After a week

Well it has been just a little over a week now. I have managed to sleep the whole time I have been here so that is good. International travel can be a killer so I just try and manage the best I can usually, so you might imagine I am elated!

The week started out in Saturday, with an early wake up at 3:30. I decided that since my boss can get up and go in, so could I. I just adjusted my schedule, what else did I have to do. Out of bed and into the shower, a semi cold shower, shaved, dressed, and heading out the door just a tad before 4am. Just a short walk across the street and wait for the dinning hall to open at 4:15. About 5 or 6 of sit there and wait, mostly KBR Management a few stragglers from other companies. Finally the door opens, we file in and get in the line. At this time of morning it is pretty much help yourself. A quick grab for a piece of hot wheat or white toast, maybe some scrambled eggs, beef sausage or beef bacon, French toast, or an omelet to order or pancakes, some baked beans, potatoes, Yogurt, oatmeal, assorted cereals, jellies, peanut butter, assorted juices and coffee.

The guys don't take long to eat, amazes me that they aren't getting indigestion (might be) from eating so fast. Once they hit the table they are back up in less than 10 minutes headed out the door. I am just finishing spreading butter and jam on my bread and peppering my taters and eggs. John is a patient boss, he tries his hardest to eat slow and wait on me, I do like to enjoy my food. I try to enjoy and eat fast enough, but no sooner than I drink my last swallow of Grapefruit juice he is saying you ready to go? So we get up, I stop by the coffee Urn for a quick warm up, grab our bagged lunch we signed up for the night before and we are piling in the SUV.

The drive takes us about 30 to 45 minutes everyday, one day a huge wreck happened in front of us, absolutely obliterated the front end of a dump truck who had slammed in to the back of a crane. Like Kuwait the wrecks are unbelievable, total destruction of man and metal. Once off the main highway, we meander through the well paved side roads towards the refinery. There are three cross roads between the main highway and the entrance, two have traffic lights one a stop sign. Arabs are pretty respectful of the traffic lights, but not so much the stop signs. We are good up to the stop sign and we have to be very cautious, not that we aren't at every intersection, but especially at that one. We make it through daily without incident which is a relief to both of us. No one wants to be a traffic statistic especially over seas.

As we approach the gate, we get out our credentials just in case we are asked for them. Most of the guards recognize you after a few days so it is just a habit. A couple of short turns and we are driving up to the complex. Once in the day begins. I start up my computer and while it is booting, I go to the kitchen and wash out my MiGO, a wonderful desk coffee mug my son and my new daughter in-law got me for Father's Day. I throw in a couple of teaspoons full of Nescafe Gold and some hot water out of the water cooler. Back in my office, which I share with Ardie my right hand, and log in to the server. For the first two days, it was quite a chore waiting for my computer to log into Houston but since we had my account moved here it is very quick. Check email and look at the To Do list and my day starts.

Not a lot of excitement I know but that is my day at work. We usually eat between 11 and 12 depending on what you are working on, and most of the time it is at your desk while you continue to work. Now and then I can catch a quick 15 minute nap of watch a few minutes of TIVO from my Sling connection, but most of the time it is continue with my huge list.

The drive home is about the same unless we need to stop of at the store or somewhere else. Once we are past the security check point and in the gate, we park and go in for some dinner. Usually John will get his food to take back to his room but I like to hang out and chat with some of the guys because I know the only thing I have left is go back to the room, change and chat with Diane for a few minutes and them back under the sheets around 8:30. There are a few things to do here, they have a small gym, a swimming pool, billiards and snooker. The library is lacking, mostly Korean and other novels that only English ones I saw were romance, go figure! That's about it, I will try and make life more interesting for you once I get in the swing. I hope you are all well and enjoying the well needed rain. I also hope you are enjoying the Adventures of Flat Stan. All for now.....

Another Flat Stan adventure

After drinking some coffee

Flat Stan was a little anxious today as some major events were planned (i.e. getting a badge, and free food). Awaiting the arrival of Security, early bird Flat Stan paced the counter in the lobby of Bldg. 3. After dancing around, Flat Stan realized he had yet to get any breakfast. He saw Lance headed to get breakfast and hitched a ride. Upon arrival at the cafeteria, Flat Stan wanted something from the breakfast bar.

