We Crossed Oceans To Find Each Other

Tonight it has started to snow… again!! It’s getting old. Public transport continues to worry over the weather conditions, although they have started to adapt. Dutch Rail announced a few weeks ago that they will € 50 million to prepare the trains for rougher winters. That made me think….

At some point spring will kick in and inevitably it will get summer. I wonder if the public would get so accustomed to the ongoing weather conditions that they will forget how to act in spring and summer again. It would be hilarious if newspaper’s main artiles would be titled “summer conditions lead to stress and delays across the country”.

We’ll see how it works later on

To start with the first: last night it snowed again. We got about 2 inches again. Fortunately the sun is out today, so most of it is melting already. The snow is getting really old, though. This morning I had problems again getting the car started. This morning it was about 45F inside the house and that’s really cold.

After sweeping the sidewalk and cleaning the car we went out to get groceries. We also needed a few presents for the birthday party that we went to after getting the groceries and putting them away. My niece and my brother celebrated their birthday. So we got cake and coffee and we chatted some around. My parents had gone away for the week and they told us their latest and greatest news.

Back at home I found out that someone is interested in an old TV that I have for sale on Marktplaats. The people asked some questions. I called them and they are picking up the TV for a nice small amount. They’ll get a good piece of work for their money, though.

Work is going good. I might have managed to extend my stay at my current employer, which is good. I hope my latest ideas will go through. Now back to my regular scheduled beer. It’s well deserved

The days are progressing pretty good. Today was a very busy day at work. Tomorrow I definitely will have to slow down a little to save some energy for the Friday. Right now I am at the community center waiting for clients to show up. Someone did call that they would come for some help, so we’ll see how that goes.

Coming to the community center was a real trick. Going home will be something similar. I went on bike and the roads are really icey. Fortunately the community center is close by, so it doesn’t take me a whole big of a deal to get here.

At work I keep learning new tricks. Right now I am getting a lot of insight in so-called SWIFT messages. These are messages that are communicated in a standard format between financial institutions. I am trying to automate a few of these messages and to file them in a database application. I have also investigated a new project. If that project gets accepted my stay at my current employer will be extended a little longer. I would be happy with that.

Besides that… not a lot to tell

The English version of this article follows the Dutch version. Click on “Read more…” for the English version.

Vandaag moest ik weer naar mijn werk toe in Amsterdam. Ik werk in het centrum van Amsterdam en uit praktisch oogpunt reis ik dagelijks met het openbaar vervoer (buslijn 12 / trein Amsterdam). Vanochtend was de bus WEER een kwartier te laat. Ik ben van mening dat het vervoersbedrijf (Connexxion) deels verantwoordelijk is voor de vertraging. Zij hadden gisteren al bij de overheden kunnen melden dat er te weinig aan gladheidsbestrijding werd gedaan, zodat reizigers vandaag minder last hadden van vertragingen. Immers de overheid wenst dat iedereen met het openbaar gaat reizen. Diezelfde overheid is opdrachtgever voor het busvervoer. Diezelfde overheid is ook verantwoordelijk voor gladheidsbestrijding van doorgaande wegen. Dat komt dus mooi samen.

Een grotere verantwoording heeft de Gemeente Hoorn. Ik vind dat de gemeente WEER te laat is begonnen met gladheidsbestrijding. Een aantal plaatsen op doorgaande routes is nog steeds niet voldoende gestrooid. Dit is mij een doorn in het oog. In maart 2010 zijn er gemeenteraadsverkiezingen en ik vind het onderwerp openbaar vervoer dusdanig belangrijk dat ik de beoogde partij waarop ik denk te stemmen in deze entry betrek: D66 (D66HoornNH en CeesFranke op Twitter). Concrete vragen aan hun: wat vind D66 van de wijze waarop de gemeente Hoorn de gladheid bestrijdt op doorgaande routes? Op welke wijze zullen zij (ook) na de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen aandacht besteden aan openbaar vervoer en zorgen dat het openbaar vervoer optimaal in deze gemeente functioneert? Denkt D66 aan te kunnen haken bij andere gemeenten in West-Friesland om in deze streek het openbaar vervoer in het algemeen optimaal te laten functioneren?

