Have to track down tickets for ...

More damned efficient government

I showed up early for my 9:00 a.m. appointment with Immigration, but they wouldn't let me check in and get my number for an official until 8:45 ... but when I checked in, they sent me straight to a very helpful woman who processed all my paperwork in 10 minutes, sent me off to pay my 433 euros (ouch), and put a new immigration stamp in my passport.  I am legal!  Well sort of, I guess this is all provisional while somebody looks at the paperwork she took from me, but no problems are foreseen.

Also, my XTM-2 firewall is up and running and providing wireless and guest wireless services here at Singel 118!

Thanks to Stout!

I'd promised myself that I would grab some dinner at Stout! over on Harlemerstrasse on Friday, really like the menu and service there.  I got in just before 7 and was surprised to find the corner table in the front open, it has a great street view and great light.  The waitress working the front recognized me and waved me to the table ... am I already a regular?

I guess I am, because I realized right after ordering a glass of their current red Spanish that I'd left my wallet at home and had about 20 euros on me, which would be restricting my menu options at Stout! severely.  When the waitress came back to ask if I'd decided what to order, I told her I'd probably have to just pay for the wine and go home for my wallet.

She shook her head.  "Oh no you come in a lot, I know you'll be back, I'll just write up a check for your table, you can pay tomorrow."

A lot?  I think maybe that was my 5th or 6th visit in 3 years.

What a nice bunch!  So I had the mushroom soup and a half dozen local oysters in a red wine vinagrette ... I'm pretty picky about oysters but, those were fantastic.  It turned out the waitress who told me to just come back was going off shift before I finished, but I guess she communicated the arrangement, my new waitress knew the score and when I came back an hour after finishing with my money, the bald guy from the kitchen (who I assume is one of the owners) said "Hey I thought you were coming back tomorrow!"

"Nah, I don't like to leave those things hanging, I could forget."

Then I left my sunglasses on the counter after paying!  But before I could get on my bike to ride home, yet another waitress chased me down with my shades.

They have made me a regular with service like that.

No Breakfast for Old Men

So I sleep in until 8:30 today, yum, that rainy weather made it quiet last night before 3 a.m.! Time for a little work on the computer and some coffee, my only plans for today are breakfast someplace nice, then down to the sports bar in the afternoon to watch the Turkish Grand Prix F1 race.

Breakfast ... hm, I really want to find that little place with the good omelettes I've been to before, off the beaten path in Nine Streets, called Cafe Nielen .... every time I try to find it on this trip I end up missing. Google Maps gives me some reference points and I hop the tram for 2 stops, walk 4-5 blocks, and there it is, great little neighborhood place that also had a glowing review at the website that gave me the street address .....

Not *too* crowded at 11 a.m. when I roll in, one of the owners is at the door and I exchange good mornings. There is a table downstairs but I head upstairs to look for a 2-top and there is one right under a light, so I'll have good light for reading my Kindle at breakfast.

4 people with a dog sit at the 4-top to my left, about 3 feet away ... the dog is a white shepherd mutt who gives me puppy-dog eyes looking for treats, I joke with the owners about it. He can spot a mark.

The 2-top to my right is close, I'm not in danger of elbowing the bearded guy in the black baseball cap and black shirt, but he's pretty close. Geeze, the woman he's with, across from me, seems kinda familiar, she's certainly good looking, and their accents make it clear they're American .....

Yeah she looks familiar because she's Diane Lane ... that bearded guy I'm avoiding elbowing is Josh Brolin. Out for Amsterdam breakfast in jeans and black t-shirts.

"Hey Josh, pass the salt, buddy."

Heh, no ... I do not interrupt their breakfast, even if I have always thought Lane is one of the most beautiful women in the world. And damn she continues to define 'age gracefully.'

They pay up, he's obviously ready to go and is halfway to standing up when she waves him back down, composing an e-mail answer on her Blackberry: "30 seconds ..." Yeah, you're a big star aren't ya Josh? But when Diane Lane says 'wait a sec, hon', you sit right on down, just like the rest of us, don't you?

He sits right on down ... I keep reading my book and eating my omelette.

Just a day on the canal

All day long on Saturday and Sunday, this is what my neighborhood is like ... view from the living room:

Freeze, Bike Police!

No bike riding in the alley, son.

Class Day

Caught the 7:11 fast train from Amsterdam Central after riding my bike to the mega bike garage beside the station ... good first class day with 8 students from Netherlands distributors. A few network kinks to work out in the Hague office's setup, timely help from Martijn and things went smoothly in the afternoon.

Lots to do.

Almost like Monday

It's a holiday (Pentecost) here in the Netherlands and much of western Europe, but I made a run down to the Hague today to do some preliminary work in the office before my first class on Tuesday ... managed to not get off the train at the right stop and ended up in Rotterdam. Whoops! That's why we practice these things ....

