Yesterday I attended the very first edition of Portugal's webtrip in Aveiro. If you know me, you'll know I live next to Lisbon so going there meant covering nearly 270 km to get there and another 270 km coming back. Let me tell you it was well worth the effort but, unfortunately, this is how it all ended for me:

Clearly I haven't been having much luck with motorcycles of late. I'm jinxed or something, but I'll get to that later.

Webtripping

The purpose of webtrip, straight off the horse's mouth, is to have a monthly meet up with web people across the country. The expression "don't come to us, we'll go to you" applies perfectly because we all know about small groups getting together now and then to chat about tech in general, web in particular, over a cup of coffee. When something somewhat interesting happens it'll probably take place in or near Lisbon[1] and often times people don't attend because, although it's a small country, it's not easy to get around (nor cheap). So, every month, at a location voted by the people (or scripts, whichever is quickest to post the most votes) a lunch and after-lunch meet up, filled with interesting conversations containing lots of good and free advices, will take place.

I really liked the concept and, with that in mind, me and my script-foo went on to vote on Aveiro. No, the voting wasn't rigged, Aveiro was clearly set to win, I just gave it a nice boost.

Oh, one small piece of advice, if you attend the next one do yourself a favour and make sure to take a notebook (as in pen and paper) with you, you'll most definitely need it.

If you're now ready to read about what happened exactly, I'm sorry to disappoint you but I won't write about it, you'll need to show up next time around to actually know what goes on.

Motorcycles are fun

I really enjoy motorcycles. I mean, not in an obsessive way, if you ask me about parts and stuff you'll get a blank stare but I enjoy every bit out of the sense of freedom you get from riding one (and don't get me started on how I use it for reflection and introspection): it's just you and the road. With that in mind, when I went to get my driver's permit I just got the one that allowed me to officially drive a motorcycle, postponing a 4-wheeled vehicle one for later. Boy, did I regret that yesterday.

Going to Aveiro I started to get the feeling of her loosing some grip on the rear wheel. It's OK I thought to myself, thinking it was just road dirt. But then it happened more than a couple of times so I pulled over at a service station and noticed that the rear wheel was a bit loose. If you shook it, it moved a few millimeters which isn't much for slow driving but it's quite a lot if you're hurrying to get somewhere. Still, instead of getting back to base I proceeded to my destination.

On the drive back home, I started hearing this really weird "plonk" sound, similar to the one you get when you drive over a sewer man-hole cover. And I wasn't passing over any so it started to get on my nerves. Still I insisted on driving back but when I got on the highway at a certain point, which you can look up in the photo's location, it got really dangerous and I had no choice to call it quits, pull over the highway shoulder and ask for the insurance company's roadside assistance to pick me up and the bike. Now this would be all good, where it not the case of the tow truck showing up quickly, picking up the motorcycle and driving off, leaving me standing there in the dusk, waiting for the taxi to bring me home, on a highway shoulder, at the middle of nowhere with no roadside lights whatsoever. I blame it on the football match. Fortunately the taxi showed up about 15 minutes later and was able to spot me and I was set for a nearly 3 hour trip back home.

Oh yeah, why did I regret not taking the car driving license as well? Because the insurance company guy asked me if I would mind being driven to Oporto instead of Lisbon, pick up a replacement vehicle there and taking it back on Monday at some shop in Lisbon. "Of course not", I told him, "the only issue is that I can't drive a car so it'll have to be a motorcycle". No deal there, apparently there are no motorcycle rentals around these parts of Europe so I had to settle for a lift home. As for she, she'll be deliver at my mechanic's doorstep on Wednesday.

[1] let me save face by tell you that I don't mean that interesting stuff only happens in or near Lisbon, quite the contrary