Semester 14 Chapter XXX: Pedals To The Metal

Okay, let’s wrap up the fourteenth semester. This shit is getting massive. At one point, I’m gonna start getting back to the old chapters just to remind myself of how old my ass is getting and about all those amazing situations and people that happened at some point and have slowly faded away over the years. Shit’s fucking beautiful when you really think about it. Before I get to my shit, I’d like to give some more updates on my drinking situation. I still drink here and there but it’s kinda getting to a point where I don’t even understand why. Like sometimes I get a beer and then I’m like what’s the point. And like 95% of my hangouts are alcohol-free now. Again, it’s not like I had any partuicular issues with booze or anything like that, it just really feels my whole energy, sharpness and focus have boosted without it. I don’t miss being tipsy, I don’t miss being drunk, I feel perfectly fine keeping it straight. So yeah, it’s still an occasional drink here and there but I feel I’m on a pretty clear trajectory to abandon this shit completely sometime soon. Definitely happy about the way it goes.

 

So last week… Monday, me, sis and the kiddo went to this aquapark at Kraví Hora. We didn’t stay long but it was fun. All my ink is reasonably healed so I got to play around with him in water a little too. I was a bit of an attraction to some of those kids over there but hey… That’s what you get when you look like a fucking avatar I guess. I spent Tuesday afternoon outside with my nephew again. This time my dad tagged along. We spent hours in parks, at playgrounds and in cafés fucking around. Shit was fun. What else… Thursday, I met up with a friend I hadn’t seen in about 4 years. Cool as expected. I also managed to see another friend of mine like three times for different reasons, including a pretty dope Sunday afternoon recording session. See, there’s this CBD brand and as a promo, they were shooting theses boiler room-like sets of female djs in an apartment building in the city center. We came for the last set and it was just great. It wasn’t a public event so it was just the sound system, dj, sound guys and like 5 people helping out and chilling. The girl was fucking lovely. The whole package… Set was great, the outfit was on point, the vibe in the room was awesome. It felt basically like an hour-long meditation. Good vibes only.

 

To rewind a little… Saturday afternoon I hopped on my bike and went to my friend’s house just outside of Brno. Since I’ve been running like a fucking lunatic, I managed to slightly fuck up my knee. It happens here and there and you just gotta give it a rest for a bit when it does. Luckily, I don’t really feel it while cycling (different muscles) so I’ve been doing a whole lotta that recently. Often on my own, going out of town and back… Having fun with it. The hangout over there was great, we cycled quite a lot both Saturday evening and Sunday morning… All perfect.

 

And that’s that. Decent amount of work, workouts still on the daily. Feeling great in this motherfucker. Got some more shit ahead this week, September’s looking good, we’re rolling. Sending love to everybody reading and shout out to all my vegans, runners, bikers and hopeless romantics. One!

Highlights:

• Cycling.
• Techno.
• Water.

Semester 14 Chapter XXIX: Augmentations

Yo, here we go again. Sunday evening, new Quavo album on deck (really fucking feeling it; RIP Take), it’s just me in the apartment, everything feels peaceful. I’m still surfing through the summer with joy and ease and there’s quite some shit to talk abou. As it usually is.

 

Last Monday, I joined my dad once more for his trivia night. Most of his regular team was MIA and we didn’t really place well this time around but it was still a pretty nice evening. Wednesday, I met up with sis right after work and we went to this tattoo/piercing shop she picked to do my ears. See, I’m pretty much covered in ink but to that point I’d never played with piercings. I’d mentioned I wanna try it out couple times before and my sis took the opportunity and booked me a session for my bday. So here I go. Earrings in both ears, feels like I was born with them, haven’t felt weird for a second. Really enjoying changes I'm doing to my visual this year. Afterwards, we proceeded to her place and wrapped up the whole misson with some dinner.

