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!

Hurricane Alex

Ah, we were all supposed to be either home, or on a plane there.

Unfortunately mother nature had some other ideas, and right now we are far away from land, and late for crewchange. The trip itself was not too bad, as seismic trips go, with a lot of variation keeping us interested.

The weather here in the Gulf is amazingly hot... hot enough to make us glad for rain cooling matters down. High thirties, low forties, stifling humidity. Any bit of iron lying in the sun gets too hot to touch. All fun and games.

With the oil spill here in the Gulf all licenses to do pretty much anything in the Gulf has been delayed, and we might be sailing our ships somewhere else sometime soon. Who knows what the future will hold? Right now we are more concerned with the more immediate future.

Some lucky souls will have a chance of early escape tomorrow on the only helicopter for the day. The rest of us will have to wait for Saturday when we will hopefully be able to finally go home.

This upcoming break is promising to be a short, busy one. For the first time in many years I am home for my birthday, and it's on a weekend, too. My Land-Rover has been in for repairs for the longest time.. four months by now, if I remember correctly. It will be getting a toyota lexus V8 engine and auto gearbox. The only part we are waiting on is the conversion bit that was especially made in South Africa.

The repairs made to the car seriously impacted our ability to camp in style. But nothing will keep us from enjoying nature... We went camping at the Spitzkoppe with "Tweety" and touring the South of Namibia with the "Gulashkanone" while waiting for the parts. This break promises to have the spares, and we might be lucky enough to be able to take the car for a little test camp.

:D

Also, this break I have to get to Malaysia for a Lean-3 course, in order to learn how to elimitate waste and make work easier and more effecient. Then I might have a little chance to go visit my friend Johan in the US.

Wow... busy, busy, busy...

There are a lot of videos that have been prepared during my spare time on board here for Youtube, but due to bandwitdh restrictions I am unable to upload them now. Watch this space for some videos in a week or so.

Ah, what a nice few turns my life has made the last few months.

Isolde and I are now officially engaged! I am one lucky fellow, she is soooo cooool.

I have to brag a little with the ring, too. Here is a photo of the it:




We went on a tour of the South of Namibia. Boy, was it cool. It was more than a week of driving and camping and seeing some really spiffy places. We climbed Big Daddy, the biggest dune in the world. Literally. We saw the biggest Canyon in Africa, and we had fun doing it, dammit.

I finally got to see Luderitz, and Isolde lost her heart to the place. She says it's so cosy and quiet. We camped at the Shark Island there, and explored the surroundings, too. We took so many photos that we _still_ have not sorted through them all. Kolmanskuppe was especially amazing... we got a special permit to go there in the evening, when the sun was at it's best.

I have made a video of it, but since I am at work there is too little bandwidth to upload it.

Work has been busy busy busy... the first week was straight production, but then we had to pick up the spread, and now, a week later, we are still in the process of letting it all back out. It's hotter than the Devil's armpit here in the Gulf of Mexico, and with the dead seaweed and barnacles it's not much nicer smelling either. Still two and a half a weeks to go, and then it's back to heavenly Namibia and the love of my life.

Ah, time flies like and arrow...

It's been too long since I had a little time to update this blog. The trip in the Gulf of Mexico went without a serious hitch, and in fact, I am sitting in the hotel whiling away the small hours of the morning, waiting to join the Columbus again after a break that was way too short.

Isolde and Betsie became friends again, after about two years of not speaking to each other. It was nice seeing an old friendship being repaired.

The break was so short that we did not get to do too much. One thing that absolutely had to get done was to swap around the front door and the only window on the front of the house. Now I don't have the front door going directly into the lounge anymore, and a foyer again. The lounge stays a little cleaner, too. This is all in preparation for the big kitchen remodeling that is surely going to happen. We are getting an Laundry room as well, and this will free up a little more space in the kitchen, too. This break we got the foundation for the Laundry room down, the driveway along the side of the house paved, too.

This break also marked the date that Isolde finally got divorced. After months of working with lawyers, and finally driving up to Windhoek and the high court it's all over, and she is a free woman again! We stayed at the Arrebush lodge while in Windhoek. It's truly a beautiful place. The next morning we actually went to the wrong court, but we were lucky enough to chat to a lawyer who pointed us to the right court.

The judgement actually went a lot better than expected, and we were all smiles on the way back to Walvis Bay, straight after leaving court.

Finally after all that work we had to take a break and relax a little.

Since my Land-Rover's has not been finished yet, and the Jetta is no good on gravel roads and towing heavy trailers... we took the Yellow Rover for a camp, towing the trailer...

