TRIP TO PARADISE

Delta to Atlanta to San Francisco, Singapore Air to Seoul, Korea to Singapore, Malaysia, Merpati Air to Pekanbaru, Indonesia.

Singapore Air 747 flight business class was very nice, much food available. Excellent service for 11.5 hour flight. In Seoul spent 1 hour in airport perusing the duty free store. All seemed expensive. Maybe on the return trip I can but some souvenirs if we come this way again. Seoul airport clean but very plain and looked old.

From Seoul to Singapore another 6 hours of flying arrived at 3:00 am. Spent night in Transit hotel. Very nice and clean. Rate w/tax $56.00 US, but you are only allowed to stay 6 hours and the next days rate begins again. Tried to get some sleep and shower. Got up at 8:30 so I could be out by 9:30am. Spent 6 hours roaming the Singapore airport waiting for the flight to Pekanbaru. Singapore airport is probably one of the nicest airports I have been around. Outside was very modern as well and complete with transit trains, lots of moving sidewalks, exhibition rooms, restaurants, banks and full fledged convenience stores. Everything was splendidly designed and kept polished.

Merpatti Air flight to Pekanbaru was a nightmare. An old plane that obviously had been ditched once or twice and rebucketed was our ride. Took off in clear weather, then hit a thunderstorm head on. Thought the flight was over right there, it was for me, but we finally climbed over the clouds. Stewardesses served a box lunch- something baked, couple of road kill sandwiches and a cup of orange juice. At least the orange juice looked safe. Approach to Pekanbaru took us over the paper mill, but the plane flew and flew. I knew I was in for a long drive back across the jungle to the mill. Thousands of acres of palm trees were planted in very exact rows. Later found that they harvest the palm kernels for palm oil. Get about 40% of the weight as oil. Still haven't seen how they get at all those palm trees- no obvious roads for miles and miles across the plantation.

Arrive at Pekanbaru airport about 3:00 pm Saturday 4/5/97. Airport customs looks tough , but turned out to be a joke. Airport terminal looked very Far East. Through with customs

and looking for my ride I spot somebody holding a sign looking very lost himself. The sign Had big letters WAIN ADAM- its gotta be for me. A local Indonesian and his wife and their little girl pile into a little mini-van they call a KJIANG. Like a mini-van but has bucket seats in front, a bench seat in the middle and two opposing seats in the rear. Inside is about 5 feet x 9 feet but it seats 8 or 9 people- maybe 5 bubbas.The Driver nor the wife speak English well enough to say more than hello. I think they expected me to go to the market, but I didn't know where or what to do and said go to Kerinci, so we did. Leaving the airport it starts to rain like hell. Streets and scenery reminds me a lot of the back streets of Caracas, Venezuela. Roads are very poor, crooked and everything is dirty and dirtier as we go. At this point the driver began to get harried. First you must understand this is a right hand drive country so we are on the wrong side of the road. The drivers pass on every curve and hill with a toot of the horn and a foot on the brake. Close calls get closer and closest were breathtaking. Merpatti Air was not so bad after all. The drive from Pekanbaru to Kerinci took a couple of hours. The little girl was tired and hungry so mama pulled up her shirt and tried to feed her . Discreetly at first, but then on the flop side we all knew what was going on. Driver tried to keep telling to tell me he worked for BSP. Never heard of that. I asked if he worked in the mill and said very deliberately NO- BSP. OK I'll buy that.

Arrived at guest house- finally some smooth paved roads, but paved with z-sided blocks the size of bricks. Roads are very narrow here in the mill compound- about 15 feet with concrete curb sections about 2 feet long and concrete ditches that resemble flat bottom troughs. Almost all housing is identical with only 4 or 5 styles apparent. Styles are segregated to large groups and are composed of single dwellings, duplexes, and row apartments. More on houses later.

Guest house (row apartment- mom & pop motel) receptionist says it is full when I get there. So after some deliberation I go to the Hotel Unigraha on the hill. It's a grand hotel but at $80.00 US per day, it doesn't have the goodies that price would fetch in the states.Got a room on the first floor of this three floor high rise, close to the front door, close to the pool and close to the restaurant. It's 6:30pm now and its getting dark

After trying to call and sending faxes to people there I suddenly run into Mike Jonesand Emilio Cerinci who came to the hotel looking for me. They knew I was to stay there, but nobody else had been informed. Mike took me on a 30 minute driving tour in the dark. First impression was that he talks just like my dentist Dr. Wallace. After the tour he dropped me off and I had supper alone and went to bed.

Hotel room is very nice. Two beds a little larger than twins but not a regular size either, TV, mini-bar, desk and a regular bathroom- that's it.

Sunday was boring, nothing to do but go to the pool watch TV (cricket or rugby) and sleep. TV choices are pretty bland, but they obviously screen what hits the air regarding violence. The news is even tame or lets say reserved.

Mike Jones told me there was a little store down the hill 400 yards or so, so I checked it out. Boy was it small and hot like they ran a heater in there, but it was packed so tight with items that light couldn't get through some spots. Many US items , but pricey. Corn Flakes 10,000 rupiahs or about $4.25. Bran with fruit 18,500 rupiahs or $8.00. Bought a bowl , a spoon, a fork and a can opener for $1.50, can of tuna for $1.75, quart of water for 50 cents, quart of milk for $2.00, the expensive cereal, soap for clothes, instant local brand coffee and I've spent 40,000 rupiahs or $17.57. Got to get use to this currency.

I had cashed a hundred dollar bill in Singapore to get some Indonesian rupiahs and received 230,300 rupiahs- that should last quite a while I thought! However I find that to eat regular meal at the restaurant cost 15,000. The same meal cost 9,000 at the guest house restaurant and if you go to the local Kantin a similar meal is 6,000.

First day at work I arrived at a big one story field office at the mill. Damn ! it's BSP.Well actually its Bina Sarana Pengembang Engineering company who employeesBE&K, Bechtel, H.A. Simons, and others on this project. The mill produces 2,500 tons per day of bleached tropical hardwood pulp and is expanding to produce 1,000,000 tons per year. There is currently construction going on to add a 300,000 ton free sheet paper machine and plans are there for several more machines up to 6 in all. Now there is one

Tampella recovery boiler rated at 7,600,000 pounds per day of solids and two identical ones under construction from the same engineering basically.

No.1 recovery will get an air system upgrade after No2 & 3 recoveries are built. There is one line of Tampella evaporators running 5,000 gpm of 16% solids to 70% solids liquor.Two new evaporator lines are just beginning construction and are to be supplied by HPD from Spain. These are 5 effect falling film evaporators with EHSC (extra high solids crystallizers ) per line and also rated for 5,000 gpm each.

My job at this point is to design a system for 1000 metric tonnes of saltcake storage and feeding of 250 metric tonnes per day between the two new recoveries. They want to use the new recovery boiler mix tanks for this service and pump the firing liquor directly from the high solids storage. Additionally the boiler salt ash must be collected in these same tanks and all this mixture is to be pumped to the evaporators at around 43% solids.

Something is amiss with this idea. The only source of saltcake is in 50kg bags (110#=s)There is only 100 tonnes per day available from a rayon plant so all the rest must be imported from China. All this must come in bags! What a nightmare! Imagine busting 2500 bags per day to feed this system. Well, I guess the labor is cheap. I understand these guys make about 50 cents an hour and the top help gets about $1.75 per hour.

The office at BSP has hundreds of people in accounting, engineering, logistics, and purchasing. Looks like a dress code for all the secretaries. Each day they wear a different color of uniform blouse and skirt, except on Saturday when they dress as they please,free day they call it. This building is about 100 feet by 400 feet and I estimate there are 200-250 computers in here.. The office girls seem mostly to be on call to run faxes , get things and occasionally do some typing and putting books together.

Tuesday 4/8/97 I spent most of my day calculating and trying to make sense of the project scope. Actually I got a lot of work done. This day we were informed that tomorrow was a holiday for the new year 1919. Beats me, I thought I was by that one!We had to work anyway. Every day is started at 7:00 am with lunch from 11:30am to

1:00pm and then go home at 6:30 pm. Here it is dark at 6:30 in the afternoon so the day is shot then and there. So goes the first few days.

Wednesday - New Year Holiday 4/9/97. Almost nobody at work except a handful of BE&K people and a few vendors. I almost couldn't find a ride into the mill and was an hour late at that. Been trying to meet the manager of the chemical plant for two days and guess who I catch a ride with to the mill. We had a meeting at 10:00 am and started a dialogue Used this morning to review two days of work with Bechtel supervisor Bob Donnelly. Not much other productivity this day in spite of the quite atmosphere.

