BYO Rifle, Not Beer

Recent trips taken by friends and colleagues from Perth:

• Drinking and sunbathing in Bali
• Drinking and catching up with friends in Sydney
• Hiking Machu Picchu
• Drinking and clubbing in Hong Kong
• Drinking and sleeping in Bangkok
• Aerial feral hog hunting in Queensland*

*I was going to make a crack that only in Australia would someone take a week of vacation to shoot feral hogs from a helicopter but apparently it's very popular in Texas.  The Texas State Legislature passed 'the pork chopper' bill this spring which makes it legal, as of September 1st, for sport hunters to rent the gunner seat on a helicopter to shoot wild hogs and coyotes.  And apparently bookings for gunner seats are going quickly.  There is a huge amount of enthusiasm in Australia and Texas to temper out of control feral hog populations.  H, let's not move to Texas.  Unless of course my birthday mercenary can ride shotgun while I shoot feral hogs.  Yee haw.

 

Image courtesy of Eric Lewis via http://www.texasmonthly.com/2011-08-01/webextra10.php

Dear Spell Check, I Am Not a Terrorist

Dear spell check,

I may have a mercenary and a white Toyota HiLux on my wish list (and an unhealthy love of The Unit), but that doesn’t mean that I appreciate your auto corrections that pepper my e-mails with the following in place of my name and those of my friends:

• Taliban
• Warlord
• Bullet
• Amen

I’m an American expat in Australia for goodness sake.  Who do you think I’m writing to/about?  I fill my days with Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.  Just because my extracurricular conversations include helicopters, facilitation payments, various nonsexual ways to employ a hooker, assorted ways one’s wife will find out that one’s rotation isn’t actually six weeks on, two weeks off but 6 weeks on, four weeks off, and how much money one can fit in a money belt for third world travel, it doesn’t mean that I’m totally nuts.  I’m not a jihadist, I just spend too much time in and around the oilfield.