Thursday, April 27, 2006

"le manege fou"

26/04/06

there was a "fete forraine" in l'Esplanade. i went with Suxy and Ric. We tried that 60 m high huge thing that centrifuges you at 4 g (9.81 m/s^2 * 4) in the air!!! it was turning vertically at high speed.... susana was closing her eyes, that was funny... we were also screaming "haaaaaaaa stop it, we are going to die.... !!! " that was extreme.... maybe never again this thing!!!! i was weighting 300 kg for a few seconds at least 10 times ....

my god.... when finished we were shaking like tree leaves in the wind and it was hard to walk strait!

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

the last trip & short holidays

14-23/04/06
I did the last trip between Grenoble-Ottignies with my 14 years old clio 1.1L essence camionette. The comfort of the car is limited and some tiny problems were not guaranteeing to arrive with the engine on at destination. A new funny feature appeared during the trip. When turning to the left on the motorway, the sound from the right front wheel changed sonority... ups.. seems that a bearing was in trouble... I arrived home in one single piece although the weather was ultra crap the last 200km and I could not see very far... so it took a total of 13h to arrive! I was a bit tired...

Then the day after I had to remove all the gadgets I installed 3.5 years before on it... rpm counter, radio, timer for windscreen cleaners...strange fully it was much lighter when i finished!! Some parameters made the decision to sell this small car hard to take: the rear brakes , the fuel pump, the windscreen, the glowplugs, the Pt screws were almost new. On the other hand, the 7.5 liters/100km on short daily travels and 5.2 liters/100km on long journeys for 35kW (optimistic official power at 5200rpm) are not really representing a high energetic yield.


(the small engine and the siphon operation)

Just to have fun I told my father "here are the keys, want to try it?" The ugly guy just could not stop laughing during the whole turn in the neighbourhoods. Indeed, the strange noises and the elastic undulating suspension were as usual...crap! Driving his Citroën C5 before helped to remark the huge comfort differences!


(the last trip)

Finally, we gave the clio to the garage... it was 20 km from home. Arriving close to the place: a light turned on.. The signal that the fuel tank is empty... This was a clever precise calculation the amount of essence we siphoned from the reservoir!!
Oufff the clio story is ended now... apparently the car is going to Africa or recycling.

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My brand new old cool sky blue car is ready to go and so much more comfortable. ... I just have to carry it to grenoble...I said nothing about it to the people living in the same house... I want to see their head when I'll be back!!!

The photos are showing the tiny restoration i did before leaving and the new old blue car.



Apparently the Xantia does not burn exessively high amounts of gasoil which is good for an engine of 80kW (2.1L Turbo Diesel). I am estimating the consumption to 5.5L/100km on long trips when driving cool and apparently for short daily trips is turns around 6.5L/100km. So i should spare money due to the cheaper prices of gasoil in this period of high petrol prices.
To be honest the taxes and assurance are more expensive.

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I also had to help my father fixing the problem with the tv antenna! apparently a (or more than one) bird came on the external wire .... sat on it...did balance on it, did an acidic shit on it... result: it broke... that was very funny to see the apparence of the wire. and probably also me doing acrobatic equilibrium on top of a ladder. Now all hertzian belgian TV channels receptions are ok... and also the TNT works!!!!

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Sassenage and "les gorges du furon"

8/4/06

Here is where the story begins.... great perspective for the trip.

















A B C

As you can see i was pushed in the precipice by a false " friend". This guy, whom asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, even took a picture of it (photo A). I was carried by the river across terrific waterfalls, passing below huge rocks stuck by the versant of the cliffs along the river.
Fortunately i had all the canyoning equipment hidden on me and i swam a bit further down far from the danger zone (picture C).
life is full of surprises!

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

the crazy journey to "les2Alpes"

A day it would have been wiser to stay "sous la couette bien au chaud".

Ricardo and i (MadMax) decided to go to the mountains again, the end of the season 2006 being very close we realised it was difficult to expect fresh snow at low altitude. After a flash decision from the both of us we bough the tickets to "Les 2 Alpes".
As i am not supersticious i did not pay attention to the weather forecasts from the crystal bowl...
We discovered very soon that the day was not completely going to happen as usual.
To begin the rain was very present in the bottom of the station. Trustfull we took the eggs (telecabines) to the top of the mountain: first to 2200m then 3200m and then the underground funiculaire to 3400m.
the first impression: the panel found at intermediate level was right, -5°C at the top. An interrogation was also present in our minds: were is the way down? should we include a radar in our standard equipment?
One thing we could not complain about was the quality of the snow: powder.

we were resting on the snow in a kind of crevasse between big rock walls of the mountain where the path is passing by. The weak visibility in the snowstorm makes some of the geographical details of the story uncertain.
i almost did not distinguish Ricardo. he was localised just as a light shadow in the white fog of the snowstorm. At least i was almost sure it is him because i could hear his screams, heeuuuu finally it could have been the Yeti as well...
For some obscure reason i did not remember when was the last time i saw somebody passing nearby ...
What could be then the worst thing happening? if you forget about the snow that is buming to your frozen face and hurting like hundreds of needles.(some people call it "chili")
...a lightning... followed +/- 1 second later by thunder...and its echo... but was it really its echo? and not an ava...avava...avavalanche???
Suddenly energy came back in our legs and we did not think too much about something else than going away...





and finally the clothes winging: