Thursday was a Perfect Storm of a day.
I was reminded of the following:
My one day of flying this week was on Wednesday when I spent a very enjoyable and welcome day out of the office, following an Operations Team meeting all day Tuesday, and a Leadership Team meeting for half of Thursday (held outside in a covered communal area because it was too dark inside and the air conditioning wasn’t working due to the power cut).
The flight went from Hagen to Wewak and then to an airstrip we don’t go to very often called Nugwaia. Brad Venter, whom I was flying with, hadn’t been to Nugwaia in the Twin Otter before, so as it isn’t the easiest of airstrips, it gave me the chance to check him in there.
All in all it was a busy and demanding week.
Yesterday I relaxed by cutting up sheets of plywood ready to start assembling some packing crates. In the evening we had a movie night with a full lounge of friends, watching “Lion”, based on a true story of a young boy in India who accidentally gets on a train and transported 1600km across the sub-continent. It’s well worth seeing.
Christmas is approaching, decorations are up at work and in the shops (so I’m told, I haven’t been in any shop for a couple of weeks). Maybe if I finish this and another communication in time I’ll get our tree out. With snow in parts of the UK at the moment I expect the approaching celebration feels a bit more seasonal. In New Zealand a colleague was reminding me that their Christmas is associated with long summer days, the exact opposite of the UK (naturally since it’s on the opposite side of the planet!). In PNG the climate is much the same as always and there are no seasonal cues.
I’m very happy to miss the snow. It’s been cloudy all morning but is brightening up now and the temperature is in the mid-20s, Celsius that is! I can guarantee that we won’t have a white Christmas. Friends returning to Canada this week will be going back to a thick blanket of snow and snow ploughs out keeping the roads clear.
Have a good week. Drive carefully, as will we as we avoid over-developed potholes rather than ice.
- There was a prolonged power cut over Wednesday/Thursday night, and we arrived at work to find that there was a fault with the main generator. No lights and no telephones. Later in the day the standby IT generator failed, so all the main servers went offline, so no access to any of the main MAF information servers and no internet, no email. Of course, the loss of power also meant no printing, scanning or anything else requiring unimpeded flow of electrons.
- The weather was appalling; not a storm, but low cloud and rain over a widespread area of the country from a bit west of Mount Hagen and covering most of the east of the country. There were some important airstrip checks planned so that service can be resumed to communities which haven’t had an aircraft land since the C208 Caravan was introduced to the Sepik area. The delayed departure of the training pilot from Hagen jeopardised whether the checks would get done, especially as the aircraft to be used was scheduled for routine maintenance the next day.
- One of the Twin Otters has had a recurrent, but intermittent, electrical fault that Engineering is having all sorts of problems locating and correcting. The fault occurred again when the aircraft was at a remote airstrip. We all agreed that it wasn’t a safety issue and that the aircraft could fly back, but then the airstrip was covered by cloud and it couldn’t take off. Fortunately, when the cloud cleared the problem didn’t recur as the aircraft started up, so it did eventually arrive in Hagen for maintenance. The aircraft is still here as the problem has still not been located.
- After half a day the main generator was brought back online. As everything was switched back on the main uninterrupted power supply in IT blew up. The positive news was that it didn’t exactly blow up, and was later found to still be serviceable, but the electrical problems had caused a cable in the main building wiring to short out and produce some sparks.
- The Finance Manager went home sick.
- Court papers were served on MAF by a disgruntled ex-employee stating an intention to sue us and demanding his job back. His employment was terminated in 2006! Is there a Statute of Limitations here?
- In the evening, we heard that there was concern at the New Tribes centre, just east of Goroka and where several MAF children go to school. There had been an adults v children soccer game and the local landowner, who gifted the land to New Tribes for their centre, had dropped dead from a heart attack during the game. Needless to say it wasn’t pleasant for anybody and initially there was uncertainty about when some MAF youngsters would arrive home. There wasn’t any trouble and, fortunately, they arrived home safe and sound, just rather late.
I was reminded of the following:
I was sitting at work one day feeling rather glum. “Cheer up”, my colleagues said, “things could always be worse!” So, I took their advice and cheered up, and sure enough, things did get worse.
************
My one day of flying this week was on Wednesday when I spent a very enjoyable and welcome day out of the office, following an Operations Team meeting all day Tuesday, and a Leadership Team meeting for half of Thursday (held outside in a covered communal area because it was too dark inside and the air conditioning wasn’t working due to the power cut).
The flight went from Hagen to Wewak and then to an airstrip we don’t go to very often called Nugwaia. Brad Venter, whom I was flying with, hadn’t been to Nugwaia in the Twin Otter before, so as it isn’t the easiest of airstrips, it gave me the chance to check him in there.
All in all it was a busy and demanding week.
************
Yesterday I relaxed by cutting up sheets of plywood ready to start assembling some packing crates. In the evening we had a movie night with a full lounge of friends, watching “Lion”, based on a true story of a young boy in India who accidentally gets on a train and transported 1600km across the sub-continent. It’s well worth seeing.
************
Christmas is approaching, decorations are up at work and in the shops (so I’m told, I haven’t been in any shop for a couple of weeks). Maybe if I finish this and another communication in time I’ll get our tree out. With snow in parts of the UK at the moment I expect the approaching celebration feels a bit more seasonal. In New Zealand a colleague was reminding me that their Christmas is associated with long summer days, the exact opposite of the UK (naturally since it’s on the opposite side of the planet!). In PNG the climate is much the same as always and there are no seasonal cues.
I’m very happy to miss the snow. It’s been cloudy all morning but is brightening up now and the temperature is in the mid-20s, Celsius that is! I can guarantee that we won’t have a white Christmas. Friends returning to Canada this week will be going back to a thick blanket of snow and snow ploughs out keeping the roads clear.
Have a good week. Drive carefully, as will we as we avoid over-developed potholes rather than ice.
