It was pretty uneventful 8 weeks too. The most exciting thing was probably cyclonic storm Phet. At one stage it looked like it was developing into a major cyclone and was going to hit us fair and square. Luckily it turned north just before it hit the coast, and although we experience some high winds and some rain, it didn’t do much damage.

It was severe enough to stop field operations for a couple of days though.

 Apart from that it was a very straightforward couple of months. The crew performed well and deserves credit for a job well done.

 I’m disappointed that there was no extension, but it was a pretty good run though, so not complaining too much.

Do need to find more work though!

Operationally parts of it are quite difficult – some very rugged sections.
The crew deserves credit for getting through there without so much as a twisted ankle.
There has been a lot if criticism of BGP over the years, some of it justified, but they have developed and are now at a stage that I would put them up against any of the other major contractors. In many ways they are better.
Their biggest failing is probably technical support, but sadly that is lacking in many companies these days. It’s what happens when accountants get to run companies.

I’m going back early next month, should have around 6 weeks to finish up the job.
After that, who knows?

For those interested, some updates to software:

Uphole2 has had some major fixes:
• On first load of a file that has no Project associated with it, you are now forced to complete the header sections.
• You can now change headers – IE hole names etc.
• The PIK files now contain the depth for that level, so it will be suggested when re-picking
• You can now create a File depth Assignment in Excel and copy/paste into the FDA section
• Print has been added to the Interpretation page
• On the interpretation page:
• Holding down the ALT key while moving cursor over a point show information about the point in the title bar
• Holding down the SHIFT key while clicking on a point changes it to an X and excludes it from calculations
• Holding down the CTRL key while clicking on a point deleted the point from the display and excludes it from calculation

There are still a few things to do –
Report needs to be finalised
There is an issue when changing to different types of down hole tools on the same hole IE going from 5 receivers to 1.
These will be fixed in due course -IE when I get more Upholes to work with.

SMT Analyser has some minor updates
‘Stats Only’ now calculates last month as well as the current month
Fixed an issue with ‘Statistical Comparisons’ crashing

Still need to update for the different possible date formats of the SMT300 which brings me to today’s rant:
Why the hell can’t manufacturers decide on one date format and stick with it?
We have basically 3 formats:
The correct, proper, sensible date format is (CDF) ddmmyyy
The mindless American format (MAF) mmddyyyy (whoever came up with that needs the rough end of a pineapple inserted where it most hurts)
Database format yyyymmddd (for computer use, probably the most sensible)

The problem of course lies with the CDF vs the MAF. How can we tell what the real date is if it is presented as 9-4-2010 or 09/04/2010?
Thinking people would assume it as 9th April 2010, but in America it would be 4th September 2010
This would be manageable if the manufacturers specified what format they are using and stuck with it.
Sensor are one of many that don’t.
It would also be manageable if they identified the date format somewhere in the file header – something like:

DATEFORMAT=MAF

Or

DATEFORMAT=dd-mm-yyyy

That would make life a lot easier for all concerned and me especially.

Of more interest was my recent trip to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.
Would have liked some more time there, but this is a short break, so back to Bangkok it was. Pictures are on the Photo Gallery.
We made it to Doi Inthanon, which besides being rather cold, is the highest point in Thailand at some 2565m above MSL. There are also some nice waterfalls, and of course the Naphaphonphumisiri Chedis built to celebrate the 60th Birthdays of their majesties the King and Queen in 1987 and 1992 respectively.

We also visited the tiger farm, not far from Chiang Mai. Here you can get real close to the tigers. It’s a pity they smell like dogs. Also a pity I couldn’t bring one back to Bangkok to sort out the dog problem in my condo. It is beyond me why people would keep a dog in a condo.
Anyone who is such a depraved social outcast that the only thing they can find that is happy to see them is a shit machine, really should be considering suicide.

Consider a day in the life a dog:

I’m a dog, I’m a dog, you own me, feed me
I’m a dog, I’m a dog, and I’m going to shit everywhere now
I’m a dog, I’m a dog, and I’m going to roll in the shit now so I stink more now
I’m a dog, I’m a dog, and I’m going to yip and yap and yelp to annoy the crap out of all the neighbors now
I’m a dog, I’m a dog, you’re back, you own me, feed me.

Repeat this for day after day, week after week, month after month, even year after year until one day:

I’m a dog, I’m a dog, and I’m going to rip you to pieces now. I’m going to take great bites out of you now. No reason really, I’m a dog, I’m a dog.

A dog has no intelligence, emotions or loyalty. Feed it and hope it doesn’t bite you.
Considering the current concern regarding CO2 emissions, ‘carbon footprints’ and ‘Global Warming’ one area that is ignored is the wasted effort and energy involved in caring for dogs. The best thing really would be to turn them all into fertilizer.
At least then they would be doing something useful.

The biggest change on the crew though was the long overdue retirement of the dreaded Scorpion recording system. It has been replaced by a Sercel 428, which is a joy to work with.
I have been a bit critical of Sercel over the years, but they have done a good job on this system. I just hope they don’t rush another system out any time soon. They certainly don’t need to – there is essentially zero opposition at the moment. That’s not to say there won’t be some time in the future – Geospace’s cableless system looks like it might have some potential for example – but right now Sercel
can sit back and perfect whatever they are working on.

