I sincerely wish you go f**k yourselves

It's probably the third time I use this image in social media posts, and I know I used it in blog post before. This time the gesture is dedicated to a trio of people that were part of my life (mostly the work aspect of it) in 2019-20. That trio was referenced before in my other blog, when I was blowing up some steam (here, last paragraph and also here) and has it happens frequently when I start writting something, I was convinced that I had already shared my opinions and frustrations in a more direct and thorough way, but now I can't find any of that; or I shared that in a different social network or in direct talks with someone (and that it's for sure, and I even believe it was with more than one person).

But now I'm going to be blunt: the middle fingers are for the three stooges that pushed me down with lies, that made my doubt my own capabilities, that in spite the nice words and the company values (that I know were followed by most of the people that worked there) didn't give me one chance let alone a second one, to show my worth, even though I did show it in the second half of my tenure...

Using an expression an old colleague from Portugal taught me: I sincerely wish you go fuck yourselves!

Annus horribilis in XII imaginibus

2020 was the appropriate year to use the Latin expression annus horribilis, since it was a shitty year for almost everyone, something we didn't have for a very long time. Of course the jury's still out in regards to 2021 but we're only now completing the first quarter...

The truth is that in spite of COVID-19 appearing in the of 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 virus sequencing only occurred in January 2020, it was also during January that it spreaded all over the world and by the end of that month it reached Europe (at least officially; there are reports of people dying from a very similar disease before but only confirmed later when they analysed again the samples collected and stored back then). In February it was also the time I started writing about the epidemic (it wasn't a pandemic at the time), when it started to "explode" in Italy, when the first official COVID death occurred in Europe and when it arrived here in The Netherlands. And in March it arrived in Portugal (my homeland), the first person died here in The Netherlands and when it all began for me and for real, the whole trifecta of pandemic/isolation/quarantine.

A Whole New World

Today was a Spring day here. With temperature reaching 15°C (59°F), I didn't wear a warm coat, actually spent a lot of time outside  in the patio with no coat at all. We cycled to, and from, scouting, I washed the motorcycle, took out the side wheels from Amélia's bike (now it's hers), although she quickly gave up on trying to cycle without 'em, we cleaned and we played.

Since I washed the motorbike, I decided it was time to start it up and it's a good thing I kept the old battery, and charged, from last year. It's been several months the bike was left abandoned and not only because it was Winter. Since the bike's engine was running I put outside on the public parking area behind the house to minimize the gasoline smell in our patio. .And once it was already outside, with the pleasant Spring weather, having cycled in the morning, hearing motorbikes revving in the distance but all around me, I had to go for a spin.

Le Tour 2015 BaKano Awards

Here they are, several weeks later and after Vuelta already started. But I had many stuff to do including some sightseeing so sorry about that.
Hope you enjoy reading it, as much as I enjoyed coming up with them:

"I Don't Want It" Award: There was that rider that didn't want to lead the escapees on a climb so he swerved right so fast that almost crashed into a motorbike. And there was that other rider that didn't want his musette bag so he fell when it was given to him.

French pedal strokes - 2015 3/3

The Tour de France 2015, also known as Tour de Froome, is now over. And as soon as it was over the excitement bug inside starts to fade and so it took longer to write the final article about this year edition.

Also once it is over it's harder to talk about the last week, because all is settled no new predictions only conclusions. So I have to go back to the 2 other articles to see my thoughts and considerations and sum it all up.

It didn't go as I thought although I got it right in what comes to Quintana winning back some time from Froome. And he did attack on both Stage 19 and Stage 20. What surprises me is that it was indeed due to the Sky team that Froome kept the yellow jersey, on the climb to Alpe d'Huez. I thought he could defend alone but he couldn't. He really needed help from his team-mates and 3 of them actually. If Sky would have been exhausted as suggested in earlier stages and Froome isolated, I think he would have lost several minutes and the Tour.

French pedal strokes - 2015 2/3

14 stages done, Stage 15 is going on right now and I am writing my second article about this year's edition of the Tour de France.

I expected fireworks on the second week and we did have great stages and nice results but not the attacks I was expecting. Well, kind of. Movistar did attack here and there, Quintana included, but Froome is still in control. I was expecting more attacks from Movistar and Tinkoff-Saxo on Stage 12. If I were a betting person I would have placed a bet on Quintana to won the stage or at least gain back some time, but it was not to be.
The big change we had was that the Big 4 became the Big 5 as Tejay van Garderen from BMC kept himself in the hunt, in particular after BMC won the Team Time Trial.
Nibali is gong backwards and Contador again lost more time.
Froome has one foot on the door, he just needs one final effort and crack it open.

French pedal strokes - 2015 1/3

I love cycling and follow the cycling season (road competition) closely every year.
The Tour de France being the biggest event of them all, is of course the crown jewel.

The 2015 edition is under way and more than 1 third (of the stages) is completed already.
Many things happened and already and has usual many crashes that took a toll on the peloton. Not as high impact as last year, when we lost the defending champion on week 1. This year we only lost 2 yellow jerseys, that were not contenders for the overall win.

And so all the Big 4 of current cycling are still there: Froome, Contador, Nibali and Quintana.

There is no failure except in no longer trying

The actual state of this blog is a reflection of my failures to achieve the so called "world domination" at least of the cyber community.
The plan was so simple, write my witty remarks and strange dissertations in English so they would reach a wider audience, and hopefully more people in the world would discover my brilliance.

Because I try to push too many wagons at the same time, I cannot continue to cover some subjects as regularly as I thought. For instance I started commenting on the 2015 F1 season but only wrote 2 articles.
And then I noticed my so-called brilliance was lacking. At least some years ago.