The Frizziness Knows No End

Feb 25 – Feb 28
I realized in the course of reading my last post that I had not introduced Ali or discussed how this Australia opportunity came about. In early October (2009), I got an email from Mitch, whom I had worked with before he transferred from the Redmond office to Golder’s Brisbane office. He told me about a project they were bidding on, that if they won the bid, they would need several more people to staff the project….if I was interested in coming to Australia for 4-6 months. Of course I was interested! Longs story short, after months of waiting and the ups and downs of “YES! You’re going.” and in the next breath “oops, sorry. No you’re not.” Well, somehow after all that, I find myself here!

Ali is a coworker who has been at Golder Redmond a little longer than I have, she’s a year or two older and married to JB, who is somehow living without her for the next couple months. We both think rocks are cool, and are having lots of fun together as a great adventure team tackling the wilds of Brisbane and beyond.
The project (without going into overwhelming detail) is to provide geo-hazard and geologic information to geotechnical engineers for design and Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) parameters for a two connecting potential pipelines north of Brisbane, that combined are approximately 530 km long (roughly 300 mi).

Well, now…back to the story.

Feb 25 and 26 Thursday and Friday workdays.
Thursday morning I woke up with only a slightly sore neck (it healed very quickly!) and off to work again. Throughout the week in the office Ali and I had been given several fancy pieces of equipment to use…mostly for work in the field, but also in the office. We have 3G cell phones (strictly called mobiles here, NOT cell phones), Tablets, GPS cameras, handheld GPS with ArcPad (like a Trimble), SAT phones, and UHF radios. (At all times in the field they want us to have 3 types/options for communication.) The Brisbane office here is trying some alternatives to logging boreholes. Traditionally we work with a paper format in the field and then input the information into a program back to the office. Here they are testing out the latest and greatest version of a ‘tough book’, called a tablet, that we can literally write in the information into the program by drawing on the screen using a stylus into a program that automatically inputs it into the right borehole format (and the handwriting recognition is really good!). Obviously, from the amount of time I’m spending yakking about it, the tablet is my favorite so far, it has GPS capabilities (with ArcExporer), normal computer capabilities, internet anywhere with cell coverage, post-it notes program, and a window Journal program that allows you to scribble, draw, and take notes that stay exactly as you put it or can be converted to typing. Needless to say, a large part of the week was getting familiar with our new ‘toys’.

Ali and I also started working on some project work on Friday. I started a landslide study using LiDAR and google maps while Ali helped Mitch with some of the reporting from his field work. Fun, fun, fun! I love landslides!
Friday after work, Ali and I were both invited to go out with a bunch of the people from the office to celebrate a couple birthdays. We got all jazzed up (well, as much could with our limited wardrobe) and started off at a nice restaurant downtown (the downtown area called Fortitude Valley). It was Indian/Mediterranean style and very yummy. After dinner we follow the crowd of Golder-ites (about 30 in all) to a cocktail bar down the street. Turns out, that even in our best clothes we were turned away for wearing flip-flops. I will take a moment to note that our wardrobe has been yet another hurdle to deal with here. First of all, I brought way too many warm clothes…and by warm clothes I mean that jeans and a t-shirt is simply too much. I hardly ever wear jeans…they’re too heavy. The temperature ranges from hot to really hot (even when raining) and I didn’t really need more than 1 or 2 jackets (the office is cool). Also, the Bris office is more dressy than the Redmond office. Ali and I thought we would only be in the office 3-5 days until going out to the field for the majority of our time here. So, needless to say we’ve had to be a little creative to attempt the ‘fresh and new’ look. Also, as the title of this blog entry states…the frizziness is unstoppable. I’ve been to Virginia in the summer before, but somehow I cannot get my hair to look calm or professional. It insists on the juvenile. I feel like a teenager with bad hair all the time - all over again. I tried letting it have it’s own way, I tried blow drying it…and then I finally got my hair straightener to work the other day by getting a step-down transformer…but it seems that the second I straighten, it just curls right back up. Nothing is working…yet. The next step is to turn to product. …will venture in that direction next week, especially if it turns out that I’m not going into the field for a while.

Feb 27 Saturday. Rain.
Saturday really starts with Friday….just before we headed out with the crew, Ali got a call from the project manager to see if she would be willing to go out to the field last minute on Sunday to replace a sick team member. So, first thing Saturday we were headed back to the office to get her all set up for field work, and me to finish up some work, and skype, and email, and bank account stuff and…whatever. It was a nice day of catching up and organizing. It had started raining (it’s the end of the Wet here…the wet season) so it was nice to be inside and I was able to get ready for Sunday and looked up a church that is loosely affiliated with my home church (Mars Hill Church) through a church planting network called Acts 29 Network. It’s a small church plant that started up only two weeks earlier. I got the address and directions, so I was read for the next day….or so I thought.

Feb 28 Sunday. Adventuring in BBQ land.
Sunday started out as a nice beautiful morning. An hour before church started, I bid Ali farewell and good luck in the field, and headed off to a suburb south of town called Norman Park. Whooweee! What a fiasco. I started off at the local train station where I would need to take two different trains to get to my location. I was told that I had a half hour until my train arrived and that I could either wait for my train or walk down to the city cat and catch the boat to my connecting train. Of course I took the boat…the only problem was that the train was a lot further away than they train station guy had told me. But finally I made it – to the train terminal. By this time it was about 10:15 and I was only half way! I got off at the right stop and promptly realized that my directions were street/road map directions…and the road signs were not marked. After wandering around for a while, I finally found some shops that were still open. A very nice lady showed my on a map where to go…and the directions were easy enough. Turns out I went exactly the opposite way I was supposed to go. Ha! Figures. I snuck in only about 20ish minutes late – sweating, but happy to be there. Sermon was great. The church is indeed small, but very friendly. After the service I met the couple sitting next to me (Rob and Dora, about my parents age), then went outside and met a few of the gals who are about my age, then proceeded to meet just about the entire church (I’d say about 30 ppl). A few of the guys invited everyone over for bbq. I stopped by the grocery store with a couple of the girls and got meat before heading over. Lively conversations, lots of laughter, good community, yummy food, and a huge potential for making several awesome friends.
I got ‘home’ to the apartment and guess what?!! Ali was still there! Her job had gotten cancelled last minute due to rain up north. I have to say that I was really happy about having her stay. It’s so nice to have a friend to be around and do stuff with. All in all, it was a wonderful day for me.