Friday was epic too. I managed to merge plans with three of my friends into one and it was just perfect. First, me and two of my guys went out for our usual trip to Bílovice on bikes. Not sure if we’d ever done that in that configuration but we all had a really good time. Afterwards, we went back to the city to meet up with my music bro and we spent the rest of the evening bar hopping and talking shit. Happy, I glued all that together. We’ve all know each other for ages but they never really hang out like that. It felt smooth and organic tho.

 

Saturday morning, I hopped on my bike and went to the village of Popůvky where I met up with my sis yet again. We went to her former in-laws’ to pick up the kiddo and borrow their car for the weekend. We took the opportunity to have some coffee and chat, and then we took it to the road. Destination was the cottage of my dad’s partner. See, they have this family reunion once a year but since I’m almost never around, I hadn’t been there for about 3 years. It was cool seeing everybody again; I even got introduced to some new people. But yeah, overall good vibes, good food (my dad is a killer), all super enjoyable.

 

Sunday after lunch, we got back packed up and off we went. I dropped my sister off at her place and then returned the car. Another coffee, another cool hangout, another bike ride back home. Wanna give shout out to the in-laws. My sister went through a pretty rough break up recently and it’s cool knowing that it won’t have any serious impact on how our families communicate and love each other. Some adult shit right there.

 

I got some groceries downtown, made myself some dinner, spoke to some people online and watched a movie. It’s 8:30pm and there’s nothing left for me to do today. Hope you guys are enjoying yourselves and your time feels well spent. Sending love everybody out there. One!

Highlights:

• Driving again after some break. 
• Piercings.
• My people.

Semester 14 Chapter XXVIII: Lace Up

What’s gucci y’all. We’re starting another week so you here comes another one of these. I’m happy that summer in the Czech Republic kicked back in. We had some pretty cold and rainy days first half of last week which wasn’t too bad as my new tattoo was still preventing me from running. But it has all flipped and it’s all unicorns and rainbows again. 

 

Quite a lot of shit has happened since the last time. On Monday, me, my sis and one of my friends pulled up to my to the trivia night at my dad’s pub. Shit went pretty regular. I contributed nothing, the team placed well and the old timers won a bottle of cheap ass vodka. I’m still on my almost non-alcoholic shit and I was really on a mission to order a non-alcoholic beer over there but before I even got to do so, there was a pint of lager in front of me and that was that. Anyways, I’m feeling this non-drinking thing. I’m not really considering going full-blown straight-edge cause I just like doing shit here and there but this alcohol shit is really just stupid. It is widely socially acceptable, we grew up on it and some social situations are pretty difficult without it but at the end of the day it’s just a habit. I have never been a massive drinker to begin with but steering away from it almost completely feels fucking great. I might still have a glass of whiskey or some beer occasionally but I’m totally removing this “one or two beers just because I happened to find myself in a bar” attitude. Cause it does feel pretty annoying at this point.

For the first time since Canada, I also took couple evenings off and did some me-time. Checked some podcasts on astrophysics and watched Interstellar again. I also re-watched the first Dune movie as the second one is coming up quite soon. Had a chance to hang out with my sister and my nephew couple of times too. And on Friday I took it to Prague.

 

It was two days of hanging out with some of my favorite people. The main event was Saturday – the bday party of my bro’s girlfriend. I loved the crowd. It was about 10 of us and it was a pretty random mixture of pretty awesome people. I mean… It was quite a lot of tattoos in the room. Apart from us, there was the guy whom I got the newest tattoo from (also a leftist cynical vegan), there was arguably one of the best tattoo artists on this planet (no exaggeration there) with his girlfriend, there was a tattoo artist from Mexico with his wife, this youngster who had come as a model for my bro weeks ago to Krakow plus some more people eventually. Pretty fucking colorful and all over the place. I got a nice moment with this model dude. You see, I still don’t fully realize how old I am when I speak to someone who’s 23. I mean, these people still feel pretty close to me. We don’t look that different, we are often into similar shit, we use the same vocabulary. I usually slowly realize that as the conversation goes. And this guy (who was by far the youngest in the room) told me how fucking cool it is to kicking it with people this much older and seeing how we do things and what we do in life. And I mean… Apart from accepting that you’re actually speaking to someone more than a decade younger, it feels good. You know, being the cool uncles to kids or some shit like that. The whole thing was good, later on people were leaving one by one and in the end it was just the core group of four. We did pull an all-nighter, I did catch my morning bus and I made it back to Brno around lunch time. After some food and a nap, I met up with my music bro, his wife and son and we spent the afternoon outside. The day was gorgeous. Parks, dinner at this Vietnamese joint, some drinks after… What a weekend.

