Pedro

Coming up for food?

he is slowly making a stealthy campaign, people get elected like that

Funerals in the UK seem to be a lot of fun, compared to funerals here.

In my industry post Covid has even been better up until now. Prices went up and up and up, while demand did as well so everyone happy. I never earned so much money doing so little. Now all is turning to shit

It's raining. It's been raining everyday for more than a week now. Plus it's getting colder. I don't know how you brits and other nationalities cope with this shit. I know water is needed and Portugal really needs it, and I appreciate the lord for sending it, but it's not nice to live like this. It'll keep raining through the weekend so if I'm lucky it'll stop in my daily walk with Costa The Dog, but the bike will stay put once again until Monday. It's been sitting for more than a month except to go to mechanic shops to do things a couple of times.

I wouldn't know how to go back and looking at my week with a rigid work schedule, even more if it meant going to the office for specific times. The Covid years up until 6 or 10 months ago were the best for my work / life schedule, good times ...

No, that's a Touratech Tractive aftermarket one. The original had a mud protector thingy on it. Looking back, I would have gone with Ohlins instead.

I like your humor more now that you´ve got moderators

Firstly, I am free to manage my time daily, I can go for a walk with my dog instead of "working", or take a trip while working too, I can manage during normal work load to enjoy myself when I want to. That happens because most of my profit comes out of taking opportunities that come to me, I don't need to be sitting at a desk or driving around to clients 7 hours a day, and most of my clients have been for a very long time. On the other hand, I'm expected to do the same whenever those opportunities appear, or to solve crisis when they appear, be it now, be it in June or August when I'm one day into a beach holiday week. Shit breaks out two weeks from now and I'll be sitting at a table in Merzouga for two days looking at my laptop and asking clients not to bail out on my supplier. The part I like is that a most of them will think I'm 30km away, while a few will know I'm on the bike and tell me to fuck off in dearest way To be able to do this is cool, but never spending a week without a plan altering email popping up in the middle of your day for years is also getting old. I miss when I'd clock out to go on holidays on friday at lunch, and on saturday evening I'd be on the track car driving through France having forgotten all work things.

In what seems like a trend, now that I again decided to go to Morocco, stuff keeps happening. This morning my mechanic texted me he’s got the flu, so not available for the pre trip checkout and tyre change. This afternoon I begrudgingly called a friend who runs Porto’s biggest tyre selling shop and went there to have them fitted. They have a small shop for bikes, as it’s mostly cars and commercial vehicles. Then called a few places, and I’m booked at 8:30 monday for an oil and filters change at the local dealership, and the bike should be ready to go. The plan is to ride to my place for two or three nights. Hope to be in Tangier on Thursday or Friday next week.

My mudguard extender worked nicely today. Rode into Porto on semi wet roads, and back, and my shock looks clean. Also, I was wearing jeans and sneakers and would have gotten wet feet and calves, stayed dry As I thought, this tire is bulkier than the worn TKC70 before, so there's a lot less clearance. It did not rub on the motorway, though, but I only managed to get to 150kmh because these tires aren't really feeling very safe when scrubbing them on wet streets in rush hour. I think it'll be ok, if not it's 4 zipties away from coming off anyway, I do like dry feet though

That's how you know she'll come back. A thank you now would be very suspicious

My bikes goes 2000miles on a tank if it's all downhill

Spain? WTF!!!

Anyone knows if these are edible and nice to cook? I've got them all over the place but no idea about them Those colors seem a little dangerous to me...

Well, it takes a little bit more.... But I do like the taste of it

My clients don't do the "away from office" thing. It's an old school industry for them and they're very much in it 6,5 days a week while managing an anual 8 to 11 million Euros business. On my part, Covid brought in a lot of good practices and a LOT of the ground work I used to have to do is no longer needed. I used to have to drive to places to collect an order that someone had written down on a piece of paper a couple of days before, just because that was their practice from 20 years ago. I would show up, and chat about football for 5 minutes, have a walk around their warehouse and then transcribe that order to a notepad, to then send it in as soon as I got a moment in the car with my laptop. With Covid suddenly clients didn't want meetings anymore so they got used to sending emails, and on the first year of Covid I lazyly rode around Portugal twice All that is failing now, though; the economy is failing, industrial consumption of my boards is dropping in a major way as our main industry is furniture (renovations too), costs are also rising so prices can't be dropped to help sales, it's a shit show made worse by peruvians being in charge of my main source of income. They're being eaten alive by slyer competitors in spite of advice given by me or other experienced iberian sales agents. What I get now, working alone with nobody else as my backup (unlike 3 or 4 years ago), is that I am never 100% on work when most people are (that is really cool when it goes well) but I'm never 100% off work (that is not cool and is never with any warning either). Going to Morocco, instead of leaving my mobile with my brother and checking in ever 4 days I'll be carrying it with me and working a little everyday, ideally that means less strain on coming back quick but who knows?

I did think of that, yes. I could go and easily get a prescription for stuff like that, even my mother (who is a doctor) has advised to it, but honestly I think a few glasses of good wine are more my thing. I do suffer from hay fever so in Spring I have to take regular anti hystaminics and that makes me sleepy during the first week, take them after dinner and I'll fall asleep better, the side effects of feeling sleepy go away after 3 to 5 days usually. What I did enjoy was a few pills I got for pain management when I got kidney stones a few years ago, got taken to the ER in ABSOLUTE pain to then be given a direct drip of pain killers, that stuff made me cozy and comfy in 2 minutes flat. After that I was handed a few pills, "take one if in serious SOS type pain" they said, I took two after dinner and never slept better.

Why are you like that, dude? All I give is honest deep from the heart love, and is that what you give back? Who hurt you? Yes... Unfortunately I've only got mine, it already knows the way so I'll take that and hope for the best. I don't know what that means, today I cooked on a "ceramic glass shitty magic stove", it's awful cooking without a live flame but it was a very traditional northern Portuguese dish to which I will spare you the horrors of. It turned out delicious and another absolute win coupled with a masterpiece of a bottle of red wine from an amazing motorcycling destination.

I don’t know what kind of report I’ll post. It’ll be very emotional so maybe less of feelings and things and more like a few pictures a day.

And, this is back on! Tomorrow I’ll be fitting tires on and having the oil changed on the bike. Then I plan to be in Morocco at the end of next week! It’ll be a couple of unbearably difficult days when I get there, I’m sure, but if the weather helps, and I have booked good weather, it’s going to be a cool and cold ride! With monkeys!! I had a couple of months of smooth sailing at work ahead of me, and started to get momentum going for Morocco, but as soon as I called my mechanic today for tomorrow’s works on the GS my main supplier announced a surprise price change. This will create a lot of chaos and orders lists and long fruitless conversations, that I plan to be able to handle tomorrow and monday, then pretending that I have a weak cell signal for at least two weeks

Actually, just went to look at it and he surely closes for lunch, as he should. Here people do work long hours though, most of my clients are at their office at 8 or 08:30, spend the day either there or hustling visiting clients, an hour long lunch break, and will still call me at 19:00. I know a couple of them, business owners and quite successful that will plan on going in on saturday morning hoping for a quiet moment to themselves in the office, to see that turning into a full day, then going back sunday morning for that quiet time to think about stuff, and only end up taking sunday afternoon off. I don’t envy that, although I do value it.

That’s northern Portugal! Except me, apparently

Don’t bottle up your feelings it’s bad for you