The Clog Files

Retirement notice: The Clog Files

2007-09-14T08:44:00.000-04:00

The Clog files will be retired... Yes, since singlehood is in the past, some of the tools of that part of my life will be depreciated as well. I won't be deleting this blog, but any future updates will be posted on our family blog: http://www.foreverdejong.blogspot.com.

Hope to see you all there...

DC

A married man now... changes are coming ;-)

2007-08-13T10:35:00.000-04:00

Since July 29, 2007 I'm a married man. In Jen I found my soulmate and friend for life. This will have also have an effect on the virtual life...

The Clog Files will start to see less and less action until the new site 'Forever de Jong' is fully up-and-running. At that time also the 'Dutchcanuck.com' site will be depreciated in favor of the new (family) blog.

Announcements around the new websites will be made well in advance so you have time to update your bookmarks.

Bad Whirlpool Customer Service

2007-07-20T13:25:00.001-04:00

Today I experienced one of the rare days that I'm ticked-off. All who know me know that days like that don't come along very often. What happened?

I just got of the phone with Whirlpool Support. I bought a microwave in late February this year (about 5 months ago) and it started failing this week. After entering the cook time and hitting 'Start' it just 'clicks' and kicks-off the timer, but doesn't start to cook.

So, as a dilligent consumer I arranged for a service call on Monday July 23 as the Whirlpool service website indicated as available. I got a call today from their 3rd party service provider 'Total Appliance' that they can't come out until July 26.

Since I'm going to pickup the Dutch Contingent (first 6 of them) for our wedding on Sunday July 29 we have a bit of a need for a working Microwave.

So I called Whirlpool support to make alternate arrangements. Well, apparently no alternate arrangements were possible. The Whirlpool representative only re-iterated that they only do repairs and nobody could indeed come out until at least July 26. And this could be a diagnosis-only visit since if they'd have to order parts I'll be out of a working Microwave even longer.

Mentioning that I have 10 people at the house for a week and an open-house on Sat July 28 with about 50 people for my WEDDING didn't make a difference. The Whirlpool representative was unwilling / unable to help me.

Since we do delivery for Whirlpool I'm in a unique position to spread the word fast about this very rigid, very un-cooperative stance of a respected company like Whirlpool.

I'm telling (through this post and verbally) my co-workers and friends that Whirlpool makes great products, but to hope nothing goes wrong with it, since the service is far below what you'd expect.

I'm off to Home Depot to buy a Sharp (the brand I had before for 10 years without any problems). Sorry Whirlpool, but I expected better from you.

Check the wedding blog for updates

2007-07-19T11:55:00.000-04:00

With the wedding being only days away, most updates are posted on the wedding blog. Check it out at: http://www.becomingdejong.blogspot.com

Thx.
N.

Home is where the heart is...

2007-06-25T20:59:00.000-04:00

In February 2007 I bought a house that is to become the 'De Jong residence'. Slowly, but surely its is becoming more and more like 'home'. First my things got moved in from Cleveland, then Jen's things got moved in from Grand Rapids and even though all the boxes weren't even unpacked more and more 'stuff' was being moved in.

So now we have a lot of stuff in a house. That doesn't make it a home. What makes it a home is the feelings you're having when you're in it and with whom you'll be in it.

Well, you all know what the 'with whom' part of my story is, but the feeling you're having is a little more difficult. One of the things we're both bringing in is a a sense of starting over.

For Jen it is finally giving the word 'family' and 'marriage' a new and meaningfull feeling, for me it is an end to the process of moving from my parents place, through my first 'house' in Belgium' and my apartment in Cleveland to having my own 'home'.

The first 'house' (which I did own, but didn't really make it home) was more of a learning experience, the first time from underneath the protection of the parents. The apartment was rented, so never really was 'home'. And then I met Jen...

I was finally ready to settle down again and buy my own house again. It is amazing how a girl can be the catalyst for some things every man (at least most of us) have inside, but are kind of keeping under wraps.

At our Michigan shower Beth, one of our friends wrote down a quote for us that really hit 'home':" The most precious possession that ever comes to a man in this world is a woman's heart." It is by Joshua Holland and couldn't be more true and I'm so glad Jen came around for me and that I now have a 'home' to start a family in.

To sum it up, just look at the picture. Jen was taking it and bought the flag, I put it up and -while having some reservations putting up a Dutch flag in a rural Mid-western US town - after it was up it made it more like home since I was now putting a bit of my old 'home' into my new 'home' inspired by my STB wife Jen.

So, I guess it is true 'Home is where the heart is...'

Where did we go wrong?

2007-06-15T23:37:00.000-04:00

Jason, one of the two MC's at our wedding commented on the Kellogs announcement below. I found his rebutal very powerful and would like to share it with all of you. The annoucement is in Italic, Jason's reponse is in a regular font.

WASHINGTON - Kellogg Co., the world's largest cereal maker, has agreed to raise the nutritional value of cereals and snacks it markets to children.

The Battle Creek, Mich., company avoided a lawsuit threatened by parents and nutrition advocacy groups worried about increasing child obesity. Kellogg intends to formally announce its decision Thursday.

The company said it won't promote foods in TV, radio, print or Web site ads that reach audiences at least half of whom are under age 12 unless a single serving of the product meets these standards:

_No more than 200 calories.

_No trans fat and no more than 2 grams of saturated fat.

_No more than 230 milligrams of sodium, except for Eggo frozen waffles.

_No more than 12 grams of sugar, not counting sugar from fruit, dairy and vegetables.

Kellogg said it would reformulate products to meet these criteria or stop marketing them to children under 12 by the end of 2008.

"By committing to these nutrition standards and marketing reforms, Kellogg has vaulted over the rest of the food industry," said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "This commitment means that parents will find it a little easier to steer their children toward healthy food choices — especially if other food manufacturers and broadcasters follow Kellogg's lead."

Jacobson's nutrition advocacy group, along with two Massachusetts parents and the Boston-based Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood, had served notice in January 2006 of intent to sue Kellogg and the Nickelodeon cable TV network under a Massachusetts law to stop them from marketing junk food to kids.

Center spokesman Jeff Cronin said Kellogg contacted the plaintiffs shortly thereafter and began negotiating the new standards, so the lawsuit was not filed and will not be filed.

Did you read the bold sections? "A lawsuit by parents about THEIR kids obesity"!!! And "parents will find it A LITTLE EASIER to STEER kids toward healthy food"!!! Good night!

So…my question is this: WHEN DID PARENTS START LETTING KIDS DICTATE WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO EAT? Since when do kids have a choice in what they get for dinner? Or breakfast? Are kids running the parents? Shoot…as kids, if we wanted something specific, we were lucky to get it. We weren't spoiled like today's kids! And if parents are worried about obesity, then they need to get their kids away from the tv, computer, playstation, xbox, gameboy, etc. and outside where kids belong. Kids are made to grow and that means they need exercise. Not just moving there lil fingers to mash buttons all day.

Look. If anyone reading this knows me, I'm one of the biggest fans of eating. But I also like to eat healthy. It's a choice people. You have to watch what you eat and how much you eat. That's common sense. I'm not against food companies making their foods healthier. I'm ALL for that! But to sue companies because your kids are getting fat from eating foods that YOU gave them probably because they saw it on a tv commercial in front of YOUR tv…come on!

Parents, it's time that WE (not the food manufactures) start watching what our kids eat. And what they watch. And what they do with their free time. We cannot place blame on the food companies when it's our responsibility! Geeze man. What are we doing to this country?! Obesity in kids? When we were kids, we were yelled at all the time for being skinny! The "fat" kid was the oddball. Times have changed my foot. WE'RE LAZY!!! It's time we start spending time with our kids instead of sitting them in front of the tube and keeping them occupied and brainwashed. Come on, dvd players in cars? What happened to actually, OH MY GOSH, talking to our kids! Or even just singing songs? So they get a little anxious. This is NOT A-D-D people! THEY ARE KIDS! Little balls of growing energy. Maybe we need to plan the trip to take (wow) breaks so you can get out and play with them along the way, instead of thinking that they can sit still for hours on end. You were a kid once, remember? Or is that the point? Have we forgotten how to enjoy life? What is most important to you? Our kids are growing up around us. Are we too busy to notice? Or take a part in it?

Perhaps instead of blaming companies or even the kids, we need to look at OUR food choices. Kids can only eat what is in the house. Take charge and act like responsible adults and parents. You want to know where obesity from eating the wrong foods comes from…look in the mirror. No one forces you to eat what you don't want to (not in this country anyway). So stop blaming anyone but yourself and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

(oh…and the answer to that is NOT to sue anyone by the way. I think the judge would throw you out of court if you tried to sue yourself!)
(and if this offends anyone...sorry...but this is downright ridiculous and it just shows where our country is going unless we take action)

Thanks to Jason for sharing this powerful piece!

Happy Birthday, Mom

2007-05-07T13:24:00.000-04:00

Today, 59 years ago, a wonderful event happened: my mother was born in the town of Hilversum in the Netherlands!

Happy birthday, mom!

Jen and Niels

Prayer answered: 'Our' MI condo is rented !!

2007-05-07T13:22:00.000-04:00

Well, finally some good news to report on the MI condo. We got renters!! Yes!!

Through Jen's Small Group we found a young couple that is in need of proper housing. They are about to get married and have a baby on the way. They are both in school and don't have a lot of disposable income. Jen and I were talking on our way up to MI on what to do about 'tithing' in our current situation and one of the things we talked about was doing some 'subsidized' renting of the condo.

In a true answer to prayer - while at KCC - the mother of the bride approached us and asked if the house was sold yet. With a sigh Jen answered 'No' and the mother asked if we were open to renting it. How awesome is that... but wait... at the same time, the neighbors daughter Beth just told us that all the 'staging' furniture they put in the house got sold in the garage sale, so the condo was empty and ready to be moved-in... Thank you, God! Perfect timing, as always... ;-)

During the drive home the mother and bride went over (the neighbors have been graciously acting as the 'landlord') for a 'showing' and they liked it. Yes!!

So, as of May 25 we have it rented. It is below market-value, but since we are now helping the young couple to get a good head start and are supporting our friends Gabe and Emily in their quest to become full-time State-side missionaries at Campus Crusade we have now reached our goal of tithing (giving away 10 or more % of our 'income' to God's causes) for this year AND have the condo rented!!

We serve an awesome God!

Another weekend, another trip

2007-05-07T13:12:00.000-04:00

We just got back from another weekend trip. We're making a lot of those. This time we went (back) to Jen's former stomping grounds of Grand Rapids, MI.

The 'official' cause was a baby-shower for one of Jen's good friend Melissa, but other reasons were to visit my friends Deb and Jon in Holland, MI. Plus, this time of year (early May) is prime tourist season for Holland, MI as it is time for the annual Tulip Time festival.

So we enjoyed a leisurely drive up on Friday after work. Jen drove to Beachwood, parked her car and the three of us (Jen, Bailey and me) were off to GR. Very uneventful drive (finally, no snowstorms or other freak weather patterns for a change!) we got in at 10.30pm - actually right on-time...

We dropped Bailey off at the (former) neighbors, said hello to them and did a quick inspection of 'our' MI house. Besides a completely deflated blow-up bed everything looked fine. We blew it back up and headed for Hotel Van de Vegte where we had 'reserved' our 'usual' rooms and made sure we had a guaranteed late-arrival. It took us all but 5 mins to fall asleep.

On Saturday we had plans to be in Holland, MI at about 10am so an early rise was needed. I, however, procrastinated a bit in the shower and after a stop at the Post Office we got into Holland at around 10.20am. Not bad...

Deb and Jon were in the garden and after the 'hello's' we set out to the arts and craft fair and took some pictures in front of the tulips. How 'Dutch'! We ate some delicious 'Elephant ears' and on the way back to Deb and Jon's house we actually met some 'real Dutch' singers. Guess we are in Holland ;-) So it was not surprising that there where some clog-dancers, almost a 1000! Funny to see Americans do the 'Dutch-inspired' customs and dances...

Since we had to be back in GR at 2pm we set out on a quest for some Dutch food and headed for the Marktplaats (Market Square). However, arrived there we found that there was still a Latin-festival and the Dutch food wouldn't be there until next Tuesday... bummer, again no Oliebollen!!!

Back in GR - only 20mins late - Jen went to the Baby shower. I went outside to help Rich build a deck... much more fun then figuring out how many diapers a baby goes through in a year!! - for those of you who thought 1000, well that times 7 !! -

For the evening we went to KCC and a after a quick stop at our friend Erin (who bought us 'Trivial Pursuit - booklovers edition') we picked-up 'Night at the Museum' and some snack-food at Meijers and wound down in front of the TV.

Sunday was nice and relaxing... Slept in late, sat outside in the sun, had some lunch (remember... Slept in late... ;-), did some planning for the MI wedding shower, did some exercises (Jen) and some babysitting and web-surfing (Niels) and left for Ohio again around 5.30pm.

Again an uneventful drive, well, not quite... More about that in the next post!

The Month of April

2007-04-23T21:51:00.000-04:00

Okay... we're breathing again... Wow, this was a month that has been CRAZY busy. It's the 23th now and this is the first time I'm actually able to sit down and write a blog-update. So what all happened:
1) Moved my apartment over to the Arlington house
2) Moved Jen's house over to the Arlington house
3) Hosted friends on 2 weekends
4) Unpacked many a box
5) Got a lawn-mower
6) Changed many a light bulbs
Oh yeah, and I actually worked a couple days as well ;-)

My move went relatively smooth, with a much appreciated visit of my best man and his wife, Joel and Carolyn. Love you guys!! No major issues, quick in-and-out, pretty much according to plan. Jen's move, well... that was another story. It was one of those weekends you just don't wanna have.

Jen went up to Michigan on the Monday before the move for some appointments and to pack. She also had a speaking gig on the Friday before the move. On that same Friday I got up at 5.30am to goto work and left work around 4pm. I went over to Crocker Park in Westlake to meet-up with my moving crew for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Everything was still nice and smooth...

We left around 6.30pm heading for a 10.30pm ETA in Grand Rapids. I called Jen to let her know we were on our way and she told me she had just one of days where nothing kinda went the way she wanted. Time was her enemy and the hand-outs of the speaking gig were the first victim. The next victim was herself, since due to rising stress-levels she couldn't find the location the first time around, so she actually was over an hour late... and hadn't eaten yet... Anyway, that all turned out well in the end and it was a VERY satisfying gig for her.

On the way back from the speaking gig, she called us for directions since the signs for Grand Rapids weren't around as plentiful as desired. I kinda told her where to go since we were still driving ourselves. We actually arrived earlier around 11pm and called her to guide her in. Around 11.45pm she was finally in and I was out... ;-)

Yeah, right... still had to drive Jason and myself to the boys' hotel (the vV's, thanks for letting us use your house...) since the girls (Rachel, Natalie and Jen) were staying at Jen's house. We finally hit the sack around 2am. The end of a 21hr day. And that was only day 1...

Day 2 ment we got up at 8.30am to head over to Krispy Kream and Starbucks for breakfast (drive-through for all of us) before we were allowed back into Jen's house. We dropped-off the food and headed over to Penske for the truck. Around 10.30am we parked the truck in front of the garage (and blocked the rest of the road...) and the planning was to be done around 2pm since Jen had neatly packed everything up in boxes and only the big-ticket items remained.

Well, as you might have guessed it, it didn't really work out like that. She had a few more things than originally planned, so half-way through we had to re-pack the truck before the other half fitted. A few other things took longer than expected, like removing the feet from the couches which was a royal... Thank you Gabe for helping with that.

So, 4.30pm came around and we were able to leave the house for the first leg of the drive to Ohio, Panera's which is only about 5 min away, for some much needed food. We finally left Grand Rapids around 6pm and we actually had a nice drive (short of the tears by Jen and the incredible noise of the truck). Rachel and Natalie drove my car, Jason and Bailey drove Jen's car. No issues so far... until we hit the Ohio Turnpike.

Mid April, nice and warm in Michigan and around 9pm in Ohio we end-up in a major... SNOW-STORM!!! Hello, Mid April... We had to slow down to 35mph on a day that already was running far longer as intended. Nice! By the time we found a decent place to stop (read: service plaza) the snow was tapering off, but it was already after 10pm and we were still on the Turnpike... yaiks.

Finally, a little after midnight we parked the truck in our drive-way, with room to spare... love that!! We all packed into my car to first drop-off Rachel and Natalie before heading over to Jason and Tony's house for some much anticipated hot-tub time. So we soaked from 2 to 3am and stayed over (read: out-of-juice!!!)

Next morning at 8.30am (and another 5-hour night) we went back to the house to unpack the truck. Thank God for friends, since otherwise we would have never had it empty by 1pm, but with the help of the Tinnins, Jason, Corey and Fantasia we actually did it. In time even to make it to Church. Well, sorta, since Jen crashed after 11am. She was on 'reserve' for a day-and-a-half, so I was very pleasantly surprised she lasted that long.

I was kinda running on fumes myself and finally around 2.30pm I hit empty and fell asleep on the coach in the basement of the Prices. I woke up at 5pm, still groggy, but at least a bit better. I headed back to the house and didn't do anything more than just watch a movie with Jen before we were finally able to get some actual sleep.

I was actually able to get to work on Monday, but Jen's crash took a few more days, but after Wednesday she also kinda regained consciousness... ;-)

Needless to say we didn't do much the next couple of days and this past weekend we actually were able to do some fun things with our guests Gabe and Emily. We visited the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Highly recommended as a 'thing-to-do' during the wedding visits... ;-)

Yesterday, we actually had our first day of Summer, with 75F / 25C weather and a nice sunshine that allowed us to use the grill... It was about time. We really enjoyed it all and instantly forgot the snow of last week, yes only last week.

Anyway, gotta run... time for bed. G'night all!!

Pictures of the move and Catan

2007-04-02T22:52:00.000-04:00

For the pictures belonging to the last two posts: The House With Niels' Things

First Church service in the new house

2007-04-02T22:46:00.000-04:00

On Sunday April 1, 2007 (no joke) we hosted the house church for the first time in our new house. For the regular readers of this blog, yes 1 day after we moved my things in.

