In Volendam

We're in Holland for a vacation. It's the first time in 10 years I am spending Christmas and the new year's celebrations in the Netherlands. This picture is evidence that I am really experiencing Holland like a tourist this time. For the first time, actually.

After having spent Christmas with my mother, we drove to Volendam to experience an overdose of Dutch iconic symbols like wooden shoes, tulips, cheese, and paling pop music. We loved it.

Math champ

Gregory is the new 4th grade math champ at Hembree Springs Elementary. For the past several weeks the students have been dueling each other in solving math problems. After Greg became his own class' champion, he squared off against the champions of other classes. He even beat some 5th graders. Gregory correctly solved 99 of 100 math problems in the final test. And that last one? He simply overlooked it.

Timmins, Ontario

I am on board SAS flight 946 from Chicago to Stockholm. To be precise, I am 37,000 feet above Timmins, Ontario. It does not seem like much from above. Maybe I will remember this city as the first city I blog about from an airplane. And it may be the last one too. The onboard internet service provided by Connexion By Boeing will be discontinued from January 1st, much to my chagrin.

So what's going on in Timmins? From surfing the web, I learned that Shania Twain lived here for a while. There's a center celebrating her time in Timmins with memorabilia and souvenirs. Too bad, I could not stop by.

Sinterklaas in Roswell

Sinterklaas was nice enough to spend one day of his busy schedule with the Dutch children of Atlanta. During this week, Greg and Sammy had been practicing some Sinterklaas songs. They were excited to meet Sinterklaas today.

Sint and five Piets arrived at the Roswell River Landing after a long journey upstream the Chattahoochee river. They brought lots of pepernoten, banket, and chocolate initials. But every kid's favorite were the presents Sint brought for everyone. Find some more pictures on Flickr.

Mary had a little lamb

At Hembree Springs Elementary, each fourth grader plays in a school band or in a school orchestra. Children get to choose an instrument. They have to stick with their choice for the next two years.

Greg chose to play the violin. He was very determined about his choice. He is not using a bow yet, but he's plucking the strings using his fingers. Here's Greg playing "Mary had a little lamb".

Sirona Cerec 3

I received my second crown today. My first one was installed three years ago. At that time, it took two visits. On the first visit, my tooth was prepared, an impression was taken, and a temporary restoration was placed on my tooth. I had to wait a couple of weeks for the permanent crown to be produced in a far away facility. On the second visit, I had the temporary pried off and had the permanent restoration put on.

Today, I received my custom made permanent crown within an hour, using the Sirona Cerec 3 wonder machine. First, my dentist took an optical impression of the prepared tooth. Instead of filling a tray with impression goop that you must bite into and hold in your mouth until it hardens, my dentist used a camera to take a digital picture of my tooth.



Next, the CEREC machine helped create the restoration for my tooth. The digital picture was converted into a 3-dimensional virtual model on the computer screen. I found a movie clip on YouTube that pretty accurately reflects the steps my dentist went through. After a few minutes, my dentist clicked a button, and the restoration design data is sent to a separate milling machine in the office. A ceramic block that matched my tooth shade was placed in the milling machine. About 10 - 20 minutes later, my all-ceramic, tooth-colored restoration was finished, and my dentist bonded the crown in my mouth to ensure proper fit and bite.

Some more artwork

Greg's drawing of Sammy

Sammy's self portrait

Trick or treat

Since I am in California this week, I missed my favorite holiday: Halloween. The subdivision is filled with hundreds of children all dressed up in scary costumes. Greg and Sammy get very excited to go trick or treating. They collect lots of candy. Since they don't eat a lot of candy it easily lasts to next year's Halloween.

Here's a picture I took over the weekend. Greg and Sammy try to look scary and get ready to bang in the door with golf clubs.

The world's busiest airport

Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson calls itself the world's busiest airport. Being the main hub for Delta Airlines and for UPS causes Atlanta to have the largest number of arrivals and departures annually. The title is contested by a good number of other airports. Wikipedia keeps a list.

Yesterday I traveled to California. It's never great to travel on a Monday morning, but yesterday Atlanta really felt like the world's busiest airport. The security line started outside the main terminal, and even Starbucks ran out of coffee.

