Caliban - Opinion and Righteous Anger

We were early to bed last night and early to rise this morning, due to the fact that we had a 09:30 immigration appointment down at the GBA on the Johan Huizingalaan. We had to wake our sleepy little Poepoe to take the (line) 2, since she would have otherwise quite happily kept dreaming and made us late.

We were fortunate enough to meet with a very helpful woman, who soon informed us that the IND had given permission for our marriage to be registered. As a result, I'm now listed in the population register as a married man, which doubtless simplifies what would happen if I were to meet my maker in an untimely fashion. Well, you can't be too careful, right?

After going through Sarah's paperwork, including marriage and birth certificate, both with apostille attached, Sarah was also finally allowed to register on the population register. This opens the door to obtaining a social security number, etc., which in turn opens the door to opening a bank account in her own name. Exciting times ahead!

Next, some copies of my bank statements were made in order to demonstrate that I can support Sarah without her becoming a burden on the Dutch state. These will now be sent with her file to the IND for further processing. For this privilege, I had to part with the princely sum of €830, which seems an outrageously expensive fee for an application for a residence permit, but there you go; it's not like we can take our business to a competitor. Governments are one of the worst forms of monopoly! Anyway, I see no reason why the application shouldn't be successful, so hopefully it's just a question of being patient and waiting for a decision to be made.

In the meantine, Sarah now has a sticker in her passport, allowing her to remain in The Netherlands until May 2006.

Tomorrow's the day that we sign the deed of sale on our new house. That'll give us something to celebrate tomorrow evening.

Another 42 days/6 weeks and then we can move in.

We were up bright and early once again this morning for the twenty minute walk along the Keizersgracht to the notary's office. There, we met with our estate agent, the selling agent and the notary to run through the koopakte (deed of sale), which we ultimately signed.

We now have a three day cooling off period (or bedenktijd, as it's called here), in which we can decide to abandon the purchase. If we were to do that, we'd owe the notary some cash for his services, but that's all. Anyway, there's very little chance of that happening, as we've had all the time we need to think about this as we waited for the day to come on which we would sign the deed of sale.

We have to hand over 10% of the purchase price by 25^th November, with the rest to follow by the time we are due to take receipt of the house.

16^th December is the agreed day on which we will receive the keys and sign the deed of delivery. At that point, it really will be ours, which even now somehow still seems hard to imagine.

Back home, I called the moving company who currently have all of our belongings in storage and immediately booked the delivery of our stuff for 20^th December. That's the day we'll finally be reunited with all of the stuff we last saw being loaded onto a lorry in California on 10^th August.

After Wiesje had had a nap, we went to Oost Slaapcomfort to place the order for our bed. We decided to kill two birds with one stone and simultaneously order a bed for the guestroom, too, so we placed an order for a 2000T and a Naturally, both made by Hästens. The funny Swedish ads on Dutch TV fulfilled their purpose, I suppose, and the DVD that accompanied the brochure appealed to me with its thorough description of how these beds are manufactured. Of course, the only real litmus test is to lie on the things, but in that area, too, they more than proved their worth.

In the evening, we met up with my old friend and ex-Sonera colleague, Bas, with whom we had dinner. Tomorrow, we'll be hanging out with him and his wife, Kylie. It's surprising to think how many of our friends have actually visited us here in the small amount of time we've been back in Amsterdam.

This article , sent to me by Ome Geoff, demonstrates how the US is (ab)using the Patriot Act via the FBI to spy on its people.

Yet another reason that I sleep more soundly for having left the shores of that paranoid country.

Sarah and I biked through the Vondelpark Sunday afternoon with Wiesje in the bakfiets, of course. It was an incredibly nice day, with a temperature much too mild for the time of year. The sun was shining, too, so we simply had to get out and do something.

After lunch, we headed down to the Amsterdamse Bos (or Amsterdam Woodlands, if you prefer) for the first time since moving back here. It seemed to be quite an effort to make it down there with the heavy bakfiets; am I getting old?

