Tuesday 8am

Good morning.

I´m a bit angry today. As I left the car parked where I work, I noticed a scratch on the rear of my car. It wasn´t a small one but a big one, and also the bumper was out of place (well, just a bit). That turned me mad for a short while. It seemed like somebody parked behind me on the street didn´t gave a damm bloody shit when he left the place. But I´m sure he noticed it, he moved my car and it must have been dificult for him to push my car and get out of the parking lot. But instead of leaving a note saying sorry, please this is my number call me if you have a problem, it´s better tu runaway.

I care a lot about my car, I don´t like scratching it, I like it brilliant and beautiful. But it seems I shouldn´t care that much, as more as I care as less as everybody else doesn´t.

Anyway, have a nice day.
Cheers.

Manoel.

A monday at 7pm

Good morning fellows.

It´s hard enough to work on mondays. But today it´s not only monday but an hour earlier. The hour has changed at 2am Saturday to 3am. So we´ve lost an hour. It´s said we save 1€ a day on electricity but I´m not sure it worths the 6€ we´ll save till next time change. I feel like it´s 7am instead of 8am, I just want to be sleeping.

I have a doubt, what happens with that hour lost in time. And what happens if you have a date at 2:30am, will it be changed automatically at 3:30am, or you won´t have that date?.

I bought a new digital camera on Saturday at Carrefour, pretty nice one. I needed almost an hour to do it, it was quite crowded and there was just one guy to attend everybody at the photography department. That´s the way it works on carrefour, it seems like they don´t want us to buy anything. The poor guy was overwhelmed, but I believe it was not only because it was crowded, but also for his inneficiency and lack of brain. I had to wait half an hour to be attended by him, but also when he did he was attending another three people at the same time. I asked him to bring me th camera I wanted and he left. He came back and told me there were no cameras left, then I asked him if I could buy the one was showed (paying much less) and also I felt happy in a way, so it´ll be much cheaper. Just to do that took more than 15 minutes. While he was doing so he was trying to talk with another 3 customers. Then he told me he couldn´t find the box, and I said it didn´t matter. Finally he went again to the warehouse and when he came back he brought a brand new camera. He told me they had just came from the lorry, but I´m afraid the first time he didn´t know where they were.

I worked at carrefour once, and I know how it works, so I can´t feel angry at him for making me lose an hour of my life. So finally this weekend I´d lost two hours of my life doing nothing, well, at least I remember the later hour.

Cheers.

Theremon.

A bugs life

Hello and good morning bloggers.

When I was on the bathroom getting ready to have a shower I noticed something moving beside my suit. I got near it to get a closer view and I noticed it was a cockroach upside down. It was trying to return to it´s walking position unsuccesful. I must admit I´m very brave with a lot of things but insects, at least I´m brave enough to admint I´m scared of most insects.

It must have been a trauma when I was a child, but I don´t remember it, so it seems to be just an unreasonable fear. I can touch flies and some others (a few), but I can´t even be near most. It´s even hard to touch them without using my hands (a piece of paper, gloves, etc.). So, when I saw that alien black big horrible thing from outer space I admit I was afraid. There were nobody to help me so I had to do it myself. It took me 10 minutes just to decide killing it before throwing it on the bathroom. I had to kill the cockroach because If you don´t it´ll come back again as water doesn´t kill them.

So I encourage myself and push a piece of paper on its head. I crashed it, but it was still moving. I press again and once more it didn´t die. With rage I took it with a piece of paper and throw it down the toilet. I flushed and it dissapeared.

I feel sorry for her. She hadn´t done anything bad to me except being alive. I know they carry deseases, and dust, and they´re unhealthy, but I can´t stop thinking about the little cockroachies waiting for her mum or dad to bring them food. But I only think about that for a short while, next time I will be cruel once more.

R.I.P. Cockroach

Manoel.

A long time

Hi fellows.

I´m sorry, I now it´s a long time since my last post. And I also noticed a decrease in visits, it´s totally my fault, I´m lazy. I beg your pardon.

It´s been two weeks since my last post. IT has snowed twice since, and the second one was only but wonderful. The snow flakes were as big as my thumb, and even bigger. Unfortunatly it was 2AM on Saturday night, wich made it impossible to become an excuse not to go to work. When I woke up the street was completly snowed 20cm thick. Even the road was snowed making it hard for the cars to pass. It was beautiful.

I have bad news about me being a godfather. There´s no new born baby anynmore, at least this time, my best wishes to my sister, there´ll be another chance. It was a medical decission not to have it, so there was nothing to do but to trust them.

I feel a bit ashamed about my job. It´s the second week without anything to do, so I spend the day googleing, reading emails, and doing nothing (I know I had no excuse not to have written a new post). So I´m being payed just for waking up early in the morning, driving 20minutes and spending the day beside my desk letting time pass by. It´s not completely my fault, the reason was the company that hired mine estimated the completion time over 10 times the reality. I believe my partner and myself made it possible, but it resulted on not having anything to do at the moment. I know we´ll have some work in the future.