Ik ben benieuwd naar reacties.

This morning we slept in a bit after going to bed pretty late. After getting up I decided to sweep the sidewalk in front of the house and make it snow free. To my delight I noticed that most of my neighbours in the street had done the same thing. I hope that I have played an example in that. The past few weeks I have tried to keep my part of the sidewalk clean and I seem to have been the only one. Now most people were into it, except my neighbour. I decided to help my neighbour out (she’s a single mom of 3) and asked her in a small note if she would help to keep the sidewalk clean from here, pointing out that everyone in our lane had done the same thing. Hopefully that message helped.

I also prepared my Dutch class for tomorrow. I am somewhat worried over public transport. I might leave early and get to the station by car, so that I can come out of work early again and still have time enough to get home and to the class. Tomorrow’s class will involve teaching the time in Dutch. I am also working towards what one sees in a living room and bedroom. I look forward to class, actually. Hopefully more people will show up than last week.

Tonight I’ll watch the Colts’ game in the AFC Championship game. Naturally I hope that the Colts will win this one. In the NFC I’ll be rooting for the Saints.

All in all it has been a productive day

I am still up and it just ran 2:00am. Our friend Diana is visiting us right now. I am looking for the movie Titanic. I thought we had that movie somewhere, but it’s nowhere to be found. Oh well.

On a different note: it’s snowing again… and not just a little either! We’re getting a load. I swept my side of the path a few hours ago, but it’s covered again. I guess we’ll have to get into it tomorrow again. I hope that it won’t snow too much, though. The news says that we had a lot of accidents happening again. Do people never learn??

Tomorrow we’ll have a sort of quiet day, I think. It’s not safe to go out by car, so that rules a few things out. If the snow decides to stop, I might take out the camera for a walk and shoot some pictures

Besides Valentine’s Day on Februay 14th, we’ll also celebrate Carnival’s Sunday in The Netherlands. In the city that we live in this means the traditional annual parade. To refresh your memory and to re-visit Carnival 2009, you’ll find pictures of last year’s Carnival here. We had Carnival with our friends, which was a load of fun.

The preparations for Carnival 2010 have started full force. Preparations usually include bands making typical Carnival music and songs. The theme of the song is usually based on the latest news. The idea of the song is that it’s easy to learn and easy to sing along with. This is why you’ll find a lot of repetition in these songs. Below I share a video from a Carnival song based on the theme recession. Bottom line of the song: Recession or not… it won’t stop us celebrating Carnival.

Enjoy!!

This article describes a new way of paying in Europe. It’s the way that you see in the pictures below: just hold your debit card or credit card in front of the device and you have paid. Plain and simple.

I have to say that paying in The Netherlands is very advanced as it is already. The public transport card that has been introduced recently already works like this. Even traditional payments here work fine. It’s a matter of sliding your debit card through the device, entering your PIN code and you’re done (after the device checks your bank account balance, of course).

Last year Dutch shops started to encourage paying very small amounts with debit cards. Why? Plain and simple: it saves in balancing cash registers and it works faster, rather than using cash or cheques. Our local grocery store even have special lines that is “debit card only”. They process more customers in less time. Result: cut down in personell cost. I love it!

I believe that I will also love this new system. I hope it’s more painfree than the public transport cards are, though, because that system is not error free yet. I very much welcome this new way of paying, though and I hope that this system will be implemented in no-time.

Since I have more than enough space for pictures, I thought it would be a good idea to re-post the wedding pictures for those that would like to re-live the moment. It truly was a wonderful wedding. Pictures are here.

Enjoy!

Today was a day of hell. I brought my car to the dealership for its annual inspection and maintenance. After a few hours the dealership called me that the repairs are more expensive than they thought; in fact the total bill would run up to $1,600. The bad thing about this, is that we bought this car last year. Sure the car is older and it is a second hand car, but I did not expect this to happen while buying a car from a dealership. I am very disappointed and made sure that the dealership felt this disappointment. I have decided to cut down the maintenance to the repairs that are necessary for the car to pass inspection. I leave the rest ‘as is’. After discussing this situation with Leann we might either wear out the car without giving it mainenance or we will exchange the car this year. I am thru with the dealership, though. If they pull my leg after so many years of being a loyal customer, the have broken my trust well enough. Financially this whole thing is crap. It makes it hard to stay on top of things.