Because of the soft weather and the fact it was the weekend, the woods were very busy and it was something of a slalom to to navigate around all of the people. Eventually, we reached the children's farm, where we introduced our little one to some goats. She didn't quite seem to know what to make of them, but was attentive and interested, at least.

We had lunch there, after which we bought some goat cheese and eggs, all of which is locally produced by the animals on the farm, so one can ascertain for oneself that they have a decent life. The children love these animals and literally fall over each other to feed the goats from little milk bottles that can be purchased on-site. The farm must do a roaring trade with these bottles, as it's sometimes hard to find a goat with any thirst! The chickens are similarly well kept and can roam very freely. It's a shame this place isn't just around the corner, as it's a little too far to go to replace the local supermarket when one needs dairy produce.

We ended up at the Volvo dealer yesterday. I must admit, I'm very fond of the XC70. It's rather like a V70, but then somewhat raised and with high quality four-wheel drive, which makes it a large estate (a.k.a. station wagon). It's not large enough to qualify as an SUV (whatever the precise definition of that may be), but it does offer you a couple of the advantages, albeit in slightly diluted form. You wouldn't really go off-road in it, but you might drive across a muddy field or drive along some hardened muddy tractor tracks.

SUVs are politically incorrect over here. Whilst this is a capitalist society, SUVs (or terreinwagens, asobakken or PC Hooft-tractors, depending on whether you want to be neutral or offensive) are seen by the majority of people not so much as a symbol and celebration of prosperity and pride, but more as a symbol of tasteless excess, contempt for the environment, and disregard for pedestrians and other road users. The left wing is even keen to start refusing to issue parking permits for these beasts, to punish the people who have bought them.

Owners of SUVs are understandably a bit miffed by all of this. After all, they've paid a shitload of tax in the form of BTW and BPM. They eagerly point out that the tax on their vehicle would easily pay for a couple of mothers to live on welfare for a year, so they make the argument that their vehicles are, in fact, amongst the most social on the road. It's a simplistic and warped argument, but there's a core of truth there, too.

For my part, I do appreciate the experience of driving (or being driven in) an SUV. In America, where just about the only car that is regarded as shameful is the Hummer, lots of people drive around guiltlessly and without feeling self-conscious in one of these things. If it weren't for the environmental and safety concerns, you'd have to envy them that.

That goes some of the way to explain why, in spite of the appeal of some of these vehicles, we can't seriously consider one. For one thing, there are only three of us, so by the time we're able to fill the remaining seats, we'll be buying our next car, not this one.

Secondly, Dutch streets and parking facilities weren't meant for these. To park an SUV on the street without blocking traffic, it's necessary to park with two wheels on the pavement, something that is illegal. So, either you stick out into traffic or you make it the problem of the cyclists and the pedestrians, a major reason the drivers of these vehicles are seen as seriously anti-social.

Add to that the poor fuel economy, the disastrous levels of pollutant emissions, and the damage these things cause to other people in collisions, and there's no way we can justify storming around the lowlands in a demilitarised tank.

Today, we went looking for couches and other furniture again. I think we've found a likely source for a couch, but they have a three month delivery period, so we won't be seeing it any time soon, even if we order it now. Oh well. We have a few more sources to check out before we make a decision.

OK, OK, we've listened to your nagging and put up photos from months five and six in our darling daughter's life.

She's growing well and weighed in today at the consultatiebureau at 7.120 kg, with a length of 64 cm. She's now more than twice the weight she was at birth, which Sarah says means there's now twice as much Eloïse for us to love. Awww!

She threw up onto the floor of the Volvo dealer yesterday. Today, she threw up in a furniture shop. Perhaps it's time to get some liability insurance.

Even to someone like me, it's shocking how much information is publically available on-line. Becoming an amateur private detective is getting easier all the time.

Case in point: our new house. I wanted to know who our new neighbours were, so I requested the ownership records for the parcels of land on either side of our new house.