But there´s more than just one guilty. I´ll try to explain as best as I can. three companies (I´ll call them "1", "2" and "3")were offering different prizes for the Repsol´s project. "3" retired. So there were two companies offereing completly different prizes, "2" two times more the cheapest. So Repsol decided to give the project to "1" but then "2" made a new and much cheaper offer. At the last time they decided to talk to "1" and threaten them. They offered sharing the project and regret their offer and "1" accepted, except the money the different companies got at the end was like 30% for "1" and 70% for "2", I mean the worst was for "1"wich wich made the best offer at first and the threatening company "2" got 70%. So the project belongs to "1", even when they earn less money from it, and also they are the head of the project, if something goes wrong it´ll be their fault, strange isn´t it?. My own company is only a collaborator, we get payed by "1" and not from Repsol.

At the moment, "1" has finished 90% of their job (thanks to us) but "2" hasn´t done anything yet. There´s been some tension between them for the last two weeks and as a result I can´t continue working because I need some data from the lazier company. But as we say in spanish "A mar revuelta ganancia de pescadores" wich could be translated freely as "On a sea storm the fisherman wins", I mean when something goes wrong there´s always someone who´ll earn something from it. It could be my own company. If "1" get´s really bored and angry at "2" they could fire them (even losing money) just not to make Repsol mad at them (actually they are mad with "2" but as "1" is the head of the project and the one who receives all the money (later they´ll give the 70% to "2") they´re are annoyed with "1"). If "2" got expelled from the project there´ll be more work to be done, and we´ll do it (my company).

But at the moment I´m totally bored and I just want to go home. It´s only being bad for myself, as I get used to do nothing, and later it´ll be difficult to start working again. There´s also the other people at the office could believe I´m a lazy bastard and also I´m cheeky, but it´s not my fault. I hope I´ll have some work soon or I´ll get crazy. I told my boss and he told me it´ll be possible to move me from here, but it´ll be easier to move my partenr as I´m the responsable one of us (kind of a small boss, with 1 person at my charge, it should be nice).

Well, let´s see what happens. At least I learned yesterday my company trusts me, and I also learned they had given me more responsabilities than I thought. I hope they remember it next year when we talk about my salary ;-)

Hope everything´s fine with you. See you soon and please don´t forget I exist, even when I don´t write that often.

Farewells from Manoel.

A new duty

Hello all you.

Last weekend was going to be a horrid one, but in the end sunday was going to be one of the nicest on a long time. It was cold, very cold, my computer was broken for the whole weekend and I was knackered. I went to have dinner with my flatmates. While we were dinnering I looked to the street and it was snowing!!! It wasn´t just small flakes, but big ones. I went out fast, as I came from a coast town snow is something really strange and new for me. I stand under the falling snow and enjoyed it. I did it because I thought it was going to stop soon. I went back to the restaurant and finish my meal. We went home and I was surprised not only to see it hadn´t stop snowing but also when it came to the ground it didn´t melt. So it was really snowing as I always see on pictures. So I enjoyed it, I went home to pick my camera, and walk the street taking pictures and making snow balls to throw at my flatmates. I walked to my car to see how it looked like and it was beautiful. I was feeling like a child and I liked it. I went bed feeling happy.

Next morning the snow was still there. I went into my car and wiped out the snow on the screen. The road was difficult and not only because it was slipy but also because all the cars were as slow as turtles. So it took longer than usual to get to my job. I believe we don´t receive enough driving education in Spain. People doesn´t know really how to drive with bad climates or situations. Yes, you should slow down, but you still have to be careful and care of others. Being as slow as a turtle doesn´t solve all your problems, in fact, there´s a possibility if everybody is too slow the ice doesn´t melt so it´s still there while if everybody were a bit faster it would have melted making it easier. I know it sounds strange.

Changing the subject. I´ve been commended with a new task. I´m going to be the godfather (I don´t mean Marlon Brando) of my possibly new niece (it depends on the gender wich is still unknown). And also I´ve been told to think about names. I have some on my mind, but it´s really hard to do it. You have to be very careful because it´s going to be with him all his life and it could also change it completely. I like names with a meaning, and also historical names. I suggested some like "Satan", "Belcebu", "Nosferatu", "Osam... Ben...." (I have to be carfeul if I don´t want my blog investigated by the CIA), but of course she didn´t like them (as a joke it was funny, or at least she laughed at it, I hope George W. B. has a good sense of humour). Seriously I thought about Linus but spelled on a Spanish way, wich sounds something like "Leenus", I also thought about Amadeo (but it has a religious meaning) and some others.

