Might be offline for a few Weeks

[k0ua]

Good luck Gary, stay safe and have a good trip.

James K0UA

 

[TSO]

Have fun, buy us something nice with all that money you'll be making

 

[Gary Fowler]

Best of luck. Be glad your medication only costs what it does. My better half has one scrpit that is 1100 out of pocket for a 30 day supply. With ins. its 130. There is no generic alternative because its made by one company. It was pulled off the market due to the side effects for general use with high BP, but it is still allowed for certain specific diseases/conditions.

Recently I was sent an email (truth of cost not verifiable) for many of the common and highest cost medicines listed the cost of ingredients. Not one was over $5 for 30 day prescription and many were less that 10 cents yet they sold for hundreds and even thousands of dollars. Our drug companies are purely raping the consumer even after you consider the cost of development.

 

[farmgirl19]

Recently I was sent an email (truth of cost not verifiable) for many of the common and highest cost medicines listed the cost of ingredients. Not one was over $5 for 30 day prescription and many were less that 10 cents yet they sold for hundreds and even thousands of dollars. Our drug companies are purely raping the consumer even after you consider the cost of development.

Yes, and companies like Bayer, sell chemicals for weed and pest control AND health pharmaceuticals. Does one think it is a conflict of interest to make you ill with one division, so they can sell you drugs from their other?

You are correct! Pharmacuetical drug companies stick it to everyone that they can.

 

[daugen]

Pharmacuetical drug companies stick it to everyone that they can.

when you give blood, they tell you it's just "a stick and a pinch".
Or, if for some other stuff, "a stick and a burn".

I'd say the latter describes my feeling in leaving the pharmacy counter.
I've been using a Canadian online pharmacy for years, the drugs usually come from CIPA
in India, and it costs me less than my copay. And I have good insurance...

so many people don't take their needed medicines, and wind up in the ER or worse for it. Often on the public tab.

that's some vacation you are taking Gary. Be careful, and drink only Heineken.

 

[Carl_NH]

This is sort gone off on a tangent but I take BP meds too so understand - Gary I looked at the site on Google and its pretty desolate and yes, your TBN might be slow to come up in those environs but surprising so, they might have decent cell infrastructure for devices there as many remote locations do.

Be safe and I think you have your expectations about right for this venture, and we all look forward to hearing from you from Angola.

Carl

 

[farmgirl19]

Gary; Just don't drink the water, and come back safely!

 

[Gary Fowler]

This will be my third tour in African countries, the place that I said I would never go. Kinda reminds me of the old James Bond movie, "Never say Never". I also said the same thing about California after my first job there, "Never AGAIN", but 5 years later I was back for more pain and suffering. Hopefully this short "vacation" wont provide me with too many memorable occasions although a little excitement now and then keeps the adrenalin gland functioning. I have been lucky to not contract any tropical diseases on my tours, although 3 of my staff got malaria while in Nigeria, I never did and they were taking the anti-malaria drug which I quit taking because of the side effects. I don't go out at night and keep my air conditioner on 'snow' to ****** the mosquitos and always were long sleeved shirts and pants. Oh yeah and only drink bottled water, and never get ice in your drinks.

 

[BlackDogTx]

Have a safe trip Gary, and watch your 6!

 

[Gary Fowler]

