Leaving Singapore

Let me have another go at a fairly teneous but free connection from Changi airport where I am currently waiting for my flight to Mumbai.
As anticipated I had a good time in Singapore with lots of shopping at Sim Lim plaza, I got myself a new palm Tx5 which has wireless capability, and lunch at the Tanglin club with Digna.
Digna is the wife of Neil a colleage of mine in PNG she runs a gallery of beautiful Burmese laquerware and yes I did buy some. Now I have to figure out how to get it back to NZ, difficult as it's rather large, but I am sure I'll wprk it out. In the meantime it stays at their place as I certainly wasn't going to carry it through India.

Test

This is indeed a test an attempt to use the WiFi connection on my palm to update my blog. If it works I'll try for a general update later today.

Back in black.

After a long hiatus I will try to update my blog.
My excuse for not writing is a change of job and a firewall that stops me doing updates from work.
In May the construction manager for the project resigned abruptly due to the stress his work caused him and I filled his position in the interim. A few weeks and some reorganizational changes later, I received my new appointment as Site Developments Manager.
Since then it's been chaotically busy for most of the time and my improvisation talents have been severely tested by anything from land owners disruptions to lightning strikes but I seem to have adjusted ok and overcome the stress and anxiety.
The project itself has gathered up speed we finished the work on the North west Moran Pipeline and are now making good progress on the South East Mananda one and while there is still a fair way to go it looks now good for a finish early next year.
A review of cost and schedule took place in September and October with the reality finally sinking in at board level that if it rains for five months and you didn't allow for that in your schedule it’s going to both cost more and take longer. I guess they will pay more attention to ongoing project work next time!

Back to the future

Currently I am Brisbane airport. My next flight to Port Moresby should leave in about forty minutes and all being well I will be back in Sisibia tonight around seven o'clock.

Ear again

I felt absolutely lousy yesterday and am still not much better today. My right ear is now infected and hurts and I can't hear with it. On days like this I feel that Neal Stephenson's description in Cryptonomicon is quite applicable.

"It would be an idyllic tropical paradise if not for the malaria, the insects, the constant diarrheal and resulting haemorrhoids and the fact that the people are dirty and smell bad and eat each other and use human heads for decoration."

On other days I quite enjoy it out here.