Caliban - Opinion and Righteous Anger

It's been a while since I wrote anything here and some people are beginning to wonder what's going on in our lives.

I got back from the US in one piece. My flight had an amazing tailwind and so landed a full hour ahead of schedule. I made it back home to our house in the Jordaan mere minutes after the time I was originally scheduled to land! I had even managed to get some half-decent sleep during the flight, so I didn't feel too bad when I got back.

Upon my arrival, Sarah and her folks were waiting for me. Her mum and dad had arrived here a few days after I had left for California and had already been enjoying the still glorious weather. Soon after my return, my beautiful baby daughter woke up and I was able to cuddle her again. How I had missed her! She seemed to have grown in my absence, which shocked me, and I vowed to avoid being apart from her in the future.

Although the American IRS tax regulations now preclude my spending any more time in the US this year, thereby preventing me from attending the family Christmas (Wiesje's first!) in Providence, I've made my piece with the sacrifice. This could very well be the last tour that Dead Can Dance ever makes, but there will be other Christmasses. The real justification was in the quality of the concert experience, however. Each gig was magical in its own right. The backstage experience at three of the shows served to augment the event yet further, making for a truly unique and memorable trip.

Of course, I do somehow still need to make up my Christmas absence to Sarah, who is less than pleased with the status quo, even though she understands that I did what I had to do. I'll have to think long and hard about that one.

I soon discovered that Sarah had set us up with some house viewings for the day that I had got back. In the afternoon, we viewed a luxury apartment and a house that had once been the home of a famous Dutch poet and a sequence of mayors of Amsterdam.

The luxury apartment was outrageously overpriced, but the interior was stunning. The location was good, too, quite near the Vondelpark. However, an apartment is still an apartment and so there was no garden, which is an absolute prerequisite for us. The apartment also had ridiculously high monthly service costs, amounting to more than the monthly rent on most properties in the city. We don't need a caretaker, nor three garages, nor tennis courts. The place had too many objections to be of real interest, but it was great fun to have a look at it.

The poet's house was another stupendous property, but so large that one could almost get lost in it. It was approximately 1000m², which is way too large for us. Nevertheless, it was fun to look at and meet the current owner, a (nationally) famous Dutch film producer. It's actually quite helpful to view houses in which one is not interested, because it helps one become more aware and certain of what it is that one does want.

Sarah's folks were in town when I returned, so we viewed these houses with them in tow. It was fun for them to have a look inside some rather unusual Dutch properties.

Most of their time was reserved for tourism and family time, of course. This was, after all, their introduction to the country to which their son-in-law had whisked off both their only daughter and only grandchild. It had a lot to live up to!

Sarah's mum wanted to see the Kröller-Müller Museum near Otterlo, so we rented a Greenwheels car for that. On the way back, we had wanted to visit the Apenheul, but it got too late in the day, so we went to Paleis Het Loo instead. It was more fun than I expected, especially the period rooms, still decked out in the style of the old Dutch monarchs.

Other museum visits were to the Rijksmuseum and the Amsterdam Historisch Museum, the latter of which was particularly good; I actually hadn't been in there before. They also went to the Van Gogh Museum and the Frans Hals Museum, the latter during a trip to Haarlem while I was busy watching Dead Can Dance on the other side of the world.

Apart from lots of walking during their stay, we spent one day biking with the whole family. With Wiesje in the bakfiets, we rented bikes for Florence and Mike, took the ferry to Amsterdam-Noord and then proceeded along a scenic route, across the polders to Landsmeer. It was nice to get out of the city and into a village. I think Florence and Mike appreciated the change of pace, too.

In the final days of their stay, we viewed another house near the Vondelpark. Whilst it's missing its own drive or garage and does not border water, it's beautifully renovated and has a nice south-facing garden. The kitchen is immaculate, with Gaggenau and Miele apparatus. The living room is spacious and has two real fireplaces. The neighbourhood is very quiet -- almost too quiet -- and is just a two minute walk from the Vondelpark, my favourite park in the city.

It's a little smaller than I would have originally considered (about 325m² without the basement and loft) and the basement does not run under the entire house. Its ceiling is rather low, too, so it's not useful for much other than storage. The same applies double to the loft, which has a very low ceiling and is not comfortably reachable.

That said, the renovations were completed just one year ago and have been done in a style that we might have chosen if we had been having them done ourselves. There's really very little that we would change. The windows have beautifully custom-made shutters, the parquet flooring is lovely and the bathroom has been tastefully done, with heated stone flooring.

Anyway, Sarah loved this place, too (as did her parents), so, after a second viewing two days later, we decided to put in a bid on it. We've officially made the seller an offer and are now waiting to see what happens. This is very exciting for both of us, as neither of us has owned a house before, so we're very curious to see how this process works and whether it will ultimately lead to our purchasing a new home.

