Home Cooked Food

I wasn't back at home for long during the past Chinese New Year due to sudden assignment from the company.

But I was and am very thankful for my mother for willing to prepare great food for me while I was back. Still, home-cooked food is the best! :)

red fish? steamed, my favorite way of cooking a fish. I like steamed fish though, regardless the type. :) hehe...

sweet and sour pork. nice!i was stealing to eat some while my mom was cooking them. hehe...

dim sum!

one of my favorite dishes, mixed vege. I don't know why my mom can always make it taste so nice. hahaa..

fried eggs soup with mushroom and minced meat. :)

this is the lunch I took before I left. Mixed vegetables with prawn, again, it tasted fabulous. haha..

and yea, chicken steamed in white gourd. the soup is fantastic. :)

steamed fish! too luxurious huh? hehee...

so you have known my favourite dishes? :) anyone needs some recipe? haha...

The Mechanic Movie Review

After coming back from the rig, the first thing I wanted to do was to catch a movie at the cinema. Even though I had been watching shows on the rig, the experience at the cinema with pop corn at hands was totally a different thing.

This time, I watched "The Mechanic" by Simon West staring Jason Statham, one of my favourite action actors.

The show was about the life of a hired assassin, Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham). Arthur's job was to kill the criminals who had escaped the hands of law. He liked his job very much and he had been doing it well under the guidance of his mentor, Harry Mckenna (Donald Sutherland). However, things changed when he was tricked to murder his mentor. He didn't hesitate when he did it. But when he found out he was fooled by his employer, he took revenge with the help of his mentor's son, Steve Mckenna (Ben Foster). Arthur had been coaching Steve after Harry's death. He did it out of guilt.

Arthur's preparation for every assignments was almost flawless, even when he was against his employer. Nevertheless, things got complicated when Steve found out Arthur was the one who murdered his father and he decided to get back to Arthur. Did Arthur manage to escape the fate? That's worth finding out. :)

Food for thought

Indeed, as one of the scene portrayed, "Victory loves preparation". I personally think that also applies to even things that we have been doing over numerous times. A lot of times we thought nothing would go wrong with things that we have done so many times, but complacency kills.

Things that we feel most confident with would always be the only thing that brings us down. Being confident is one thing, being over confident is another. It's always best to prepare, and keep on preparing even after we have achieved victory, just like Arthur in the movie. :)

Seeds

During one of the days that I was attached to Batam’s base for equipment training, I was invited over to the base supervisor’s house for weekend dinner gathering. He was an American and it was kind of my first time attending a dinner gathering like that. Of course, I was excited and looking forward to going to the dinner with my other colleagues.

When I arrived at his house that night, I was taken aback by his ability to decorate his house and most of all, his passion for planting. His knowledge of plants was substantial and he basically knew everything about the green creatures. Besides he had the gift of describing things in an interesting way which had caught everyone’s interest. So the dinner turned into a big discussion about plants.

At first we were asking about the tropical plants, the house plants that we could plant in our homes. We talked about the types of plants available, necessities for the plants to grow effectively, the soil types and so on. It was really interesting and I did not know planting could be such a cool hobby until the night.

After a while, someone jokingly asked about the cannabis seeds and marijuana seeds. Surprisingly, the host knew about the plants as well! He even knew how to plant them and it was no easy task. All the while my impression about cannabis was it was a drug that could cost harm. Little do I know that cannabis seed was used for medicinal purposes as well since long time ago. I suppose, everything when used in extreme context, they are going to be harmful in anyway. It is just like drinking not enough water can be unhealthy, but drinking too much of water at once could be lethal as well.

Death Race Movie Review

It was 12am at night and I had just started my shift. Since we were on standby, there weren't much things for me to do. So i took a break and went in to the TV room and watched "Death Race" by Paul W.S Anderson, starring Jason Statham.

picture courtesy of wikipedia

The movie was about an innocent guy, Jensen Ames(Jason Statham) being framed by an infamous prison warden-Hennessey (Joan Allen) to the murder of his wife. He was brought to the prison and soon asked to race in the Death Race. Death Race was a TV live show broadcasted live from the prison. The actors were the real prisoners that raced to death. If the racer won the race for 5 times, he would win his freedom.

Thus, Jensen were asked to mask as Frankenstein, who had won 4 races but died in the last race. So Jensen were told by Hennessey to live the legend of Frankenstein again. Being forced, Jensen had to play by the game.

However, climax began when Jensen was about to lose the last race. He, together with his partners did something out of the blue. What was it? That's for you to find out. :)

Food for thought

The prison life reminded me of the life on the rig offshore! We are being surrounded by seawater here and there's no way out! Kind of similar huh? The difference being we are being paid working on the rig while the prison doesn't? haha.

Anyway, the story reminded me about how cruel and inhuman a human can be in order to achieve what he/she wants in life. In this case, Hennessey. She misused her power and ordered someone to murder Jensen's wife in order to bring Jensen in to the prison to race for her. That's sad.

