Another holiday has gone...

Ah, the first couple of hours of a new trip in the Gulf of Mexico. That's right, I am back at work.
This past holiday was actually quite busy, in retrospect.

First, the big news: Isolde and I are going to have a baby! Well, she is pregnant, at least. When I got home we went to the doc for a sonar, and it looks like the baby will be born on the 8th of February 2011. It's still a little too small to tell what sex the baby will be, but we are both suspecting that it will be a girl. Not that it matters! I am overjoyed at the prospect of becoming a dad.

So, back on to all the things that were done this break. I tested out the HUGE tent that Isolde and I had set our hearts on a while ago. There was barely enough space in my front garden to put the whole thing. It looks very sturdy, and hopefully we will have many years of good solid camping with that. It needs two people to carry it around when it's all packed up, so it will be for big camps only.

Kallie has started our laundry for the house. It's a little more expensive than I first thought, but we have the money on hand, and it will give us more space inside the kitchen. It is a huge project non the less. When I left, the roof was not on yet, and we are still waiting on the electricians and plumbers to come do their stuff. The place will have a shower and a toilet, too. This will help keep the house neat and tidy when we have friends over for a BBQ in the back BBQ area.

One fine Saturday morning I decided to get a bit of fresh air, and spend some time with Eckie. I have not seen him in quite a while. Kai is not in my good books at the moment, since he is selling the business that I gave to him to support his family. Each to their own, of course.

Anyways, I picked up Eckie with Tweety, and we let the tyres down for some serious sand driving. In retrospect, we should have had the video camera along. ( I got a new one since the last camera stopped working ) We went out to Dune 7 at first... we had a quiet beer, and then tackled the HUGE dunes around there. After a while, it got old, and we left. Eckie showed me a place next to the wind farm test site in the desert. Then we saw this old road leading to Walvis Bay through the dunes.

It was abandoned many years ago, and the desert had claimed it back proper. Still, we felt like getting lost in the desert, and gave it a go. It was some of the most difficult sand terrain I had driven in my life! There were stages that I had to get out and walk a bit ahead to test the condition of the sand. At some stage we wondered if we should not abort the mission, but then it was already too late, as we had gone down the slip side of some dunes...

We found some very old bottles, and even found a little farm! Finally, we got back to town, emerging just outside the garbage landfill area from the sea of dunes.

Finally, the time had come for me to go back to work. First, I had to do a course in Malaysia on the Toyota Production System. It was a painful course, but I think I am successfully brainwashed at this stage. There is such a lot of work to be done this side!

Lastly, I had a couple of days to meet Johan, who had moved to Chicago three years ago. It's going fine with him, and his belly is growing satisfactorally. :) It was very nice meeting his wife and all the kids, too.

Ah, now I am back in the gulf, and the weather is suspiciously calm... maybe it's just waiting to get the next super-hurricane!