Second Canada Day

Today, I celebrated my second Canada Day, together with Amy. It commemorates the forming of Canada. I got a paper flag out of it, both years. There are also ceremonies were new citizens are sworn in. Unfortunately we missed that one. Maybe one day I will be pledging allegiance to the Maple Leaf. Amy ate maple syrup on a stick, which is a traditional Quebec treat. I settled for Grandma Lee's sandwich.

Channel 9

Watching television here can be an ordeal. Euro 2008 games are broadcast live and uninterrupted fortunately. But other broadcasts are littered with a barrage of commercials. A nice relief from this is the public stations that are funded by private donations. I just saw a very interesting Frontline documentary on channel KCTS9. When googling for this station's name, I stumbled upon this hilarious video. It shows a pledge drive for the station. And remember: the station KCTS9 is on channel 9. Enjoy....

Where the Internet was born

I knew that the Internet was created as a defense initiative by ARPA, now called DARPA. What I did not know, is that the very first message ever sent over the network was from UCLA to Stanford. A student at UCLA decided to trace down the history, and find out what the actual physical location was, where the historic event happened. In what building, in what room, did it all begin? Room 3420 or room 3424?


Finding ARPANET: The First (Physical) Site of the Internet from Brad Fidler on Vimeo.

Nieuwe Blogger

Voor de reisverhalen van Bram senior en Els, kunnen jullie verder lezen door te klikken op Bram senior's eigen blog. Er is inmiddels een artikeltje gepubliceerd over Granville Island en eentje over het Maritime Museum in Vancouver. Veel lees plezier op http://bramstolk.blogspot.com.

Orange lion rides the GSX-R

My mother brought me a little orange lion mascot. It is now riding along with me on my crotch rocket, with the manes in the wind. I watched parts of the first game via sopcast. I must admit, I did not wear an orange jersey to work, but that 3-0 really got me in the mood for this tournament. Slant Six Games is very international, at least half the programmers here have a non Canadian background. This means that there is some interest for soccer here.

Road side entertainment

Last sunday, breakfast was interesting. While devouring the eggs and bacon, we had some nice road-side entertainment in the form of a Triathlon. It made up for those week long road closures around my building. A few weeks ago, Amy did some cycling in Stanley Park as well. In the picture you see her with our friend Slavica in the elevator, getting the bikes down to the street.

Geland in Vancouver

Tijdens onze succesvolle vlucht verrast met een mededeling van de cockpit dat NL met 3-0 gewonnen heeft.....geweldig zelfs de stewardessen in het oranje... dat is nog eens een voorbereiding.
We zijn nu in Bram zijn apartment en bekijken al zijn spulletjes... leuk hoor en een mooie buurt... alleen het regent nog al.

Ons hotel is hier 5 minuten lopen vandaan, we rijden rond in een Full Size Dodge...

Toen we onze bagage hadden en naar de uitgang liepen, stonden Bram & Amy ons op te wachten. Heerlijk, na een jaar elkaar weer te zien en heel fijn om kennis te maken met Amy. We zitten nu gezellig te kletsen en ik (els) heb natuurlijk de nodige vragen. Je kent dat wel van Rayman is laat...: wie is je vader en wie is je moeder? Nou Amy vertelde natuurlijk over haar Ned. wortels (haar moeder komt uit Wijk aan Zee, haar achternaam is Heusdens).

Groetjes van Bram senior en Els.

Safari

I went to Whistler on Victoria day. Victoria day is a national holiday, which means a Monday off. Whistler is a nice resort in the mountains, and will be a primary venue for the Olympics. It is a 90 minute drive from the city. While driving up the mountain, we saw a bear at the side of the road. This was my first bear sighting. It's pretty amazing to see, wandering around so close to civilization. In the city centre, just outside my apartment building, I got to see skunks, raccoons and squirrels. But the bear beats them all.

24 heures du Mans

For the first time ever, a Dutchman won the 24 hours of le Mans for motorbikes. Congratulations to Barry Veneman. See the press release of his team. And what do you know... he did it on my bike! This means that the GSXR1000 is officially the fastest production motorcycle in real-life conditions.

Baseball bat

This morning I picked her up. I was a little concerned whether the insurance guy would let me register and insure it on my Dutch license, but he did. Convincing him that I am a very experienced rider, with 14 yrs no claim and 80 percent discount took more effort. In the end he would give me a 40 percent discount instead. Well, at least it is something. I had my Dutch insurance company make a statement in English on my history. Insurance is very expensive over here. Maybe because there are more accidents in Vancouver than in Amsterdam? With the discount, I still had to pay over a 1000 dollars per year for simple liability only. I bought two heavy duty chain locks. In addition to this, I bought the most expensive motorcycle alarm that I could find. It even has a 2 way radio connection. If someone touches my bike I will be notified if I am in a 1 mile radius. I will have to get a baseball bat or a gun to deal with the low lives that try to take away this baby.

Road Insanity

Oops... I did it. There is no sane reason for it. It makes no sense what so ever. It will be utterly unusable. It is an unnecessary luxury. But boy oh boy, what a magnificent machine. Yesterday I bought this 2007 GSXR1000.