The drive-way, not the smallest, was a bit crowded as was the overflow... but everybody was able to park.

We had a great lent-service hosted by Tony (thanks for the last minute change!!) and we had my friends Joel and Carolyn vistiting as well as Natalie, one of the girls from Wide Eyed Life.

Before and after the service we all went out on the deck as the weather was gorgeous. The Lord was shining upon us... ;-)

Anyway after everybody left Jen and I played some Catan, the original German version, and guess what... I won !!

So you see, a lot can happen in week. Unfortunately I had to take Monday off since it kinda hit my a little bit harder than I thought. I even missed a turn-opver test-session for work (thank you Jeff for covering and caring).

House update

2007-04-02T21:58:00.000-04:00

The past week - directly after the Europe trip - we started working on the house since most of my things were to be moved on Saturday Mar 31, 2007. So we did some painting. Ahum, some...

Some means the whole first floor (short of the back living room) which includes the front living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the hall way and the laundry room. Oh and don't forget the master bedroom and the guest bedroom on the 2nd floor as well... (for the Dutch readers: begane grond en de 1e verdieping... ;-))

Fortunately all painting was ready on Friday night, short of a 2nd coat for the laundry room and afterwards a bit of cleaning. Well, Jen kinda got an old-fashioned 2nd wind and wasnt' done until 5.30am on Saturday... the day of the move !!!

My friends Joel and Carolyn came over on Friday night to see the house and help out with the move. With Jen pretty much out for Saturday we all got up around 9am for some breakfast and to get the truck since around 10am the rest of the movers were to show up.

Come 11am we got everybody lined-up. Jen and Tina were staying at the house, the rest (Trevor, Tyler, Tony, Jared, Doug, Natalie, Joel, Carolyn and me) were to be the movers and either were already in Cleveland or drove up following a big yellow Penske truck (he, what else would you expect...)

We didn't reserve any elevator time, but with the big group we had the apartment empty in about 90 minutes and loaded in the truck. After a small after-party involving some hilarious beer-scenes in the apartment kitchen we closed-up and left for North Canton.

The unloading went as quick as the loading, with the exception of the office desk which - in its assembled state - couldn't make the turns on the landing and had to be dissasembled on the spot. Since that was the only thing you can imagine that the unloading didn't take all that long either.

Mission accomplished.

Our Europe Trip - Part VIII - The Voyage Home

2007-03-26T13:44:00.000-04:00

The last days of a vacation... Always the ones you don't really want to experience. You start to feel the drag of the every day life again and the first days of the vacation are still too fresh to let go just yet.

However, those days always come and we actually used them well. On Friday we didn't do a whole lot. We started making some adjustments to the many, many pictures we took. Started the initial keep vs. discard procedure and still ended up with about 1000 pictures. That happens in photograpy families. Just part of the deal.

We did drive up to Zeist to meet one of my groomsmen, Pascal, his wife Climmy and their son Ramon. We talked about the upcoming weeks and looked at their wedding pictures. I was even in a few of the shots... ;-) We went out for dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. Very good food, but I do have a whole new appreciation for non-smoking laws in restaurants and public places. Especially since it affects Jen like a bad hay-fever day.

We talked a bit more after dinner and had a nice drive back home where my parents were still up so we talked a bit more before we decided to call it a day.

On Saturday we went to the market in Helmond. Always a great experience to visit a local market wherever you travel. This time we just shopped for dinner, but I did buy Jen a beautiful bouquet of flowers filled with daisies, calla-lillies and roses. I love being able to buy those kind of things without taking a serious bite out of your budget. Flowers are so much cheaper in Holland, it's almost criminal... ;-)

Saturday night we had an engagement-party for my part of the family. Since most of them won't make it to the wedding in the States it was a great way for the family to congratulate us and to meet Jen (and vise-versa of course).

So the party was the final link in an impressive 10-day vacation which will be remembered forever. What a great time we had, and thanks to the blogs, we'll have a record of it as well. Sometimes IT actually is a good thing. The last couple posts are the proof...

Thanks for all the comments on the previous posts. We loved reading them!!

P.S.: Feel free to comment some more... I promise we keep loving to read them...

Our Europe Trip - Part VII

2007-03-23T04:31:00.000-04:00

Another day, another post. The last few days have been a bit more relaxed. Here's a recap of them:

Wed 21-Mar-2007: We did the tour of me. We went to some of the places where I grew-up in and around Helmond. The hospital where I was born, the places where I lived, the places where I went to school, but also the places where mom and dad got married (he, that's part of my history as well ;-) ).

We also trekked-up to Son and Breugel where I lived for 5 years and a city that has an IKEA-store. Since Jen is an IKEA-newbie (never been to an IKEA before...) I had to show her one. Back in the States the closest one is in Pittsburgh, PA so this was a nice opportunity. We loved the storage-solutions they have and we will incorporate a few of them into our new house. Well, it should be my house until the wedding, but everybody knows that such a distinction is a technical one only... ;-)

We had to be home by 7pm since my parents had arranged a wonderful dinner at a Chinese and Japanese restaurant. Having been to China Jen actually found a few inconsistencies with the decor (e.g. the lions weren't positioned correctly), but besides that the food was AMAZING and the ice-cream was a sight to behold since it was served steaming... I think they used frozen nitrogen or some icy substance that steams. Whoever knows it, please let me know the science behind it and I'll adapt the story.

Thu 22-Mar-2007: Today we decided to do some touristy things. Plan was to go see some windmills, the 'Keukenhof' and the beach. We were able to do all three by checking out the windmill inside the 'Keukenhof'.

From Wikipedia: The Keukenhof, also known as the Garden of Europe, is the world's largest flower garden. Keukenhof is open from the last week of March to mid-May. The flower garden was the idea in 1949 by the then-mayor of Lisse, a small town south of Amsterdam. The idea was to have a flower exhibit where growers from all over the Netherlands and Europe could show off their hybrids. Keukenhof has been the world's largest flower garden that runs throughout spring for over fifty years.

We took a stroll through the park and took many a picture of beautiful flowers and just as important some cute pictures of Jen and I. We laid behind flowers, put her ring inside some flowers (amazing pictures!) and we took some funny shots in the playground. Hey, we still know where to find the kid inside when we see a cool playground... ;-) Looking forward to seeing those pictures since dad has most of them on his camera.

We had made plans to go out to dinner with my sister Ingrid and her boyfriend Bart at 7pm close to Helmond so we left the Keukenhof at 4pm and quickly checked-out the beach before we headed south again. Well, it wasn't enough. The 160 somewhat kilometers (about 100 miles) took us about 3,5 hours thanks to the Dutch traffic jams.

We did finally make it and had some amazing pancakes the size of a large Domino pizza. With all the toppings you'd think of and then some... Very good. Thanks Ingrid and Bart, it was delicious.

For Friday we have nothing planned except dinner with one of my groomsmen, Pascal Bloemers. So a nice and relaxing day we hope to use to get a CD together of all the pictures so far and maybe we can even upload a few of them ;-)

De groeten uit Nederland!

Our Europe Trip - Engagement pictures!!

2007-03-23T03:18:00.000-04:00

Here are a few of the pictures from our Paris engagement! According to Jen I'm such a romantic... ;-)

Our Europe Trip - Part VI (the MAIN event)

2007-03-19T20:04:00.001-04:00

It’s official! We’re engaged!!!

Today was a day I've waited for all my life, but with special anticipation over the last few months. I asked Jen to marry me and she said YES! :-D

I can’t say that my secret was kept particularly well. Especially since we have already confirmed the following:
• The date (July 29, 2007)
• The time (1:30pm--thanks, mom)
• The place (Lakeside Banquet Center in Navarre, OH—thanks, Colemans)
• Jen tells me there is dress that is white and pretty. I believe her.
• Bridesmaids and Groomsmen and Ushers…oh my!
• The photographer (No, not my dad)
• The guest hotels
• The wedding night hotel (No, not for public disclosure)
• The honeymoon (in Curacao)
• I have a ring (actually, Jen has it)
• And as of this evening, Jen has an engagement ring on her finger!

For those who would appreciate a non-bullet description, this is for you:

We woke up this morning filled with anticipation of this day. Jen knew I was planning to propose, but she didn’t know the details. I enjoyed keeping a least a little bit to myself as she is thoroughly enjoying taunting me by showing everyone around me her “white and pretty” dress.

She was a bit hard to rouse, as she often is after a big day, but I knew she’d get up for this day. We quickly got ready and loaded the car for our five hour trip to Paris. The trip was fairly uneventful, short of a little freak hail and we were grateful to be on the other end of a major accident that closed two of the three lanes in the other direction.

I had planned for my Dad to drive so that I could work on my speech—I am proposing to a writer, after all. But Dad had a headache, so I took the wheel. We arrived in Paris around 5 and Dad and I went to check in while Mom and Jen stayed in the car. I got a slight scare when the front desk said I only had one room at the great rate we found on Priceline. Dad fetched the confirmation from the car and we quickly had both rooms, at an even better price! Kinda nice chance of pace with all the money we’ve had to spend on wedding and house stuff lately.

We got settled into our rooms and I told Jen she could finally put on her dressy clothes. While Jen was getting even more beautiful, my mom was causing a ruckus. Dad and I joked that we would have to tell Jen not to get into the mini-bar because the hotel has an auto bill system where if you pick anything up, you get charged. (Jen likes to touch things). Apparently we should have been more concerned about Mom because she lifted up the entire mini bar, looking for the prices on each item. The hotel must be used to these kinds of things because they were kind enough to take off the 80 Euros worth of charges Mom racked up in less than two minutes.

Our bill back to normal, we headed out toward the Eiffel Tower. Paris in spring time is a bit overrated since it was cold, windy and rainy…with occasional hail. (American Mom, you still wanna go???) Fortunately Jen had a great attitude and just smiled and said she always wanted a picture of Paris in the rain. What a great girl!!

The original plan was to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower at sunset, but the before-mentioned less-than-great weather situation caused me to change my plans on the spot. The great thing about Paris is that it is Paris, so the next opportunity was just a few yards (sorry, meters) away in the form of a beautiful flower garden with – surprise, surprise - purple flowers. I decided that that would work just fine. Especially with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

I looked at her, she looked at me and I spoke some kind words (sorry, private for now) and got down on my knee (more about that on some future post) and got out the ring. Oh, yeah… I know Jen is the one with the head-injury, but I almost forgot the ring in the States and again this morning. Thanks to Jen and dad for remembering. Sometimes I can be such a nutty professor!

I think you know the next part… she said YES! Yay! I finally landed my dreamgirl.

When I first had the idea of going to Paris, Jen asked if my parents could be there. That turned out the be the best idea of the day since we now have both excellent video and picture coverage of our most important day so far.

Speaking of which… my mom has fallen asleep while we were typing this up. I think that’s my cue to head back to my room – where dad is probably cutting down a forest – and call it a day. And what a day it was!!

Lord, please continue to bless this union as we are preparing for the next big step. Only 131 days to go…

The Europe Trip - Part V (the uncensored version)

2007-03-19T19:17:00.001-04:00

So...if you read my post yesterday, you know that I had some serious business in Amsterdam. Our whole trip to Europe started as a joke when Jen found out that her dad, two sisters, and brother-in-law had a nine hour layover in Amsterdam on their way to Israel to meet up with her sister's inlaws. Jen said, "I don't think it's fair that my dad gets to see Holland before I do." Of course, that sent me to look up inexpensive fares to Holland for Jen and I. That led to my idea of meeting her dad, when after being away from her for three weeks, led to me to thinking I didn't ever want to be away from her, which led to me thinking that a trip to Holland to ask for her dad's blessing would be a pretty good idea.

So, as you may have figured out. He gave it. And he did it in a really cool way.

But first...it took awhile to find the family because they didn't leave the transit area, which is behind security, but we quickly fixed that and were able to make introductions. We made our way to the train ticket area and purchased tickets to downtown Amsterdam.

Once we made it to city center, we took a canal boat tour. Jen and her family really enjoyed the Dutch architecture and historical information spoken in English. (I enjoyed the Dutch, German and French versions, as well). Once the ride was complete, we walked around like tourists and did a little shopping. Of course, Jen was with us, so we made the obligatory stop at a bookstore where we found a Dutch children’s Bible and prayer book. My dad insisted on paying for them, which we thought was really cool because while I’ll use them to teach Jen Dutch now, it will also be our (God willing) child(ren)’s first Bible and prayer book from their Opa. I was able to spent some Euros however, by paying the toilet fees for Jen and her sisters when they didn’t realize you have to pay to use the restrooms!

During lunch we had a chance to record a digital version of our “how we met” story. Perhaps we’ll create a blog about that sometime. In the meantime, American readers can contact Jen’s dad, and European readers can contact my dad for the video. (Just checking to see if our dads are really reading this!)

After lunch, I ditched Jen so I could walk alone with her Dad. Like guys we kinda got down to business pretty quick. He had some idea where the conversation was heading so it made it a lot easier for me… ;-) He asked me what would be an appropriate gift, but that was obviously after he responded that he would gladly give Jen away… and yes, he meant it in the best possible way!! Several things came to mind, but I didn’t give the right answer so I had to wait.

With the serious business out of the way, we went back on tourist mode, heading to the Anne Frank house. Unfortunately, the long line put us in danger of not getting back to the airport in time, so we settled for walking to the Anne Frank house, where we took some pictures of the outside. All of us were humbled by the memories of what happened in that house.

Our day was slightly dampened by some unexpected rain and wind, but we were troopers and had a great time together anyway. It meant a lot to Jen that her dad and sisters (and Andy too) were able to meet me and that I was able to get her dad’s blessing face-to-face. Seeing how much it meant to Jen meant the most to me.

Time was running short so we took the train back to the airport. I had a rare directional alert when I thought I got us all on the wrong train, but alas, I was mistaken and we were on the right track. During the ride back, Jen’s family peppered me with questions from my favorite color to what do I like most about Jen (her sparkling eyes). Jen also entertained us all (and by all, I mean everyone on the train) by reading her Dutch prayer aloud with her own unique Dutch accent.

We decided to load up on a little caffeine before parting ways, so we found a private spot in one of the airport restaurants. Jen’s dad led the conversation by asking me if I remembered the question. I did, but wasn’t sure of his answer. So he pulled out a brown envelope with my name on it. The first thing he took out was a box of SweetHeart candies, little heart shaped confections with phrases on them. He told me that when Jen was young (not so long ago, of course), he would give those to her each Valentine’s day and she would paste the hearts on paper in order to make sentences. She must have played around with them a lot because she’s an amazing writer today. The next thing he gave me was completely unexpected, but really, really, cool, especially because Jen had recently shown me the journal her mom and dad kept while they were married. After her mom left, her dad continued to write in it, and his entries were directed toward God as he read his new daily Bible. The gift her dad gave me was that very worn, very used, very special Bible. Inside, he wrote a special message just for me. Jen’s sister Liz was bawling! Carisa’s well was flowing as well. I think Jen and I were both so shocked we didn’t know what to do. What an amazing, incredible gift. I can’t wait to fix it up a little (it needs some tape) and start the tradition myself.

We finished and took a few pictures before we left. One moment that will stay with me is seeing my mom hug Jen’s dad. That was when I understood how much the day meant to my parents. I know she was shedding tears of joy, but I know she had some sadness as well because I—sorry, we--live so far away.

We got Jen’s family back to the customs line and we headed off for some food before the drive back to Helmond where I started planning for our big day in Paris.

The Europe Trip - Part V

2007-03-18T19:01:00.000-04:00

The last post was about our relaxing day, today it was serious business. What business? Not going to tell you, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah... ;-) Maybe, just maybe, tomorrow's blog would shed some light on "the business".

Anyway, we went to Amsterdam and we did a canal-boat tour and nearly got blown into a canal by the fierce wind. Oh, I can tell Jen's mind is clearing up since she had the marvelous idea of somehow using the wind to create energy. Who knows, the world might actually "warm" up to that idea ;-) Maybe if they'd mill it around in their minds first... Any thoughts?

In Amsterdam we met up with some of our friends and we had a great time showing them around in their - little - time they had on a flight-layover. They even thought of bringing a gift for us. Very nice!!

We had some Dutch Chinese for dinner (very nice) and on the drive back (we had my parents with us) we kinda chatted about life and other things before we both tuckered-out.

Welterusten.

The Europe Trip - Part IV

2007-03-18T18:45:00.000-04:00

Another two days have past since the last blogpost. Two very different days to say the least. Saturday was a nice relaxing day of doing basically nothing. We slept in until about 1pm and then slowly got some breakfast and went to check-out a local grocery store. After buying some apple-flavored soda, licorice, ceasar dressing and a few other knick-knacks we wanted to walk to some more stores, but it started to rain so we opted for the car. Too long in the States already ;-)

We found a bookstore (... oy, those stores are going to do me in good some day...) and we found some interesting magazines. We also went to another grocery store and took some pictures of "interesting" items labeled as "American" (until we upload pix, see Jen's Blog).

In the evening we had a nice Dutch dinner; gourmet-style. Again, see Jen's blog...

More in part V.

The Europe Trip - Part III

2007-03-17T21:01:00.000-04:00

After arriving on Cologne airport (2nd country in 24 hours) we were planning to goto a beautiful German castle in the Moselle region, famous for its castles, wines and the river Moselle. However, the castle 'Burg Eltz' is only open from March 31 through October 31 so it was closed. The drive to it was very nice through lots of small towns, with small, small roads and we stopped at a beautiful vista overlooking the valley with the castle. So after a couple pictures (will be uploaded later) we went looking for a place to get some breakfast (it was only 9am...)

We found a very nice hotel with a restaurant that was open and set down overlooking the Moselle river. We had a very friendly German owner and a delicious breakfast. My Dad and me had a Schnitzel (Country fried steak) and Jen had something that was a mix between waffles and pancakes. Both were very, very good!! After driving through Cochem (a tourist town completely overrun by tourists in the summer) we decided to press on to Luxembourg (3rd country in 24 hours).

