It's all good so far

Thought that I had allowed enough time to get to the airport and get checked in on Sunday morning. I got to the airport and the economy checkin was slammed with a US school tour group. There must have been 100 plus people in front of me. All having to do a the full check in procedure for international flights. Time was ticking.

At the recommendation of a fellow traveler, I bolted to the service counter and was able to get a boarding pass. Next to security and failure to check the backpack resulted in the inspection of and confiscation of all my razor blades. Another traveler rookie mistake on my part. Much easier to deal with than the TSA

Next stage of security and surprise, guess who was drawn to have a random explosives check and pat down. managed to make the jetway at the final boarding call. Good plane, full of Spanish speaking rugby players. Made it to Auckland without mishap.

Nice international terminal, but had a 15 minute hike to the domestic terminal following the green line. From the 21st century back to the 1960’s. Domestic flight is a turbo prop. 7 kilo limit on baggage in the cabin, so the boots came off the pack which was checked at 34 kilos. No wonder the walk between the terminals was trek like. A couple of hours of layover then to New Plymouth.

45 minute along the coast and we land at the new airport, again similar to Midland in the 1960s. Cab to the hotel. Another retro experience, the rooms furniture was very similar to the original. Only new paint and a flat screen. Limited wifi. Another burger for dinners and picked up more cold meds. Grey and raining.

Breakfast in the hotel on Monday, then a cab to the plant. Turns out that there where not definite meetings set, so I have tried to pin folks down for the remainder of the trip with full points of contact and acknowledgement of who I will be meeting and when.

Meeting went well. Need to look at the reports and expansion plans to see that they meet “code”. Will try to help get the AFE through but revision needed to work the surface discharge component into recycling system. Also need to see that adequate assessment is done for clean up of wash area. Cab back to the hotel mid afternoon.

Spent a couple of hours walking the boardwalk along the coast. Several pictures and video. (drawback is when they upload they eat the data on the hotel wifi plan and habit capacity). Stopped at the Puke Ariki museum and spent some time walking through the exhibits on the settlers and the natives. Two displays and interpretations. The native name for the area is Taranaki and the local rugby team is named same.

Walked back the main drag and watched them roll up the sidewalks. Another student tour group had arrived at the hotel and had taken over the pool. Had a couple of beers in the hotel pub; a good Celtic red , and the TUI pale ale. Good steak and salad in the hotel restaurant, the replacing and watching the tube before crashing.

Up Tuesday am, timing the final doses of cough medicine which I had to leave behind.

Spent some time getting boots cleaned for Aussie inspection, and packed. Don’t want to be bringing something non-indigenous back into Australia. They better pass or my work willl get a little more difficult the rest of the week.

Breakfast buffet downstairs and then checked out. Backpack checked all the way to Brisbane and killing time in the terminal before the flight. Hope to get some shopping done in the international terminal before heading back to brisbane.

Enjoyed the flight back. Got seated next to a independent Geophysist who was interesting. He consults on non E & P work. Cleared customs and rode the train with him to Central Station. First walk to/from station to hotel was done in the dark schlepping luggage. Got in and settled then out for a late burger.

Working several thousand feet in the air cruising to Brisbane in Qantas business class. The seats are comfortable and the attendant has furnished me with a nice Shiraz/Viognier blend. I am learning the ins and outs of the seat settings, the in flight entertainment system, and they other miscellaneous settings that ones can play with. More than adequate USB ports to charge the electronics.

The only penalty so far has been with the fountain pens. My kwako sport has disappeared and my pilot Praera has decided to flow boldly. I have over inked my entry document and had to request a replacement.

The flight is fifteen hours. I amy catching up on an Aussie tv series about a flapper detective. I saw three episodes on the flight to Dubai and have two to see on this one.

Had an attendant force a dessert upon me, figs and pistachios on a cake. The sacrifices one must make to keep the flight attendant happy

I tried to sleep and must have been successful. I had a vegetarian dinner ordered; however, I decided to wait and ended up getting some sleep. It is probably a good thing that I had m&m’s packed and used on trip to Dallas. A Popeyes chicken biscuit in Dallas was dinner. The dessert and wine was sufficient for the evening.

The Qantas pajamas were not quite right size but were warm enough. Getting the hips comfortable in any airline seat seems to be the drawback to quality sleep. Still have a preference for porcelain.

Finished up one of the longmire books on tape and started another. Breakfast with eggs & beans. Start the descent process and find the missing pen. Loaded and off the plane in a reasonable time.

Customs was easy and the luggage is now routed to Perth. Picked up $100 au from the ATM and have broken one of the bills with staples: snickers bar and a bottle of water. A letter cup of coffee aka a long black. Currency seems to favor coins.

The departure lounge has one free plug with the same poacher. I borrowed a wall outlet and was able to do a brief charge on the windows phone. I also set the data to roam and have texted and skyped Sandra. I also piggybacked the phone to check in on Path and Foursquare. Lost one set of ear plugs so I changed out. Need to review the power cords and see what I need to change out.

Email so far is football smack from the guys.

Now in Perth waiting on the hotel to get the room ready. It was no problem getting a cab ride in. Nice Somali driver. Weather is perfect. I seem to have lost the ability to do the Internet sharing with my company phone. I will have to work on that with the IT folks. I am ready for the room and the treadmill to be followed by a much needed shower. I don’t care for this hipster patina that I am wearing after 30 hours of travel.

Currently over at the Coffee Club (no wifi or plugs) getting lunch and waiting on the room. It is a race to see if the phone charge will last long enough for the hotel to call.

Signs up on the light posts advertising the conference.

