Tuesday 22 February 2011

Pocketful of sunshine

I'm done :).

I'm also back on the boat, and fully sympathetic to those of the crew who have to regularly travel from the US to the Red Sea. It takes a really really long time! But between finishing up and leaving for work, I did have two days.

Turns out I've never rented a car with the purpose of driving around all by myself. Till the trip to Austin that is. The drive was quite nice. But the day and a half spent in Austin, between that final presentation at Houston and flying out, that was indeed quite something :).

Relationships come in all shapes and sizes don't they? Some defying all logic, others, the very embodiment of the inevitability of it. Or so it would seem.

The Austin weather, while I was there, quite happily decided to defy predictions and allowed for a perfectly lazy day outdoors! Odd timed meals, rippled lights reflected on a lake, one super-sized moon, walks - by the river, around quiet campus buildings, and coffee, lots of coffee :). And of course, hours and hours of chatting about pretty much everything under the sun...

The drive back to Houston was probably the best part of the four days spent travelling! At least this time I got more than four hours of sleep in the hotel at Jeddah!

But sometime on my way back to the boat, it started sinking in. That inescapable feeling that everything will be all right. That somehow, beginnings are within reach. Things are beginning to look up then :). We shall see...

Currently: optimistic
Listening to: Sad Brad Smith - Help yourself (Up in the Air soundtrack)

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Are we there yet?

The answer is almost, but not quite :|.

I mean come on! It's only been like almost three weeks!! (Not to mention the five years before that :|. But let's not go there.) I will say this though, I can prove unequivocally that you learn more over a shared lunch than in any operations meeting /:).

By the weekend though, I was well and truly tired of being here. Of the nice enough hotel room and the quiet and peaceful enough days at the office. So it was really really awesome when one of my mates from the ship (who lives in the neighbourhood, sort of) picked me up Sunday morning.

The better part of the next two days was spent driving through pine forests and past large blue lakes. And some time driving on one of those lakes in a boat too! The plan was to maybe go fishing, but there wasn't enough time for that, sadly. I did get to spend a lot of time with a bunch of dogs though :).

It was enough of a boost to keep me going for a little bit longer. Coincidences stacked upon one another to even make for a pretty decent Tuesday night out with a few people from Asker who were visiting, or just passing through. Yup, it's a small world is marine seismic.

This afternoon I went and got my own ride out of here. Let's just hope I manage to drag myself over that last step tomorrow morning, then Austin, here I come! The only thing is, after such a long and stretched out process, I'm way more excited about leaving Houston than anything else. Including preparing for tomorrow's final presentation :|.

And of course, with barely any warning, my five weeks on land are all but over.

Currently: tired
Listening to: Sad Brad Smith - Help yourself

Friday 11 February 2011

10 + 1 down, 1 + 1 to go!

I was this close! No matter, just more time.

I've definitely developed some sort of an addiction to NCIS :|. And to Bones in the ad breaks. (They air at the same time, most days, it would seem.) For some reason, every time I see Emily Deschanel I keep trying to find similarities with her sister...

Incidentally, the weekend might be somewhat interesting. It's supposed to be a little warmer. Let's hope that turns out to be true. Beginning to feel just a little bit drained. Desperately need to recharge the old batteries.

Currently: oh so close!
Listening to: Snow Patrol - The finish line

Monday 7 February 2011

Once more to the...

It actually did snow last Friday!! To my utter amazement, I saw some fragile remnants of what could not have been more than barely an inch of snowfall in the morning. And icicles skirting the fenders of cars in the parking lot. Didn't last long though. Soon enough all that was left was puddles drying in the chilly sunshine.

Now it's back to much more reasonable temperatures. But I will tell you what is utterly unreasonable. Went for the medical this morning. Starving since dinner last night, no breakfast. After hours of tests and waiting and several test-tubes of blood, they make you wait in a rather nice waiting room with a big TV, and what's on? The Food channel X-(.

Haven't been very social lately. But did manage to meet up with a friend over the weekend. After almost six years of mostly not keeping in touch... I figure the easiest thing to do in such situations is apply the brute force method :). Start from the last known point and keep asking "So then what happened?!!" :P It works!

Currently: bit tired of pizza...
Listening to: Duck Sauce - Barbara Streisand

Wednesday 2 February 2011

2 + 1 down, 9 + 1 to go...

So far so good. I'm half way through round one and have only had pleasant surprises thus far.

The whole trip from New Haven to Houston was somewhat circuitous, mostly by choice. Saw daylight while on a train for a change. It was predictably all white, reminding me of the massive, massive mountains of snow on Orange.

NYC was interesting. Crab and lobster ale. Baby book buying. Catching up after years of barely keeping in touch. Entertaining a one year old. Korean barbecue-at-the-table! Soju (:-&). Absenthe (note the e, :D). Cigar :-<. Eight months down the drain. But I'm back up to 4 days.

And of course, landing up in Houston was just so warm at almost 20° C! But guess what? Today it's 0°. I mean, seriously? Come on! Oh well, we'll see if it really does snow on Friday as predicted. In the mean time, onward to freedom. Let's hope.

Currently: cold! again!
Listening to: Kina Grannis - Cambridge