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.

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.

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.

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."

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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.

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.

The second 18 km

Yes, this morning I took Joka to the Petsmart and decided on the way back it's about time to pick up cycling again after 2(!!) years. At 8:50am I pedaled on the gravel road #234 towards Rollyview. I had no idea on my bike-fitness so not too far, something around 20 km will do. The first 2 km my legs hurt real bad, not that worse state of fitness I was thinking. After this I got into the groove and had no pains at all anymore, but realized there is a long way to go. It is a pretty rolling landscape here (hence Rollyview?), it goes up and down all the time, combine this with the relatively soft gravel roads and you understand that the 18 km compares to 30 km on tarmac, not a great distance but you have to start somewhere. Maybe I can trick Joka into a bike-ride tomorrow, same route as today about an hour and thru nice surroundings. Next time I will take pictures. Only thing you have to be really careful about are the cars and trucks that pass you, although they seem to be real cautious when passing. There is indeed not much room for error. As a cyclist you are considered a vehicle here in Alberta, when you are pedaling that is.

The first 2 km

Finally put my money where my mouth is. I cycled 2 km. Yes you read that correct, 2 km. On a gravel road, and that is not the easiest way to ride a bike. Fortunately I have 42 mm Schwalbe Marathon XR tires, otherwise I would probably have multiple punctures. After 2 years at last I made a start. My fitness was pretty good, bike-wise. It's gone, toast, out of the window. Have to start all over again, I think I have found a way, at least for the late spring-summer-early fall periods. Theoretically I leave at 6:45am by bike, Joke leaves at 7:10am by car and picks me up half way. That way I can at least start with a 45 min bike-ride a couple of times a week. We start doing that next week or so and see how it goes. At least it sounds like a plan.
I have to re-fit myself, I had a bit of a sore bum (yes-yes only 2 clicks, I know), my legs started to hurt (frontal wind :-) ) and I had to watch the gravel road real careful. Only the city has bike-roads, nothing like in Holland. Unfortunately. That's one thing I really miss out here, cycling. But the plan is there and I just have to make it work. The first, all important, step has been taken the rest will follow by itself. Right?

Origin of the vuvuzela

Actual 1999 BP Advertisement

Landed Immigrants

May 30th 2010 Today we drove to the US border in Carway, with our stamped passports, to leave Canada and re-enter it 5 minutes later, after the visa U-turn and so becoming Landed Immigrants. The US customs were very friendly in a nice new clean building. "I will not charge you the 6 dollar entry fee, as you are doing the visa U-turn" the mean looking but very friendly officer told us. We did the visa U-turn and onwards to the Canadian border and customs. What a grumpy bunch in a very old building. The female officer ripped out our work-visa, started to fill in the Confirmation for Permanent Residence (CPR) and ask me to sign mine. "That's a big one" she said. Huh? How does she know? Probably I looked sheepishly at her; "Your signature is pretty large and may not touch the green box at the bottom of the page" Ohhhhhh! OK, and yes I did touch the green box and screwed up my signature. Who cares! Joka and Emma also needed to sign their CPR and 10 minutes later we were done. Canadian Permanent Residence achieved. Unfortunately Joost could not join us, maybe he will come later. That's up to him.
It was doubtful whether we could make the trip, when we left there was 5 inches of snow and only 0 degrees and a very misty grey morning. We will try it and if need be we just turn and go home. It turned out to be a very nice day, after Red Deer the snow started to disappear and slowly the clouds broke with a comfortable sunshine. As we approached the US border, we drove thru a Blackfoot Indian Reservation. What a mess. Beautiful surroundings but deteriorating ill maintained houses and villages.
We left at 7:15AM to return at 8:15PM and drove 1100 km, it was well worth the trip. All uncertainty gone, no more black cloud for September 2011 and regained some freedom as I could go look for a job across Canada. Only time will tell where we end up.

Passports returned....

