Dear Grandma,
How are you? I am good. It has been a while since I last wrote. Things have been pretty good. I am currently in WA looking for gold. As you probably remember, I left my job in the US and have taken a job working for a Brisbane based company which employs a lot of the same people I worked with back in 2004 when I left uni.
I am currently on my second stint. This one is going pretty well. We have finished up one grid and the data was pretty good. It shows some interesting formations which the client is pretty happy with. The last day and a half we have been rained out but the weather seems to have settled down now. I have to say that you probably wouldn’t be impressed with the wet mess here on site as they don’t have any Cascade beers. I am happy to say that what they do stock is very reasonably priced with a stubby costing less than $3. Much better than a $9 pint at Salamanca.
Next time I am in town I will pop by for a visit. If I can put a request in for a nice sunny day with no wind, that would be wonderful. Hope all is well on your end.
Love Chris.
It was a little overdue (ok, 11 months overdue) but I got my work physical done today.
I had it done in Tassie so it was a little bit of a challenge to make the physical match what I used to get done in Hershey. Everything went fine and I am happy to say that I am still awesome at the spirometry test performing at 115% 
Naturally come the pee test I always have trouble providing a sample when called upon. I totally forgot about the need to perform until I was walking down to the medical place. I stopped off at a store and bought a 750ml bottle of water and drank that. Upon arrival I drank another 2 cups in the waiting room. After another 4 cups in the secondary waiting room and doctors office, I was ready to attempt. After a few minutes I had enough for the test – woohoo!
Now naturally, after drinking over a litre of water and only providing 50ml for a test, I had a bit of a backlog. A few minutes into the walk home, my bladder informed me that it was time to go again. I was just at the loo dammit.
Anyway, next stop was the blood place. The doctor ordered tests to match the results from the ones I used to get in PA. For some reason the US tests give results for Carbon Dioxide. This threw everyone as no one had seen it. Books were searched and databases queried but no one was sure about how to do it. The nice office ladies ended up ringing the lab and it looks like they will have to figure it out when my half a dozen blood samples arrive.
Not wanting to waste a beautiful day today, I wanted to do something a little different for a couple of hours. I headed out to Pontville to visit Grandma and the other relatives that are buried there. It was a nice trip as it was the first time I had seen Grandma’s grave 100% finished as the statues on the pillars too awhile to be ordered and delivered.
I was really happy when I saw the finished result. The ornaments are so very grandma. They look like something she would wear as a brooch / pendant on a jacket or shirt. We had a nice chat and I promised next time I will bring her a beer 
I got an email this morning from United Airlines with the subject heading “United Airlines Schedule Change Notice”. I opened it thinking what the fuck!
They provided me with this new schedule:
I review it and still see I am flying on the same day. I then pull up the old schedule:
I logged into united.com and my seats were exactly the same… so the question still remains unanswered.. what changed?
I made a new page last night for my blog using the LifeStream plugin. It brings together information from a couple of social networking sites I use.
http://www.bahuma.net/social/
So today is a good as any to break a three month blogging drought. Since my last post was back in September, i guess I should have a fair bit to talk about.
I flew back to the US in early October just as ARM started mobilizing to Cuba for a project we have at Guantanamo Bay. I flew down there on October 19 to join the crew. At the project peak, we had five single coil teams and one towed array operating.
As a group we celebrated Thanksgiving down there. We spent around $400 on food and drinks and had a really good evening.
A few days later the mood down in Cuba was totally different. On December-1 one of our guys dropped in the grid and died. He was only 26 and left behind his family, siblings and his fiancee. As a team we got through the tragedy although it is something we will never forget. The project team de-mobed on December-20 for a 2 week break.
This year was also the first year that i forgot about Amber’s accident. It hit me a week later that the date has passed….
Christmas this year was fairly low key. I spent Christmas Eve and Day with my friends up on the hill. Chuck and Lori were very kind and invited me into their home on a day which meant a lot to me. We sat down to a lovely traditional meal of ham, baked potatoes, sweet potatoes, brussel spouts and cherry pie.. I certainly ate well! When I visited Digger and Marty on Christmas Eve my jaw dropped in amazement. Anyone that knows Digger will tell you he is absolutely crazy about his grand kids. Digger is also crazy about Christmas. The combination was phenomenal. He has his house lit up lit up with a crazy amount of Christmas lights. Inside he had more Christmas ornaments and singing Santa’s than Walmart. Absolutely amazing!
So 2009 is just around the corner. It is going to be an interesting year as I have recently told work that I am done with the US and that I plan to return home within a few months. What lies ahead is uncertain but hey, it will work out
Happy 2009!
Patrick now has his blog up and going at patrickgeorgewilliams.com. He also reads the news on the radio twice a week! I recorded him this morning for all to enjoy!
patrick_news_0922_730am_aest (Right Click, Save as)
Online Stream (Mon and Wed Mornings, 730am, 830am Brissie Time)
A truely representitive pie chart
Source
