Our little American friend, Sparky the dog, is staying at our house. And to keep his owners informed while they are in the States he opened his on blog. It's really funny to read :)
Sparky's Blog
July 2003 Archives
Yeay! I told you about the job interview i had last week at T-Mobile Netherlands. Wednesday i went back for an assessment, which took all morning. After the assessment; I got hired :) I'll start this coming monday with a two week company course. It's exciting to get back in a job environment again after being self employed. I'm also excited that i'll be working for an international company, they're also in the States: T-Mobile USA
The education i have in The Netherlands is Havo with two years of HBO. Now, for most Americans HBO is a TV station and Havo is... a strange Dutch word? So in order to ever get a job in the States, which i'll need either to emigrate or to survive after emigration, i somehow have to make clear what i can do for a future employer. One of the ways i do that is thru Brainbench. They have tests that you can take online and when you pass you get a Brainbench Certificate. Sure, i know, it's not the same as an exam in a classroom, but still it has some value.
At least it's a start to show all employers in America that i'm The One, I AM N E O..... I Master Computer Fundamentals!
To take a look at my current results, click here, and use transcript number: 4562776.
I'm so happy with my new banner (look up)!
Sweety made it today, thanks!
As you might know, one of the ways to get a permanent visa (or Greencard) is to take part in the Diversity Visa Lottery (DV). Every year 50,000 permanent resident visas are made available.
Taking part is free, the chance of winnig is slim. For the DV-2004 10.2 million applications were received, 2.9 million were disqualified. From the remaining 7.3 million, 111,000 have been registered and notified and may now make an application for an immigrant visa. Since it is likely that some of the first 50,000 persons registered will not pursue their cases to visa issuance, this larger figure should insure that all DV-2004 numbers will be used.
Sweety and i will be taking part in the DV-2005. So somewhere in july 2004 we might get some great news! It's gonna be a long wait. If you also want to take part in the lottery, PLEASE DON'T :)
U.S. Department of State Diversity Visa Lottery 2004 (DV-2004) Results
More related sites can be found on my left menu: "Related Sites".
The desperate Cuban migrants that took a '51 Chevy and build a boat gave me a great idea! Sweety and i want to move to the States and i figured that we could try the same thing. If the Cubans can do it, the Dutch can do it! We've alway been a nation of seafarers. We've conquered the sea before! So i bought a beautiful red VW Beetle. Now all we need is to get the engine running again and some drums to make it float. Can you help us out?
Friday i spent a lot of time moving Sweety's weblog to the new location: www.HelloWorldItsMe.com She also went from using Blogger to using Movable Type for her log. You should check her site and leave her a nice comment regularly.
Special thanks goes out to Flexwebhosting.nl for their quick response to our questions (hey, i don't know everything). And also for getting the new domain registered and the server up and running in less than 24 hours!
Remember the Prince song Purple Rain? It's time for a revision; Purple Bear. The unusual color is a side effect of the treatment for dermatitis. The polar bear, named Pelusa, had to be separated from her mate Arturo. It seems that in the animal kingdom skin color does count.
Dutch Cheese and American Pie, what do i mean when i say that? Since i was born and raised in The Netherlands i'll always be a bit like Dutch Cheese, a cheese-head (not this one, they're ridiculous). Very down-to-earth and a bit boring even. I'd like to move to the USA and be more like an American Pie. It represents comfort, wholesomeness, and family values. Where an American Pie tastes better warm, Dutch cheese should be served cold. Dutch cheese gets better over time, an American Pie isn't getting better by leaving it on the shelf for some weeks. American Pie is made with Love, Dutch Cheese with milk. Don't get me wrong, i like Dutch Cheese, its very functional, it gives you energy and it's cheap. But American Pie has that little something extra, a shine.
More about Dutch Cheese:
Cheese
Order some Beemster
More about American Pie:
My, My American Pie
Farmers’ Almanac
Toot, toot! Cuban migrants fashioned a boat out of a 1951 Chevy pickup truck and "drove" it to within 40 miles (64 kilometers) of the United States before they were spotted, taken off and returned to the island, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday... (CNN)
Yesterday Sweety got a letter of recommendation from her boss. It's really nice to read that her work is appreciated so much. In The Netherlands it's not as common to ask for one as it is in the US. The letter is to help her get accepted in an online college and maybe one day help her get a job in the US.
Today I had a job interview at T-Mobile Netherlands. I was a bit early and had to wait. That gave me time to see my potential colleagues walk in and out the building, they looked ok :) The interview went very well and I can come back for the next step: an assessment, july 30th. It's kinda exciting to be looking for a job again. I've been self-employed for a while. Check my business site here.
This movieclip is just amazing! Mel send it to me and it realy made me laugh. Watch how these two table tennis players perform stunts that would make Keanu Reeves jealous.
Broadcasted by Nippon TV.
Well, Sweety and I want to move to the states. It's not that we hate The Netherlands, or is it? Anyway, we want to try something else, expereince a differed culture and we've been to the States a couple of times and really liked it there. So this Dutch couple dicided to move to the states. And that's not as easy as buying a plane ticket. A lot of steps are to be taking in order to stay in the US for longer than 90 days. As a Dutch citizen we don't need a visa for the first 90 days, as long as we don't work or study in the US. When we want to stay longer or work there, we need some kind of visa or be a winner in the Diversity Visa Lottery.
On this weblog i'll be posting the steps we take and the results we get. They'll be in the "Move to the USA" category. I hope it will be helpfull for other people who want to move to the States and do not have a family or employer who can get them there. And maybe it's even fun to read :)
Nerds as we are, we dicided not to go to the Beach Party. Mel got sick, D@n and Tinus went hours later than planned and Sweety and I dicided to convert her weblog from Blogger to Movable type. Wich was kinda exciting to :) We really like the stuff MT has to offer.
Later today we'll go to Salinas Sundance with D@n, Tinus and Mel. The party will be on Scheveningen Beach (cam). Maybe Sweety can make some photo's with the new phone she got earlier this week and i'll put them on this site.
Thank God i'm not French. They officially banned the word "e-mail" from the France vocabulary. The Culture Ministry has announced a ban on the use of "e-mail" in all government ministries, documents, publications or Web sites. The new buzz is "courrier". If you want, you can send an e-mail courrier to the Fench minister of Culture & Communication and try to explain that the internet is World Wide, e-mail is World Wide and France isn't the world.
CNN
Chigago Sun-Times
Never ever even consider ordering a phone at GSMdealer.nl. We did, they didn't deliver. Lied about sending us the phone a couple of times. Never contacted us when the phone got 'lost'. Never responded when we cancelled the order after the phone got 'lost'...... just forget they excist.
What will the refrigerators of the future be like?
How about a refrigerator that detects the shelf life of your food and informs you about it, or one that automatically displays a list of items stored in the fridge on the door? Ofcourse wirh a 10.4 inch TFT-LCD to watch tv, you can even hook on your DVD player. Plug in the network cable (why is it not wireless?) and you can send and recieve e-mail as well.
Sweety got her new phone today, the very cool Samsung SGH-V200! It's the one-and-only official Matrix Reloaded phone....
As soon as we've read the more than 200 pages of manual and figure out how te upload the pictures we've made we'll put them online.
Here it is, the 'groove' slightly transformed, just a bit of a break from the norm :)
My first post on this new Weblog.... what a feeling!
