Road Bloggin'

Cooking Facilities

2008-08-13T14:08:00.004+07:00

One more day of work before heading first to Bangkok and then Beijing! Woke up to an email this morning from the law firm that is investigating the ticket fraud case reporting that additional tickets were now available at cosport.com. I quickly jumped over to the site and picked up tickets for the soccer quarterfinals (probably Italy vs Belgium...i still hate Italy for the '06 World Cup) saturday night and beach volleyball quarterfinals Monday morning. I'm pumped to see the Handball competition and will probably see some Americans win gold medals at the track and field event on sunday night.

One of the advantages of the move we made early on from the Rayong City Hotel to Kantary Bay was the cooking facilities they have in the rooms here. However, after six months here I can probably count on one hand how many times I've cooked a full meal (not counting breakfast). Early on I cooked a couple meals of pasta, but lately my cooking has been limited to microwaving popcorn:

I've never been a big popcorn guy, but it's been a good snack here. From an earlier post, you can see that I also consume a fair amount of yogurt, with coconut yogurt being my current obsession. Also, the bag of peanuts on top of the microwave are natural (non-roasted) peanuts, which was a big surprise after I tossed a handful in my mouth. I don't suggest it.

Yesterday, it poured as I noted yesterday. On the way to work there's a section of the road that always gets flooded, slowing the traffic way down. For some reason, our driver keeps going back that way though.

Happy Mother's Day!

2008-08-12T14:08:00.004+07:00

Today is the Queen of Thailand's birthday, which makes it Mother's Day and a Thai holiday. So you get two Mother's Day this year Mom!

Last night one of the shift supervisors asked me, "Do you know it is my queen's birthday tomorrow?" I've had Thai people a number of times refer to the king or queen in this way, "my queen." I really don't think I'd ever refer to the US President as "my president" but instead "the president" or maybe "our president."

He told me there would be a ceremony this morning in the park on the other side of town that included a large number of monks and lots of people. And, that this would be happening from 8 - 9 am. Working until midnight last night, I wasn't too keen on waking up early. But figured it'd be worth it. Unfortunately, when I woke up it was raining cats and dogs, and it kept up past 9 am. I went back to sleep, then headed to the park later around 11 am. No sign of any festivities and no monks. On top of that, it started raining again. I took the road by the beach on the way back and took this picture:

For some reason, the water gets really green when there's a storm. Makes for a striking view with the dark skies overhead. Three days to Beijing!

Riding through Rayong

2008-08-11T14:32:00.003+07:00

Missed posting yesterday...woops! It was a surprisingly busy day at work, then hit the tennis court when I got back to the hotel. Finished tennis just in time to watch China hit all of their three pointers in the first half to stick around early in the USA-China game. Yao Ming's three to start the game was a big time moment in the Olympics.

Eventually, someone rememebered to install the trampoline in front of the US basket and the high flying show began. The three dunks in a row at the end of the half were huge. Listening to the Thai announcers react to them was equally entertaining. Big ups to the US Men's Soccer team for almost taking out Holland at the Olympics. They now need at least a tie against Nigeria to make it to the quarterfinals. You're going down Tomi!

Check out this sweet photo of Phelps starting off in the Water Cube.

Today I don't work until 4 pm, so I took a trip over to Tesco to pick up some work supplies and then stopped on the way back to get a haircut from one of our friends here in Rayong, Nung. I shoulda taken a picture, but instead I took one while driving back to the hotel of the decorations you see all over Thailand celebrating the King and the Queen:

The Pink Van Bar

2008-08-09T23:59:00.003+07:00

Working this weekend, so not much exciting to report. Richard and I grabbed some drinks at the little store at the corner next to our hotel after work. It always looked like a good place for a little restaurant/bar. About two months ago they started building a tiny convenience store, put out some chairs out, pulled up a pink van that they serve cocktails out of and before you know it, you have a nice place to grab a beer. I took a picture of the van and these guys turned around asking me to take their picture. Once I did, they said thank you. Little did they know they'd be viewed by millions online (I dream big).

8/8/08

2008-08-08T18:37:00.002+07:00

I woke up yesterday in an alcohol induced haze after a night out at the hottest club this side of Pattaya, Rayong's very own Love Club, and fell asleep as China was walking into the Opening Ceremony. In between I got some work done. Today's photo comes from a sign posted next to one of my coworker's desk:

Surprisingly, two months later we are still on step 2. But I think we're making great progress towards step 3.

