Kazakhstan

In just three months I have visited two different continents I have never been to. This business trip was a just a week long trip to Kuryk, Kazakhstan. I went over to help the construction team prepare a document in order to fulfill certain company processes. That in itself was a good experience.

Here I am working on the construction plan.

Even though this picture was taken when it was warm, the next three days were freezing! With the windchill, almost all of this didn't keep you warm. (Green hard hat means I am a visitor).

My flight over was a little grueling. I had messed up on my Visa application and it officially started on February 1st. However, my original flight was arriving at 10 PM January 31st. Two hours too early. So I had to change my route, which caused a 7 hour layover in Frankfurt and the need to fly all the way to the east side of Kazakhstan before flying all the way back to the west, by the Caspian sea. But this made me arrive on Feb. 1st, and avoid any problems. It was fun to fly over the country though, because I saw how desolate most of the landscape was. Several rivers completely frozen over, snow everywhere, and it was super flat.

This is a picture from the plane in the middle of Kazakhstan. Flat and cold.

The next two pictures are of the Caspian sea at its most northerly part.

FYI: did you know the Caspian sea is a fresh water lake in the north and more a sea at the south near Iran? Cool, eh?

It was also interesting to see how much of an Asian influence was in Kazakhstan. Both culturally and in their blood. The Kazakh language is similar to Mongolian and not Slavic. And just like Mongolian it uses the Cyrillic alphabet. However, Russian is an official language and the international language for Kazakhstan.

Technically the area I went to is a desert, but they had just received a lot of snow; like 2 feet! It was fun to see camels run across the road in snow (see video). On average, the temperature is just like Utah, but the wind chill factor makes it feel much colder. Luckily while I was there, it didn't snow:) So we were able to leave as originally planned.

The city of Aktau reminded me a lot of Serbia in its design.

Barren nothingness and then the Caspian.
This is actually a Muslim graveyard. All of the graves are above ground. (The picture is blurry because we were driving).

The fabrication yard has a camp for expats to live. Our rooms are small, but the beds were nice and I couldn't' really complain. The cafeteria also had pretty decent food. The funny thing was the TV. Literally over 600 channels with nothing good on. I finally did find the BBC to watch in the morning (but they had some sketchy channels, if you know what I mean).

Here is what the yard looks like (I could only take pictures from outside or in our offices). The big yellow crane is their trademark.
Here are some pictures of my little room.

And these are what our rooms are in. Big, two story trailers.

Back in Utah! Texas Has Made Me a Whimp.

It is good to be back in Utah. It just doesn't feel like the holidays in Texas for several reasons: 1) it doesn't feel like the holiday season when you are wearing shorts, 2) you have yet to feel the temperature dip below 50F, 3) you don't have snow, and 4) I hadn't shopped for Christmas gifts. I love snow (see above).

Believe me, my mind had a really hard time knowing it was November when I was wearing shorts. I almost felt like I was living in a surreal world. And sadly, when it actually did snow in Houston and got below freezing, I was in Nigeria where it was 95F and 100% humidity. The little bit of snow meant the entire city shut down. To be honest, I was glad to be in Nigeria; Texans struggle driving in dry conditions. If you know what I mean:)

But Texas has made me a wimp. I get here to Utah and I have started to complain about how dry it is. I lather up on lotion and cry because my lips are cracking. This is pretty cold weather; my body hasn't had time to adjust yet from 95F (in Nigeria) to 32F. So give me some time. At least this year I think that my body will be able to adjust, next year I think that I will have acclimatized to Texas.

This last month has just been crazy travel. I came home for Thanksgiving, then flew out of Houston on the following Monday for Nigeria. I got back from Nigeria on Dec. 16th, had two days in Houston and then I drove back home with a friend from Houston (who was moving back to Provo and needed some company). I don't want to brag, but we made it home in a total of 28 hours. We drove 1,400 miles and slept for only six hours. If it is up to me though, I will never make that drive again:) Once was good, twice is enough.

Now that I am home, I am doing my Christmas shopping. I wouldn't have had room to pack it all and bring it up (on a plane nor in a car). So shopping has made it feel a bit more like Christmas, along with the snow (have I already said that?).

This is just a random update post, if you haven't noticed. Below is a picture of a bottle of Malarone. I finished up my regimen of it today. It is a chemoprophylaxis, or anti-malarial drug that I had to take because I went to Nigeria (you start the drug 2 days before you go, during the trip, and then for 7 days after the trip). So not only is Nigeria dangerous due to militants and crime, but it is dangerous because of mosquitoes. Nigeria was awesome (from what I got to see). No worries, I will put up some pictures about Nigeria soon.

The Drive to Texas, Carlsbad Caverns, and the Alamo

I am a person that has to learn from firsthand experience. So when I was moving from Orem, UT to Houston, TX, I decided that I was going to drive. Granted, Exxon paid for me to move the few items that I did own professionally. So I didn't have much really to take in my car besides my parents. We made this into a trip by seeing Carlsbad Caverns and the Alamo. This made the 1,500 mile trip more bearable, especially since we spread it over 4 days.

You can see from my little GPS that we actually went 1,600 miles in about 25.5 hours. This includes our little detour to Carlsbad and the Alamo. Our route may have not been the fastest but it was well worth it.

Me driving; I think that I was somewhere in New Mexico.

