Morning Report - Day 1

The Morning Report with AK Andy - March 8th 2014 ~ 18:00 (UTC +1)

Good Afternoon! Perhaps I should call this the afternoon or evening report given the time I am sitting down to writing this today. Goodness, I need improvement before I have even started. 

Yesterday, the 7th, was a fairly productive day at work. I took care of various odds and ends that I needed to attend to. I tried to make some progress on getting my residency card for EQG in the afternoon, but the work day ended with loading out the tools for the upcoming job. It was a good day at the base and the time flew by quickly.  

Typically I have quiet evenings at the hotel when I am onshore. Last night however was not such a night. A colleague from work invited me to join him in going to a party at the U.S. Embassy here in EQG. I had never been to the new embassy here and took up the invitation readily. Ah, U.S. soil.
The new embassy facilities are really nice. It didn't feel like I was in Central West Africa (CWA). The event was a going away party for a member of the Portuguese embassy. As such, there were a lot of Portuguese there along with plenty of us Americans plus some other nationalities. French, Irish, British, Zimbabwean, Mexican, you get the idea. In typical fashion, I was the first Alaskan many of them had met and they asked me all the normal Alaska questions about the Aurora Borealis, the wildlife, the winter, and the length of the days during the summer and winter. Only fellow Americans asked me about Sarah Palin. Oh, the good old days before Sarah Palin questions. (No, I have not met her. No, I cannot see Russia from my house thank you very much Tina Fey. No, the Palins are not my next door neighbors. Wasilla is about 180 miles/280 kilometers away by road.) I digress.

Two interesting dynamics of the party were majority of non-oilfield people present and women. Ha! Conversation did not revolve around work except in the introductory exchange, and it wasn't a huge dude squad. Instead we had normal conversation topics and the civilizing effect of women. Don't get me wrong, the ratio was still reflective of the expat community here in EQG but less so. It was more similar to the ratio at Mines then say, Dickinson ND. While fresh from days off myself, I can definitely vouch that such an evening would be like a breath of fresh air after a multi-week hitch offshore.

Ya, I should also mention for the sake of openness and transparency that being a Friday evening there was no small amount of imbibing alcohol which I am embarrassed to say, I definitely had more than I should have. I find the adages about what order to consume alcohol to be completely rubbish. Though, that could be due to the fact that I mix up the order of beer, wine, and liqueur all night. It has been over 5 months since the last time I was that inebriated by the end of the night. Not good. I know better, and need to improve my self-control.

All in all, onshore life is lively.