Marc's Public Blog - Trips to other locations

Today was beach day, the other UCPA folks went to a couple of places Alain, Seb and I went to last year, so instead we rented scooters and rode around the island to check out 5 different beaches.
In a nutshell, some of them were really beautiful, and I also bit the bullet and did research and a few friends who asked a favour.
Males have a lot of trouble not looking at breasts. What is worse, males cannot look at breasts and think at the same time. In fact, scientists now believe that the primary biological function of breasts is to make males stupid. This was proved in a famous 1978 laboratory experiment wherein a team of leading male psychological researchers at Yale deliberately looked at photographs of breasts every day for two years, at the end of which they concluded that they had failed to take any notes. "We forgot," they said. "We'll have to do it over."
- Dave Barry

It only seemed fair that I did what was in my power to help with this important research while we were checking out the beaches, and bars playing, you guessed it: techno :)


By special request, I'll also do my best to get more men for you, interested ladies. In the meantime, you can always look at last year


In other news, it was actually my first time on a powered two wheel vehicle (50cc scooter). While those things sound underpowered, they strangely still do 80kph+, which happened to be the highest speed limit on the island's roads anyway, so getting 125cc wouldn't have gotten us that much (it also required my French driver's license as the US one wasn't good enough for anything but 50cc, and the said license is sitting on my dresser in Sunnyvale). What's funny is that I actually had to change sunglasses, because going past 60kph created an insane amount of wind that was getting around my shades and triggering tears.


It was an interesting experience, even though I've always hated the obnoxious sound that scooters do (and I still don't feel any different now), but the fun part was driving in the mountain roads around the island: brake, setup for the turn and the apex, lean in the turn, hit the apex, gas out, and off to the next turn. I very quickly confirmed that I would probably enjoy this about as much as racing cars, which is exactly what I was afraid of.
Long story short, while I wasn't leaning a whole lot (less than I would on a mountain bike, which isn't a whole lot to start with), the thing slid from under me in a turn. I don't think I hit any significant dirt or gravel, it's just that a scooter comes with really crappy tires not meant to be ridden on the side at all, not even a little bit, and that the tires we got were probably even crappier than the average.
I'm not quite sure how, but I ended up on my front and face, opened my right knee fairly well (took a more than 4 hours to coagulate despite the hot air and wind from riding), and it also took a good piece of skin off my chin right under my goatee (so luckily it isn't visible as it's healing). Apart from that, my elbows didn't suffer that much and I only got minor scratches apart from that. I also made a couple of comments about the "this is a joke" helmets we got, and sure enough, a real helmet would have protected my chin in this fall...
The main problem is that I landed on my fanny pack, which broke the LCD on my digital camera that was in there. This is the part that sucks the most because while the camera still takes pictures, I now have to operate it blind and won't be able to take any good manual pictures (like long exposure night ones, or dance club pictures with light and exposure correction), not counting the fact that I'll have to buy another camera again (the previous one had a rafting "incident")
At the end of the day, I guess I can't complain, since my riding "leathers" were a pair of swimming trunks and a T-shirt. All in all, I didn't get that hurt, but I'm really bummed about my camera, especially since I'll have 10 more days without being able to take pictures as easily or well :( I guess compared to a broken leg or something, it's "only" money... At least I can share war stories with the road and mountain bikers who have had close encounters with pavement (I've always managed to avoid that on my mountain bike so far)

But while scooters have always been obnoxious and dangerous pieces of crap (even though they do come in very handy in a place like Ibiza), and I do realize that real motorbikes handle better, I still think that powered bikes are dangerous as a whole, especially for someone like me. Therefore, I'll stick to a low to the ground car with four tires on the road. They can slide without the car tipping over :)

But going back to the day, some of those beaches were really gorgeous. While it was an expensive day considering, it still felt worth it


Anyway, I still went out a bit after disinfecting my wounds, but found it a bit hard to dance with a knee that I couldn't really bend due to the bandage, so I ended up going to bed around 02:00. The highlight of the evening however is when I bound some compeed (special bandage that is supposed to be water proof and help healing), and that it wouldn't stick to my skin due to the temperature and sweat that I couldn't wipe off. So, what was the solution? Well, while the geek's #1 non tool is duct tape, the second one is super glue, so I did happen to carry superglue with me (I always do), and superglued the bandaids to my skin (it took 3 to cover the area. That worked perfectly, it even turned out to be entirely water proof since it survived the two dives I did the next day :)
(No, you may not ask how I'm ever going to get that off: one problem at a time, shall we :) )

Pictures from Wednesday
(I'm sparing you the bloody knee and opened chin, you don't really need to see that :) I'm sure you'll enjoy the nice beaches better)