Fantastic weather continues

I don't have the Internet bandwidth to uploads the pics and video right now, but all weekend the view from the living room has been: boat parade! All the boat owners have clearly been waiting for the weather to get nice and ... it's nice now! Great people-watching from the window, and now that I am mobile with my bicycle, I am getting a feel for the neighborhood.

Closest good breakfast place: Greenwood's, directly across the Singel from me ... they do a full breakfast (excellent bacon) and English high tea. Just a few tables outdoors but if they're available, worth it.

See, the Dutch think their government is slow and inefficient ...

But man, it's all relative.

The Dutch government has some very nice office space for immigrant relations, at a big complex called the World Trade Center (let's not even go there) where there is a train stop and a Metro stop ...

I probably would have gotten there on time for my 11 am appointment if I hadn't been helpfully given the wrong directions to the World FASHION Center, which had some mighty attractive scenery while I wandered around lost, but was miles away from my true destination.

Didn't know a phone number to call but called our Dutch attorneys who had set up the appointment and they called the office and called me back with a new appointment at 1:30.

What, the flexibility to change your appointment and get a new appointment on the same day? You COMMIES! I see what Palin is afraid of. Bureaucratic efficiency is a poisonous idea that must not be allowed to destroy America.

But of course, it is still a bureacracy, and because my meeting with Immigration was rescheduled to the 31st, I did not have a piece of paper that the Amsterdam people need for my City registration number .... but once I have that appointment, they will process all my other paperwork and issue the number if I just email them a scanned version of that paperwork .... commies. Not even making me come back for another visit? Inconceiveable!

Full power restored

I managed to blow a fuse for the bathroom, office, and refrigerator the other day and since the fuses appear to be pre-Colombian, I didn't mess with them ... but the landlord came by this evening (and woke me up from a nap, oh well) and had just *slightly* less trouble finding the offending fuse than I did, but eventually restored power. He said he was going to go out to buy more fuses because they were running low .... I don't know if you get them from an alchemist or wizard or what.

Having a working refrigerator and washing machine is good.

First commute

Today I planned to take the 8:11 train from Amsterdam Centraal to Den Haag Central, but the long daylight hours of Dutch spring and jetlag conspired to wake me up at 5 a.m., so what the hell, I took a 7:30 train instead.

Easy train ride through beautiful, sunny countryside and then a short tram hop to Mauritskade stop, walk a block, and I'm at the WatchGuard Den Haag office.  Before any coworkers, hehe.  Don't get used to it, kids.

Governments are the same all over

I was supposed to register with the Dutch immigration authorities but they called the company's attorney and he e-mailed me, they need to reschedule because of 'computer problems'.

Should I ask "was it a security breach?"

A few pics

my block

oh boy, garbage strike!

The Eagle Has Landed

Everything went VERY smoothly flying in from Seattle, including being upgraded to Business Class on the flight from Chicago to Amsterdam so I actually got 5 hours sleep. Yay!

Study: robots with sharp tools could hurt you

NO! Really? Never seen a James Cameron movie or something?

A future in which robots help around the home could prove harmful to humans, suggests a study. German researchers studied what happens in accidents involving robots using sharp tools alongside humans. They used a robot arm holding a variety of bladed tools programmed to strike test substances that mimic soft tissue. In some cases, the researchers found, the robots managed to accidentally inflict wounds that would prove "lethal".

BBC

So ... you gave your robot a knife and programmed it to strike soft tissue ... and you're worried it might cut ya?

Hey, volcano: enough!

This better not mess up my flight to Amsterdam a week from Monday!

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The Icelandic volcano reminded the world once again of its power to disrupt travel - coughing out a spreading cloud of ash that delayed or canceled hundreds of flights between Europe and North America on Saturday.

The prospects for Sunday flights remained grim, with no improvement in sight for transatlantic passengers, and with a plume of low-altitude ash continuing to float eastward over Spain and southern France.

Flights had to be rerouted north over Greenland or south around Spain to avoid the 1,200-mile-long cloud.

About 600 airliners cross the ocean every day. About 40 percent were rerouted southward; the rest skirted Iceland from the north, according to Eurocontrol, the air-traffic management agency based in Brussels.

May you live in interesting times

I'm not exactly complaining about the weakness of the Euro at the moment, but I would like the system to actually hold together when I'm moving there to deal with people who are supposed to be in business and selling things ...

Leaders of the 16 EU member states that use the euro have approved an 110bn euro ($145bn; £95bn) loan to Greece to prevent its debt crisis from spreading.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the eurozone would do whatever it took to safeguard Greece's financial stability.

In return for the three-year loan, Athens must cut public spending.

The euro's value has fallen because of fears that countries such as Spain and Portugal could suffer similar problems.

BBC

"We've been awake for 83 hours, heeeeeheee!"

This is the blog

I'll be posting here as I make the move to the Netherlands (soon, really ... I hope ... sure ...) and during my travels around Western Europe as I perform my duties as WatchGuard's EMEA technical trainer.

Amsterdan canal view