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Sunday, July 18, 2010

@ the lawnmower hospital

In case you are wondering, and Dany does, why my grass has not been mowed. Two reasons; first one is the right rear tire is having a puncture, again #3, and the second one is because of the weather. It has rained so much the past 5-6 days the lawn is to soggy to mow, if I tried it it would be ruined. So next time, when dry enough, you could say it will be hayed. To fix the tire is has to go to the Lawnmower Hospital in Edmonton to put in a tube. Somewhere on our property there is a lot of old wire-nail-junk located, I am not sure where as a visual comes up with nothing.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

@ special request

I was asked to take some pictures of a green Rollyview instead of the 6 months white version. Taken late in the evening but still a good impression. Take a look at my two-tone F150 to have a indication how much it rained the last week, in total some 90-100 mm rain fell from the sky, in 5 days. Here is the webalbum for your viewing pleasure or click on the picture. Taking the pictures was a funny experience; Vos was running around on our 20000 m2 when he went in our nature reserve (11000 m2 we just let grow) into the high grass, meanwhile I went back into the house to get a coffee. All of a sudden he came galloping back like crazy to find out I had disappeared, he started to get real nervous and me being a sissy I whistled and he litteraly came crashing towards me. One big jump onto the deck (4 risers) and was very happy to see me. "Thanks boss, all them coyottes" I heard him thinking.

Indonesian food

That is a problem over here. The one and only time you can buy it in Edmonton is at the Heritage festival once a year for 2/3 days. Other than that you have to go to Calgary or Vancouver. I do like to drive my F150 but for an Indonesian meal a 6 hour drive to Calgary is, even for me, too much to ask. Solution? Go cook it yourself. And I did, also thanks to the Beb Vuyk Indonesian cookbook my mother gave me early eighties. Slowly it comes back and tonight I noticed I have not lost touch. A excellent Sambal Goreng Boontjes combined with a spicy chicken roast made a perfect meal. And it is not much work, a nomal meal. I will never ever prepare a meal for over 6 people anymore. That, a meal for about 16 co-workers-spouces-partners, leaves you in the kitchen for about 3 weeks (after hours, right) and at prime time you are not hungry and too tired to eat; but I think they liked it and all in all it was a pleasant evening. Anyways I picked it up again; I like the taste of it too much to let go. And it is way cheaper than eating out, still Dutch eh!

Holland on Fire?

What is happening in Holland? When I read nu.nl the last weeks there are quite many reports on fires. Because of the bad economy or the dry (hot?) weather?
Large fires in Soest, Deventer, Oosterwijk, een woonboot, Voorschoten to name a view. Also a lot of violence realted gunshot-kniving casualties e.g. shooting Arnhem, kniving Leiden, stabbing Rotterdam, Gouda. Is Holland going to the boiling point or are these just observations from someone not living there. This one tops it all, and worries me deeply. Everybody is talking respect, where the fuck is it? Gone out of the window, only a word on Hyves?
[Update] Then I read this article. Top 5 spots are taken by countries with the highest tax-rates. So paying tax makes you happier. I wonder about one explanation, "people are thriving because their basic needs are taken care off". Could be much truth in that.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Piss pots

Also known as urinal. Another advantage, for me anyways, of living in Alberta is the fact these devices are mounted at a normal persons height. Instead of somewhere close to the ceiling as in Holland. Maybe the average height is lower over here, still there are many people that aren't that high. So I can take a piss without worrying of touching the piss-pot, and have idea's flowing. And that's better than tip-toeing in front of this urinal, not taking into account the pints of beer you have downed and have to get rid off. Then the problem only worsens; even here in Alberta.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

myTruck, myChainsaw and mySelf


Naming convention as Java variables not classes, so you know. A week or 2 ago we had a very severe thunderstorm, they are quite common here in Alberta, but this one was particularly heavy with rainfall and winds that reduced your sight to 50 meters. These storms can turn into a tornado and this one touched down North West of Edmonton. Our friends acreage of Anke and Ralf, east of Elk Island Park was hit hard and a tree just snapped of, fortunately no damage done. But it had to be cleared, and here comes that very Canadian experience I had; A chainsaw (Stihl MS270) in my pickup truck (Ford F150) accompanied by me (52 year old wannabe Canadian) on my way to Anke and Ralf to cut up a downed tree. A couple of hours later the tree was gone and we could start the fire burning the sucker, which is maybe the most fun part. Building fires is real fun to do, not those small ones we did in out 6x6 m2 backyard, just big ones with flames like 3 m high; one of the virtues of living in the country. Building fires and having a beer with family and/or friends. When a tree is just there where it should be, it looks not like much but on the ground it is an awful lot of branches and trunk you have to cut up; and you have to be careful cause the tree and branches are under compression; cut on the wrong side and your saw gets stuck, lets just say I am on a learning curve. Fun it is.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Dutch tactics, Spanish diving hurting soccer’s growth in North America

