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Today was one of the 5 cloudless days in the Netherlands, and Ann and I took a stroll through the Kerstmarkt (Christmas Market) which had been set up on the main shopping street in the middle of town.   Every Read more…

I had to go to Rotterdam yesterday to my MBA school to take care of some financial matters. It seems that Sallie Mae, after telling both me AND the school that it would be a cold day in hell before Read more…

New back wheel, chain, plus labor involved to put them both on shoddily (so I had to take it back to the shop after riding on it for two seconds): 96 Euros. New lock because now apparently I need to Read more…

Some asshole stole the back wheel off my bike yesterday. I came back from my first indoor frisbee tournament, and when I got to my bike I saw that it was curiously low to the ground in the back. It Read more…

So, I was speaking with my friend Esther the other day when all of a sudden she was locked out of her computer. This program hijacked her computer, put up pictures of people doing strange things, and wouldn’t let her Read more…

Just to illustrate the different attitudes between the Netherlands and the US as concerns employee welfare, below is an excerpt from an actual memo sent from the Facilities Manager here in Dordrecht: “2. Temperature and Humidity in our buildingJohn Q. Read more…

Saturday – December 4, 2004 Ann booked us a weekend getaway in Maastricht and I am writing this from the bed of the Crown Plaza hotel, which Ann acquired for us at a discount that warms her little Belgian heart. Read more…

A grand and noble tradition has now been introduced to the gambling-impoverished masses of Dordrecht: poker night. First I had to wait two months to get an apartment. Then I had to wait another month to fill it with IKEA Read more…

It was a little weird being ‘home’. First of all, it’s hard to call a place home when you don’t live there, even if all your friends are there and you’ve spent a significant chunk of your life there. When Read more…

Let’s say you get a new debit card in the mail and have to activate it, how would you normally expect that to be done? You call the number on the back, punch in your card number, maybe punch in Read more…