In Luxembourg we went to the capital city named... Luxembourg. We strolled around a bit through the city and did some window shopping and also bought some small souvenirs. Then Jen found a bookstore...

The bookstore only had French-language books and since Jen is looking for a couple of langauge versions of the book 'Goodnight Moon' she went looking for it. They didn't have it. However, they did have a book for little kids telling them about parents getting divorced and how to handle it. So buying that one was a no-brainer.

Then we decided to quickly pop into France to up the country-count for the day (4th country in 24 hours). We didn't do much in France this time (more to follow on Monday and Tuesday) other then to drive into it on the Interstate, turn around at the first intersection and drive back into Luxembourg on our way to another castle in Vianden, Luxembourg. We took some awesome shots and went to visit a big water reservoir on top of a hill. Some exercise on a first day in Europe is good to kinda fight-off jet-leg.
At the reservoir Dad took some funny pictures of us and those will also be uploaded a little later.

Time to move again and this time to Belgium (5th country in 24 hours). Here the plan was to visit a big American WW II cemetery and memorial site. We got there at 5.30pm and since the site was officially closed at 5pm the buildings were closed, but the grounds were still open. We had some good talks between us on how pointless was is most of the time, but how much of the current freedom in Europe is a direct result of that. Dad pointed out that the engraving "In memory of those who fought and died for their country" was actually incorrect. It should have read "In memory of those who fought and died for the European liberation". They weren't defending the USA, but liberating Europe. Countries most of them hardly every heard of. It made the sacrifice all the more meaningful... since the love of Christ for his Church was a sacrificial one...

It was time to add one final country to the list, the Netherlands (6th country in 24 hours). We stopped at a grocery store to buy some local candy and get some cash in order to pay a co-worker who had graciously bought a German version of Catan for us. So nice to have people who wish to do little things for you that mean a lot to you. Thank God we still have those people around in our increasingly self-centered society.

It was getting late and time to head to my parents place. I handed over the wheel to Dad - too tired - and don't remember much of the drive to my parents place. Just a blissful sleep. Very nice!

At Mom and Dad we had a very gracious welcome with a beautiful gift for Jen. My Dad had a hanger made which he designed of two Chinese symbols (we think it means good luck and prosperity). Dan, Sara, after the pictures are up just let us know what it means...

The final part of this long, long day was some home-made, ultra-fresh Dutch Apple Pie. With some tea and honey that was our cue to call it quits... Tomorrow will be a very relaxing day with nothing planned but a family dinner at night.

Good Night!!!

ps.: hanger = necklace (thanks Jeff, sorry to confuse!)

The Europe Trip - Part II

2007-03-16T18:01:00.000-04:00

Arrived safe. Did 6 countries in 1 day... Very tired. More news tomorrow!!

Well, it's tomorrow now, still very tired, but since I promised more news, here is some more news...

On Thursday we met with my co-worker Jeff for lunch in Beachwood before we left for the airport. Our flight would leave around 3pm so plenty of time. We got to the airport in time and without any delay we made it to our flight. One amazing thing did happen. The baggage allowance is 50lbs per bag and without a scale or even really thinking about it while packing our bags we had 48 and 49lbs for both are bags... Amazing!

The flight to Newark was pretty non-eventful, but after two holding patterns due to heavy traffic (and a prelude of the winter storm on Friday) we landed in plenty of time to make our connecting flight to Cologne, Germany.

Another rather uneventful flight, but since the window seat was empty we had the whole row to ourselves which greatly helped in finding a position to catch some sleep.

We arrived about 40mins early and my Dad was there to pick us up and we were ready for our European Adventure!!

The Europe Trip - Part I

2007-03-14T14:30:00.000-04:00

OK, tomorrow we're leaving for Europe. This will be a very important trip for several reasons:
- Our first trip to Europe together
- Jen meeting my parents and family
- I'm meeting Jens dad and sisters (+ significant others)
- ...
- Meeting with a Dutch Christian publisher
- Giving Jen the 'Niels: the early years' tour

Some of you might know what the '...' is, but for those who don't, check back on Wed Mar 21, 2007. It will explain a few things ;-)

Europe, here we come!!

The Moving Chronicles - Part III

2007-03-14T14:25:00.000-04:00

OK, we've made it another couple steps. We've moved most of the kitchen things in. With the addition of the microwave and fridge and now with pots, pans, plates and silverware we're having something that resembles a functioning kitchen. We've also moved all of my clothes, the printer and important paperwork over yesterday.

I've also have all my tools at the house and after buying a nice saw and big hammer we might be able to put the mailbox in after we get back from Europe.

We also have some plans to change some of the carpet, but since we haven't even looked at any potential carpets we want, we'll divert that to after the Europe trip as well.

The Moving Chronicles - Part II

2007-03-05T10:07:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we moved the Entertainment Center (or Centre pour nous amis Canadienes). That means all the cool stuff from the living room is now in the basement of the new house. The big screen TV and the whole audio-setup is now up-and-running at the house. Yesterday we watched our first movie there; 'March of the Penguins'.

We also bought one of those memory foam mattress toppers... Wow! Amazing stuff. Highly recommended. It makes sleeping a whole different experience.

Today they will be delivering the fridge and the microwave. That will (re-)complete the kitchen as the previous owners took those two appliances with them. Ah well, we got a nice side-by-side fridge and a good microwave.

Another step closer to a livable house...

The Moving Chronicles - Part I

2007-02-28T13:20:00.000-05:00

This will probably be the first of many posts on moving houses. It will have three distinct phases:
I. House preparation
II. Me moving into the house
III. Making it a 'home'

We are currently in Phase I from last week Fri through March 31. Phase II will be the weekend of March 31/April 1, Phase III will be from April 2 through eternity (at least for now...)

We got possesion of the house on Fri Feb 23. On Monday we moved a TV into the house in preparation of the Cable and Internet installation. That got hooked-up that day and was completed on Web Feb 28.

We also had a gasline put in for the Gas dryer and while the plummer was at the house had him check the water supply since we noticed some sulfer smells and not real hot water. Turned out the hot water supply was partially shutoff by the previous owner. Everything is up and running now.

Next week Wed Mar 7 the side-by-side (aka double-door) fridge and the microwave will arrive from our friends at Whirlpool to complete the kitchen.

Plenty more to come....

Two Moving Parties - Update

2007-02-23T13:45:00.000-05:00

With Jens condo NOT being rented as of next month, my new house is still officially mine (yeah!) we need to organize ONE moving party.

The moving party will be in Cleveland on Sat Mar 31 and will be Saturday only. We need to load my gear into another (Penske...) truck and move it to the house.

Let me know who is willing and able to help us out!

Proud Home Owner

2007-02-22T23:18:00.000-05:00

OK, all done now!! House is mine, all mine... at least for now ;-) No issues with any of the inspections and the subsequent closing. Thanks to Jim Pepper from Cutler Homes and Mike Stoffer from Stoffer Mortgage everything went smoothly.

Already looked at appliances and the first thing to get is the fridge. It will be a Whirlpool Side-by-Side in white. Would have preferred a aluminum finish, but since the rest of the appliances are all white (and Whirlpool) we're keeping it the same.

After that will come the washer and dryer, but that will be for early April after we get back from the Holland trip.

Let the bleeding begin... ;-)

Happy Valentines Day!

2007-02-14T10:16:00.000-05:00

To all the love-birds in the world - and one in particular: Happy Valentines Day!!

Snowy days in Cleveland

2007-02-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

Winter didn't have much a bite here until the midle of January. After that, oh boy... Arctic temperatures of -8F (BEFORE) windchill and yesterday and today we had a bit of snow... Ahum, a couple feet of snow is more accurate. Combine that with winds of up to 35mph it created VERY dangerous driving conditions.

Yesterday for most people the commute took hours, with completely grid-locked traffic. A co-worker and myself decided to get some food first at the hotel around the corner from the office and were able to make it home in under 50mins at an average speed of aobut 25mph.

Today, I'm working from home since I can't move my car out of the parking lot here yet. Maybe later today the plows can clear enough of the snowbanks (and not put them in front or behind my car) so I might be able to move the car, but for now I'm the Penske Downtown office...

Since my camera is still in Grand Rapids I took this shot with the cellphone. A little off the normal quality of my shots, but good enough to paint the picture...

Be Safe everyone!

Housing update

2007-02-12T19:21:00.000-05:00

We have three properties in which we have some vested interest:

Jens house in Grand Rapids, MI
My apartment in Cleveland, OH
My - hopefully - new house in Uniontown, OH

We're trying to sell number 1 (and as of today we have a very serious lead...), get a renter in number 2 for the period between March 31 and August 30 and - Lord willing - closing on number 3 hopefully somewhere next week.

We so hope to have only 1 property to worry about soon, so all efforts to help (spiritually, and if you know somebody for either number 1 or 2, directly) are very much appreciated!!

Since '24' is starting a two-hour episode in 30 minutes and my stomach is growling at me, I'm gonna sign off.

L8r, mi amigos!

Another trip to GR

2007-02-12T19:07:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we made another trip to GR (Grand Rapids for newbies...) to visit our friends Jen and Rich and Gabe and Emily.

Jen and Rich have been truly welcoming us every time we go there. Sometimes with a nice sauna - enhanced by the bountiful MI snow - or just with fellowship and generous hospitality. Oh and the Hawaian Coffee is absolutely fantastic!!

After an uneventful drive on Friday we slept in on Saturday and went to 'Van der Veen', a Dutch store in Grand Rapids for some goodies and a few other things. Among those, a nice NL-sticker for Mighty Mouse!

One other thing high on the agenda for a couple trips, but never realized due to timing constraints, was a visit to the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum. I can recommend it. It is a very good collection of the life of - as the people in GR call him - Gerald (ou)R, Ford. Very impressive.

It was quite surreal to learn about his passing when both Jen and me were out of the country. And with the internet being down in China at the time she basically missed the whole thing. We fixed that by buying the DVD of the news coverage by one of the local GR TV stations. Oh and eventough we have some nice outdoor-shots - to be posted later - it was brutally cold that day... go figure...

After Church we had dinner with our friends Gabe and Emily - which are in need of your help to be able to serve at Campus for Christ. We had some awesome conversation on both of our futures.

On the way to church we picked-up two movies to watch; American Dreamz and One Night With The King. Two very different movies, but both recommended. Watch for the small details in American Dreamz, hilarious...

Sunday was a nice relaxing day of just hanging out, doing some finances and a nice relaxing drive back to Cleveland. Home at 9pm, in bed by 10... not a bad way to end it... Sleep is SO under-rated!!

Result of the inspection

2007-02-08T12:59:00.000-05:00

On Monday we had the inspection of the house and short of an issue in the water ventilation, a double-wired fuse and a breaker that didn't trip the house is in a very good condition. Insulation is well above the norm and with a high efficiency furnace the heating bill shouldn't cause major heart-attacks. The well and septic tank inspection result should be in today at the latest.

On to the close...

Inspection scheduled

2007-01-31T17:13:00.000-05:00

The home inspector will meet us on Monday, February 5 at 4pm for the home inspection. We will look at the house, the well and the sceptic tank. This is one of the many details to go through in the US before the close and transfer.

In the Netherlands these items are all rolled-up into an appraisal report usually santioned by the mortgage lender. This appraisal is also done in the States, but will only look at the value of the property and doesn't focus on the techinical details of the house.

I'm glad to have Jen, her mom and the realtor as guides on the path to US home-ownership.

House-hunting update III

2007-01-30T14:02:00.000-05:00

I have a house !!!

The offer on 4890 Arlington Road has been accepted today. Hurray !!! Next steps will be to get all the things properly inspected and once that is all good, the bleeding (read: mortgage payments) will begin, but I couldn't be happier. Below you can find some more details on the house...

Lot:
4890 Arlington Road, Uniontown (Green) OH, 44319
1.362 Acres / 5512 m2

House:
1832 sq ft. / 170 m2 + basement 784 sq ft. / 73 m2
(pictures: click here)

Location:
I-77, exit 120, south on Arlington, 2nd house on the right after E Nimisila Road (approx 4 miles / 6 km from the I-77 exit)

Distance from:
Downtown Cleveland: 48 miles
Beachwood: 38 miles

Cleveland International Airport (CLE): 48 miles
Akron Canton Regional Airport (CAK): 5 miles

Mississauga, ON: 306 miles

Niagara Falls: 245 miles

House-hunting update II

2007-01-26T00:32:00.000-05:00

After Church Jen and I will be looking at two possible houses on Sunday Jan 28. Last week we had 5 or 6 on our list and after the realtor showed Jen, Angie and Katelyn the houses 2 made the cut that Jen and I will go see.

Here they are, most interesting house first:
- 4890 Arlington Rd, Uniontown
- 1560 Briarwood Way, Uniontown

The first one has plenty of upgraded features, cherry wood cabinets, huge finished basement and hardwood floors on the ground-level. Plus, it has over an acre (> 4000m2) of land.

Keep you posted as always...

House-hunting update

2007-01-19T10:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had an appointment with a Mortgage-company in Canton (Stoffer Mortgage) that was recommended by the Prices. He is a very good and down-to-earth guy. He didn't quote me on a maximum amount I could borrow, but on my maximum comfort-level. I like that.

On a personal note: he's an avid fan of Dutch Soccer. Just on that one alone I have to recommend him. Jen also had a conversation with him before (she actually made the appointment) and told me she had a good feeling about him.

With the Soccer-connection it just continues to amaze me how God is raising my comfort-level in this whole process. A few years ago I would have contributed it to fate or luck, but since this isn't the first time things like this happen to me, I believe God has a hand in this.

As an example: when I was looking online for an apartment in Cleveland in the early months of 2003 (before I moved to the States) I was here on a business and house-hunting trip in February. I looked at a few places, but when I got to my current apartment-complex in downtown Cleveland I was greeted by the property manager. Turned out she lived in the Netherlands for a couple of years... Like I said, these kind of things keep happening to me.

So for the sceptics among us... Once might be luck, twice might be chance, three-times might be seen as fate, but when it keeps happening it is obvious to me that there is a Director at work.

24 is back !!

2007-01-18T00:38:00.000-05:00

Season 6 of one of my favorite TV-shows is back with a bang!

This seasons premise: 20 months after last season's shocking season finale, when Jack Bauer was captured by Chinese government agents and taken battered and bloodied to points unknown, a series of horrific terrorist attacks rocks the nation.

You can now order the DVD with the series 6 first 4 episodes from Amazon or just download a single episode. Unfortunately, unlike CBS, you have to pay for these episodes in order to keep the sales of the DVD going. I like that they give you option to see it again, but disapprove of the method. I can only wish Fox will follow the 'Innertube' initiative from CBS.

To prevent having to download them (either from Amazon or other channels) you can catch new episodes every Monday at 9pm on Fox.

New year, new layout

2007-01-17T22:06:00.000-05:00

A new year, a new look for The Clog Files. To those who've been keeping up the format might look a bit familiar since Jens blog has the same layout/template. I kinda like it since its not too flashy and keeps the focus on the content. I did update the profile and blog mission a bit plus added a picture I deem precious...

I've also updated my personal website and added a number of photo-galeries to it as well. One of them (My Life in Europe) will be the basis for a day or two of our Netherlands trip in March. I'm really looking forward to that trip and hope it will bring us closer together. Plus, I get to show her off to my family... Don't worry sweetie, they already like you.

Off to grab the info for my appointment with the mortgage-advisor tommorow.

Jen in Ohio

2007-01-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

Since this weekend my girlfriend is having her main domicile right here in Ohio. One of our friends is graciously hosting her in their house. Unfortunately, her house is still not sold (click here for a link to the Realtor) so we still appreciate your prayers on that.

On Monday Jen and me celebrated her birthday with a good dinner and a fabulous movie 'The Pursuit of Happyness' with Will Smith and his real-life son. It is actually based on a true story. Check out Chris Gardner on Google for more info and you'll be amazed on his perseverance. It would have been even stronger if the divorce-part could have been resolved, but that is more of a personal beef of us than a comment on the movie and its remarkable story.

It is so nice to have her so close and to drive only 45min to go see her instead of 4 to 4,5 hours. Tomorrow we have various appointments, among others with a mortgage advisor to see if my plans of owning a house are feasible. I hope to move closer to my friends and looking at the area from Munroe Falls south to about US-224 on the east-side of Akron. It is still about 40 minutes to work (only 10 to 15min longer than now), but only 10 to 15 minutes to our friends in Canton.

I will keep you posted.

Tracking a passport with visa...

2007-01-06T18:42:00.000-05:00

Visa application and approval was pretty standard stuff, except...

... getting my passport and visa physically in hand was not.

After the approval on Tuesday they should sent it within the next 2 business days. That would have been Thursday. However, they already sent it on Monday-afternoon and tried to deliver it (it was registered mail), but since my dads shop was closed that didn't work. Normal procedure is to leave a note saying they will try again tomorrow and if that fails at what post office you can pick it up. However, they never left a note and just dropped it at a post office in Geldrop (where my dads shop is). The result was that we didn't know where my passport was on Friday afternoon... with my flight back home leaving on Saturday.

I first started calling the consulate and got nowhere. Only after I put up my American voice and accent and called the embassy did I get to talk to somebody and found out they already sent it. Next step: getting some info at the parcel company (TNT Express). After two failed attempts, they told me it should be at the post office in Geldrop. So I called the Post office and they told me it wasn't there, but at one of the regional distribution centers of the parcel company. Yeah, right...

Getting a little desperate - and with help from my parents from the shop in Geldrop - and after about 3 hours of tracking we finally found that it was at a different post office in Geldrop.

Finally... and no errors so I could leave on schedule. To compensate things the man upstairs blessed me with smooth sailing at Schiphol and Newark and an upgrade to Business Class on the flight to Cleveland.