Olympic quote of the day comes from ESPN's self-appointed nickname-ist Pat Forde (or "The Dash" as he refers to himself):

Synchronized swimming (14). Any sport that features waterproof makeup and nose clips as essential equipment is on The Metric Dash's personal banned list. (Yes, it's hard to do. But it's hard to dig ditches, too, and nobody wants to see that in the Olympics.)

Competitive ditch digging, wasn't that in the Outdoor games?

My New Ride

2008-08-08T10:37:00.003+07:00

I now have been here just short of six months. After about a month or two we first rented some motor bikes to get around Rayong for a weekend. Then some of my coworkers started renting bikes for a month before buying their own. For some reason I resisted...until yesterday.

I bought myself a nice, clean, blue Honda Wave 100S for about $900. It has 4800 km on it (about 2800 miles) and runs nice and smooth. To buy a motor bike you need a Thai person to essentially take ownership, so we had our secretary Thom help us out. She now "owns" at least five motorbikes that my coworkers and I have bought. There's a lot to see and do in Rayong and it's all outside walking distance from out hotel, so hopefully this will get me out more often.

Check out this article by Jim Caple on ESPN.com about the Olympics, why Beijing is just what it needs.

The Office

2008-08-06T21:54:00.003+07:00

Rather uninteresting, picture today. This is our office at PTT Phenol:

My desk is the second from the back on the right side. The one with the laptop on it. We have eleven UOP'ers on site now, but we don't all work at the same time. You can see a safety harness hanging over one of the chairs that we have to wear while working at heights. On the back shelves we keep all of our design documents, known as a Schedule A.

Today it came up in the office what events some of us are going to be missing this fall. My coworker has Seahawk season tickets that will go unused and I have two ND-Pittsburgh tickets (November 1) that I probably won't be able to use (anyone want them?). I'm hoping to get in contact with the ND Club of Thailand (it exists!) to see if they have any game watches or other events in the fall. Last year I got to see a number of games early in the season at a military hotel in Tokyo (I think the Michigan game was the last that I put any effort into watching). Some bars in Pattaya claim to show American Football, but not sure I'll be able to get any ND games. Anyway, the season is coming up, and judging from this season preview it should be a fairly succesful one. Here Come the Irish!

Catholic Mass, Thai style

2008-08-03T19:53:00.005+07:00

Three weeks ago I attended a church service for the first time in Thailand. The only other time I had attended a mass while traveling had been at St Thomas in Chennai last June. I had heard there were a couple in the area here in Rayong but hadn't found any English masses or spent much time looking, to be perfectly honest. About a month ago though, my coworker Richard found that there was an English mass at a catholic church just down the road. Tonight I attended my second service.

The church is nice but definitely different. There are few churches (at least that I've been to) that have doors that fully cover the sides of the church. During mass they are wide open, giving a much different feel to the church as well as a nice breeze. I have never been to a mass where birds flew straight across the pews throughout the mass. You also take your shoes off at the entrance. This is done at all Buddhist temples in the country, so I'm assuming that carried over to church. Also, when you give peace to those around you no one shakes hands. This took me by surprise the first time. Everyone just stands there with their hands together and bows slightly in all directions to the people around them. Other than that, it was a very nice service with the priests speaking in understandable English. Here's the church from the back:

Swimming with the Fishes

2008-08-03T19:02:00.004+07:00

It's been awhile since I've gone scuba diving, but I didn't realize how long it had been (or how long I've been in Thailand) until I checked my Dive Log. April 19 had been my last dive which makes it nearly four months! Seeing how I had been a rookie diver back then, I probably should have been slightly more concerned about remembering everything as I dropped below the surface and started going deeper. Our first dive was to see a ship wreck called Hardeep. About halfway down I had trouble equalizing (like what happens to your ears on an airplane coming down, only a lot worse), then I got to the bottom and felt a bit dizzy (N2 narcossis), at which time I started using my arms way too much and sucking down the O2 while I tried to remember how to maintain my buoyancy. Probably should have started with a shallower dive. But I got things under control and swam around checking out the remains of the ship along with the coral and fish that now engulf it. Currently my dives are limited by my air supply and this one lasted about 30 mins. On the later two dives, I was able to stay down for closer to 45 mins after I stopped wiggling around so much and got better at staying level in the water. I'm now up to 10 dives and slightly over 6 hours underwater.

