A brief update

Bali  has a new bus system. It appears to be working in spite of  its many problems. A  critique can be found here. Despite the pessimism a working bus system is inevitable if the Island is to avoid choking on its own success.

Property prices in Bali are going up up up. Its unbelievable what people are willing to pay for a chunk of swamp without sewage, electricity or water. 300 million rupiah /are now seems to be the going rate in some parts of semminyak. Some very average villas here are now going for 15 million rupiah/month. At these prices its tempting to move and rent out my house but the next question would be to move where?

The beachfront in Kuta is finally resembling something other than a collection of abandoned buildings. There are a lot of new shiny hotels all across the street from the beach. Access to Kuta is still hopelessly snarled amidst the narrow convoluted streets, the surfeit of taxis and the  interminable "proyek galian" (excavations) tearing up the roadways.

The massive developments in south Bali (and they are massive) are serviced by a tiny 2-lane road from Jimbaran to Bukit. Traffic along here can only get worse as these developments fill in. As it is now you are totally screwed going uphill at 4:30 pm and downhill at 7:00 PM (tour buses to Uluwatu).

I'm not sure of the reasoning but the developers in Pecatu placed a large water park in the middle of a luxury housing development and golf course. Perhaps they should have sold the houses first but I find it difficult to imagine some wealthy pensioner buying a house with 100 decibel bass pumping out some techno beat at 10:00  AM overdubbed with some idiot presenter screaming into a microphone. Just what I like with my morning coffee and porridge.

The little golf driving range in Tuban is gone - victim to the ever expanding Ngurah Rai Airport. I think that it has been gone for some time but I'm only now getting around to mentioning it. Pity. It was the cheapest and best kept secret in Bali.

Finally I have to say that I lost one dog while I was away and a new one seems to be hanging around in its place. The lost one was a bit touched from the day we found him so I'm not totally surprised. The new dog is a friendly type with an unfortunate habit of digging up the lawn. Not sure how to cure him of that.

Having a heck of a time organising my next work trip abroad. More on that later.

Oversights

D'Oh - Homer Simpson

Oil wells are getting deeper. They are becoming more convoluted as well. This has created a lot of niche services and service companies, and a whole new host of problems which would not have even been considered a few years ago. For example a client of ours recently requested the latest and greatest in high strength logging  cables. This stuff  has phenomenal tensile properties and if we utilize it to its full capability we can pull a great deal more tension on it then what is usually allowed. That means you can run more tools simultaneously while reducing the risk of leaving those tools in the well should they happen to become stuck. Unfortunately our client won't be able to use that cable to its rated load. You see you have to support that cable with something, and that something needs to be a whole lot stronger than the cable. The client never told the rig what they had in mind and they have only just realised that the rig's support points are inadequate for the cable they specified. The rig can't change their support points - its already at sea. So an entire drilling and evaluation campaign has to be changed because someone couldn't see the entire picture.
The amusing thing in all of this is that our client has us running around like chickens trying to solve  a problem, for which we have no reponsilbility, and yet are expected to sort out - for free of course. I can forsee some very expensive solutions coming. Machine shops...chartered aircraft....

I suppose this whole exercise would be the equivalent of throwing a formula 1 race engine into a Yugo, or a Gremlin, or even a  Pinto. You are going to be disappointed. no matter what you do next.

Clarence Clemmons

Clarence Clemmons has passed on. There is a nice write up on him in the Times. He will be missed.

photo clipped from the album cover of born to run

Connections

An open question.

Why is it so difficult to find F connector wall plates? You know, the kind you need for satellite TV. Is there some law about importing them or is the case (as it is often) that I just haven't found the one shop in all of Nusantara that sells this animal?

Allow me to explain. A while back I decided to renovate the house. Part of the renovation involved installing cable outlets in all of the rooms so I could enjoy TV in any room without  without having a bunch of unsightly cables lying about or having holes drilled in my window frame. A noble plan. I also have a mother-in-law suite on the property, that I may decide to rent out in some alternative future. Its nice to have the connections in place so that all the tenant needs to do is buy the decoder. I'm happy to say that the cables are now where they need to be. The issue is the connections. The only available wall sockets here are whats known as a Belling-Lee type. The satelite provider (Indovision) uses F connectors. The two don't mix. Moreover I've been unable to find an adaptor. Its been grimly amusing visiting upteen hardware stores, electrical suppliers, stereo and home entertainment shops and getting various versions of the blank stare. Reminds me of the great toilet adventure of a few years back.

The only workaround at the moment is to build my own "PJ" cables which have F connectors at one end and Belling-Lee connectors on the other. Tedious but I don't know what else to do.

Blue Lobster

I just thought this was kinda cool. Blue lobsters are missing a pigment. This would look very neat in an aquarium.



Apparently this occurs on average of one time per 4 million lobsters. Unfortunately they turn pink upon cooking which means you will never get one on your plate (it's considered bad luck to cook them anyways).
The cbc has more on this if you are interested.

Photo clipped from the cbc