Thanks to mom and dad for all their help in calling and tracking down the passport... even if it wasn't in their best interest... ;-)

My Holland trip, part II

2007-01-06T18:26:00.000-05:00

The second part of my Holland trip is now complete... sigh... I'm currently waiting on my connecting flight to Cleveland at the Newark Airport.

What all happened the last week... Let's see:

On Tuesday we went to US Consulate (see previous post) and got the L1b visa renewed. On Wednesday I did my prep for the next trip to Holland in March together with Jen. That will be our first major trip together. Very much looking forward to that. So what is the prep? I took pictures of most buildings that played a role in my life.

Took pictures of the Hospital, the first house I lived in with my parents, my kindergarten building (now a gym)and my first elementary school. All of those in Helmond, the city where I was born. Then I took a few pictures in a small village just north of Eindhoven, called 'Son & Breugel', where I lived for 5 years. Again, a picture of the house and the elementary school there. After those 5 years we moved back to Helmond and took pictures of my parents current house, my elementary school, my high school and my community college. Then I moved on to Venlo, where I took a few pictures of my college and the hospital where I got my first full-time job out of college. Final stops where around Maastricht at my house in Gellik and the office on the town-hall square in Maastricht.

On Thursday and Friday I went to work in our Roosendaal office in the south of the Netherlands.

Something else happened on those last two days, but that will be a separate post...

L1b (Non-Immigrant) Visa approved

2007-01-02T11:04:00.000-05:00

Today I went to the US Consulate in Amsterdam to re-apply for my US Non-Immigrant visa. This is the one that was stuck in the damaged Dutch passport after I had to renew my it. This doesn't have any effect on the Immigrant Visa...

After an early morning rise (left at 5.30am) we arrived in Amsterdam a little after 7am, well ahead of the 8am schedule. After a coffee-break I joined the queue at around 8.15am and got into the Consulate a little after 8.30am.

Full airport security to get in, two times through the metal detector and some paperwork pre-check before you get into the building. The building looks more like Fort Knox so the whole process seems a bit surreal.

After paying the necessary fees and waiting for another 30 minutes inside for my (very brief, < 2min.) interview with the vice-consul he informed me that the visa was approved.

Due to biometric data storage the passport with the visa will be send back in 3 days. Nicely in time for my return-flight to the States on Saturday.

Thanks for all the prayers, since the process went smooth and without a single problem. Now that I can get back into the States for sure... See you all next week!!

Greetings from Holland to all of you.

My Holland Trip, part I

2007-01-01T18:38:00.000-05:00

I'm having a blast in Holland. Seeing all the family was a bit overdue... Didn't get to see them all in my last trip in May.

Christmas was awesome. Grandma, Mom and me all went to Church and then later that day all the family from my moms side came over. We went to dinner at a restaurant close by and afterwards had them over again at my parents house. So good to catch up and joke in Dutch... Been a while...

I also went to visit my best friend, his wife and new-born son (well, new-born to me. Ramon is 7 months old now).

I also had some quiet days (hey, it is still my vacation...

For New Years we watched some stand-up comedians on TV, all the fireworks (and lots of it this year) and today we visited both sides of the family, both at the remaining grand-parental unit...

A bit more (serious stuff) on the comedians though... Holland was and still is a very tolerant society and that shows in the performances of those comedians. Compared with the US, they can say pretty much everything and they do!! It is unbelievable what is being broadcasted. Not even so much the profanity as well as the blasting and total disrespect of everything (especially religion, including Christianity) and all people but themselves. Wow! Three years living in the States have given me quite a different perspective on what I feel as appropriate and most of them I would not pay to go see or even recommend. Today however I watch a comedian from neighboring Belgium and the contrast couldn't be bigger... Just as funny, but without all the profanity. Still as critical on certain subjects (as stand-up should be), but much more respectful and more family appropriate (well, for European standards that is...).

OK, on to some lighter notes again...Tomorrow I'm off to the US Consulate for a new visa and Wednesday I'm planning a photo-shoot of my life so far, taking pictures of where I was born, went to school, moved to, etc... in preparation of my next trip to Holland in mid-March, but that will be with... JEN !! Yay !!

Thu and Fri I'm working at one of the Dutch offices of Penske and then (if everything works according to plan with the visa) I'm going home to Cleveland again on Saturday.

Will post a bit more next week. Have a great 2007!

Happy 2007

2006-12-31T11:25:00.000-05:00

Wishing all of you a happy 2007. May we live long and prosper ... ;-)

God Bless
Niels

Sinterklaas

2006-12-13T19:20:00.000-05:00

Ah, the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas...

"Sinterklaas or Sint Nikolaas in Dutch or Saint Nicolas in French, is a holiday tradition in the Netherlands and Belgium (both Dutch and French speaking parts), celebrated every year on Saint Nicholas' eve December 5 or, in Belgium, the morning of December 6. The feast celebrates the name day of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children."

I copied that first paragraph from the Wikipedia page on Sinterklaas. Please read the rest of the article on the tradition on that page since in my opinion it covers it completely and thoroughly. At least better than I would be able to do in a simple blog post.

Something interesting that the article only briefly mentions is that Sinterklaas is also the basis of the present day Santa Claus. "Santa Claus" is actually a simple mispronunciation of the Dutch word "Sinterklaas" by the English settlers of New Amsterdam (later renamed New York). Children placed (and to this day still do) their straw filled shoes at the chimney every winter night, and Saint Nicholas (who, unlike Santa, is still riding a horse) rewards them with candy and gifts which - after the British seizure of New Amsterdam in the 17th century - evolved into the current Christmas tradition of hanging socks or stockings at the fireplace.

Since in the Netherlands the giving of presents is Sinterklaas's job, presents are traditionally not given at Christmas, but commercialism is starting to tap into this market (and since my dad is a retailer I can't rightfully say that I don't approve of that on some level...*smile*).

In the Netherlands presents given during Sinterklaas are often accompanied by poems, sometimes fairly basic, sometimes quite elaborate pieces of art that mock events in the past year relating to the recipient (who is thus at the receiving end in more than one sense). The gifts themselves may be just an excuse for the wrapping, which can also be quite elaborate. Just ask Rachel and Rebecca after the House Church Christmas party... ;-)

A tip if you are ever in the Netherlands in the 4 to 6 weeks prior to December 5: try to see if you can catch the 'arrival of Sinterklaas' in the city you are visiting. It's quite the show. For those of you with a broadband connection, just type in 'Sinterklaas' on YouTube.com and you'll see what I'm talking about...

Visa Update

2006-12-12T09:00:00.000-05:00

Today after I got back from my trip to Grand Rapids (which was awesome !!) I found an email from my immigration lawyer. The PERM (Labor Certification) has been approved !! This is the most important step as it qualifies that there is no reasonable supply within the US (region) for my job position. The labor certification is the hardest step, but with the new electronic filing it is interestingly the quickest part of the whole process.

The next step is the time-consuming part of the actual Immigrant Visa Petition. That could take a while, so we're not out of the woods yet... ;-)

This does NOT mean that my current non-immigrant visa situation is changing however, so I'm still going to the US Consulate in Amsterdam on January 2, 2007 to see if they give me my new non-immigrant visa.

Keep you posted !

House hunting

2006-12-04T21:01:00.000-05:00

I'm going to move...

Not sure when and not sure where to, but this winter will (most likely) be my last winter in downtown Cleveland. I'm hoping to find a new place closer to North Canton where most of my live has been taking place lately.

I'm actually going to look at a house tomorrow in Barberton, OH (just west of Akron). Looks kinda cool (click here) and seems to be a very decent price. I'm gonna make an appointment with a mortgage specialist in the next few weeks to see if I'm not aiming too high. I hope not... ;-)

I'll keep you posted on the progress

Visa stuff

2006-12-04T20:46:00.000-05:00

Had an interesting incident with my visa about 2 weeks ago. I had to apply for a new Dutch passport since my previous one was expiring on Jan 4, 2007. The previous one was heavily used and saw action in Europe, Canada, Mexico and the US (including the trip to the Arctic). During all that travels the plastic card wasn't fully attached anymore to the rest of the passport and that I washed it once (accidentally) didn't help either, but it was still working fine. More importantly, the US Visa in that passport, valid through July 2008, wasn't damaged at all.

However, the Dutch authorities felt it their duty to keep the old passport under the rule that it was 'damaged'. All nice and dandy, but the US doesn't re-issue a Visa...

So I'm kinda stuck between a rock and hard place now with two countries saying that they are following their rules. Normally that is not a problem at all, but with cross-country visa and citizenship it becomes a BIG problem.

Now, after consulting with my lawyer for the permanent residency (for which the application for the Job Certification has been filed last week), I made an appointment at the US Consulate General in Amsterdam, NL on January 2, 2007. It happens to work-out nicely with a previously planned holiday trip. The only uncertainty is if I have all the right paperwork to get the new Visa. I'd like to get back to work and see my friends again...

Guess we'll find out !!

A few changes have been made

2006-11-30T23:26:00.001-05:00

Since my last a few changes have been made in my life, partially by me, but more importantly by God. Unknowingly I have been walking a path that He set out for me before I was born and only recently have I been invited to knowingly follow it with Him. I joined a House Church in North Canton, OH and have an amazing group of people around me to support and guide me in His ways. A made the decision to get baptized and become a member of Gods Family. It still feels a bit foreign to me at times, but my outlook on life has changed for the better. It is no longer centered on me, but on Him. No longer on earthly possessions, but on following Jesus. Not to say that I'm giving up on my current life and become a missionary, but rather enriching my current life with the blessings and teachings of the Lord.

In the post below you can find my testimony. I first sent it to the people who God has chosen to lead me in the right direction. Now it's time to share it with the rest of my friends. Some of you might be a bit surprised, for others it has been an answer to prayer, but above all it is the start of a wonderful journey.

A spiritual journey back to Christ

2006-11-30T23:24:00.000-05:00

I was born into a family that went to Church on Sundays and I can remember my mom reciting Christian lullabies to me at bed time. I also vaguely remember going to Sunday school and during the week I attended a Christian elementary school. All of this was literary within 1 block; the Church on one end, my home in the middle and the school on the other end.

When I was 7 years old my sister was born and shortly thereafter we moved to another village about 20 minutes away. We didn't go to Church there and I was going to a public elementary school so that was the end of my early-church-era. I was very fortunate though to be in a loving family with wonderful parents (mom and dad are still happily married for almost 38 years now) and my sister and even though we didn't go to Church we led a good, enriched and moral life. I have very fond memories of the five years we spent in that village and of all the wonderful time spent with my family and my friends.

At the age of 12 we moved back to city where I was born, but in a different part of town. I finished elementary school for the last few months and went on to high school, but all were public. I don't recall there were any Christian High Schools in our immediate area at that time. I ended up going to a school where my dads sister went to, about a 20 minute bike-ride away.

During my time in High School I started working at my dads photography shop on Saturdays to make some extra money. I was very lucky to be raised to value money since I had to earn most of it. I think it kinda planted a seed in me that you should spend your money wisely and I saved most of it for my hobbies, at that time mostly being music. I also remember a few visits from my mom's two aunts and uncles who were (and are still) living in Canada. Especially those visits started a fire in me to visit Canada once I had the means and opportunities.

In the mean-time, two of my uncles were truck drivers and the youngest (who is only 11 years older then I am and lived with us for two years after my Grandmas divorce) was pretty much my older brother. With him I started to explore the world from behind the high-up position of a semi. At that time I was living in the Netherlands and saw most of that country and most of Europe throughout the years of my numerous trips during my school vacations. That, combined with the family vacations to Italy, firmly planted the travel-bug in me.

Once I traveled through most of Europe and having English lessons in High School the fire to visit Canada became stronger and stronger. Finally at age 21 I took my first ( 5 week) trip and loved every minute of it. I visited Montreal, Toronto, New York and the lesser known city to people outside the Dutch community of Grand Rapids, MI. My 2nd cousin Chad was doings his Bachelors Degree at Calvin College and we (his Grandparents - my Grandma's older brother and his wife - and me) went to visit him for a camping trip to the Sleeping Bear Dunes while his Grandparents took the temporary dorm-supervisor role. What an awesome trip. I even felt 'reverse' homesick when I boarded the plane back to the Netherlands.

In 1997 I went back to Canada, this time for 8 weeks on a big transcontinental travel plan. Starting in Montreal, through Washington to the Tampa Bay area and from there to Seattle for a 2 week camping Van-tour of the Canadian Rockies followed by a Greyhound expedition from Vancouver to Toronto. Back in Ontario I visited Chad again since we had planned to goto Lake Placid in upstate New York. Unfortunately he was unable to make it due to a last-minute scheduling conflict, but a buddy of his, Joel was willing to go with me. At that point I had no idea how big of an impact that would have on my spiritual life later on, but we had a great time on a crazy trip.

As of 1998 (now out of college) I was able to go at least once a year to Canada and make good use of those wonderful opportunities. I met more and more people through both Chad and Joel and since both of them were Christians I also started to go to Church with them on the Sundays I was with them. That was pretty much the first time since a good 15 years that I went to Church other then for a wedding, funeral or photo-shoot (with my dad). Since both Joel and Chad are of Dutch decent they went to the CRCs (Christian Reformed Churches) which are usually pretty strict and resembled a service from what I remembered.

At that time it didn't do much for me, except looking back now, God was warming me up again to the idea of being a Christian. I pretty much lead a life of adhering to the 10 commandments and followed a course of abstinence, but was not going to Church other then when I was visiting my friends and family in Canada. However, every time I went to Church there was a period of reflection but after I got back to the Netherlands that period ended. It wasn't until late 2000 that another event in Gods master plan was being revealed to me.

In October 2000 I was fortunate to start a job for a Dutch subsidiary of Penske. Penske is a large US-based logistics and truck rental company and the opportunity to use my English, my education in IT Management and my familiarity with logistics was too good to pass on. It also opened the door for a more prolonged stay in North America other then the vacation-trips I was able to make and after 3 years, in July 2003 that was realized and I moved to Cleveland, OH. Since Canada was now only 4 hours away I made many more trips to my friends and family and rapidly developed a group of friends in the Toronto-area.

It was on one of those trips that Joel and I were going to meet his cousin Rodney and his friend (and landlord) Gary. Gary is a worship minister at a local Baptist Church. We went to a service at this Church and that was when I first got introduced to 'contemporary worship'. Until that time the only service-type I knew was in the sense of the 'Frozen Chosen' of the CRC, which is predominantly Dutch and very conservative. I was amazed by the use of such modern things as overhead projectors, full bands, complete studio-style mixing equipment...

Gary and I both come from an engineering background and both have a big interest in music. It was as God's master plan had completed another phase... I went back a few times afterwards and found that there were more Churches like the one Gary was working at. I was still a bit taken aback by it. I had no idea that this even existed. Unfortunately, to this day, it still doesn't in most Dutch Churches.

From that day I was getting more and more receptive of becoming a Christian again, but didn't have the drive to step out of my comfort-zone to take the plunge (funny, since I moved from Holland to the US without much of a fuzz...). I continued to hang-out with my Christian friends in Canada and continued to go to Church with them whenever I was there. However, every time I was back in Cleveland I missed the drive to search out for a Church and build a Christian family in Cleveland.

It wasn't until a few months ago that I realized why... My personal future was not going to be in Cleveland. God has a different plan in mind and first showed me a Church about 35 minutes away. This was a rather large congregation (2000+) and after only one service I realized that 2000+ would be a safe place to re-start my Christian life, but it wasn't what I was yearning for. God apparently agreed and through one of his children showed me a House Church in Canton, OH. After a few visits it became very clear to me that this was the place that God had in mind all along for me. It is the end-station in finding a Christian Family and the start of my new life as an adult Christian.

It's been about 2 months now that I've been going to this House Church and some very important steps in my walk with Christ have happened. I re-learned the meaning the fellowship and more importantly I got baptized in front of the congregation. The baptism was a very powerful act, but is nothing more than an act. It is the process that preceded the baptism (this whole story) and the comforts I hope to enjoy in my walk with Christ and my fellow Christian Family. This past week I was fortunate to facilitate a theological exercise (the term is big word for a group-discussion in a Church setting) on 'Forgiveness' and it was a bit daunting for me when I agreed to do it, but again with the help of my Christian Family I hope to enjoy many more of these discussion to continue to grow closer to God and being a better servant for His Purpose!

It has also taught me that I was right in feeling an emptiness in my life. I had a lot of earthly possessions, a comfortable life through a good job and a body of friends (albeit too far away for any true spiritual guidance). I have since learned that even though being responsible with money is a deed that is appreciated by God (see Matthew 25), but it is but only a small part. Becoming a Christian means to me that my life no longer centers around my earthly desires, but it should instead by focussed on becoming more Christ-like since John 14:6 tells us that "Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (TNIV). We cannot take our earthly belongings into heaven, only our love for Jesus. Fortunately, that is exactly what is needed to enter the eternal Kingdom of Heaven.

Toronto and Niagara - Sunday

2006-10-16T20:05:00.000-04:00

The final day of our weekend-trip north of the border. We got up a little earlier today and decided to goto Tim Hortons for breakfast. The hotel breakfast was excellent, but also about $15, so Timmies is a bit cheaper and just as nice. Hey, I'm still Dutch... First action point of the day was to look after the needs of Might Mouse (my car). He was a bit thirsty and a bit dirty. That was easily fixed and we went on our way to Timmies.

We ened-up at the Tim Hortons on the QEW and Winston Churchill Blvd (pretty much driving right by Joel and Carolyns place...) and after some good bagels, coffee and some cookies and timbits for the road we took off towards Niagara.

The drive was an easy hour and after the two skyways (Burlington and St. Catherines) we headed for Niagara-on-the-Lake. After about 5 kilometer we stopped at a vineyard that was still open, called Chateau des Charmes. Beautiful grounds and an impressive old-looking new builing in Chateau-style (...) presented itself.

Inside we tried to get onto the tour, but they were already in the middle of it and since my French is not good enough to play translator we opted for the wine-tasting (at 11am !!) and I ended-up buying a nice Cabernet. So if anybody is interested, just drop by so we can share a glass (but don't wait too long...)