This ended up costing me €2.83 per house, so the information's not free, but it is publically available. At this stage, I already know the names of our neighbours and the amount they each paid for their respective houses; this in spite of the fact that the owner of the house to the right of us hasn't even moved in yet.

Armed with this information, I turn to -- what else? -- Google. By now, everyone has heard of the concept of googling prospective boy- and girlfriends. Naturally, the technique works equally well for any other type of human-being.

Within seconds, I've found a genealogical site with details of my right-hand neighbour's children and wife. I know the number of children he has, their names, where they were born and even the names of his wife's parents. The only barrier to my discovering more is the speed at which I can read and assimilate the information.

After a couple of minutes, I know my right-hand neighbour's current job and employer, as well as his last two places of work. I also know a couple of locations where he has lived in the past. To top it off, I have a photo of the man, so I'll recognise him the first time that I see him.

Now it's the turn of the left-hand neighbour. I can't find anything about the man of the house, but the lady of the house starts popping up all over the place. She has quite a public function and I realise I've probably seen her on local TV.

What about the current owner of the house we're buying? Of course, I'd already done the research on this person as soon as I discovered his name in the draft copy of the deed of sale I was sent for review. He turned out to have had quite an impact on the world, having invented something that has gone on to become ubiquitous in first-world households.

You'll notice that I don't tell you what he invented, nor what my left-hand or right-hand neighbours do for a living. Why? In a word: privacy. Yes, this is all public information, but it's one thing for me to do the research to satisfy my own curiosity and quite another for me to dump the results in my blog and reveal people's identity and the location of their private residence.

Along the same lines, although I also googled the address of our new house and was able to piece together which businesses had been run from there before the property was converted into a house, I can't be specific about what I discovered without revealing its location. In fact, there's probably already enough information in this entry for a determined researcher to start their own investigation and ultimately uncover the facts. Not that I terribly mind people knowing where I live; there are a lot of nutters running around, but what are you going to do? Hide? Nevertheless, not everyone is as comfortable with the idea.

As time goes by, this trend of people, who, once upon a time, could expect to remain all but anonymous, becoming unwitting public figures, is likely to continue. If you ever speak at a conference, write for a magazine with an on-line presence, talk to a reporter, hold a public function or simply rise to the top of your profession, the chances are that your identity can be ascertained and various facts about your life pieced together. Google, public records and a little bit of patience are all that's required.

We finally met the current owners of our new home yesterday, which was very nice. They were kind enough to crack open a bottle of champers to celebrate our new home/their receiving a huge pile of cash.

It turns out that they didn't really want to move until next April, so we're kicking them out quite early, just a month from now, and they haven't yet found alternative accommodation. They're going to move into a furnished house while they look around for a house to buy? Sound familiar? Although they have all their own furniture, they don't want to move it all into a temporary place, so they're going to put it into storage.

After the champagne., we walked through the house while they pointed out various articles that we can take off their hands, if we're interested. There are a few items on the list that would be convenient to have, but I think we'll mostly be buying our own stuff when we move in.

It was St. Maarten's Day yesterday, so while we were at the house, the neighbours and their children came a-knocking, lanterns in hand. They have four children, including three young girls, so Eloïse's going to have plenty of friends at her new location.

The new neighbours seem really nice. They immediately invited us to a big neighbourhood get-together at their house, which will be happening the evening of the day we move in. That will be a lovely, warm welcome to the neighbourhood.

Finally, it was time to leave. Wiesje puked on the floor of the basement as if to say, "This is my place now", and then we were on our way.

As we biked home through the Vondelpark, we could see children everywhere, lantern in hand, making their way down the streets, knocking on doors and asking for sweets and other treats. Just a few years from now, we'll be doing the same thing with our daughter. What fun that will be!

Today was spent shopping for more furniture. I think we're going to cool it on the furniture now, wait until we take possession of the house and then just bring in an interior designer. I feel overwhelmed by the huge number of designs, styles, heights, lengths, etc. plus the need to coordinate all of the various items with each other, the walls, the floors and the general ambience of the room. Neither Sarah nor I really know our arse from our elbow in this regard, so we need an expert.

