Monthly Archives: March 2009


My father’s magazine

Today I dreamt on my memories.

My father, when I was small, was owner/director of a sports magazine, four thousand prints per month. We were going, every month, to the printer shop, where big cylinders printed the pages, put them together, staple them, cut the borders and, at the end, an example was out. Repetitive noises. While waiting for my father magazine to be ready I walked around and mainly school books where printed. It was now time to put one magazine in one envelope, already addressed to the subscriber. There was a box of envelopes per zip code, first the islands (Azores/Madeira), then the North, then the South, then Lisbon, where there was a box per neighbourhood. Maybe it was the other way around, I don’t remember. We were usually three to help – my father, a friend and I. After couple hours we charged our car with the boxes full of envelopes full of magazines. The printer shop was in a narrow street, somewhere in Lisbon, I could not say anymore where. The car was full, almost touching the ground. It was a Citroen Visa 10E. I had to go somewhere in the middle of the boxes, bent to shape with them. Next step was the post office. Take out all the boxes from the car, give them to be sent. Last point of this monthly journey was passing by the stadiums of Lisbon where we would leave some copies of the magazine to be sold directly to the people.

This monthly ritual end one day abruptly. I was in London with my grandmother. I just discovered that, against my initial will, I was going to the university in Coimbra. On the return to Portugal my mother, father and I went all to a bar, Pavilhão Chinês, at Bairro Alto. My father tells me he had sell the magazine.


Vélos mal garés à Cornavin = pneus crevés?

J’habite à Genève et gare fréquemment mon vélo devant la gare dans les
places disponibles pour cet effet.

Aujourd’hui, dimanche 8 mars, vers 10:50, n’ayant pas de places
disponibles tout au tour de la gare, j’ai décidé avec mon ami de garer
contre un des escaliers pour monter du centre commercial sous la gare.
On a laissé les vélos jusqu’à 18:30, quand on est arrivé de notre
voyage en train.

Quel est notre surprise quand on voit que les deux vélos ont le pneu
d’avant crevé, clairement un signe de vandalisme contre les vélos. Le
matin j’avais déjà vu que les vélos gares au même endroit avaient un,
soit les deux pneus vides d’air.

Voyant que cette situation arrive jamais quand les vélos sont bien
garés dans les (pas assez de) places disponibles, je me demande s’il
ne s’agit pas d’une action de terrorisme de la part de CFF (ou
autorité commandé par les CFF) pour faire peur aux utilisateurs de
vélos qui garent ces vélos hors des places disponibles.

Je le dis car l’autre fois que le même m’est arrivé j’avais aussi garé
le vélo dans un endroit pas fait pour eux et aujourd’hui même d’autres
vélos garés contre le plan de la ville (aussi mal garés) avaient les
pneus crevés.

Serait intéressant savoir s’il y a, dans les CFF, des ordres pour
punir les cyclistes que trouvent pas de place pour garer ces vélos
amis de l’environnement.


30 years old statistics

Some non-sense numbers gathered together:
– visited countries: 36
– coldest day experienced: -36° C (Oulu, Finland)
– hottest day experienced: +4x° C (either in Portugal or Morocco)
– most expensive hotel night paid: 170 euros/person (hotel Vals-Therme, Switzerland)
– cheapest hotel night paid: 2 euros/person (Kota Bharu, Malaysia)
– most expensive meal paid: 110 euros/person (Buffet Gare Eaux-Vives, Switzerland)
– cheapest meal paid: <2 euros/person (either South Korea or Malaysia)
– most distant place from Portugal been: Sydney (18000km)
– highest altitude: 4554 meters (capanna Margherita, Italian Alps)