From the Chateau we headed for Queenston and the Niagara Parkway. We made numerous stops along the way; at a scenic lookout overlooking the (lower) Niagara river, at the flower clock and at the Whirlpool Rapids. Sorry Dad, but I think I just made the shot you were hoping to make last year...

Once in Niagara Falls we drove along the river seeing the Falls and looked for a good spot to park. The parking at the river turned out to be $12 dollars so alternative arrangements were thought up. I remembered where I stayed with Mom and Dad two blocks after that Days Inn hotel there was the Hockey Arena with free parking. Only 1 mile away and that just saved us $12.

We had the distinct pleasure of walking through Clifton HIll, which is absolute madness. Weird contraptions that somehow have absolutely nothing to do with the Falls, but hey, it brings in more people so... We walked to the river and took some photos. We decided not to walk all the way to the Horseshoe Falls and after using the zoom on the camera we turned around heading back towards the car.

On Clifton Hill walking back one of the most unbelievable things happened. We ran into the same Dutch couple we met on Saturday on top of the CN Tower!!! What are the changes of that? Especially since it wasn't exactly a slow day on either of the two days... We just said hello and continued on.

Back at the car we grabbed some timbits and cookies and headed back onto the Parkway towards Buffalo. After about 10 minutes we started to see the snow appearing and more and more and bigger and bigger branches that snapped during the snowstorm of Thrusday. All along the Parkway residents were cleaning up their yards and driveways. That must have been one pretty nasty storm... Especially since in Niagara Falls there wasn't any evidence of even the smallest branch or snow flake.

One reason we drove down to Buffalo was because the Rainbow (border) bridge in Niagara Falls was completely full and traffic wasn't moving so I opted for The Peace Bridge. Turned out to be a good decision since the bridge was clear and we only waited for maybe 10 mintues before it was our turn. Another easy crossing later we were back in the States and on our way to Cleveland.

Like in Niagara Falls, on the main highways there wasn't a single sign of the storm anymore. Later we found out that I-90 re-openeed late on Friday so they have had two days to clear everything out.

A good 2.5 hrs later we had completed the Lake Erie Circle Tour and were back in Cleveland. Tired, but fulfilled by a good trip I dropped Kaushal off at this car and went home where the task of putting up the pictures was awaiting.

Since that was the biggest time consumer (typing these three posts was a little quicker) I opted to get that out of the way first. I really like that now, since I'm now gonna do absolutely nothing but getting some food and watching some shows on TV.

Relaxation time...

Toronto and Niagara - Saturday

2006-10-16T18:55:00.000-04:00

Saturday we slept in a bit since breakfast was untill 10.30am. The hotel had an excellent breakfast. Very good hash-browns, bacon, eggs, sausages, but also croissants, serial and bread. Accompanied by excellent coffee and fresh OJ we had a very good start of the day.

The plan was to drive from the hotel to Yorkdale Shopping Centre, park the car and take the subway to downtown Toronto. This time the plan worked, or in the words of the unforgettable Colonel Hannibal Smith (A-team) 'I love it when a plan comes together...'.

We got the day-passes and took the first train to Union Station. First stop: CN Tower. What else? So we took the Skyway and at the tower bought the tickets to go up. Piece of advice, don't take the experience, just the observation deck and (optionally) the Skypod. Use Wikipedia to read up on the story of the CN Tower and you save yourself some nice dollars.

The ride up is quick (at 15mph / 22km/u) and gets you to 350m / 1100ft / 113 stories) where the observation deck is located. It holds a number of things. Among others, a restaurant with an astonishing view, plenty of look-out oppertunities and a glass floor. Especially the latter is an 'interesting' experience for those of us who have never been on it.

During the ride-up I thought I spotted a Dutch couple, but didn't get a change to talk to them. While taking some shots from around the observation deck I ran into the male-part of the couple and talked to him for a bit. They were doing a North America tour and already visiited NY, Boston, Montreal and Ottawa. We talked some more on things to do in Toronto and said our goodbyes.

After the talk I had a voice mail from Joel. We was calling to see what the plans were to meet-up for dinner. We settled on the Old Spaghetti Factory (we have a bit of history there - not to be disclosed here...) around 5pm since the Leafs were playing the Flames at 7pm (that's the NHL ice-hockey teams Toronto Maple Leafs vs. the Calgary Flames for those outside the Americas) and they all like to get a bite to eat before the game.

During that call Joel mentioned how cool it would for me to meet some fellow Dutchies on top of the tower. Well, he hit the nail on the head there. On the other hand, you can find Dutchies in northern New Hampshire on a mountain pass in the middle of May, so meeting a few on the main tourist trap in Southern Ontario wasn't that much of a strech...;-)

The views where amazingly clear and by far the best I've ever encoutered. We even had a very cool view on a strom rolling-in from the West (see the photo-link, just click on the blog-title). It turned-out to be a nifty rain-strom and we decided to let it run its course and watch it go by from within the observation deck.

Being a tourist-trap they smartly have the elevator down end in the middle of the gift-shop. All kinds of interesting looking contraptions can be found there. Some actually useful, other absolutely not, but almost all a bit overpriced. I find it a sport to find a useful, normally priced item and this time I acutally found something.

The tour of 'le tour CN' completed we headed for downtown Toronto and were looking for one of those Tour Busses that show you the major things in 2 hours. There was one directly on Front and John street. However, the booth was there, but no agent. We called the number and a friendly voice told us the agent was coming any minute. After about 15mins still no agent, so we decided to skip it and fall back on plan B - just do most of the items on foot.

About 2 mintues later the agent came running up, but since the tour wouldn't start until 3pm and took 'at least' 2 hours it would interfere with our dinner plans, so we decided to continue on foot. Since walking takes energy we stopped at Tim Hortons to get bagels and Hot Chocolate. I called dad for a bit and while talking to him it started to hail. OK, plan C.

Plan C: this plan uses one of Torontos nice features, the underground PATH-system that basically connects all the major downtown buildings and sights including the Eaton Centre, City Hall and some of the Subway stations. We entered at Union Station and exited at City Hall. We then continued our tour above ground to the Eaton Centre and stopped/shopped for a bit at Indigo bookstore.

Walking through the Bay (depaartment store of the Hudson Bay Company) we exited at Queen street and walked on Yonge Street heading towards the Esplanade where the Old Speghetti Factory was located. We veered off a bit to Old Town to get some perspective before heading to one of the must-see items if you want a taste of true Canadiana, the Hockey Hall of Fame in BCE Place. We took some interesting pictures there, including a few shots of a small World Press Photo exhibition (co-sponsered by two Dutch firms... go figure).

Since it was rapidly approaching 5pm we headed towards the Old Spaghetti Factory and put our name on the list since there was about a 40 minute wait. We headed to the bar to have a drink while waiting and it turned-out that Joel and Carolyn where already there for a few minutes and were quite a few place higher on the list already. So the change was made and after about 5 mintues our table was ready.

Since it was the 'Spaghetti Factory' we had to get sonme of that. While waiting for our order they brought some delicious bread and the garden salad is also a nice appetizer (oh.. don't go for the upgrade to a Ceasar - it's huge and the main course is more then enough...). The spaghetti was awesome and over and after dinner we had some delightful converstaion on about anything you can think of. As a desert we ordered some Spumonti, a small bowl of ice that is NOT on the menu so remember to ask for it the next time you're there.

Since Joel is a big hockey fan he had it in his mind to see what the scallopers would want for tickets once the game was started. He was looking for anything under $20. Yeah right!! Turned out the cheapest ones where about $100. Not much over the regular price, but steep for a game already in progress. No surprise, but still... So we decided to go watch it in a bar. Well, where is a sports-bar when you need one...

This was the start of an interesting adaventure. We decided to go somewhere closer to the Hotel (and closer to Joel and Carolyns place as well) and since they drove down we took their car. In a momentary lapse of reason (good Pink Ployd album by the way...) I forgot that my car was still at Yorkdale so we had to go back and get it. That nice little detour costed us most of the first period of the game (2-0 Leafs). While at Yorkdale we decided to quickly look for some swimware for me, but again finding something like that in the off-season when you're in a time-crux didn't really work. Well, for $50 CDN it would have, but to pay that just to take advantage of the Hotel pool-option was a bit much.

We then tried to see if there was a store at Yorkdale that showed the game, but unfortunately not a single one did. There was one on Dufferdin, but since we still had to drive we decided to drive to the same bar we had dinner last night in Sauga and we ended-up there during the intermission between the 2nd and 3rd period of the game (score now 4-3 Leafs).

We got a good spot at the bar and ordered some wings to nibble on during the game. Since it was about 3 hours after dinner already that was much appreciated. The Flames actually scored the equalizer before Leafs captain Mats Sundin - short-handed - scored his 500th goal in sudden-death overtime to clinch it for the Leafs.
Afterwards we watched the conclusion of the Montreal Canadians and the Ottawa Senators, which - sorry Sean - went to Ottawa after shoot-outs.

Now approaching about 10pm it was time to say goodbye to Joel and Carolyn and we headed back to the hotel. I watched some of the third game on Hockey Night in Canada, but fell asleep halfway through it.

A good end to an interesting day in Toronto.

Toronto and Niagara - Friday

2006-10-16T18:33:00.000-04:00

Another week(end), another trip. This time we went north of the border to Ontario. The plan was to leave Cleveland around 4pm on Friday and to show Toronto to my fried Kaushal and to meet up with a former co-worker of ours Sean who now resides in the Toronto area. I als gave Joel and Carolyn a call to see if they would be free to meet us somewhere sometime this weekend.

However, the good Lord decided that it was time for a bout of winter on Thrusday-night and he blanketed the Buffalo, NY region under 2 feet (60cm) of snow. Normally that wouldn't be such an issue since Buffalo is used to getting some snow, but getting this much, this heavy wet snow, this early in the season was new. It left 300,000 people without power and the main Interstate (I-90) closed in a circle of about 45 miles around the city. Since the normal route from Cleveland to Toronto goes over that road and through Buffalo we were forced to take a bit of a detour taking the Detroit-Windsor border isntead.

No troubles at the border (not even had to show our passports), but the drive from Windsor to London, Ontario is soooo boring. Flat, straight and pitch-black at night. Those first 110 miles (185km) are no fun. After London things lite-up a bit and you get a sense of civilization back.

From London to Toronto is about 75 minutes and it is an easy drive. I booked a room at the Courtyard Mariott in Mississauga (Dixie and Eglington W) so once off the 401 it was only 5 minutes to find the hotel. We checked-in and called Sean we arrived. He showed-up about 30mins later just in time for us to get soemthing to eat.

It was about 10.30pm since the detour via Detroit adds 1.5 hrs to a normally pleasant 4 hr drive and neadless to see we where starving. We tried the Belfast Lounge, but their kitchen closed at 10pm so they were helpful in pointing out that basically across the street there was a bar called 'Hoodoo McFriggins' that seerves food 'till midnight. Yes!!

In the parking lot getting the car we were approached by a very frantic looking guy who was trying to get money to get his wife and kid a bus-ticket home from the border where their car had broken down. He had about $ 80 CDN on him already and was about $ 10 short. His story actually sounded credible and sincere so I gave him $ 10. Good deed for the day fulfilled.

After that we went to the other bar and indeed they served untill midnight. We got a table next to the fireplace and ordered some Ribs and Wings accompanied by some local Sleeman Honey Brown (one of my favourite beers). About 10 mins after the food that same gentleman from the parking lot entered and sat down at the bar. Somehow he spotted us and immediately left. Guess a guilty conscience got the better of him. Well, he probably left for another bar...;-)

We had some good conversation and catch-up time with Sean over some well appreciated food and drinks. It was getting late fast and a little after midnight we decided to call it a night. We drove back to the hotel, dropped Sean off at his car and went to bed for some shut-eye.

A trip to Dayton

2006-10-04T00:38:00.000-04:00

Last weekend it was time for another road-trip. This time the destination was the National Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH. Sunday-morning at about 7.15am we left from Beachwood. Around 9.30am we stopped at Tim Hortons in Columbus for a some breakfast since we were both starving. It was Kaushals first time to a Tim Hortons and we have 'm converted..;-) He loves it now...

About 10am we left Timmies heading for a Wafflehouse in Dayton to meet-up with Jen, Jen and Aleena. Unbenownst to each other both me and (one of the two) Jen where in the same area (both hours away from home) so we decided to have some food and fellowship. We had a great (but too short of a) time!

After seeing the girls off to Michigan again we took the backroads to the musuem and with a little help from the GPS got there pretty quick. The musuem is free and the only charges are for IMAX movies and some 'thrill-rides'. The IMAX-movies are worth the money, but forgo the other ones. Just focus on the planes and the rest of the exhibits.

One of the highlights was the Modern display with planes like the B1, B2 and F117 Stealth Fighter. You can see 'm in the pictures I put up on my own website (click here) so you can see what I mean.

Taking pictures in such a dark place was a bit challenging, but with the use of a manual mode and some steady objects to keep the camera still for long exposures (up to 5 seconds...) we got some awesome shots. Long live manual controls. Even in the digital age you can't always live without them.

After the 2nd IMAX movie we were kindly reminded that it was 6pm, closing time and we should be heading out before they'd close the gates on us.

On the way back we stopped in London for some $1.99 gas. Wow, that was a long time ago we saw that price. It sure is nice though... Including the pitstop it took us a little under 3 hours to get back to Beachwood and stopped for some food at PF Changs. Nice ending to a beautiful Sunday!

The end of the internal combustion engine - for real ??

2006-09-26T13:09:00.000-04:00

CNNmoney.com today posted an article on a new engine-type that sounds like it could replace the internal combustion engine all together at an engine-build price marginally higher, but a substansially lower running-cost without any reliabilty on oil. The article mentions a number of details on how the new type engine will run, but not the who and how the required infrastructure (charge-stations) will be handled.

All-in-all, very interesting article. Let's see if its true...

Grand Rapids

2006-09-25T22:17:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I went to Grand Rapids, MI to visit a special friend of mine. Left work early after another one of those crazy weeks. Pretty easy drive and since I've done it a couple of times on-route to Holland, MI I decided to see how good Verizons VZ Navigator actually was. Lets just say I was impressed. I can recommend using it. OK, back to topic at hand... as I said the drive was easy, rainy, but nothing special. Stopped in Lansing to pick-up a little present and then continued on to GR. The last hour was pretty interesting since the rain really picked-up and as the icing on the cake I was treated to a wonderful lightshow. Long story short, after a good 4.5 hrs I got to GR. We just hung-out and chatted a bit until it is was time for some well-deserved shut-eye.

Saturday-morning I slept-in and - looking at the forecast - we decided to do the outdoor-activities in the morning since it would rain for the rest of the day. After a quick stop at the post-office we went to the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. What a beautiful place. We especially liked the Orchid Wall... Never knew there were that many varieties (according to the guide > 200,000) and in that many shpaes and colours. Wow! We also saw the worlds largest seeds (two coconuts seeds). They are huge... At first they looked like rocks (hence we missed them the first time around) but the guide (thanks again!!) pointed it out for us.

After the seeds and a lovely walk to the sculpture garden we decided to splurge and take the VIP (...;-) guided-tour. Since the tour will point-out many things you will miss on your own - including the artists thoughts behind the objects - I would highly recommend taking the tour. It was well worth it... for more reasons then just the excellent narations.

We decided to give one of the highlights of the tour - Nina Akamu’s 24 feet tall 'The American Horse', created in homage to Leonardo da Vinci's original commission by the Duke of Milan a closer look. Very impressive.

After the garden (sorry, no pics this time since I forgot my camera...) we went to Pannera for lunch. Since we wanted to play Settlers of Catan for a bit we decided to skip the first one (way too busy) and opted for one with an open booth. The game and my opponent were very imposing since I hadn't played in a while versus my oppenents multiple times a week. I had to add some Dutch in the mix in order to compete. We decided that every number had to be pronounced in Dutch and since I'm the only Native Dutch speaker that equalized things a bit...;-) Oh, for those interested... I still lost that game, as with all the other ones. The next game we decided to try French... That didn't help either, but we had lots of fun and re-discovered some talent we didn't think we had...

Around 5.45pm it was time for church. God decided to make throw us an obstacle course... I was raining like CRAZY!!! Wow!!! At church we even had to wait a bit in the car since it was raining way to hard. It finally let up a bit and we decided to make a run for it under the cover of my jacket. It didn't help much...

Once in church the unusual things kept coming. How about the announcement of a Counrty worship-song accommodated by actual line-dancing? Not crazy enough? How about an evacuation due to a Tornado warning? Well, one of the more memorable services I've ever been to...

The evening didn't end there... Oh no... Next stop: Wealthy Theater for a performance of the River City Improv. We met-up with a friend at church and headed over to downtown GR. We got the tickets and scored front-row! What an impressive show. Absolutely hilarious on numerous occasions. Never heared a line 'the white men stole all my candy' just level the place and (the same sketch about a girl selling lemonade) in the style of a late-night religious fund-raser was an instant classic. If you're ever in GR on a night when they perform, go see them! Check their website for the latest schedule.

Since we did church on Saturday, Sunday-morning was a nice and relaxing time filled by some more Catan. This time the Cities & Knights expansion version. Makes it very interestng I must say... Still lost, but that was more to my fierce opponent...;-). At 1pm it was time for some football, another mutually liked past-time. Found a nice Buffalo Wild-Wings that was showing the Bears vs Vikings and had a great time. Thanks to the Pittsburgh fans for their impressive cheering! After we saw Brett Favre throwing his 400th career TD-pass on another screen we re-focussed on the Vikings, but a late 4th quarter INT lead to a TD for the Bears and a loss for the Vikings. Well, can't win 'm all.

Time flies when you're having fun so time to leave GR (which was bright and sunny again) and head back to Ohio. Wish I could have stayed a while longer, but since I promised the boss to check-up on a few things at work I had to leave. It's still a 4 hour drive so...

