Quote Originally Posted by Brin View Post
Where's the O/T?

Sounds like you've enjoyed your life, good on you pal.

If you want to compare it to CT Milllers, I suggest you read, 'Far away and further back'. In it he experiences dangerous pyrotechnic liaisons in the Algerian desert, that will have you rolling, to a quest to find the Archbishop of Rangoon after a chance meeting in an English village church. I won't tell you the rest but it is a damn good read which, has prompted me to dig it out and read it again.
Thanks for the plug, Brin! (Available on Amazon and other online stores in paperback and as an e-book.)

Although I had a Middle East regional job for about 18 months living in Abu Dhabi, I never made the trip to Iran much to my regret. What Frog describes is pretty much what I've heard. I have a very good Iranian friend living in UK who was sent to England - on his own - just before the revolution to escape what was coming. His father was a government minister close the the Shah's court. Interestingly this friend can go into and come out of Iran quite easily even now.

I spent a couple of weeks in Venezuela in the mid 80s when the American/international involvement in oil exploration and drilling was at its height. While there was a great deal of poverty around Caracas, there was also a thriving middle class and obvious signs of affluence and the good life for the local community - which has largely disappeared. I spent 36 hours working as a roustabout on a jack-up rig mounted on an anchored barge in the middle of Lake Maracaibo. (Probably the subject of a chapter in another memoir one day...) The crew captain was an American and everybody else was local. I've worked on quite a few rigs and I'd say these Venezuelans were among the hardest working I've ever seen. Also a very dangerous job - loading explosive charges on a 20 foot long carrying tool that was lowered into the well hole on a wireline. Once it reached the oil strata (about a mile down,) the explosives were detonated from the surface and they sent metal balls flying through the steel casing and into the formation to create fissures for the oil to flow.