I found out a couple of days ago that Utilikilts have seriously lowered their pricing! (And I also noticed that photognome now has his picture on the new Utilikilt homepage!)

I've been thinking about buying a Utilikilt for a while now. What kept me so far from buying one was the high price (about $250.00) and the fact that last time I mentioned the kilt-thing to my significant other half; there was thunder in the air for a couple of weeks.

Now that the price for the Classic has dropped to $131.25, I'm sort of hoping Pascale has had enough time to get to terms with the idea of da man wearing a frock. Hmmm... (hmmm = we'll see about that, though).

Quite frankly, I'm not sure when and perhaps even if I'd be wearing the Utilikilt, but the idea definitely looks pretty neat to me...

I guess about the whole world has been following the Paris in Jail soap and, I must admit, so have I.

And this one, I thought, was absolutely hilarious:

Here in Belgium, we've just entered the year 2007. Happy New Year to everyone, may 2007 be a year of love, peace and happyness!

Jan.

Took a little quiz today I saw on karinablack's journal:



Why, thank you, lad! I did indeed not attend an American high school. <grin>

Went to the Wijnegem Shopping Center again on Tuesday to pick up a klixon I ordered and which would be in on Tuesday and to look for the 5 EUR 'Breakfast Club' DVD, which I spotted on Saturday.

As was to be expected, the klixon hadn't been delivered yet and the off-priced DVD basket was gone.

[I case you're wondering, a klixon is a thermal switch, used as a safety device in e.g. tumble dryers. It switches off the current when a certain threshold temperature is reached. It is also typically an enormously overpriced component. The one I need costs about $70. I estimate the production cost at about $1. But then again, the laws of economics dictate that pricing is not set by production cost, but by how much a customer is prepared to pay. And one wants to pay for safety, right? ]

Yesterday, Pascale, the kids (Toon (1y), Lieze (3.5y)) and I went to the city (Antwerp) by tram, which is quite an adventure for Lieze. It was cold and windy though, and it started to rain as soon as we got out of the subway. So we ducked straight into a tavern, had an Irish coffee / hot chocolate / coffee, ate something and then headed back home. It was nice be be out for a while though. Lieze and Toon had been taking turns napping, which had made us stay at home the whole day.

Then at 8pm, we had a meeting at the neighbor's with another couple from the neighborhood to discuss the christmas event we'll be organizing for our street in December. There will be gluhwein, hot soup, games, ... Should be fun!
The meeting was fun too, but lasted a bit too long (until midnight) and most of us had more than enough beers, which made getting up this morning a terrible thing, with Toon being awake at 5:20 am.

Saturday evening, we went to the Wijnegem Shopping Center. It's a classical shopping mall, much like The Bon in Bellevue, WA (which I can never resist visiting when I'm in the area). [We sometimes go there to buy cloths, sometimes books, CDs or DVDs or sometime presents for other people, but there is one constant: we always eat an ice cream cone there. Even Toon, our one year old son happily eats his ice cream there.]
When we passed by a toy shop, I noticed a basket of off-priced DVDs, with 'The Breakfast Club' on top (for 5 Euros - that's about $6,35). That is one of my favorites. It's been about 15 years though, since I last saw it, but I was recently reminded of that movie, when I saw it on airynd's Amazon wish list. There was a hell of a queue in that shop though, and being there with the kids, I didn't really feel like standing in line much. But I'll be going back tomorrow, to pick up an outrageously overpriced replacement part for the tumble dryer, so I'll head back to the toy store to see if they still got the copy!

Saturday, Pascale and I worked in the front garden. I prepared the soil by adding some turf (the soil is really very hard and sticky here) while Pascale planted Pachysandra and narcissus. Halfway, I ran out of turf, so I went inside, took my wallet and car keys and hopped into the truck to get some more. In the process, I had closed the kitchen window through which we had gone outside and therefore locked out Pascale. Then Lieze woke up from a morning nap and started calling her momma, who was locked outside.

Meanwhile, I was happily shopping for turf, some more flower plants (primulas) and picked up a wooden cookie form for making St Nicholas speculaas. [Speculaas is a kind of hard spiced cookie; if you order coffee in Europe, it's not unusual to get some speculaas with it. I haven't got a clue by what name it goes (if at all) in the US. As you may know, St. Nicholas is much bigger here in Europe that Santa is (who was sort of shaped after and etymologically related to Saint Nicolas), and kids get a lot of presents on December 6th, when St. Nicholas is remembered. And there is always speculaas in St. Nicholas shape.]