Thanks to everybody who made it a weekend to remember...

Gas under $2.00 !!

2006-09-25T12:49:00.000-04:00

Our prayers have been answered!!! *smile*.

Both Cleveland and Canton now have gasprices of under $2.00. Found $1.95 in Cleveland and $1.97 in Canton. Interesting how this sounds to my European friends, especially since they pay about $7.00 per gallon.

Have a great day!

A happy (long-distance) driver...

US Open 2006

2006-09-17T18:46:00.000-04:00

One of my buddies from work - Kaushal - was telling me he was planning on going to the US Open 2006 in Flusing, NY. I always wanted to see a Grand-Slam match, so consider the exitement when we were able to secure tickets to the Mens Semi-Final matches on Saturday. Leaving from Akron-Canton Airport on a direct 1hr flight to La Guardia we were in Queens around 9.30am. We took a cab to the USTA Tennis Center and got onto the grounds at around 10am. After grabbing some brunch (not often you can get a good Greek-style Gyros with garlic-sauce in the morning) and listing in on an interview with Nick Bolleterri (owner of the Tennis Academy which produced players like Sharapova, Seles, Agassi, etc...) I bought a polo-shirt from the Arthur Ashe foundation to support the cure for Aids. I thought it was fitting after having tickets to the games at the Arthur Ashe Stadium. Plus, I wasn't willing to spend almost $100 for a Ralph Lauren polo. Sorry, but my money goes to the ones needing it more...

The two games where Federer - Davidenko and Roddick - Youshny. The Federer match was a bit of roll-over, but the 2nd match was a real match leaving Roddick with the right strategy to appear victorious in 4 sets. The weather was again awesome and I picked-up a nice tan. Me, the blond white guy from Holland now finally has a tan. Oh, of course I ran into some Coggies living in NY... After freshing-up at the Hotel we went to the East Village on Manhattan to get tickets to the Blue Man Group and some food. We ended-up in a nice Chinese Restaurant a few blocks down from the Astoria Theater on Lafayette Street, setting outside enjoying a dish listed as 'Chefs-mom special'. Well, gotta have that..;-)

The Blue Man Group was awesome. Very impressive use of every day objects in a musical and comedic setting. Add some twinkies, toilet paper and a lot of audience participation and you can imagine we had a great time. I can strongly recommend seeing the show. Its worth the ticket-price. For those in NE Ohio: Oct 7, 2006 they will perfrom in the Quicken Loans Arena at 8pm.

The Sunday was a real relaxing day with getting up in time only to get breakfast and then a free shuttle back to the airport. Hopefully to be back in Cleveland in time to catch the Finals of the US Open. Result: Federer won that match and his 9th career Grand Slam. He only has 5 players ahead of him on the all-time Grand-Slam list and he's only 25 years old. History in the making...

Good night!

Summer of '06

2006-09-17T18:13:00.000-04:00

The clog-files have been MIA for the Summer of '06, so I feel its time for a short recap:

July:
My good friends Joel and Carolyn Vriend came to visit me from Canada in a rare moment where they both had time to come down from beautiful Ontario. It was Joels second time visiting me, but his lovely wife made her first trip to Cleveland. We visited Amish Country and had a lovely drive through this beautiful part of NE Ohio. And treats to die for...;-). Also the drive through University Circle, Fairmount and the Chagrin River valley was a nice way of showing how great this beautiful city can be.

When they left my buddy Chris Leaney came down for the Sammy Hagar concert at the Tower City Amphitheater. After two false-starts and some oscar-winning performance getting rid of some excess tickets we enjoyed ourselves with a great show by an almost 60-year old performer. If you ever get a chance to go see him... you will not be dissapointed!

After the devastating blow delt to us in the World Cup it was time to get some good 'ol camaraderie going again at the ceremony at the USS Cod in downtime Cleveland. This sub was responsible for the only international submarine-to-submarine rescue in history rescueing the Dutch submarine O-19. The commencement ceremony at the harbour involved the Dutch Honorary Consul and a very special privilige to stand on-deck while the fired the aft-cannon in salute to this historic occasion. It does re-iterates the word 'deaffening'...;-). After the ceremony I met up with some fellow cloggies and we visited the Tall Ships Fest next to where the USS-Cod is docked.

August:
We hosted a party to some Dutch exchange students from Neyenrode University, majoring in International Law. We had the good fortune of having a beautiful evening and had the luxery of sitting outside on the patio of the Great Lakes Brewery in Ohio City. It was midnight before we knew it and closed the evening in the Warehouse District on West 6th until closing.

The yearly company picknick was at the Geauga Lake amusement park in Aurora, OH. Free lunch and free entrance to the park. Well, we Cloggies are known to be a bit cheap, so this was one oppertunity we had to take advantage off...;-). Another gorgeous day and great success.

The last weekend...:
Save the best for last, so I took the Friday off for an even longer weekend. It turned-out that after working a long week with odd hours I was able to leave at 10.30am on Thursday, so this was quickly turning into a nice mini-vacation. I took off for Ontario. First meeting up with my cousin Chad to deliver some part for his '83 Honda Shadow bike he's restoring and then on to Joel and Carolyn since we would go camping the next day. After a relaxing night with a movie we loaded up the car the next day and left for Port Burwell Provincial Park on Friday. We knew that it would rain on Saturday (remnents of Hurricane Ernesto), but the rest of the weekend was there to make up for that.

On the Saturday we did some fishing before the rain got real heavy. When the rain and the wind picked-up we all got together in the dining tent and played some board-games. Catan, Rumus and cards were available, but the real blessing was the fellowship and... here it comes... an ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS authentic Chinese dinner prepared by our Chinese Canadian friends who came along. By far the best campsite-dinner I ever had... Sorry Mom, sorry Dad!!. Dumplings, Chinese soup, noodels, sweet-and-sour pork, spicy sauces and all of that prepared in the pouring rain! Thank you, Gao Family!

The Sunday - after a church-service on the campground - we played bodgy-ball until we had to stop to prepare dinner. Maybe the Seniors have a point there...;-) Of course all the campfires where a nice icing on the camping-cake. Hope to see you all next year!

We're done...

2006-06-25T21:19:00.000-04:00

Its a sad day in the Netherlands. We've just lost a war... Yes, a war. Really I hear you asking? Yes, really. A soccer/football-war. Both sides sustained heavy injuries with in total 4 fatalities. All of it under the command of a mad Russian.

For those of you who tuned in to CNN instead of ESPN to see the war-coverage, Holland lost 0-1 to Portugal in a brutal match with 12 yellow cards and 4 red cards. For the statistically inlcined among us, yes, that's a record...

Holland was the better team, but Portugal was better at deceiving the referee and killing the game. Since - as the saying goes - all is fair in love and war, it doesn't matter anymore. The result stands and Holland is done. The classic under-archievers have not been able to break free as the Euro '88 team - with a center-forward called Marco van Basten - was able to do.

Since that squad - with besides van Basten, also having Ronald Koeman, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard and Arnold Muhren - beat the then Soviet Union in the final I guess there was a rather frustrated Russian watching that game. Payback's a bitch...

Better luck next time.

A trip to the Motherland - Working days

2006-05-13T19:29:00.000-04:00

Wednesday and Thursday were working days at the office in Roosendaal, NL. Nothing exiting happened, besides that I sold my Digital Rebel that day. One of the co-workers who bought my first Digital Rebel had a brother who was looking for a Digital SLR. Since I wasn't using it all that much since I bought my Powershot S70 I was able to get a good deal on it. Since one of the co-workers from the Netherlands is in the States this week, transport to the Netherlands is taken care of.

Tuesday-night after work we had dinner with some co-workers in downtown Roosendaal. Again outside, since the weather was only getting better. After dinner we met a few more people for drinks on the patio of a local bar on the main square in Roosendaal. Around midnight we moved to another bar for some Darts (and some more beer). Thanks Jeffery, Mat, Ingrid, Frank, John and Steven. We had a blast!!

Wednesday-night I met with Mesut and Johan for dinner at an Indonesian (or Balinees) restaurant. Those restaurants give you great food, lots of it and it's more than you can handle. Garuanteed!! Afterwards I went back to Helmond where Grandma and one of my aunts were waiting to say goodbye. Tomorrow we're flying back again!!

A trip to the Motherland - Monday / Tuesday

2006-05-13T19:12:00.000-04:00

Monday was a day to finish-up my affairs in Belgium. Closed the bank-account in Lanaken and withdrew the money. Went to Maastricht to transfer the Dutch bank-account from there to Helmond and deposited the money from Belgium. Afterwards we had lunch on one of the most beautiful squares in the Netherlands in my favorite city in the Netherlands; the Vrijthof in Maastricht. Outside in the sun enjoying a beer and a good soup. Gotta love that!!

When I'm in Southern Limburg there is one stop you just HAVE to make. Just outside a very small village in a valley called 'Epen' on the way to Vaals there is an ice-cream stand where you get the most and best ice-cream. It doesn't have a name and it's just a gravel parking lot and a market-stand, but for $3 / EUR 2.50 you get an ice-cream cone that's big enough to kill any appetite you might have. Even a US appetite!! You have a choice of 15 different flavors, fresh fruit and whipcream and more... Ask any resident of the area and they will direct you to it. Word of caution: if you're there on a weekend or holiday, prepare to wait and walk. The parking lot will be full so you'll have to park elsewhere and get in line for your treat. Trust me, its more than worth the wait!!

We took the scenic route back to Helmond through the Limburg and German country-side. Dad bought some shoes in Venlo (where I studied and worked before joining Penske) and after dinner we went back to my parents place.

Tuesday we played the tourist and visited the Royal Palace 'Het Loo' in Apeldoorn. Beautiful grounds, nice Palace, but you're going for the back-yard. Gorgeous. I've got plenty of pictures on my website DutchCanuck.com. Again, took the scenic route back and had dinner outside in downtown Helmond which came with movie-tickets so we got to see M-I-III for free. Very decent movie, but what a terrible and disapointing ending.

A trip to the Motherland - Weekend

2006-05-13T19:05:00.000-04:00

On Saturday - after dropping Dad off at the store - I ran some errands for myself. I went to see the new Piazza Center and the Media Markt in Eindhoven. The Media Markt is the Dutch equivalent of a Best Buy or Circuit City. I just browsed around a bit and was able to score some Dutch music CDs which are very hard to get (or expensive to get) in the States. You got to be able to pop-in some Rowwen Heze when you're in the mood to party!!

After picking Dad up at the store we had dinner - yes, outside again - and got the place ready for the big B-Day party. Since the whole backyard is now redone and over 50% covered we held the party ouside. A good 30 people showed up and the beer flowed happily from bottle to stomach. The last people left at about 2.30am....

Sunday was a nice quiet day. I watched the Formule One race and some other sports which are rare on US TV. You need to have at least one relaxing day, just kicking back and relaxing.

Happy Birthday Mom and Dad

2006-05-13T18:53:00.000-04:00

Last week - during the trip - May 7: Birthday of my mom.
Today - May 13: Birthday of my dad.

Happy birthday to you both and may we have many more!!

Cheers,
Niels

A trip to the Motherland - First day

2006-05-13T18:30:00.000-04:00

In honor of my parents birthday I took a quick trip to the Motherland from May 6 to May 12. Flew in to Brussels since Amsterdam was either booked, too expensive or via a rediculous route. The whole gang was supposed to pick me up, but due to an illness of the help in my parents shop my mom had to work, so only Dad and my sister where there. No issues with the flight, eventough it turned out that there was a fire in a hanger on the Airport in Brussels.

To combat any jetleg I drove from the airport to the shop to meet Mom. I also went on a little shopping spree to a local Sams Club to look for a bigger suitcase since Mom and Dad had some things for me to take on the way back.

Shopping done, time to see the remodelling of my parents house. They completely re-did the backyard and... to pick-up Grandma for dinner. While my sister, supervised by Grandma prepared dinner, Dad and I quickly went to downtown Helmond to look for some new shoes for me. Somehow that's something I always do in Holland. Found them after a good hour and went back home. Mom was done in the shop as well, so we had a good dinner outside on the patio.

Outside? Yes, outside. The weather is cooporating very nicely! 80F / 25C and sunny!

The Queens Birthday

2006-05-13T18:09:00.000-04:00

In the Netherlands the Queens Birthday is celebrated on 'Koninginnendag'. This is not only celebrated in the Netherlands, but also by the Dutch communities abroad and oversees. I had the pleasure of attending the Queen's Birthday celebration 2006 in Ohio organised by the Netherlands Ohio Chamber of Commerce. For more info on 'Koninginnendag', please visit the Holland Ring site on Koninginnedag.

It was a fun evening with familiar food and drinks. Eventough Heineken is available pretty much everywhere, other Dutch delights such as Bami Pangang and Kroketten are more rare in the States than a native American in downtown Manhattan. Funny, when we left that place to the Britsh there were plenty of them... Ah well, back to the party.

After the food and drinks we had the pleasure of singing both the American and Dutch national anthem to kick-off the musical part of the evening with two bands and a DJ. The bands were from Ohio and ... Bavaria. Interesting, a German band on a party for the Dutch Queen. Well, the bands were great. Especially the one from Bavaria.

The DJ was an American from the Akron/Canton-region who studied in Groningen for two years so was able to speak and understand Dutch and, more importantly, had a whole range of Dutch music to choose from. Which we did with pleasure until the whee morning hours.

Hip Hip Hurray for the Queen !!

Victorious People

2006-03-02T23:16:00.000-05:00

It's amazing what you can find on the Internet these days. For instance there are numerous sites that explain the origin of your name. Sites like http://www.thinkbabynames.com or http://www.behindthename.com. Just type in 'Name' followed by your name in Google and you get plenty of sites to choose from.

Of course I Googled my own name 'Niels'. It is of Danish origin and is a derivative of the Greek name 'Nikolaos' which means "victory of the people". 'Nike' means victory - now you can finally understand why a popular sports brand choose that name - and 'Laos' meaning people.

Saint Nicholas was a 4th-century bishop from Anatolia who, according to legend, saved the daughters of a poor man from lives of prostitution. He is also known as Santa Claus (from Dutch Sinterklaas), the bringer of Christmas presents. He is the patron saint of children, sailors and merchants, and Greece and Russia. Nicholas was also the name of two czars of Russia and five popes.

Dad

2006-01-31T01:38:00.000-05:00

One of my shows I always try to watch is the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Its on at 12.30u after Letterman on CBS. Very funny, just a great show to end the day on a fun note.

Tonights episode, however, was very different. Craigs father, Robert Ferguson, died of cancer at the age of 75. The show was done in the form of a Scottish / Celtic wake. Not a seance, but a show about the person with all its quirks, idiosyncraties, etc..

For whatever reason this show struck a serious nerve. The strange thing is that - fortunately - my dad is still very much alive. I guess hearing Craig talk about his dad made me miss mine. The reality of living on the other side of the Atlantic never really gets to me much, but this time it hit me hard.

He talked about the time he spend with his dad when he was a kid, the little things like watching TV together and his dad putting a hand on his hand. Thats a true male way of saying 'I love you, kid'.

Watching Craig do a bit of a tribute (with a touch of a roast...) to his dad made me aware of the great bond I have with my father. We don't talk for hours over the phone or otherwise have long conversations, we don't really need to. We just 'get' each other. We get along perfectly. But at times like these I truely miss the oppertunity to just 'drop in' on my dad and hang out with him for bit.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: 'I love you, Dad....'

Your son.

The sound of (good) music

2006-01-23T22:28:00.000-05:00

Today I tried the sound-system for the first time. Short version: After some initial tuning I was absolutely blown away... Man, that one sounds good. Those of you who have been here to Cleveland know that I'm a bit of a music lover and have some nice 'tune-reproducing' equipment sort-of-speak.

This car-audio system (the factory-upgrade) sounds superb. Very detailed, clear sound with an excellent, pronounced but not overpowering, clear bass. Very good reproduction of the higher-range frequencies and an overall clear and detailed field-of-sound.

Initially, with having no CDs and only FM radio as a source, you might be a little dissapointed. But as soon as you load a good CD (it holds 6 discs, either CDs or MP3) it starts to shine. And how it shines. I don't get 'hyped-up' about something easily, but this system is one you gotta hear to believe.

For all of you looking of getting a new Ford (Fusion) or Mercury (Milan), spend the extra dollars for the upgraded soundsystem. You will not be dissapointed...

New car

2006-01-21T18:18:00.000-05:00

I've taken the plunge and bought a new car in the States. First time buyer on this side of the Atlantic. I was basically looking at a 4-door sedan, not to big, but not entry-level either. Since I don't like a car that is in the shop a lot either I opted for a new car.

After some initial broad list I'd narrowed it down to two cars; the new Ford Fusion (NOT the same as the European Ford Fusion - entirely different car...) or the new Hyundai Sonata. After looking at both of them in more detail I decided to go for the Fusion. Eventhough the Sonata was nice and had the better warranty, I liked the look of the Fusion beter. And since I was able to use the Supplier Discount Program at Ford I got a good deal on a top-of-the-line, fully loaded Fusion SEL V6.

It's got a black exterior and a tan interior with faux wood inlays. Looks really sharp. I could have driven it off the lot if I wanted to, but I'll take delivery early next week. I test-drove two versions, one with the 17" wheels and one with the 18" wheels. Both drive nice and firm and with the 18" wheels you hardly notice the lower tires and the overall stickiness improves over the already above-average handling (see various reviews). I like the 6-speed automatic to get quick accelaration if needed and nice low revs once on cruising speed.

If you wanna check out a few pix: Click here

It has all the tools and toys on it, so 'daddy' is happy now...;-)

Staying a little longer - Permanent residency application filed

2006-01-15T17:26:00.000-05:00

After receiving the new L1b-visa back in May I'm able to stay in the USA until July 2008. After working on that visa for a little over 3,5 years the time has come to take a next step and commit towards a Permanent Residency permit (better know as a 'Green Card'). It used to be a green-colored card but after they changed the color the nickname kind of stuck in the minds of everybody. Even the Visa Diversity lottery being held every year is unoffically still called the Green Card lottery.

