Leyte,
Philippines - Mahanagdong,
1998
Mahanagdong is a geothermal power plant located on Leyte Philippines.
I worked there providing night time
supervision during startup performance and reliability testing.
This plant was around 160 MW and was well
worth the experience.
Lots of geothermal activity on these islands with temperatures we can
only dream of, state side.
A view from the hills.
Housing was provided courtesy of Cal Energy. Nice units, lots
of Philippine Mahogany.
Security was very good. No islamic terrorists at the time.
There were some active communist
insurgents though. I will have to write a short story about
that one day.
Looking away from housing.
One of the secretaries at the plant. She handled the local
payrolls. People were quite nice to her.
This lady was one of the senior secretaries, I think. Her
english was pretty much impeccable and
to stay on her good side, it was advisable to bring some Hershey's
chocolate around every other
week.
She also liked American murder mysteries. I just happened to
have half a dozen or so in my
suitcase so we got along fine. I remember she didn't realize
I was taking here picture with a
digital camera and was a wee bit embarrassed to realize it.
The control room of the plant was impeccably maintained.
Pictured in the forefront is Rudy,
the Startup Manager.
This is Dr. Bob, the brains behind control logic.
One thing being around Dr. Bob, he always had the latest and
greatest computer stuff.
One of the hi-lights of my computer life was when he sold me a real
DX computer with two (yes, I said 2!) 40 mb
hard drives. I think it was a DX-40. I was in hog
heaven.
I understand Dr. Bob is in partial retirement now and hosts some local
parades.
This is a Jack Fruit.
They get enormous. The taste is kind of mild,
sweet, a little like honey and you would imagine
would go quite well with
vanilla ice cream. The taste to me, was slightly addictive.
So I bought one.
I am trying not to
strain too much, holding this thing out away from my body.
You know it 's
ripe when it starts oozing and ants are crawling all over it.
I actually started a
cottage industry on the island:
The seeds of a Jack
Fruit are quite large and soft and have a very thin skin.
They kind of reminded me of filberts.
One day I was
giving a cooking demonstration to the staff, who were having a hard
time with the concept of
pancakes, omelets,
and french fries.
Towards the
end of 'Cooking,
American Style', I started talking a bit about
creativity
in cooking, which was a
totally foreign concept.
I looked around for
something to use as an example and saw a pile of Jack Fruit seeds
slated for the trash bin.
I cleaned them off,
fired up the stove and deep fat fried the seeds for a couple
minutes and then rolled them in
salt. After I
had a platter full of these seeds I tried one and to my and everyone
else's amazement they were
delicious.
(In retrospect,
I should have tried a seed first to ensure no one died from
some kind of exotic poison).
I can kind of liken them
to a deep fat fried chestnut where you could peel the skin
off or leave it on and eat it.
The following night
dinner was served as usual and a huge plate of fried seeds was served
as a dessert.
At any rate, the next
time I came back, there were a number road side stands
selling fried Jack Fruit seeds.
I managed to help the
local economy through Creative Cooking.
Another career
I dreamed of having was that of a Entomologist (Bugs and
Insects).
I found the
subject still interesting and took full advantage bug
pictire taking taking opportunities.
The one I forgot was the Coconut beetle!.
