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Holidays

Dear friends,

This Friday, 29th of June, I’m flying to the US of A and will only return the 7th of August in the Netherlands. You can always send me an email, but during the period I will not be answering my emails that frequently. I have my Dutch cell phone also with me, but I hope it won’t be necessary to call me during my “work.”

If I have your address, you might get a card, if I’m in the mood to send cards (last summer in Namibia I sent 62 cards…)! :-) Hope to see at least some of you in the USA or in Europe this summer; do give me a ring if you’re around or want to meet somewhere.

Take care and enjoy the sun!

Yours,
Leander

Field Hockey moves

Piano

Glasses

I'm pissed, frustrated, angry, silly and broke. I broke my glasses... I'm leaving next week to the US and I broke my glasses beyond repair. Crap. Just had to buy new ones and they are ready, just the day before I fly, so I'm lucky with that. Sadly it will cost me a lot of money again (which I don't have), but I need them, so my bad luck.. :(

New phone

I finally have a new phone. My old HP Ipaq 6915 broke down, the sound stopped working, Windows crashed all the time (what's new...), and the keyboard wasn't too happy to respond on all the buttons as well. Since I have to renew my contract at Vodafone and I'm a high-volume customer, got this nice Blackberry 8800. It's shiny, it's fancy and I can hear people again! :-) Not only that, but I can als receive my email on it as well.

So far, I have only run into a few minor points of the telephone. It needs a micro-SD card if I want to listen to music on it and I don'nt have one (yet). Furthermore, I canot sync my Outlook inbox and folders with it. Which is a major drawback for me, as I always liked to have my EIDP folder with me with the emails and documents. It doesn't come with a cradle, so I am syncronising the BB with a cable and lying next to my laptop. Finally: the GPS is crap: TomTom doesn't work on it and it's not as smooth as the Ipaq.

It is however a fabulous phone. It looks good, it works perfect (amazing enlighted trackball), sound is perfect, easy to navigate within the programs, email and sms are easy to write (although I am still used to the qwerty-keyoard of the Ipaq and make mistakes between Shift and Ctrl) and it came standard with a nice leathery case. My additional Bluetooth headset also worked perfectly with the Blackberry, so up till now, I am a very satisfied BB-customer.

I just need to work out how to deal with my greasy fingers on the shiny screen... :-)

Slight Cold

I'm having a slight cold. Have been sneezing like hell lately and not a clue why. Looks like I have such a summer allergy, but that can't be, as I don't have it (or at least never had it). Hope it stops soon as it is rather annoying when I'm studying in the library... :-)

Travelers' Century Club

While surfing over the web I came across a website of a club where people can become a member of when they have traveled 100 countries or more. These countries are not like the UN-list, but also small independent semi-states which are hardly known or usually seen as in integrated part of another state. This club is called The Travelers' Century Club and for those of you who know me a little: I would love to become a member, so I downloaded the application form and started checking boxes... I was able to check the boxes of 68 countries... :-( Ok, I admit: I'm 28 and who has visited 68 countries already at this age? I'm privileged and I know that and I am grateful that my parents were able to show me most of Europe. I am grateful that I was able to earn a enough to explore the former USSR and Asia and am able to work in the US during summer. I know that it sounds tacky, but I want more. I love to travel, I love to explore new cultures, meet new people, see new things, smell new things and enjoy the experiences and adventures. I'm 28 and I hope at 56 I have visited 150 countries. It will be hard as most of the not-visited countries are far away, but I will try. Traveling is my rush, my kick, my drive. I need it and it makes me happy. Am I strange?

Ben Harper

Just discovered the artist Ben Harper. Superb songs, although a bit gospely (if that is even a word)... Just downloaded his whole discography and a DVD. Just very relaxing to listen to, but sometimes swinging and rocking. It's nice. Try it.

Food

I survived the day on Winegums. Is that healthy?

Facebook

I was never really into the profiles on the web, except for this weblog than. I don't have a MySpace, I don't have a Hi5 etc. I do, however, have a Facebook since last week. Ludmila added me and I just had to join. Have quite a number of international friends on there now already and it's fun. Some long lost acquaintances and friends are now in my friends-list and am in contact with quite a number of girls from the Nike Field Hockey Camps of the past 2 years. If you have a Facebook: search for me and ad me as your friend! :-)

Hockey

My field hockey team was very succesful this year and with only 3 draws, 0 losses and 15 wins, we won this years comptition in our league. Next year we will promote to the highst league and hopefully will get some decent sponsoring. I will not try forthe 1st men's team anymore as it take too much time and you have to train 3x a week for sure, else you will end up on the bench and that just is too much for me. I will just play in the 2nd team and get my minutes, once in a while not being able to show up fro training. I had a blast this year though.