Pascale and I are absent minded people. Therefore (and luckily) we gave a spare key to our home to the neighbors. We've been living in Schoten now for a year and a half, and this was the first time we needed the spare key. When Pascale went to call at their door, they weren't home, but their daughter Kelly was, and she quickly found the key, which our neighbors had nicely attached a label to.

So then Lieze was 'rescued' and she helped us in the garden. When Toon woke up form his morning nap, I went inside and installed the new lighting for the dinner table. We've almost got all of the bare light bulbs replaced with proper lighting now. Only our own bedroom still needs to be done and then I can start on the floor spots that will go into the Bankirai deck outside. Our home in Schoten is getting more and more installed and it really starts looking as if we're living there, not just camping anymore... :-)

It's been way too long. I know! I somehow can't get myself to post more often.

Why is this?

Am I too busy? Can't I type fast enough so that I'm afraid to loose a precious hour in a life that is already way too short on time? Is it that I'm convinced I don't have much interesting to say, and that writing is silver and silence is golden? Or is it just that I want anything I write to be polished, tasted, changed, repolished, until I'm convinced it's good, only to note later when I reread it after a couple of days I sound like a total schmuck?

Probably all of those reasons. But let's just keep it at 'short on time'. I still like to be on good terms with myself. It makes life so much easier. :-)

karinablack sent a friendly LJ nudge some time ago, and recently complained I don't blog much, and it's never about me. I'll do my best to give it a shot, then. Watch me the next couple of days, Karina...

Woohooo, I'm off to the Blues Festival in Peer!! It's been a couple of years and being two days and two nights on my own on a fantastic festival will do me good. I only wish Pascale could do something similar, so that she could have a couple of days off too. [Pascale and the kids are with her parents now. She's a teacher and has a long summer holiday. That also means taking care of the kids full time now and with a 10 months old boy and a 3 years old girl, that can really be daunting! With all the work we've had to get our garden in a state that the kids can actually play in it, we're both a bit through our energie supplies.]

Anyway, I'm off now. It should be absolutely *great*.

In my life so far, I've always been taking opportunities as they came along, and somehow, I seem to have been lucky: they have always been coming along exactly at the right time. Now life probably is just a series of opportunities calling at your door, and you choosing which opportunities to take and which ones to leave. Each person therefore builds his own 'life decision tree' and two people, even if they were quite alike will never have the same decision tree, as different opportunities present themselves to different people.

What I'm trying to say is that most of the time, I have not been seeking opportunities. My drive has never been career or life planning, my drive is what I like and what I find to be interesting. I rejected a couple of noteworthy opportunities: I did not become a full-time ICT auditor, because I figured I would not be happy. Auditing is very interesting and exciting to do from time to time, but -for me- not as a full-time profession: I miss creativity in auditing. It's mostly executing a fixed procedure, without creating something new. Full-time auditing would have paid a lot more than what I get now, but I decided happiness was more important. For similar reasons, I decided to go back to software development / ICT security consultancy, because I love creating stuff. I 'held a management position' (as they say) as a CTO in an SME for about 5 years, but I decided to go back to development, because that is what I like most. I became a manager because things needed to be improved at my previous company and I figured the best guy for the job at that time was me.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran across this article in a local magazine. It's about a little girl with a heart condition, who was given a donor heart by the renowned heart surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub. At the time of the implant, professor Yacoub decided to leave the original heart in, as there was a theory that the heart might recover by itself. About ten years later, the little girl's body had started to reject the donor heart and she needed to be operated on again. Prof. Jacoub went out of retirement to advise the surgical team and under his guidance, the first ever reversed heart transplant was performed: The little girl's original and fully recovered heart was reconnected and she's doing fine, now!

What a lucky little girl; what a lucky family of that little girl, and perhaps most of all what a very lucky professor Magdi Jacoub: That is one guy who will probably have little difficulties when that inevitable process starts of backtracking the life decision tree: looking back onto one's life to see what one has done with his/her life. Most of us are glad when they can find a job to have an income and stay alive; some of us (including myself) are fortunate to have a job which they love. But even though I love my job; I sometimes get this feeling: "What am I contributing? What difference am I making? Is my life worth being lived, or is this life just for me, my personal path to enlightenment?" When that time comes for me to backtrack my decision tree, could I be satisfied? I've had a good life so far, but has it also been worth living?