Rode down to the water supply line to the river water intake with Bob Donnelly. Line is about 5.5km and is 48 inches diameter.. A floating barge- 50 meters into the river has 4 lift pumps plus one diesel lift pump. There is a village of people who have built shacks at the river intake and have a little jungle village community. After walking about 40 meters across floating logs sawed in half and held together end to end with iron pins, we reach the hard Rock Cafe Serina. Well they got a sign and sell beer and bar-b-que shrimp (udangs). No shrimp today! Well I got to go there anyway.

Thursday 4/10/97 It seems every day more people are here. I am told that the current expansion effort has 4,000 people on site for all services. There was a small pickup truck similar to a Chevy S-10 which had a headcount of 38 on board leaving the mill. An eight yard dump truck carried 104 people on one occasion. Toady I calculated piping and pumping requirements to slurry saltcake a distance of 1.2 kilometers each way. The obvious are beginning to raise up to the disbelief of the blue sky thinkers. It seems that money is no object, yet I am hearing now that the mill missed the 1996 production budget of 750,000 tons of pulp by 232,000 tons. Claim was market condition and decision to fallback to preserve prices. There was a half day labor strike today because the crane operators had not been paid for 10 days. Just those operators involved struck, but it shut down the job. Seems the mill thinks their $1.50 wage is too high for their services and there had been an attempt at adjustment without negotiation!

I also understand the rigging people have dropped several loads and buckled some cranes.

The new deaerator tank for the power boiler was rolled off a truck on the highway to the mill and some boiler modules were wrecked as well. I'm going to stay clear of overhead loads from now on. Looks like this day is becoming slack. I'm stuck here waiting on a decision.

Made a walking tour of part of the mill alone. It took me 45 minutes to get down to the evaporators and back around to the BSP office. I'm not doing that again on purpose.It was some kind of hot out there in midday. Tours have to be done in early mornings.

Got a surprise today. Been to the restroom several times and had noticed that all the urinals were kid sized here. Two doors previously had always been closed when I was there, but today both were open. I had assumed those were the toilets. Well they are the toilets, but its not a toilet toilet. Its some kind of contraption that looks like a Cadillac latrine. There is a porcelain fixture with indentions for your feet to stand, obviously squat.Hell, there's nothing to hang onto. My grandfather always told me when I was a mere child to find a good green 2 inch sapling to hold on to before planning the event. This whole fixture here is raised about six inches off the floor. There's a water spigot and a bucket and a dipper. I am thinking, I've got the idea but what this place needs is a good roll of paper. How do you splash your butt with the dipper and not wash your clothes at the same time? Obviously you can't read the paper in here either. After looking around to the other stall I find that there is a regular toilet, but no paper here either, just a dipper and a spigot. I'll just plan my arrangements elsewhere!

4/11/97- Waiting for some meetings. Reached impasse on some design considerations, that need clarification. At least need to meet and find out what can be done in the meantime. May try to make some sketch drawings of some plans to kill time. Never know , may come up with a different view without trying to concentrate on a solution. There's a guy here called Dr. Fuji. He is the main project manager for BSP and has one of the few closed offices in the building. He sits just behind me, but slightly out of sight. He is Chinese and reminds you of the frustrated general in the movies who shouts out his orders in desperation as the fortifications are collapsing around him. Every morning all

of the power project group office and field heads and construction leaders congregate outside Fuji's office to get their 5-10 minute inspiration of the day. Seems to work because they are always down when they go in and seem so happy to leave and get to work. This guy seldom leaves the office, but holds fear over all his subordinates. Well fears not the word , but he thinks its so while the others kind of take it in stride. He's been known to fire people on the spot because they reject his planning or don't respect his decisions. I'm thinking I'll probably have to see him one day on this saltcake project. I'll probably get fired!

I was informed today that I will have to move from the hotel to the guest house. I've been waiting and dreading this inevitable event. I don't know what to expect, but I've heard things. At any rate I'll be separated from quick meals and the pool at lunch.

Moved into new room #66 at the guest house. Looks like a cheap motel room , but is clean. There are two single beds and they are smaller than twin beds in the states(not as bad as Tufts Univ. though) bathroom is about 6x6 feet with toilet wall mount sink and a shower. There is no division or curtain so when you shower everything in there gets wet.This bathroom has permanently open louvered windows so you can't leave the door open or all the air conditioning goes out. There is at least toilet paper here, but just in case a local patron gets a room there is a dipper on the toilet. The room has a 13 inch Sony TVand a 1.5 cubic foot refrigerator and wardrobe closet and a portable clothes rack that you can sit in the yard to dry your clothes on. That's it.

The TV and refrigerator both plug into the same outlet. I guess the previous tenant had or took the duplex receptacle. I'm moving the refrigerator to the other side of the room. I'm feeling sick and seem to be taking on a cold so I went to bed early.

Woke up at 2:30am with a clap of thunder- that's all. Woke up at 4:30am, there's a little rain coming down now and I can't sleep. About 4:45am I here a little pop and notice that the a/c shutoff and within a millisecond of that observation there is a loud clap of thunder.That's it! the lights are out. I got up and looked out the window and all of the street lights are out. In a moment I see that the hotel up on the hill that I just moved from has lights

again. By the sound the hotel has a generator. Can't see the mill from here and with the rain can't tell by the sound if the mill is running or not.

Got up at 5:45am and its still dark. Glad to have brought mini-mag light that converts to a candle. Water was still on so I showered and shaved by candlelight. This is the first morning in new quarters and its been hell. Can only get better. Rainy drive to work.Whole bus load of people is sideways in the muddy road. We back tracked and used the secondary entrance to the mill. People who normally shuttle in the back of trucks are still coming to work in the rain. Looks like an average of 40-50 people in the back of most of these trucks in the pouring rain. They don't seem to be bothered,- a rupiah is a rupiah.

Today is Saturday so we will get off the afternoon. Sun's out by lunch and the day looks promising. I'm still sick of a cold and will probably sleep and watch cricket or CNN news on TV. One of the guys gave me some Comtrex to take- I'll try it out.

Noticed this morning that my alarm nearly did not work. I'm using an old transistor radio travel clock that picks up only the AM band. There's no good AM reception here but on the right frequency there's one hell of a squelch that I've been using for the alarm. This morning with the power out the squelch was not there. I guess the frequency loss with the power out did not come through my radio as it usually does from the desk lamp.

Saturday afternoon was uneventful 4/12/97, Bought some groceries, walked up to the bank, which was closed. Still feeling bad with a head cold. Spent rest of day in room. Power is back on now.

Sunday 4/13/97, Got up early and decided to go to the hotel pool. Got there about 10:00 and its cloudy outside. Around 11:00am the sun came out so I sat by the pool till noon. Went back to the room to find the power out. Should have guessed that. I heard the generator crank up at the hotel before I left- thought they were just doing the Sundaychecklist. Also noticed two guys up a pole cutting power lines with a hacksaw while I was walking back to the room. Well I sat outside the room a little while feeling real bad.

Went to bed and slept the afternoon away. Power came back about 5:30pm, but it wasn't too hot this day because of the overcast and light rain this afternoon. Got up , had dinner and went back to bed.

4/14/97-Couln't sleep well after sleeping all day Sunday. Got up at 4:30am and watched the Masters on TV. Tiger Woods was rolling over the field. Feeling better, still a little congested. Took some Comtrex before going to work. By 9:00am at work I felt drunk, that Comtrex has me floating. I can't take that stuff and go to work anymore. The afternoon was better after I had lunch. Went to procurement department and asked about vendors for pneumatic conveyors. The guy there just looked at me and laughed. I don't think he ever understood what I needed and thought I was pulling something off on him.I got the yellow pages from him and found two vendors. This place has a whole department of people double checking every order or proposal to see if its in line with current mill equipment. There must be 50 people on this task alone. BE&K manager told me there were about 4,00 people on this job and now I'm beginning to believe that he was right.

4/15/97- Tried to make contact with two pneumatic conveyor vendors today in Singapore. NU-CON and Gericke. Bechtel assigned an apprentice draftsman for me to use. He barely understands English and thinks he is here only to do pipe drawing designs. He wants pipe specifications to draw a plot plan and simple PID for me. This is a challenge for sure After three tries I think he's got the message of what I need.