May 27th 2010 Our passports have been returned from the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, again using FedEx. Had not expected them yet, all of a sudden Paule phones me up saying our passports had arrived, COOL. So the planning comes together rather nicely. All are stamped with the visa attached to it. For the now I still control the game I am playing, being the stupid and ignorant Dutch idiot. But I am soooooo far ahead. We go to the border on Sunday the 29th of May, to make the U-turn and finalize the immigration process for the 3 of us. Unfortunately Joost cannot join us as he is in Holland waiting for his passport to be returned, which I will do tomorrow using FedEx, again. Another step in the immigration process. Two more to go; U-turn at the border and waiting for the PR cards who will legalize our stay here. After the U-turn we can call ourselves landed Immigrants. And btw the "Decision Made"-post is part of my little game, a sort of smokescreen if you will; because the Migrationbureau knows my Blogger address. They still can forward the April 8th letter, but will they........

Passports in Berlin

May 17th 2010 Our passports have been delivered at the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, Fedex did a good job despite the Icelandic ash-cloud and the apparent overreaction by some aviation authorities. Still we are way ahead in this game, if it turns out to be a game, that is. I still know they don't know I know, and I like that. But they could check and been told the appointment of representative has been canceled as of the beginning of May, but does the embassy relay this information.
The embassy claims to need 10 working-days for processing, does this include the day of delivery? We will find out in due time. Going to the border on the 29th is still feasible (feasable is also correct according to Google Translate).
Waiting and having patience is not one of my best virtues but NOW WE WAIT, no other options, eh. 10,9........

Language used

May 15th 2010 I do apologize for the language I've used in the last two posts and the ones that will be related to the MB in the near future. But I have to show the anger and frustration I currently have to deal with, still I feel it is not that bad. I am fully aware of the language I use and it needs to be this way. So please don't be offended and you can always choose not to read. All posts related to this subject will be dated and will be published with 15 minutes intervals on June 9th of 2010. 
Currently our passports are at the Fedex location in Frankfurt, Germany, awaiting transportation to Berlin for arrival on the 17th. Then the countdown starts. Usually it takes 10 days to process, I'm hoping it will take less in our case due to our problems. I'm planning to do the U-turn at the US-border in Carway on highway 2 at the 29th of May. Tight but feasible if things go our way, if so it is done and dusted before June 8th. Now that would be great, right!

Game on

May 14th 2010 What do do about the MB? I had the urge to send them an email and give them a piece of my mind, it would have been a very rude and very gory email. I decided not to, partly because there is still time and, more importantly, I need to know what their game-plan is. Are the really going to withhold this letter from us? Or are they sending it to us in the latest possible timewindow? Claiming it was lost and it surfaced just in time. Are they that unprofessional? We are talking here THE LETTER, one piece of paper that defines our future. Not sending this letter would have caused a lot of damage; relocating-selling our place-loss of income to name a few. Is that really the MB game-plan? We will know in a couple of weeks.
So the wait is on and for me it's game on. I know they don't know I know, but it is difficult because I am so pissed off. But I learned over the years that even I can be patient if need be. I killed several evenings preparing complaints. One with the CSIC, Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, of which MB employees are a member; a second one with the British Columbia Law Society where the bitch who officially represents us on our application is a member of; a third one will go to the head of the Berlin Immigration Section explaining the (un) professional level of the MB; maybe he can pull some strings.
Somehow I will go for a refund. Any which way you look at it: it is a breach of contract. It is clearly stated in the "CSIC-Rules of Professional Conduct": "4.2 When advising a Client, an Immigration Consultant must exercise due care and must never knowingly assist in or encourage any dishonesty, provision of misleading information, omission of any required relevant information, fraud, crime or illegal conduct, or instruct the Client on how to violate the law and avoid punishment."
I am really anxious to know how this will end. I'm hoping the result will be a cancellation of permits, a reprimand by the law society, a refund and maybe even some publicity.
All the dated posts will be published on June 8th, the day our initial 60 days are used up. In the meantime we received a letter from the embassy with a new date, it arrived with Canada Post after only 5 days, hence the heat for sending the passports is off and on April 12th the MB must have known, as the UK is closer to Germany as is Canada.To see the MB's attention to detail click on the picture and read the red highlighted text: it is about the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants in short CSIC, look at the second line. Correct, it's abbreviated as CCIC. Oops, very professional on a public website indeed.
In the mean time I just play stupid and sit it out. Like I said before, I'm having fun out here. To be continued.......

