Lizard Hunting

"If we ever colonize mars it will look a lot like this place". This is largly due to the rocks, which are a martian-like rusty red color. However, I discovered that these very same rocks, when you break them open, are a brilliant white on the inside. Strange.

I made this discovery yesterday when I went with my camera on a lizard hunting expedition. I found two different types of lizard. Both small. Very cute. Their technique for not being eaten by me was to stand very still so I couldn't see them. Despite their efforts I could see them. I didn't eat them, but I got some real good close ups from as near as 6 inches.



Unfortunately I didn't see any of the two foot long "thub" or "dabb" (two transliterations of the same arabic word) lizards that I've heard talked about. I posted some excellent pictures from yesterday of both the lizards and the rocks.

I think yesterday's photos were some of the best I've ever taken, so check them out.

Click Here for Photos

Jackass2 Inpired Reflections on Arabic Identity

Last night we watched the movie Jackass 2 in the bar skid. Perhaps you've seen it? If not, its made by a bunch of delinquents from West Chester, PA. They are drunk and high and they perform a variety of stunts that are stupid, painful and/or gross. And today they are millionairs.

I watched this with a bunch of the bar regulars. Keith the british Mechanic, Mark the British/Saudi Instrument Tech, Hamish a QC from New "Zed", Steve the Aussie Project Manager, and Aaron the ex-Utah Mormon Health and Safety guy. Mah'moud the Omani guy with camels I spoke of before was also in the bar that night.

We watched the scene where one of the guys dressed up (really convincingly) as an old man in running shorts who didn't realize his very saggy balls were hanging out the back. We watched the scene where two guys trap four of their friends in a car and then pour a hive of bees through the sunroof. Then we watched the scene where a couple guys pretend to be terrorists.

I started feeling bad when the "terrorist"'s white robe was an exact replica of Mah'moud's, and so was the head wrapping - the same red checkered pattern even. It got worse when the "terrorist" started saying stupid things in a goofy fake arabic accent, and then strapped a belt of fake bombs to his waist, and then asked his cab driver how big his wife's boobs were, etc...

The thing, is I know that image of an arabic terrorist. It comes from seeing Osama bin Laden on the news, angry Iraqis burning American flags, and guys here with long religious beards who because I'm female, won't aknowledge me or fix my air conditioner without being yelled at. It's frightening, its angering, and that's why it makes me laugh when all the seriousness has been taken away.

But last night, I imagined the very different image Mah'moud might have of an arabic man. That is the image of him, his friends, his brothers, his dad. I imagined nice gentle people who laugh a lot and love camels. Mah-moud's got a good deal of pride about his heritage. I've heard comments about how he really makes an effort to be a part of Bedouin life, which is tough when you're also employed by a multinational geophysical corporation.

It turns out he had seen the movie before, so I didn't have to feel that bad.

But the morals of the story are:
A) I still like Jackass, and I love that shit like Jackass exists in the US.
B) I am impressed by the new image of an Arabic man I have.

Camels: On Napkins and Taking Dust Baths

Last night I had a very good night at the bar.

I sampled some Omani tobacco from an Omani pipe. The pipe was very skinny and long, with only a tiny cup for the tobacco. The tobacco itself came out what looked looked like an eyedrop bottle, and it was strong. I got one hell of a buzz from just one puff. The guy who shared his tobacco is Mah-moud, and he's very Omani. He speaks broken english. He has traditional dress, a beard, and a turban....and...fifteen camels!! In fact, as his cellphone background, he has a picture of one of his baby camels that was born the day before yesterday. Although his home is 6 hours north of here, he has connections with the local Bedou and said he could get me a sample of camel milk. According to him, the milk is very "strong" for the first few days after the baby camel is born, but after that its good. Also, he taught me the words for camel and goat with the help of a bar napkin.

In other news, I saw a camel taking a dust bath yesterday! I didn't think there was anything a camel could do to resemble a chicken, but it seems I was wrong. Here's a blurb I wrote to Matt about it.

Imagine a huge animal with gangly legs. It never moves much, and when it does it is slow, deliberate, and almost dignified.

Now imagine this animal laying on the ground on its side, with all 4 of it's 6 foot by 3 inch legs jerking franticly in the air. Then imagine it's neck, which is as long as the rest of its entire body. Imagine that neck convulsing in seemingly independant motion of its body. Imagine dust flying everywhere.

And around it are five other camels, one sitting, four standing, three staring at me, one staring at a bush, another at the trashcan who's contents it just ate. None of them are moving, they almost look dignified, and they all seem completely oblivious to the 6th as it continues its epileptic fit on the ground.

A More Interpretive Take on this Job

READ IT HERE ---> Just Another Day In Quality Control

"The first thing I became aware of was the bleeping of my alarm. As I reached over to turn it off, my hand fumbled on the items scattered over the small desk, causing them to fall on the floor. The clattering gave me a false sense of urgency to turn off the alarm, that was when full conciseness kicked in and I realised where I was…Fuck, the world didn’t end last night."

