StreetCowboy

I’d gone on another station-spotting adventure, and Google Maps had set me on a route I couldn’t follow, and a motorist stopped and flagged me down - “You can’t ride here - this is the highway, you’ll get arrested, it’s not safe!”

Well, I clearly could ride there, since I was, and I grudgingly concurred that it was a highway, and his prediction of arrest I was not going to dispute, but so far, it had been safe enough.  Anyway, the long and short of it was that I was not on the right road, and I gratefully accepted his offer of a lift to more people-sized roads.

the roads from there on were as bad as I had expected - four or five lane stroads that make cycling unpleasant, but the traffic was light for the public holiday, and it was not unsafe.

The stations are basically out of town parking lots, and we are working with the Corporation to turn them into a proper metropolitan railway.

After stopping in the pub longer than I’d planned, I was grateful to get the hourly train back to town - with cyclists’  coach!

I got talking to a Dutch colleague, who had planned a trip out to a bike superstore in the fringes of a suburb, to check out a new mountain bike, and I volunteered to join him. It was a 56km ride - my longest ride here, albeit not long in the grand scheme of things, and modest elevations.  He was using a way-finding product that took us on some lovely roads that would have been beyond my navigational capabilities, barring a stop at every second junction to check the map, so I might succumb to peer pressure to buy a specialist GPS product, with some form of way-finding.

In the absence of that, I went my own way and took a wrong turning on the same on-street detour on the Humber river trail, Southbound on Saturday and Northbound on Sunday.  Wrong turnings plural, I suppose.

The family were over visiting, so I missed the game; maybe just as well, though it sounds like it would have been 77 minutes of joy followed by bitter disappointment, in a low-scoring but exciting game.
As I say about Scottish football, without the bitter disappointment, the sweet anticipation would be like eating only half a gooseberry.

 

3 hours ago, Ralf001 said:

 

She is looking for someone to pay her to do the nasty.... You asking her about being a friend.

 

How much time of hers did you waste and why are you surprised at her reaction?

"friend" is a euphemism for sex for free.

For the office - I prefer a nose down knuckles to the grindstone view of the work in front of you.  At home, I like an expansive view, but interesting beats nice.  Back in the day, I had an expansive view over Singapore and the highlight was the flare stacks off in the distance wherever they were.

Back in the day we needed a bigger office, and I looked at a place near the top of our building.

"It's a wee bit expensive for the size..."

"Aye, but look at the view over the harbour"
"Ye're right - I'm not paying extra for my staff to stare out the window" 

My mate told me he was much happier on a low floor, when he could see people outside his window, not views that never changed.

This is pantomime to divert attention from what they are doing.

This is why you have the right to bear arms.

They are for shooting rich robbers, not poor robbers. 

12 minutes ago, gargamon said:

Police squad. 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083466 rated 8.4

I am not sure about your link, but those shows were great.
In terms of music,  Hawaii L and Z Cars still have you beat.

I tell stories for a living.
I think it's worth mentioning that, to get back on topic, but I don't normally tell people that when they ask the three introductory questions.

When you meet a stranger, how do you start the conversation?

"What are you looking at?" rarely gets things off on good first step

2 minutes ago, gamb00ler said:

OK... you must have the GOP style blindfold.... obviously very effective.  Do you know if the GOP earplugs are good as well?

Both of those will be useful when sleeping in prison.

I remembered "The Count of Monte Cristo" and figured that the quickest way out would be an iron mask.   I'm slightly nervous that my escape won't come before my blundering results in physical harm, but you;ve got to have a plan and stick to it, right?  

I like bars with contra-rotating carousels.
I never got into the mechanical bulls.

18 minutes ago, JAG said:

An image which I really wish you had not conjured up!

I'm lucky I put a blindfold on and never imagined it.
Unfortunately, I'm now stuck in a prison in Costa Rica

I had my best Sukhumvit Road experience in After Work, in Sukhumvit Square, but when I went back, it had gone - Sukhumvit Square.  That caused me to build up a resentment against men with sledgehammers, though as one such myself, that is perhaps hypocritical.

As you may recall, back in the day, there was a DIY shop just down from Piccadilly Station, and I'd popped in there as I had some fencing to do at the weekend.  They didn't have epees or rapiers, but a sledgehammer was more appropriate for the fencing I had n mind. 

It's interesting that you only notice the gaps and errors in your recollection when you put your story to words...

I guess I went to Picadilly platfoms 13 & 14 on the way home, and not Oxford Road (that was the gaffer tape and batteries incident....) anyway, as I came down the stairs with my newly-bought sledgehammer, there was an announcement about train delays, and someone next to me looked at the sledgehammer and said "Calm down, mate, its not that bad!"

