April 1 is the beginning of the warm season here in the Netherlands. We changed to Daylight Savings Time this weekend. The daffodils are in full bloom. And April 1 is when the seasonal businesses like kayak shops start having extended hours and are open on Sunday. At least that’s how it is at the kayak shop we visited on Saturday. We were trying to beat the rush by shopping a week before they extend their hours.
We did our grocery shopping early on Saturday so we’d have plenty of time for the kayak shopping. Of course, the weather was nasty – cold, rainy, and windy. But the forecast for the week was looking good, so decided to buy the kayaks no matter what the weather. We got to the kayak shop about a ½ hour drive to a small town on the other side of Amsterdam. We found a friendly store employee and he really helped us pick out the best kayaks for what we want to do. We had been looking at the brand-new one-person kayaks and had it narrowed down to a couple. But we wanted to make sure that we got the right size boats for each of us. Rather than let us buy the new boats, the guy brought us outside to look at the used kayaks. He had one that was perfect for Dennis. I tried a couple of them before I found what I liked. Since they are molded plastic, it really doesn’t matter that they are used. They don’t wear out. The guy also helped us with paddles, life jackets, a dry-bag, and all the junk to secure the boats on top of the car. They even helped us put the kayak carriers on the car! As we were doing that, the sun miraculously came out.
I asked the guy if we could take the boats out from their dock for a test drive before we took them home. He agreed and we quickly ripped the tags off the life jackets and got ready. We got out on the water without tipping over or sinking and we happily paddled for about an hour before heading back. It was too bad that we forgot the camera. But stay tuned because we’ll be sure to get some pictures next time!
We got the boats loaded onto the car with a lot of advice and help from the store guy. I was surprised that driving with two boats on top of the car was no problem. I’m sure the gas mileage sucked, but the car handled just fine. I just have to remember to go into any parking ramps with the boats on top! At home, Dennis rigged up a way to hang them from the ceiling of the shed. We now have 5 bikes, 2 kayaks, a work bench, and very large chest freezer in the shed. Maybe I should take a picture of that!
On Sunday, we woke up with sore shoulders so we decided to go for a bike ride. It was sunny, but only about 45 degrees and a little windy. We dressed warm and headed out. Our first order of business was to find a good put-in for the kayaks where we would also be able to park the car. We located a good spot along the Naarden vesting. This should be ideal because it connects to a couple of other large canals so we can really go far if we want. We also rode our bikes along the Vecht river and Spiegelplas lake and found a couple more put-ins. Can you tell that I’m totally excited about the kayaks?
After the bike ride, we had lunch and warmed up a bit. The sunshine was still holding. I tore Dennis away from his computer and reminded him that we can’t waste any sunshine in this country. So, we went for a walk in the heather. When it’s cold and sunny, the heather is more popular than the forest. The heather areas are grazing land for cattle and they have lots of walking paths through them. There are small rolling hills with heather plants growing low to the ground. With few trees, you can really soak up the sun. About the time we finished walking, the clouds came over. It’s still dry and weather forecast for the week looks totally awesome. They are predicting 60 degrees by Wednesday and no rain for the whole week. With the time change, we should be able to get the bikes and the boats out during the week. I’m just not sure how I’m going to get Dennis away from work on time so we can go out and play.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
One of Those Days
We all have bad days every now and then. Monday was one of those days for me. Dennis and I both ended up working way too much over the weekend, so I wasn’t very happy about going to work anyway. I was planning to make breakfast cereal on the extruder in the pilot plant and I wanted to get an early start but that was not to happen. I procrastinated a few minutes at home watching CNN and then it took me a few minutes extra to get all the groceries loaded into my bike bags. I had done some grocery shopping for the lab over the weekend and had to haul the stuff to work.
So, I got to work schlepping the groceries and went to put them into the fridge in the lab. But the fridge was warm. WTF?! So, I found one of the techs and let her know that the fridge was on the fritz. We walked back to the lab and she just looked at it for a few seconds. Then, she picks up a big plug from the counter and says, “Isn’t this the plug for that fridge?” She plugged it back in and it immediately started running. OK, so I probably should have figured that out by myself, but who unplugged the fridge? It turned out that the electricians had gone through the labs on Friday evening to do a safety check and they unplugged everything. Maybe they wanted to save some energy, maybe they thought it was a solar powered fridge, or maybe – just maybe- they really are that dumb.
Next, I went to the pilot plant to see about starting the cereal project. The guy who runs the pilot plant told me that a customer was stopping by at 11:00 and he wanted me involved in the meeting. OK, so I’ll just start the cereal after lunch. I rescheduled with the people who were going to help me with the extrusion and got ready to meet the customer.
