/* written in 2010-06-25 */

It's lunch time here at this offshore oil platform, but I don't feel like eating. It's not that I don't like the food (in contrary actually, and more on this in later posts), but it's because of my work here. I'm here with my team to install some wireless sensors at a machine in a remote platform and to create a wireless link so that the engineers here at the mother platform can do online monitoring of the machine and analyze the data gathered from the sensors. It's a pilot project that we hope if successful will be extended to other machines and platforms. After working on things for almost a week, earlier this morning, all the pieces finally came together and we can now declare our job here complete. I feel full without eating

It's my first time doing a project on an oil platform, and all the sensors we've been installing was something I never interested or had my hands on prior to this project. The wireless link we've created of around 50 kilometres air distance was the first for me as well as during my previous employments, we've only done 20 kilometres at most and the link was not even as stable as this 50 kilometres link (which using the same equipments and settings, I'm confident that we can achieve more distance quite effortlessly).

I initially joined in as a wireless consultant, but they later managed to persuade me to quit my previous job to work on this project full time. Even though on paper I'm the project manager for this project, I've been helped a lot by my team members in the project management part, as they have been doing offshore projects for quite some time already. Our small team of an old-time telecommunication antenna installer, 2 experienced electricians, a sensor expert, and a general helper managed to finish the installation process in less than a week, though the initial plan was to finish it in 4 weeks. I was very nervous before for doing it for my first time, with people I never knew and in an environment where everything must be done right. Thank God for everything.

The next boat to Kota Kinabalu will be in 2 days from now, and I need to go act busy now as I don't want to look like enjoying my stay here while other people are busy at work. . Till my next post, cheerio.