The lady that I worked with in class on the Monday evening decided to give up the class. The strange thing about this, is that I actually reached out at the beginning of the season when the class was extremely busy. It annoys me that this lady decides to give up, now that things got more quiet without even consulting me. I made sure to bring over that message to her. I wonder if she will reply.

I also started taxes. For Leann I’ll get a tax return. For me it’s still unclear. My estimate tells me that I am getting a return but I feel there is something missing and there’s something wrong with that. I think I’ll go for a second opinion somewhere. Leann figuered out that we don’t have to file taxes for America, which is a relief for her.

Tonight I had my voluntary work. Noone showed up. With the mindframe I was in, I didn’t mind too much. I did expect the lady from last week to show up again, though. I wonder what happened. Tomorrow is back to work again.

All in all it was quite a day…...

Work is going well. I am making a lot of progress and things are moving forward rapidly. I am actually happy about this. My stay at my current employer might be extended a little bit from what I can see now. My class is progressing a little strange. For some reason people don’t show up as much anymore. I wonder what happened there. There’s some more issues going on, that I plan to address tomorrow on my day off.

So, tomorrow is my day off. Apart from addressing my class, I also have to take the car to the dealership for maintainance and the annual inspection. That’s going to cost a little bit, but it’s well worth it. We have had a pretty bad winter behind us, so maintainance might get the car in good shape. I hope to get a Honda Jazz as replacement for the day. The Honda Jazz is the car that I have my eyes on after the car that we have now. It’s not too big and too small, either.

I also have to file taxes, which I hope to get into tomorrow. This year will be a challenge, because I have more than one source of income. That means some extra work. I hope to get a nice refund. We could really use the money. Apart from that….? Who knows

I am mega pissed. It’s snowing again here and not just a little, either. Leann is still to return from Amsterdam. I plan to leave writing an entry about that to Leann, though. She has quite some stories, I believe.

I have been wanting to write a few words on the Metro Paper of last Thursday. It held some serious confusing articles. The first article that crossed my path was about weight problems of very young children. Research shows that parents are overly concerned these days, which leads to very young children being too skinny. Funny enough a different article elsewhere in the paper writes how school cafes invite youngsters to eat unealthy. Youngsters buy more candy and soda in the school cafes and claim that this is because it’s easy accessible for the youngsters. In other words the youngsters blame the school cafes. I wonder what happened with taking responsibility.

There’s also a letter from a reader about Government taking the lead in keeping the roads free of snow and ice or actually how the Government does not do this. Although the letter was a bit extreme, I do feel that the roads are unsafe at the moment and that the Government is responsible for this situation. It’s unfortunate that the Government has a contract for ‘best effort’. This makes it impossible to make a claim in court. Bad practise if you ask me. Is this what I pay taxes for? I wonder if this contract in itself is unlawful. I guess tomorrow I’ll be shoveling my own sidewalk again. Hopefully it won’t be too difficult.

So, tonight I received this e-mail in a response to my advertisement on Marktplaats. I am trying to sell a brand suitcase on there.

The e-mail held the question: “Does it hold 20 kilograms?” (this is about 44lbs). This question strikes me funny. It all depends what your transporting in it. I am sure that it could 20 kilograms of drugs, though

Anyways… I’ll go back to behaving again.

The days are progressing okay. Work is going very well. I am getting more and more experienced in Microsoft Access software. This will be a valuable experience for me. Yesterday I had my first ‘client’ at my voluntary job yesterday. Obviously people are finding their way to our office. It pleases very much.

The weather is still iffy. We still have snow on the ground. The real problem is that the Government does not clear all roads in the city. Unimportant streets are left aside and those streets are very icey right now. It’s dangerous. Public transport gives me problems on and off. They still are not doing their jobs spot on. Hopefully that will change soon.

I look forward to the weekend, although it promises to be a quiet weekend. I’ll keep you posted.