Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

A Merry Christmas to you all from Bloggers@large. And may all your Christmas wishes come true!

From a cold and windy Almere, the Netherlands!

I was oblivious to the fact that my hometown Almere was having a huge Christmas parade today. I got caught in the middle of it when I returned from shopping for my groceries this afternoon around 5:30pm. Anyway I shot a lot of video's from the balcony of my appartment and thought I'd upload it to YouTube. It turned out to be a major event that got televised at SBS6. According to the news about a 100.000 people turned up for it.

Once again I am back home after a Christmas in Tallahassee with my girlfriend Carrie. And what a great time did I have! I think this must have been the best visit I had in years. I think it was just what we needed: some quality time. I can't wait till summer vacation: we very much would like to visit Italy and drive there and make it a great trip down the south of Europe. But here I am again: back in cold Holland. Going from some 18-20 degrees to just 0-5 degrees isn't a pleasure! And off course I have a lot of jetlag again. This time we just went for a daytrip to Biloxi, Mississipi to the Isle of Capri Casino. We saw a clip of it on CNN where they showed it was going to be reopened on December 26. It turned out a bit different then we planned for! Continue reading "Another Xmas, another New Year" »

First, it seemed to be an American thing: the ever-stronger push toward a neutral "holiday" season so that non-Christians won’t be even the slightest bit offended. It seems that celebrating Christmas in any public way is a violation of church and state separation for US politicians (in fact: that's where this nonsense started). But now this stupid behaviour is coming to Europe too. The Brittish town Havant, have renamed their local "Christmas Lights Party" into the "Festival of Lights". What is wrong with people? Did we ever feel offended by Jewish hollidays or other non-western holidays? In Europe we do not have Thanksgiving. But do we care about Americans that live in Europe and that still want to celebrate it? Hell no: let them enjoy it! So what's wrong with enjoying Christmas?
Continue reading "A politically correct ... »

So, today was the first day at my new job. As I wrote in a previous Blog, I got basically fired and hired at the same day in September, but I wound up wit a different company, because I got a last minute offer. And so today I started, after a 1 month(!!) vacation. Of course I would liked to have visited my girlfriend Carrie in the States during that period, but our relationship has changed pretty dramatically since she announced she had feelings for someone else and ended our relationship. But the latest news is that I will visit her (and her son) this Xmas, because that didn't work out so good (in her own words "he was an asshole"). So this time I'll be there as just "good friends" (hopefully). Although - off course - my feelings towards her haven't changed.

Anyway: today marked the start of a new day, a new dawn a new career. And all in all I feel pretty motivated!