Saturday

Happy New Year - interesting January

I'll be travelling back today...from peter.morris@exxonmobil.com
Hopefully...as last night's Air France CDG>NDJ didn't come in (because of dusty weather here?) ... the situation changes here from day to day....hour to hour sometimes!
Eventually going to my home at petemorris@easyliving.com in Gozo.
And busy!

Hopefully, I'm off to N'Djamena this afternoon, to Paris overnight, London tomorrow, with a tight LHR connection to Malta. Arrive at 3:45 pm, a fast Mercedes to the ferry, a channel crossing to Mgarr and up to Qala in Gozo.
I should be home 6:00 pm on Sunday. Followed by a night at Maji's from 9pm onwards.

January 1st, will be first swim of the year, and then a late lunch-party with the Plunkett family!
We're in Sicily from the 6th-12th, and back to do a 5 day Xlendi PADI course from 15th January.
Then back down here on the 23rd-24th!.....

And for my Muslim pals Salamat Eid al Kabir---Mubarak for the three day holiday starting tonight or tomorrow!

Have a busy, prosperous and enjoyable New Year --- 2007!
Raise a pink one!!

Friday

I found this political map of Chad on the French website www.izf.net which has information about all the old French African ex-colonies.

If you look in the bottom left-hand corner (orange section), I just crossed the Lagone river yesterday coming south through Moundou on my way back to Kome base.


And here I am, doing some reports as usual, and trying to finalise everything before my relief, Sonny Pigula, gets here at 2am tomorrow morning!!

So I have about more 20 hours of keeping an eye on this Mangara well. We are just starting to "sidetrack" this morning.

We left a 55ft lump of stuck drill string down at the bottom of the hole, and have now set a cement 'plug' for 200+ ft on top of this.
Now we're drilling out from the top of this plug, in an attempt to get past the metal "fish", as we call it.

Tuesday

Bubbly at the Grand

This pair of leggy lovelies are Jodie (award-winning actress) and Sadie ( my ex-Sandhurst God-daughter)........and they enjoy going out with Peter....this taken in October, at my favourite watering hole : The Grand Hotel, just down the road from my place, overlooking Mgarr harbour.
We are topping up on what we've just been imbibing at my place, ready for an evening out at Maji's.
I think we finished at about 3-4am that night!

I will be working through the night tonight, so I thought that I would post a good memory for Boxing Day!!

Monday

And for the "Party Piece"

Who said I couldn't get seven women on my bed??



And even though I was working over Christmas....
Back in mid-November all of these ladies (Housekeeping from the Grand Hotel + Jean) are on a visit to my place between drinks at The Grand Hotel and a Christmas Dinner at Maji's


And a great time was had by all....especially with all the good 'insider' hotel gossip......the things that go on.....!!!

I told them a few of my own tales!!


Everyone was properly chaperoned, and they were all home before 2am.

And for the Christmas monologue we have:

The Green Eye of The Yellow God

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

He was known as "Mad Carew" by the subs at Khatmandu,
He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell;
But for all his foolish pranks, he was worshipped in the ranks,
And the Colonel's daughter smiled on him as well.

He had loved her all along, with a passion of the strong,
The fact that she loved him was plain to all.
She was nearly twenty-one and arrangements had begun
To celebrate her birthday with a ball.

He wrote to ask what present she would like from Mad Carew;
They met next day as he dismissed a squad;
And jestingly she told him then that nothing else would do
But the green eye of the little Yellow God.

On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance,
And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars;
But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,
Then went out into the night beneath the stars.

He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,
And a gash across his temple dripping red;
He was patched up right away, and he slept through all the day,
And the Colonel's daughter watched beside his bed.

He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;
She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;
He bade her search the pocket saying, "That's from Mad Carew,"
And she found the little green eye of the god.

She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do,
Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;
But she wouldn't take the stone and Mad Carew was left alone
With the jewel that he'd chanced his life to get.

When the ball was at its height, on that still and tropic night,
She thought of him and hastened to his room;
As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy air
Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro' the gloom.

His door was open wide, with silver moonlight shining through;
The place was wet and slipp'ry where she trod;
An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew,
'Twas the "Vengeance of the Little Yellow God."

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.



No bubbly today, 11:15am Xmas lunch!

This is a picture of Super-Model Carolina Reston, who weighed only 40kg (88 lbs) when she died, just about 1/3rd of my weight!!!

I've just had a fantastic (albeit a very early) Christmas lunch at our drilling camp.
But at this time of the year when we are gorging ourselves, let's give a little thought to those poor mites who need help......I mean our SUPER MODELS......... who with their destructive addiction to starvation set a whole new low level of self-esteem for youngsters!!

