May 2004 Archives

Because I believe you get more of what you focus on. An update about the Good things happening in Iraq.

Last week all the remaining gear that Spirit of America donated to the Marines two weeks ago for 7 Iraqi owned and operated TV stations has arrived at Camp Blue Diamond – the Marines Division Headquarters in Ar Ramadi, Iraq. Read all about it on the Spirit of America Blog.

I also found a great project: Operation Iraqi Children. During and after Operation Iraqi Freedom, American soldiers were horrified at the squalor of Iraqi schools. Moved by the plight of these children, many American soldiers have taken it upon themselves to help. Working in small groups on their days off, soldiers gather supplies sent by family members and church groups and take them to villages, sometimes coming under fire as they work to reconstruct the schools and deliver learning tools to Iraqi kids. Read about the great things they've done already.

So remember. Even though horrible things happend and you see those pictures everywhere, good things are also happening. Give it time, Europe wasn't rebuild, stable and peacefull in may 1945 when the Germans surrendered nor was it one year later. It took time, faith and hard work.

Hey, I’ve got myself a new category today! DCS, or Dutch Customer Service. It’s about all the amazing things we experience as a customer in The Netherlands. It’s one of the reasons we want to get out of here.

Maybe we just go to the wrong places, the C1000 grocery stores aren’t known for their service, they’re just very cheap. There’s always a long waiting line, boxed piled everywhere, employees walk into you or look at Sweety just a bit too long. Al things we can life with. We don’t expect much, really.

Today’s experience was…. well it was… special DCS….

First there’s this alcoholic guy behind us in line talking too loud on his cell phone about somebody embarrassing him. He wasn’t aware that he was embarrassing himself. That was funny but no DCS.

What happened at the register was really an great example of DCS (Dutch Customer Service). The cashier was apparently in a hurry; she pushed our groceries and signaled us to hurry up putting it in our bag. Yes, for al those in America, we always have to put our groceries in our bag ourselves. Don’t expect any help with that no matter what. And somewhere between the rice and the meat she dropped our box of Brinta on the floor. We didn’t notice, we were hurrying to save our other groceries.

When all the groceries had been pushed our way I went to pay, using my debit card. I entered my PIN and saw the cashier pick up our Brinta from the floor saying something like “this fell”. Sweety got the Brinta but just as I pressed “Yes” to accept the charge I heard Sweety say: “But now the box is broken, can I get a new one?”. I looked up and saw Brinta flakes swirl down. Knowing DCS I knew… here we go again. Sure enough the cashier said “No”. There was a silence for two seconds and the cashier said to Sweety: “I wanted to give it to you and then you dropped it.”, instead of giving us service she started lying and tried to put the blame on us! For a split second I imagined Sweety pulling the khimar of the cashiers head and using it to strangle her while I was getting a new box of Brinta. But wise as we are we hide those thoughts and use our intellect to solve things :) So Sweety explained that it was very bad customer service if we wouldn’t get a new Brinta. It seemed to be for deaf man ears. So Sweety just went and got a new box and the cashier said something about not caring if she did.

I really think we don’t expect much… when the cashier brakes our products before we pay and tells us after we pay we do expect new ones. Duh…..

Now that’s DCS!

In The Netherlands we've been using an Electronic Voting System for some years now. And one thing always bothered me. I press a button and the display says my vote is registered. But then the display goes blank. And with it any real physical proof of my vote disappears in the machine. Though the law requires there should be ways to do a recount, no recount is really possible. The machine won't come up with a different result. So what if the machine malfunctions? And now the Irish Government tested the same system we use in The Netherlands to determine if they could use it for the upcoming European election. Guess what: The Commission on Electronic Voting have said that they are "unable to recommend the use of the proposed system at the local and European elections".

Read the full report here.
Some of the findings:

“Certain of the tests performed at the request of the Commission identified an error in the count software which could lead to incorrect distributions of surpluses; there is a possibility that further testing will uncover further software errors”
WTF, a voting computer that doesn't count right? Who programmed that software?

“experts retained by the Commission found it very easy to bypass electronic security measures and gain complete control of the “hardened” PC, overwrite the software, and thereby in theory to gain complete control over the count in a given constituency”
Before you know it some German script-kiddy is elected as the new Dutch prime-minister.

“the system does not have a voter-verifiable audit trail (VVAT)”
he! where did my vote go!

Today it was time to go the vet for a checkup. We always take the whole farm at once. So there we went with our two cats and two rabbits.