I would like you to suggest some names, as an interactive game. The only requisite is it has to sound nice in Spain, I mean, it´s chav to call a child "Jeniffer", "Kevin", "Samantha", "Josua", ... in Spain, so it shouldn´t be an English name, but there´s some of them I like. I´ll left it to you.

Thanks for your efforts (I´m anticipating you´re going to do some).

Cheers and farewell.

Manoel.

In the morning

Good morning fellows.

I know most of you are still in bed, I wish I could also be, but I´m not. I´m waiting for the server to become available as when I arrived this morning it was down. That means I can´t work. I should be happy as most Spaniards would be about having an excuse not to work. But the fact is I´m not because it means I don´t know what to do. If I has known it I would have stayed in bed today. At least it gives me a moment to write.

Well it´s my second giving up smoking week. I´m afraid I failed during the weekend, but I have kind of an excuse. I shouldn´t have any excuse to smoke, but to say the truth I had horrible pain on my teeth and because of it I ended smoking again. I´ll start the proccess again this week and I hope this time it´ll be better. I have what´s called "bruxismo" in Spanish and it´s I move my mouth and press it hard when I´m sleeping and also grits. It´s hardness depends on how stressed I feel, and how much tense I am. Last week seemed to be a stressful one, but it wasn´t related to my job, but to the fact I wasn´t smoking and my body reacted that way. So as I spent the night biting nothing but my own teeth I felt tired and painful. The first day I tought it was I had decay but next day I felt it on another tooth so I kneew it was the "bruxismo" thing. I´m having pills before I go to bed now, I bought some muscle relaxants. I hope they work.

Changing the subject I´ll start again talking about driving. There´s some bad things about the roads here, at Madrid. The major is working hard on renewing roads. It should be something marvellous, and I`m sure it will, but at the moment it only makes driving harder. It´s not only my GPS turns crazy when I want to go anywhere as roads changes every day their paths, but also the lane signs on the road aren´t clear. I mean today the lane is marked on white and it follows a path, next day you´ll have both the white and a new yellow one wich differs completely but not enough to know wich one to follow. The law says you should follow the yellow one, but when it´s dark, foggy and/or it´s raining it´s hard to guess wich one is yellow. But that´s when you only have two of them, sometimes there´s three, four or even more.

To drive in Madrid you have to be rude, and also aware of other drivers. You have always to expect them to be naughty, and it´s specially bad during traffic jams. It´s war time. If you insult somebody before they move their cars you won´t be wrong and they won´t be offended in fact I´m sure they had mented your mother before you opened your mouth. There´s a lot of motorways here, it´s a good thing, they surround all Madrid so you can go anywhere without entering the city. But in some ways they aren´t motorways. It´s speed limit is 20 Kmph less than normal motorways, and they are full of speed cameras, you should be aware of it and also it´s easy to notice as there are signs saying it as at England. So there´s no excuse for you if you´re catched speeding. I would understand if you come fron outside Madrid if your´re speeding, but if you´re from here I don´t. I realized some idiots speeding (and really fast) exactly at those points where there are cameras installed. Sometimes I even noticed the flash as they were photographing the idiots. I don´t feel sorry for them.

I hope this weel would be better for me, specially about smoking. And also I hope you too.

Farewell readers.

Manoel

Driving in Spain

As you should all know if your good enough to read my blog, I acquire a car recently. It´s almost a month since I bought it, and I spent two weeks driving at Madrid. I guess it´s time for me to tell you about driving at Spain.(I won´t talk about driving on the right side for you english people, as it´s a perfectly known matter).

I had driven at Galicia since I got my license, so my knowledge was restricted on how we Galicians drive. There´s much to tell you about that matter, but I´ll focus on the differences I percieved between Galicia and Madrid. But also there´s some differences between my old town "Pontevedra" and any others.

The first thing I noticed and also probed in the last two weeks it´s the lack of using "intermitentes" (the lights you use when you want to change your direction to tell other drivers your intention, sorry for not knowing the proper word for them). There´s a big difference between small towns and big ones. On small towns you use them (except on roundabouts, even when you should), but on big cities you don´t. The reason, or at least my believe, is on big cities you have a lot of different lanes where you should be if you want to go to different places while on small towns there´s normally just one. You change the lane in wich you´re in so much you finally stop using them. But it works for all the people that lives there as they´re aware of it. Beware of you poor country boy.

There´s also some more differences between small and big towns, but they´re mostly related to speed. At Pontevedra the fastest you could drive would be on the "ribiera"(as my father calls it) where there´s a 60 Kmph (35mph+-) wich allows you to be at 80 or 90 Kmph (in Spain we have something called the rule of the 20%, wich applies to speed measures and is a legal term that allows everybody to be at a 20% more than the speed limit because of the imperfection of the machines, wich is totally false as those can measure your speed with a 99,9% accuracy, but it´s legal, so you do it, and also as all the speedometers on cars lie about 15kmph allows you to be at 30% more of the limit). But on big cities as Madrid there´s a lot of motorways and your speed average gets over 90kmph (unless you´re on a traffic jam, wich happens all the time).

