Thursday, August 25, 2005
Quick Background
OK, I've been hearing about blogs for a while now and a couple of engineers I'm currently working with have started blogs so I thought I'd try my hand at it. At least I shouldn't have to write as much e-mail back to friends and family now.
I'm a mechanical field engineer, traveling the globe working on gas turbine power plant projects. Most recently, within the past year, I've been in Northern Ireland, Spain and now find myself stuck in India.
Northern Ireland, while I was there, was not impressive... at least not the city of Derry/Londonderry, which name you use is depending on your political/religious affiliation. It had great potential and during the day was a lovely city to visit but at night it was a rather rough place to be. Not very friendly to us Americans there (except at the quite nice hotel I was at just away from the downtown area). Any weekend opportunity I had I'd leave the immediate area and head to the Irish Republic. What a difference, warm and friendly people, great pubs, etc. The countryside everywhere was beautiful from the green hills and stark rocks to the beautiful varied coastal regions.
After two months there I spent an awesome month home. Short runs around town on my own on the Road King, looking for a new home for my girlfriend and me, longer runs to neighboring areas with or without my girlfriend on our bike, visiting family, a couple all day and well into the night rides with my girlfriend on our bike. I guess you get the picture; I love to ride… by myself, with my girl, with friends.
Spain was my next destination. Bilbao was the city I was in on the Northern coast, not to far from the French border. What a place… I had a great time while there. It was a beautiful country. The city was an awesome combination of architecture that spanned about 700 or more years, the people were warm and friendly (even though I couldn’t speak a word of Spanish), the food was incredible (some of the best I’ve ever eaten) and the drinks were huge with overly generous portions of alcohol. I think they were waiting for me to tell them to stop but I never did and it seemed like they put 3 to 4 measures into each drink.
This was followed by another month or so at home, reread above about my time at home and then replace the part about looking for a new home with: settling into new home my girlfriend and I found while back in the States and purchased while I was in Spain. Special note… She and a girlfriend of hers moved a lot of our stuff in and really began to fix up the place while I was away. When I was home we didn’t get as much done as we had wanted because we were to busy… yes, you guessed it… riding our bike. We do like to do our share of partying…
I’ve made a relatively new friend who is the only other person I know who is free to ride anytime while I’m home so we do a lot of it together. His girlfriend and mine hit it off as well so we spend a lot of time together. I hear he is missing me right now. Not half as much as I miss him and all my other friends and family. Being stuck in India sucks… but I’m getting ahead of myself…
I'm a mechanical field engineer, traveling the globe working on gas turbine power plant projects. Most recently, within the past year, I've been in Northern Ireland, Spain and now find myself stuck in India.
Northern Ireland, while I was there, was not impressive... at least not the city of Derry/Londonderry, which name you use is depending on your political/religious affiliation. It had great potential and during the day was a lovely city to visit but at night it was a rather rough place to be. Not very friendly to us Americans there (except at the quite nice hotel I was at just away from the downtown area). Any weekend opportunity I had I'd leave the immediate area and head to the Irish Republic. What a difference, warm and friendly people, great pubs, etc. The countryside everywhere was beautiful from the green hills and stark rocks to the beautiful varied coastal regions.
After two months there I spent an awesome month home. Short runs around town on my own on the Road King, looking for a new home for my girlfriend and me, longer runs to neighboring areas with or without my girlfriend on our bike, visiting family, a couple all day and well into the night rides with my girlfriend on our bike. I guess you get the picture; I love to ride… by myself, with my girl, with friends.
Spain was my next destination. Bilbao was the city I was in on the Northern coast, not to far from the French border. What a place… I had a great time while there. It was a beautiful country. The city was an awesome combination of architecture that spanned about 700 or more years, the people were warm and friendly (even though I couldn’t speak a word of Spanish), the food was incredible (some of the best I’ve ever eaten) and the drinks were huge with overly generous portions of alcohol. I think they were waiting for me to tell them to stop but I never did and it seemed like they put 3 to 4 measures into each drink.
This was followed by another month or so at home, reread above about my time at home and then replace the part about looking for a new home with: settling into new home my girlfriend and I found while back in the States and purchased while I was in Spain. Special note… She and a girlfriend of hers moved a lot of our stuff in and really began to fix up the place while I was away. When I was home we didn’t get as much done as we had wanted because we were to busy… yes, you guessed it… riding our bike. We do like to do our share of partying…
I’ve made a relatively new friend who is the only other person I know who is free to ride anytime while I’m home so we do a lot of it together. His girlfriend and mine hit it off as well so we spend a lot of time together. I hear he is missing me right now. Not half as much as I miss him and all my other friends and family. Being stuck in India sucks… but I’m getting ahead of myself…