Our belongings have now arrived and cleared customs, but with the prospect of a new home on the horizon, we've chosen to postpone the delivery until we know whether we'll soon have a new home in which to unpack.

My old colleague, Daniel from Google, turned up Saturday afternoon and stayed the night before returning to Zürich for his work. We had a fun time, catching up on events in each other's life and walking around De Wallen. Daniel caught the train back to Switzerland Sunday evening.

Sarah's folks, too, left early today, giving Sarah, Wiesje and I a couple of days in which to be alone again.

On Wednesday, another old colleague, Ome Geoff, turns up some time in the morning. Wow; it seems like just a couple of weeks ago I was driving with him down the Californian coast and making an excursion into cheesy borderline Mexico.

In view of the fact that Geoff has been here before, I'm hoping we can make a couple of excursions into further-lying areas, perhaps even Belgium or Germany. We'll see.

I wonder what's going to happen with our offer on that house...

It's unbelievable, really, but the summer still hasn't ended here. Basically, there has been more or less constant glorious sunshine since we arrived here on 12th August. It's going to be an extremely rude awakening when autumn does finally set in.

Yesterday, we walked over to Artis, the Amsterdam zoo, and purchased year-long membership for the two of us. Wiesje, of course, is still young enough to get in for free. We decided to leave the inside animals, such as the reptile house and aquarium, for what they were (on account of the great weather) and concentrated instead on the outside animals. It was especially great to see the new lion cubs and the elephant calf.

That was a lot of fun, but we didn't get to see everything we wanted to, so we went back again today and saw the seals being fed, plus the penguins. Having membership is great, as it means we can go as often as we like over the next twelve months. By that time, Eloïse will hopefully be interested in what she sees. As of this week, the elephants, tigers, giraffes, gibbons, penguins, polar bear and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all leave her absolutely cold.

Next time there's less than ideal weather and we have nothing better to do, we'll go back and look at the inside animals.

Funny; that's three visits to two different zoos in the last couple of weeks, which must be a record for me.

Geoff isn't here yet. I thought he'd be arriving on the 12th, but it turns out that he only leaves California on the 12th, so he won't arrive here until the morning. Another ex-Google friend, Brian, will be joining us on Friday for a hamburger somewhere in town. It was something of a tradition back in California to eat a burger at Clarke's every Friday. When I announced I was moving back to Amsterdam, the idea arose to have a burger in Amsterdam on 14th October. Not as many people are coming for the Dutch burger, but you have to admire their enthusiasm. I only hope I can offer a burger joint that doesn't disappoint.

The new 14th edition of the Van Dale Woordenboek Van De Nederlandse Taal (Van Dale Dictionary Of The Dutch Language) was released today, or the dikke Van Dale, as it is more colloquially and lovingly known here. This definitive dictionary of the Dutch language appears in a new edition only once every six to eight years.

I bought the 12th edition when it came out in 1992, but passed on the 13th in 1999. After all, it's an expensive, three volume set and doesn't change that much from one edition to the other. Since I no longer own that copy of the 12th edition, I was eager to purchase the new 14th edition upon its release today. I'm enough of a linguistic nerd that I'd actually been looking forward to this event since earlier this year, when I was still living in California and heard that a new edition would be released in the autumn.

For the first time, the dikke Van Dale has been released in two different versions, a limited version and a plain (for want of a better word) version. The limited version contains an extra volume, the Grote Spellingsgids, a comprehensive spelling guide. I've only glanced at this volume so far, but it looks very useful, so I'm happy I chose to purchase this version of the set. The limited edition also comes with a numbered certificate, which contains a code that can be entered on-line and used to order a personalised certificate. Unfortunately, that bit doesn't seem to work for me. Perhaps Van Dale hasn't got that part working properly yet or maybe the code on my certificate is a dud.

This edition of the dictionary also contains a digital version of the contents on CD-ROM. Previously, the CD-ROM was only available as a separate, expensive product. As a nice extra touch, the publisher has scanned and made available on the CD-ROM the very first edition of the dictionary, dating from 1864.

One neologism that has made it into the dictionary this time around is googelen, the Dutch version of 'to google', which is defined as 'to search on the Internet, to use information to perform research via the Internet' (the translation to English is obviously mine). The etymological data (printed in blue for the first time in this edition -- I told you I'm a nerd) gives the derivation of the word as coming from th 'English to google, which in turn is derived from Google, the name of a popular search-engine.

It's interesting to see that the trend seen in English, namely to use the word for the general act of searching for information, not just using Google, is paralleled in at least one other European language. I smell more work for the trademark lawyers, as they swim against the current of linguistic evolution and attempt to stop their privately owned word from becoming another sellotape, hoover, aspirin or spam.

Our friend, Ome Geoff, flew back to California early this morning, thus ending a five-day trip to Amsterdam.