My favorite spot in the airport is the tunnel connecting the T-Gates with Concourse A. There is a permanent Zimbabwean sculpture exhibition: Zimbabwe - a tradition in stone. Mbira music plays softly in the background. I usually walk through the exhibition. It calms me down and it helps me cope with the world's busiest airport.

Happy birthday to Sammy

Sammy turned 7 today. And just like his brother, he wanted a lightsaber for his birthday. He got a green Luke Skywalker Force FX lightsaber replica. So now he can duel Greg, who has a replica of the blue lightsaber that Anakin Skywalker uses. Both sabers make humming sound with every move.

The Skywalker brothers are now ready to duel. Preferably in the dark. It makes the glow of their lightsabers so much more realistic.

Birthday preparations

No birthday is complete without balloons flying from the mailbox. So yesterday, after Sammy's birthday party, Ina made sure to attach some balloons to our mailbox.

Just like Greg, Sammy wanted to invite his friends to bowling party. So we repeated the routine of a month ago. Lots of kids dumping bowling balls on the lanes as if they were bouncing balls. Plus pizza and birthday cake to keep the party going.

By the end of the day, Sammy was loaded with presents and his real birthday was yet to begin.

Roswell Fire

Greg is playing soccer for the Roswell Fire this year. Every Saturday he's playing a game at the Woodstock soccer park. Usually he is goalie for part of the game, and the rest of the game he plays defence. Goalie is the least popular position, so the boys that aren't scared of the ball have to take turns.

Today the Fire played the Roswell Flash. The Fire went down, but hey, everybody still got a snack and a drink after the game.

The hookah

First there was crazy bubble tea, and now there's the hookah. And who would think that the latest craze would be smoking related. Smoking! I thought that was virtually outlawed and extinct by now.

We had no idea of this latest trend until we walked into Darvish, our local Persian restaurant, over the weekend. The beds along the walls of the restaurant were filled with young people who were clearly not there for the Kashk-o-Bademjoon or the kabobs. Next thing we noticed was the huge number of hookahs in the restaurant.

It turns this is not the only hookah place. Hookah lounges are being opened all over the country, mostly catering to the young and trendy. There are hundreds of shisha flavors that people can smoke. Just like with bubble tea, most common are fruit flavors, but it does not stop there. A lot of the shishas are imported from the Middle East and are perfectly legal.

Hembree farm

Hembree Grove, the subdivision where we live, is built on land that used to belong to Hembree farm. Some of the old farm buildings are right next to the entrance of our subdivision on Hembree road. I love the rural touch that these farm buildings give to our neighborhood. Plans to turn the farm into a historical site fell through, but I hope these buildings will be here for a long time to come.

The other day, I took a couple of pictures of some of the farm buildings.

Heelys

Greg and Sammy both have Heelys. These are must-have shoes. They look like ordinary sneakers, but there's a wheel hidden in the heel of the shoe. Hence the name. By placing one foot in front of the other foot while raising your toes off the ground, you can skate on the wheel in the heel.

Heelys are not allowed in school, but they are big fun in our driveway, in the aisles of grocery stores, in parking lots, and sometimes on our hardwood floor at home. Here's a picture of Sammy using his Heelys in the parking lot of a Korean strip mall while Greg and I were having a haircut at the Un Ga Hair salon.

Happy birthday to one amazing guy

Greg had his birthday party today. He wanted to take his friends bowling. A lot kids showed up at the bowling center, and Greg came home with a truckload of presents.

Mr. LaPorte led the kids to sing Greg's birthday song. And that was including the Eat Mor Chikin yell in between the official lines.

Ben Tobin

For almost a year now, Sammy has been talking about Ben Tobin songs. First I thought Ben Tobin was a teenage music star, later I found out Ben Tobin makes classical music. In fact, Sammy calls all classical music Ben Tobin music.

Sometimes Sammy's teacher plays a Ben Tobin song in the classroom. And the music teacher has a picture of Ben Tobin. He looks like George Washington, says Sammy.