Waited all last week for a response from HPD on comments on the proposed saltcake addition to the evaporators. Toady find they are waiting for BSP to send a proposal to them. Well I was ready for that curve and fired the response by email in a minute.

I delivered a list of equipment to the budget master, Mr. Arnel , to see about pricing the mix tanks and some valves. Later I gave him a salt cake silo design. I went over the pump selections and pricing with another fellow from a previous purchase order list.

Today I learned about the copy room process first hand. There are four copy machines in

a central room, glassed in, where you hand your paper through the a little window and with the appropiate hand gestures signal what you need. There is a requisition form to fill out for copies and the sign says copies are 3000 rupiah each $1.30 per page! There are three people who seem to put in a full 10 hours per day making these copies and a line is always there. I wonder who has the concession on this enterprise. However if a white skin person walks up and just hands in a paper for copy there is no requisition needed. Later I find that only the office help has to sign for copies to keep them from exploiting the copy room.

Finally got the system to get water in the office. All day long there are several servers who carry covered glasses of water , tea, coffee and cocoa back and forth. Once they see you in one place long enough and if you ask they will bring you some water. If they don't bring the water there is none other available unless you bring in your own.

4/16/97- Just after getting settled in a new desk yesterday, today I am informed that I will have to move by tomorrow. We'll see where I have to go now, this will make the third move in two weeks. I hope they get this desk problem solved soon so I can get settled down.

Made my first trip to Kerinci. Only takes about 10-15 minutes. Outside the company compound gate its just a little ways down the road to the left. Lots of shacks and shanties at first and then some concrete buildings. Everything is dirty and not well cared for. Trash is piled along the street without concern and it smells. The main shops are about 50 feet off the main road with dirt front yards and crossings of wood planks over a concrete ditch to get there. I went there to get some passport size pictures made for a work permit badge.Cost was 5,000 rupiahs for 4 pictures or about 50 cents apiece. These open air shops were very hot in midday. The drive there and back with a local transportation driver was let's say, exhilarating.

4/17/97- Spent most of morning writing a narrative to go with the drawings. Thought we were supposed to meet today but now I'm told it will be Tuesday. Planning to meet with the recovery group on Saturday morning to present some of the plans. Received quote

from NU-CON today on the pneumatic conveyors. Still waiting on Gericke, but not for long, cause I got the impression they didn't like the scope of work. They haven't moved me out of this office yet so I'll stay here a little longer. It's a little easier to work here cause its hidden behind a screen of cabinets and is a little quieter. The little restaurant where we usually eat lunch and dinner had a buffet today The selection was rice, chicken, pork, beef, greens, potatos, fruits, soup and a pineapple-olive-chicken salad (good). The chicken was kind of bar-b-qued, the pork was sweet and sour and the beef was a peppersteak. It was all good but at 20,000 rupiah it was a bit expensive ($8.75). I'll go back to the 7,000- 8,000 meals, they are pretty good as well. Tomorrow is a holiday, but I have no plans- hope it doesn't rain

4/18/97- Holiday from the mill, Islam Feast day. They had some kind of shingig at the mosque. Lot of people left town for the weekend, but I have a meeting on Saturday so I could not get away. Unless you are into walking the streets or laying by the pool there is absolutely nothing to do. CNN is beginning to get boring and I actually watched some MTV for about an hour till it bugged me. I went out and did a three mile walk around the mill town, finding the medical clinic and the ex-patriots school. Passing behind the local Kantin restaurant I notice they are cooking most of the meat outside in back over grills.OK that's not so bad, but the filth and garbage surrounding the area just made me decide not to eat there again. I guess everything you eat here is hauled into this place because there is no sign of agriculture anywhere nearby. Even along the main highway I've seen little of agriculture save what a family might have and even that seems to be sparse.

4/19/97 Saturday. Well the meeting I was waiting to attend was cancelled until Monday.Could have gone to Pekanbaru for the weekend or even to Buttitinggi for golf (6 hour drive). Turned both down to work., so now I'm at work and have little to do. Sent out some email to every body and transcribed an electrical theory about smoke. Do you know if you let the smoke out of something it will quit working. Yes, everything that is electrical has to have smoke in it to work. The power plants produce smoke and pump it into the power lines to feed the transformers. The excess smoke they don't need goes up

the stacks. If you've ever used anything electrical and have and have seen smoke leak out of it, then it quit working -right? No doubt it's true.

I plan to go into Pekanbaru this afternoon with Bob Donnelly and some of the guys from the office-Ralph Morgan and Randy Beaver. Bob wanted to get some lumber. He drove his executive Kjiang which has radio and electric locks and windows. The road to Pekanbaru has not been straightened since I came in here about three weeks ago. Bob was in a hurry and some of those curves had the tires talking back to us. We stopped at a lumber shop on the side of the road. Most of these shops have about a whole truckload of wood in the place. He bought 12 -2x3=s about 12 feet long for 10,000 rupiahs. We tied the lumber to the top of the car and went on into town. I accused Bob of trying to disguise a bunch of gringos on this trek into town. We had a late lunch at a nice hotel near the river but it was rather expensive for a sandwich and a beer. After dropping off the other guys for a haircut, Bob and I went to a hardware store to get some things he needed for his project. We went back to collect the haircuts and Bob decided to get his cut. I decided I would let mine go after seeing the butch they got for 5,000 rupiahs. We left there straight away to go to the grocery store and then on to Kerinci. The trip back seemed shorter near dusk as the traffic fell off. However it was after dark before we got back and the dark presented more challenges on the road. The potholes, some big enough to hide a full grown sow, now slipped up in the dark quickly and if you were meeting another car- well each situation had a different solution!

Sunday 4/20/97 was boring. Went to the pool before lunch and got too much sun. This equatorial sun is hot when it is really clear. Spent afternoon watching TV and walking around. Took some time to learn a few new knot tying tricks and re-learn a few others.You know if I'm down to tying knots for fun there is little to do.

4/22/97 Getting closer today on some project approvals for plans and site location, I hope. Met at 9:00 am to review my process design. This manager David Code is smart and always stern in his manner. Tries to impress you he knows all and carries a big stick. As I started reviewing the project he broke in about half way through saying, I've

already reviewed the drawings and think everything is in order. You've got a good plan layout. What he did though was cover his mouth and try to conceal a smile of approval as he said that. He liked it and wanted out of the meeting before anyone knew he liked it.I knew now I was getting on line for final project approval with this guys backing.

4/23/97 Got word this morning that the steering committee for projects had acceptedthe process plan and had selected a site from the three I had proposed. Now I've got to get to work on foundations, prices, pipe layouts, pump selections and equipment selections.We're on the road now!

Took a break from the office and toured the construction site alone to get a perspective of the layout. I have been here three weeks and this was the first time I have been up on the recovery boiler. Spent most of the time looking over the latest designs that Tampella put into this boiler. This is one of the worlds largest recoveries and after going all over it seems so. Really sets you back to know you're getting to design a new piece of the two new boilers that will be new and more innovative than the vendor supplied on their design. I couldn't afford a patent on my system in Riceboro, Ga, but at least I'm making my design world class now.

I've been approached by Bechtel Engineering to work on a green liquor line acid cleaning project and something about NCG gas systems around the recovery boilers. I really rather finish this assignment and go home to work for Law Engineering. It's OK to work here for a while but the solitude and lack of time off stuff to do doesn't set well with me.

4/24/97- Mostly a work day. Busy laying out and calculating pipe runs. Finding out that basically everything I need to complete the project must be rooted out myself. Asking for help in finding something is useless; they either don't know, pass you on or say OK and just do nothing till you ask again, hoping you found the answer before you come back. I just hope they like what they get when I'm through, because they seem to care little about giving feedback at this point if it means committing to an answer. They want

m to use frame cost which were derived from the original mill cost two years ago. Only problem is that my design is not in the frame of things. I can get some basic things like pipe and valves, but finding that to be tricky as well. Everything is to be submitted in dollars. The prices in the frame books though may be in Finnish-Finmarks, Swedish-Kronas, Singapore-Dollars, Japanese-Yen, Indonesian-rupiahs or US-Dollars. All the conversions must be made to US dollars.

4/25/97- Lazy day, but everyone is in a hurry. Big budget re-preparation going on. Big bosses in town. Many meetings. Nobody around to work- every body is in meetings except me. Spent time working on the computer doing spreadsheets.

4/26/97 Suddenly a lot of my cost request come flowing in. Guess those meetings yesterday hit some spots. The main project manager Dr. Fuji has been absent this morning and word out is that he will not be back. Bob Donnelly is planning a steak cookout Sunday afternoon at 2:00. Nothing to do this Saturday afternoon but watch TV. Went back to the mill Saturday night to work on the computer.

