My History outline part II

When I stopped the last post, I had just arrived in the Netherlands, ready to start a whole new job in a new land with a new new new . . . . new everything.

2002:
The first thing was trying to get my visa, my permission to be here, straightened out. After the nightmare of dealing with the INS for Sylvia's green card, I expected the worst. Years of waiting and thousands of dollars. It took about 20 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon. That's it. 20 minutes. They mailed my visa to me the next week.
Everywhere here is full of people. That was the first big jump from NC/TN thinking, lot's of people. Everywhere. You have to cultivate a feeling of isolation/privacy internally.
It took about 2 months before the feeling of alien-ness left me. My job working for the father-in-law was not enough to pay all of the bills, so I took a job in Rotterdam as a programmer.
3 months later, the work for the father-in-law (we'll call him 'Bert' from now on) WAS enough to keep me busy full time. Which meant that for a few weeks I was working two full time jobs!
2002 was busy. Language lessons "Ik kan Nederlands goede spreken!". Work. Adjusting to the Netherlands. Just busy.
I met my good friend Jason Lawrenson. An Englishman that shared the same language classes as me. Nice guy. He is listed on my friends in facebook.

2003:
Lot's of things happened in 2003. Personal things that really don't belong here on this page. Sylvia and I were this close ][ to getting a divorce. I actually did move out of the house with Derek for about 6 months. In the end, we got back together, so the whole experience had the ultimate result of making me realise that to much work-work-work could lead to a serious depletion of family-family-family.

2004:
The business starts hitting its stride. Online Talent Manager has a wide range of tests, the code I wrote in the depths of 2003 depression just happened to be totally fucking awesome. We were on our way.
http://www.onlinetalentmanager.com or http://www.talent8.nl to read some more. But actually, all of those pages were written by other people, the magic under the hood is my domain.

2005 through now:
I cannot think of much that really stands out for a big swath of time there. Lot's of things HAPPENED. Visiting Paris. Trips back to the states. Jumps in the business. More babies being born in the family. Derek growing up, seemingly, faster and faster. I think I just need to work on parsing these years out a little more thoroughly :)
Maybe in a future post.

Facebook

A friend of mine posted a video to his Facebook account and I thought, "What the hell, I'll try it out." I set up my profile and within a couple of hours I had reconnected with a bunch of friends from my college days and also from my time in Winston-Salem. Great stuff.
It also made me realize that I haven't exactly been keeping people that I still care about up to date about what has been happening in my life.

So, a brief recap:

1994:

• Started working in the Prodigy section at SPSS in Gray. The job was okay, the people I worked with were great, the management structure of SPSS was a nightmarish hell-hole bent on sucking out our very soul for little or no recompense.
• Get involved in the Poetry Slam stuff. At first just local, but we quickly jumped up to regional and national competitions. It was tons of fun, I got to meet some incredible (and not so credible) people, and being able to get a room full of people engaged in what I was saying was a hoot.
• In the summer of 1994, during the national slam competition in Asheville, I met Elvis. This was one of the cornerstone events of my life. Just amazing.

1995:

• Finally got that Electronic Engineering Degree.
• Continue to slave away at SPSS. I move up.
• Continue to do poetry competitions, but find out I have a real knack for being the MC. The poetry is still present, but the MC activities come to the fore, I even get invited to several other venues and regional competitions to guest host.

1996:

• I'm still moving up at SPSS, more responsibilities, get put in charge of a big project which is successful. They give me a 23 cent raise. I am seriously despondent.
• Which means better poetry.
• I get asked to guest host a regional competition in Knoxville, which is a hoot. One of the competitors from Winston-Salem approaches me after the finals and offers me a job at Wachovia bank, "But you will need to get a haircut." It is basically a doubling of my salary, so I wait about 10 minutes before saying "YES".
• August move to Winston-Salem. Work at Wachovia and fit in. The poetry community in Winston welcomes me in and I get to join an incredibly vibrant creative environment.
• Winston had great coffee, great people, art, music, personalities, and great coffee. Just fantastic.

1997:

• I am putting silly things in art shows, appearing in cable access television shows, and just enjoying everything.
  
• I join a music group (Urilliasekt) for a single performance. I developed an infrasound generator for a live performance and they invited me to participate in the actual show. That show alone is worth a few thousand words, but suffice it to say it was AWESOME.
• Move up at the bank, they really like me.
• During the summer, my future wife comes from Holland to visit with her childhood friend, one of my roommates. I think she's hot, she likes me well enough, but mostly it's all just friendly.
• I start dabbling in web programming for an artist gallery web site. I find that I'm pretty good at it.

1998:

• Sylvia comes back to America for 6 months to be an au pair for a couple in Greensboro. We get together in April.
• Still doing poetry here, a national competition in Middletown Connecticut and a regional in Greeneville South Carolina.
• Sylvia and I get really serious and decide to marry. Because her visitor visa runs out, she goes back to the Netherlands for 4 months while we wait for INS to get their story together. I visit Holland in October to visit the new soon-to-be inlaws and look around.
• She comes back, we get married on December 31, 1998

1999:

• Married life, good stuff. I knew how to live with a roommate, but I had to learn how to cook WELL. Not just good enough for me.
• Wachovia job is going okay, but is getting a bit boring. Jungle drums are sounding, 'If we make it through the Y2K successfully, we will be targeted for takeover'.
• On a visit to Mark Painter in Atlanta, I look at CareerBuilder.com for shits and giggles. There is a job posting for a web master at Journalistic, Inc. I say, 'What the hell.' and apply. I get the job and we move to Chapel Hill in August/September.
• Wachovia (22,000 employees) to Journalistic (12 employees) was a BIG jump. But I really like the job and the people.
• Sylvia finds out she is pregnant just a few days before our anniversary.

2000:

• Growing as a programmer.
• Finding out why 'Father of the Bride, Part II' was not funny at all. Sylvia had some complications and spent the last 3 months of her pregnancy on enforced bed rest.
• End of August; a Son!!!
• Father-in-law comes for a visit. He is a psychologist and he has developed a new test instrument with a colleague. He just has to figure out how to distribute and market it. "What about the internet?" Do I know anyone who can program a web site? You know I do.
• Attempt to turn in my resignation, but Webb (the owner of Journalistic) offers me a bonus if I will just stick around for another 10 months or so. I say yes.

2001:

• Work work work.
• Baby baby baby.
• Move to the Netherlands on November 7.

I'm going to stop the dialog there. I will talk about what I've been DOING here in the Netherlands later.

China's Firewall

I've been seeing a lot in the press about the press in Beijing complaining about the 'great firewall' in China. It seems that China relaxed the blocks for some websites, like the BBC's, as a special exception for the games. That seems reasonable. But the press here in the Netherlands is still hammering on the Chinese authorities about other sites they are blocking, like the Falun Gong web site.
I don't see a problem with that. China does not have a free press or freedom of speech. (The freedoms afforded to many western nations is also tainted, you can SAY things that will get you arrested pretty much anywhere. Criticize a specific religion in the USA or publish some Nazi propaganda in France if you think otherwise.) This could not have come as a surprise to anyone involved. To suddenly act offended and self righteous about this fact is, at a minimum, fatuous. China has opened up the firewall to make it possible for reporters covering the Olympics to do their job. I do not believe that they should be expected to do anything more than that.