The block is like so many other locations of seismic surveys – boring as hell. This one is mostly dried subkha, with a few sand dunes thrown in to make it awkward. I doubt there are more than 6 trees in the entire block. The only wildlife I saw was a lonely jackrabbit, of all things, right on the edge of the block. No idea what he eats.

It looks like it will run for another couple of months, which suits me. In fact I hope we get an extension!

Although I have passed through Khartoum several times, I have never spent any real time there before. This time at least I got to walk around a bit. The area I was in was the old British Colonial part of Khartoum. There are still a lot of old buildings that can be seen, but sadly most of them are falling into disrepair, and none are open to the public.

One of the things that struck me when wandering about was the creative driving techniques of some of the local people. Having worked in many places over the years, I thought I had seen almost everything when it came to driving, but Khartoum is the only place I have ever seen anyone reading a newspaper when driving! It does have the effect of making you look twice each way when crossing the street.

I had hoped to get to the National Museum when I was there, but unfortunately it was closed every time I went. This was very disappointing to me, and I find it all a bit strange – I would have thought the best time to open a museum was when people could visit. Anyway, on my last day I tried again, and of course it was closed despite it being early afternoon and the sign saying it should be open. One of the guards did allow me to look at one of the outside exhibits though (for a price), which only piques my interest. If I return to Khartoum I will try to get there again. Some pictures in the Photo gallery.

The next job looks like back in Oman.

The helicopter crews were likewise excellent. In fact, the best group of Pilots and ground crew I have ever met. And from two different companies too. The first was a group of Russians with an MI8 (this is one tough helicopter). They were essentially filling in as the Bell 212 that was normally attached to the crew was undergoing engine repairs. Despite the language barrier, these guys did a terrific job and were very helpful to the operation. Once the Bell returned we had an interesting mixture of German, Bosnian and Austrian helicopter crew, who were – and still are – an amazing asset to the operation, and very easy to get on with.
It was a real pleasure working with both teams.

All up, it was a good trip, although at times boring as the crew couldn’t work much of the time. But the crew, both seismic and helicopter made it a well worthwhile trip for me and I hope I get back there some time soon.

Some pictures of the job here:

http://www.seismatters.com/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=70

The job itself was little more than just another seismic operation in just another barren desert.
What made it interesting was BP’s ISS technique. This is probably the future of exploration seismic for the next few years – high production and very flexible. Unfortunately the acquisition contractor involved was not exactly inspiring, despite having a long, and in their eyes, a glorious past. If they spent half as much time on doing seismic as they do on ‘feel good’ meetings and other cosmetic programs, they could improve both their profits and the quality of their final product.
Not to mention salvaging what is left of their rather battered reputation.

Unfortunately I won’t be going back to Libya, but it was a worthwhile experience nevertheless

I have no problem with people exposing weaknesses and problems in software or websites, or to even circumvent unreasonably restrictive licensing systems to protect themselves or their company, but to deface, destroy or manipulate a site to steal is completely unacceptable.
I am of the opinion that malicious hackers deserve a slow and painful death.
It’s time the Namby Pamby politically correct culture of today’s society is examined closely.
The death penalty is appropriate in actually a lot of cases and malicious hacking is one of them.

And I don’t give a shit how old — or young — the offender is. Get rid of them and make the bastards suffer while doing it.

Oh well, time to upgrade I guess. I had never been entirely happy with the system anyway – it was a P4 3.6GHz processor in an Intel 915 motherboard, which should have been OK, but the fan that came with the processor was very noisy and things ran hot.

So, off to Seri Centre and buy an Intel DP35DP motherboard, E8400 3GHz Core 2 Duo Processor and 4GB DDR2 Memory.Then came the fun stuff – making it all work with Windows 2000.A quick look at the Intel site shows that they don’t provide ANY drivers for W2K for the DP35DP. Luckily most of the XP drivers work fine under 2000.The only thing I couldn’t get working was the on board sound, so I bought a cheap PCI sound card and installed that.Sound isn’t too important for me, in fact I will never understand the dipshits that use a computer as a sound system.A computer is a machine to WORK with, not play with. If you want fancy sound, buy a stereo. If you want to play games, take up golf or tennis, it’s much healthier.

Anyway, I digress….

There is one pitfall when installing Windows 2000.You must disable the Core Multiplexing in the BIOS before installing.You must also set the hard drive emulation to be IDE – this seems to be default anyway.In my case, I slipstreamed the drivers onto the Windows installation disk, along with a bunch of Windows updates so that I didn’t have to spend the next week updating the updates of Windows updates.This **shouldn’t** be necessary. You should be able to load Windows normally and then install the drivers. After the initial install, perform your updates, install your application softwareand then you can enable core multiplexing. Windows MUST be updated before enabling core multiplexing!

And once again, Windows 2000 triumphs. It’s stable and responsive and has none of the infantile XP or Vista crap.