Tonight, I finally understood that Ben Tobin's real name is Ludwig van Ben Tobin. Or something like that. Here's Sammy doing an impression of Ben Tobin's famous piece Für Elise.

Steve Irwin - the crocodile hunter

On Monday this week, Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter died in a stingray attack. He was the most passionate and energized wildlife documentary filmer I ever saw. Often I wondered whether he was taking too much risk. He did not do anything by half, and I guess that earned him the respect of even the most dangerous croc or snake.

Many Steve Irwin tribute videos have been posted this week. My favorite is the one below. It shows what he was about: passion, danger, showmanship, and ultimately wildlife protection.

A tribute to Pluto

Greg is doing a school project about our solar system this week. He has to create a model showing the sun and all nine planets. Nine planets? Just this week, astronomers decided that Pluto is no longer a real planet. Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of "dwarf planets".

Greg's teacher, mr. LaPorte was unfazed. He sent a note home that, despite the astronomers decision, he would like the students to include Pluto in their project. And so Greg did. As a tribute to Pluto, he colored the tiny sphere nice and purple.

Window washers

My office is on the 27th floor of a glass tower called the King. It's right next to the Queen. The two are called King and Queen because they resemble a pair of chess pieces.

But the towers get dirty and their glass surface needs to be washed from time to time. A team of window washers will descend from the top of the tower armed with gallons of windex. They're dangling from a single rope swinging from window to window. Here's a picture I took from our office today. I'd rather be playing a game of chess.

Later... with Jools Holland

My new favorite TV channel is Rave. It's one of 15 or so extra HDTV channels that Dish Networks added when it started distributing Voom. And my favorite show on Rave is Later... What other show will feature Mori Kante, the Arctic Monkeys and Anita Baker in one episode. When watching Later... today, Sammy was appalled by the lipstick and hairdo of The Cure's Robert Smith. "That sure makes an ugly girl", he said.

Google in Redmond

Who would think that the king of web advertising would go outdoors? That's exactly what Google is doing in Redmond, WA. Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond and Google is after their engineers to develop Google Video, Google Talk, and Google Maps. Google thinks there's a better chance to find these engineers in the Redmond Town Center than on the web.

Back to school

After a loooooong vacation, Greg and Sammy went back to school this morning.

Helping DVD players become smarter

How can simple appliances become so complicated? Yesterday, our two months old Toshiba DVD player died after a power surge. Actually, it did not die completely. It just did not play DVDs anymore. Audio CDs and Video CDs still worked fine. Bummer. It was capable of playing DVDs from all regions, and it was able upconvert DVDs to HDTV.

All this stuff you need to worry about. The movie industry came up with this great idea of carving the world up into regions. North American DVDs are region 1. So are most players that are sold here. These players won't play the DVDs I receive from Holland, which is in region 2. Neither do they play DVDs that Ina buys in Indonesia. This regions nightmare spawned a slew of businesses specialized in selling region free DVD players, so people can enjoy movies from their home countries.

While searching the web for ways to cure our Toshiba, I discovered that many ordinary DVD players can be made region free. So I re-installed our old Philips player and found the procedure to make it region free on Google. Victory! Now I just need to get the Toshiba back to work.

A new bike

Hooray! Greg passed the CRCT reading test! He will be promoted to 4th grade.

As a reward he got a brand new bike. A Schwinn with 21 speeds. So now Greg is not only able to go down the hill to the cul-de-sac, but also to come back up again.

Being a good brother, Greg negotiated a new bike for Sammy as well. He had not really done anything to deserve one. Well, according to Sammy, he had been nice for mom while Greg was in summer school.

Greg's expander

Gregory has a small mouth, and his teeth need alignment. Since a beautiful smile is so highly valued, Greg will wear braces. There is not enough space in Greg's mouth for all his teeth to fit properly. There are two ways to make room. One is extraction: teeth are removed to create more space. The second is expansion: the palate is made larger by using an expander.

Greg received an expander yesterday. Now his mouth is sore and he speaks funny. He will wear it for six months. Hopefully he will get used to it soon.

