March 2004 Archives

Anouk from Wooden shoes abroad send me some questions. The idea is that I answer his questions in my blog and then pose three new questions to two other folks in the blogger community, who in turn answer etc. etc...

So first i hold the stick....

1. What skill would you like to learn and why do you think it might be useful to you in the future?

I'd like to be able to understand Arabic and Moroccan. In Dutch cities like The Hague and Rotterdam you hear that all the time. It's the same with Spanish in some parts of the States. Often i'm so curious what those guys are talking about in the tram. If you've ever lived in The Hague you know why it can be very usefull to know what they are up to sometimes :)

2. Suppose you got talked into going out on a blind date, but you are having second thoughts that day. What excuse would you come up with so that you can skip this date?

USCIS called, i've got my Greencard, i'm moving to the States today!

3. Birthday dilemma. Do you send real postcards; do you pick up the phone, or rather use the computer to get your wishes across?

Well, it was Patricia's birthday last week. First i tried to call her, but apparently the phone was disconnected, so i send her a Hallmark e-mail.

Now it's time to pass it on the Sweety and Anastasia.

Here are the questions i'm passing to you:
1. If you had to live in The Netherlands the rest of your life, what would you like and dislike most about the Country.

2. Let's say you are eating an apple and you loose one of your teeth, what's your first reaction.

3. Queen Beatrix or President Bush?

Think you had a bad day? How about Hall. This 59-year-old janitor in Texas had a really bad day Wednesday. First he gets hit by a train, then the ambulance he's in gets hit by a car. The good news is he just had some Bruises.

NBC30.com has a slideshow of both accidents.

I don't think so, she's dead. But they are actually placing old-looking light poles for the princess' funeral next week. Tomorrow they'll officially move her body from the palace that she lived to the one across the street from me. The move will be broadcasted live on tv. Why? Who's watching that? Anyway, i'll let you in on a secret. I saw them bring in a coffin yesterday. She's probably already here. Or it was just a practice coffin....

how many cityworkers does it take to straigthen a pole?

I've never seen so much activities in the street. Police towing cars and placing fences, Sodexo Party catering delevering two trucks with food, window cleaners polishing the windows of the stables, streetworkers making sure the pavement is straight, cityworkers checking al the streetlights, trucks delevering horses, a car delivering a corps, tv crews setting up camera's, Royal family members coming and going. All those people must be happy the sun is shining :)

They closed the park i walk in almost every day during my brake. I know the old queen died this weekend but that's no reason to close the Palace Garden! Well, maybe it is. They'll bring her body over to the Palace Noordeinde. The palace, the garden and stables are all joined. But she's not here yet and they already closed down the park, and a lot of roads in the neighbourhood. It'll be wendsday before they bring her over.

Ow... while i'm writing this i see them bing out one of the carriages for the funeral, i guess they need to polish it.

I promised you a serie of posts "Everything is better in America”. It's been a while sinds my first and still only post about museums. Now it's time to talk about manners and service.

In The Netherlands people often say that Americans are shallow or superficial. Maybe some are, but i think most are not. I surely wouldn't call the Americans i know superficial. Far from that! Dutch are as morose and grouchy as Americans appear shallow. An example: when you walk into a typical Dutch store a grouchy employee tries to stare you away, sincere. Enter an average American store and the employee greets you with a smile and a polite ”How are you?”. This may not be as sincere as the grouchy Dutch store attendant, but i like it!

Something else that really struck me when i visited the States for the first time was the repeated use of ”Excuse me”. In crowded areas Dutch start pushing. Hardly anybody asks you to move over when you´re in the way, they just start pushing or sigh and groan. I think that´s so impolite! I really like the American way to say excuse me. Not that it´s my fault somebody is in my way :)

There are other examples of bad manners and service in The Netherlands. You don´t get refills in restaurants, you have to pay to use the toilet almost everywhere and a cloakroom is never free of charge. And finally the Dutch habbit to say "it's not possible", while the truth is the person does not want to do what you request. Dutch service representatives contain within them a microchip pre-programmed to say "not possible" at the slightest provocation. Kevin Lowe wrote a great article about this on Expatica.

