And now for something different...

I'm writing this on a Friday evening, sitting in the lobby of my hotel, just had a shower and some dinner. If you're reading this, let me kindly inform you, it's Friday evening and you should be out doing something way more interesting. I have an excuse for being lame on a Friday evening, I've just finished a 14 hour of legit manual labour. I have no care in the world right now except to get cracking on editing  a series that is long overdue to be delivered to the client. And some other trivialities like blogging and trolling Instagram for inspiration.

Something cool happened today though, NRK (Norwegian national broadcaster) followed myself and my team around for a few hours. People in the general public have no idea whatsoever about rope access, neither do you probably. Google it. They have decided to make a "thing" on us over the next few days while we carry out a job on the second highest building in Norway. There is a pretty cool edited clip that aired at 7pm tonight on TV, but that hasn't made its way into the channels of the deep, dark interweb yet. I'll be sure to post it as soon as it does though.

I usually dont do onshore work at all anymore, but I was headhunted because of my previous experience from South Africa when I was working for Skysite to come in and supervise this job. I kinda miss being offshore, but going home to a hotel every night does have it's perks. Regardless of where I am though, be it a floating power drill in the North Atlantic of a picturesque town in warm southern Norway, I want to be home shooting and making connections. Frustration has set in with the utmost intent of distracting me at every waking moment of this trip.

Here is the link to the video and some pictures courtesy of NRK photographer Thomas Nikolai Blekeli. Now, do yourself a favour and stop surfing the interweb and reading random bullshit and get out and do something rad! Regardless, have a good Friday night ya'll. N.

The Video:

http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/ostafjells/telemark/1.8285196

Maybe its just me?

Its all happening. Not here where I am, but it seems like there is a lot going on in the world right now. Syria is going balls crazy, I dont usually have much empathy for war stricken countries, because ignorance is bliss, and I'm quite frankly to selfish to care. But somewhere along the line it hit home with me, what are these people doing to each other? And what possible reason(s) could justify the brutal and savage killing of so many people? I know the reasons, but they are by no means a justification.

Torrential downpour has struck Japan, I need not to mention that this is very shortly after the series of natural disasters that occurred less than a year ago. People are dying here too.

The new Batman film, (which I have yet to see) will be remembered for completely the wrong reasons. A single individual managed to destroy the lives of a few hundred people within a few seconds. At the cinema. More people dead.

As of a good life I have, the more I hear and see about these things, I feel less of a need to buy a new stuff, to worry about trivial things, to be false and facetious, to be co-dependent, to worry about, to worry about materialistic possessions in general, stress about my "luxury problems" ( I blogged about this a while ago. You can find it here too.) All of this seems superfluous in comparison to the real problems we have in the world right now. And no, I'm not becoming an activist hippie. But it doesn't hurt to be aware.

The Tour de France is finally over, I could honestly not care less, but its been drawing in mindless Lance Armstrong fanatics to screens everywhere for the last however long. Admittedly though, after the last however many days when ever I look up and its on, I think I should start cycling. But then I wake up and realise I'm not a mindless nincompoop. France, really? The highlight of the year in the cycling world is riding the lightest possible bike through the most arrogant country in the world? Here is my suggestion. Firstly, choose a decent country. Make it exciting for the viewer as well as the riders, for all I know the entire race could have taken place in Yorkshire or Milwaukee. It all looks the same. Why not change the concept a bit, Tour de Township. Cycle from Guguletu in Cape Town to Hillbrow in Johannesburg, going through every informal settlement en route. ( For my international readers: Google  Image search these places.) That would be exciting! I wonder how many bikes would actually still have wheels on them when entering Jozi. Secondly make the bike heavier. Whats the point in having super lightweight, dry carbon weave space frame bike? Isn't this meant to be challenging? All bikes should be homemade by the riders themselves, on a budget of no more US$ 300. That will also teach these sweaty, protein juiced, anorexic men to do something else than shave their legs. Girls. I will buy a case of beer to the first man to cycle from Guguletu to Hillbrow on a homemade bicycle.

The Olympics have started. Not that I could care about that either. Not until they start accepting real sports. IOC, if you stumble across this, take note: Wakeskating, downhill skating, surfing, rope access, bouldering, wingsuiting, free diving, and some sort of fighting with weapons that is not fencing would be a great to the very blah line up you offer already. How often does the Olympics take place, 4 years. You would think they would have built up something in the four year time span that would get people excited? No, the same crap every year. Can this black dude run faster than all these white dudes? Yes. Can this black dude do this better than that white dude? Most probably. As soon as black people learn to master swim as fast as they run and ice hockey, every American icon sport will be dominated by black dudes. End of story. Prime example, I just watched the opening minutes of Norway VS Brasil in mens beach volleyball. Come now Norway, what are you honestly thinking? Of all the countries they could have been paired up with, Brasil? It was entertaining at least. I think they teach kids in Brasil how to spike a volleyball before they learn to read. Norway doesn't really have an acceptable beach that I have seen yet, and if they do, its probably in a place that only gets three days of sun per year. Stick to skiing.

I'm sure there is another thing that I was meant to offer my two cents on. But for the love of nicotine dependence, I cant think of it. In the mean time here are some pictures from the job I'm currently running on Visund. First pictures from my Iceland trip will be going up soon!!! Stay tuned in! Take it easy. N.

11.2 tonnes of heave compensation cylinder on its way to the drill floor from the pipe deck.

Lifting the cylinder through the derrick to mount it in the crown. 

Slinging, clearance was down to 20cm in some places.

Crown block on its way up. All 10.4 tonnes of it. You can see the drillfloor and the rotary table below.

Test lift with crown block.

Contrary to popular belief, I do actually work every once in a while.

Our night team mounting the guide sheave for the fast line.

Chilled day at the office.

I was going to make the caption to this some tongue in cheek cliched one liner... But I wanted to avoid that,  so as not to sound as uneducated as most people presume me to be. So i'll give the technical and straight forward explanation instead. This is a picture of me aid climbing on some filthy beams above the Hydraracker (the machine that handles the drill pipes from the fingerboard to the top drive) in order to setup a couple of anchors for our ropes. Fun stuff. Especially when the said beams bounce every time i shift my weight. Catch up soon. N.