Old Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale isn't very old. If you don't count the 5,000 years that native americans have come to Fort Lauderdale. Modern Fort Lauderdale started when Frank Stranahan established a trading post with the local Seminole indians around1895. Stranahan was in Florida to build a rock road through the South Florida wilderness. In 1896,the Florida East Coast Railway was extended south through Fort Lauderdale. Old Fort Lauderdale is where the railway crosses the New River.

Sammy took our picture in Old Fort Lauderdale today.

Dead Man's Chest

On a one night stop-over in Orlando, we went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie: Dead Man's Chest. While the story is hard to follow, Johnny Depp makes up for it. He does another quirky, swaggering impersonation of Captain Jack Sparrow. Depp's facial expressions are hilarious.

The movie also features mythological sea creatures such as the Flying Dutchman and the giant octopus Kraken that attacks and sinks ships.

Greg in Tallahassee

Auburn at FSU

We're on vacation! On our way to South Florida, we're making a stop in Tallahassee. 'Tallahassee' is an Apalachee word meaning 'old town'. There are no Apalachees anymore, they have been killed off by disease and the Spaniards. And even the athletic teams of Florida State University are named after a rival tribe, the Seminoles. Even though Sammy was wearing an Auburn shirt today, he wanted to see the football stadium.

Un but ou un headbutt de Zidane?

Hockey grin

Sammy lost a tooth. Here he's showing off his gap-toothed hockey grin.

Sammy Keane

Things to do on the fourth of July: Here's Sammy singing "This is the last time" from Keane.

Greg Blunt

Greg sings "Goodbye, my lover" by James Blunt.

Who can sing like the canary?

Today, Brazil was eliminated from the Fifa World Cup through a masterful display by Zinedine Zidane leading les Bleus to a 1-0 victory. Here's a tribute to the Brazilian team from Eric Cantona for Joga TV. The music is by Sergio Mendes with the Black Eyed Peas: Mas que nada.

www.nikesoccer.com

CRCT

Gregory will do the Georgia CRCT reading test today. Wish him luck!

I am Gregory. I am going to demolish the CRCT test!!! G-man is going to
pass the one and only CRCT test!

Sammy van Nistelrooij

It is tough for team USA. Most soccer fans in the US support other teams. I see cars with English flags, little German flags on mailboxes, and lots of Mexican banners everywhere. Our home is decorated with an Orange flag, but nowhere I see support for the Americans. On the contrary, people do not understand how USA could lose to Ghana. It's a shame, US is fifth in the Fifa ranking, Ghana is 49th. It's no use explaining that the Fifa ranking has not very close to reality, and that Ghana probably has the stronger team. On the fourth of July we'll wave the American flag again, until then we fly orange.

Fountain drinks

Judging from the number of movies on Google video and YouTube, Mentos and Diet Coke must have blow-out sales this years. Since someone discovered that dropping a Mentos mint in a bottle of Diet Coke creates an explosive geyser, lots of home made movies appeared on the internet. Mostly made by frat students in their bathrooms.

Now, EepyBird.com show two men in Maine, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, that took the cola explosions to an entirely new level. They used 101 bottles of Diet Coke and crafted two-minute Mentos and Diet Coke performance that they call "a spectacular, mint-powered version of the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas."

Alberto from Paraguay

Meet my colleague Alberto from Paraguay. He's a brave man, wearing his national team's jersey in the office of a Swedish company. World Cup games are on from 9 to 5 local time. The TV in our break room that used to be tuned to the business channels, is now showing ESPN. Here's Alberto watching his team go down in the 88th minute against Sweden. He will have to hear about that defeat for a long time.

Other than Paraguay, Sweden, USA and the Netherlands, our office has nationals from world cup contenders Argentina, Trinidad, Costa Rica, Mexico, England, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Australia. You can imagine the world cup is talked about a lot more than the NBA Finals these days.

Fedex Field

Last week, I was on a business trip to Baltimore. At least, that's what I thought. I flew into Baltimore Airport, but the actual meeting turned out to be at Fedex Field, the home stadium of the Washington Redskins. At a capacity of 90,000, it is one of the largest stadiums in the NFL.