Going to a place 200km away in an open-topped offroad competition vehicle is not for the faint of heart, though. It was a little adventure all on it's own getting there and back. Ah, Spitzkoppe never disappoints. Isolde took breathtaking photos, and I just managed a couple of photos of rock art we discovered AT OUR CAMPSITE on the second day of camping.
Some Pictures....

Isolde's Photo:

The Yellow Rover and Trailer parked at Spitzkopppe...

Rock art by bushmen....

Till next time! ( However long that might be )

Wow...

Even MORE time has passed than the last time I updated this blog!

Heh... At least I was busy having a life and all that. The rest of the trip in the Gulf of Mexico was uneventful. I was unable to upload any movies to youtube while on the vessel. So, once I got home I made this video and uploaded it, describing the looooong holiday I had had before.


Then, we went on holiday in Henties bay. Isolde's father had rented a house of a famous fishing woman for two weeks leading up to Christmas. Needless to say, we spent almost every day on the beach. I got to know Isolde's folks and family really well. They are suuuuch great people, I did not mind spending the time with them at all.

We did all sorts of fun things, and I got to be really good at putting up Gazebo's. We even caught a few edible fish! We spent christmas with Isolde's family. I was a bit sad that my mom was not in town, but she had a great time at Kobie's in Cape Town. Which was good.

One of the more special treats this past holiday was Isolde's pops taking us on a tour up to the Messum Crater. Wow. It is one of the areas that I really wanted to see in Namibia. I have some photos of that on my Facebook now.

We spent the New Years with our friends on the beach, and then the last week of my break we just relaxed. Well, almost. Isolde and me went for a camp up the Kuiseb river. Just the two of us. It was really special. Isolde's company is so very relaxing to me. I suffered a bit from some or the other allergy, so my nose would not stop running. Most of the night I had to blow my nose. Isolde says she woke up once to see me sleeping with toilet paper stuffed into my nose!

Now I am back on board the WG Columbus, back in the Gulf of Mexico, and about halfway through a trip again. I have been using my spare time to test out my new video editor, and re-made some of the movies that I had made with OpenMovieEditor. Kdenlive works much faster and has a more natural workflow. It's just really, really disk hungry. :)

While we did not get to doing any work on my house during the last break, we at least kept the grass cut short and watered. We made some changes to the plans for the house....The plans are starting to look really good, and I am proud to come home these days.

Having Isolde in my life is just about the best thing that has ever happened to me.

A long time....

It's been quite a while since my last update here.

I have been so busy enjoying life with my new eyes, glorious girlfriend and wonderful surroundings that I hardly looked at a computer. Then, when I did come to work I spent so much time getting my computer up to date that I still did not reflect upon the last couple of months.

Life is good to me. :)

So, where did I leave off? Oh, yes, the course in Malaysia. It was a fun place, but nothing like home.

Once I got home Isolde and me went to Blutkoppe for a day camp. Just the two of us. It was like walking around in the garden of eden. I still get a lot of teasing about running around in the desert all naked. We were there completely alone, of course. We did not see another soul for at least two days. It was, in a word, perfect. Our campsite had a lot of shade during the day, and the silence all around was amazing.

The weather was perfect, too. We went for walks around the place, and I saw this tree growing out of the rock. I am always amazed at how the trees manage to do this. Bare rock. Something growing out of it. Does not compute.

We saw some Zebra and Ostrich on the way back as well.

That was a great start to my long vacation in Namibia, and I am truly thankful that I could share it with such a wonderful person.

The rest of the holiday will be in another blog, as it is getting close to my bedtime out here on the Gulf of Mexico. I still need to function tomorrow!

LASIK

Firstly, I would like to publicly thank Karly and Lea for their wonderful hospitality.

Thank you very, very much!

This eye operation in Cape Town has probably been the scariest thing that I have ever done! In hindsight, though, it was well worth the pain. The only anti-pain stuff they give you is some eye drops that deaden all feeling in the eye and some Valium for the nerves.

I would have preferred to be knocked out, to be honest. They stick these things in your eye that hold the eyelids open, and then put this device on your eye that sucks to the eye, and cuts a small, very thin flap of the eye. The doc then flaps the flap away and puts the laser to work. A person can smell the burning as the laser works.
I was gripping my chair sooooo tightly that I had white knuckles after the op, and I don't think I was breathing at all during the operation. Luckily it's only a few minutes per eye.

I left the hospital on my own, barely seeing well enough to dial the taxi's number on my phone. Then I went to bed. With eye protection flaps to stop me from rubbing my eyes, no less.

The next day everything was quite hazy, but in focus.

It's now two weeks later, and I am already on a course in Malaysia. There is still a little haziness when I look into bright lights. Hopefully this wil go away in due time.

Thanks, again, to everyone who supported me while I was getting this done, and for giving me inspiration while I was thinking about getting it done!