I saw some pretty cool stuff on the dives, including the wreck, some huge white jellyfish and a medium sized crab hiding in a little nook. One of the divers had a humongous underwater camera and posted some of her shots here. Unfortunately underwater, without the use of a flash, the colors aren't nearly as distinct as you see here. The colors all shift towards a blue-ish gray the deeper you go.

Here I am on the way back to the pier:

Pictures from my trip to Bangkok last weekend have been posted on my Picasa site. More to come later.

The Thai Massage

2008-08-01T23:56:00.005+07:00

After a rather frustrating week of work, my coworker Bryan told me on the way home that him and his wife, Jen, were going for massages in Rayong. Now, I had never gotten a massage before Thailand and I didn't think I'd like them. But after a couple, that's changed. The thing about a Thai massage though, is that they're quite physical and at times painful. They like to really push into your skin by placing their knee or elbow onto specific points for extended periods of time. However, I've gotten used to it and was definitely game for it tonight. Here's the Egolf's getting their feet washed before the massage:

This was my first two hour massage (about $20) and I definitely fell asleep for a second during the head massage near the end. Here I am in my massage PJs, ready for it to start:

My Room

2008-07-31T21:54:00.005+07:00

Slow progress in the field, due to past problems at the plant (see: mass hysteria), has given us more time to poke around the unit and prepare for the upcoming startup. Today we looked at some Pressure Safety Valves. It was fascinating.

Beijing update: I ordered tickets to the USA-Spain basketball game and to the Men's Tennis finals...worried about them getting here on time now!

Here's a pic of my room at the Kantary Bay, where I spend slightly too much time. The beds are decent, the rooms are nice, the TV plays english channels (CNN, ESPN, HBO, Discovery) and the internet does the job. I'm looking to buy a motorbike to get out and see more of Rayong, which hopefully i'll do next week if i find a good price.

Satisfying Sea Demon Spirits

2008-07-30T21:54:00.006+07:00

I'm back to working day shift this week. For some reason I feel like I have much more time outside of work when I'm working evening or night shift. Which makes preparing photos for this thing much more difficult. Tonight we actually had a big team dinner, but i forgot my camera. But this is one I wanted to post a couple days ago.

On the beach outside our hotel, this statue is at the main intersection. I think it's called the Sea Demon, but we're not sure exactly what it is. Sometimes it looks quite manly, sometimes as you can see here it's rather feminine. Kinda plays along with the rather androgynous nature of the Thai people. But another strange thing of this statue are the objects left around it. You have buddha figures and horses, glass bottles of Fanta and little nomb-like figurines. You also see similar displays outside buildings and businesses where food and drinks are left for spirits to look over the structure...but why anyone would leave anything for the Sea Demon, i don't know.

Give Me a Break

2008-07-29T22:22:00.003+07:00

Slow day at the office going over some startup procedures, getting our punchlist up to date. On a daily basis dates of this project possibly being over are thrown out there. Today, the word was early December (maybe).

One of my coworkers here in Thailand started eating quite a few Kit Kat bars at work. The other day at the Walmart of Thailand, Tesco Lotus, I passed by a box and picked some up. I'm quite addicted at this point. Looking at the box today though I noticed an interesting note on the box that caught me by surprise. I'd even call it un-American...as in, it would never fly to have such a thing printed on a box of candy bars in the US.

In case you can't read it threw the glare, it says "Nestle chocolates are shipped fresh from our factories in perfect condition. Exposure to heat and sunlight may cause the appearance of white spots, or fat blooms. The taste, however, is unaffected and the chocolates are safe for consumption"

FAT BLOOMS?!?!

On the back of the box, it reads "GOOD TO REMEMBER This Kit Kat recipe is specially made for tropical countries. It withstands heat better and tastes best in air-conditioned places." That doesn't seem to jive with the message on the front that reminds you "Your favourite break best enjoyed Outdoors"

I'm confused, but full after eating five. No fat blooms to report.

Back in Rayong

2008-07-28T23:00:00.003+07:00

Today I drove back to Rayong after the weekend in Bangkok. Heading back to work in the morning.

I didn't actually take a picture today. This photo is from my tour of Wat Po, where the reclining buddha is located. I hired a tour guide to show me around the complex who was quite good. Halfway through the tour we were looking at some pagodas in the courtyard where people's ashes can be laid to rest if the family has the money for it. I asked a question about who is allowed to do that and he said it was just based on being able to pay, then stunned me when he threw out the line, "No money, no honey. No money, no home" He has a point. I had to take a picture of him saying it...

