Krees goes Dutch Kiwi!

Great NYTimes article

Charles just sent me a link to a great NYTimes.com article about biking life in the Netherlands: In the Netherlands, Life Runs on 2 Wheels (Sometimes 3).

Question of the day

I got my bike Friday. WOO HOO!!! Pics soon -- I don't want to post anything until I get just the right ones. Shes' a Sparta Stilio, (better photo here) . I think I'm going to call her "Harriet," as in My Chariot.

Seven speeds, front and rear shocks, headlamp (required), back light (required), and a bell (required - but fun!). And in Zwolle I picked up a set of soft-sided panniers for trekking stuff to work and home from the store.

Anyway, on my ride into work today I was debating with myself whether it's better to go to work in the morning on a bike through the Dutch countryside or on a San Francisco cable car into the Financial District.

And yes, I realized how completely spoiled I've been by my "commutes." They both have their drawbacks, namely manure and tourists respectively, but they both beat the heck out of an hour-long drive to Detroit!

honing

honey

Success at the tax office

I don't know why, but going to the belastingdienst today felt more stressful than going to the Immigration & Naturalization Office (IND). Part of it is because my passport got really wet in the downpour in Amsterdam a few weeks ago and I'm afraid the warping near my photo looks a little sketchy.

Part of it is because I'm still not entirely certain of my legal work status. (I think I'm allowed to work because Charles is allowed to work and I'm his wife. I don't think it's because I'm deemed worthy of the knowledge worker status.) So when I found out that we actually had separate appointments and that we weren't going together, I got a little worried.

And part of it is because we were required to take specific documents from the gementehuis and IND with us, and because those are all in Dutch, I didn't know if we had the right ones.

But it all worked out fine in the end. We both got our Sofinummers and a trip to Ikea thrown in, too!

belastingdienst

tax service (the government office, as opposed to a tax preparer)

Working title: "Yuns 2, Politie 0"

Alternate title: "The Dukes of Diever (yee-haw!)"  
Alternate alternate title: "Meatball and the Bandit"

Charles and his boss came back from Brussels last night, and I picked them up in Zwolle. My ability to drive a manual has dramatically improved in the last week or so, but I was pretty frazzled by my inability to find the train station. (Hey, Zwolle's bigger than you think. They've got at least three highway exits, and I made good use of every single one of them!)

Anyway, Charles drove home so that I wouldn't have to and so I could sit in the back seat and have Maui lick my ears instead of our boss's. Charles was speeding a little (110 in a 100?). We were passed by a police car, but it seemed to be no big deal. Plenty of other cars were speeding, and it took off down the highway ahead of us.

And then it got back on the highway in front of us. Charles started to do a little lane change thing to pass it as it entered, but then it sped up and put on a little LED message in its back window. (See the Tip of the Day, left.) It was in Dutch, so we sure couldn't read it, but Mike advised Charles to follow it down the next exit ramp and pull over behind it at the side of the road.

The officer got out of his car and came around to the passenger side with a flashlight. He asked something in Dutch and Charles sort of sputtered, "Ik spreek geen Nederlands. Engels?" ("I don't speak Dutch. English?") The officer replied, as everyone here always modestly or begrudgingly does, "A little."

And then the officer asked the big question: "Why are you driving with your fog lamps on?"

???

"Um...I don't know. Are they on?" (We just bought the car a month ago and are still trying to figure out a few things.)

"Yes, they're on."

"Is that illegal?"

"Yes. It's not allowed."

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't realize." Charles looked around the dashboard pushing various buttons as the officer walked around to look at the front of the car. "Is that better?"

"Yes, that's good."

The officer came back around to the passenger side and asked for Charles' license and paperwork. He handed him his American driver's license, which prompted  a brief discussion about how we'd moved here only a month ago, that we owned the car but have had it for only a few weeks, and that we were headed back to Diever, where we live.

And it seemed the officer couldn't be bothered to deal any further with the Americans and the Scottish guy in the front seat who couldn't help with translation. He didn't press to see any of the paperwork for the car and didn't say anything about the speeding. He just said, "Do you know how to get back on the highway? No? Oh. Just follow me."

So if you're going to get pulled over with your boss in the car, at least make it for something stupid.

breakin' the law

If a policeman wants you to stop, he drives in front of you with a volg (follow) sign lit in the rear window.

pers

press (as in media)

Hij ontschorst, maar hij is vriendschappelijk.

He barks, but he is friendly.

Be the Public in my Public Outreach!

A lot of my job has to do with educating the general public about e-VLBI and radio astronomy.

(Skip this paragraph if you already know what those last two terms are. Theoretically if you connect a 32-meter dish in Italy to a 6-meter dish in Chile, you've just created a 12,360 kilometer wide telescope! With an instrument that large, you can get great resolution. That's the VLBI part. The e-VLBI part is using high-speed fiber optic networks to connect radio telescopes together. That way astronomers can receive the data in real-time and make any necessary adjustments during the observation period itself. These observations are often scheduled months in advance, so you lose an entire observation if you don't have everything just right.)

JIVE and ASTRON are having an Open Day in October, and part of my job is to put together posters and materials to educate the public about what we do here and get them interested in radio astronomy, computer networking and developing the software that combines all the data from the different telescopes.

So my questions to you are:

• What would YOU want to know about what we do here?
• If you have a child (or if you are a child), what does he or she (or you) want to know about what astronomers really do? Or network engineers? Or software developers?
• If you're a professional, were you interested in your profession as a child or as a student? And what got you interested in it?

Feel free to leave comments here at the site or email me privately (kyun at jive dot nl). I'd love to get your feedback! (Please also let me know whether or not you are actually interested in what we do here. That will help me gauge the level of interest I can expect from the general public!)

Many thanks in advance,
Kristine

p.s. Follow these links to Wikipedia to learn more about VLBI and e-VLBI.

My first press release

After lots of editing and unwarranted frustration, I've issued my first press release. Tolstoy it's not. In fact there are so many credits and parentheticals that it may not even be comprehensible to the general public, but I'm sure future releases will be much better.

The good news (?) is that SMART-1 crashed into the moon at 07:42:22 CEST (05:42:22 UT) and that we're getting good data from it.

The other good news is that Radio Drenthe should be running a news brief or something in a half-hour.

Up close and personal with real Dutch cuisine

Charles and I (and Maui!) were fortunate enough to be invited to a coworker's house for dinner last night. His partner made stamppot - perhaps the most typical of Dutch home cooking. It seems as though many foreigners, and even some Dutch themselves, have a bleak view of stamppot, which is essentially potatoes and vegetables boiled together and then mashed.

Say what you will, but it was GOOD.

Yvonna made it with potato, carrot, onion and a little sausage. On the side she served a couple more sausages (almost just like the Polish sausage my mom always served at home) and homemade meatballs. To quote their daughter Elisa, "LEKKER!"  So good. Few things beat mashed potatoes, veggies and meat on a cold, rainy night.

They topped it off with dessert - vanilla vla, chocolate vla and slag room. Vla is more like pudding than anything else in the States, but a little thinner. Very tasty.

Perhaps theirs isn't the best example as they're in the middle of a complete remodel, but we also got further insight on Dutch house styles. More on that in the future!

Gefeliciteerd met uw verjaardag!

Happy Birthday!

They say it's your birthday...

Happy Birthday, Mom!!!