3 years! part two of two

Many things change during this 3 years:

• Nokia N78 (95% of my photos are from little beauty), 
• a used Marzocchi MX Comp 105mm ETA '06 (did a revolution in my XC skills), 
• discovered Rush (it's the best band ever),
• Sushi (my beloved cold metal friend), 
• Adobe CS4 (blow my mind in happiness and creativity), 
• discovered a super girlfriend,
• 3 CamelbaK backpacks (Scudo LE, Fairfax and The Don)
• Walkman X1060 (could this be the best mp3 sound I ever heard?),
• rented a very small apartment in Lisbon,
• create and documented a alternative pop loc/push loc for my RS Pike (university project),
• death of my mother,
• Stan's NoTubes conversion kit, 
• I dropped university,
• new glasses
• lack of money
• ...

All in all, right now a enjoy a excellent life quality, although I still don't possess a freezer.
For example, I live 25min (biking) from Monsanto, which is biggest park in Lisbon and it's 1 of 3 major mountain biking spots (the others are Arrábida e Sintra).

Crappy life...

In the end of the day, this is my life:

Poor Sushi and I...

I'm a few inches away from poorness. The only kind of work I do/find is telemarketing and I receive 2.5€ per hour, which is very low to survive in Portugal. By the way, I'm living in a friend's room. I can't rent my own apartment!

I worked many years as collaborator in windsurf events (national and international), 1 year in an atelier doing serigraphy (does this work exists in english?), 2 months in Decathlon (cycling department) as salesman/mechanic assistance, 4 months in telemarketing doing inbound (selling snail slime, reader's digest, herbs/teas, ear devices for two companies, plus outbound in ZON in prospect department (selling ZON cable tv for people that never had cable tv or had the competition) and right now I'm in retention department (holding back our clients). 


Although, ZON offers the best TV, Phone and Interweb services, the portuguese population thinks that the competition is best when ZON was the lowest prices and most benefits. How can I fight against old people that are with PT phone for 30 or more years and PT (MEO/Sapo/TMN) offers a very basic 3 play services? It's very hard to convince this people. There is a moral code that once a portuguese sign a contract, they are loyal to the end.


I also work a lot with Adobe Acrobat CS4 and PhotoShop CS4. I do a few things in Illustrator CS4 and I dominate MS Office 2007 and MS Office 2008 (Mac), yet no one want's this photoshop services.


Did I tell you that I'm a finalist in Materials Engineering? (O_O)


Life is unbearable in Portugal and IMF is coming in March 2011...


I have an empty life. :(

My shattered reality...

Crap!

Old Pike 454 teaches new tricks. Order now!

I'm so anxious for tomorrow's oral report defense or something like that but tomorrow will be an important day because I'm reviling a new mechanical actuator to substitute the common Pop Loc, Pop Loc Adjustable, Push Loc and Xloc at my college - FCT UNL.

I call it "The Box". Actually it is a smart box with the remember ability which surpasses everything that Rock Shox and Cannondale's Simon have done to date (2010).

Finally my Sushi - Canyon Nerve ESX 7.0 SE '08 - will show how reliable and smart it is.

The tricky part in using this Shape Memory Alloy prototype was the heat. Body design and electrical installation are crucial, not to mention battery and high cost, although it's a very low tech, low weight and super reliable.

Order now! 50€ each, I guess... 5 meters of this stuff is 80€, then I have to educate it and assemble it. :)



P.S. - I have another theory: How smart is my Sushi/NiTi? Well, it's possible to measure it by using music. So I gave 3 songs from my library and it picked up Toto. (0_0)

TOTO - Home Of The Brave

Bad ways...

The advantage of Sushi is it's half amphibious way of doing it in a pseudo terrain terms.

If this doesn't make sense to you, it's ok because the secret lays on 'half' and on 'pseudo' but there's no big deal sinse Sushi is a bike and bikes goes everywhere.

Fully on hardtail tracks...

What is wrong with me? 2.4" tyres and 5.5" FS bike to do this:

I really need a hardtail for mtb!

Slick is good

Time to time I need to sharpen my driving skills.

This requires a nice music: Send Her To Me by Autograp, 1984

Cabonized

Yeah, i finally carbonized Sushi! It's nothing, just some spacers from my former bike Bacalhau (Cod Fish).

I noted that a spider made a big web triangle between trigger-pop lock-steam. Is this some sort of sign for more pedaling or is it a good luck/fortune? Who knows...

But then again i suspect that spider and fish not co-exist in the wilderness. My Sushi is not one of those spiting fishes that hunt insects or small birds (i guess). It's a cold fish!