First 2 Days at Gladstone, QLD

I flew into Gladstone yesterday. I took so much stuff with me. Both my carry on and checked baggage exceeded the limits of 7 kg and 23 kg, respectively. My carry on baggage was about 15 kg and checked baggage was about 27 kg. I was lucky to be allowed to take them without being charged any fees. It penalty would have been about $120.

I'm staying at the Pines Apartment, which is a very good accommodation. It's fully furnished, with an LCD TV, dishwasher (whoopy), washer and dryer. Please see photos below:

Gladstone feels like Dandenong, but there's always something industrial in the scenery, like in this photo (i took this on my level 5 balcony), there's a power plant in the background, which just doesn't fit in this picture.



For all those of you coming to Gladstone in the future and don't already know, most stores close at 5:00 pm on Saturdays and do not open on Sundays. The only supermarket that was open yesterday evening was an IGA on Toolooa St. I was lucky to get in before it closed to get my food for the weekend and some stuff to make some sandwishes for Monday's lunch. I drove to the Orica Yarwun plant this morning so I wouldn't get lost Monday morning when I go to work.

On my way back from the plant, I went to marina. It's got some beautiful parks and bbq facilities. You can't see it in the photo below, but behind the trees are more industrial site, which basically describes Gladstone. Gladstone is a residential town bordered by some heavy industrial sites.


For Sunday's lunch, I cooked chicken. I frying it. It takes a long time to cook, and getting hot oil on my hand can be very painful. Despite that, it tasted great.

Hello from Adelaide

Today's my last day in Adelaide. I've been working on the floor plans for the new workshop. It's coming together well. I'm getting good support here I'm working with someone who's on the same wave length as me. I also got to see the some of the fabricated skids at our fabrication contractor's workshop. They're an experienced bunch, so it's always good to see what quality looks like. I was also preparing the management of change forms yesterday. It was basically a long check list of safety concerns. So, that's basically what I was up to at work. The rest of this blog is the more interesting events.


I'll start with what Adelaide is best known for. Adelaide's known as the "City of Churches". I thought I better capture at least one photo of a church, so I walked out of the hotel after breakfast yesterday morning, went down the road and took some snaps of the local church. Here's one photo below:


Churches just don't fit in a city's landscape. Buildings around the churches get more modern while the church falls behind.

Although churches is the well known standout, there's one other difference in Adelaide it has to Melbourne at least, if not to the other major cities. In Adelaide, there's a lot of night construction. That's how Adelaide operates. It's such a dense city that any road construction at day time would be very disruptive. I saw a few construction workers working on the road, operating scissor lifts, making scaffolds, and even working in the rain.

It's different in Melbourne. There'll be a portable sign put up on the road a few days before the construction work to inform us not to use a particular road. I like Adelaide's way of thinking.

I got takeaway (combination seafood with rice) at Chinatown yesterday. Chinatown's pretty small in Adelaide. See the photo of Chinatown below:




I drove myself back to the hotel with the company car. Damn, that's an awful car. The brakes need repair. I pushed the brake pedal. The first 80% of travel does nothing. The brakes operate in the remaining 20% of travel, which makes the brakes really sensitive.

I had trouble working the hand brake. There's underground car parking at the hotel. The car park entrance roller door was down when I got there. I had to get out of the car to press a button to raise the roller door. When I got back into the back I couldn't work out how to disengage there handb reak. The roller door came down while I was fiddling with the hand break.

I didn't get to see Glenelg Beach or Rundle Mall, but I still had lots of fun. I'm coming back to Melbourne today. See ya next time.

Trip to Adelaide

I'm going to Adelaide for work tomorrow. My boss called me on Friday to ask me to help out with relocating our fabrication workshop. The Adelaide workshop has been making UV disinfection units so far, but we want to expand they capability and get them involved in fabricating our larger water treatment packaged skids.

I'm the Watercare draftsman for another 2 weeks, so I'm going across to Adelaide to prepare the floor plan. I've also gonna put together the management of change forms. I've been at home preparing for the drafting and management of change forms work. The management of change forms goes into a lot of detail. I was looking up the relevant South Australian regulations.

I checked up the requirement for fire exits so I could get started right away on the layout when I arrive in Adelaide. The minimum unobstructed width of the exit route is 1 m. Orica requires 1.02m; I don't where the 2 cm comes from. Perhaps to allow for contractor measuring error.

I'm glad I'm getting the opportunity to go to Adelaide, because I've never been there. Looking on goggle maps, it's a really small city. People call it the 40 min city, because it take around 40 min. by cars to get from one side to the opposite side.


I want to see the Glenelg Beach and Rundle Mall while I'm there. Hope the company provides a car. I'll post photos in the next blog.

Anyway I better go to bed for tomorrow's flight. Cya.

Hello World

Most computer programming books start with the 'hello world' program, so I thought I'd call my first blog Hello World. It would make more sense if I had a career in computing or even a degree in IT, but I'm not associated with neither of those two things.

I'm a graduate mechanical engineer working in Melbourne, Australia for Orica, single, and living with my parents. In 3 weeks times, that's all gonna change. Not really, I'll still be working for the same company and I'll still be single, but I'll be moving out.

I guess this is the ideal time to start my blog, when I'm moving out and discovering life alone. I won't discuss the first 24 years of my life, but reflect on those times when the contrast becomes clearer.

About me moving out. It all started when our graduate coordinator sent every graduate an email about the opportunity of commissioning our new explosives plant in Bontang, Indonesia. I put my name down. 7 weeks ago, I got a call from the commissioning manager. I discussed with him what I wanted to get out of the position and how I could contribute. 2 week after, he called me and said I was on the team.

So now, I'm preparing myself for my re-location to Gladstone, QLD. What Gladstone, I hear you say? I first have to stay in Gladstone, QLD for around 3 months to get some training at our existing explosives plant and help prepare the documentation.

My job at Melbourne so far has been working for the company's water treatment business, called Watercare. My role here has mainly been drafting P&IDs, water treatment systems drawings, preparing equipment specifications, and process designs. I've been working in the office most of the time with my role. What I've lack is on-site work, but when I've been given the opportunity to work on site, I've enjoyed it because of the whole new wealth of knowledge I can tap into. Contractors can be a pain to work with sometimes, but definitely know a load of stuff, and sometimes more than the designers and people managing them on site.

So, I've decided to move into another role within the company, and get a taste of a new work environment and life away from my parents.

I told my dad first about deciding to switch roles before my mum, because my mum was in Shanghai, China to visit my grandparents. Dad heard explosives and moving out, and thought is was a bad idea. I think it's Asian thing. But when I explained it was commissioning, and how I really wanted to get commissioning experience to develop my career, he was all right with it. After all, dad made the same decision 15 years ago when he migrated from China to Australia. Dad's mum didn't like the idea, but moving to Australia was the right choice.

Dad then told mum about my changing roles. I was surprised mum was ok with it. She suspected I didn't really enjoyed my role at Watercare. She was right. I wasn't really learning anything new, or new things quickly enough about mechanical engineering. I'm the only mechanical engineer doing mechanical engineering at Watercare.

Enough about my previous job in 3 weeks time. Working in Bontang, Indonesia has some benefits. Work plan is 6 weeks on and 2 weeks off. I've never seen South East Asia before, or anywhere outside of China or Australia before. That 2 weeks off is a great opportunity to travel South East Asia. I'll be sharing most of my travel adventure with you, which is I think a good place to end my first blog.