Tunisia really is a Tourist Resort

I cannot complain about being in a tourist resort as it makes life more bearable, In my first work spot I was only in the hotel two nights and it was a large very nice tourist hotel of the all inclusive type, but everyone was miserable in the hotel and I didn't like the place, it was too far out of town and just lifeless, I was moved to a town further into the country and along the tourist routes into a hotel that is a converted French Foreign Legion Fort,
here is the link
http://www.goldenyasmin.com/la-kasbah/en/index.htm

it is amazing and it is so nice and cosy and full of life with happy tourists in it, so i feel at home here and will start sleeping nicely finally. The job site is about 50 Km away and we have to drive past a surprising amount of agriculture, I was shocked to find not desert but fields what have been growing wheat and corn and olives of course but it is like any other industrialised agricultural economy, loads of goats but this is the Mediterranean you know. Onsite i have been given the task of training a younger guy on the control system and this is OK as he gets to do all the dirty work but it means i have very little to do, things will get busy when we have to start the unit up. I had been reading a blog about an ex-colleague who was backpacking around the north african region, he made it to Timbuktu on camel and boat, he was braver than me and when i found out i was heading this way i mailed him to find out where he was and he said in Tunisia, i was shocked and told him where i would be and he said he would drive over and share a beer with me. I got here and he turned up at my hotel and we went out to try and get a meal, but this is ramadan and we couldn't get anything to eat anywhere at all, but we could still get a beer at his hotel, we had a great night out and talked about all the old guys and wild times and things he is going to do now he is a lawyer, i told him I am looking forward to going to Australia, if they give it to me of course and how my future may pan out, we had a really good time but it is only the fact that GE has guys working all over the world that i could have possibly have bumped into someone i have worked with before in Tunisia, he had a great time and i am hoping to see some of the things he has seen, like the Mosque that is built with the colums from the temples of Carthage, inscripted with latin texts and crucifixes, very amusing.

Shopping For Life

THE HUSBAND STORE
A store that sells new husbands has just opened in New York City, where a
woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is
a description of how the store operates:
You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the
Value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights. The
shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up
to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!
So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband. On the first floor
the sign on the door reads:
Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs.
She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.
"That's nice", she thinks, "but I want more." So she continues upward. The
third floor sign reads:
Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking.
"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going. She goes to the fourth
floor and the sign reads:
Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and
Help with Housework.
"Oh, mercy me!" she exclaims, "I can hardly stand it!" Still, she goes to
the fifth floor and the sign reads:
Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with
Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.
She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor, where the sign
reads:
Floor 6 - You are visitor 3,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this
floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to
please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

PLEASE NOTE:
To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opened a New Wives store
just across the street.
The first floor has wives that love sex.
The second floor has wives that love sex and have money.
The third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors have never been visited

Ageless Quotes

"If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed."
-Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.... But then I repeat myself.
-Mark Twain

I contend, that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity, is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always depend on the support of Paul.
-George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
-G Gordon Liddy

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
-James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries, to rich people in poor countries.
-Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
-P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
-Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
-Ronald Reagan (1986)

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
-Will Rogers

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
-P.J. O'Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
-Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
-Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
-Mark Twain (1866)

Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it.
-Unknown

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
-Ronald Reagan

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
-Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist,is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
-Mark Twain

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.
-Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

There is no distinctly Native American criminal class...save Congress.
-Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
-Edward Langley, Artist (1928 - 1995)

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-Thomas Jefferson

Life in England in 1500

about the 1500s:


Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour, hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children, last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water..

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying. It's raining cats and dogs.

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, Dirt poor. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. Apiece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old..

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat..

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer..

And that's the truth...Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

Working in the Oil & Gas Industry

Working in the oil industry:

1. We work in weird shifts ... Like prostitutes.

2. They pay you to make the client happy ... Like prostitutes.

3. The client pays a lot of money, but your employer keeps almost every penny ... Like prostitutes.

4. You are rewarded for fulfilling the client's dreams ... Like prostitutes.

5. Your friends fall apart and you end up hanging out with people in the same profession as you ... Like prostitutes.

6. When you have to meet the client you always have to be perfectly groomed ... Like prostitutes.

7. But when you go back home it seems like you are coming back from hell ... Like prostitutes.

8. The client always wants to pay less but expects incredible things from you ... Like prostitutes.

9. When people ask you about your job, you have difficulties to explain it ... Like prostitutes.

10. Everyday when you wake up, you say: I'M NOT GOING TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE DOING THIS SHIT"..... Like prostitutes.