The satellites are all busy, and my work, which involves sending data to Houston & the Internet (for the partners), took four hours longer this morning...which started at about 5am, as it's another slow day for geology.

Hope you are all enjoying yourselves with your friends & families!!!

Saturday

Still here in Chad - not so bubbly



I'm still here at the Magara location, 3 hours drive northwest of Kome, through the main town of Moundou.

Here I am in the "Mud logging Laboratory" looking at some rocks that were 'shot' as "Side-Wall Cores" down in a Kome well......at about 5400' or a mile down.

  • Work is sparse for a geologist when there's a lot of engineering work to be done before we re-start the well. This well is now 'cased', ie. it has some metal tubing all the way down to stabilise the rock walls, which were falling in all the time.

We'll run some electrical logs through this metal casing to check where our cement is, and some other electric logs (Sonic, Neutron & Gamma Ray) that can see through the steel, and give us an estimation of the rock properties.

It was too problematical in the 'old' uncased hole, to run the more sophisticated logs that we normally would have run.

Hence me twiddling my thumbs for a while. I could go back to Kome base where the food is better...and they have good TV, gym etc......but the return journey of six hours over rough roads puts me off. Just for a two day sojourn

Friday

May Day = Champagne at Pete's


Another good memory:
Kind thoughts for my local male friends in Gozo......as well as their pretty wives.
Clockwise from the rear is Natasha, Vanessa, Silvio, Manuel, Roger......and the one giving us that look is Tony!
I always try to have a party one springtime afternoon in the mid-week when we're not doing much.....a get-together of different people.
This year it was 20-74 year olds and 1:30-11:30pm.
  • We have just started to solve some of our drilling problems here at Mangara, southernmost Chad.
  • It has cost couple of $million, in time and an extra casing string.
  • It will take about a week more before we are making true progress.
  • But that's exploration for you!
  • I am not very busy....so maybe I'll get down to learning some Italian for my upcoming trip to Sicily.

Still blowing bubbles...in my head




This Blog will start with a recent or distant memory...and then maybe some diary stuff.

This picture is of Jean and myself at a bar on the Avenue St Michel 20 months ago. Wandering down Rue Mouffetard, through The Latin Quarter, past the famous colleges.



Lunch on the Ile St Louis, followed Batteaux Mouche from the Pont Neuf. Then we headed back to our Latin quarter hotel....via a bottle of Veuve in a student type bar on the way back, some shopping on Ave St Michel...for Jean....and past the Luxembourg gardens...only to find a bar at the end of a long day......this is us tired.....and enjoying some more bubbly

I am still "geologizing" for Exxon Mobil in Chad, and enjoying the benefits of:
  • Rejuvenating my liver to "almost new" every second month
  • Keeping out of trouble generally, or becoming too disolute, and keeping my declining mind alive.
  • Keeping out of my loved one's hair.... abscence makes the heart grow fonder etc
  • Racking up the airmiles for a couple of first class freebies once a year!
  • The only problem is all this travelling, and the long 20 hour days that I sometime have to pull here out on the rig-site.
    Whatever......it still suits me.

Down here in the "Logone Orient" in the far south east, it's beautifully sunny....like June in Gozo.
Now I am at a location 3 hrs drive away from Kome, just through the Southern Capital of Moundou, where we are drilling a well in our 'Mangara' prospect.
The hydrocarbons look good, but the drilling is very difficult.
A normal well in Kome costs about $2 million to drill, but these cost about $20-25 million because of the intrinsic drilling problems.

Everyone out there ...have a great Christmas by the way!! I'll be working...........
I'll be back to Gozo at 5pm on New Year's Eve.....just in time for a quick rest.....clean up & get the tuxedo on! And out to Maji's with my lovely Jean.

Sunday

You've got to start sometime...


This is my very first Blog.

I am presently in Chad, and working over a slow Inmarsat (Indian Ocean) satellite connection; but never mind, you've got to start sometime.

I have had one website for about 10 years (hosted in NY):
http://www.petemorris.net/

Which says I am " A legend in his own lunchtime!"
Hence the photograph of two of the beauties from a well-populated lunch party......
Vanessa on the left and Ursell on the right

And then, later I decided to add the others with my name (hosted in the UK):
http://www.petemorris.org/
http://www.petemorris.biz/
http://www.petemorris.org.uk/
http://www.petemorris.info/
http://www.petemorris.com/


These websites have lots of travel pictures, some jokes, other blurb and some business CVs.
I rarely update them.
I travel a lot on business & pleasure: maybe 80-90 flights a year, so the websites and the blog will have to reflect that.

The blog is called "I'm forever blowing bubbles" because of my insatiable taste for champagne consumption when in Europe!!

Ah well, as an introduction to the 'Life of Pete Morris', it's a start.