4/27/97 Sunday morning. Went to mill to work on the computer some more. My home page is getting some upgrade on these after work trips to the mill. Got some sun at noon and went to Bob's cookout. We had a good meal and watched a digital movie Mission Impossible Then it was back to the guest house for hours of CNN.

4/28/97- Worked on pipe layouts. Trying to contact vendors by email and fax. This is working in a hole when telephone contact is difficult. The email and fax lines maybe will get hot with all the stuff I sent out today. Nicky Rudd of BE&K approached today and asked if I could stay on to work longer. I didn't give an answer and told him I would consider the options.

4/29/97 Sent fax to Law Engineering to check on the status of a Savannah job. Got a response from HPD- wait till next week was the response. Made repairs to the homepage, getting the hang of this thing now. Revised cost spreadsheet. Nobody is going to help so what I find is what gets put in my project cost for budget. I know at some point they will be asking for a final cost and I will be ready. Trying to register with Faxaway to be able to have another communication link back home.

4/30/97 Waiting for Law Engineering to respond. Now the people here want project specifications to use for purchasing. Problem is that purchasing doesn't know what your trying to specify because it is not in the same context as the first mill they are duplicating.Looks like a lot of playing dumb to me. Demeanor isI'll bullshit you till you go away or get tired and get out of my way, whichever comes first. OK , but one day they'll have to buy this stuff and I will not be here to answer those questions they left me to ponder out .

5/1/97 Some May Day. Every body is jumping through their butt to finish a budget by Friday. After that the crap hits the fan, so I'm told. BSP people here are upset. Not getting paid on pay day . Cash flow problem I'm told. Lot of people upset as this has happened once before since I have been here. These people depend on that payday and now it is a disaster for them. We had a big meeting on pumps today and were told that the budget for pumps had to be reduced. In that meeting some 40 pumps were identified that had been left out of the budget because of the sudden inclusion of No.3 recovery boiler. More distressing is the fact that many of these pumps have already been purchased. Lots of reorganization going on this week. People moving around desk, computers cabinets full of books etc. All of this activity upsetting the work place and a push to finish the mid-project budget.

5/2/97 This whole place has suddenly gone to shit. The owners are cash short and pushing to develop a budget in the middle of the project. Engineering has essentially come to a halt in many areas. Costing is being reworked from frame cost that people now realize was a mistake and new cost methods are being put into place. The mess is complicated by the fact that the holders of the frame books don't want to now share the information as willingly as before. The project manager who was fired apparently took a bunch of the frame cost information with him. Decided there was better stuff to do, so I went to visit the paper machine field work. Valmet is putting in their dryers- single tier dryer cans with grooved lower rolls for completing the wrap. Somebody got wise on the machine floor pouring and made these huge pockets in the floor for drainage. These people will regret that later.

Planning to go to Pekanbaru tomorrow, Saturday afternoon with Gus Vadana. Need to get some film developed, buy some groceries and look for souvenirs. I've got 220,000 rupiahs that are burning a hole in my pocket. I may buy a watch or perhaps get mine repaired.

5/3/97 Saturday morning work is no joy. You really cant get into the full pace with half the people absent and knowing that you will stop at lunch.Went to Pekanbaru in the afternoon with Gus. Gus had got a local driver he called Fast Eddie. He claimed he had tamed Eddie's driving habits and this was the best driver to get for the trip. Eddie knew two speeds , fast and faster, but he would slow down when Gus barked Hati-Hati at him ( which is slow down for these people).Gus was from the CCA group in Brewton Alabama when I was Working for CCA 11 years ago. Did not meet him then , but he shares a lot a old stories about people that I did know. He was left to prop up the Brewton mill while every one went to Fernandina in 1986 to work the strike. We bought groceries at Gelail, then the Maharati and at CalTex. I got my watch winding stem repaired for a whopping12,000 rupiahs ($5.22). We looked through the open market for something Gus called a sankit and I was looking for drums and music stuff. Inside some of the shops there is barely enough room to get from one shop to another. Its like a mall without any aisle ways. This place is a fire waiting to happen. There is no way you could know where to go if something happened. Textiles are hanging from every available beam and hook or stacked on the tables and floor. Nice place for a pickpocket cause if you got hit here he would be out of site before you would even think to look

All kinds of food prepared on the streets to eat and it looks real nasty. We got our film developed and were ready to leave for Kerinci when a couple of guys Gus knew asked for a ride up the street to a restaurant. Halfway there they informed Gus that they were going to pick up a couple of girls and have dinner. Suddenly we are playing taxi for these guys who are too cheap to buy a taxi after they had made their plans. We end up on a two way street that would not qualify for a pig path in some residential areas looking for a house that no one in this car has ever been to before, including our driver Fast Eddie. We finally

found the house and now we have to take them to the restaurant. So while we are this far we decided to go ahead and eat supper with them . Another fatal mistake. The girls wanted to sit on the floor seats not the tables and chairs. The restaurant was open air and very hot despite it being night already. By the time we got our food I was having to get up to get my legs back. We did have some good udangs and vegetables. We had seven people at the table and the bill came out to 195,000 rupiahs. By now I even know that that math is not working . I ordered a 16,000 rp meal and had water to drink. Division by 7 is 22750which I was prepared to share . Out side the guys with the dates asked for division by 4.I am baffled, they commandere our ride, say they will buy the drivers dinner if we wait for them and now ask us to split the bill four ways and pay for their dates dinner too. I am sorry but I didn't enjoy the whole party. I begged off the money till Monday and then gave the one guy 25,000. He looked a little baffled and without waiting for him to speak I said Yea, I kinda had the same feeling the other night and walked off.

5/4/97 decided to get up early Sunday and go work on the computer some more. Spent 8 straight hours getting files and reorganizing my home page. Set up a bunch of new pages and changed the menu system. Found out how to grab stuff of other network files and incorporate into my page without costing me any space. This is really fun compared to the other stuff to do in Kerinci on Sunday. The only downside is that if someone drops their page, then that file will not work anymore on the link, so don't put too much stock in freebies. Got some stuff from NASA on the Hale-Bopp Comet and the Space Shuttle.

In the afternoon I took a trip into the jungle of palm trees to check out a little road I had seen. I was looking for a good stick to make a cane or walking staff. Not much here cause they cut down and burned everything years ago to make this palm tree plantation of thousands of acres. Saw a lot of deer tracks and one track of something with funny feet prints and dragging a tail in the sand behind. I had heard a report of someone seeing a large lizard. This is the part of the world of the Kymoto dragons or monitor lizard.I didn't think they were on any main islands though, but this is not a pig, deer, rabbit

or any other kind of track I am familiar with. Long finger like toes just like the little chamelions back home but about 3 inches wide and a gate of about 10-12 inches.And that tail drag. Ayye! Thar be Dragons ere? I found one tree that looked like a candidate for a good carving and sacrificed it for my own. Spent the evening skinning thedamn thing. This tree has real rough wood underneath a smooth skin and was a bitch to clean up. But when I had finished it made a nice texture that I liked.

5/5/97 Told the BE&K people this morning that I would stay on if they need me till July first. I will have to come back and work three more months following that , but Law has not responded and this is good money right now. Had a busy day trying to complete some pricing on my project. Tanks are still the big issue. We had a meeting to turn the request by the mill for titanium pipe around to 304L stainless steel and all agreed. Tomorrow I will get the final answer on the pipe change. Turned out a bunch of email and faxes.

This morning started off with no water. There were power outages last evening at 9:15pm so I went to bed early. I left a light on and the power came back at 10:30 with a bang. Well some bodies power is still out I thought, then this morning there is no water.

5/6/97 More long meetings. Today I informed Jim Thompson that I would be staying on till July. May be a bad decision if things get cut short here , but Jim was being cautious about my position as well, Oh well.Dr. Fuji leaving has got the meetings going with the new boss Devanesen. He holds meetings without regard to people scheduling and transport arrangements. After a 30 minute wait today for lunch, we left Bob Donnely to fend for himself

5/7/97 Wednesday- real busy day getting the final budget numbers together on the salt cake project. Finished the preliminaries on saltcake. Still don't have fixed cost on the salt cake storage silo, agitator, conveyor, mix tank and vibrators yet. The project came in at $716,000US. Kvaerner should give a credit for $355,000US on the takeouts they had in their plans, so the project should cost $361,000US of new money. They ask- they got.There is a budget meeting this afternoon and now its wait and see. Tomorrow is an Islamic holiday and we are off.