I had a few moments so I thought I would update this thread a bit. Internet is so slow that it took me about 10 minutes to get to this window. I got on a chartered 747 out of Houston to Luanda Angola with scheduled departure time of 10 am Monday morning and 14 hours later we landed in the capital city. We had a little SNAFU just as we lined up for take off, one passenger had a stroke or heart attack and we had to divert back to the terminal to drop him off. Good thing for him that it happened at the Houston terminal and not half way across the Atlantic. This delayed takeoff by 1 hour but we made up most of the time and landed only 15 minutes behind schedule at 7:15am Tuesday morning My flight from Luanda to Lobito didnt leave till 3 pm so I had some time to kill at the KBR office in Luanda before the 1hour flight to Catembela airport (about 15 miles from Lobito). They only fly into Lobito on Monday and Wednesday and the charter to Houston matches their schedule so that is the only 2 days we can enter or leave the country.
It was unusually hot and muggy at Lobito when I arrived which was just about like it was in Houston when I left. I am staying at the Turimar hotel in Lobito which is a new hotel and pretty nice but their restaurant menu is a little sparse. They have 3 different steaks, 1 pork, 1 duck, 2 shrimp and a lobster on the menu and that is it. We have gotten the manager to start making some speciality meals for us like spaghetti, pizza, BBQ, lasagna since it doesnt take long to get tired of eating grilled lobster, tiger shrimp and T-bone steaks (poor me huh!)
The work site is across a ship channel and up on a plateau which consists of a little bit of top soil and a lot of limestone. They drill and blast out the limestone from a quarry site at an upper cliff area then crush the big stuff into 3/4" to 3" sizes for later fill in the ship channel to make a marine facility. They are just now trying to put in a heavy haul road from the upper plateau which is 120 meters above sea level so they can safely haul the crushed rock down to the ocean. It is following one of the natural canyons down and about 2300 meters in length at present. There is lots of big excavators, dozers etc hauling thousands of cubic meters of rock up and down a temporary road from the ocean to the top of the plateau trying to get some areas cleared so they can get equipment down to the marine location. The plan is to complete the construction access road (CAR B) which stops short of the ocean at a 30 meter cliff then haul all the crushed stone to the cliff, dump it over and spread it (all 1.5 million cubic meters)from below out into the ocean to form a marine loading dock then eventually it will fill the 30 meter cliff section with a ramp from the marine facility up to complete the road. Another road (heavy haul) is also being built to handle the large vessels that will be coming in by ship, offloaded at the marine facilty and transported up the 8% grade heavy haul road to the refinery. This work wont start for a couple of years though. That is about if from here. Pictures will have to wait till I get home, I forgot my camera cord to hook up to the computer.

 

[farmgirl19]

Thanks for the update! Stay safe!

 

[Gary Fowler]

You really are a farmgirl to be up and on the computer at 4am. Its 10am here and my day is nearly half over already. I am glad to report that there seems to be no danger from the local population here as everything is stabilized with the government. We can travel without security force with us like we had in Nigeria and Algeria. I dont know why everything is so expensive here though. It is at least double on prices and many things are 4X the price in the states. One of the expats forgot his razor and went looking yesterday for a replacement. Gillette Max 3 (5 blades without the handle) was $38 USD. I would have to grow a beard before I paid over $7 for a razor blade. He did finally find some cheap disposible blades for $.70 per unit. I am sure glad I brought everything I needed with me. Today is my 12th day here out of 56 required and I am already ready to get back to my own bed. I am sure glad that the man-camp is going to be up and running till after I leave, at least I dont think it will be. At least here we can walk on the beach if we feel like it whereas the camp is up on a dry desert plateau with the snakes and other wildlife.

 

[texasjohn]

good update, glad you are safe and settled in having taken all true necessities. Looking forward to photos when you are back. Bet a cable would be a real fortune there...maybe someone there has one you can borrow...hmmm, bet uploads would be sloôooooowwwwwww.

 

[Carl_NH]

Thanks for the update Gary, and it doesn't sound like its too bad - not exactly an 8 week vacation but lobster, steak and shrimp and walking on the beach sounds OK. The man camp doesn't sound nearly as nice, and good to have gotten in early.

Seems like the present state of the facility is infrastructure - roads and docks, I guess you must be building out the plant too?