It's time to take another trip.

At the end of 2004, friends of ours, a Liechtensteiner and a Swiss, moved back to Zürich from Mountain View. Roman was a colleague of mine. Technically, he still is, since he now works for Google in Switzerland and I'm officially also still an employee, albeit on sabbatical. (Incidentally, Google has agreed to extend my sabbatical by a further three months, so I will now remain an employee until at least the beginning of February 2006.)

Anyway, before Carine and Roman left for Switzerland, we discussed our plans to return to Amsterdam in the summer of 2005 and vowed to visit them before the end of that year. With the end of 2005 fast approaching, it was high time to make good on our pledge, so we went up to Centraal Station today and booked our seats on the night-train for the end of this month. We'll stay with Carine and Roman for six days.

This should be a lot of fun. I've never been to Switzerland before, so that will be another country to add to my list. For Eloïse, it will be her sixth country within seven months of life, which seems pretty good for someone who can't even speak or control her own bladder yet. If only she were old enough to realise how well-travelled she is! Actually, I shouldn't even really count Belgium, as she has only passed through it on the train on the way to/from France and for a few minutes when we went to the Drielandenpunt with Geoff. Even Germany's a stretch, as we were only in Aachen for a few hours.

We decided to travel first class, which is something we never do on planes, but it's a lot of fun on trains. Our compartment will have its own toilet and shower, as well as two spacious beds. You get a glass of wine when you board the train and are served breakfast in your compartment in the morning. We're spoiling ourselves, but what's life without a little luxury?

.ch, here we come!

"Vorsprung durch Technik, as they say in Germany." With those words, spoken in a smug English accent by a famous British actor (who is nevertheless not famous enough for me to remember his name), the Audi TV adverts from my youth in the early eighties would end.

I always wondered what Vorsprung durch Technik meant, and the fact that I still remember those TV ads from more than twenty years ago, must say something about their effectiveness at imprinting the brand in one's mind (or mine, at least).

To get to the point, Sarah and I decided to make our first family car purchase the 2006 Audi A6 Avant, a practical and nippy estate in the 3.2 FSI petrol engine version.

We'd previously looked at the Mercedes E class estate, as well as the Volvo V70 and XC70. BMW was briefly considered, too, until it became apparent that they didn't have an estate in their fleet that would really appeal to us.

The Mercedes was nice, but overpriced. The marketing materials were rather revolting, too, in their attempt to make one feel like a virulent, omnipotent man-beast, who will be the envy of all past whom he races, as they turn their heads in awe of the sound of the roaring engine and noisy exhaust. Of course, what they don't tell you that all those turning heads are actually thinking, "What a prick!"

The discrepancy between how Mercedes would like you to think of yourself (once again, a man admired and respected by men, whilst desired by women for sex and marriage) and the harsh, unforgiving reality (aggressive, unhealthy, low-browed, knuckle-dragging, chain-smoking, beer-swilling Amsterdam taxi-drivers) is quite comical.

Like I said, the car itself was nice -- very cool, even -- but the car has an image and attracts people who want to be associated with it. Similarly, many people who don't own one view people who do in a particular light. Now, I don't particularly care about this aspect of the car (after all, I don't feel the need to excuse myself to everyone), but I do think their cars are consequently overpriced.

The Volvo was next. (You see? I told you I didn't care about the image). I was almost sold on the XC70, even though it was a far cry in luxury terms from the Mercedes E Class, but I ultimately balked at the user interface of the controls. The navigation system's LCD screen pops up out of the dashboard, giving poor contrast when driving in bright light. Its buttons for entering a destination address are to be found only on the steering wheel, which I'm sure the car's designers considered very safe, as the driver doesn't have to take his hands off the wheel. However, what about the passenger? It's even safer to allow the passenger to do the data entry. With enough little details like that, you ultimately start to lose interest. The car rode very well, but an irritating user interface would ruin the experience.