Or is this a luxury problem of a guy who should be happy that he's got a nice life, a lovely spouse and two fantastic little kids?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1752874,00.html

For as long as I live, I have been pretty good mates with myself. My friendship with me has had it's ups and downs, but overall, as I said, I'm on pretty good terms with myself. I'm certainly not in love with me and there definitely still is a lot of room for improvement, but I'm content with the qualities that I was dealt with in this life and I feel I'm doing fine with those qualities.

In my catholic upbringing, there was the constant notion that others are more important than oneself. This is a philosophy that I have been opposed to, starting at age twelvish. I figured, there are millions of others, but there is only one me, and that without any doubt, gives me a very special status. I should first try to be happy with me, before I can try to make other people happy.

Lately, and especially in traffic on the rare occasions that I have been driving a car (I ride a motorbike almost throughout the entire year) I have been wondering though if I would like myself if I were to 'bump into' myself on the freeway. People tend to maintain a set of values and rules, you could call them principles (although I don't really like principles - they are an anchor that keeps one form going adrift, but when the tide rises and you cling to your anchor too strongly, you're dragged down - excuse me for the somewhat infantile analogy), which they (mainly) use to judge others.
I have been questioning lately, if I would pass my own judgments.

When outside of a car, I tend not to judge people too much. I think everyone should be free to do whatever (s)he likes, as long as (s)he doesn't harm or excessively annoy others. In a car, that open-mindness seems to be entirely gone: I'm constantly judging others. Which brings me to that universal question: Should one pass ones own criteria for being a great guy, or is it possible to have set of rules for oneself and another (and therefore sometimes conflicting) set of rules for other people? My gut feeling says that this would not be a good situation; that at some point you would be running into trouble, Great Trouble. Point is, the inquisitive me is still looking for a good explanation to justify this gut feeling.

When I find it, I'll let you know. In the mean time, I'll try to work on my kindness, mindfulness and compassion, even and especially when in a car. (It could actually make the whole question irrelevant.)

     Your best friend is you
     I'm my best friend too
     I share the same views
     and hardly ever argue
                         (Bloodhound Gang)

(As a side note, I'm an ICT Auditor and Software Development Consultant for Security-related projects and currently, I'm on a contract at a large Japanese consumer electronics corporation.)

We just received the new org chart for the European organization in the e-mail. At the bottom of the org chart, there is a somewhat amusing notice:



<Wide Grin> Just to make sure people don't get the wrong ideas... :-)

In fact, I think the Japanese do not really think the notice is amusing; the Japanese have a much more hierachical mindset, which heavily influences the way they organize their businesses. In fact, as a collegue of mine remarked, it's not so much that certain people would get the idea that they are equal to people on the same level of the org chart (as would be the 'western' inclination), it's more that the people higher in rank would not be offended that people lower in rank would share the same position on the org chart.

In 'western' societies; it is considered a virtue if you can radiate simplicity, and show that even though you gained some status, you remain 'just a normal bloke'. The Japanese society seems to be more focused on honour and hierarchy...

Ok, so we're one week further and until yesterday, I was still ragingly enthusiastic about the concept of a Freinet-school for our daughter Lieze.

But yesterday, finally, the skeptic in me kicked in and I wondered what other parents, who actually have their kids at a Freinet school would have to say about the school. It just all sounded so wonderful, that there really had to be a catch.

I remembered a discussion in a forum about gifted children some years ago and I decided to search through my e-mail archives. I then bumped into an e-mail written by someone who actually had her kids on the Freinet school where I attended the info-evening last week. She ended up taking her kids off the school. This is a translation of her experience:

Yes, our kids went to a Freinet school, but they have now been going a regular elementary school for the last two years.

Mary went to De Tuimelaar from kindergarten on. Initially, we were enthusiastic about the school, but that changed over time. [...]

The advantage at the Freinet school is that kids can work at their own pace and follow their own schedule (e.g., spending less time on math, more on language) and they can really go beyond what's taught in regular schools. They were very flexible at this school: A kid that already mastered the math of first grade, could just attend math at second grade.

Also positive were the interesting thematic approaches. E.g, on South Africa, organic gardening, horses, airplanes... basically any subject the children would come up with. (Though often the projects requested by the loudest kids were chosen) [...]