For reasons, I can't explain Sammy loves the Baltimore Ravens, but can't stand the Redskins. Since I had told him I would be in Baltimore, he made me promise to bring back some Ravens memorabilia. So it was a great disappointment, that I showed up with pictures from Fedex Field and some Redskins mini-posters. I should have known better.

From the grill

Sunday seemed like a perfect day for grilling. Ina made US grilled steak, Indonesian grilled fish, Italian roast potatoes and a Mexican chopped salad. Can you believe that it rained for 15 minutes that day? It just brought out that hickory smoke flavor a little bit extra.

One night in Naarden

On Friday, I made a stopover in Holland while traveling back home from Stockholm. I visited my long time friends Albert and Regina and their one year old son Floris. It was great to have white asparagus with eggs and ham with pinot gris, and to catch up with Albert and Regina. Albert had just returned from a cycling vacation in the French Alps. He now knows all 21 hairpins of l'Alpe d'Huez by heart.

Floris is a happy little fellow who will dress up in vintage orange warm-up suits and Tour de France yellow jerseys this summer.

The big flip

Sammy found a great way to stay cool during the 100 days of summer H.E.A.T.

Summer H.E.A.T. advisory

From Memorial Day to Presidents Day, the Georgia Governors Office of Highway Safety runs a campaign known as "The 100 Days of Summer H.E.A.T." The summer-long campaign is designed to make bad drivers feel the H.E.A.T. on their checkbooks, license points and insurance rates. H.E.A.T. means citations for speeding and aggressive driving.. tickets for failing to buckle-up the kids or wear safety belts.. and jail time for drunk and drugged driving.

H.E.A.T. stands for “Highway Enforcement of Aggressive Traffic.” Other than silly acronyms, the campaign also produces silly visual ad work.

Last day of school

Friday was the last day of school for Greg and Sammy. The Memorial Day weekend is the start of eleven weeks of summer vacation. There were parties in both Greg's and Sam's classes. Sammy's Kindergarten party was Hawaiian themed, while the third graders were dressed up as pirates. Ina catered pop corn and brownies.

2006 Indonesian Banquet

Each year in May, the Indonesian Community Heritage Foundation organizes a Spring Festival in Atlanta. The highlight of the festival is the Indonesian Banquet attended by diplomats, business leaders, and members of the Indonesian community in Georgia. It is an evening with traditional food, music, dance, and lots of friends. Special guest this year was the ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to the United States, Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat. Here's a picture of His Excellency with Ina.

Gregory's site

Ina did some great web work and created a photo site of Greg and Sammy. I added it to the link section on the left hand side of this page.

The tallest tower in the South

What's up with Atlanta? Atlanta has been one of the top four U.S. metro area's in terms of economic growth for 20 years. But there have been some hiccups recently. Delta filed for bancruptcy. Ford and GM are closing major assembly plants. Georgia Pacific, Scientific Atlanta and Bellsouth have been acquired by out of state companies. And now the the tallest tower in the South is proposed to be built in Nashville.

Since 1992, Atlanta's Bank of America Tower has been the tallest Southern skyscraper. Measuring 1023 feet, it is even the tallest U.S. tower outside New York and Chicago, the sixth highest in the nation. The 1047 feet high Signature Tower, if built, will knock down Atlanta a peg. That thought is hard to bear for Atlanta's boosters.

Drowned alive

Greg and Sammy did not want to go to sleep tonight. Instead, they wanted to watch David Blaine. This performance artist and magician has been living underwater for a week in an eight-foot acrylic sphere in New York City's Lincoln Center.

To culminate his stunt, he attempted to break the world record for breath-holding underwater, which was 8 minutes, 58 seconds while trying to escape from 150 pounds of chains and handcuffs during the breath-holding finale.

In the end, he was able to stay under water longer than Greg and Sammy were able to stay awake.

Pan for punks

The steel drum is synonymous with tropical music from the Caribbean. Not so for Tracy Thornton. On his latest CD Pan for Punks, he plays inspired covers of classic tunes by the Ramones. Watch the video of Blitzkrieg Bop.