We were going to look at the Subaru Outback, but we never made it that far. After a trip to the Audi dealer last week that involved test-driving the A6, we were pretty sure we'd found our car. I've spent the last week reading Audi's own brochures, as well as independent reviews and crash test results (both the American and European). People are universally impressed with the A6's physical performance, as well as its MMI interface to the on-board computer. Everything is simple to use and -- that favourite word in software -- intuitive. The crash tests rate it an exceptionally safe car in the event of a major impact, safer even than Volvo's latest cars (and Volvo is the company with the lasting reputation for safety in cars).

After working my way down the list of options, I went in to the dealer on Tuesday and obtained a price estimate for an A6 Avant. Sarah and I went back today to ask some final questions and place the order.

The car will be manufactured in week 51 of this year, but won't be registered in The Netherlands until 2006. In this country, it's the registration paperwork -- not the build date -- that people look at when determining the age of the car. Crazy, but true.

Anyway, we should be able to pick the car up some time in the second half of January, which suits us very well. We even took home a set of car manuals so we can start to figure out how all the features work. I'll be lucky if I've finished reading it all by the end of January.

Oh, Vorsprung durch Technik means 'advantage by technology', by the way. It's very similar in Dutch: voorsprong door techniek.

Today was the intocht van Sinterklaas, or the arrival of Sinterklaas in Amsterdam. We proceeded around noon with our favourite small person (yes, Eloïse) to the Dam, where an almost two hour wait ensued before Sinterklaas finally rode down the Damrak into town on his horse.

It was very busy with parents and children and had started to drizzle by the end, but we got to see the goedheilig man and were handed some pepernoten by one of the many zwarte pietjes leading the way.

Eloïse has experienced her first Sinterklaas! Hieperdepiep! Hoera! Hieperdepiep! Hoera! Hieperdepiep! Hoera!

Sarah and I had booked a second test-drive for today, down at the Audi dealer in Zuid-Oost. It's a bit arse-over-tit, of course, to have a test-drive after having already ordered the car, but we were offered the chance to keep it for a few hours and really get a strong impression of how it will be to own one, so we felt we couldn't really pass up the opportunity. Besides, this time we were able to drive a 3.2 FSI petrol engine with an automatic gearbox, which is the same specification as the vehicle that we've ordered.

Thanks to the on-board navigation system, we never got lost. With my sense of direction, that's a big deal.

We headed out west on the motorway towards Haarlem, but passed it by in favour of Zandvoort, where we spent a moment looking at the waves coming in on the beach. This was the site of our first date (if you can really call it that), back in January 2000. Eloïse went to sleep in her car-seat on the way there, which left us free to enjoy the car and experiment with some of its many features. In fact, the CD player was responsible for sending Wiesje to sleep, as we had brought along her favourite CD for this very purpose, a collection of nursery rhymes sung by Karin Bloemen.

From Zandvoort, we headed over to Noordwijk, where we stopped for some food in a downmarket restaurant that was absolutely bloody freezing. Why Noordwijk? Sarah suggested it and I didn't have a better suggestion at the time. It was as dead as a doornail, but we got to say that we dipped into another province (Zuid Holland).

Back in the car, we programmed the address of our new house into the navigation system and headed back to Amsterdam. On the way, I tried to put the car through its paces, but the speed limit got in the way. Having received a speeding fine yesterday for a minor violation in our Greenwheels car back in early October. I was in no mood for another one.

Finally, we made our way back to the Audi dealer. Wiesje was asleep again by this point, so we made a quick detour around Ouderkerk prior to concluding our round-trip at the dealer's premises. We reluctantly returned the car and then headed home, but not before modifying our car order to include sport seats. I had been very impressed with the ones in our test vehicle -- in particular, the extendable groin support (I don't know what it's really called) -- and decided I just had to have them.

