Archive for the ‘Freaking Airlines’ Category

My laptop was almost stolen

Saturday, July 17th, 2010

At the airport in Accra, you go through security right at the gate. I went through security and did the whole routine. Took off my shoes, took out my laptop, put my bag on the conveyor, put any and all metallic objects in a small plastic container. Fed them through the machine and walked through the metal detector.

A security guard frisked me because the metal detector was broken. I went through that and went over to the machine and started to gather my belongings. The guy in front of me grabbed my laptop and tried to put it in his bag. I grabbed a hold on my laptop and held on to it. He gave it a pull and looked at me. I held it and looked at him. He let go and apologized saying he thought it was his.

Which would be a little more believable if he would have had a laptop to start with.

Posted in Africa, Freaking Airlines, I hate it here, electronics, oilfield, travel, work | No Comments »

Travel Stories

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

I had a layover in Dakar, Senegal. This is the first time I’ve done that. Before they would let us off the plane, Senegal Police stormed the plane and took apart the seats and examined all the bags. I guess they thought somebody boarded the plane in the air and secreted illegal substances onto it.

When I got to Angola, it took me almost three hours to get my bag. It took them that long to unload it off of the plane.

I also found out that Halliburton Angola doesn’t let us charge  cell phones at the facility any more. One of the nationals tried to charge a phone but didn’t have a charger. So he took a plug and connected it to the terminals of his battery. Not understanding the difference AC and DC can be a bad thing.

A few days later, another national sees somebody using his phone in a high gas area and reports him for creating an explosion hazard. Company terminates Mr. Phone user. Mr. Phone user finds out who dropped the dime and starts making death threats against the snitch and his family.

I spent some time yesterday on this beach.

Posted in Africa, Freaking Airlines, oilfield, travel, work | No Comments »

This is comforting.

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Berlin clearing the Airport of WWII bombs and grenades. It is comforting to know that I need to take off my shoes to get on the same plane that is landing on a run way built over unexploded bombs.

Posted in Freaking Airlines, travel | No Comments »

Electronic devices

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008


Electronic devices

Originally uploaded by Fronzel

I got the call to leave Bakersfield and go home. I may be going to Mexico soon, but for now I am home.

On the flight back I noticed this sign. It is actually, pretty hard to take a picture of this sort of sign. And I have no idea why the camera on my phone is worse then a 1 megapixel camera ever was.

Posted in Freaking Airlines, electronics, travel, work | No Comments »

Leaving on a Jetplane

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

I’m fixing to get on a plane to fly to Phoenix, then to Dallas to pick up my truck and drive 900 miles to ATL. It is going to take me longer to get home from here then it does to get out of the jungles of Africa.

Still, I’m glad to be leaving. It has been nice working here. The people are friendly, the weather is dry and hotter then hell and for some reason I couldn’t do a single job without fucking something up. Not a good time for me. I’ve cut primercord wrong, loaded things wrong and even had a gun go low order on me. Which means that instead of a controlled explosion, I blew it up. It looked like a gun that Bugs Bunny stuck his finger in.

Also, Dropped a pipe wrench down the hole(Ok, I didn’t, the crew did), ripped a packer in half, parted tubing and sat out in the desert sitting in my truck watching them trip pipe for a week. Only to have the job cancel on me.

Posted in Freaking Airlines, life, travel, work | No Comments »

In California

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

I got a call yesterday at 4pm. Bossman told me to drive to Dallas and fly from DFW to Bakersfield California. The hand here has been here for 7 weeks and has been complaining about it for 6 weeks. So drove about 6 or 7 hours to get to Dallas around midnight 30 only to get up at 6 to fly to California. The bossman says that since I am only going to be there a few hours, I can spend the night at my parents. I normally don’t, but I didn’t see why not. He says it shouldn’t be a problem because he thinks they just had smoke damage. My first response was “I’m sorry, I think you broke up there”. Turns out, a trash can in front of their house caught on fire and did some damage to the garage, the brickwork and mom’s new car, but it didn’t hurt anybody or really the house. Which is why I guess they didn’t think to mention to me that their house caught on fire.

I flew on US Airways.  If you ever get the chance to, don’t. They charge 2 dollars for drinks, they charge to check bags and apologize for sucking at every chance. And both planes were small and had broken air conditioners, so they were cramped and hot and I managed to land in the Bakersfield airport which is just a small little regional airport. They airline that flies there everyday didn’t know they had jetways… so… yeah, Being a global explosives expert for the oilfield isn’t quite as glamourous as you would think.

I’ve been reading a book and it is highly reviewed, started a series and spawned an abysmal TV series. So far, it has been pretty bad. I mean “I can write better then this” bad. But I am chugging along hoping it gets better. I thought The Lies of Locke Lamora started really slow, but it turned into a really excellent fantasy story. Anyway, read The Lies of Locke Lamora, skip the Dresden Files.

Posted in Freaking Airlines, books, life, travel, work | No Comments »

Back home

Friday, July 18th, 2008

It was a close one. We were two hours late getting out of Angola to Lisbon.  And I had an hour and half layover before the flight to Paris. I don’t know if the pilot put the thing into Ludicrous Speed and made the time up or TAP realizes the Angola side of things is run by Africans and factored their normal incompetence in and time the flight out accordingly.

While we were sitting in Lisbon waiting to fly to Paris(Mainly because the travel people are idiots. There are flights to Angola from Paris and Lisbon and flights from ATL to both) There was a store selling wine from Porto which is supposed to be good. But I didn’t because my bag was checked all the way to Atlanta.

So, we land in Orly to pick up a bag for one of my coworkers… And my bag is sitting on the carousel.  I’m glad I was travelling with somebody. Otherwise, I would have kept on walking.

We landed at Orly and flew out of Charles DeGaulle(opposite sides of Paris) and our hotels were near CDG. So instead of paying the Taxi 70 Euros to drive on the highway that circles Paris, we paid 70 Euros to see a few monuments.

I got some cheese for Margo. What I do is look for cheese I’ve never heard of and get that.

Posted in Freaking Airlines, photography, travel, work | No Comments »

Still no bag

Monday, July 7th, 2008

Yep. The current plan is that when my passport gets back from the visa office, to send me to the airport in Luanda to look through the baggage room. Fly out Friday and maybe return Saturday. And they are pretty sure the job will cancel Wednesday, so I’m getting my bag just in time to leave.

I think I found the dragon from Harry Potter:

Posted in Freaking Airlines, life, travel, what the hell is that?, work | No Comments »

Cancelling award tickets

Monday, June 30th, 2008

The wife and I were set to go to Montreal for a wedding. I’d cashed in some of my air miles to get the tickets for free plus $91 handling and taxes. I got sent to Angola for a job and there is very little chance I’m going to make it home in time for the wedding, so I tried to cancel the flights.

It will cost me 200 dollars to cancel the flight.

Posted in Freaking Airlines, life, married life, travel, whinging | No Comments »