Naturally, the customer was late and we didn’t get started until 11:30. With no conference rooms available, they decided to meet in my office. They had to set up an overhead projector and point it to the wall. We used a couple of books to boost the picture over the tear in the wallpaper. Yeah, my office is a high-class joint! Finally, at 1:00, they took the customer to the cafeteria for lunch. I had no time for lunch because I still had cereal to make!
Back in the pilot plant, I finally got to make that cereal. Everything went pretty well except that it took too long. We finished about 5:00 and still had to clean up the huge mess. The cereal was the shape of Kix so the little round balls bounced and rolled all over the floor despite our attempts to keep them under control. Cleaning the extruder is usually pretty easy, but today there was a bunch of gunk burned on to the screw. I spent an extra half hour scrubbing it with a wire brush. I found out later that the people who used the extruder last had jammed it and then didn’t get it completely clean. Yuck!
I left work at about 6:00. It wasn’t raining, but it was pretty cold and windy, a nice head-wind for my bike-ride home. I am really ready for some nice spring weather.
So, I got to work schlepping the groceries and went to put them into the fridge in the lab. But the fridge was warm. WTF?! So, I found one of the techs and let her know that the fridge was on the fritz. We walked back to the lab and she just looked at it for a few seconds. Then, she picks up a big plug from the counter and says, “Isn’t this the plug for that fridge?” She plugged it back in and it immediately started running. OK, so I probably should have figured that out by myself, but who unplugged the fridge? It turned out that the electricians had gone through the labs on Friday evening to do a safety check and they unplugged everything. Maybe they wanted to save some energy, maybe they thought it was a solar powered fridge, or maybe – just maybe- they really are that dumb.
Next, I went to the pilot plant to see about starting the cereal project. The guy who runs the pilot plant told me that a customer was stopping by at 11:00 and he wanted me involved in the meeting. OK, so I’ll just start the cereal after lunch. I rescheduled with the people who were going to help me with the extrusion and got ready to meet the customer.
Naturally, the customer was late and we didn’t get started until 11:30. With no conference rooms available, they decided to meet in my office. They had to set up an overhead projector and point it to the wall. We used a couple of books to boost the picture over the tear in the wallpaper. Yeah, my office is a high-class joint! Finally, at 1:00, they took the customer to the cafeteria for lunch. I had no time for lunch because I still had cereal to make!
Back in the pilot plant, I finally got to make that cereal. Everything went pretty well except that it took too long. We finished about 5:00 and still had to clean up the huge mess. The cereal was the shape of Kix so the little round balls bounced and rolled all over the floor despite our attempts to keep them under control. Cleaning the extruder is usually pretty easy, but today there was a bunch of gunk burned on to the screw. I spent an extra half hour scrubbing it with a wire brush. I found out later that the people who used the extruder last had jammed it and then didn’t get it completely clean. Yuck!
I left work at about 6:00. It wasn’t raining, but it was pretty cold and windy, a nice head-wind for my bike-ride home. I am really ready for some nice spring weather.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Dutch Dental Care
Sorry it's taken a while to post this blog. I had been having some computer troubles at work for the last few weeks and they finally fixed it by rebuilding my user profile. Of course, that reset all my preferences and deleted the password for getting on our wireless network at home. Naturally I noticed this detail several hours after Dennis left for a four day company ski trip. He's back now and he gave me the password so I'm back on-line.
Here's the new post:
We’ve heard all the jokes about British people with bad teeth. When I got to the Netherlands I realized the jokes are true for Dutch people as well. Apparently the teeth-whitening trend has not made it across the Atlantic. What really surprised me was that even TV and news people had yellow teeth. Well, now I know why.
Yes, I went to the dentist on Monday. It had been nearly a year since my last cleaning and I don’t want to let my teeth get all European. People complain here about how difficult it is to find a dentist that takes new patients. I guess I was lucky that the first one I called had room for me. Better yet, the office is right on the corner of my street, only half a block away.
My appointment was at 8:30. I was on-time, which is easy when you only have to walk half a block. I sat in the waiting room for about a minute. They called me in and asked the normal questions about how often I brush and floss. I got some x-rays done. She blew air on my teeth and poked around a little bit. Then she said, “OK, now we’ll do some cleaning.” She scraped one tooth and polished about four more. Then she used an evil high-powered water pick that sounded like a drill around several other teeth. Even though I flossed just 10 minutes before my appointment, she flossed my teeth again. “Here’s the water. You can rinse and make your next appointment at the front desk. See you in six months”
I checked my watch – 8:45. I touched my teeth with my tongue and felt the plaque still stuck way in back where the toothbrush can’t reach. I asked around at work to find out if this kind of dental care is normal. Everyone agreed that 15 minutes is the standard appointment length. If the dentist thinks you need extra cleaning, they set up a separate appointment for you. I think I’ll just wait until I’m back in the US again and have my teeth cleaned properly.