Looking around the NY Times travel section, I came across a cool article about a philosopher's trek through the Adirondacks, check it out.

Walking the Streets of Bangkok

2008-07-28T22:36:00.003+07:00

Saturday night I didn't go out and slept for 12 hours after not getting much sleep the two nights before. Sunday around noon I hit the streets of Bangkok hoping to make it to the Grand Palace and Wat Po before they closed for the day. I started in China Town with some noodles for lunch and ended on Khao San Road for some snacks and a beer for dinner. The palace and temples in between were pretty spectacular.

Outside Bangkok

2008-07-28T21:59:00.002+07:00

On Saturday Richard and I arranged for a car to take us to some sites outside Bangkok. I really wanted to check out Ayutaya, the former Thai capital, but planned on doing it Sunday. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the tour setup but it'll give me something to go back to Bangkok to do. Saturday morning, Richard decided to pass up the trip after staying up all night dealing with some financial matters back in the US (a pleasure of living on the other side of the globe). I ended up seeing the Floating Market, an elephant zoo, the Golden Mount and finished with some shopping.

Bangkok Trip Begins

2008-07-28T21:30:00.005+07:00

The last four days of Photo of the Day are being added retroactively since I had little desire to spend time on my computer while in Bangkok for the weekend. Due to the change in our schedule, as previously noted, I had four days off from Friday to Monday. Having been in Thailand for over five months now, it was about time I make a trip up to Bangkok to check out the city. The first goal I had for the trip was to prepare for my next four day off trip to BEIJING for the OLYMPICS!!! BOOYAAAH!!! I had to obtain a visa to get into China, which required that I have 1) a letter from the hostel I'm staying at in Beijing saying I had reservations, 2) proof of my flight in and out of China (strangely on Egypt Air, how does that make sense?), 3) two visa application forms with passport photos and 4) passport. So today's (well, Friday's) photo of the day is the Chinese visa that will make the trip possible:

After taking care of that business, Richard and I headed down to the Chao Praya River that runs through Bangkok to do some sightseeing. It was around 4 pm already, so I was just planning taking a boat ride to get a feel for the city, but we ended up checking out Wat Arun (which was awesome) and taking a longtailed boat ride through some Bangkok canals with a crazy Thai driver. I'll post the whole lot of photos later this week, but here's one from Friday. Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn...ironically, at dusk:

Happy Birthday Maura!

2008-07-24T14:22:00.005+07:00

Maura is 23 years old today, say happy birthday if you get the chance!

Getting around Rayong can be kinda tough. There are many motorcycle taxis available in town. But our hotel is a little outside of town and so there's no bike taxis waiting to whisk you away. When I first got here, I rented a car but can't do that anymore. My coworkers are renting a car on their own dime and let me borrow it today. Little did I know when I got to Rayong, the Thais drive on the left side of the road. The obvious troubles with driving on the wrong side of the road aren't too tough to get over. At intersections you just need to remind yourself, "stay to the left, stay to the left." it was the small things that got me. One, the directional signal is on the other side. For the first week I was driving here, I turned on the windshield wipers every time i wanted to turn. Two, remembering which side of the car to get in to drive got me a couple times. Three, you tend to find yourself drifting towards the left side of the lane, where you normally would be seated if you were driving on the normal side of the car.

I had three things to do: get a new phone card, buy some groceries, and look for a used motor bike of my own. Bought the phone card, got my groceries, and may have found a good bike deal!

Quotes of the day:

"If all you ever do is all you've ever done, then all you ever get is all you ever got"

"When a person is addicted to crack cocaine, his problem is not that the price of crack is going up."

On the Way to Work

2008-07-23T19:54:00.005+07:00

Pretty slow day today, talked to some friends on GChat (entertaining), realized I forgot my laptop power cord at work (devastating), cooked some pasta for lunch (filling), read the new ND magazine (always inspiring).

I ordered two magazines last year when I started to travel (Business Week and The Economist) and they have a weird way of piling up in my room. I'll look through them, but they tend to go unread. However, whenever I get either the ND Magazine or Peeks (magazine of the 46ers) I read it cover to cover. I think it's a combination of the frequency they are published and the personal connection to the subject matter. They're both a nice reminder of things back home.