After touring the bar and nearly falling in the pot of oatmeal, Flat Stan lost his appetite. Lance continued to get something from the grill while Flat Stan gabbed with Robert.

Finally, Flat Stan finished wrapping with the cashier and we headed back.



Upon entering Bldg. 3, Security spotted Flat Stan without a badge and it almost got ugly. Flat Stan jumped on the counter and requested a visitor’s badge, and I reluctantly agreed to sponsor him. After Security verified some information, they took several photos (per his request,

something about the lighting).

Flat Stan started growing impatient while waiting on his badge to print and he tried to expedite (aka escalate) the process, and he had no luck with that. In the interim, Flat Stan slipped out his flatberry and started reading some flatmail. Finally, the badge was printed and back upstairs we went.

For lunch, Flat Stan had a team luncheon to attend for the 20th anniversary of Barbara Chisholm where fajitas were served. Flat Stan perched in the front of the room,

while the team lost weight waiting on the delivery of Aramark’s famous fajitas. The team shared stories of Barbara while Flat Stan continued to sit, smile, and be quite! Before ending the luncheon, Flat Stan requested a photo with Barbara and her big prize. As both prepped their hair, the cameras were getting ready and snap.

Barbara finally opened her gift and what happened next was caught as well.

She was overwhelmed with excitement (I think thats what they call that).


Until next time……….

A funny from my old group

Many of you may of heard about a project that a professor created in 1995 called Flat Stanley. The project was created to improve literacy and develop community and has been a great success. Anyway you can read all about it as it is becoming a sad story for the professor. Well my former colleagues at KBR developed Flat Stan. To me it was a real honor first because I knew nothing about the Flat Stanley project, I just thought they missed me, and also becuase it was just a neat idea. Well I shared the email with Diane and she got a kick out of it and I told her I should share it with you. So here it is, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Out to Jax Grill – Flat Stan accompanies some team members for an offsite lunch at Jax Grill.
While enjoying the adventurous drive with Barbara,
Flat Stan questions…Where are her shoes? Of course, we made it there safely. While eating our lunch, Flat Stan was in the middle of every conversation, tried grab Ed’s buffalo burger, tried to get some of Barbara’s salsa,
and eventually just kept his eyes on the crowd. Watching the team leave the table, Flat Stan wanted to yell, but was relieved when Lance quickly returned and saved Flat Stan from dish duty. Upon returning to KBR, Flat Stan stayed out of view of Security, as he has no employee badge for site entry. Barbara kindly dropped everyone off at the building so Flat Stan did not get too hot from a long walk.

Until next time…….

A Day of Rest

Well Friday came and I didn't budge an inch when my body clock went off. I was comfy and I was not about to get up so I just drifted back off to sleep. The good thing about here as opposed to Iraq is that we actually get a day to sleep in. I lay in bed most of the time asleep, until almost 11:00 when lunch was supposed to be served. I finally drug out of bed and got dressed and wandered across the street. The dinning hall was supposed to open at 11:00, but it wasn’t so I sat down outside the door and waited. Many nationalities are here, Korean, Japanese, Nepal, and Philippines, British, Aussie, US, so it was fun to watch and listen to the different cultures talking to each other. I caught myself dosing off about the time I saw the Manager walking to unlock the door.

Once inside the dimly lit room, the line had begun to grow already. They always have a soup, two or three entrees and a couple of vegetables, freedom fries of course, a couple of sauces and then 3 or 4 different salads. They do have a Korean dish they serve also and they seem to enjoy it everyday. I haven’t gotten up the nerve to try the Kemchee because I was spoiled in Korea and I don’t want to be disappointed. I selected the barbecue chicken some freedom fries and a salad with French dressing. I topped it off with a couple of glasses of iced tea, not as good as I make, but it will do. I took my time and listened to all the sounds in the room, the Korean slurping their soup and noodles, the Brits enjoying a good laugh with their meal. The chicken wasn’t half bad and I pretty much finished it all.