5/8/97 Holiday- Came to the mill and completely reorganised my web page. Put several more links to the web on and created a new menu system to access the pages . Added in pictures of Indonesia as well for viewers back home. After lunch we went to Kerinci to shop. Found drums for bud and some real nice carved wood case knives for me. Not so hot knives , but real nice cases and handles. Got three drums and three knives , a spokeshave , a chisel and a five piece cheap saw set for 100,000 rps ($43.00). Finished working on my first walking stick. While I sat there carving the cable TV went out. Noticed that someone was working on the lines outside. They just cut down the old cable and now will start restringing a new one. The cable is hung from the same steel pole as the power cables. The worker is using an aluminum ladder to climb the 20 foot poles. I swear I don't know how these people keep that ladder from falling like that.The cable was back at 7:00, but everything was messed up. The power had gone out at 4:00 with a good rain. Power was back at 6:45 just in time for dinner. When the lights came on in the restaurant there were two bats in the dining room which caused a bit of excitement.

5/9/97 Fired off a mothers day card to Chris and finally managed to get some flowers sent on the internet. The budget junk is about over and people are getting back to engineering. Still a lot of meetings going on about something? Today I saw a stack of 10,000 rps about the thickness of a ream of paper. Here that's enough for 5,000,000. Impressive -not -only($2174).

5/10/97 Talked to Mike Jones about more work. Donnely gave me another project to jack a 1500mm pipe under a 32,000m3 resevoir to make a new pump suction.

Went to Kerinci Saturday afternoon . I had heard about this open air market there and wanted to see it. Got Randy to take me over there. I don't think he was crazy about going and less enthusiastic when we first got there. The place really smelled bad from rotting garbage and food piled up. Had that garbage dump rancid smell. We went in anyway and after 4-5 minutes the odor was not so bad. The place was kind of like a flea market only more crowded. Lots of clothes and fresh food. I found a hardware shop, which was

basically a wooden plank floor under a tin roof with no sides. All the wares filled the floor space completely. Many things here are homemade or locally produced. I was trying to find some carving knives and spent about five minutes trying to communicate with the shop owner about my needs. Suddenly he snapped and ran to a box and pulled out exactly the knives I was looking for. He wanted 6,000 rps for a knife and I refused because I had only paid 3,000 for a manufactured chisel two days ago. I went to another shop down the way and he had the same kind of knives but also had the concave knife I was looking for. He wanted 12,500 for two knives and would not sell one. He also wanted 6,000 for a sharpening stone of silicon carbide that the first shop asked 3,000.We bartered for about 10 minutes and after walking away once he called me back and we finally finished the deal. I got one knife and the stone for 7,000rps. I went back to the first shop then to see about the other two knives to make a set. This guy still wanted 6,000 each and even showed me a manifest hat said he paid 3750 for them. No matter. I kept on him and he finally sold me the two knives for 5,500, less than half the beginning price.That was the most fun I've had in a while and even the shop owners were pleased to make a sale. They still made money and were impressed with the negotiation. I took there picture and they wanted to know my name after it was all over.

5/11/97 Went for another walk in the palm tree jungle this afternoon looking for more wood. Still no good stuff. Decided to get more adventuresome and cut up through the palms. Followed a little path up the hill and suddenly heard a high pitched sound. I had heard that sound before, but for a moment I was dazed. Looking around I saw right beside me a little sapling holding a monfilament line with a loop in tied in the end.??? I looked down and I was standing on the end of the trigger stick. Damn I sprang some body's snare. Oh well that guy will be pissed- no bar-b-que tonight. Later walking on down the paths I noticed the dirt had been freshly disturbed and there was fresh green ferns growing in the middle of the path. This isn't right I thought. On closer inspection I found an 18 hole about 2 feet deep underneath the fern bushes. There were a lot of deer tracks around and I figured that this was a trap to break a deer's leg in order to catch the deer.Now I'm looking real close at these trails till I get back on the main path. I finally found

two good staffs and headed for the A/C.

These two pieces of wood debarked very easy although the bark was about 1/8 inch thick on a little 1 2 inch tree. It cleaned up real good and produced a slick wood pole. Got two different species of tropical hardwood. One is Acacia, the other I don't know. Acacia is a white wood, but other has turned a darker brown on the surface. I'm going to let them dry a little before I start carving.

5/12/97 Monday-Monday Sent out lots of email and faxes and phone callsWent to recovery with P.T. and Malcolm about liquor gun nozzle burn out problems. Some one has advised them to use some alloy, but they didn't know. I advised them to use 310 stainless steel and get the nozzle in the air stream by putting a riser on the gun block.

Speed Bumps in Kerinci. Snarled traffic and increasing accidents have prompted town officials to install speed bumps on either side of Elle's store. Bumps are about 2 yards across and at least 12 inches high. Complies with international standards for good design of a moto-cross track obstacle. Built with reinforced concrete to last.

5/13/97 Kvaerner is in town today for a monthly meeting. I made a presentation on the saltcake system. They were interested, because, they've never heard such shenanigans as this before. However they could not ask anything that I could not answer. I gave them a write up and some sketches to take back with them for comment.

5/14/97 Humpday - Resent 7-8 faxes and emails that have not been answered. Wait, Wait, Wait- Escaped the final Kvaerner meetings somehow. Highlight of the day was an Indonesian and an Indian getting into a shouting match over a secretary. Last 30 words issued in successive terms was I'm not scared of you! -increasingly louder and louder.Obviously neither had a gun or knife cause it was definitely time for a cutting.

May 17,-- Went to Pekanbaru Saturday afternoon with Gus Vadana. Mostly did a quick shopping trip. Gus bought a big wicker rocker that did not nearly fit in the car and caused some discomfort on the ride home. We stayed long enough to get a nice dinner at the big hotel by the river. They have a bar-b-que on Saturday's where you pick out your meats

and they grill it for you. It was a good meal with lots of seafood prepared dishes as well, but the price was high at about 24,000 rupiahs ($10.00)

Sunday May 18, - spent some time trying to work on my web page some more. Looked for good stuff to copy off other web pages without much success though. In the afternoon I took another walk in the palm tree jungle, but this time I went to south side of the townsite. I had not been in this direction before and found some new things. I scared up a bunch of wild pigs that can run like you've never seen. Must have been about 6 or 7 altogether, mostly pigs , but one good sized one. I followed the roads cut by the palm oil kernal gatherers and went pretty deep into the this area. Suddenly the jungle opened up and I was at the backside of a huge nursery that the forestry department had built here. They were growing all kinds of trees in everything from plastic sandwich size bags to one gallon plastic buckets. Couldn't tell , but there must have been tens of thousands small trees here. Most looked like the Acacia tree for the plantation replanting and there were some other varieties as well. It was about 45 minutes till sunset and the sun sets really fast here. I had walked about 35 minutes into this place and wanted to get out before dark, so it was time to hustle out.

Monday May 19, --Inquired about status of visa extension with Mike Jones. Devanesan the new project manager was there. He told mike that the saltcake work was nearly completed and that I should plan on leaving at the end of the month. That was not what I wanted to hear. I went to really see about getting my visa extended and had this news come down. Mike didn't seem to be shaken and so I assumed that the work was indeed finished. I knew the final documentation work was far from being finalized and the PID drawings were just beginning to be made, so I had to hurry.

Thursday May 22, - Islamic holiday, Made another trip to the jungle, but started out in mid-day to have plenty of time for exploring. They have been building a new road next to the entrance road of the compound and have pushed trees down across the palm tree paths blocking some of the roads I walked just a few days ago. I went back towards the nursery area and came across a huge area that had been filled with clay, about 3-4 acres in the

middle of nowhere. A small stream ran along the edge and there were many kinds of tracks by the water. Didn't spend much time here. In the hot mid-day there is little danger of anything being out. I figure I'm the dumb one for being out here, cause it is really hot and my clothes are just water hanging on me by the material.

I took some side trips off the roads onto some of the little paths that the gatherers use. They come in here and cut paths about one yard wide right down to the dirt. There is nearly nothing left when they finish but a meandering dirt path going anywhere from 100 to 150 yards off the tractor roads. I can't imagine cutting all those paths in this heat. They must come out in the morning when it is cooler. The paths are cut along the road about every 25-30 yards. How that is a lot a work just to get into the palm trees, but I guess when they go for the yardage they need these trails. Followed one path till it ran out, then went a little further and ended up on a low area going into a little swamp. Just as I was thinking it was time to exit this place, I heard something in the low bushes nearby. I stopped very still to get the bearings and reached in my pack to get that meat cleaver I bought for these trips. Heard the noise again and then started to leave this place quickly.