Honestly, could there not be something more frustrating than this? I think this took several minutes until we were finally able to pass.

It was fun to see some of the landmarks along the way: Shiprock in New Mexico.

Carlsbad Caverns
Pictures just cannot do this place any justice. The caverns are massive in distance and height. You go down almost 700 feet into the earth just to begin. When you are down there it has almost a Disneyland type of feel to it because it seems to surreal. I recommend everyone go at least once. Nature is just awe-inspiring. Below are some pictures of the caverns, enjoy.

These two pictures are right outside the entrance to the caverns. Look at the desert all around us. The view was great.

We took two tours. My favorite was a candlelight lantern tour. It is only performed once a day, so not too many people have been down that cavern in the past. Along the tour we doused all of our candles. It was the weirdest feeling; the darkness felt like a blanket. No light at all; though you could tell your mind was trying to see something in the darkness.

The Alamo

I know that you have all heard this before, but the Alamo is not big at all. I think we saw it all in the matter of 1 hour. It was fun to hear the story of the Alamo while sitting next to the restored barracks and even hear about how Texas won its independence.

This is the restored barracks where.

This is what everyone thinks is the Alamo. This is just the mission where the women and children hid. The entire fort used to be much larger and encompassed the old mission.

Supposedly this tree was alive during the attack on the Alamo. (The bench was pretty tall)

Another view of the church at the Alamo where the women and children hid.

Lies!

I remember chatting with Matt a few months ago while I was in school about how great it would be to have a full time job. I mean, think of all the free time that you are you will have when you don't have anymore homework. Forget the possible commute you could have, or the desire to actually get some sleep because you have to be up at 6 am:) If someone ever tells you that you have more time after school, don't believe them. I feel like I have been lying to myself for a while now.

Do I enjoy Houston and my job so far? You bet I do. I just never feel like I have a lot of time.

When I got to Houston the heat wave had just ended, so I got the good weather. Is it humid? Almost unbearably so on some days. But I am just getting used to the fact that walking outside at night doesn't mean it will be refreshing. However, it is still in the upper 70s and even 80s here, so all you people back in Utah, I am sorry if you are cold.

As for my job, they are keeping me busy. I am working on a project in Nigeria and will actually travel soon. In fact, I spent a quick few thousand dollars today to book my flight to Nigeria in the next couple weeks. Oh, and I get to fly business class. Overall, the experience feels like drinking out of several fire hoses at once. There are so many acronyms at this place that they have an intranet site with most of the company acronyms. They are even like electrical engineers in having acronyms for a list of acronyms!

What is there to do in Houston? Eat. That is the only answer I get consistently. Now I understand why everything is bigger in Texas. There is some amazing food. Even the bill is bigger in Texas.

I just wanted to give you all a quick update on life. I know that it was short and lacking pictures. I apologize.

BYU vs OU

BYU WINS!!!! As soon as we got ahead I took a picture of this screen to show the score. And that is how it stood. Sadly my camera died thereafter and I couldn't take a picture of the sad OU fans.

It was definitely worth the money. Plus, I got to take my mom along with me. In total, my mom and I drove around 500 miles and 8 hours to go see the game. We didn't get back until 2 a.m. But, again, it was very much worth it.I will be honest. I wanted to run onto the field and punch Mckay Jacobsen in the mouth for trying to field that punt or go break the leg of Payne when he botched the 30 yard field goal attempt at the beginning of the game. With those two incidents, the score should have been way different. But what is a BYU game if you don't get infuriated sometimes by your team?

When we won, the BYU section was electric. The OU fans looked like the Alabama fans from the lose against Utah. It was so satisfying. We pulled it off. Maybe they will start to look at the Mountain West as a legit conference. Probably not though.


As for the stadium, it was awesome. As a civil engineer, the stadium itself was a highlight. The two trusses that hold up the main load of the building are a quarter-mile long and are massive!

The attendance was just over 75,000, with standing only tickets being sold. So you might be wondering where I got to sit with my mom. Well, I was able to take an awesome picture from Ashley's 3rd row, 45-yard line seats of where I was sitting. That banner of blue and white, we were above that and just where it starts to curve around.
Here was the view from Ashley's seats.

Here is Ashley and myself. Notice Ashley was prepared to root for both sides but went with BYU from the beginning fo the game.
But, despite being far away from the action, the HUGE HDTV defnitely made things worth it. It is so big you almost cannot look at it if you are in the nose bleeds (which I still paid a lot for. I just wasn't a Cougar Club member donating thousands of dollars a year to Coerce to Give, so I got the nose bleeds).


This is the view from my seat of the stadium.


This is the view from Ashley's seats.


This is what it was like watching a play. Trust me, the screen looks much better in real life.

I am leaving for Texas

Sorry on the lack of blog postings and not finishing out my Europe trip for those who were interested. Plus, this post won't have any pictures because I have packed away my computer that has them.

Today (Wednesday) is my last day in Utah. I leave Thursday to head off to Houston and the great blue yonder. I will be back for Christmas, but other than that, I am going to be in Houston and out of Utah for a while I think.

An update on what I know about my job: I will be a construction manager providing support for two projects. One is in Nigeria and the other in New Guinea. Keep your fingers crossed that I get to go travel to those places in the next six months. I can't wait to start work.

Anyways, off I go. If you still want to get a hold of me for some reason I will be keeping my cell phone for quite a while.