 

Today, it was back to work. And back to fucking running. The back of my knee is reasonably healed now so I’m back at it. And boy, that was a fucking relief. God! So yeah, everything’s been alright, I feel great about what’s been going on and I’m still exited about the rest of the summer. Hope y’all keep it positive too. Stay safe. One!

Highlights:

• Prague.
• Friday sleep. For some reason, I slept for like 9 hours and got up at 11am. That shit literally never happens.
• Running.

Semester 14 Chapter XXVII: Bouncing Around

Yo, what’s happening. It’s that time of the week again, we are back on this thing. Checking in from rainy Brno. Just got back from walking the doggo with my sis and I got some time on my hands so I’m gonna get this motherfucker off the table. Yesterday I made a move that pushed my whole Chinese experience even further into the land of memories and something that once used to happen but it’s too far gone now. I deleted Wechat on my phone. See, my phone is not the best. I thought it would be okay while buying it but it’s generally pretty shit. And it’s been getting really slow, constantly freezing and running out of space. And this fucking app was consuming like 20% of storage space and memory no matter what I did, which folder I cleaned, what cache files I deleted. And since I don’t really needed it anymore, I just got rid of it. The phone works much better and Wechat is gone. So long, my friend.

 

Last week was fun. I still haven’t had a chance to spend one fucking evening by myself but so I’m a bit over-socialized. I appreciate it tho. When shit happens, let it happen. There’s gonna be days when things get slow again and time is now, right… Last Tuesday, I met up with one of my bros for a beer downtown and the day after I took the doggie and caught a train to village near Brno where my dad’s partner’s daughter lives. My sister was already there (as I’d managed to misunderstand her instructions and missed our initial meet-up) and we had a nice evening with some food and drinks. Me and my sis slept in a pretty fucking awesome yurt that they built on their property. With two dogs. One of them (not ours) made his bed out of my hoodie and shorts and drooled all over both during the night. Fucking champ.

 

Thursday, my friend from Prague came to town to deal with some of his shit and crashed at the apartment. We also had a chance to grab some lunch (shout out Vegalité) and some coffee the morning after before he came back. And Friday afternoon, I met up with my cycling buddy to do another ride to the town of Bílovice and back. Ended up at this beer pub where I ran into bunch of people I hadn’t seen in centuries. Which was both nice and exhausting. Not used to having these kinda talks back to back. At one point, I was a bit overwhelmed and got the fuck out of there. The day was fucking great tho.

 

Saturday afternoon, I hopped on another train and went to Ždár nad Sázavou where I got picked up by one of my bros. We went to this cottage his gf’s family owns. It’s in the middle of the woods and even though it was raining pretty much the whole time, we walked around the forest for some time and had a really good catch-up afterwards. Good shit. The morning after, we cleaned the place up, I got dropped off in Pardubice and took a train back to Brno. Now, I usually buy train tickets online. When you do that, you automatically get a seat assigned free of charge. I hadn’t bought one at the station in a while and I got reminded why. See, when you buy a ticket at the station, you do not get the seat and you’re risking the possibility of not having a place to sit if the train is packed. Which it was. Fucking Sunday afternoon. I got on and the first thing I saw was bunch of people sitting on the floor by the door. Which I exactly what I ended up doing for good 90 minutes. I mean, it was bearable but it was also absolute shit.

