the tick ash cloud it's too dense even for them to fly...

I hope my company will not close my contract in the future, due to this current situation....

"El más terrible de los sentimientos es el sentimiento de tener la esperanza perdida." (Lorca)

Eruptions in the sky

It all started two days ago, where this volcan in the Southern Island erupted and this thing had important effect, probably more than expected.
Clouds of the volcanic ash, which stretched as far as Britain and Scandinavia, caused international travel chaos. Today I listened to the news, and it gets more serious, more airports closed: France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Russia...let's see how it develops this.

Aviation authorities have taken the highly unusual measure because tiny particles of rock, glass, and sand in the volcanic ash cloud could potentially jam jet engines. Volcanic dust can get into the minute parts of an aircraft engine and cause all sorts of damage. Like a car driving through a sandstorm, it's going to clog up the engine's internal parts.



Photography source: www.nationalgeographic.com

Bilbao

Cat imi place Amy!

"...Rock chick of the century.."

Field trip

Bushisms

LOL
Probably the most stupid US President so far...I guess every child´s dream of becoming president is no longer impossible, as this dude made it, although I have to add that he had plenty of relations in this filthy bussiness..

On Economy

• "[B]y the way, we rank 10th amongst the industrialized world in broadband technology and its availability. That's not good enough for America. Tenth is 10 spots too low as far as I'm concerned." -—Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 26, 2004

• "The march to war affected the people's confidence. It's hard to make investment. See, if you're a small business owner or a large business owner and you're thinking about investing, you've got to be optimistic when you invest. Except when you're marching to war, it's not a very optimistic thought, is it? In other words, it's the opposite of optimistic when you're thinking you're going to war." -—Springfield, Missouri, Feb. 9, 2004

• "You're working hard to put food on your family."

On Education

• "We expect the states to show us whether or not we're achieving simple objectives—like literacy, literacy in math, the ability to read and write." -—on federal education requirements, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005

• "[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling." -—Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004

• "Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?"

On Health Care

• "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country." -—Sept. 6, 2004, Poplar Bluff, Mo.

• "My pro-life position is I believe there's life. It's not necessarily based in religion. I think there's a life there, therefore the notion of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness." --Quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 23, 2001

On Human Rights

• "More Muslims have died at the hands of killers than—I say more Muslims—a lot of Muslims have died—I don't know the exact count—at Istanbul. Look at these different places around the world where there's been tremendous death and destruction because killers kill." -—Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2004

On Iraq

• "But Iraq has—have got people there that are willing to kill, and they're hard-nosed killers. And we will work with the Iraqis to secure their future." --Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005

• "I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein." -—Washington, D.C., May 25, 2004

• "You're free. And freedom is beautiful. And, you know, it'll take time to restore chaos and order—order out of chaos. But we will." -—Washington, D.C., April 13, 2003

On National Security and War on Terror

• "It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way." -—Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005

• "I was proud the other day when both Republicans and Democrats stood with me in the Rose Garden to announce their support for a clear statement of purpose: you disarm, or we will." -—Speaking about Saddam Hussein, Manchester, N.H., Oct. 5, 2002

Purple / Pink