Pit Stop

“And the crooowd goes wild as all the contestants zip by the n° 59 M. Jerry K. who has decided to pull a last minute pit stop!”

(Tire screech as vehicle drives up to the pit crew.)

“He seems to be going in for a full wheel change and a full tank top up. Oh? No!? Word has just dropped in that he is even changing the sponsor stickers on his racer! This race has just taken a different turn as N° 59 M. Jerry K. pulls out of his pit stop fully equipped with even a brand new sponsor to spur him on!”

How does this apply to my life? Well… as you could read, it involves three things:

Wheel changes:

I’ve been enjoying getting back into roller-skating, but my wheels had been worn down to the plastic frame because of our famous Kapi-Aldiparking-Hockey tournaments that would draw crowds miles around. Therefore I finally got a full pack of 8 wheels and changed them all!

What rollerblades consists of

Me BEEautiful Blades

A worn roller wheel

The roller bearings

Oh and I also forgot to mention that I bought myself a racebike to start practicing for next years’ 1300km trek across France, getting excited!

Tank top up:

Men and shopping... a never ending love story.

Nope, I don’t have a car and with the price of gas these days and I consider myself blessed to be a bike dude. People may have forgotten because it’s become routine to them, but we, as humans, have to eat. France still remembers that eating is meant to be enjoyed and I was reminded this as I enjoyed spending time with an old friend of mine (as in we go way back) who dropped by for the weekend. He had a car. So I decided to do some big shopping (for a single guy). I was replenished food wise, but more importantly I was also replenished socially with the time spent with this good friend.

Tartiflette... a true love story!

New sponsor?

       May become

 

Yup, it is official. I’ve gotten sick of trying to look busy in the midst of a company that does nothing. (No names mentioned) Therefore I’ve been looking around and found a company that specializes in energy sources and they’ll take me on as the assistant of the engineer in charge of all the natural gas projects. Hopefully the transition will work out!

C'est le NOOOORD!

Setting the stage:

I'm at school, it's my last hour of working on our fire security document. The classroom is quiet, all for the gentle tapping of rain on the thick cellophane window from the ceiling. I look at Louis pleadingly... "I came here by bike..." I begin to explain. "Oh all right... I'll take you home", with his two seat camionette it isn't a problem to take my bike with, I'm relieved that I won't get soaked on the way back.

Engrossed in our work, I have to be reminded that the electronic bell has gone off and it's time to go. I go get my bike in the garage, come out and find that the sun is shining! There a few big, mean looking clouds, but biking is faster anyway, so I tell Louis that I'll be ok. About half way home a huge thunderclap belts it's way into Lille... still no rain. I bike faster, but it eventually starts hailing and ... hailing ... and hailing harder until it's the size of peas and it's stinging me enough that I go for some kind of shelter under a garage entrance. I sit there awhile collecting ice and crunching it until it finally dies out into gentle rain and I make my way home. I'm sitting in my room looking out the window: it's sunny again. Only in the North. Le NOOOORD.

Deii Nederrlaands (looks and sounds dutch anyway...)

Yes, so I spent the weekend in the Netherlands; land of tulip fields, wooden shoes and ice skating... Well... ok... so I didn't see any of those three :) which means I'll have to define it with other things I did see such as: REALLY tall people (or I'm just REALLY small), Gouda (don't be tricked, it tastes just the same! Well... that kind did anyway) and Bikes !!! (I think they have a real bike infestation, I can't believe I'm saying this but I think there's more bikes in the Netherlands than pigeons in Paris...)

There were other cool things such as a "normal" ferry crossing; as you get to the end of the road, you run into a ferry (I mean really... quite normal!), drive on board, flip the man a coin, one minute later get off on the other side. Voila! (Why don't they build a bridge you ask? Hmm... I dunno... maybe to let ships go by?)

We also went for a late evening bike ride to the dike which I did like (another tongue twister coming up?) and got to see this mooi sunset! (see first picture and check out what mooi means! Ask google, he knows)

AND NOW! A game of "spot the jerk"! Try to find me at the bike waiting rack of Utrecht train station (Guess what... I still have a spare Dubai magnet if you find me!!! :D)

These were a few of the fun things (without forgetting that I didn't share about Music, Church, Shopping, Eating, Weather, Museum visit and so forth) that I did during my short visit.

I stayed at an awesome dutch family's house (well, I meant the family was awesome, not the house, but the house was ok too!), which is the family of my friend Maria from the Logos Hope, cause I needed to find someone that spoke local Hopian... Did me a lot of good! :)

As for our Saturday it was entirely invested in making... you guessed it... (or not) CHOCOLATES!!!

Here we are hard at work... we came up with 17 different kinds and made about 137 of em!

Here's one of them called "Cœur d'Encre", you can ask me for our catalogue to order some, but we don't take orders under 500 pieces... (per kind)