 

When I got home, my dad, his partner, her daughter and my sis were all here (they all met up for lunch earlier). We had a chat about their experiences in Switzerland, I had some food and coffee, they gave me some chocolate… Lovely. In an hour, I’m meeting my sis again to go see this new Barbie movie. Not sure what to expect. Anyways, all has been good over here. Work is good, I got a new pretty cool student, workouts are fun, tattoos are healing. And there’s some cool shit planned for the next couple of days. Hope y’all good too. One!

 

Highlights:

• Magic shit (note to self).
• Bicycles.
• Fucking trains.

Semester 14 Chapter XXVI: Skinheads

What’s up everybody, here we go again. Last week was eventful as fuck. A week ago, I was still in Vancouver. I pretty much summed up the whole experience in my last entry so I’m not gonna do that again. The whole thing was simply awesome. Before I left, me and my friends grabbed one last coffee by the shipyards and then it was the ferry, Skytrain, airport and off to Europe.

 

I arrived to Brno Wednesday evening to my sis waiting for me at the station. Dropped my things off at home and then we proceeded to Vegalité for some dinner. Felt good hanging out again. My sister has been dealing with some pretty fucking heavy personal shit recently and I was happy how much better she seemed compared to when I was leaving in June. She’s a legend.

On Thursday, I spent most of the day working and later in the evening, I caught a bus to Prague. See, the day after, I had another head tattoo session booked. And for this one, we shaved my head completely. In order to make sure, things are actually symmetrical and geometry works, you kinda can’t deal with hair. So yeah, I’m fully bald for the first time in my life. What surprised me was that I actually liked it from the get go. I’m okay with the shape of my head and it generally feels good. I was expecting feeling pretty weird about the whole thing but it wasn’t any of that. And I got compliments left and right too. The session was relatively long but we’ve done quite a lot and it all looks damn near perfect. Looking forward to the next one.

 

I decided to stay in Prague for a bit more. My friend was working on prototypes of his new merch on Saturday so I stuck around to help out. He has a whole screen printing equipment at home so I had a chance to witness the whole process. Shit was fun. In the evening, we packed all the t-shirts and hoodies and did a photo shoot. We took some pics in the city center and in some subway stations. The last time we did this together was about 10 years for my his first tank top batch. Another walk down the memory lane. Everybody was happy with results and shit apparently worked pretty well online.

 

I made it back to Brno Sunday morning, did lunch with my sis and spent the afternoon with my nephew. He’s getting to that age where he’s okay with hanging out with other people no moms present so I’m definitely gonna take advantage of that here and there. In the evening, we celebrated my b-day (with some delay). My dad and his partner got back from the country where they’d been for couple of days and we all met up at my sis’. Got a new water bottle, got some Jameson, got a sess at a piercing studio… But most importantly, it was an awesome hangout. Love those people.

 

Monday morning, I did a class and went to the bus station. Destination was Olomouc. Some weeks ago, I had a chance to meet this guy (who’s a really good friend of my bro in Prague) at the tattoo convention in Krakow and besides him being a really cool dude, I fucking loved his work. So I sent his ig to my gf thinking she might like some of his shit. The idea was to book her in. Well, the idea still stands but she got active too and got me a session with him first as a gift. This year I’m getting a bit nuts with new tattoos. But yeah, another beautiful day, some good talks and the outcome is fucking epic. Got an old-school diver’s helmet with an octopus wrapped around it. Met up with my bro from Prague shortly before left in the evening (as he was coincidentally coming to the town too) and then took it Brno.

 

My dad and his partner left for Switzerland for about a week so it’s just me and the doggo in the apartment now. Pretty good set-up. Today, I walked the fucker and later got out to pick up my new hair shaving machine, new strap for my watch and do some groceries. Lately, I’ve been also on some folk/rock shit. Been heavily on Bob Dylan and now I’m playing some Eagles. Feels good to mix up the usual rap shit with something different. So yeah, pretty fucking epic week. Hope you guys are doing well, enjoying summer and all that. Sending love to y’all. One!

Highlights:

• Tattoos. 
• Photo shoots.
• Family.