17 hours ago, Tuco Ramirez said:

It's the same old spiel, time and time again when one is forced to interact with a local.

 

Is this how they are taught to interact with foreigners when they are at school?

 

 

Is it different when you talk to an expat?

In the last 25 years, those have been pretty much the first three lines of every conversation I've had with any stranger, in whatever country.

It's particularly important in Chinese, so that you can get to grips with their tonal pronunciation, and actually understand what they are saying, I expect.

You need this information so that you can identify the person in your memories 

- Loud Bob from the Contractor who's come from Taipei

- Vietnamese Wong who started in HCM

Other people have no choice but to ask bland, polite and non-descript questions. If we gave an interesting answer, it might divert the conversation to the better.  I've never really tried that...
- Actually, I have
"... Where you from?"
"Samutprakarn"
"Me also Samutprakarn"
"Maybe we can share a taxi home"
End of limit of English.

19 hours ago, StreetCowboy said:

No. 1

No. 2

That;'s the end of it.

My daughter took up the double bass at school and it was tremendously inconvenient. "And its boring:" so i played her this, and the school phoned a social worker.

 

I bullied my son into playing the Z Cars theme on his flute (I couldn't persuade my mate Danny to throw stones at him while he was marching, so I thought it was the best next thing) and the social worker came round again.  I think she fancies me.    

 

Youtube pointed me towards the original, and I can see why the school called social services.

No. 1

No. 2

That;'s the end of it.

My daughter took up the double bass at school and it was tremendously inconvenient. "And its boring:" so i played her this, and the school phoned a social worker.

I bullied my son into playing the Z Cars theme on his flute (I couldn't persuade my mate Danny to throw stones at him while he was marching, so I thought it was the best next thing) and the social worker came round again.  I think she fancies me.    

8 minutes ago, henrik2000 said:

Thanks. If you wanted, you could copy a pic and paste it into a reply box, either by right-clicking or by Ctrl C, Ctrl V, and comment on that one. (I just tried that, it works on my system.)

Thanks!

6 minutes ago, henrik2000 said:

 

Did you get those:

 

 

(Schwalbe Marathon Mondial tire after off-roading in upcountry Uttaradit.)

Ow!  Who leaves those on bike paths?

14 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

I've done 6,300+km in the past year, cheapest tyres and tubes ever, also no punctures.

Think punctures more to do with riding on under inflated tyres than anything else.

If your tyres are lasting longer than your chain, then you can't complain about the tyres.  I think I pick up more nails and pins than that, but I'm not sure.

What I would re-iterate is that if the OP had posted his pictures either one to a post or a few to a post, we'd be talking about his pictures, not tyres.

On 7/19/2024 at 1:13 AM, Confuscious said:

 

When I was 12 years old, I was studying classical music at the local music school.
One day, at the record shop, a box with 7 LP's was among the records for cheap sale.
After having a quick look at the LP's, I decided to buy the box.
The name was: "Yehudi Menuhin plays Violin Concerto's".
I never heard of Yehudi Menuhin before.
Later at home, I played the Violin Concerto of Beethoven.
Played by Yehudi Menuhin on his Stradivarius, with my headphones.
Hear was standing on my skin like needles on a cactus.
That was pure magic.
Later, I found the box on YouTube, but the magic of the violin was lost in the digital version.
Yehudi Menuhin was for me the only one idol and will ever be.

The Yehudi Menuhin and Django Reinhardt recordings are great, but my idol was Lee Brilleaux, who could smoke a cigarette faster than any other man I’ve seen

 Z Cars - for the music; Maybe not as good as the Hawai 5 Nil theme, though.

On 5/26/2025 at 4:51 AM, henrik2000 said:

I think it is very much a matter of personal preference - for a bike, for certain kinds of roads -, not what's generally best for Thailand. If you go country, my number 1 tips would be unflattable tires, and certainly not the tires that come with cheap bikes.

I would recommend Schwalbe Marathon Plus.  My mate would recommend Schwalbe Durano.  Other people will say go tubeless.  If you’re running inner tubes, keep the pressure up; I used to get a lot of punctures, until I got a track pump with a pressure gauge.

35 minutes ago, blaze master said:

This thread brought to you by big pharma. Keeping america healthy one pill at a time. 

Exactly. Their ads should have a footnote “If this advertisement is of interest to you, contact hypochondriacs anonymous, instead of poisoning yourself and becoming a junkie”