Saturday May 24, - Went to Pekanbaru. This time with Bob Smith an Australian andKen Hughes a South African and another guy called Thomas that was from Sweden.I mentioned to Bob that I had heard about a tree in the jungle that was toxic to the skin and that the wood cutters would not even cut them down. He confirmed the story, but didn't know the name of the tree. He told me that the resin is so toxic that contact causes a rash that festers and is easily transferred by touch. The rash can last for months and there is no real antidote that he knew about for ridding the rash. I told him that I had been scouring the jungle looking for unique trees and wood samples to carve stuff. He said that was OK, but I had not better get caught too far away when it was near dusk. There have been several people reporting that tigers were being seen near the townsite in the early evening hours, especially near the dump area. Now he tells me there are tigers! So I asked about the large lizard like tracks that I thought I had seen. Yes he said there are large monitor lizards that reach up to three yards in length. Don't worry he says though, these

are not the meat eaters like the Kymoto dragons that live on the isolated islands nearby. However, be ready he says for a hasty retreat cause they are protective of nesting areas and will run you off if you get too close.

Riding on down the road towards Pekanbaru, I saw a huge fire on the side of the road that looked like tires burning with all the black smoke. You can't see very well over these hills till you are nearly there and I figured that some car had met with another unwillingly in an attempt to miss one the large missing sections of road that seem to dominate this section of highway. As we approached though it was a place I had seen before that I had guessed was the scene of an oil truck spill. Well it was neither. Bob explained that there is some crude oil production here, but the oil has a lot of moisture associated and the oil is very thick and difficult to pump. The fire we saw was the local way of heating the oil to improve he pumpability. A pit was dug out underneath the pipeline about 1 yard deep and three yards square. A valve was opened allowing a small amount of crude to run into the pit continuously. A fire had been set and was engulfing the exposed pipeline, supplying a good roasting to the oil inside. I could see up the road there was another such fire. I've seen these black smoke fires from atop the recovery boiler at the mill, but didn't know what they were for, now I do.

Bob dropped ken and I off in the Chinese open market. Ken found a guy there he knew that changed money and sold 22k gold. Got a good exchange rate of 2430 rupiahs here. There are a series of this chain of gold shops that go by the name Selekta. Each shop has a huge display of handmade gold jewelry and 2 to 6 goldsmiths siting there hammering out more jewelry. Each man has a little work table with a block of wood beside, which has a small steel block like and anvil and a soldering block of what looks like soapstone, but I think its a tinning block of another material that I can't remember. Some of the guys are good crafstman and fast too. They use a foot pump bellows to pressurize carbide gas and solder there work. Saw one guy beat out a small pellet of gold into a rod. Then he took the rod and a pipefitters spud like tool and flattened the rod, but made it wrap around the spud and grow in length until it met at the ends. He continued to tap with the hammer

till he stretched it to the right size and had a basic ring. Then removing the ring to the soldering block, he started heating until the ring was cherry red throughout. I could see he spent a little time on the cold joint area until it was apparent that a complete melt and fusion had taken place by the color of the red glow. You could see the fusion very easy. He then had a basic ring that could fashioned by other tools and the whole process took under 5 minutes. They sell gold here for $10.40 per ounce and charge 10% for the workmanship.

Bought some material and another carry bag. Figured that I needed more luggage to get everything home

Made last trip to the Senapalan Plaza and ran up on some black market computer CD software. Not the Windows 97 or Corel 7 I wanted but dozens and dozens of programs that make up about 700 megs of programs. Cost was 100,000 rupiahs or about $40.00

Bob Smith went to buy a freezer and he found one. I took some pictures of the kids on the street and started something. They were funny, but then they would not go away and stated wanting money. I knew better than to give anything because there were at least 25 and by the time I had given 25 there would be 75 more.Sunday May 25 Went for walk in the north side jungle again. They are really chewing up theses mountains building roads and houses. The road I usually take has been blocked by construction debris. Saw the monitor Lizard tracks again! Looked more closely to get idea of the size. The foot print was about 3 inches across and the stride was about 15 inches. He had been just slowly moving along cause the print was not pushed out. Directly between the prints was a noticeable drag mark about 1 inch wide. I assume that this was his tail dragging along. I guess he will have to move out before long too. Found a good root knot that I have been hoping to run across. Exposed for me by the ravage of the bulldozer.

Monday May 26 Went to morning meeting and Mr. Devanesan told me what I needed to finish by Friday and then I could leave. Later I met Bob Donnely in the hall and he said he was surprised that I had chosen to go home so soon. I told him that it was not my choice, but Devanesan's.

Wednesday May 28 Day before national parliament elections. CAD operators went on strike today for salary. Seems they make 450,000 rupiahs per month and found out that in other jobs they could get up to 2,000,000 rupiahs per month. They asked for 750,000 and management refused. Well with this mess I could have never finished my last work anyway.

Friday May 29 CAD still on strike and the equipment numbers I need from operations are not getting done either. NEWSFLASH, The whole CAD department, all 25 people,submitted their resignations and the office accepted. Now we have no CAD operators and nothing in sight. So goes good relations. I think I will just plan to go to Pekanbaru tomorrow and forget this crap.

Saturday May 31 worked through the entire morning trying to recover the screwed up files on Sri'e computer. PC is saving files with a virus I think. Finally cut and pasted broken files into one good one, I hope.

Went to Pekanbaru this afternoon with Steve Cottle of BE&K and Rodney. Mostly bought groceries and spent a lot of time looking for gold. Found a string of about 12 gold shops in a row in the Chinese open market. Lots of rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, etc. Gold is 24,000 rupiahs per gram today in all the shops. Steve couldn't decide from store to store on the same necklace and he bought none in the end. Everybody in these shops has basically the same offerings. No artisans here, just manufactured stuff.

On our trip to the Senapalan Plaza we bought groceries. Foe me it was banana chips, diet Coke, corn flakes, and coffee bags. Then we went to the Madahari Plaza. There we looked for computer shops. I found one selling black market software. Picked up Corel-7, Windows-97, Corel Graphics, and another assortment, all for 200,000 rupiahs, about $82.00 or $20.50 per disk. Probably about $1600 to 1800.00 in US.

On this trip we stopped at the Bua Passar (fruit market) to buy some cub soda for Gus Vidana. Instead, I found a music store two doors down and bought some local made drumsticks for R.J. The lady there spoke good English and didn't want to negotiate till I

walked out. Got the sticks for $3.00 where as in the states they are $5-6.00 a pair.

Traveling around the city, I noticed a wood carving shop, but will have to wait to go back there another time.

Found that I can get up to 600,000 rupiahs at the ATM machine at he Senapalan Plaza. Good to know if I need to make a big purchase some day in the gold shops.

We ate lunch at the "Church's" Texas Fried Chicken in the Madahari Plaza. Made a trip to Caltex to buy milk, cheese, and raisins. Shopping run is complete for today.

On the way home, I thought Steve Cottle would die if he didn't get to buy an ice cream. Had to be a Wall's Magnum bar. After we made about 4 stops we located one and then we went home on the goat path.

Sunday June 1. Worked a little in the morning with computer. Lazy day in the afternoon. Did a little wood carving

Monday June 2 Called home in the morning-still Sunday night there. First time I've talked to Christie in about 6 weeks. Amber and R.J. were there and glad to hear from me.We had a critical activity meeting at 10:00AM and Mr. Devanesan tried to chew my butt a little. Several people were already bleeding for making excuses about the lack of CAD workers to do Drawings, so I was not going to make that mistake. Besides I found someone to finish my Cad work on the side and I'm not revealing my resources to those guys. He still didn't like the fact that I didn't have the line numbers, which he had specifically excused me from last week when he thought I was leaving to go home. He gave me some lip about not advising him of problems in getting equipment numbers from people who were supposed to do that work. I gave him some lip about using the resources I was told about and if he wanted to hear every problem I had, I would be glad to call him for every need. We moved on to the next subject

Tuesday June 3 Supposed to be working on some PID's for steam. Instead I spent the entire day revising and packaging the saltcake slurry system project into an "E" document to submit to Devanesan. I don't want to hear his mouth again on that subject, although the

drawings still don't have the line numbers. Delivered the document to Devanesan's secretary for signature and filing.