"I felt like a prisoner waiting for the parol board to approve an early exit, only to be kept in jail by an eleventh hour decision. But there was no time to reflect on this defeat, we had to try something else, the data, and the hopes of nearly 250 men form 13 countries were at stake."

"I vaguely remembered the hang over I had this morning and the promise I had made myself, I opened the fridge and got a beer. As I finished it a second one appeared in front of me. I started to drink it an thought, you had to do something to forget."

This was written by my colleague Andrew to whom I also owe credit for the current title of this blog.

Thanks Andrew.

What I Get Paid to Do

I had a request from Matt to explain a little more about what I do for a job here...



My job title is QC Seismologist. I work in a camp of about 200 people in the middle of the desert. Our company specializes in seismic geophysics. We use sound waves and the concepts of physics to get information about subsurface geology.

Every day, the majority of the crew drives out from camp, into the field to aquire data. We have many-ton trucks called vibrators that make loud sounds at specified locations. Each time a vib "shoots" there are 2050 geophone stations planted in the ground up to 7km away that listen and record what they hear. We get more than 2000 shots a day. This is quite an operation, with over 150 people directly involved. There are laborers who lay down and pick up geophones, mechanics, drivers, coordinators, etc. At the end of the day the result of all this work is one 4" x 5" LTO tape.

The QC department consists of me and one other person. We are responsible for checking the data, reformatting it and presenting it to our clients, PDO (Petrolium Development Oman). Because there is so much data, and so much data about the data, this is a complicated process. We have an enormous library of scripts and procedures that have amassed and evolved over the years. When I mention "data coming in at night", or "doing the morning data checks", this is the data I'm talking about.

We process a separate batch of data each day that comes from our uphole crew. This crew is only 15 people and they are in a completely different location. They collect data using only one noise source, and one geophone which they lower into a 100m deep borehole. A day's data from this crew consists of 100 separate recordings, or "traces". A day's worth of data from our main crew will consist of over 4 million traces.

I also sometimes mention "preplanning" on chat. Our department helps the survey department plan out the coordinates of each and every shot and reciever as well as the order of the shots, and which recievers will listen to which shots. Preplanning of a site happens weeks or months before the actual shooting.

Most of the stuff I do here is very routine. It can be painfully tedious. The interesting part of my work is 1) trying to improve a process or 2) figuring out what happened when something goes wrong. That is what requires actual understanding the data and what we do to it.

I also spend a lot of time reading books and updating my online "facebook" profile and writing this blog. And making oragami elephants.

So that is my job. There are lots of computers. Lots of computer programs written and rewritten by a multitude of people who quit years before I started. Pages of coordinates and times and vibration specifications. Millions of traces. Gigabytes of data. Fun fun FUN.

My Disguise

This is in response to Georgia's comment.

"You can do it! Maybe you can just duct tape your boobs down, throw on a turban and draw on a mustache. They will never know the difference. Or just wait for another strike and start shouting what they shout :) Either way, I look forward to you speaking to me in some sort of arabic when I next see you. Make sure you aren't practicing at the airport though...very suspicious behavior. 'But I swear Mr. Officer, I work for an oil company...' "



Mr OracleofMumbai, I will get back to you later...

Trying to Learn Arabic

I finally started to begin to try to maybe learn a LITTLE bit of arabic last night.

Most expat's here who know arabic learned just from talking to people. I have a very hard time learning new words from hearing them. Also I have pretty limited interaction with Omanis because of the nature of my position, my shyness, and my boobs. So that won't work for me.

I can learn things pretty quickly when I see them. That's something I found out when I was trying to learn Spanish. So instead of learning to speak thank you's and hello's and how are you's, I decided to start with the alphabet.

There are 20 some basic letter shapes. Less than English even. Simple right? NO. There are also dots, one dot, two dots, three dots, dots above letters, dots below letters, circles, dashes, hatches, hicksas, maddas, sukuns, etc.. Then come the vowels. There are two different kinds and half the time they are not even written. Also everything is written in a cursive style. Because of that a letter may appear quite different depending if it is alone, beginning a word, in the middle of a word, or at the end of a word. Once I memorize my little letter flash cards, I still won't be able to pick out half the letters in a written arabic word. Then when I figure all that stuff out, and I can distinguish written sounds, many of the sounds are totally different than anything in english (or german or spanish). They may sound like phlegm or like gaging or like a mentally handicapped person speaking . The cherry on top, is that it is all written backwards...that is you start on the right and move left. Ahhhh!

Well I am making a little progress. So far I've memorized about 12 "letters". And I think I made a leap by recognizing that words are more readable if you think of them as a compilation of syllables rather than "letters". That's because the vowels are either not there, or they are an accent on the preceding cosonant...usually.

Wish me luck!