Volvo Ocean Race

During the last couple of months, I have closely been following the Volvo Ocean Race. Sometimes this race is referred to as the Formula 1 of sailing, I prefer to call it the Tour de France of sailing. The race around the world is held every four years. Seven boats started in Spain in December. After having stopped over in Cape Town, Melbourne, Wellington, and Rio de Janeiro, they have now arrived in Baltimore.

Yesterday, I attended the in-port race held just outside Baltimore in the Chesapeake Bay. Since my employer is sponsoring one of the teams, we took our customers out on the water. Weather conditions were perfect for viewing, but not windy enough for sailing.

The race was a clean sweep by the Farr boats, who are superior in lighter wind. Or maybe it's because Farr is based in Annapolis, five miles from where the race was held. Bouwe Bekking's Movistar team won, our team ended in fourth place.

Our photographer Frank placed his pictures on the web.

BMX freestyle

Greg and Sammy enjoying the DK stunt team.

Tour de Georgia 2006

Floyd Landis claimed victory in the 2006 Tour de Georgia today. He led last year's winner Tom Danielson and Yaroslav Popovych. The grand finale of the Tour de Georgia came down to a field sprint after 118.2 miles/190.2 km and six furious circuits in historic Alpharetta, won by Juan Jose “JJ” Haedo of Argentina.

We usually try to see the last stage's finish, since it is only two miles away from our home. The Tour de Georgia is the only US race that attracts pro-tour teams such as Discovery Channel, CSC, Phonak, Quickstep, and Lotto. They compete with fancy American teams like Jelly Belly and Jittery Joe's Zero Gravity.

Greg and Sammy love the excitement. Most of all they liked a BMX biking demonstration, though they thought the road race was sweet too.

Garage sale

Once or twice a year, there is a neighborhood garage sale. And sometimes, we take the opportunity to sell our old stuff. Even if you don't strike it rich, it is an excellent way to get rid of large sized items.

Gregory and Sammy are in it for the money. They do their own pricing. Free McDonald's toys can go for $5, while $20 toys can be priced at a quarter.

Our customers included toy shopping grandma's, professional electronics traders, ladies-that-are-moving-out-and-want-to-start-all-over-again and Mexican painters.

The tooth fairy

Floris just had his first moler. Gregory found out that they last about nine years. He lost his first baby moler today. He put it under his pillow before going to sleep. Hopefully, the tooth fairy will come and get it tonight. I know she reads my blog. She usually pays a dollar for a tooth. She sells them on her website.

Joga Bonita - Ronaldio

This is Sammy's favorite commercial. He wants to see it over and over again. He wants to be just like Ronaldio (that's how he calls Ronaldinho), but he's not quite as fluent. Sammy is not afraid to try ... to dare. He does it, just because he likes it.

The Easter Dude

A couple of weeks ago, Greg spotted a rabbit in a parking lot. He ran after the rabbit yelling: "Stop, you easter dude!". Greg never caught the rabbit.

The Easter Bunny has become a highly controversial. Sometimes he is identified as Spring Bunny, mostly by retailers who want to shy away from the religious connotation of Easter. And even the traditional White House Easter Egg Roll has become controversial. Some 200 gay families are planning to attend the Easter Egg Roll on Monday to showcase themselves to the nation and President Bush.

Despite all the controversy, the Easter Dude visited our yard this morning. The egg hunt that followed was fierce and short.

Killer Queen

The American Idols were singing Queen songs this week. Brian May and Roger Taylor were assisting during the rehearsals. Apparently they are on a North American tour with Paul Rodgers of Bad Company.

None of the idols was singing my favorite Queen song: Killer Queen. But the good news was that nobody performed Radio Gaga either.

All this attention for Queen inspired me to buy the 30 year anniversary edition of "A night at the opera". Has it really been thirty years since I bought the vinyl version?

A great site for nostalgic tv stuff is YouTube. They have lots of clips from music shows of the seventies. Guaranteed to blow your mind. Wanna try?

Roof repairs

The guys on our roof look so happy because they collected a lot of money for all the roof repairs in our street today. Not bad for a Sunday afternoon.