Our Google reunion burger at the Irish bar called Aran on the Max Euweplein was a hit. Our other friend, Brian, also flew in from California with his wife, Victoria, making the event no less well attended than many an old burger meeting at Clarke's in Mountain View.

The next day, we took Geoff to the Apenheul, a free-range simian zoo close to Apeldoorn. Neither Sarah nor Wiesje had been there before, either, so it was a real revelation for the majority of our party. Of course, I still can't be sure that Wiesje actually saw anything, as she's just as interested in someone's hat or a leaf blowing in the wind as she is in exotic animals.

Sarah and I became members on the spot, which allows us to continue to visit the park on Sundays during the winter months, when it is closed to the general public.

The next day, we took a Greenwheels car to Maastricht, where we had lunch close to the Vrijthof. Afterwards, we headed further to the Drielandenpunt, where Geoff and Sarah got a kick out of managing to be in The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany... all at the same time.

In the late afternoon, we crossed into Germany and parked in Aachen, where we wandered around the old town and then settled down for dinner in a pub/restaurant. We didn't get back to Amsterdam until about 22:30, which proved a trial for the little one, but we had a great, fun-packed day.

I took Geoff to Artis on Monday, making this my third trip to the zoo in the last couple of weeks. Sarah was at the Volksuniversiteit around the corner, enjoying a Dutch lesson.

Geoff was here for such a brief stint that he didn't even get around to needing to hire a bike. Well, I'm sure there'll be a next time.

Time for a new entry. We've been keeping busy since Geoff went back to the Golden State of California.

First of all, the major news in the McKenna-Macdonald household is that it looks like we have a new house! After a series of bids and counter proposals that lasted about three weeks, we were finally able to find the middle ground and agree on a price with the owner.

We're expecting to take possession of the property in mid-December and are therefore deferring the delivery of our belongings from the US until then. No point in moving everything into the current house only to move it out again within two months. Besides, we've lived without our stuff for so long that I no longer miss a lot of it.

We expect to sign the deed of sale at the notary's office at the end of next week. It would have happened already, but the owner of the house spends a lot of time abroad and had to cancel the last appointment when he found he could no longer keep it.

Of course, we don't actually have to wait until we move into the new house to get started on the search for all the things we're going to need for it. The last few days have therefore been spent looking for essential items of furniture.

Happily, we've already found the bed we want and it's a Hästens. We looked at a bunch of beds from various manufacturers -- adjustable and plain, two-piece and three, boxspring and spiral -- but in the end nothing else felt as good as the Hästens beds. We chose a non-adjustable three-piece model and are very much looking forward to spending our first night in it. After the crappy water-bed we're currently saddled with, that will be sheer bliss.

We've also found a few good candidates for a dining table and some chairs to go with it, so we're well on the way to having the most essential items sorted out. Hopefully, we'll soon chance upon a suitable couch and a couple of armchairs.

Most of this stuff has a delivery time of six to eight weeks, so we really do need to be looking for it now, if we want to have it by the time we move in. In fact, it's probably already too late for some of this stuff.

As if that wasn't enough to be thinking about, we're considering which set of wheels we'll need in the future. Greenwheels is all well and good, but having used and appreciated the service now for a couple of months, I realise that there are also definite disadvantages to choosing this form of mobility over having one's own car.

Accordingly, I've been reading car brochures over the last couple of days, something I've never done before. The effusive style of the marketing prose and the impression of status and grandeur that it attempts to provoke in the reader make me wonder if people like me are really supposed to own cars. A nice car is a nice car, but it doesn't make me a better person if I own one; it's not an extension of the owner and I don't need a one to bolster my own self-worth.

Perhaps the problem is just that we're looking at quite expensive cars, which I'm guessing are usually sold to people who care about being perceived in a particular way by the people around them, not just people who care about getting from A to B in great comfort. I, on the other hand, don't care how I'm perceived; I just care about practical features and have less eye for style and elegance, which I can barely even discern in a car's design.

Anyway, we're entering yet another exciting period in our lives. Eloïse is going to grow up in a nice, quiet area, close to Amsterdam's most beautiful park. Almost as importantly, we get to live there, too. If all goes according to plan, we should be able to move in within seven or eight weeks. Needless to say, we can't wait.

I've received numerous patches since we moved back to Amsterdam. bash completion, Ruby/Finance, Ruby/Google and Ruby/LDAP have all received patches that I need to integrate.

Unfortunately, all of my computers are still in storage, so I can't work on these projects at the moment. Have no fear, however; as soon as they are back on-line, I will pick up the reins and start integrating the fixes and enhancements that people have sent me. As for the time frame for this, I don't expect to be in a position to work on these projects again until at least late December. It's more likely that I won't recommence work until the new year.

If you're someone who has sent me a patch, please be patient. I will respond eventually.