Penske has offered to start the process. It is a long and drawn-out process which is expected to take at least 1,5 years. The biggest hurdle for the process is the 'Labor Certification'. That used to take over a year but a few months ago this process changed to an all-digital, 45-day process. I'll believe it when I see it. Anyway, since my current visa is valid to 2008 I've got some time.

I'll keep everybody updated on the progress, but I don't expect too big of an issue getting the certification and the subsequent approval of the permanent residency application.

This permanent residency was something that was always in the back of my mind as a possibility to explore once I was working in the States. Most co-workers in the Maastricht office joked that as soon as I left Europe I would probably not come back. I guess they were right... To be honest, I might have lead them on a bit to that thought.

Like I said, I'll keep everybody posted on any progress.

Building an Igloo

2006-01-03T15:08:00.000-05:00

A view friends had an idea to build an igloo. They are from Canada (at least most of them) and while everybody in Canada is working hard to breakdown stereotypes we decided to push back a little and actually build an igloo.

You don't need much, a good amount of sticky snow, a mold to create the building blocks, a saw to mold the blocks when needed and a general idea of how to build it up (the walls should continuiously slope inward for the dome shape).

We started by using the full blocks out of the mold for the first two layers, then moved to 2/3 for layer 3 and 4 and then moved to 1/3 for the final layer and roof. We continuiously enforced the joints by creating as much touching points between the blocks and filling up any spaces that were left.

With 4 guys it took us about 2 hours for our first attempt and it actually worked. Here is a link to the photos...

Las Vegas

2005-12-28T10:18:00.000-05:00

The Vegas trip was a very nice and looked forward to break. Since it was my first trip to Vegas I didn't fully know what to expect. Everybody's seen the Strip on TV, everybody's aware of its reputation, but that is always different then your own experience.

The trip was three weeks ago and I must say I kinda like the town. Yes, it's full of glitter and glamour, dazzeling displays of neon and other lights, rows and rows of Casinos and advertisements for whatever you can think of. Pure capatalism. Is that a bad thing? Not always. It seems to work pretty good for Vegas. Of course there are the run-down areas of the town, but overall it has a pretty low crime-rate (for a city of nearly two million people). It is also one of the fastest growing cities in the States.

But what everyone knows best about Vegas is still the Strip (and maybe downtown Vegas - Fremont Street). That was the part of Vegas we visited. We arrived at the airport only a few minutes late. We got a cab - number 10, which number will make an appearance a little later on in the blog - to the Luxor Hotel and Casino. Most hotels in Vegas have a theme, the Luxor of course being an Egyptian theme. The main building is shaped as a pyramid with a big Sphinx in front of it. After check-in we hit the casino floor and one of my co-workers after losing a bit in black-jack decided to play some roulette. He played one hand, a bet of $10 and placed it on ... number 10. Guess what... it came back as number 10!! A nice $175 pay-out. Thanks to the cabbie.

For the rest of the trip we mostly played at the Flamingo opposite Caesars Palace. I didn't gamble, but took a nice number of photos along the way. They are posted on the www.dutchcanuck.com album site.

What impressed me most about Vegas? I guess it was the overwhelming display of lights on the Strip. I liked the themes of the buildings. Pretty diverse, but of course pretty fake as well. I've never seen crystal clear azure blue watet flowing in the canals of Venice...;-) We also went to see a Cirque du Soleil-show in New York, New York; Zumanity. A combo of a normal Cirque-show with a cabarat-theme. It was an 18+ show, but it was very nicely done. Most impressive was the water-sequence with two female acrobats in a half-bowl. Unbelievable how flexible they are... That can't be good for their bodies in the long run, but it does make for one pretty amazing act. However, you might be better off paying a little more and go see the show 'O' in the Mirage. It seems to be the better show overall. I very much liked the way they kept the downtown area. Vegas is not really known for preserving anything for the sake of its history, so it's nice to see that they 'upgraded' the Fremont-street area and covered it with a big LED-covered (for lack of a better word)'cover'. Every hour they will have a free audio and visual display on the roof of the street. Very much worth the cab-ride from the Strip.

Also the decadence.... It's amazing. Everything is over-the-top. From the buildings, both outside as insid to the use of water and electricity, it is just staggering. Being in the middle of a drought period you could clearly see the low water levels in Lake Powell and the other basins. I'm curious as to how they are going to solve the short-supply of resources in the near future. Being in the middle of the desert does mean that you have to somehow transport the resources to Vegas. With the demand for both water and electricty rising and the supply dwindeling that might be the biggest challenge Vegas will encouter in the next two decades. However, since numerous challenges have been overcome in the past to even create Vegas, I'm sure they will think of a way to keep it where it is and as it is.

Viva Las Vegas!!

Longing for Vegas

2005-11-29T00:00:00.000-05:00

With only 3 working days left before we fly to Vegas, everybody is feeling the urge to leave. Its gonna be a well-deserved break for most of us and nice change from every day life. Oh yeah, it is a guys-only trip (he, we're going to Vegas...come on...)

Can't wait!!!

Ohio State game on DVD

2005-11-28T23:56:00.000-05:00

For those interested I have the Ohio State game available on DVD. It's recorded from the ESPN Classic re-broadcast in 4:3 format (non-HD). Let me know if you like a copy. Please note that this is for personal use only!!

French Riots

2005-11-28T23:37:00.000-05:00

With the riots in France over the last couple of weeks it was made painfully obvious that the current ways the West handles its integration of immigrants isn't working. We are saying we welcome them and that we give them all the same opportunities as the rest of the nation, but the reality is that we much rather ignore them and have them live together in run-down parts of towns and nicely separated from the rest. I think it was about 15 years ago that a Dutch comedian had a bit about a white South African visiting the West and saying that the apparent separation resembled the apartheid strategy back in the days. She took a lot of heat for that bit, but after a number of years it appears she was right. We let them in and then leave them to themselves. Without any help a vast majority of immigrants will remain in the lowest regions of society and in the highest regions of crime and violence.

Whenever there is a violent outbreak sparked by an apparent small act, the reality is that the real reason is due to the lack of opportunities for those groups. The extreme right always tries to capatalize on those periods of unrest by showing off the result as proof that immigrants are violent. The real cause remains suspisiously under-rated.

We now have a number of examples in the last couple years. In the US we had the Rodney King riots, in Paris and the rest of France it was a nation-wide spree of unrest, in Holland it was after the assasination of Pim Fortyn and quite frankly with the 4 million Turks in Germany I'm predicting a similar outcry somewhere in the next few years, maybe even preceded by the former Eastern Germans.

We need to get those people more involved in our society, raise there wealth-level, lower crime and offer them better oppertunities to integrate in our Western societies. If we don't do that and only react on the symptoms we will never solve the real issue.

Are you ready for some Football?!?!

2005-11-28T23:11:00.000-05:00

The last couple weekends were big football weekends here in the US. Last weekend it was the time for the biggest rivalry in US sports, the Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Michigan Wolverines. It truely is one of (if not the) biggest sporting events here in the Mid-west. It has been going on for over a 100 years. This year the game was in Ann Arbor, MI with an attendance of over 110.000 people. People from Europe will have to read that number twice since there isn't even a stadium big enough to house that many people... The good thing was that the Buckeyes won it this year. That made Ohio State bowl-eligable as an at-large team since Penn State won the Big Ten conference this year.

After the Ohio State win, the Cleveland Browns won vs. the Dolphins, the Cavs won, so it was a good Thanksgiving weekend sports-wise. The other noticeble game was the Indianapolis Colts vs. the Cinncinati Bengals. A score of 35-20 at halftime is unbelieveble. The Colts hung un to win it 45-37. It triggered a quote from one of the ESPN announcers: '..the first one to 50 wins..'. It sure looked like it. Fun to watch, but it must have been a horrible night for the defensive coordinators.

This weekend was the Canadian version of the Super Bowl, the 'Grey Cup' as the championship game of the CFL. This year it was in Vancouver featuring the Edmonton Eskimos and the Montreal Alouttes. Edmonton won it after a thrilling game that had to be decided in over-time. To be honest to all friends north of the border, it would be more accurate to call the Super Bowl the US version of the Grey Cup since it was being held for the 93th time... This years Super Bowl will only be number 40.

Just before the Grey Cup I was able to watch the Seatlle Seahawks battle the NY Giants. It was memorable since NY had 11 false starts (5 in one drive...) and the 3 missed field goals by NY. Seattle capitalized on those errors and was able to win it in OT by a well-aimed field goal.

At the moment of writing this I'm watching the final game of these two weekends, The Colts vs. the Steelers. At the start of the 4th quarter it looks like the Colts will win number 11 as well and stay undefeated this year.

My prediction for Super Bowl 40: Colts vs. the ... (you fill in your favorite) with a win for the Colts. Easy choice maybe, but I think it is the right one...

Show to see: MI-5 (in the UK: Spooks)

2005-11-28T22:51:00.000-05:00

If you have a decent cable provider that carries A&E you can see an excellent BBC show called MI-5. In the UK it is named Spooks. Its about an anti-terrorist team inside the English agency MI-5. The action is high-paced, the quality is - as ususal for a BBC show - excellent and due to the single-epsiode cases with a couple of season-long story-lines it is easy to follow, but in my opinion better than FOX's '24' which features a similar counter-terrorist unit as the main characters.

If you don't have A&E there is an ever better way of watching the show; on DVD. The main advantage is (short of the absence of commercials) that it features the entire 60 minutes per episode and not the abreviated 43mins episodes aired in the US in order to fit it in the usual 1-hour time-slot. The first two seasons are available for rent on Netflix or for purchase on the regular websites (Amazon, B&N, etc..) If you have the luxery of owning a Region-code free DVD player you can already buy the third season of MI-5 / Spooks on DVD from Amazon UK for about $20 less than the pre-order price (released in the US on Jan 30, 2006).

Gotta love the world-wide part of the web...

Rob Thomas concert

2005-11-28T22:35:00.000-05:00

Last friday I went to a Rob Thomas concert at the Palace Theather here in Cleveland. Short version: best concert I've seen as far as I can remember. Thight show, stunning performance from Rob Thomas and a good support act (Anna Nalick).

Anna kicked off the show and lived up to my expectations as a good live act. I first heared of her on a radio interview during my drive to work and read a good review of her album in Rolling Stone before I picked it up back in April. She was relaxed (maybe a bit too much) but showed off her quality as a singer-songwriter. Yep, she wrote all lyrics and music on her album (Wreck of the Day) herself.

After Anna it was time for Rob Thomas. When the curtains rose, so did the crowd noise. The show was on ... and it never let up. Good mix of his own songs, some of the Matchbox 20 songs and a few covers thrown in to top it all off. During the unplugged part of the show he showed off his quality as a musician and kept the audience very well entertained. One thing I was suprised about was the bass coming out of speakers. Not deafening, but so low it litteraly rolled through the theater down to my guts. Amazing!!

After a show of about 2 hours (Springsteen-territory) the shows finale was the big hit 'This is how a heart breaks' and it was a perfect ending to a perfect concert. If Rob Thomas is coming to your town I highly recommend you go see it. He may not have the worlds greatest singing voice, but - due to his great songwriting, professionalism and sheer quality - that goes completey unnoticed.

All kinds of things to come

2005-11-28T22:33:00.000-05:00

Man, did I ever suffer from writers block, lazyness or anything else that kept me from updating my blog. It kinda defeats having one almost. Ah well, it is what it is. Stay tuned since a few updates are coming...

Blogger-for-Word

2005-08-20T21:42:00.000-04:00

Just found an interesting little add-on to make your Blog life a little easier. It’s called ‘Blogger-for-Word’. It lets you upload a word-document to your blog with the click of a mouse. The main advantage is the availability of a spell-checker. Besides me, God only knows how may re-posts I’ve done after I found a few spelling-errors. Give it a go, I like it and I used it to upload this post.

The DutchCanuck Hotel

2005-08-20T21:14:00.000-04:00

I’ve done a lot of traveling over the last few years, for business as well as personal. If you fly a lot there is this interesting thing called ‘Airmiles’. Over the years I flew mostly with the airlines in the Skyteam Alliance, thus I was able to collect airmiles on carriers like Continental, Delta, NorthWest, Air France and also KLM. Interesting thing is that as a Dutch native I’ve flown with all the mentioned airlines, except KLM. Which is the Royal Dutch Airlines. The reason for it was however a true Dutch one; they are usually a bit more expensive. Still a cloggie at hart…

Back to the Airmiles. Since I was able to collect miles on all those carriers and combine them all I had collected well over a 100.000 airmiles. For a free round-trip in the US and Canada you only need 25.000 and you can find a round-trip to Europe for about 50.000 miles. Since I’ve been over to the Netherlands quite frequently in the last two years I was looking for a good reason to spent some of those miles. Well, I found one: I’m having my parents come over in October soley on airmiles. Lordwilling, they should arrive on October 5, stay for a forth night and go back to the Netherlands on October 19.

I’m planning on showing them the great city of Cleveland (some will disagree on the ‘great city’-part..) where I set up camp a little over two years ago. I’ve come to learn quite a bit about the city and hope to explore some more before they get here. Unfortunately I won’t be able to take the entire period off work, but I’m sure they want some time for themselves as well to visit a few sights on their own.

With them coming over in October, and one of my best friends Pascal and his wife Climmy coming in two weeks, coupled with a vist of my European collegue and friend Mat I’m glad to play the role of host for a change after all my travels. Since ‘The DutchCanuck Hotel’ still has quite some openings, I’m inviting all my friends and family from all over Gods creation to come over to Cleveland!

You are al(l)(ways) more then welcome…

Sold my apartment in Belgium

2005-08-13T21:54:00.000-04:00

Some big news: I just sold my apartment in Gellik, Belgium. I kept it when I moved to the States two years ago since my assignment here was initially only for two years and if it ended like that I still wanted to have my house there. However, now that I'm staying in the US and the fact that the office in downtown Maastricht is closed as well, there was no real reason for me to keep the apartment.

The last two years it was rented out to a young couple (he was Dutch, she was Belgian) and after they moved out in April it was sitting there empty. This last week there was a serious potential buyer and I was able to sell it.

Thanks Dad for willing to act as the executor on my behalf, I'll make it up to you when you and mom are coming over in October.

St. Pierre et Miquelon

2005-08-13T21:13:00.000-04:00

I was and still am a bit of a map-nut. I somehow like maps, but more importantly I like to find out about certain places on a map. Sometimes big (like Canada), sometimes small like the small island group of 'St. Pierre et Miquelon' a few miles off the southern coast of Newfoundland. The interesting part is that these islands are the sole remnents of the once vast French territories in North America.

St. Pierre et Miquelon is now an oversees department of the French Republic after it exchanged hands a few times in the 19th century between the French and the British. It's an eclectic mix of French and Gaelic influences. The geography resembles that of Bretagne in France and that is where most of the people on the islands can trace their heritage to.

You can only access it by boat from Fortune, Nfld or by air with Air St Pierre. This remoteness catagorizes the islands as a location 'off-the-beaten-path'. You need to go a bit out of your way to get there. That makes it all the more interesting for the exploring traveller.

Below are a few links for more info on these French North American Islands...
- www.st-pierre-et-migquelon.com
- www.spminfo.com - listen to the music on this site....

The London attacks

2005-08-07T17:47:00.000-04:00

Over the last month London, UK got hit by various terrorist attacks. The first one being the hardest hit with over 50 people needlessly dying in horrific circumstances. A week or two later London got his again, this time the police was prepared and was able to prevent another catastrophy.

The worrysome tactic of the attacks in London is that the recurrance of the attacks was really designed to spread fear more than to go for high casulty numbers. This has the potential of becoming a trend since a string of smaller attacks gives a bigger sence of insecurity than the 9/11 and that insecurity seems to be the goal of the terrorists. In New York the terrorists delivered a major blow, but due to the sheer size of the attack the New Yorkers came more together, a result the terrorrists did not expect. The turn towards the string of smaller attacks is therefore all the more worrysome.

I'm very glad to see that the police in the UK made great strides in capturing the guys (somehow they are guys 95% of the time...) who carried out the 2nd wave of attacks. They even managed to stop a 3rd wave.

That, and the announcement of the IRA that they will now only persue their matter through politics, is the good news that hopefully will get the people of London and the rest of the UK to come together as well and regain their sense of security.

Now, if we can only find a proper way to stop the root-cause of it all...

Company Picknick @ Geauga Lake

2005-08-07T17:34:00.000-04:00

This year on Aug 6 our company picknick was held at Geauga Lake. The weather was beautiful and nothing seemed to prevent it from being a great success. That was untill a park employee decided to carry hydrochloric acid through the park. Nothing wrong with that, except that the container was leaking. This lead to a good part of the park being closed, a parking lot closed, rescue crews on the scene and long traffic jams to the park. Obviously the story made the press and news shows (WKYC Ch.3 News).

The good news was that only 1 ride was closed, but going from one part of the park to the next required a detour outside the park. Turned-out to be nothing more than an inconvenience and the picknick/lunch was a success. We had a good turn-out and after lunch me and Ben took in some of the rides.

There was one that was kinda funky; X-flight. You get in, you are lowered onto your back and the ride goes out head-first going up to the highest point. Than as it accellerates you are turned back onto your stomach and ride starts... Wow!! Hang on!! That was one heck of good ride, but you need to have the stomach for it. This one is not for the faint-of-heart!!

All-in-all a good day and because I parked at the shopping center across from the parking lot on Hgw 43 it was - in good Dutch fashion - a very cheap day as well.

Killbear Provincial Park, ON

2005-08-07T16:55:00.000-04:00

After months of planning the time was there to go meet-up with my cousin Chad and our buddy Rob. Originally we had a few more friends coming, but eventough planning ahead seemed to work there are always those last-minute scheduling conflicts that pop-up. No biggie. On Thurdsay-afternoon I left Cleveland at about 4.15pm and after a quick and easy drive I was in Brampton a little after 8.30pm. I made such good time that I had to wait before Chad, his lovely wife Lisa and Rob showed up. Gave me an oppertunity to doze-off a bit. We started sorting out the camping stuff, did the groceries pre-loaded the cars with everything but the coolers.