The bigger difference I got between Galicia and Madrid is about how drivers react to our actions. The people from Galicia is known for being bad drivers, but I don´t believe the topic. It´s hard to happen you´re beeped when you do something wrong at Galicia but at Madrid it happens even when you hadn´t. It seems people is aware of everybody doing the wrong thing, so they beep just in case it happens. I mean, the other day I was getting into a lane, I had to stop if there were cars coming, but instead of reducing my speed I did as I always do, I mantained my speed wich wasn´t too high to be able to see if they were cars coming and if they weren´t or if they were slower than I I would be able to enter the road without much disturbances for myself and other drivers would come behind me, I believe that´s the way it should be. But as soon as I saw two cars coming and was prepared to brake they beeped as their lives were in danger. There was much more than enough time for me to brake and for them to do the same, but they beep anyway. After that I realized it happened all the time, as they were used to people doing bad things on cars ( I hope you get what I mean). Since then I watch carefully for other drivers reactions and noticed they always expect you to be wrong. In some ways it´s better than not doing it, but for myself it´s quite annoying as it sounds they don´t trust me as a driver.

Driving at Madrid could be quite stressful for some people. They change the lanes everyday (the mayor is doing big changes, just look on google for "Madrid", "carreteras" (roads) and "Gallardon" (The mayor)). Even my GPS navigator get´s crazy some times, poor little thing. Most of the stress is related about the way roads are built, I believe with some minor changes it would be ok. But also because education seems to be lost when you speak about travelling (I´m not only speaking about driving this time). Drivers at Madrid are far more agressive than outside it. They´ll pull you out of the road to be 5 seconds earlier. They´ll block the way if an ambulance is coming not to be late. They´ll pull their cars on the lane to block your way and make you brake hard just because they want to use your lane.

I love driving, and I´m not worried about driving here. I consider myself as a polite driver wich makes me feel sometimes weird when other beep me when I let somebody to get into my lane. But I don´t care.

I´ll tell you more about the matter, but I should go to bed know. God (or whatever you believe in (not god for myself) bless you all.

Farewell.

Manoel.

PS: Be careful on the road, please.

After Chirstmas

Happy new year fellows.

I´m back at work. It´s very difficult to start working again after a 10 days holiday. I have to be up early once more, and go to Repsol to spend almost the entire day being a bit bored. Although I hadn´t rested during holidays. I should have stayed at Madrid.

When you live outside your own city and can´t see your relatives often it happens when you go back to your old town that you don´t have a free day to do nothing. It´s even worst when you also have a girlfriend and visit her and her family. You don´t have enough time to visit all your own relatives but also you have to visit hers. And in my case it´s even worst. My girlfriend´s mother has another 7 brothers and sisters, I was lucky not to have seen them all.

At the end although I was supposed to sleep and rest during holidays, I ended far more tired than before.

Anyway, I had a very good time visiting my old town, friends and relatives.

I´ll start soon with the new series of car stories. I had a few after two 7 hours trips from Pontevedra to Madrid. I needed 4 hours to drive 25 miles from Madrid to Guadarrama tunnel last 23th December. I had driven at night at a crowded road almost all the way. But there was nothing to mention, apart dangerous overtakings and some bas..ds close to my car´s bottom when I was overtaking at maximum permited speed. It´s like the road only belongs to them. That´s my most hated car behaviour, and specially at motorways. If you´re driving at 90 miles per hour, you see them coming on the mirror as arrows and instead of braking they mantain their speed. If you can´t finish overtaking (and also because you have the right to do it) they´ll finally brake, but only enough to make you feel nervous as they approach your rear, they´re as close as touching your car. I always have the temptation to brake or at least to touch the pedal enough to turn on the break lights to scare them, but after an incident on a road I stopped doing it, I don´t want to feel guilty if I provoque an accident, although they deserve it. What happened that time was a crapy car was doing the rear thing to me on a road, he couldn´t overtake because there were cars coming in front (it was a single lane road). The car was a Sear 127 tuned, but that only means it´s crap with some furnitures, and not a very safety car. So after a while I was pist off and decided to turn the brake lights on. I didn´t really brake, but the guy was so surprised that he moved the wheel and change the lane dangerously. I could hear the tyres being burned while he was trying to control the car. I really believe he deserved to feel in danger, but I could have provoked an accident with a poor guy coming from the opposite direction, and that´s being like them.

Well I hope you had a nice xmas and also that you´ll be happy and lucky this new year.

Greetings and farewell.

Manoel.