Stay safe and send updates when you can.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I just checked back in for a moment. Carl is right, we are just doing infrastructure at present. We have a contract with Sonagal Refinery to prepare heavy haul roads, construction access roads, a marine facility and a local road reroute to get it out of refinery boundaries and build a 3000 person mancamp. The contract for actually building the refinery has not be let yet, but afte spending all these millions of dollars on infrastructure, I would think they almost have to go forward with the project.
As for work, there isnt much for a QA manager to look at right now other than reviewing procedures and specifications as they mostly are blasting out holes in the ground and scrapping off the loose soil and organic debris for the roads. Lots of dirt and rock hauling going on with the biggest thing being monitoring the contractors for safety.
Man, I was just ready to push the send button and the power went off AGAIN. We are on a VPN connection via Nortel and any break in power cuts us off and we have to log back in and only 4 logins per day are allowed. Some times we get locked out for 24 hours due to excessive power outages. Last night at the hotel, I was up at least 4 times, turning back on the AC and removing my CPAP mask so I could breath when the power went out. Mostly they are short duration of a minute or less but it takes several minutes to get back up and running again.

 

[kevin37b]

Gary , what exactly do you do . I read all your posts and cannot get a handle what you do . I am sure you can do what you want . Enjoy your Knowhow .,

 

[TSO]

From what it looks like on the map, it looks like Lobito is a tourist destination ? How to say, but it looks like a small port town with hotels on the water... ?

I could not find the "Turimar" hotel, but found the Terminus Hotel on the beach... That the one?

Looks like a pretty sparsely populated area outside of town... But nice.

Hope you enjoy the trip. I'll trade menus with you for a couple weeks!

 

[k0ua]

Gary is there any way you can get a small UPS over there? It sounds like you could really use one to get you thru the short outages.

James K0UA

 

[Gary Fowler]

There was a rather large UPS stashed under my desk, but no one could find any power input or output cords to fit it. The sockets looked like the power cord to a computer with 3 small flat connections. We solved the problem by moving into a meeting room at the hotel which has a UPS on their internet connection AND it is about 5 times faster than at the house. By the way, KBR has been renting this rather small 4 bedroom, 4 bath house for $40,000 USD per month for over 4 years now. I wouldnt recommend this as a vacation spot although it is quite safe here in Lobito and the beach water is crystal clear. It is just so expensive for food and rent here that I dont know how the locals afford to live.
Getting to the tractor side of things, one of the contractors just received 2 big Case IH 125 tractors with cabs. I got a photo of them but I cant download them due to lack of cable connection. I have no idea what they will use those tractors for, but the sure look nice with their super wide radial tires and full complement of front weights(no FEL though) I spent my morning walking a canyon road and talking to the contractors about blind curves and narrow roads that will be used for hauling over 1 million cubic meters of crushed limestone down from the plateau to the beach to make a marine facility 1600 meters long for the ships to anchor that will be bringing in the crude oil for the refinery. Later this road will be used as an access corridor for a pipline from the ship terminal to the refinery transporting both crude and refined product so it has to be a lot better than just a temporary road. I think I finally got my point across to them about the safety of the blind curves and narrow road by asking them to park their truck in on of those narrow spots and if they felt safe when a dump truck passed, then we could maybe live with it as is. They then smilled and agreed to widen the road.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Well Guys and Gals, I am back and finally got a bit caught up on neglected chores like mowing and weedeating which was a bit out of control even with B.I.L. mowing the yard. A large area around one pond was grown up over knee high and took a lot to knock it down. Had to take a weed eater to the garden due to Bermuda take over. Back pasture was full of weeds so I finally got to use my 7 foot bushhog after 3 years of setting. One of the u-joints was froze up and had to hammer it to straighten it so I could hook it up. I had greased it up prior to setting it up for almost 3 years, what with drought for the last two year it hasn't been needed.
Let me see if I still remember how to post pictures here. I put in some of the work we were doing building some construction access roads from the sea to the top of the plateau (180 meters above the sea level) and a couple of some military left overs from the civil war they had. We had to have the area de-mined prior to work. In the last 40s Russia aided Cuban soldiers in a bid to take over the country and they mined the whole country side and left years later without mapping out the mined areas. Still lots of Cuban structures with mottos and other scenery painted on the building remains.