Going to war

May 13th 2010 What's this all about, you probably ask yourself. It is about The Migration Bureau (MB) and very very unprofessional conduct. On April 28th and 29th I inquired on the status of our application, we are getting nervous; over 3 months now since our medical was send in. On May 3rd, only after chasing them, the reply came: no need to get alarmed; the CIC had not requested additional documents (they usually don't after the medical) and there is a back log. Huh? What you also need to know is the fact the MB sends dozens of emails to me not related to our application. August last year I received an email saying: "Please confirm by return e-mail that you accept the above quote for additional work on your file. We are unable to complete any further work until we have your confirmation in writing". I refer to this one as the Blackmail letter.
This pissed me off big time as we already spend thousands of $$; do we now quit on a couple of hundred $$? Last March 2010 another one came in, how to emigrate to Canada and the possibilities we have in doing so. What the fuck, we are almost there; that one closed the door and I let them know I had enough and would file a complaint against them, and this is probably at the root of it all; please continue reading.
On Tuesday evening May 5th@9:30PM I decided to contact the embassy directly, explain them the situation as I was suspecting the MB is withholding information and ask them on our application status, this also thanks to the advice of Jutta. Wednesday morning May 6th@6:59AM the reply was there, and remember it is May 6th: "Please note that on April 8 we sent your consultant/lawyer a letter requesting all passports for visa issuance. I assume that this letter was not passed on to you." WHAT?? APRIL 8TH?? The MB inbreed fuckers are withholding information, inbreed bastards. On the one hand I was very happy, we are "granted the right to live and work in Canada" as it says officially. On the other hand I started to explode. Fortunately for me there was no MB inbreed fucker present when I read the above message. "In any case. The best way to proceed would be for you to fill out the cancellation of appointment form below and fax a signed version. We will then send you the relevant documents directly to your by regular mail or e-mail." The cancellation was faxed an hour later and I started to calm down a bit, actually still not grasping what just had happened.
How am I going to organize this? You only have 60 days to send in your passports and 30 of them were already used. After a confirmation email to the embassy, to which they replied within the hour, I received the necessary forms. I phoned up Joost to Fedex/DHL his passport to Edmonton, that took about 4 days. On May 13th Fedex picked up all our passports to be sent to the Embassy of Canada in Berlin. We are still ahead of the game and I will go to war to fight them. You cannot very easily get me really really pissed off but when it happens it usually goes with a bang. Considering this I kept my calm, surprisingly, and did not even wreck something, also peculiar. I will channel this energy otherwise this time, hopefully even more devastating psychologically. And I will enjoy every step of it. To be continued.......

Some Delayed posts are to be posted.

Due to the fact the Migrationbureau has withheld information from us, they should have relayed to us on or about April12th of 2010, the next few hours a series posts will emerge telling the story of our successful immigration into Canada, becoming Permanent Residents. This also happened thanks to Jutta who was so kind to give us a lot of advice prior to contacting the Canadian Embassy in Berlin. Actually she advised us back in March to do so, I still trusted the Migrationbureau. How wrong.

Oilsands Expertise

Edmonton Journal

Malcolm Mayes Cartoon

Freedom Ford: Tires for life

50000 km mainly on gravel roads had ruined the right rear tire, Goodyear Wrangler, of my F150. When I bought this car Anna offered me "Tires for life" only if serviced by Freedom Ford. Pretty good deal, it saved me 1100 bucks today as I had it serviced. So now I drive BF Goodrich All Terrain Mud+Snow, load-range E, 275/65/R18 rugged tires. Truck looks way better and more importantly, it drives better; improved grip and sound. Also Clarence and I talked on a 2" front side lift and a muffler for the, by me so desired, sound improvement. He walked over to his F150 and started it up to let me hear the sound with a Dynaflow muffler of only 60 bucks, pretty noisy but I like it. So for a couple of 100 $$ I get what I want. Looks and sound. Cool.