Happy Holidays from St. Croix

Notables:
~ The movement of the island is at a numbingly slow pace. Fast food takes about 30 minutes to get, grocery shopping lines alone...~45 minutes. To top it all off, I went to the hospital to get checked out for some pain that I was having only to be there for almost 10 hours. Only the basic tests were administered.
~ I get 23 channels of TV, 6 of which are a version of HBO.
~Barracudas are attracted to shiny things. Don't worry, everything on me is still intact.
~Based on several surveyed comments, african-american men on the island are very insatiated, horny creatures...even more so than anywhere else I have seen.
~ Georgia Tech beat U[sic]GA in our football rivalry this year. I was beginning to wonder why people were looking at me funny when I was running up-and-down the street like a madman.... screaming with joy. A new era has begun, my friends. Relive the glory!

So it has been almost 2 months now. The paradise-like atmosphere is nice, but there are only a handful of things to do here. I spent Thanksgiving weekend watching alot of football and resting. Below are pictures from 'Jump Up,' which is one big block party in Christiansted where people go crazy while singing and dancing in the street. The guys on stilts are called Moko Jumbies, who are dressed to ward off evil spirits.



I later found out that these 'stilt men' are actually young boys aging from about 10-18 yrs or so. These boys have some mad dancing skills...all while on stilts, which is pretty impressive. The band that was playing during the festival is apparently playing for part of President Obama's inauguration in January '09. Quite the honor, if you ask me.

For those of you in dying in subzero windchill Chicago temperatures right now, below is a picture of Point Udall, which marks the easternmost point of the United States. The day was about 83F in the middle of December; don't hate me because I'm warm.


More Pictures

I am unsure of when I am leaving the island, but I will keep you posted. Until then, I wish you and your family a very Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.

A bit of fever...island fever that is.

So I didn't end up going to Portugal. Apparently my vacation to London got in the way of that assignment.....poo on UOP.

Loooon-don Toon, mate

In recap of the last month of my life.... I went to London for my cousin's wedding which was pretty sweet. The whole thing was a three-weekend long extravaganza, but I only went to the actually wedding parts of it (aren't long indian weddings the darndest?) I got to see family that I hadn't seen in the amount of time it takes someone to forget who you are. I also got a bit of sightseeing in (a nice little town outside of London). I was mostly busy with the wedding so it wasn't all THAT much fun. The wedding was at the site of the 2012 Olympic Games just SouthEast of Central London which was pretty amazing in itself. I did manage to sneak away from the madness and enjoy some refreshing Carling, the UK's smoothest , best tasting lager (in my opinion).

Pictures from the week-long trip (sign up for a snapfish account to look at these pics: 1) London and Wedding and 2) More Wedding/ Family

If you really want to know who people in my family are or any other details of what I did, just ask. You can also 'just ask' if you are just plain bored because you have nothing better to do while working in the American Express Fraud or Collections Departments or are sitting behind a motel desk pretending like you're working (ha!).

Christiansted, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands....mon

After heading back to Chicago for a bit, I came down to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands for my first assignment at the Hovensa Refinery. For those of you who don't know where St. Croix is, or don't really know what it looks like, see below... I've included Miami, Florida, for reference--courtesy of google maps.


I have been here for almost two weeks and have managed to accomplish the following things:
1) Driving on the left-hand side of the road efficiently. It's actually a lot of fun.
2) Take a wave head-on and launch myself 7-8 feet into the air on a waverunner.
3) Then effectively trying to be a badass, cutting a wave so aggressively that it catapulted me into the air doing a backflip into the water at ~35 mph. Hilarity ensued.
4) Getting my rental car stuck in a ditch at about a 30-40 degree angle from the surface. Hilarity does not ensue.
5) Being told I have nice arms by a 50 (or 60) year old man and his wife at the local gym.
6) Learning to say my 't's' as 'd's', replacing things ending in 'r' with things ending in 'a', saying 'mon' and 'ya', and my personal favorite, saying 'everything airy?'
7) Making small talk with locals only to be looked at with the 'what the hell race are you?' look thereafter.
8) Witnessing a flash flood during a tropical rain storm where the road that flooded is back to normal after 30 minutes of the rain stopping.
9) A bottle of Hypnotiq being cheaper than a case of water.

....theres more to come. I will post pictures when I get the chance.

Prepping for the beginning of the rest of my life

This week, I have officially began being what the folks at work call 'fashionably homeless.' How I got to this point? its the long story of what we call my life. So just inquire

I have countlessly attempted to explain what it is that I do for a living, so here goes again. I am an engineer, chemical to be exact. More specifically, my title is My title is an Field Operating Services (FOS) Advisor. I work on contract with various petroleum refineries all over the globe and work with UOP specialists, contractors, and other resources to start-up, commission, checkout, reload, and troubleshoot certain petroleum refinery units.

All the boring things aside... I live out of suitcases, in hotels/company housing, and do not drive my own car. Everyone I know that is close to me I never see or I see very briefly nowadays. Right now, I am in Rosemont, IL at the
Courtyard-Residence Inn awaiting a week-long vacation to London, England for my first cousin's wedding. It's London and its my vacation, so yes, I am going to make sure to enjoy myself.

Thereafter, I am going on a job to Sines, Portugal . Oh yeah, and I'm excited.

Through my travels I will attempt to keep this updated and inform all of my family and friends of my whereabouts.