Working in the oil industry

Working in the oil industry:
1. We work in weird shifts ... Like prostitutes.
2. They pay you to make the client happy ... Like prostitutes.
3. The client pays a lot of money, but your employer keeps almost every penny ... Like prostitutes.
4. You are rewarded for fulfilling the client's dreams ... Like prostitutes.
5. Your friends fall apart and you end up hanging out with people in the same profession as you ... Like prostitutes.
6. When you have to meet the client you always have to be perfectly groomed ... Like prostitutes.
7. But when you go back home it seems like you are coming back from hell ... Like prostitutes.
8. The client always wants to pay less but expects incredible things from you ... Like prostitutes.
9. When people ask you about your job, you have difficulties to explain it ... Like prostitutes.
10. Everyday when you wake up, you say: I'M NOT GOING TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE DOING THIS SH * T"... Like prostitutes.The only difference is the prostitutes can take Christmas and New Year's Eve off and they actually DO make a lot of Money!!!

6 string magic

The older you get, the more rules they are going to try and get you to follow. You just gotta keep on livin', man. L-I-V-I-N.

Wooderson: That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.

Where was I for my high school reunion?? The Facebook craze has spawned some memories of high school... For better or for worse I didn't stay close to many people or friends from high school once I started university, and now that Facebook is here I'm sort of regretting it. It's not that I think everyone else from high school is still wicked good friends with each other, but I think most kept in better touch than I ever did. Did they? Who knows I guess. Anyways, Facebook is here and it's bringing people together who may have never had the opportunity to re-unite, especially after missing their 10 year high school reunions. So, cheers.

May Long

Looks like it "one of those" long weekends in Alberta... rain and chilly temperatures. Sorry to hear that Calgarians, I hope some of you got out and had some fun anyways... I'd kill for a game of horseshoes right now. Seasoned Spitz by a camp fire under a tarp, socks steaming while draped over wet shoes. Gripping a softball bat with near frozen fingers, wearing a glove inside my baseball glove. In honor of my Canadian heritage I am sporting a coldsore at the moment. F that.

The sickness

Been a rough week. Last Tuesday something was up, so after work I went and grabbed some cold/flu drugs from the pharmacy and went to bed right after work. But, that was futile. I ended up spending 36 hours in bed and other places in my room with a case of Egyptitus. Apparently at the start of summer the "bugs" in the water and food are stronger, so even if you've been here awhile you have to get re-acquainted with them. So I did, and so did 3 or 4 co-workers as well as some of the Egyptian staff at the hotel. But there is some high powered pills called Antinal to battle them, and now I'm basically over it...

Bend it like Ahmed

Had a good weekend... Thursday after work me and Cowboy Ricky joined talked a couple of co-workers, Hossam and Hany, into taking us to a football match in Suez. We met them across the street from the Stadium and parked the cars. Hany brought his dad, who has a few connections around Suez due to him being the manager of the local motor vehicles department. So we found the nearest security guard at the gate, told him how it was going to be, then got escorted in. We took our seats in the general seated stadium, in the midst of the Egyptian throng looking for a key win in the viciously competitive national professional league. It was a good game, the visitors went up 1-0, but Suez tied it up before half-time. But Suez couldn't fend of the attack and went down 2-1 in the second half. But the crowd got behind the team and encouraged their players to press for more. After a sustained attack in the opposing end for a solid 3 minutes the visitors cleared the ball... one of their forwards looked like he was going to collect a loose ball but it was blatantly offside. But the linesmen missed it, didn't call offside, which left the opposing player to go in alone and score an insurance marker... all of this with under 5 minutes left to play. Needless to say the Suez team was hysterical, only to be out-done by their fans. Bottles, garbage, cans, and rocks rained down onto the field, aimed in the general direction of the overwhelmed linesman.

At this point our hosts (Hossam & Hany) encouraged us to leave a little early and beat the crowd... We concurred.

It was fun though... lots of chanting and cheering... the players all get down and pray after they score or make a good save, which is funny the first time you see it...

Thursday evening consisted of the weekly poker game with the boys. Oh yeah, and Friday I shot a 90 in a golf tournament. How do you go from shooting a 78 to a 90? I guess I'll keep practicing.

First rotation out is in sight

The flights are almost booked, the plan is in the works.... my first rotation out of Egypt will be July 4-23 to Colombia for Frumby's wedding and related digressions. That puts me "in-country", as they say in the biz, for 19.5 weeks. Nothing against Egypt but it will be a welcome break from the various nuances that we deal with over here... Mind you, my trip out will be to another non-English speaking country where things may also not run as smoothly as in a place like, say, Calgary. Whenever I get to live full-time in a Western 1st world country again I don't know what I'll do with myself... being able to drink beer out of a glass I know has seen soap and hot water, buy something with a price tag and know I'm not 'taking one u.t.a.', drive a car where road rules are published and not optional, and not have to a time-zone calculation before I make a phone call only to realize that it's 3am at the destination.

Anyway... Cairo to Bucaramanga for a week via Paris and Bogota on the 4th, then to Cartagena on the 10th for a week, then to Bogota for a week before returning to Cairo on the 22/23rd. Another small bonus: surf in Cartagena.

Action in the back section

Anything out of the ordinary here...?? Hmm, nothing too major. The talent is scarce and hard to come by... most of the tourists that roll through are Egyptian, married, or old. There's not really a lot of action around here, so young people don't frequent our resort... Last week a group of about 80 Czech pharmaceutical salespeople rolled through though. This basically shut down all thought and normal activity during the week amongst the co-workers as well as the staff at the resort (also mostly male). Reason being is that pharmaceutical companies sell drugs to doctors, who are mostly male, so they hire hot young women aged 22-35. Needless to say there were a couple late nights trying to communicate with them, but no one really had that much success. I remembered a few Czech words from my trip to Prague, but not enough... mostly I repeated "prosim", which is please, a lot. There was one drunken dance session on Thursday, but no fruit were borne.

The summer has started here though... there seems to be a few more activities around the resort than usual, so we'll what happens... I'm told that the villas in the resort compound, which are owned by families in Cairo mostly, will start to pick up throughout the summer as well. So there will be more people around, I'm just not sure what that translates into for "action".

Spit-Bomb-Scratch-Break.