alli the ostrich

The blog is a day early this week because I’m going to be back up in the air tomorrow! I got an opportunity to take a trip offshore tomorrow. I’m really excited and slightly nervous for my first helicopter ride to one of our offshore platforms. I’m leaving around 5AM tomorrow morning, and will head about 30 miles mostly West and a little South of the Malongo camp. I’ll be touring the area and looking at some of the points where our project will be connecting to the existing platform, spend the night, and then head back into camp on Monday afternoon. I’ve heard that the food on our platforms far exceeds the mess hall on camp, so let’s be honest – I’m really just on this trip for the food…and to take a bunch of awesome photos from the helicopter ride :)

This past week has been super busy. We finished up a major construction milestone, our first pipeline road crossing. I was so excited when I got to send out an email to all of the major stakeholders – supervisors and superintendents in the area. When I sent the email I attached a few photos to brag on how well my crews did, completing the job a day early! After I sent the email I went back to look at the photos just reminiscing on how awesome we are and got smacked right back down to Earth. I had attached one awesome photo of the crane placing one of the casing pipes and another photo of me – yes JUST me – in front of the ocean view near the site work (which I was sending to Mom). For clarification, what I am trying to say is that I sent a “selfie” to about 30 very important people. Most of yall know that I don’t typically get embarrassed very easily, however in this case the word mortified is an understatement. I scrambled to recall the message, but since I had sent the email with a high importance flag, my recall was a failure in most cases. Luckily, the relationship with folks that received my super cute picture is at a point that they can openly poke fun at me for doing stupid things – however when I finally see our portfolio MANAGER that received my picture, I am probably still going to want to hide my head in the sand. Just another day in the life of Allison Johnson…

BEFORE...

AFTER!

On Friday we had an awesome barbeque celebration for all of the workers to reward them for completing our first road crossing without incidents and ahead of schedule. The same company that provides food for the mess hall does all of the catering around camp as well, but usually the food is higher quality than what’s offered the mess hall. I was SO excited when I saw that there was what appeared to be a ball of fried cheese – like a mozzarella stick. Naturally, I put 3 on my plate and took a gigantic bite as soon as I sat down – NOT cheese. It was a fried hardboiled egg. It took everything I had first, not to puke and second, not to spit it out right back on to my plate. Lesson learned – do not assume anything is normal in Malongo. Other than that the celebration was a complete success! Note: We were giving out hats, and I was forced to participate...please disregard the fact that I look like a boy.

My people...

Cruz (trying to avoid the picture), Francesco, David, and John (one of the super important people who received my "selfie")

Handing out awards...clearly, no one takes me seriously

Tomas - my main man

At 26 years old, this coming week will be my first holiday away from home. I’ll be missing everyone just a little bit extra as we celebrate Thanksgiving – and HOPEFULLY a Texas Tech win over Texas! I’ve talked to a bunch of folks, and they have reassured me that there will be PLENTY of turkey available on Thursday. Unfortunately, I think my hopes for a pumpkin pie are out the window but I’ll just load up on that during Christmas at home! I have SO much to be thankful for this year. Most importantly my amazing friends and family back home...I couldn't be living this crazy life without your support :)

I couldn't post a blog without some wildlife - tiny pretty blue bird

Past the halfway point – 17 days down, 11 to go! xoxo…