Magoo in the Middle: April 2011

I am back in the liberty-loving land of my forefathers: USA! I had quite a whirlwind experience for the last couple weeks in Saudi before eventually making my way back to the friends and family I left behind.

Back in Saudi, our team was able to finish up 'logging' a well that we had had to previously abandon. I even got to control our Coiled Tubing for the first time! Running it into the well, and pulling it out of the well too. Hopefully that experience will give me a leg up on the other Tubers when I go to operational school, which reminds me: I finally got into Coiled Tubing School!! I had been emailing instructors and managers to try to get my name into the 10-week school in Kellyville, Oklahoma. For months, I was only on the waiting list, but a couple weeks ago I finally got the good news that my requests had been approved! I start the day after Easter Sunday and school will run until July 1st, at which point I'll take some much needed rest.

Luckily, my time out at location gave me a pretty good grasp on the operational side of our business. I was able to prove this with my successful completion of the 'pre-school' exams. I had to pass 2 different exams in order to be eligible for the school, which thankfully I did on my first try. Woo-hoo! The next day I talked to my boss about taking some time off before school since I had pretty much finished up everything I needed to do. At about 2 o clock in the afternoon, he approved my vacation request starting the next day! Which meant I needed to try to get out of the country ASAP! So our travel guy told me my options were that night (April 9) at midnight, or wait 3 days for another flight. Decisions, decisions, eh?. Needless to say I took him up on the midnight flight, which meant after I got back from work, I would have roughly 3 or 3.5 hours to pack up everything I owned, organize my travel documents, decide what stuff I was keeping in Saudi and what I was bringing with me to the New World, and try to buy some souvenirs for people back home. Our daily driver to and from work also asked me to bring some dates with me back to the US to send to his niece in Florida. After world-record packing efficiency, I was able to secure roughly 45 minutes for shopping, but even that was cut short thanks to prayer time.

I made it back to the villa right before 9pm when our driver came and picked me up to trek out to the airport. I managed to fly out of King Fahd International Airport into Amsterdam for a brief 2 hour layover, which was not nearly long enough to indulge in the local customs. Then I got into Detroit by 11am on Sunday morning, which meant I left Saudi Saturday night at midnight and got back to the US in time for Sunday morning, which is pretty cool.

I've been able to enjoy the simple pleasures of drinking beer at lunch, going to see the movies, talking to women, using forks, watching live hockey, and a host of other things that make this country distinctly not-Saudi. That being said, now that I've been back in the US for a little while, I've come up with some disparities between the 2 countries that I am able to appreciate even more now:

- Saudi has to be the least pedestrian-friendly country in the world. There's literally roads, then parking lots, then buildings. No sidewalks. No bike-lanes, bike trails, walking trails, or crosswalks. I guess thats what happens when gas is less expensive than water. SUVs and luxury cars dominate.

- Saudis aren't used to waiting in lines. I've literally been the next person in line at the supermarket checkout and Saudi women will just cut right in front of me and lay down their groceries. And what on earth am I supposed to do about it? Start using my minimal Arabic skills to confront the woman and ask her to wait her turn? Not gonna happen

- Hand-holding. In US, men and women hold hands. That's it. Unless you enjoy members of the same gender or are a parent and a child. In Saudi? Men and women don't really have public displays of affection, however guys who are friends will hold hands for awkwardly long periods of time. It's quite normal to see 2 friends holding hands at the mall or walking down the street. I don't claim to be a homophobe or anything like that, but it's still weird.

Anyway, those are just a few small things that I see in daily life over there that I don't really witness back here in the US. I'm also way more confronted with celebrities, reality TV, the Royal Wedding, Sheen, and the Donald than I ever imagined I would be. If nothing else, life seems simpler out in Saudi. There's far fewer distractions, which has certainly allowed me to become pretty good at my job.

Now I'm off to Oklahoma, although my flight last night was canceled, and so I've spent another night at home with the dog. Apparently a 'Flood Warning' is enough to cancel a flight. Pretty weak if you ask me, but either way I should be in Tulsa at the end of the night and I start Operational School on the 'morrow!