Today's photo is from the drive into work. We have a driver with a van bring us back and forth to work. It used to be a big crew packing it in, but now we're working shift so a little more room to operate. This guy is our third driver, I don't know his name. The first one was Weetoon, a jolly Thai guy that tried to speak to us in Thai and we tried to speak to him in English, and somehow we got along just fine. Except his van didn't have seatbelts. When UOP safety chief came to town this had to change. Second guy was Ning, a much younger smiley guy that would slow down as we passed thai women on the streat and say "ooohh, lady, lady." Not sure why we lost him, something about too much overtime carting us around. This guy is nice, we buy him cokes when he stops at 7-Eleven on the way home. The other guy messing with his glasses is Richard. We're working the same shift so you'll probably be seeing a lot of him. Things to notice: praying monk and model military jet, whhaattt?

Interesting article: Why India Will Beat China

My Thai Guitar

2008-07-22T12:55:00.004+07:00

Many people on the road have things they like to do in each country. An idea I came up with when I started traveling was to buy an acoustic guitar in each place that I stay longer than a month or so. Somehow I forgot to do this on my first assignment in Japan, then was stuck in oklahoma for a couple months. However, I finally got around to buying my first international guitar a couple months ago. The guy at the store kept telling me "Yamaha...number one, very good." I told him that I didn't want to buy a Yamaha cause I can buy one at home (or could have in japan) that I wanted the best Thai guitar. After running across the street to find someone who could speak better english, he realized what I was saying and proudly pointed to this guitar and said "Number one in Thailand!" Other than being a fifth of the price of the Yamaha, I thought it sounded better.

I took this picture on the deck of my hotel room. The water in the background is the Gulf of Thailand. After my swing through Colorado for Reid's wedding, I've been working on some John Denver songs. I'm having some trouble with Rocky Mountain High, but I think I got Annie's Song and Eagle and the Hawk down.

Back to work tonight from 4 pm to midnight.

Holiday

2008-07-21T13:42:00.006+07:00

Day two...and still going strong! I updated yesterdays post after I found my camera cord.

In thailand you don't have "days off" and you don't have a "weekend". Instead you have "holiday". So today for me is holiday.

We started doing some shift work to better be able to track the activities at the plant. After working two 12 hour shift this past weekend, I get today off and then four days off next weekend. This morning Richard Samaniego (another UOP advisor) and I played some tennis. This is the tennis court at our hotel that I tend to spray shots all over. Thankfully, it is fully fenced in but we still find a way to lose balls.

This is amazing: http://www.vimeo.com/1211060

The Twentieth of July

2008-07-20T22:06:00.008+07:00

Ok, here we go. First post. I came up with the idea to try a photo of the day to give people a better idea of what my life is like here in Rayong on a daily basis. I've posted pictures from trips to islands and up to Pattaya or out in Rayong (which can be viewed at http://picasaweb.google.com/jmhagerty) but not much about the people I work with and the things I do on a daily basis. So I planned on taking a picture each day to post. And today I did just that. But when I got back to my room, I couldn't find my cord to download the picture. So I'm already breaking one of my goals of each picture being taken the day it is posted.

I wanted to start with a picture from work because that is where I spend the majority of my time here in Thailand. This first picture is from one of our vessel inspections back in April probably. The guy to the left, Teerapong, is a process engineer and on the right, Narin, is a board operator. Narin started sending me emails to my UOP address filled with (update: non-pornographic) pictures of Thai girls. Although the effort was appreciated, I have a feeling Honeywell wouldn't appreciate it. And although it may look like it, I'm not about to jump out of a plane.

I had to work today because we started a new shift schedule this past week. It was rainy and gray this morning that felt like a spring day in New York. It felt nice. We got the steam ejectors working this weekend and started boil out of some separation columns today. Between all of that I booked a hostel room in Beijing in August, once I find out more information on visas this week I'm going to book a flight. I'm quite beyond excited.

Check back tomorrow for something new.

Update - I found my camera cord so I'm now in business. Here's the picture I intended to put up yesterday:

This picture shows a part of the plant I'm helping to startup. The large columns with all the white lights on them are what we were working on yesterday. This section separates all of the different molecules produced in upstream equipment into a product stream of Phenol that is 99.95% pure. If everything else goes as it should (and it won't), this section will be the toughest part to get to work once we get started