Well, on Friday I leave for 4 weeks. This will be the longest period in almost 9 years that Tasha and I have been apart.

For work, we have been working on a design for a plant in Indonesia for the past 18 months and it is time for commissioning. Five us us from our company are going over there for 1-4 weeks to make sure the system starts up right and runs as designed. I am the only one who gets to go for 4 weeks. Most of the time will be spent working, probably even on the weekends, but it should be a fun trip.

Tasha isn’t looking forward to it. She has class 2 nights a week and has to come home and take care of the dogs. That means feeding them and playing with them ’til they drop and then heading off to bed. I know it will be hard for her. Luckily, my company has agreed to pay a pet sitter to come over 3 days each week to play with and feed the dogs. That way, on nights she has class, they get to have a bit of fun before momma gets home at 9pm. If you want, feel free to call her or email to keep her company…

If all goes well, I will be back by May 13th.

It will be very strange. From what I hear from coworkers over there, there is limited internet access and what I may have will be, at most, a dialup connection. After having broadband for the past 4 or 5 years, that may be pretty painful. I will purchase a SIM card for my phone when I get there, so I will have a different phone number while there if you need to get in contact with me. I will send out an email letting everyone know what the number will be. I am not positive I will be able to access email while there, but if you need to contact me, use my philpeepsATalumni.utexas.net email address. If I can access email, I will do my best to let you know how things are going.

I will try to post updates during my trip to let everyone know how things are going. If not, I’m sure I will give everyone a detailed update when I get back.

With the recent earthquakes and tsunami over there the past several months, I’m sure everyone is concerned that I may be in danger. The island that we will be at is well over 1,600 miles from Sumatera where most stuff has taken place. Click on the map above to see a map of the area…