a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
(Apologies! This post is late! It was a challenge for me to find an internet connection after my arrival into Cape Town). I just wanted to report that I arrived safely into Cape Town on Monday night. The pictures are from Monday morning at Schiphol airport.
So here I am in Amsterdam : I made it in to the Central railway station at around 3 pm from Schiphol airport for my one night stay in the city. It was cloudy and rainy all afternoon, but for the most part not so rainy that one could not walk around. From what I saw, I believe Amsterdam still easily carries the title of the world’s most liberal city. There are pot shops (marijuana shops) everywhere, and one smells it while walking the streets. People smoke it in restaurants. And even in broad daylight, there were madams advertising themselves in shop front windows (Oh! Am I in the red light district? I guess I am, I thought. No ma’am, thank you ma’am). The city is dirty! It’s actually noted in the newspaper as well. The writer says maybe now that the Rijksmuseum has been renovated and reopened, it can motivate city officials to do a better job of sweeping the streets. (Unfortunately I did not have enough time to make it to the museum).
My bags are packed, almost. I’m leaving for Amsterdam in the late afternoon, to get me to Cape Town, South Africa. It’s winter down there, of course – with the climate somewhat similar to here in Seattle in winter time. (Think cool weather, clouds and drizzly rain). I think Cape Town does have more sunny days than Seattle even in winter, so I do expect to see some sunny weather.
My door bell button was on the fritz after doing duty for some ten years. So : time for a new one.
The choices at the home depot store were somewhat limited, but I settled for the one shown in the picture. ‘A little frilly and fussy on the sides of the little metal plate, not?’ I thought today while I took the picture. But on second thought I think it goes with my old house nice enough !
I am getting an impromptu refresher/ education of the bridges around San Francisco Bay, because I have to. There is the 
famous Golden Gate bridge, of course, and the Bay Bridge – but until now I have not really paid attention to the other bridges that cross San Francisco Bay. I had to drive back our shared rental car to the airport. Those in the know recommended I take the San Mateo bridge route, and that’s what I did. Even though it’s a little farther, there would be less traffic to deal with.
The original bridge, known as the San Francisco Bay Toll-Bridge, opened in 1929 and was then the longest bridge in the world. It reopened in 1967 with a modernized span. So with Google Maps’s voice over directions I used many highways and byways and made it to the airport in good time. But after I had gone through the security check point, I discovered that I left my jacket in the rest room outside the secure area. So off I went, and I did find it – and again through the whole security rigmarole. Oy vey.
I checked in with the field crew again this morning for 3 hrs or so, and around lunch time started to drive back to Walnut Creek. (Walnut Creek is the name of the municipality on the east side of the Bay where our hotel and project office is).
It was a long drive up! .. partly because I couldn’t resist making a brief detour to Monterey, which made me run into rush hour traffic in the San Jose area. Man! California has a lot of traffic, I thought. (Of course, California is not alone in this in the world).
I spent the day out in the field at a natural gas pressure metering and regulating station. These metering stations are placed periodically along natural gas transmission pipelines. The stations allow gas utility companies to monitor, manage, and account for the gas in the pipes as it is transmitted over long distances. Compared to a gas compressor station (with big noisy gas turbines for pressuring the natural gas for transmission), the types equipment found at a metering station are simple and not too complicated.
Natural gas transmission and distribution pipelines are made of steel in diameters of 6 inches to up to 48 inches. Across the United States, there are more than 210 gas pipeline systems that total more than 305,000 miles of interstate and intrastate pipelines.
It turned out to be quite a day of travel for me. After arriving at San Francisco airport, my colleague and I rented a car and drove out to Walnut Creek – on the east side of the Bay. So that allowed me to check in and meet the project’s team members. HOWEVER, there are annual maintenance activities scheduled for a facility in the Paso Robles area, and moi is going to represent the team there tomorrow to observe the work methods and gather information for suggestions as to which improvements could be made to the systems that support the scheduling and execution of the work. So we figured I’d better hit the road sooner rather than later to escape the traffic around San Francisco, and off I went around 2.30 pm. The drive went well, and I pulled into Paso Robles off of US-101 right at about 6.00 pm tonight.
Here I go .. I’m off early in the morning to San Francisco to my new project at the gas utility company. I don’t know what the work place will look like; I have only worked with one of my firm’s team members before, and with none of our client team. So : brave new world for me.
Bryan, Gary and I went for a walk-about in the Pike & Pine streets on Saturday night as the sun was setting. Here are some pictures.
I need some new shirts and pants for work, and went out to Nordstrom’s here in downtown Seattle the way I normally do. I like the Nordstrom brand clothes best : not cheap, but still good value for money. It’s not long before a friendly salesperson comes up and offers to help, which is fine .. but I get my guard up when he/ she brings $220 shirts to the fitting room. The classic ‘up sell’ strategy, it seems to me. The price is never mentioned, just the brand and the quality of the fabric. OK. But the few tailored shirts I had made in Hong Kong when I worked in China – of good Italian fabric – cost $150. The store should come in way below that for a shirt straight off the rack.
*one of the lines from the 1981 song ‘Here is the News’ by Electric Light Orchestra
I happened upon a group of stargazers at Volunteer Park tonight right after sunset. ‘I have found Mars!’ said one guy. (Should I have asked ‘Can I see, too?’ I didn’t). I read on earhsky.org that this is a good time of the year to watch for Perseid meteor showers as well : they come late July and early August. Watch for them now, is the recommendation. The moon is full on August 10, and its light will interfere with the 2014 Perseids’ peak.