It's the pinnacle of motor sport, in the very exclusive category of 1:1 power weight ratio. It weighs 170kg, and it produces 170hp. To protect inexperienced riders, Suzuki put 3 control modes on the bike. So you can ride it with 50hp less when it rains. I am pretty confident that I can handle it though, thanks to my years of experience, and the two advanced rider courses I did with KNMV on the racetrack in Lelystad.

The bike I bought was a demo model, used by the dealer. It has 3000km on it, but the warranty will start the day I bought it. I intend to pick up the bike next weekend, when I will have received my leathers and helmet from the Netherlands. I have to look into insurance now. Fortunately, I had my "royementverklaring" from the Dutch insurer put in English, stating my 80% discount. I hope they will honour it here. At least the low tax of 12% made it a sweet deal. Buying a bike in the Netherlands will result in 19% sales tax plus 19.4% BPM tax.

All in all, Bram is now officially the fastest thing on the roads, here in British Columbia. Let's hope I have all the self-restrain that is required of me now.

Road Trip

The American North West is a beautiful place. That is why Amy and I chose it as the rough destination for our road trip. We had a 4 day weekend, and wanted to unwind. The variety of landscapes in Washington alone is impressive. The weather varied just as much. We had a hot sun, heavy rain, hail and show. It depends on which side of the mountains you are on. And the most impressive thing of all: we had a direct hit by a Dust Devil. It looks like a small tornado. The path of it crossed the path of the car, and the timing was exactly right. BANG on the hood of the car. It was less scarier than it sounds though. At first we tried to cross the mountain range at the far north in the US. However, after driving up the mountain, we had to go back again, due to a closed road. The map said "closed in winter". I guess April 5 is winter in these parts. In the first night we stayed in Wenatchee. The second day we visited Spokane. It is a very beautiful city. Check out that awesome bridge. Also we took a picture of Abe and Abe. We spent the night in Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. The last night was in Yakima. Don't go there, it is boring, and you cannot find any restaurants there. The roads were awesome. There are a lot of back roads, most of them with no traffic on them. It really helps me relax driving there.

Asylum

What an amazing story. According to the Dutch Justice Department, it is impossible for Americans to get asylum in the Netherlands. Yet, one woman with her children is the living proof that it has been done. Her daughter tells the story. Sadly, the Dutch neighbour was browsing the FBI website 14 years later, and called in the feds. It must have been the reward money or maybe he did not like his neightbours?

New set of wheels

No, I have not yet acquired a motorcycle here in Canada. Yet, my special order from the United States has arrived. My Landyachtz Spud longboard has now a new set of wheels. The quadline wheels have a larger diameter, but are much more narrow. They look more like inline-skate wheels, than skateboard wheels. The diameter and tyre width make it that they have very little friction. Also, I removed the spacers, so that even though wheel diameter increased, ride height has been lowered. It was a bit of an experiment, but it paid off. I get some really smooth sailing now on my board. And silent running on some top notch ceramic bearings.

tax season

The tax season has started. The Canadian tax forms are due April 30th. The Dutch forms are due April 1. I have been studying on my taxes, and I am puzzled by the following.

Both Canada and the Netherlands decided to return large sums of money to me. Why? just because of the sheer random fact that I moved in june. Because I moved half-way the 2007 tax year, both countries consider my income to be low, as I worked only half a year in each country.

Yet, both my Dutch employer and Canadian employer have been deducting taxes as if I would be working a full year, gaining a full salary.

Had I moved in january, then I would have payed more tax in both countries. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the curse of progressive tax systems.

Progressive tax rates are in my opinion sheer nonsense. I understand that taxation is not by a fixed amount, say X euro per citizen. It should be relative to the wealth, so a percentage is more appropriate. Say every citizen X percent of his income. This is a flat tax system. Yet, both Canada and Holland have different rates for different people. This does not make sense.

It is my believe that every citizen, earning more than minimal income, should pay the same percentage. A third of your income would be psychologically a nice percentage. One third to the state, regardless of income. The 52 percent that Holland is taxing the wealthy is unjust. Why should the state get the bulk of the money you make?

The current system is broken. Dutch millionaires flee to Belgium. Dutch billionairs flee to Monaco. Canadian top earners are probably relocating their assets to some pacific tropical island.

Would there have been flat-tax in Canada and the Netherlands, then it would not have mattered when I would have moved in januari or on june. As it stands now, I have the burden of dilemma. Do I spend my tax return on an Italian V2 or Japanese Inline-4?

Where is the cable?

What do a maglev train and a San Francisco cable car have in common? More than you would initially think. Conventional motorized transport, be it a ship, motorcycle, automobile, train, or aeroplane, all have one thing in common. All those vehicles lug around their own engine. Why not leave the engine behind, and just move the coach and useful cargo? And that's exactly what a cable car does. The engine stays put on top of the hill. No energy is wasted in moving it about. The same goes for the maglev, where the engine is essentially the magnetized track. So when I was attending Sony's Game Tech Conference 2008 in San Francisco, I wanted to take a closer look at the Cable Car. I did not see the cables, and was puzzled. But I think the cables are below ground, and not above, where I expected them to be. Unfortunately, I did not get to ride the car.
While we are on the subject of city transport: those left wing radicals running the Amsterdam city council just banished my car from the city limits. They did this just because it is older than 1992, and supposedly I pollute the city with it. The bastards! My car uses the cleaner-burning propane fuel, but they do not seem to care about that. Foolishness like that makes me glad I am in Canada now, where common sense is not shunned.