In conclusion, I'm very happy with our decision to purchase an Audi A6 Avant. It's spacious, comfortable, designed with safety in mind, drives like a dream, has a well thought out interface to its multitude of features, and is powerful (even with an automatic gearbox). I think we're going to enjoy cruising around Europe in this car!

I get very bored when researching purchases. Whether it's a new DVD player, a car, a washing machine, a computer peripheral, a mobile phone, a camera, a memory card or a new video game, I never just go out and buy something. Days, sometimes weeks of research, are required before deciding which brand and which model to purchase. Reviews, discussions on on-line forums, brochures, magazines... Many forms of documentation are consulted in the name of finding the right item to buy.

This is more a personality trait than a conscious decision, so I can't even claim that I enjoy such investigative work. No, it's more the dread of buying the wrong thing and regretting it later. Wrong might mean missing an important feature, being saddled with a poor user interface, being overpriced, being a soon to be replaced model, or any number of other things.

Some items are just essentially dull; it's very hard to become excited about them. Nevertheless, dull doesn't automatically equate with cheap, so no less research is necessitated prior to a purchase. After all, having to replace a dull but expensive mistake would be even more irritating than replacing a more appealing expensive mistake.

The most recent example of this was in deciding which washing-machine and dryer to purchase. We ultimately opted for the W 2888 WPS washing-machine and T 4888 C dryer, both manufactured by Miele. Miele is really the only name in washing-machines and dryers, as far as I'm concerned. They're expensive, but second to none in terms of quality, energy conservation and silent operation. It's no coincidence that virtually every house we viewed whilst looking for a place to buy had Miele washing appliances.

Sarah's favourite feature is that the plastic front panels of the two machines contain absolutely no text: all programme selections are displayed on the LCD screen and the interface's language is user-selectable. Sarah feels quite strongly about being able to do her washing in English!

For my part, I can't get too excited about washing machines and dryers, but I do have to respect the engineering that allows a drum to spin at thirty revolutions a second, plus the fact that the firmware of these machines can be flashed to make them aware of new types of fabric that have yet to be invented. Yes, these days, even your washing machine can have its firmware dynamically updated. Apart from that, I just hope they clean and dry my clothes without knackering them.

That's the beds, the car, the washing-machine and the dryer taken care of. We still need a couch, plus a dining room table and chairs, just to have the basics covered. Moving to a new house is so much work!

Winter's here. Autumn didn't last for long, that's for sure.

Snowfalls hit the country last Friday, along with lots of ice on the roads, and completely buggered the east of the country. The A1 and A50 were especially hard hit. People were stranded in their cars and had to be rescued or given blankets, food and fuel by the army. Evening rush hour turned into a nightmare with over 800 km of traffic jams across the country. The A2 alone had an 88km jam, stretching all the way from Utrecht to Eindhoven. The traffic didn't clear up until around 05:30 Saturday morning. Many people had to be given emergency shelter in Apeldoorn.

The south was hit by gale force winds (gusts of force 12 were registered!) and power cables came down. Thousands of people were left without electricity.

Trains were paralysed, as switches malfunctioned and lightning struck. Again, many people found themselves unable to make it home Friday night. In Amsterdam, a couple of people were struck by lightning near the docks.

The weather in Amsterdam hasn't been too bad. It rained like the end of the world on Friday, but Saturday and Sunday were OK. I'm hoping it will behave itself tomorrow night, too, as Sarah, Eloïse and I board the CityNightLine to Zürich to see our friends, Roman and Carine (and baby Elina).

It turns out that Google's Zürich office will be holding its Christmas party on Tuesday, so we'll probably all pop in for that. Funny; I thought I'd attended my last Google Christmas party last December in Mountain View. I wasn't expecting to find myself this year in the same location as the Christmas party of one of the remote offices. That'll be fun.

We'll stay in Switzerland until next Sunday, when we'll once again return home on the night-train. When we get back, there'll be less than two weeks until the new house becomes ours. I can't believe how quickly the time is passing.