You see? Everything is better in America :)

Sweety didn't want to do groceries friday, because of the rain, so we went together on saturday. Great move: Weather warning issued as storm picks up.

My prayers where awnsered! After being late twice this week my colleague E had an little talk with my better-late-than-never colleague. They agreed that he'd stay till 17:30 thursday an he'd be in time friday. Insteed he left at 17:00 and didn't show up on friday at all! He just never showed, didn't awnser our phonecalls and never called back. So monday a replacement will come! I liked the guy but not as a colleague so i'm glad we'll have someone new, hope it's somebody we can count on.

The weather is great! I really enjoyed my 20 minutes walk to work this morning. But nobody seems to be able to turn of the heating in the office building. It's been just a bit to warm ever since i started working here in january, but now it really is to hot and stale. It almost makes me fall asleep :)

Yesterday was the first of four evenings of ITIL trainig, it was so boring! It was a long time ago that i had so much trouble staying awake before eight o'clock. It really felt like being back at High School.... hey, wait a minute.... i was looking for the link to my old High School and i found a picture of my first serious girlfriend, who is now a maths teacher at the same school we met. Judging by the picture she hasn't changed much. I was really hartbroken when she broke up with me, but now i'm so glad she did. I'm very happy with Sweety and wouldn't want it any different!

But, back to ITIL. It was boring. No fun. I'm glad it's just four evenings and i'll miss one of them. My dad already bought tickets to a theater show next week. I don't think i really need the evening lessons, the ITIL Foundations isn't that big of a challenge. I think i'll concentrate on my MCSE.

Yes, i'm now a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)!

I didn't feel really sure about passing the exam, i did some pratice tests and didn't always pass. But the exam went great, i passed with a score of 864 (out of 1000, 700 needed to pass). So i'm on my way, to MSCE :) But first i start an ITIL training thursday... busy me. I really enjoy all the self-paced study and taking, especially passing, the exams.

Watch out, anytime you share your userid and password you're potentially committing or facilitating a felony, in the US that is. If you subscribe to, for example, the New York Times website (a free login) and let someone else log in with your userid, you might end up in the slammer -- at least if you appear before Judge Buchwald.

That's what you get with lawmakers and judges who's password is their wife's or cat's name. They just don't understand security, and i'm not claiming i do. But at least i know enough to know i don't know enough.

Read the column by Mark Rasch at SecurityFocus.

Recently one of our friends, who is an American living in The Netherlands, got a letter form the IND (immigration services) that he has to leave. Basicly it went something like this.... you've been here for about 8 years, first you had a job. Then you founded a company and made a lot of money, paid a lot of taxes. Thank you for that. You requested a permit based on that company more then two years ago. It took as a while to process your application and during that time you recently started working on a job again. So, you're not aloud to stay based on the business you own (it's not active enough) and you haven't filed an application for a stay based on employmend. So, you have four weeks to leave. He got that letter on the same day he recieved, yet another, tax bill for his company. So he's welcome to pay, then leave.

But, one of our wise leaders: Dutch Economic Affairs Minister Laurens Jan Brinkhorst also noticed that Holland is 'too restrictive on skilled expat migration'.

It turns out there are 'many complaints about the Dutch attitude towards expats and skilled labour migration.'

Read the article at Expatica.

Almost everybody has had that dream of going to school or work with no cloths on. I hope nobody ever really DID wake up halfway through work just to realise why you but had been so cold all day. Well, i had a lighter variation happen today. I was walking to my work when i tram passed me by. Normally i walk to work but i figured i'd take the tram so i started to run to catch it. While i was running i looked down and saw that i was wearing my brown/yellow shoes that really don't work well with my darkbrown pants and my socks where inside out, both. I decided to go home and put on my jeans. Yes, i know, i'm vain :)

Finally some of the yearly American TV highlights are broadcasted live in The Netherlands as well. I'm talking about the Super Bowl and Oscar Awards kind of shows. Great! Or so i thought.... because of the time difference (we are far ahead of you guys) it's hard to stay awake sometimes. Yesterday i gave it another try but i fell asleep just before the Red Carpet show started. During the Super bowl we where both sleeping and missed the nipple incident, it would be great to stay in the States for at least a full year so we can see it all!