Far South of I-10

I used to read the NYtimes every morning, then flit over to CNN or maybe the local paper to see what was happening in the world. Now, after being steadily disgusted with various newspapers and tvnews, my only remaining morning ritual reads are James Lileks and Dilbert. (ok, so I'm not well informed, shoot me.) Today, Lileks' had the funniest morning bleat I've seen in a while. He always seems to capture small activities with the perfect verbage, today, he was really spot on when he bumbed into a childhood cartoon memory, I mean we're in Proust's cookie territory: The memory had been sitting in a combination of chemicals and sparky-juice somewhere in my head, and it reactivated with surprising force. It wasn’t so much the recognition of the picture as the feeling of familiarity, as if I’d just read the book the other day. The sensation collapses on itself almost immediately, and you can feel the present rush in, almost as if it’s too dangerous to keep this up.

One of my favorite business blogs is "Big Picture, Small Office" It's almost always wise and funny, and I almost always learn something when I visit there. He recently posted his "12 rules" when someone requested that he do so after he mentioned 4 of them in a post. Pretty good advice: .......................................................... To each, I gave a parting gift: twelve things to remember when put to the test. Atop the list: The Twelve Rules, neatly scribed and laminated, begin with what I believe is the fundamental basis for success in a senior management position and that is to remember what got you there in the first place: - Be not simply good. Be good for something. - Do not wish to be anything but what you are and try to be that perfectly. -Never poke a tiger with a short stick - Have more than you show. Speak less than you know. - Do not choose to be wrong for the sake of being different. - Think like a person of action. Ac

I finally made it home this week, I got my chance to ride in the storm tossed seas, feel the fresh cool sea breeze, and puke my guts out until I strained so hard I reached that runny-nose weeping eyes point you normally don't reach until after commenting "I've never drunk this much tequila before". I knew it was going to be a rough ride when the crane operator looked visibly nervous about being able to set us down safely on the boat in the turbulant seas. He reviewed the procedure about three times, which is about 3 times more than anyone had ever discussed the procedure for getting onto a boat via personnel basket before. We were unloaded safely on the boat as the deck rolled sharply from side to side, and it seemed pretty rough, about a "7" on the "o-shit" scale. The captain didn't make me feel any better when he announced, "I hope y'all don't have dates tonight, it's too rough to go fast, we'll take about 12 hours to ge

Here's a picture of the waves of a very rough gulf of mexico. It doesn't look very impressive, because I'm up on the rig taking pictures from 100' above the water. The waves are about 10-15' high, which isn't bad if you're 100' up, but if you're on a boat can be pretty miserable. Strangely enough, now is the rough season for the gulf, during hurricane season, except when there are hurricanes passing through, the gulf of mexico could be a big duck pond for all the wave action. Right now, winter winds blow, waves crash, all under a blue sky, and I sit waiting, unable to work until a boat can cross the storm tossed waters. Until I work I can't go home. Prisoner of the waves.

I've walked in circles quite a bit in my life. Offshore, one of the few ways to exercise (unless you're on a nice rig with a gym) is to walk on the helipad. Since the helipad is usually only 50' across, you're walking in a fairly tight circle, around and around. I was walking last night, and I wondered how many hours I've walked in circles on heliports, and could this explain my difficulty in walking more than 50' in a straight line after drinking 10 beers, or could there be another mysterious explanation. I guessed that since 1991 I've worked about 1500 days offshore (another 500 or so on land rigs), and I probably walked about 2/3's of those days, for an average time of an hour each time. That makes 1000 hours, or round it down to 40 days! Fuck. Oh well, my circular walk was spoiled by that thought. A wasted youth. On a cheerier note the sunset was a fiery cheeseball falling into the ocean in the west, and on the other side of the rig, two freighte

The New York times has an article today about LA governor Blanco saying she won't allow the next lease sale if LA doesn't get more federal help. NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 7 — Seeking more money from Washington for hurricane relief, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco entered uncharted legal territory with a threat on Monday to block oil and gas leases worth hundreds of millions to the federal treasury unless the state received its "fair share" of the revenues. "It's time to play hardball, as I believe that's the only game Washington understands," Ms. Blanco said Monday night as she opened the second special legislative session she has called since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.... Back in September last year I posted a similar idea, when I read that people were saying maybe it wasn't worth it to spend the money to rebuild Louisiana. Rebuilding New Orleans should be part of a comprehensive plan to restore the surrounding barrier islands and the delta, even

Sharon over at Domestic engineer pointed out in a post today that life is never boring, there is always something to do or watch that is interesting and something to write about. At first I thought to leap the self-pitying, "but I'm working offshore, and I'm bored" But then again she's right, people are pretty interesting if you watch them. It's always interesting offshore how people fall into stereotypes, mostly because almost all the jobs on the rig are pretty standardized, so you can call out on the PA on any rig in the world "pick up driller!" and the guy that does the drilling will pickup the phone. And he'll be pretty similar seeming to every driller on any rig in the world. Even in india, they are likely to be tobacco chewing rednecks. They just have curry for lunch instead of chicken fried steak. I've been on enough drilling rigs to have a definite groundhog day feeling (the movie, not the day). Things tend to endlessly repeat,

So, I'm back offshore again. Here's a picture as the boat I'm on arrives at the rig after a lovely 7 hour jaunt through the wind and waves of the gulf of mexico. I didn't get sick though. My drammanine lasted until the last two hours, then I headed out for the back deck of the boat. As long as I can see the horizon and not smell the diesel/lysol/vomit smell inside the boat, I actually do ok on boat rides. Of course I'll never pay actual money for a cruise or to go fishing.

I got peeved when I saw a news article saying that the US supports muslims against the cartoonist in denmark, so I sent an email to Kay Bailey Hutchison, one of the two texas senators.: Dear Senator Hutchison, This is regarding the cartoons depicting mohammed in Denmark. Yahoo news has an article saying that the US supports muslims against the cartoonists. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060203/pl_nm/religion_cartoons_usa_dc "These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims," State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question. "We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable." I don't think that the official US position should support people who are willing to threaten to kill cartoonists just because a cartoon depicts Mohammed. What else are muslims offended by? Women's rights. People&#