The next morning we made a last-minute stop at the Pro Bass Shop before driving north towards Barrie. A fuel and ATM stop later we continued towards Killbear Provincial Park. Very nice drive after Barrie to end-up at a beautiful park. You really get the 'up north' feeling eventhough you only barely left Southern Ontario.

We registered at the park and checked out our campsite. At least Chad and I did, somewhere between the park entrance and the site we managed to loose Rob... Since cellphone coverage is spotty at best it took us some time to hook-up. It turned out okay since the first time we checked the campsite the previous guest were still pakcing up and it was nice and empty now with the guys from the park cleaning it up for us.

Next item: pitching tents. I had my light-weight tent with me and got everything setup in under 5 minutes. Rob had his done shortly after before we both helped out Chad setting up his 'Palace'. Jeez, that thing was big. After that it was time for the tarp and with finished we had our home for the next few days ready..... Beach time!!

We didn't actually go to beach, but rather to the Cliffs. It's one of the most popular spots in the parks with various cliffs you can use to jump off into Geogrian Bay (off Lake Huron). They vary from 10 to 45ft in height and all kinds of people where doing lots of jumping. You saw young first-timers, experienced 'thrill seekers' and the slightly older crowd (everything over 25 to 75). I made a few jumps, but Chad found his inner child and must have made 10 or more jumps. The water was nice and clear. Althought the latter part was a bit weird since you could see the bottom, but it was soo deep you'll never hit it. Just doesn't look like that if you look down from the top of that cliff...

The first night at the campfire. Well, like kids in the candy store. The beer came out followed by the Captain Morgan which found its way plentifully into the cans of Coke and Lime. We had a blast. All of us needed this R&R for various reasons and it was much appreciated.

We did some fishing on this trip, or better said a lot of fishing. It's not my biggest hobby, but watching your friends actually catch something (after a lot tries...) makes it interesting. I always had my book with me, but I never did read much...

On the Sunday the guys had their biggest fish-success. I very big one got away before, but this time in the first 15 minutes they had 3 catches. The biggest catch of the day was reserved for the guys from Barrie. We lent them our fish-net and they caught a big su**er of a lake trout. I took the picture (see here for that shot and more) and without our net they would have never been able to get it, so... ah well, we caught some pike and some bass, but not big enough for the BBQ.

After a quick visit to Parry Sound (or for the hockey-fans among us: Borry Or town) and a good lunch at Don Cherry Sports and Grill the trip was winding down. The next morning we started to pack eveything up and went for some final jumps of the Cliffs and with a fuel-stop in Nobel we left again for Brampton. For me that was only part of the trip since I had my Brampton to Cleveland leg still ahead of me, which was another 4 to 5 hours.

After picking up some furniture for Chad and watching him putting it together it was time for me to leave and commence the last leg of this mini-break. 5 hours later I was home and rolled into bed and slept like a baby.

New York City

2005-08-07T16:17:00.000-04:00

I recently had the oppertunity to visit my friend Ryan in Stamford, CT. One of the things on the agenda was to revisit NYC. But first we checked out Stamford a bit. Nice small-town feeling with inner-city Barcelona like traffic. Very strange, but very funny and even familiar being from Europe... Ended-up in a very nice Spanish restaurant sampling some of the tapas and the obvious Sangria. Good food, good drinks, good company. For some weird reason we thought it would be a good idea to go see 'Fantastic Four'. Well, lets just say that you don't go for the story-line...

The next day we left for NYC by train. Perfect way to get to NYC, you're dropped off at Grand Central station and you're in the middle of Manhattan without any hassle whatsoever. Great. We took the Subway to Ground Zero since I wanted to see that place again. The last time I was in NYC I stood on top of the WTC. We took the elevator of the Millenium Hotel to try and get a good aerial view, but the look-out was of the East river and Brooklyn. It made for an interesting shot of NYC (for that and other shots of NYC, see NYC Photos). Later we did find some decent photo-oppertunities and continued our stawl through Battery Park towards Wall Street. Found a Gaudi in the process. Just go two blocks north on Nassau Street and look towards your right into a small side-street.

From there we wanted to see the Intrepid Sea-and-Air museum, but somehow ended up taking the Subway the wrong way and almost ended up at Kennedy Airport. After a quick change of lines we were on our way again, but lost too much time (and dodged a nifty thunderstorm in the process). We decided it was time to get some grub and walked towards the Jeckyll and Hide restaurant on 57th and 6th. Made some interesting BW shots of the NBC studios at Rockefeller Plaza. The restaurant is geared towards kids, but it holds enough to be a very interesting place for 'older' kids as well. If you catch yourself there, I had the Pasta Jambalaya. Excellent.

The main event of the day was a show on 42th Street called 'Rain' by 'Cirque Eloise' out of Montreal. It is what is called 'Modern Circus', in the line of Cirque du Soleil. This 'troupe' did away with the fancy decors and costumes and replaced it with a bit more humor. Too bad it was the final weekend, otherwise I would STRONLY recommend it. Very intriguing and absolutely hilarious. I'm watching their website for encore presentations, so stay tuned. After the show we took the train back to Stamford for some drinks and reflections on the past day, with the show easily taking the most reflections.

The Sunday was a more relaxed day with a tour of the EdgeLab offices on the UCONN campus in downtown Stamford. After a tour of Old Greenwich looking at what old money can buy we decided to get some R&R at the pool of the apartment building. Good idea, especially since my flight to Cleveland was on the schedule as well, so by 5pm I was back at the airport for a quick and uneventfull flight home.

You gotta love those short breaks. Thanks for the hospitality Ryan!!

An apology

2005-08-07T16:14:00.000-04:00

I think I need to apologize to all my friends for not updating the blog for the last 4 weeks. Its been a bit crazy (and yes, I've been a bit lazy as well..;-), but watch for updates coming in the next few hours...

Niels

The long weekend – Monday

2005-07-06T19:58:00.000-04:00

My last day of the long weekend and since Chad hadn’t been biking much recently we decided to check-out some of Bramptons trails. We quickly found a very nice trail and were having a good time out in the woods. That was until somehow Chad lost the pully of his rear-derrailor. Since a pully is pretty much wedged-in it is a mystery how this happened, but after that ‘amazing discovery’ we headed back to the pavement and back to Chad’s place. After a shower and some grub we decided to drop the bike off at the bike shop, but Chad got a visit from Bell Canada for his spotty phone service. After checking the outside and inside of the house the conclusion was that a combination of multiple lines used in a - let’s say - peculiar way by a previous owner and a sub-par alarm wiring (without effecting the working of the latter…) made for quite a mess. Fortunately "Troy – the phoneguy" fixed it all and we were on our way. Since it was getting close to 4pm and given the fact I had 2 more stops and a 5 hour drive ahead of me it was time to say goodbye and be on my way.

The first stop was a quick drop-off at Chads parents in Mount Hope (Hamilton) and the second stop was at my great-aunt (and Chads Grandma) Truus in her new apartement on the corner of Wellington and Stonechurch, also in Hamilton. She now has a very nice apartment with a very nice view. When everyting is finished that is, since quite a bit still needs to be done. We had some talks and laughs on the balcony before I had to depart for Cleveland. The border was reached at a little after 8pm so all the holiday traffic had already passed and I was – again, surprisingly for the second time this long weekend – able to drive-up straight to the booth and back in the US in 30 seconds flat. Very nice. The rest of the 3 hour drive was pretty uneventful apart from the fact that since it was the 4th of July I had some nice fireworks to look at on the sides of I-90 and at around 11.30 after a good 700 miles I found myself back in Cleveland.

It was a very good weekend, but a bed sounded very appealing and after dismounting the bike I was glad to be home, ready for bed and grateful for spending the long weekend in such good company. Goodnight.

The long weekend – Sunday

2005-07-06T19:53:00.001-04:00

After Jason left the rest of us slowly awakened as well to the smell of breakfast. I can think off worse things… Feeding the body was much appreciated in preparation of the spiritual feeding that followed. Since Joel and Carolyn both live outside of Guelph now it took a fair bit of time before they were able to shake loose from the crowd after church ended, but we had lunch waiting so back to house we went. Not quite the standard, but Chinese for lunch was a very nice idea. The afternoon was scheduled for some down-time so we went to Silver Creek park off Gordon street for some challenging rounds of …yep…bocce-ball again. A great game and with some challenging grounds it made for a nice few hours of play-time. All good things come to an end and since Carolyn had yet to pick-up her car at Guelph Line off the 401 before driving to Strathroy (with a stop at her place in Brampton) we said goodbye to Jason and Faye and headed to Guelph Line.

Once on the 401 it turned out that 1 exit past Guelph Line the OPP closed the highway for an investigation and since there are no exits for about 16km (10 miles) between Highway 6 in Guelph and Guelph Line we reached the jam pretty quickly. With some frustration it took us about 2 hours to reach the Guelph Line exit. After saying goodbye Carolyn quickly got in to her car and Joel and I headed to Burlington. Joel wanted to water his garden since it hadn’t rained in three days. Somehow watering a garden seems to make you hungry , so the all-you-can-eat ribs at Montana’s seemed a good way to obey our stomachs. After some good fellowship we decided to pay a visit to my cousin Chad and his wife in Brampton, so a good 40 minutes later we were having some beers and good laugh. I decided to stay since Joel had to work on Monday and with Chad and Lisa both being teachers they had the day (and a few more…) off. Some more beer and conversation brought the day to a good end.

The long weekend – Saturday – A taste of the Fifties

2005-07-06T19:53:00.000-04:00

The evening was reserved for a little time-travel; back to the Fifties and the glory days of the… drive-in movie theaters. For me personally it was a first and for most of the group this wasn’t a typical night-out either. After picking-up some grub at one of the local pizza-places we drove up around 7pm. There were about 30 cars ahead of us, so we were doing alright. We parked and brought out the pizza; grub-time folks! About 30 minutes later the gates opened and we got ourselves the best spot in the house. I guess it helped that the other half of the group was first in line… We parked the cars, finished off (most of) the pizza and brought out the games. One part opted for bocce-ball (or jeu-de-boules on steroids for the Europeans among us…), the other made it into a card-night. Unfortunately about 30 minutes after Faye got paged. She is a mid-wife and was on-call for the weekend. The good thing was that they refunded her ticket and while she attended to the page we played some more until the first movie started.

At about 9.30pm the Longest Yard was the first movie of the 4-movie-all-night-line-up; the Longest Yard, War of the Worlds, Sahara and the Honeymooners. We knew we were not staying for the latter two and with the temparature gradually getting down to about 14 C (or 54 F) we were glad we made that decision. During the two movies everybody gradually turned from a summer butterfly to a winter cocoon, but we stayed out and had a blast. The Longest Yard was definetly a pleseant surprise, while War of the Worlds was a bit of a dissapointment. This was a general feeling among the entire group. At about 2am we made our way back because- after some shut-eye - Jason was expected to be at chuch the next morning at 9.30am since he was on Usher duty.

The long weekend – Saturday – Wedding blues

2005-07-06T19:52:00.001-04:00

Since Joel and his fiancee Carolyn are in the middle of planning the wedding, they had a follow-up visit planned at a hall somewhere in/around Guelph (exact location will not be mentioned…). We ran a little late, but while coming up with some questions to ask we made it in time. The good thing was that the hall was about ready to host a wedding reception that evening so we had a good look at how they dressed-up the hall. It looked really nice and after getting most of the answers we headed back out before the guest of the wedding arrived. This hall will be the location for Joel and Carolyn’s wedding reception but the name and location of the hall (and the location of the photos...) remains a closely guarded secret…at least untill the invitations are sent out.

The long weekend – Saturday - Biking

2005-07-06T19:52:00.000-04:00

Saturday was bike-day for Joel and me. The girls went Garage-saling and Jason had to drop off some hamocks up north. If it was that simple it wouldn’t warrant a story, but it wasn’t. I brought my bike and Joel was to borrow a bike from Jason and Faye. Faye asked us if we could pump-up the rear tire and get a valve adapter since the paretta valve on the tire didn’t fit their pump. We should be able to get it done at the bike-shop at the corner of Gordon and Nottingham (in Guelph). It was 9am and off we went to the bike shop. Bike shop closed. Didn’t open until 10am. Okay, two options; wait an hour or see if we could get either a valve-adapter or a pump at Canadian Tire. We opted for the latter and came back with a pump.

The pump worked and we were pumping away when disaster struck; a piece of the valve fell off. Given the small size of the paretta valve a small part of that is really small and its brass colour gave it perfect camouflage in the grass… After 10mins of painstackingly crawling through a small section of grass we found it only to conclude that the part didn’t fall off, but broke off. Great. It was now about 10am so a second trip to the bike shop was planned. We quickly found out that we needed a new inner tube and for a small fee the shop was willing to install it as well. That gave us some more time to kill and we put that to good use to stawl around the Farmers Market across from the bike shop (you gotta love small towns…). We found some good cherries and after another 30 minute wait at the bike shop we went back to the house with a bike ready for some biking. However, in the meantime it was 11.30am and we hadn’t done a single bit of biking. Back at the house the girls were already back from their shopping spree and we didn’t leave yet. Anyway, after sharing the story and some laughs we loaded up the bikes and drove to the Guelph Lake conservation area to do some biking.

We parked the car at the trail-head on Victoria Road and biked on some nice trails. After a while the trail narrowed quite a bit and became very poorly maintained. We apparently missed a turn-off or something since the trail we were on now looked as if nobody in the last two years followed a similar route we did. When we hit the part where a machetti was more appropriate than a mountain bike we took the adjecent road and turned on to Jordan baseline and ended-up biking all around the lake without another trail entry point. Too bad, but we still got a good work-out. After stopping for some directions (I know, two guys mountain biking that are stopping for directions must either be really lost or just fed up with the pavement since they apparently missed all the trail entry points). For us it was the latter and 10 minutes later we were indeed back on the trails. By now we were coming close to our 1pm deadline so after a few more minutes on the trails we drove back to the car, loaded the bikes back up and headed back to the house for a much appreciated shower. Not quite the biking trip we wanted, but we still had a good time.

The long weekend - Friday

2005-07-06T19:51:00.000-04:00

This year we had the good fortune that both the Canadian and US independence days where in the same weekend. It gave me another opportunity to visit my friends and family north of the 49th.

I left Friday after work having already loaded up the car with my bike and all the gear in the morning and headed for the Buffalo – Fort Erie border expecting a bridge full of holiday traffic. I was wrong. There were some lines on the way, but they were for the tolls on I-(1)90 and for that I have EasyPass…;-). At the border I was able to drive straight up to the booth and was cleared in under 30 seconds. I arrived in Guelph at my predicted time of 9pm. Not bad for what the AAA proclaimed the busiest driving day in years.

I met up with Joel, Carlolyn and their friends Jason and Faye to watch the fireworks at Riverview Park. It was a bit breezy and a little colder than expected, but some of the fireworks were pretty amazing. At Jason and Faye’s we played some carts and snacked up a bit before switching the lights off…

A flat tire

2005-06-28T21:34:00.000-04:00

On my way home from work I had a little mishab; a flat tire at the right-front of the car. I was driving on I-90 behind a truck waiting for the left lane to clear when out from under the truck an object appeared in the middle of where my tire was gonna go... I think it was a piece of an exhaust since it looked round and black with some sharp endings. Since there were cars left and right of me I had nowhere to go but over it. A sharp 'clunk' and it was done. The tire held on for a little while, but I felt the car pull to the right and after about 30 seconds I heared the noise and the 'Low tire pressure' light came on. Fortunately I was just ahead of the E152th Street exit on I-90 West so I could immediatly pull off the Interstate onto the off-ramp. Parked the car on the shoulder (so I could mount the jack...) and went to work. An off-duty police officer just happend to drive by and offered some well received assistance. Eventhough you know how to do it, some help and advice from people who see and do this almost daily is never a bad thing. After about 20 minutes the deflated tire was in the trunk and the emergency tire (one of those pathetic small, but much appreciated bicycle tires) was mounted. Tommorrow we'll have it fixed properly. Good night, folks.

2005 ChampCar Grand Prix of Cleveland

2005-06-28T21:24:00.000-04:00

Last weekend the 24th annual Grand Prix of Cleveland was held at the Burke Lakefront Airport in downtown Cleveland. This is a three-day event starting on the Friday before the race with various activities all leading to the ChampCar race on Sunday. Besides the ChampCar race also the Toyota Atlantic division is racing along with other race classes. However, first and foremost, this was the ChampCar Grand Prix of Cleveland. I went to the Sunday driver presentation and the race itself. It was a hot and humid day. Temperatures well into the Ninties for the spectators and close to 130 degrees for the drivers inside their cars. Nevertheless it was an impressive race ending with a win for the pole-sitter and now also points-leader Paul Tracy (CAN) from Forsythe Racing. Congratulations to Paul Tracy.

You can see pictures of Paul before and during the race on the photopages of the race my website.

AERO Expo 2005 - Akron, OH

2005-06-21T00:23:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I visited the AERO Expo 2005 at Akron Fulton Aiport. It is an annual airshow organized by the MAPS Air Museum located at the Akron-Canton International Airport. It was a very nice mix of persent day and vintage WOII planes from both the United States as well as from Europe (e.g. the Spitfire and a German Junkers Ju-52). Of course the US workhorses of WOII, the B17 and the B25 were present as well. I've uploaded a few photo's on my own website, www.dutchcanuck.com. Playing around with the digital camera and my zoomlens generated some very nice in-flight shots. Just have a look (and feel free to browse any of the other albums.

Congratulations Joel and Carolyn

2005-06-14T16:09:00.000-04:00

My 'brother' Joel is getting married to his girlfriend Carolyn. Congratulations to you both!!