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So I am finally going to put something in here. I am sitting offshore on an oil platform right now with nothing to do because the weather is so bad we can’t do any work..... but that is really the end of my story, guess I should start at the beginning......
Won’t bother much with my early life details, since it is much like every kid growing up in suburban Midwest of Michigan. I was born in 1978 (so that makes me 28 now). I have some fond memories of childhood. Riding bikes, playing G.I. Joes/Transformers, building tree forts, and jumping off of stuff. I spent my younger years through high school in Walled Lake Michigan. It was your typical suburb of Detroit. I had dreams of becoming an automotive engineer test driver. Guess that has a lot to do with my dad who was an engineer at General Motors. Again, I think every kid growing up near Detroit wants to be in the automotive industry. So I followed that dream to The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where I studied Mechanical Engineering. U of M was great. Great football team, great school, and pretty good party scene. College was fun, but I got a bit bored (a reoccurring theme in my life). So on a whim I enrolled in a study abroad program and headed off to Sydney Australia for a semester at the University of New South Wales. Wow!! is all I can say. Australia was a blast and I even managed to go to class every once and awhile. This is all I have to say about it and you can figure out the rest. I lived with 7 other people in a house. We didn’t know each other before we moved in. The study abroad office just randomly assigned us. It was 5 girls and 3 guys (isn’t this the premise of The Real World?). Our house was half a block from Coogee Beach and within two blocks there were two of the biggest bars in the area. The school was a thirty minute walk.... up hill. So it was hard to get motivated to go there much.
After Australia I had very little desire to finish school and get out into the “real world.” I think I picked up the Australian mentality of traveling and taking life easy. Back at the University of Michigan I had only had one year left of school, but rather then push through and finish my degree I decided to take another semester off to do a co-op (engineering internship during the semester for credit). I actually landed my dream job of test driving cars for Delphi Automotive (a division of GM) at their test grounds in Milford Michigan. It was one cool job. I got to take cars out on the proving grounds to test the antilock brake and traction control systems. They even sent me up to Northern Michigan to test cars on the snow and ice. It is dangerous to give an intern a test car and free reign. In the end, I decided that being an automotive engineer wasn’t for me....... now I was kinda screwed! What to do with my mechanical engineering degree?? Well, I took a look at what I enjoyed.... travel. Guess that is how I ended up in the oil industry working for ExxonMobil. In the interview they said I would be traveling straight away to Europe for work and there would be a good chance for international assignments.
With that I packed everything I owned into my Chevy S-10 (see Tribute to My Cars) and headed down to Houston Texas for my first real job. Though, I have had my share of weird job leading up to this point. (In fact, I am going to make a write up about all of them). Houston Texas.... who would have thought I would have ended up there. I moved down there without ever being there and not knowing a single soul. In fact, when someone asked where Houston was in Texas, I didn’t really know. Within 4 months of working I was sent over to Europe for a two week trip covering England, Norway, and Germany. My job is great. Pretty much overseeing design and manufacturing of various equipment for some of ExxonMobil’s projects in West Africa. My title is “Subsea Engineer.” Subsea is all things under the water, so all of the equipment I get to look after is used by our offshore oil/gas platforms and floaters. My work has taken me all over Europe; Germany, England, Scotland, France, Czech Republic, and a lot of trips to Norway (greatest country in the world). Traveling is a good thing because Houston isn’t the most exciting city. It isn’t horrible, just doesn’t have a lot to offer. I have made a lot of good friends there and actually do kinda miss it now that I am over in Scotland. Ah yes Scotland.... how did I end up over here? I think it was just luck. I got offered a 2 year assignment with our production affiliate Mobil North Sea. I moved over here in December of 2005. So it has been about 10 months now. Scotland is great. I love living here. The food sucks and the weather is a bit depressing, but other then that I have nothing to complain about. I don’t really travel much with this assignment, only get to fly in helicopters out to our oil platforms....... which now brings me back to the start of my story. Complete circle..... there you go.
Let’s see what else should I write about here? I guess if you have been around the site you should already know most of my interests. I love running and have been competing again ever since I moved to Houston. I have a really cool coach there. He is an old Australian guy named Al Lawrence who is wickedly blunt. He was an amazing runner in his prime. Him and Bob Kennedy are the only two people ever to hold both the NCAA and US title for cross country in back to back years, and he won a bronze medal in the 1956 (or 1960 I forget) for the 10,000m. Other then that, I have also started to get into cycling and triathlons (though I hate swimming), rock climbing, kite surfing, and mountain biking. Of course I love to travel and that has taken me all over the world.
Oh! Almost forgot about my family. I have one older sister. She is out in Albuquerque going to med school. She should be just starting her second year about the time I write this. My parents moved from Michigan out to Petaluma California when I graduated college. Petaluma is about 35 miles North of San Francisco. We used to have a little dog named “Bud,” but he passed away a few years back at the very old age of 15.
Guess that is it.
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