KPN

I am still working for KPN, but in a different position now. I no longer need to call, but am a trainer. Well, I'm not allowed to say I'm a trainer since the company that does the trainings isn't aware of the fact that there is someone that needs to be trained, so they might get upset if they know I am training someone. I am however very cheap and the company asks around 500 / day, so I know why they have asked me.

I am training someone who worked for KPN 38 years already. She comes from a different task force and they didn't findher suitable anymore and she needed to find a different job within KPN to finish the last 2 years before her retirement.

The good thing for me is that I can plan my own hours and don't have to worry abut handling times, speed, etc. I can just relax, take 1 hour break etc, as no one will notice. :-) The downside is that she is old and not very capable anymore to comprehend the system and methodes very fast. It takes hours and she is sometimes so slow and does things 10x wrong after another, but it's fine. I am praised for my patience (which you need...) and am still enjoying it, so no worries there.

The whole family

Brothers

Dad

My dad celebrated his 60th birthday last Sunday and the whole family was at home to have dinner. My 2 brothers with their girlfriends and Joao's newborn son. I had to say that it ws a nice meeting and we had a lot of fun. As Redmer and Ingrid live in Eindhoven and Joao and Diasy in Rotterdam, we don't have a fmaily gathering that often, so it was good to have all around. Downside: I got teased that I was the oldest and the only one without a girlfriend, not living together and not a daddy already.

It was strange to see my mother and father behaving like a grandmother and -father. It made me laugh a lot as I totally didn't expected it and I don't know that childisch side of them. It was fun though and I can only say that we have a nice family.

Boring me

Well, more than 2 months and no post on my blog. I got some criticism on that already from some friends, but quite frankl I wasn't in the mood to write.

I read an article last week about blogging and the fact that most blogs die after an average life of 3 to 5 months. At least my blog survived that period and is still alive, although not as active as it used to be. Not only did I stop writing for quite a while, but I stopped reading blogs as well. I haven't read HotTamale's blog, Tabletray's blog and others in months. Not a clue why, but it suddenly didn't appeal to me anymore. It's not only the reading and writing of blogs, but also he playing computergames, watching TV etc. Things I used to do at night all more or less stopped. I go to bed early now. I know: frightening, but true. I guess I'm getting old, very old...

Summer

Summer means field hockey camps in the US since 2 years. This year I am going again and it will probably be a blast again! I am so looking forward to spend some time there again, not only because the pay is so good, but also because the coaching is a lot of fun and the girls are just crazy.

My schedule will be:

• 30 June - 2 July = Middlebury, VT
• 4 - 7 July = Springfield, MA
• 10 - 13 July = Stowe, VT
• 14 - 19 July = Blairstown, NJ
• 22 - 25 July = Fairfield, CT
• 29 July - 2 August = Sauk Valley, MI

I will fly to NYC the 29th, so in 3 weeks, and will fly back the 6th of August. This means that I have a couple of days left in NYC to visit some friends and have some fun!

The Xplore-project from the EIDP wasn't accepted by the nationl youth agency, so I will have the rest of August free. Will work a bit, have to go to Slovakia to visit Jana and have Aida's wedding In Tirana the beginning of September. I also have to go to David's birthday (since he was on mine as well) in Copenhagen on the 1st of September. All in all quite a busy summer and not even a real holiday for me! :-)

Seminar in Vilnius

The 7-day seminar "Free Your Mind, Feel The Media" was organized by VIKC, the public organization of the faculty of Economics of Vilnius University in Lithuania. Main goal of the project was to find out the influence media has on society. A group of 30 students from Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands tried to find this out by attending lectures, visiting local media and doing some research.
Among the highlights of the program were a public research project in a trolleybus, a lecture from a well-known Lithuanian press-photographer, a visit to the Vilnius Television tower and a project at a student newspaper and radiostation. For the Dutch delegation a Queensday reception at the Dutch embassy also formed part of the program.
Next to the official part of the program there was also a lot of room for getting to know the other participants and the city of Vilnius. It was remarkable to see how quick 30 individuals from different countries and cultures got to know eachother and became good friends. Maybe the Vilnius nightlife might have contributed to this?
The week was ended with a visit to the castle of Trakai on the Lithuanian countryside. A nice end of an interesting project-week in which the participants got to know a lot about the media, but moreover: got to know eachother!