two-thirds hellatious...and the return of film

ok, so its not really film but digitized images captured through a virtual shutter and pixelated on an electronic storage device until I monkey fuck around long enough to get them on the computer...but you get the idea. Did you know that Obama was the first president who had his official picture for the halls of the white house taken with a digital...times they are a changin'.

Haven't seen much of Italy lately, sorry, I hear its nice. We, and I say we because James has become my inseparable sidekick in the last few weeks, have been inside the farm, more or less confined to the bike shop, garage, and refrigerator for the last two weeks building and prepping our asses off! At one point I think we went to the store during lunch one day, to kill two birds with one stone. Speaking of birds, we did have this visitor through the farm one dusk, and if this new camera had not arrived courtesy of The Professor, no one would believe me...



I chased him down and snapped a couple shots while trying to grab one of those tail feathers and not get decapitated by the wires that keep the vines in a row while he dodged back and forth under the rows of grapes. Then I got back to putting bikes together...

from this....

to this...

Seriously, just this week we were handed rosters for no less than 66 bikes (that's two thirds the number of the beast if anyone is awake) for tours and rentals leaving at the end of next week. We have been in the shop by 8am, and in there till about midnight on most nights, taking a good 2-3 hours for lunch, naps and a refresher before the second half.

we would like to thank our sponsors; gangsta rap, naps, cynicism, whiskey and beer.

There has also been the commotion of a big wedding here at the farm too. Our boss Monica got hitched late last nite (while James and I were annihilating a bottle of cheap rum) and between her friends and family being here, most of whom wanted to borrow bikes for the weekend we have not only had our hands full with extra bike builds, but house guests who have too many questions, and dinner parties outside the bike shop windows that limit our ability to loudly create new swear words when tools go astray and bikes get ornery. Its been a rough couple weeks but we are working great together, like a regular Skipper and Giligan in here.



I wanted to brag about how many bikes we did in one day, but the days have since started to blend and blur together so that I cannot tell anymore. Needless to say we killed it and here I sit Saturday night, cold beer, James on his way by train to meet with the lovely Mrs James Sunkel for the weekend and only a handful of bikes to prep before the big tours leave on the 9th. Of course we reserve celebrations and sighs of relief for any last minute additions and the inevitable tour that returns late on thursday nite with 20 bikes in the van that need to get prepped before they leave again the following morning...yeah, that's how it works sometimes, and we are prepared with all the "tools" one might need...take a close look at the bench set up...



Now those of you who know me will know that this kind of work is usually followed with an equally intense level of play, but because of the heat (90 by 9!!) we have had little energy to take the playing much further than the bike shop that we feel so comfortable and insulated in. Which means that late night shop shenanigans has turned into drinking the beer we made, slugging whiskey, hooting at the full moon, trying to start the Panda with 3 unripened apples up the tailpipe, "teching" tour leaders bikes (more on that in another post...) and ending in me getting a mohawk from James late one evening. Work hard, play hard. Or in this case, Work stupid, play stupid.

James face says it all...





I figured it was July and time for new facial hair too...so the British Royal Navy makes its triumphant return.



I keep saying the best part of this whole experience has been realizing who I am, and all the driving and exploring and adventures I could get up to here in Italy or abroad, I learned alot about myself trapped under a stack of rosters in the bike shop this week too. Its been sort of an all encompassing kind of learning, with a little aggression as some of it has come out as the result of feeling like I was backed into a corner, but Ive scribbled about that here before. Its been good to know myself better, but it boarders on getting a little cocky I think. Listening to a lot of rap music doesn't help but I think knowing myself and standing up for myself are two different things. Having a good idea of who I am and actually having pride in who I am are entirely different things. Hard to explain what went down. Its little things really, like hearing someone bitch about not knowing what to do about their 8 week vacation and realizing that getting a 4 day weekend to rest your hands and back are a simple pleasure the financially comfortable will never know. Hearing women talk about spa treatments, which adult acne medications work the best, and obsessing about the superficial makes me feel pretty strong as a man, and secure in the fact that the people I call my friends are deep feelers, genuine thinkers, and tough on the inside, without all the baggage of media-inspired insecurities. Getting called a "tool" by some entitled american bitch who couldn't figure out which eastern seaboard resort community she wanted to go to this year, and realizing that I can do a job in my sleep that so many of the worlds "important" people have to pay for made me feel pretty confident with my lot in this world. And skipping the wedding altogether to get drunk and carry on with my buddy James made me feel pretty confident in my working class roots. I kept trying to tell them I don't go to weddings, unless you need a bartender or someone to put the chairs away afterward.

When I got this job I had daydreams and fantasies about having my home be Italy for a while, to use this as a home base for exploring europe, and for getting to live a life I never dreamed would be mine, a life that involved in my own fantastic imagination, boats and the sea, farmlands, and wine tasting, and exotic locales with exotic women, and rich foods, tables set with too many forks...you know, a real rich european experience. Needless to say that when I caught myself this week eating with greazy hands a late nite dinner of salad with olives from a can, exhausted and drinking cheap beer, I realized that the life I live might be just more real than the dreams that get interrupted by the throbbing pain in my calloused and chapped hands. And I sleep pretty good at night loving this life just the way it is - REAL.