Here's the new post:
We’ve heard all the jokes about British people with bad teeth. When I got to the Netherlands I realized the jokes are true for Dutch people as well. Apparently the teeth-whitening trend has not made it across the Atlantic. What really surprised me was that even TV and news people had yellow teeth. Well, now I know why.
Yes, I went to the dentist on Monday. It had been nearly a year since my last cleaning and I don’t want to let my teeth get all European. People complain here about how difficult it is to find a dentist that takes new patients. I guess I was lucky that the first one I called had room for me. Better yet, the office is right on the corner of my street, only half a block away.
My appointment was at 8:30. I was on-time, which is easy when you only have to walk half a block. I sat in the waiting room for about a minute. They called me in and asked the normal questions about how often I brush and floss. I got some x-rays done. She blew air on my teeth and poked around a little bit. Then she said, “OK, now we’ll do some cleaning.” She scraped one tooth and polished about four more. Then she used an evil high-powered water pick that sounded like a drill around several other teeth. Even though I flossed just 10 minutes before my appointment, she flossed my teeth again. “Here’s the water. You can rinse and make your next appointment at the front desk. See you in six months”
I checked my watch – 8:45. I touched my teeth with my tongue and felt the plaque still stuck way in back where the toothbrush can’t reach. I asked around at work to find out if this kind of dental care is normal. Everyone agreed that 15 minutes is the standard appointment length. If the dentist thinks you need extra cleaning, they set up a separate appointment for you. I think I’ll just wait until I’m back in the US again and have my teeth cleaned properly.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
kayak shopping and hiking
Little flowers are starting to bloom.
This windmill was one of the points of interest on our hike. These are the kind of windmills they use to pump the water up and out of the fields.
You can see that the sheep are in a soggy field. We were standing on top of a dyke with a bigger canal behind us. The water level of the big canal was about 10 feet higher than this farm field.
Dennis and I are thinking about getting a kayak. With so much water around, it would be fun to explore by kayak. I did a search on the internet and found a kayak store about 30 minutes drive from here. It’s just on the other side of Amsterdam. Dennis and I drove over there on Saturday just to see what they have. This store was HUGE! We found a very helpful salesman who showed us the different types of kayaks they have and told us about all the other junk you need to buy. We are still trying to decide if we want two single kayaks or one double kayak. We are checking with coworkers to see if we find a used one for sale. What we buy might depend on what’s available. We also have to figure out how to carry a kayak on the car. The Toyota RAV4 is big enough to handle whatever we buy, but it doesn’t have a rack on top. Dennis will have to get that sorted out before we buy anything!
While we were up north for our kayak shopping, we decided to do a hike nearby. The Dutch equivalent of AAA publishes walking routes for all over the Netherlands. There is a book with descriptions of the walks and then a one page map for each hike giving all of the details including where to park. We had done two of the hikes already and found the routes to be nice and the maps accurate. Well, for this trip, we chose a 9 km walk around a polder (reclaimed land with lots of small canals). Since we did a 9km walk last weekend, we figured it would be no problem – a couple hours walking.
We got to our hiking start point, the town of De Rijp. It’s a very Dutch little town along the canals with cute bridges and narrow roads. We started out by having a cup of tea in a café. It was pretty quiet in the café and we were surprised to hear the couple next to us speaking English! It was strange to find other English speakers in such a small Dutch town. We said hello, but we were impatient to get started. By the time we got going it was 1:30 in the afternoon. We walked for about an hour and according to the map we were about 1/4th of the way done. This was my first clue that this hike was going to be a bit longer than advertised.
We kept walking, really enjoying the little flowers that are starting to bloom and the warm, spring-like temperatures. At 3:30, we pulled the sandwiches out of the backpack, but decided to eat while we walked. At 4:00, we saw a road sign indicating that De Rijp was still 4 km down the road. How can this be a 9 km hike if we still have 4 km to go? According to the map we are way more than halfway done. OK, now we’re doing the math. If we walk at 3 miles per hour for 3 hours, that makes the hike more like 9 miles, not 9 km. What the hell? The map also gives an estimate of how long it will take. They claimed this hike would be 2 ½ hours. Dennis was using the GPS the whole time, so we know that we didn’t get lost. In the end, we hiked for 3 ½ hours and when Dennis calculated the distance according to the GPS, it was 10.1 miles or 16.8 km.
We were kind of tired when we got back to the car. We still like the walking route maps, but from now on, we will check the route on the computer to verify the distance before we go. There’s a big difference between 9 km and 16.8 km!
On Sunday, we woke up to the sun. Yes, I said the SUN! Feeling energized by the sun, we decided to get the road bikes out for the first time this season. March 1 is a cool date to start with outdoor cycling! Of course, by the time we were ready, the clouds had started to come over. But we still had a nice ride and it wasn’t too cold. We went about 18 miles – so a pretty short ride. It felt great to be out on the road bike and now I’m looking forward to more nice weekends.
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