We have a really nice vet. We had a real problem rabbit once, that got sick all the time. The vet really took time for us, didn't charge us all the visits and even did some studying to better help our rabbit. I asked him if it was ok if i took pictures. He got a bit excited. "Sure! Here i'll wait with taking this needle out of your rabbit untill you take the photo. You can even see the fluid."
I don't know Pluis liked it but the picture is nice.

Adam Curry has a contest on his radio show. Adam is an ordained minister and will be marrying 10 prizewinners live on the air. In Las Vegas!!!

Please send Adam an e-mail (mailto:adam@radioveronica.nl) saying he should take Sweety and FreezeM so they can marry in Las Vegas. Be sure to point him in the direction of our Weblogs, otherwise he won't be able to find us.... you know Sweety and FreezeM are not our real names don't you?

I already send in the form on the Radio Veronica website, send an sms text message and we'll return the form in Veronica Magazine. We've done our part!

We want to marry in Las Vegas, we've talked about it a lot over the past year! We both agreed we don't want a typical Dutch wedding. Either on a beach in our shorts or in Las Vegas.

So help us out :)

With al the horrible news about American soldiers mistreating Iraqi prisoners I want to point out that good things are happening in Iraq too. I posted about WWII earlier this week and there are numerous stories about allied soldiers hurting and even killing German soldiers when they had already surrendered. That’s wrong, but nobody would say therefore that the allied should have pulled out of Europe or that defense ministers should have resigned. The same thing now with Iraq: yes, there should be an investigation and people should be punished. No, the US and it’s allies should not pull out of Iraq and Rumsfeld should not resign.

And now on to the Good things happening in Iraq.

Fridaynight we went to a cabaret/comedy show by Arie & Sylvester. Dutch cabaret is unique in the world. It's kinda like stand-up comedy, but different. Just one comedian (or a duo/trio) is on stage all night. There's often a story being told or a message somewhere. You have to see it to really understand the difference i think. And you'd have to learn Dutch :)

The show was in the completely renovated Diligentia Theater, originally build around 1650.

Before the show we had pizza at the Pizza Hut Noordeinde with D@n. That's right next to the Palace.

After the show we went for a couple of drinks at cafe Berger. When the doorman had to go fight at another bar I took his place at the door. Maybe I found myself a new career?

To wrap it up: we had a Fun Friday.

After commemorating the Second World War on 4 may, celebrating our freedom on 5 may, today we remember the murder of Pim Fortuyn in 2002. Two years later I still get tears in my eyes. I get angry, sad and pessimistic about the future of The Netherlands. Not only because our sense of democracy and freedom of speech are altered, also because the press is still misrepresenting the facts about Pim Fortuyn, his ideas and what happened the weeks before he got murdered. If there’s one thing I could go back to change I would prevent Volkert van der Graaf killing Pim Fortuyn. It would have been great en super Dutch to have an openly gay prime-minister shaking the political grounds and shaking hands with, let’s say Bush.

Today i earned a new logo. I passed the exam this morning and will get my Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management. So as of today i'm CompTIA A+ certified, i'm a Microsoft Certified Professional and i'm ITIL certified. Isn't it about time for a raise? Ah well, it's all worth it because it increases my chances to get a job in the USA.

By the way, i really think the ITIL Foundation logo sucks. It's ugly and doesn't give you a clue of what it is about. What do you think?

May 4 is a special day in The Netherlands. Sweety and I took some time today to join our nation in commemorating the Second World War (more here and here).

When we went to Limburg this weekend we visited the American Cemetery and Memorial. Here rest 8,301 American soldiers, most of whom lost their lives nearby in The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. As you can read in Sweety's post, it touched us. We're thankfull for al those people that where willing to risk their lives for the freedom of total strangers.

Total strangers to them. But my grandparents and parents.

I just can't help comparing the liberation of Europe with the ongoing war in Iraq. I really hope that one day the Iraqi people will be celebrating their freedom, just as we are in The Netherlands on may 5th. We drove into Germany this weekend and saw that they too are celebrating the end of WWII as a liberation. So i believe it's possible.

Sweety and i had a great time in South Limburg. We stayed in a fine hotel, did some shopping and enjoyed the nature and weather. I also had a great time playing with my new phone, for a phone it makes great pictures.
Like this one. It shows a typically Dutch phenomenon; the Caravan. This is more like a bedroom on wheels than like the huge motorhomes you see in the States.

In The Netherlans you need a special driver licence to drive a big motorhome. And a caravan is much cheaper. That´s why they are so popular i guess.

The Dutch are famous for invading Europe with their caravans during spring and summer. And now, with Adre Kuipers we are also invading Space....