Wednesday June 4 Started meetings with HPD to review project. About 10:30 AM Devanesan's phone rang and he suddenly announced that we would be moving the meeting from the BSP office to the hotel. Outside the meeting room there was a rush of people in the hallway. Looked like the rush to leave for lunch, but it was only 10:30AM.As I picked up my briefcase, I heard someone say that the emigration authorities were on the way from Pekanbaru. I thought, "What's the problem?" We all have business visas and we had to get pictures made for a special work permit badge to wear and was told to use it for ID on the complexe s I asked "Why do we all have to leave"?

Now they tell me that due to the high cost of obtaining an official work permit and the company having to pay taxes for all the people working here, that we are all working illegally. Just a bunch of illegal aliens from all over the world, building a paper mill in Indonesia. Well we made a quick exit from the mill site back to the hotel and guest houses. I was not so lucky cause we continued our meeting at the hotel and into the afternoon. Most of the folks ended up getting half a day off in the skirmish.

Thursday June 5 More meetings all day long with the evaporator people from HPD. I have not met with these people before, but now after missing the first meetings, I can see why so little information has been returned from them on my questions. HPD skipped the May meeting and now there are two months of work to cover. HPD has not responded to the pump list submitted by Ahlstrom until today and now they tell us there are many problems.

Friday June 6 Today was spent revising the entire steam PID to consolidate the existing and new mill steam systems. This is real fun without any CAD help. Cutting, pasting and writing over the old documents is about all I can accomplish.

Saturday June 7 Received the line numbers today for the saltcake system and got someone to revise the PID's. Spent rest of morning collecting the interconnecting drawings and marking the instrument air and mill air lines for revising on the PID. Got

copies of mill air existing systems and proposed expansion systems.

Went to Pekanbaru in the afternoon for groceries and such. Visited a shop that had wood carvings and crafts, but it was not the shop I had seen last week. Some stuff here was manufactured , but some things were obviously hand made and very dusty. The shop is apparently now in the business of making commercial advertising signs. Work was in progress out front making a store sign on a steel post. Many open cans of paint and paint thinners were inside he shop where they had been painting letters. As well, temperatures inside the shop must have been 100 degrees. Enough heat and volatile in here to ignite spontaneously, Hope there are no smokers. Well, wrong about that, the guy doing the painting is smoking while he paints. Bought a couple of handmade fans and a nice hand carved jewelry box, all foe about $15.00.

Sunday June 8 Went to office to work on my homepage. Found out that HPD had not finished and was still meeting. Got shanghaied into the meeting for about 30 minutes and learned that HPD had decided to change the saltcake process points. They had a good reason and it was closer to my preference anyway, why couldn't they have told me that two months ago. I wonder why after two months of having my plans, according to the previous mill and HPD agreements, that suddenly they tell us it will not work. As I said before, I don't think they have done any homework since the last trip. Now I have to change my drawings and all the write up. That will wait till tomorrow

Monday June 9 Revised the HPD drawings and corrected the write up. Supposed to be meeting at 10:00 on critical activities. Much confusion. One of the piping designers did not come in today. Now Devanesan is yelling at Bob Donnelly, who just got back from from his week off, about the piping work. Have not got the story yet , but I think the piping guy has gone to Singapore to get his passport renewed and will not be back for several days. Of course nobody else seems to remember that he had to go. Poor Donnely doesn't know what is happening and the bovine droppings are hitting the fan.

Tuesday June 10 Long day trying to find something to work on. Everybody has his own problems it seems. Yesterday none of the scheduled meetings took place and looks like

today will be the same fare. Grabbed up some drawings and got in the corner to review the steam line numbers and found a CAD guy to rework the PID for me.

Wednesday 6/11 Another doldrum day. Biggest excitement was the alarm going off this morning. Trying to get airline reservations made. The girl working on that for me had me on an eleven hour layover in San Francisco. Singapore Air was wait listed for business class. I will fly another day if that is the problem.

Thursday 6/12 Finished up the mill steam plans. That is a load off for now. Starting on the mill air system, then water. There is a new guy here who thinks he just has to say he needs something and every body will turn to him. He is connected to Devanesan and knows it, but he does not know that meadow muffins come in many sizes and shapes. Everything he has asked me about I have been able to convince him that he doses not need. Apparently, he is pretty adept at the computer, but off it he is a couple of bricks short of a load.

Friday 6/13 Ended up yesterday in heated discussion with Shanmugan. We have got three drawings, all different of the same air system. I have decided to let him do his thing and I will do mine. All he does is ask questions, hoping for answers, but ask 14 questions at once never waiting for any answer. I have given up on sorting out things that way. Put Band-Aids on my drawings and stand until somebody proves me wrong. I need to get away this weekend, but even that seems remote right now. If I can get a ride, I would rather bounce along the goat path to Pekanbaru in the back of a Kijang!

Saturday 6/14 Went to Pekanbaru today. My first trip riding in the suicide front seat on the road to hell. The two others hit the back seat and said it was mine this time. Fast Eddie was our driver. He has slowed down a bit on the road, but retains his namesake in the business of "con". Fast Eddie's the only one who can get a tire fixed for 10,000 rupiahs. Although the going rate is about 1500 rupiahs. Something about receipts and reimbursements. When we get to Pekanbaru he tried to get one of the guys to sign an open ended time sheet for the trip. He keeps telling about his wife and kids and how he needs stuff for them. Then he blows 20,000 rupiahs on a pair of sunglasses and is proud

to have them. We usually give the driver 25-30,000 rupiahs, about $10-12.00 between us for driving us around all day. That is about 10-15% of his regular pay. These drivers make 35-50% of their income on tips for the month. Guys like Fast Eddie though are ruining the system.

We bought groceries and found a good deal on Polo shirts for $6.00. No questions, just shirts. We made some more passes by the gold shops, but Steve could still not decide.

Sunday 6/15 Father's Day slipped up on me. All the email and internet was down today, so I could not get any messages in or out. Went back to the guest house and took a walk in the jungle. Worked on some wood carving and watched TV.

Monday 6/16 Email system and the internet are still down, now since late Friday.Nothing in, nothing out. Went to a critical activities meeting today and got fired by Devanesan. Apparently before the meeting ended I was rehired with more assignments. Everybody gets this treatment.

Tuesday 6/17 Email still out. We had a called meeting to discuss findings on some of the recovery boiler wall tubes corrosion and damaged tubes from shipping. I have heard bits and pieces of previous conversations, so I invited myself to this meeting. Apparently the ship coming from Finland got caught up in a really bad storm at sea. The boiler tubes and parts were stored on the deck. The arrangement or the tie-downs were not sufficient to restrain the heaving of the ship. Steel cages that had been built to protect the tube platens and headers were bent from the shape of rectangles into triangles with the sliding back and forth on the deck of the ship. Protective end covers were ripped away and the tubes were bent, being caught in the framing and slammed around by the waves. Some of the headers were rubbed so hard that about 1/8 of an inch of surface was gone, like a grinder had been at work. Kvaerner's inspector had reviewed the remaining 10 cases of 19 shipped and reported that they could straighten the tubes. Oh yes, 9 cases of boiler tubes ( 10'x 5' x40' ) were lost or cut away during the storm and now residing as an artificial reef. We questioned the capability of Kvaerner's efforts to repair the damaged tubes. We asked about the salt sea water being inside the tubes and they said simply, that

it was possible. My respect foe Kvaerner just fell.

We also discussed the damage caused by sea water entrapped between attachments and wall tubes. Cutting away the attachments revealed severe exfoliation and rust on the tube surfaces. See what the resolve to this is going to be. I understand another mill near here had similar problems and they cut out and replaced the rusted tube sections.

After more discussion Kvaerner produced a letter from Dr. Fujii accepting the cases for shipment after the port of departure inspector had rejected the loading and stowage.The paper mill secured their own insurance and hired a rag-tag freighter for the haul.Some day a few years from now the mill will regret this boiler if someone does not step to the plate and pay the piper now.

Wednesday 6/18 A day.

Thursday 6/19 Received first information from Jaakko Poyry on design of the salt cake silo. It appears the budget estimate for this piece of equipment will be off by a factor of three. New guys from BE&K came today. They are here to pick up the pipe design progress. One fellow here catches hell every day from Devanesan. I have only been fired once so far. His guy gets fired several times a week. After getting out of a meeting at 8:30 PM, making us all late for supper, he said "Only in Paradise do you have to work 10 hours a day for an ungrateful ass hole then have to stay around another two hours and eat shit on your own time". Well put I thought.Reworked the documentation to change the salt cake project up for HPD. I played Brr' rabbit with them on this one and of course they won. Actually simplified the system with much less automation. Playing games, playing games. Took me two days for full about face, but I told them weeks of work were lost down the drain. Well now I guess we both feel relieved, except Devanesan. This is what he fired me about the other day.