Article from The Ottawa Citizen, which I 100% agree to:
"Why, oh why did the dirty Dutch trade beauty for the beast in Sunday’s World Cup final?
When time has passed and our memories of all that was so thrilling about the first finals on African soil, the only thing that will remain in focus will be how the Netherlands tried to kick Spain off the park.
It was a display of outright thuggery in front of 84,000 people in Soccer City Stadium — and it must have left most of North America wondering what, in God’s name, makes this the planet’s most popular sport.
Even Don Cherry would have been wincing at the kung fu antics of a country that, until now, has carried a justified reputation for soccer played in its purest sense.
It goes back to the days when Johan Cruyff was the Dutch hero, the man at the heart of what the world called Total Football. It was a slick passing, fast-paced game full of movement and skill. The world rightly declared it beautiful to behold.
On Sunday night that all changed.
It wasn’t the Dutch who tried to play that way, it was the Spanish.
Maybe we should not be so surprised. Before the game the Netherlands’ most exciting player Arjen Robben was eager to tell us: “We have heard enough talk about how our football is very nice, but it gets you nowhere, we want to achieve something.
“No one in our team is too special to get their hands dirty. I’d prefer to win a very ugly game than lose a beautiful one.”
Well, the Dutch achieved one half of that objective. They got their hands dirty and the game was so disappointingly ugly.
And playing ugly didn’t do them any good because they lost.
The other hint of what was to come, apparently, came from Dirk Kuyt who said his team was going to attack. We must have all hoped he meant attack in the soccer sense, not attack as in flying boots and bodies.
Referee Howard Webb was forced to hand out a record 13 yellow cards and one red card — eight yellows and a red for the Dutch — and there could have been far more.
In the soccer-style sense, the Spanish tried to play their rat-tat-tat passing game, which was admirable. Unfortunately, they also continued their most annoying trait, diving all over the pitch with varying degrees of skill.
On top of all this, players on both sides produced Oscar-winning performances with theatrical protests whenever a call did not go their way, arms spread wide as they sat on the ground or rolled around in agony before leaping to their feet to chase the next pass.
Quick recovery time, don’t you think?
Even worse, from my perspective, was the distinct lack of respect they showed to referee Webb. I lost count of the number of players who screamed in his face. That’s the sort of disrespect that deserves a card. Trouble was, had Webb called everything, there might not have been enough players left on the field to make a contest.
Let’s stop blaming the ref, as the Dutch have been doing, and set aside a minute to congratulate the Spanish, deserved winners and clearly the best team in the world.
On Sunday, 15.6 million Spaniards — that’s nearly 80 per cent of television market share — watched the game and the figure was 90 per cent in the Netherlands.
On Monday, maybe a million people turned out to greet home their heroes in Madrid after what is being judged as one of the most important victories of any sort in Spanish history.
Certainly it was a victory for Spain. But it most certainly was not a victory for the beautiful game. And that’s a crying shame.
Here we are with 700 million people looking on — including major TV crowds in Canada and the United States — and the players cannot provide us with a half-good game of soccer. One team hacks too much, the other dives too much.
I hate to think that I am in agreement with FIFA president Sepp Blatter when he says: “It was not what we expected to see as fair play on the pitch.”
This continent is still trying to warm to the game in a serious way and we get served up something like this."

Heavy rainfall expected Tuesday

Well we are going to get a rainfall like I have never ever seen before. There is 50-70 mm rain expected by Tuesday morning. Fortunately our house in on higher grounds, so we will be okay I hope. At least you can argue that he lack of rain last year changed into a surplus for this year, and that is not a bad thing for the farmers here. But what if this amount of rain translates to heavy snow coming winter. We will be seeing some pretty nice snowy landscapes. Only last Friday it was +31C when I left the office. We have a strange summer this year. Joka is off to Holland this week, on a well earned vacation, hope she has better weather and higher temperatures. The outlook weather-wise for this week as per late Tuesday is pretty good, 20-23C and mainly sunny. Maybe tomorrow morning my truck is clean with and by the expected downpour. One very peculiar thing happening here; rain or not most birds keep on whistling, very strange. Probably they are long time used to this kind of weather. The weather over here reminds me of Extremes Series by Nick Middleton. It is pretty extreme for a Dutchman like me, but I like it.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Orange support from Rollyview

Today was THE day, to get rid of 36 (1974) years of frustration. Johan and Emma were fully prepared to take off to the Boston Pizza Lounge in Leduc. They were on their own together with some 12 Spanish supporters. Again no luck, they lost 1-0 to Spain. And I must say the Spanish were the better team overall. Our so called center-piece failed at least on 2 occasions and he was over-classed in diving by the Spanish, as you all could see the referee fell for that and favored the Spanish way too much. Truthfully I have not seen him dive this game, so I will be a bit less harsh. I remember 1974 vividly, we were having vacation in Torralta Portugal when we lost and my dad was in a bad mood anyways as I had forgotten my math-books to study for a re-exam. Fortunately I did not fail. And then in 1978 when in the last minute Rob Rensenbrink hit the Argentinian post at 1 all, the Argentinians finished us off 3-1 in extra time. So 3 finals in a 36 year span; will we ever win the World-cup or will they keep losing it? Well the frustration is gone and real life kicks in; we/they are not destined to win the World-cup. Pity. And more importantly, I will loose $320 for not being first in our company-soccer-pool. That sucks. Big time.