Negative: Very little structure in class. Lousy atmosphere at school (conflicts between teachers and also between teachers and parents) a lot of "problem kids" at that time (also a lot of aggression!) After a while, I had the feeling: "This is going nowhere!". I felt I was loosing control over my kids. There was also a lot of mobbing going on between the kids and the school did not really address this adequately. [...]

(Name of little girl changed in order to protect the privacy of the girl and her family)

Right. So far for the raging enthusiasm. One illusion less, I guess.

The lady who wrote this experience, must have changed her e-mail address in the mean time, because the e-mail I sent her yesterday night bounced. I managed to track her down in the phone book though, and I think I will give her a call one of these days. We'll still go the open doors day, but we will be better prepared now that we know what kind of problems to look for.

Last night, I went to an informative meeting, organized by the local Freinet elementary school, and that was quite a revelation!

Although our daughter Lieze (http://www.lieze.com/) just turned three and has been going to the local kindergarten for some weeks now, we had received a flyer in the mail and thought it might be interesting to go and have a look there. The school is further away; must be about 4 or 5 km from our place -which to US standards is really in the backyard, but compared to the school she's going to right now (walking distance) it would be quite a difference in time each morning and evening. And yes, to European standards, 5 km is not really considered closeby. ;-)

The philosophy of the Freinet school is marvelous! They try to approach their teaching as much as possible from the experience of the kids, rather than going through a fixed program like most other schools do. The kids come up with questions and they result in projects in which math, language, physics, biology, ... are applied. They have a fantastic and large garden and when the weather is nice, they move outside: eat outside, have class outside. The school does not grade the students with marks. Instead, the kids and the teacher periodically report in a two-way fashion: The kids will fill out a questionnaire which is different in each report and which probes for their personal contentment, happiness, frustrations, accomplishments, things to be proud of, things that still need some work... This way, the kids assess themelves and their positions in the group. Then the teacher will add her comments to the 'self-assessment'.

I think this could result in a very healthy way of growing up: A lot of attention is given to social interaction, democracy, learning different skills, without the pressure of continuous comparison to other kids. At the same time they seem to be having a lot of extra material for the 'brighter' kids, so that there is always enough challenge to prevent boredome. Which might be a good thing for Lieze, since she seems to be a smart little girl, who keeps surprising us with things she's found out about the world around her.

What's very interesting about the school too, is the fact that it's being organized almost entirely by the parents. It's a small school, where each year only has 10 to 12 kids, but the classes consist two years together (most of the time). The school is a non-profit organization, with the assembly general being the parents (only parents who actually have kids attending the school at this moment), the teachers and the head of the school. There is no cleaning personnel, no janitor, no technical personnel in the school. The AG elects a board of directors, which consists of parents and the head of the school and that's it. They are the school. They decide. And in ten years, the people who will decide are entirely replaced by new parents.

So how do they finance this: There's a subsidy (like is the case for all Belgian schools) from the government and parents pay 2.5% of their net taxable income with a maximum of € 2500,00. And, parents are required to spend three weekends, one day of which is a cleaning day and the other a general maintenance day to help manage the school (no janitor, cleaning personnel, ... rememeber). Also, parents are really actively involved in the whole school working. They will drive the kids when going on outings, will organize pre-school and post-school permanence for kids who come in early or need to stay a bit later,...

In fact, the school was started about twenty years or so by a number of parents who wanted a better school for their kids and the idea has managed to live on until now. I see this kind of school not only as a faboulous opportunity to be really involved in the education of your children, but also as a way to belong to a community of families with kids the same age, who care about creating a friendly environment for their children to grow up in.

I've got Lieze on the waiting list and we'll be going to the open doors day in May and bring Lieze. If she likes the school too, we might want to change schools after the summer holiday.

On the other hand, a school that's within walking distance, where all kids of the neighborhood are going to is also an important plus for the school she's going to right now. She might have more friends, or more opportunity to meet her friends when she keeps going to the local elementary school.

I really have a great feeling about this school. I hope Pascale will have the same feeling when we'll all go to the open doors day in May. It's tough enough making decisions for your own. (I have a nasty habit of letting things go their own way and not actively making too many decisions myself). If you're making decisions for a child that you dearly love, it's even more difficult!

http://www.tuimelaar.be/