Friday 6/20 Trying to get drawings is like pulling hen's teeth. Got tired of the system and put Devanesan on the CAD man. I did not want to get in the runner-up status for multiple weekly firings. Worked! Got out three drawings in one day.

Saturday 6/21 Pekanbaru trip was made again today. Picked up a little trinket I had

ordered from the gold shop last week. Fast Eddie drove us there again this week and this time he tried to set a new land speed record there and back. My last trip with him I hope!Anyway it was a short day trip after work. One of the guys did not go and the grocery buying was less than usual.

Sunday 6/22 Worked on the web page a little and some other computer stuff that I had been meaning to get copied to floppy disk. Went to the guest house at lunch and then it rained all afternoon. Started a little whittling project that took up the whole afternoon. I made a wooden whistle from some leftover hardwood. Boy it is really shrill and loud.

Monday 6/23 Critical activities "do or die" meeting is due today. Last week I got fired here right off the starting gun. My time finally came and bydand, I breezed right through. Some other poor bastards took all the wraps today. C'est la vie. CAD people are really getting more incompetent every day. They worked and reworked the same drawing 5 times today. Stupid stuff like forgetting to save the file after spending an hour modifying the drawing. Then after a check and subsequent modifications the modified drawing has the same mistakes that were fixed yesterday. One draftsman took 70 minutes to make a plot of a drawing that should take 5 minutes at most. Everything seems to change when no change is made. They are hand drawing standard symbols, incorrectly by the way, and when that is caught they use the template to correct and then forget to put the numbers back in the symbol. The other trick is to save the file under their own name. Every time you go there you may get a different draftsman and he will file under his name instead of the file server. Never seems to be a way to know who has the latest file.

Tuesday 6/24/97 Met with ABB for the new Turbine generator No.6 , a 100 MW unit.I've suddenly got hooked up on the layout of the steam distribution plans. More junk stuff with the CAD people today. Those guys are getting to me big time. I'm ready to go for some R&R. Started a revised mill water distribution flow diagram today. This is really going to be a stinker. One of the locals is driving me crazy with his questions that I haven't even begun to realize could exist. I'll get it done if somebody finds something for

him to do. If they don't, I'll find other work till he's busy at something else. It's that bad, believe it!

Contacted Harris Associates today by email and the internet, Paper mill recruiters. My names in the pot at least. Tried to make contact with another hot lead from IP, but I'm not getting through the time zones when he said I should call or he just wasn't there. This 12 hour spread is hard enough to get email and fax responses. Telephoning allows about a 5 hour window for the morning here that is evening there when the phones are available here.

Wednesday 6/25 This was an extremely busy day. Back and forth on the email and fax machines all day with HPD and the NU Con people trying to finalize some equipment specifications. More to do tomorrow. At least this got the question guy off my back. He even seemed a little perturbed that I didn't ever sit down to work on anything, just getting and going.

Thursday 6/26 Got cornered by the question guy right off. After I took one look at his mark ups I told him that I put the drawing in CAD yesterday and it may be two or three days before those previous changes get made. What a knockout punch! He left me alone all day after learning his drawing was being modified. Little does he know that he will see about 5 to 7 revisions before the CAD people get it right. Good Luck.

Friday 6/27 Made many revisions and corrections to finalize piping purchases. Co-ordinated drawings and descriptions to make sue all specifications matched. There have been so many changes here and there that it is easy to lose track.

Saturday 6/28 Another half day of battling with CAD trying to get some drawings completed. Plans to go to Pekanbaru were finalized this morning. Made this trip with John O'Kroneg. He drove instead of using the local drivers. Actually we ran off the road 5-6 times each way there and back. I think I would just as soon ride with the local boys. They did stay on the road more even if they had to play chicken with the oncoming traffic. Bought some gold and a shirt and a few groceries. All I all ,a good day. Best buy was a monster suitcase for 90,000 rupiahs. Now I can pack everything for the trip home

next weekend.

Sunday 6/29 Took a long walk in the early morning and got some pictures of the town. At 9:00AM we loaded up two Kijangs for a trip to see some elephants. We drove for 30 minutes on a gravel road well out into the jungle. This was a main road for log trucks and was literally covered with strewn logs. There were enough logs in some places, if placed end to end would make a border on both sides of the road for a full mile. Apparently the wood is so cheap that if it falls from a truck it is just left.

After a half hour drive we reached the Kampar River. The ferry that we were to cross the river was shutdown to replace one of the gates. The ferry is really a barge with two old tug boats lashed to either side. We could not cross so a return trip was made to the guest house. Before leaving we got to see one of the few remaining ribbon trees. These trees have large spreading canopies, but most unusual are the large flying buttresses at the stump that supports these monsters. The stump on this one must have been 15-16 feet across at the base to support a tree that reduces to 3 feet diameter about 10 feet off the ground, but then the tree must be 150 feet tall and huge at the top.

The trip back was more jarring than it seemed out. Looks like the few people living in this jungle area have cleared huge spaces around their little huts and then constantly burn stumps and trash to keep the animals and snakes away. They plant corn and other vegetables just among the stumpage, obviously all by hand.

This being the dry season, most of the road drainage is low or dry. Looks like the rainy season though will flood everything, including the farmers land. All houses are built about 4-5 feet off the ground and they have walkways that are also suspended to the road.It is not hard to imagine that their farm turns into a fish farm in the rainy season.

Apparently when the river floods and backs up it brings many fish and whatever up into these back areas. The local people have placed many small sticks upright and lashed them together to make a barricade to the outflowing ditches. When the water recedes the big fish are trapped with these reeds.

We saw one place where sand is being hydraulically mined and classified during the rainy season. A dam was built and water flow directed from the reservoir down hill to a bluff. The tailings cascade through several impoundments, which catch successive sizes of materials. The classified sand is dewatered naturally and the sand is then shovelled by hand into trucks.

Got back to the guest house in time to see Mike Tyson bite a chunk of Evander Holyfields' ear off. Real boxing!

At 2:00PM one of the original party and I decided to trek back out to see the elephants. We reached the river all right, getting on and off the barge almost proved to be a disaster for the Kijang. The river is real low now and the approach to the barge gate apron was about an eight inch jump. Getting off was more like a one foot drop-off. We made it somehow without rupturing the Kijang or ourselves. The road runs another hours drive from the river to the big radio tower. Log trucks are now running with the barge repaired. Many more logs are down on this side of the river road. We came up on one truck that had overturned recently and was abandoned. There were several more trucks that were abandoned in the middle of the road with flat tires.

We finally reached the big radio tower at the cross roads. There was a store a couple of houses and a chicken ranch here. We turned into the forestry nursery road and found the elephants at the end of that road.

The elephant herder was feeding them pineapple plants and palm tree trunks and banana tree trunks. The elephants seemed to enjoy this fare. We finally were able to communicate our interest to the herder and then he unchained one of the beast.He used a "mace", a stick with an iron piece on the end shaped like a diamond point. To get the elephants attention. He popped her on the knee and she lifted her front leg.He stepped up grabbed a rope around her neck and swung up as quick as a wink.After walking her a little closer he popped her on the back and she lay down for someone to get on her back. Jim rode first and I took pictures. Then came my turn. Getting on was easier than I thought , but as she stood up quickly the feeling of an unplanned dismount

was evident. We walked up and down a little road for about 75 feet each way and I thought the ride was done. As we passed one of the other elephants, he trumpeted loudly showing his disapproval of the ride and even attempted to charge, but the chains held.

The herder got our pachyderm to move by whacking her on the head with that mace. At the rides end he turned her up the hill into the woods and kept popping her on the headwith that iron ended stick. I thought when this elephant gets pissed she's going to unass both of us under one of these tree limbs.. But she lumbered along and we emerged unscathed. What a ride . The 1 « hour trip was worth it. We generously tipped the herder for his time with 10,000 rupiahs each (about $4.00) and his day was made too.Now all we had left to do was get back across that river barge in tack before dark.The river crossing was even more intense going back as we got sandwiched in between several log trucks. Some how we managed to escape the barge without any logs falling on us although one truck lost two logs getting off the barge in front of us

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