The hotel was a fair experience in Perth. It was located in the CBD and was convenient to get to the conference. The meals were good, the Internet spotty, and the plumbing french. There was definitely some battle rattle. The staff was excellent.

It was a short walk to the riverfront. Nice green space and walking trail. Managed one walk of 3 miles and walked back from the convention every evening. The weather was coming into spring and with Perth being the capitol of Western Australia, we walked by some unique Victorian architecture interspersed with very modern high rises. A number of magnificent churches and a fair amount of public art ranging from an ongoing light show, to a herd of life size kangaroos drinking at a spring. Nice gardens and greens.

A lot of notes taken from the conference, we all seem to be in a similar space, those that have gotten further have more management buy in. Good networking and ambitious work by two consultants wanting to help us with the New Plymouth pipe plant. Will have to do a coin flip.

Several good talks w Karin ranging on philosophy’ of where WFT is headed.

Not sure that the body has caught up to the big shift in time. I have been waking up at 4 -4:30 in the morning and trying to get to bed early. Even shut down at a reasonable hour after the ERM social. Fighting a spring cold that I want to get over and enjoy the remainder of the trip. will be finding drugs soon to see if I can this beaten down.

Enjoyed the Qantas Club, I will definitely be taking advantage where possible. Hoping that I can get the Emirates miles added in soon so I can get closer to keeping the status. Much nicer plane on the way back to Brisbane.

Brisbane weekend was very enjoyable. Hotel in the city center and right off the river. Boardwalk within a block. Found a pharmacist, a bottle shop, and a grocery store and stocked the room with cold meds, some snacks & yogurt. Had a good conversation with the clerk about football, he is a Bengals can. walked the boardwalk to the restaurants and stopped at Grill’d on Friday for a burger and beer.

Saturday 9/15 was the tourist day. Although battling Aussie bronchitis, and armed with the nastiest cough syrup one could obtain from a stop&rob, I set off among the boardwalk. Walked all the way to the City Botanical Gardens and strolled through there. Saw the Old Government House (now a museum and closed tea shop) and meandered through the adjoining grounds of the Queensland University. Made my way back towards city seeing the Parliament Building and several other older buildings. Some which had Ben repurposed and some still running the government.

Made it to the shopping mall on Queens Street, shut off from traffic with shops within buildings and various restaurants and food courts. Had a fish & chips and a Fat Yak Pale Ale. Did some souvenir shopping, then made it to the Central Train Station to get a schedule and figure out how to get to the suburban offices after the NZ trip. Stopped into the Anglican Cathedral on the way aback and was very impressed with the gothic architecture and native sandstone. Just completed as originally designed but I don’t think they original folks had the very modern stained glass messages. Unfortunately I don’t think that they showed well with the backlighting,

Back to the hotel for a short rest and then back down the boardwalk to the Pig & Whistle where I had a steak, salad, & chips, another fat yak and tried to watch some of the All Blacks game at Wolff angle. Back to the room and packed for the trip to NZ.

This day should be the second attempt for the first full post travel day back in the office. Yesterday’s first day back was cut short by a power outage that occurred during lunch. Trekked the 10 flights up from the lunch room to the office and then back down. With a half day on my hands, I ought I would get some of those errands done that can only occur during working hours.

First attempt was to get the company truck inspected. Station 1 no inspection stickers in stock, at least that is what I understood from the Spanglish. To the house, answer a file search issue for Dad, then grab the Comcast box and head back out. NTB is experiencing a computer glitch that prevents the inspection machinery from working, so I continue to drive an un-inspected vehicle.

Comcast was a complete disaster. First waiting in line, pickup replacement box, and could it get it activated after two calls to support in India. Wait in line, return box for another refurbished, install and again we can’t activate. India is hopeless. Declare war and get routed to support in Houston. Their lies are much more colorful. An outage 15 miles from the house is preventing activation. I leave damned thing on all night. No activation as of this am. Box readied for return by sweet wife who will get high def cable card and I will buy new TiVo after work.

The saga continued. Sandra tried to pick up the card on Thursday which was the theoretical resupply day for the Comcast location. Of course they weren’t restocked. Got the TiVo and after a battle w the home network, I had it up and running.

Friday, after giving blood, I manage to get the truck inspected on the second try. Then to comcast. No resupply and no cable cards to be had. Before I leave the parking lot, I call their tech support to see if I can get a service truck to drop one at the house. Can’t do, can’t ship one overnight either. New promise, give them an hour and they will send truck by service center and drop a card off for me. On to work with this too good be true promise.

Get work lined out for travel and head home. Manage to complete another quest and get the USB replacement cable for the camera, then on to Comcast. After standing in line, we discover no one has ever had a service truck do this type of drop off. Counter worker can’t identify the liar from tech support or give me the name of the director of Houston Comcast office. She does call her manager who is trading supplies in another location and they are able to locate two cards. Manager promises to call when she gets to the store. Amazingly, she does call. I return to the store for the sixth time. They recognize me in line and call me up. There is the card. It takes some magic with the inventory accounting before they can release it. They promise to investigate the call center about false promises. They offer to give me 6 months of a premium channel for free. She offers
a premium movie. I counter with the Longhorn Network. She responds that we have already moved mountains but somethings are just impossible.

I spent a good portion of Saturday calculating what I need to render unto Caesar, This round Caesar doesn’t seem to be satisfied with t just an arm and a leg, it will more likely require a complete drawing and quartering. We will survive.

It is another one of those opportunities for accountability. I have been enjoying the benefits of a strong oil economy. It has allowed me put the daughter through school without accumulating student loans. There has always been something in the pot even with the three of us not watching the budget as we should. Now big uncle wants an additional tithe. So we will dig in and focus. One more growth opportunity to reflect on what is important and what is not.