Back to the room and log in for a good chat wit the little woman. I beat her to it because she was still asleep. It was about 12:45 my time which was 4:45am for her. I worked on my Blog some and found myself dosing again. I left her a message in case she got up before I was back and told her to buzz me. Well I had no more lay down and closed my eyes when the A/C and half of my lights went off. I got up and called the front desk and they said they would call maintenance. Satisfied it would be handled I laid back down and closed my eyes again. I had dozed about half an hour when I was wakened by the phone. My boss had just come back from the site and wanted to know if I wanted to go to the grocery store. Well of course I wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity like that so he said he would meet me in front in about 15 minutes. I got changed back in to me jeans, which is a must if you go out here, they don’t seem to understand that part of the American culture and they pretty much look down on you if you go out in public dressed like that. Grabbed my sneakers threw them on and was out the door. John was just parking when I came out he said he had just about given up. I hopped in the front seat, buckled in and we were off on an adventure to town.

We were about 10 minutes away from the store and don’t ask me where it is because I couldn’t get there again if you asked me. I am pretty good with direction but I still haven’t gotten my bearings here. We pulled into The Giant and grabbed a cart. It was squeaking the whole way in so John went out to find another one. He started going up and down isles and said I don’t know what you are looking for but if you need something let me know and we will find it. He’s a great guy, always thoughtful making sure I am fitting in. I told him I wanted to look at coffee pots because the coffee they make at the site is terrible. Oh did I mention that they don’t know how to make coffee here either? Well we finally found them and they had one Bunn, it was around $45 US not bad but I wasn’t prepared to buy it. We continued to browse up and down isles I found some peanut butter and some Ritz crackers, a case of water, a case of Diet Coke, a Snickers bar and a Galaxy Bar. The total came out to SR 85.00 which is about $22 US. I think the exchange rate is pretty close to ours just sounds bad. The case of Coke was like $5.88. The sacker pushed the cart out and loaded the car, John tipped him and we were off headed back to the camp.

On the way back John said that they usually have a cook out on Friday evenings and he had asked if he could bring me along. They said sure so we planned on him coming by about 3:30 or so and we head that way. I went to my room and unpacked my goodies and sat down to chat with Diane for a little bit before he came. I filled her in on the morning and told her I would be back in awhile and we could talk before I was ready for bed. John showed up right about 3:30 and we started walking. I didn’t realize this place was on the compound but it was just a short 5 minute walk. This is a small 3 bedroom villa that some of the guys live in, they have a real kitchen, dinning room, living room, bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, not bad for Saudi. Mike was already outside cooking, John said that he comes over on Friday and cooks all his food for the week and hardly eats at the dinning hall at all. He was cooking hot dogs, shish k-bob, and hamburgers. He got through and they put our dinner on, nice juicy steaks. I was a little skeptical but I would give it a try. Inside John and Jeff were cutting up potatoes and onions to be fired, and a pot of green beans. It immediately started smelling delicious right out of a Rachel Ray 30 Minute Meal show.

We sat and talked while everything was cooking and before you know it, Don came in and said you better go claim your steak before they get well done. Now I like my meat a little pink so I was out there in a heart beat with a knife and a plate. I cut one open and it was almost perfect. John said grab me one too so I cut one open and he said it was fine. We headed in with our plates and loaded up with the potatoes and green beans and sat down to dig in. The meat was a little tough but it was seasoned well so it was pretty good eats. We finished up and sat around for a few more minutes and then said it was time to head back. They had just started up a card game and neither of us were interested so it was pretty much useless to stay around they were sure to be absorbed in the game before long. One of the other guys, Fenwick who was the Construction Manager, was driving back so we caught a ride. He dropped us off at the office so we could go in and select our yummy lunch for the next day and then head back to the room.

I got back in the room and chatted with Diane for awhile and then realized it was after 10:00 and I needed to get to bed. We said our good nights and I took some meds and lay down. I had been feeling kind of puny all day, I had somewhat of a sore throat and my nose was running a little but I blew it off and tried to sleep. Soon sleep came and I rested, well that was until about 2:00am when I woke up and my throat was on fire. Well dummy me I had no meds for a cold, or sinus just some Advil and Tylenol. I dosed back off but then it was toss and turn. I knew it wouldn’t be long until the alarm was welcoming me to a new day……