But Jensen was brave enough to fight for his rights, and also for his fellow inmates. Sometimes, the right thing to do isn't always the lawful thing to do huh? :)

Work

Thank God for good weather these few days, the wave is bearable. Currently the equipment are on standby and I am helping out to service and clean the equipment. :)

work, and more work.(pic was taken in the yard)

The work has become a dull routine nowadays. I wonder that's what I am going to do for the coming 5 to 10 years? hmm...

Life on rig

When I started with this job, a lot of friends started to ask how is it like to be on a rig? Especially on an offshore rig?

I have to admit, most of the time I can't help but to wonder as well as I have heard so much about it and yet haven't got a chance to experience it due to the trainings and preparation that I have to go through.

Let's start with the chopper part. Yea, most of the offshore rigs are accessible via chopper. Of course one can choose to go on a crew boat, but the journey is longer and the sea is rougher! So yea, chopper saves you all the seasickness. Nevertheless, it's quite dangerous to go by chopper as well especially during bad weather. Fortunately for me, the day when I took the chopper the sky was quite clear and the journey was quite smooth that I dozed off few times during the one hour flight (which is not a safe thing to do).

There isn't much difference between taking a plane and taking a helicopter i guess, except the part that helicopter lifted up vertically without you knowing it. :) It was like one second I was on land, another second I was on air! I didn't even know it until i saw the buildings getting smaller. And throughout the whole journey everyone was very quiet, all you could hear was "Chup Chup Chup", so it was kinda rhythmic and for me it kinda serve as a lullaby. hmm... :)

Upon landing on the rig, a safety induction was necessary. Each one of us was given a bed in a either 2,3 or 4 persons sharing room. All the rooms were air con equipped and all the beds have curtains around them. The curtains are for you to close around your bed when you are sleeping because normally the people in the room will have different shifts. So most of the time, only two or sometimes one person in the room, normally you don't get to see your roommates though unless you come back to the room during your shift. :) The room came with a TV as well, with Astro channels such as HBO, Star Movie, Discovery and so on. Not a bad life huh?

The toilets were shared of course, and oh yea! everyone was given a tower and soap as well. Laundry services are available as well for free and they worked real quick! They could get your clothes ready within 5 to 6 hours and the clothes were cleaner than those commercial laundry shops out there in town.

Food wise, guess what? It's too luxurious. 6 meals a day-Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Supper and two breaks. the main 4 meals they serve all kind of good food, steaks, lamp chops, fish and chips, salmon(yes, whole big salmon for you to cut and they will top up once the salmon was finished), chicken, ducks, noodles, pasta, soups and so on. Besides, they served Japanese food as well because on the rig was basically owned by Japanese Company. :) So yea, I am gaining weight everyday.

Besides all that, the rig had a TV room with 60 inch TV (yes, the big plasma TV) equipped with surround sound system. Awesome huh? Yes, it was wired with Astro service. :)

Well, of course, that's the life part, let's go to the work. Basically everyone was on 12 hours shift, mine was from 12 am to 12 pm. The containers and the work site were just beside the accommodation compartment, so if we just opened the door and we could hear all the machineries and engines running. Surrounding us, of course, were the sea water, nothing could be seen at the horizon except waters. Deep blue sea. It reminded me of the movie, with sharks under the water. *shivers*

Guess what, my company's equipment was mounted on top of the deep blue sea (on the well), we could see the seawater waving and rising below us. and one of the job description was to "manride" the equipment and fix or unfix the joints of the equipment. That sent a lot of chills down my spine. *gulp*

I would say it was a heavy industry work going on here. So a lot of attention were given to the safety of the personnels. I suppose that's the price to pay right? :) Currently the operation is a bit delayed and I guess I won't be back home anytime sooner. :(

Ohya, did I forget to mention I was swaying every single minute? :) It's a semi submersible, it is supposed to sway. haha..hopefully I don't get any motion sickness when the waves get stronger.

Cheers people. :)

Flash Drives!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of PhotoFlashDrive by Pexagon Technology. All opinions are 100% mine.

For those photographers out there like me, I am sure one of the main concerns during your photography trips or personal events and traveling trips is the storage of the photos you took everyday. Some are using flash drives for photographers, some are using external hard discs, and some just bring more memory sticks during the trips. 

No matter what storage devices or methods we use to keep our photos, the purpose is to make sure that we have enough space to store the precious photos we take. I am very sure none of us want to choose between photos to delete while we are shooting photos for important events or occasions. The worst thing could happen is when you are about to press the shutter for a very unique moment, the camera display screen flashed "Not Enough Memory", I suppose one would regret forever for that once in a life time . 

Therefore, be generous in spending that kind of money on your photography flash drives. I am sure you will need those extra space sometimes in the future and you will never know when you need them so it is better to prepare extra in advance! Have fun shooting.

CNY on Floating Rig

It's the first day of Chinese New Year and I am here on a floating rig (Semi Submersible), floating and swaying.

an example of semi submersible. picture taken from here

But it was kinda cool though, new experience and more things for me to learn. The food here is great, lamb chops, fish and chips, chicken chops and so on everyday. I am so going to gain some weight! and the crew here are so funny and friendly, so far are enjoying myself. LOL.

Nevertheless, hope the operation can be over fast and I want to go home! :)

Anyway, Happy Chinese New Year! :)