The only difference is the prostitutes can take Christmas and New Year's Eve off and they actually DO make a lot of Money!!!

Australia or Bust

I have been getting ready to travel out to Australia for the last two months almost, I have applied for my work permit and I have obtained my business visa to get out there early and get an apartment and sort out everything for a normal life, then it all went quiet, really quiet, i asked my manager about the dates for flying and I asked twice a week and I got nothing back, I then realised that something wasn't quite right about it, my date of flying came and went and finally my manager told me that the customer had problems with signing the extended contract and I had to go to another job in Australia for a month and then on to Darwin, then as the travel date also came and went, I asked again and was then told that the eventual start date had now been put off until after Christmas sometime so now they wanted me to go to Tunisia on a large LNG project, I wasn't too upset as in this game you can have three projects in 1 day and still never fly, i was excited about going to Oz but to be put off didn't surprise me. At least my new project in Tunisia is in a warm climate and I will be on the coast and I will have a hotel to stay in for the next 6 months or so, just until the Oz job comes off, life is full of surprises.

This last weekend I had a great couple of days, I always look up my old school buddy Bob, he is the funniest guy i know, he has the most ascerbic wit and totally off the wall humour that I have ever come across, we always go out for a beer and I stay at his very nice old house, we went out friday night and bullshitted all night as we do and when we went back to his house it was a perfectly clear night so we went out into the garden and watched the stars, talking like two middle aged men talk, we then went inside and ate cheese like we always eat cheese. In the morning he asked me if i had anything planned and he offered skeet shooting as I have never fired a shotgun ever before. We drove to the shooting club and I was feeling pretty scared as I was expecting to have my shoulder beaten to death by the gun. Bob gave me a full basic training of the shooting of skeet, he fired a few off to show me how the skeets flew from the launchers, and i went up for my first shot, I followed the skeet and blasted away, I hit it first shot and Bob was really surprised, I followed this with another few hits and then we progressed to two skeets and within a few i was hitting both, he was shocked to his roots, we were laughing like loonies, we progressed around the course and were competing on double teams, we had a fantastic blast literally. As repayment i had to fix all the computers in the house and get his new broadband router, I must have spent 5 hours doing all those but I left everything working like a dream. Life only ever gives you a few days like this and this was one of them, I may not be going to Oz yet but I am spending time with my family and friends here in the UK

European Road Tour Photos

We did lots of travelling and one of the first places was Florence,

here we have the four girls all together




This is the trip to Pisa with Jenny holding up the tower




we also went to a local town that had a complete city wall, Lucca




The first stop on the road trip was Mont Blanc in France after passing through the mont blanc tunnel,




We travelled into Switzerland over the mountains and down into the Rhone River Valley




We spent a couple of nights in the Rhone Valley and went back into Italy to Lake Maggiore and stayed at Stressa and stayed in this wonderful hotel and visited the Borromeon Islands , Isola Bella to see the Castle and Gardens, quite Amazing




The Gardens were amazing




They had this amazing Grotto style water Gardens




This is a wonderful route through the Alps and well worth the trip, the amount of driving was minimal and if you flew into Florence or Pisa is is a very short few hours and you can visit 3 different countries in a few days. I even managed to steal some pears from a tree by the side of the road

Post Card From Italy

I am about to fly out of the country and decided to let you know what has happened here since my last blog, too much to list and no time to do a full blog

spent a week with my sister in Massa showing her around and eating and drinking
went to Venice
went to Pisa
went to Lucca
went to Florence

then went on an extended driving holiday
went to France, Mont Blanc, Chamonix ( Incredible )
went to Switzerland, Zermat ( Also Incredible)
went to Rhone Valley, ( Very Impressive )
went back to Italy Lake Maggiorre ( Very Nice )
went back to florence to fly out to UK ready for Australia

Life goes on