powlow's stuff + things » biking

SCUBA and my Car

powlow — Wed, 23 May 2007 14:14:40 +0000

In the end my car has been sorted out (with a little help) and so I decided not to bin it. It would of been a shame and the thing was I would not have got another one so I would have been without a car. It should still make it for a couple more years and it does come in handy quite often so its a good thing.

And with the car fixed, managed to get to the beach and finally finish of the PADI Open Water Diver course! Hopefully we’ll go do a dive soon but if not we’ll use the free dive we get with the course soon enough. The last dives were actually fun this time as we were just the two of us with an instructor all for ourselves so we were actually just cruising around and looking at stuff relaxed. Thebest dives so far.

Been biking around a bit and recently went for a really long ride around the city just looking for cool spots to ride and found a few. There are some places that you really have to wonder as to why they were built like that. Many places make me think the architect was a skater and now some make me think a biker.

SCUBA Diving, biking, possible car putting-to-sleep and music

powlow — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 09:57:00 +0000

This weekend Cris and I almost made it to the end of our Padi Open Water Scuba Certificaiton, which we’re now finishing off with the Alpha diving school in Barcelona, but didn’t manage to finish it off due to a minor technicality : my trusty steed (a.k.a. Opel Corsa) looks like its finally given up on me. There was a general engine warning light followed by the engine stopping and refusing to start again. We were on our way back from Tossa, were we’d been doing the first two of four dives we had to do to finish it all off. Anyways, its not the end of the world as this way we get a rest before doing the last two, which we’ll be doing this Sunday, which might not be such a bad thing seeing as the week’s runup to the dives had been mental with long classes, an exam and several pool dives that left us, by the end of the day on Friday after the sea dives, completely exhausted and generally aching. Its quite a lot of fun but the amount of equipment and the weight of it all is pretty mental.

As far as the car is concerned, I’m still talking to the insurance to try and see what to do about the car. Its kind of at the point were if the repair is too expensive, it might be time to send the old Corsa up to the place were my turtles and budgies went, so now I need to find a massive toilet and…

The long easter weekend ended up being quite chilled in the end as lots of resting was done. Still been out on my new bike and getting more and more into it. Been getting a bit more fluid on the downhill tracks I’ve been doing and started getting into dirt jumps a bit, albeit small ones at the moment, and still trying to get my landings dialed proper. Its good fun though and the fact that catching the train and funicular gets you pretty much to the top of the hill makes it all that much easier to evolve as you can keep going back even with just a couple of hours to spare.

Been getting more and more into the home music making and hope to have some more tracks done soon. Still have my tracks pretty much split down what I consider electronic and analogue/acoustic which looks like the way I’ll be going for the time being.

Hope everyone had a good long weekend…

Mountain Biking

powlow — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 09:20:53 +0000

Got me a new bike last weekend and already went off to some mountains to test it out. Going back this weekend. Amazing! Did a little bit of a trail around the Montseny and discovered a site with a whole load of routes (CICLOIDE) so looking forward to going and trying some out. What is obvious is that both I and Cris are what you might call “city folk” and so we need to set out bread crumb trails or something like that to find our way back! Either that, or have a GPS like some people on their bikes…seems a bit excessive though…time will tell.

Watch out for those buses!

powlow — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 17:09:42 +0000

This Friday, a bus ran over my ruck sack! My bag slipped of the bike and rolled into the road (I was stopped at the time). Which leads me to say, watch out for those buses. Also taxis should definately be on your watch out list on the road. Anyways, I ended up losing two work phones and, what’s more important, my ipod So I’m temporarily musicless on the move which really sucks but then again I’m not in a big hurry to get something new. Hopefully the next phone will have some sort of mp3 playing capability on it. Also, I was smart enough not to try and snatch the bag. Better it was that stuff than my fingers… Miracolously my swimming gogles and shower gel was intact. Thank god for that…
Anyways, watch out for those buses and remember : buses and big trucks are always right, no matter what!

Já Tenho Mota

powlow — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 20:40:23 +0000

Wohooo! Já tenho mota! Finalmente! É do caraças ir por esta cidade de mota. Wohooo! Ao final decidi por uma scooter pois tem muito mas sentido pra esta cidade. É uma 125 cc em negro mate, uma Honda Dylan 125.

Quem cá vier depois dá uma voltinha, de pendura claro

Mota Finalmente?

powlow — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 13:48:37 +0000

Barcelona é uma cidade onde uma mota é a soluçao. Esquece o carro. Com a mota tás em qualquer sítio em 20 minutos máximo e estacionas à porta em 5 segundos. Eu tenho estado em volta de comprar uma mota à bués, mas bués mesmo. Finalmente este fim de semana e Segunda-feira vou ver umas motas que podem ser finalmente o ponto final nesta história de nao sei quantos anos. Vou ver umas Scoopy 150, que é igual à 125 mas tem uma beca mais de potencia.

Ontem tive a dar umas voltas pela cidade na mota da Cris, uma Scoopy 125. É mesmo um espectâculo andar por a cidade de mota, até com uma scooter. Dei voltas à cidade e acabei na praia a ver o mar e a fazer umas fotos. Tou mesmo com vontade de ter a minha própria mota. Já vejo tanto a mudar depois de tê-la. Talvez finalmente comece a fazer mais fotos outra vez e comece o tal livro que ia fazer com o Dabintxi. Tou é mesmo farto do metro. Faz um calor impressionante lá em baixo : deve ser por estar mais perto do centro da terra ou alguma cena assim. E depois entras na carruagem e faz um frio brutal. Quero a minha mota!

The Long Weekend Begins

powlow — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 15:22:13 +0000

Seeing as Monday is the 1st of May aka Workers’ Day, its a long weekend and its just starting. I’m off to the Barcelona Asian Film Festival (BAFF) to see Big River with Dabintxi & Sofie. Cris is off for the weekend to Ibiza so I’ll have a bike for the weekend which means I’ll be out and about tomorrow taking some pics. Tonight is party time altough the plan is not clear at the moment. But most definately party! Or even par-tey…

It was my cousin Rita’s 40th birthday this week and last night we all went out for dinner at a Greek restaurant with lashings of Taramasalata followed by some amazing Cuban rum. Cuban rum is just amazing and there’s quite a few diferent types. Last night we tried some made from guava instead of usual sugar cane. Amazing.

Let the weekend begin! Again!

New Job

powlow — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 17:40:21 +0000

I’ve been at my new job for a couple of weeks now and things seem good. This week, I’ve been on a new project (that makes two projects in a week and a half) and today was the demo. Its been pretty hectic this week but was cool to pull together with a bunch of strangers and come out with something we could be proud of and that apparently went down really well at the demo! Nice start to the new job really…I’m working three stops down the train line from home which means I can get to work really quick and can go home for lunch, which I did today and had some arroz a la cubana and watched some Futurama and so life is good.

I’m still dreaming of getting a bike, like I have been for ages, and there’s the exact bike I would get parked right outside my front door everyday! Its torture every morning I can tell you…one day. I’ve already got a helmet, since I’ve been riding around with Cris alot on her bike. I figured I’ll be getting one soon anyways, but its taking me longer than I thought. Next year I’m going to get on it hard as soon as things settle down a bit and I get into the flow of working and living again after the three months forced holiday a.k.a. Hernia Hols

Anyways, christmas is almost here and I’ll be in Lisbon from the 24th to the 26th and I’m already looking forward to dinner at home with my parents and hooking up with the pessoal!

Went for a little walk around Park Guell the other day and was good to see it all again after not having been for ages.