The Steamtug Blog

Winter has finally finished! Yeah!!! The weather here in Geelong has been a bit warmer, but it’s coming up to the windy part of the season. I have been working long hours at work which has hampered getting the important things in life done, but trying anyhow! I received some amazing news during the week, and I can’t believe it is true until I actually see it happen!

My old work buddy from Nigeria, Petri (that’s him on the left)  is thinking about moving to GEELONG! Can you imagine of all the places in the world, he is crazy enough to pick Geelong??? By the end of the Nigerian project, Petri and had become very close often doing work projects together, before going home each night to our part time job of emptying bottles of Star beer. On the weekend we would lay down the trail for the weekly Hash run. (A run through the jungle followed by a long beer drinking session with post mortim of how the run went.)

You could imagine my surprise when I emailed him to say I would be working in Russia only to have the reply that he was starting almost the same week as me! How bazaar is that? But now his time in Russia is finished and he is coming to work on the North West shelf here in Australia, and will fly in/out from any place, so he is thinking of moving his family to Geelong to help me to keep my beer stock down so I can partake in my favourite hobby of making grain brewed beer at home. We shall see if it all comes together soon.

Adaqua

So the boat refurbishment works continue. Last night, Tom and Phillip came around with a grand plan to cut the old fuel tank from the starboard side of the engine room. This tank has been isolated, drained and flushed for the past 5 years with me trying to figure out how the hell I was going to get it out of the engine room past the engine. Phil said “I have a sabre saw that will cut through that tank like butter!”

So we cut the legs off, and pulled the tank out into open space and started cutting. But the tank was made in 1943 when the boat was built, of “real steel” and 5mm thick. Progress was very slow and much more difficult than anticipated. It’s a good thing I spent the day before wiring in the new generator so we had ample power, but ran out of time. By 8.30pm we gave up and went home to think of another plan.

Beer in a box

Next project, started as an experiment for our drunken exploits on the mountain at Bathurst, for the highlight of the V8 supercars calander, the Bathurst 1000 km car race. The experiment was trialed at Charlie’s birthday party by putting one of my beer kegs into a small wheelie bin with ice, connected to a pluto gun on the outside for beer on the run! It all worked very well except for the big bulky CO2 cylinder. So I read on the internet about connecting a sodastream bottle to the regulator making a small portable rig for beer on the mountain.

Underwater Hockey

The underwater hockey games continue! Our club is looking for some new younger players, so we applied to the City of Geelong for a grant of some money to buy equipment to allow us to go into the schools and coach the kids as part of their sports program in the hope we can get some new blood into our club. Everytime we play a competition against other clubs in our state, we always struggle for numbers against teams who take their hockey very seriously, like Wanthaggi who train twice per week! Here is the underwater camera we are buying to promote our game!

I have helped to conduct some of the sessions, but until now we have not had a lot of success at getting anyone to sign up. If you are in the Geelong region on Wednesday nights, come and try a game to see if you like it! It’s a very unusual sport and I will have to make a new chapter for this web forum soon. But check out another “MD Media” web page…

http://geelongunderwaterhockey.org.au/

The work project

On the work front, I have just started a special project to manage/co-ordinate the shutdown of our hydrocarbon solvents plant. It’s the one where we make paint base, paint thinner, glue solvents, toluene for explosives, degreaser, etc.

I will be organising the crew who will come in and pull everything apart, put it back together and start it up. It will be a busy month! And I have to get it finished in time for Bathurst!

Give blood and save 3 lives!

Even though I have been very busy, I still managed to give up 1 hour of my time to give blood this week. I was surprised to learn it was my 10th donation, so they gave me a nice badge for my jacket. It only take 1 hour and a little prick in your arm, which is better than going to work and having a little prick in your ear all day! See the add I have put on the bottom of this page for more details, or just pop down to your local blood bank and be a sport!