Another inauguration

A bell rang and a professor got his puffy hat

Today I went to the inauguration of a friend of a friend. This inauguration was for a professorship. Here making full professor is a much bigger thing than in the States. It is comparable to getting an endowed chair in the US.



So Franz, a boyhood friend of my friend Taco, today gave his inaugural address for his professorship in the history of science at the University of Leiden. It was lovely and I even understood about a third of the talk. Unfortunately it was not a continuous third, but more like every third word. There was a nice party after the talk.

Killer ducks update

So the killer ducks from the last post are coots. Thanks Linda! A collection of coots, when u spreekt Amerikaanse, is a cover. Beware the cover of coots.

Leiden to Delft

I am a rotten photographer

But that doesn't stop me from trying.  Mr friend Taco thought the ride from Leiden to Delft might be boring.  I assured him it was not and that it was quite pretty.  

So this past Monday I took the camera and randomly took pictures as I held the camera in my hand and rode.  I started just outside Leiden and kept snapping right into Delft.  I then mounted the camera on my handlebars for the ride home in the evening, but gave up because they were all motion-blurred.  I left a few of those at the end.  I am afraid I did not make my point very well and may have confirmed his worries instead.  

Video

I still maintain it is a lovely ride.  Twentyfive km through horse farms, and wild preserves, and a yacht club/goat farm, and small cities.   The goat farm/yacht club had a sign advertising goat meat and mutton next to the pen.  I thought that was just adding insult to injury.  I hope they have the decency not to teach the animals to read.

It was about -1 when I started and only got up to around +1 or +2 so the ice was quite thin, but stayed on many to the canals.  There's a picture of some ducks breaking a little trail through the ice with their feet.  It was pretty funny to watch.

Here is a quicktime video of the photos.

Stills here.

Killer ducks

I see packs (ok flocks maybe) of these black birds with ivory beaks.  I asked Thomas if he knew what they were.  He told me, but I have now forgotten.  I have forgotten because my brain was overloaded with his warning that they are quite aggressive.  I'll be sure to pack my holy hand grenade of antioch.

Civilization

The thing you might notice is that the bike road is everywhere well maintained.  This is not some nature preserve, sight-seeing trail.  This is how people get around. It's how I go to work in Delft.  This is the norm.  The voting population demands well maintained bike roads.  They get salted long before the car roads.  My second week here, they closed the A4 for a bit because of the ice, but the bike trails were salted.

Stan Lee makes road policy

With great power comes great responsibility.

In the country, the road is wide enough for a car and two bikes to pass.  Cars are allowed but in a reversal of the perverse US policy, bikes always have the priority.  Imagine that, the guy in a two ton (or here more likely one ton) killing machine bears a greater burden of responsibility  than the guy on a fifteen kg bike.  Country speed limits are typically 50 kph , sometimes 60 kph, and usually in town it drops to 30 kph.  

If there is a bike-car collision it is almost invariably the legal fault of the car.  This policy has a noticeable effect on driving habits.  I have not yet been given the old right hook here ( a driver passes on the left then makes a quick right turn cutting off the biker).  It is an almost daily occurrence for me in the States. 

A fly in the ointment

The one thing I object to here is that small motorcycles (aka scooters) are mostly treated like bikes and are allowed on the bike-only trails.    Little old ladies and sensible folk are fine, but there is often some teenager zipping along at well over the speed limit and menacing the rest of the trail users.  I don't know why these vehicles are not treated the same as full-sized motorcycles since most of them will go a good 80 or 100 kph and could easily hold their own on regular roads (not the superhighways).  I never see any policing of these guys, so there is a bit of wild-west attitude.  Occasionally there is a recognition of the insanity and scooters are signaled to the main road.

Word of the day

begrijp.  Understand.  Ik niet u begrijp.  A.u.b. sprekt u langzaam.  I don't understand you.  Please speak slowly.  

Slow Sunday

Bikes of the day

Mine.

In orange you will see my go-fast bike. It's very light, short of wheelbase, quick-steering, and the handlebars sit several centimeters below the saddle. I immediately notice a change of a few mm in the positions of the seat or handbars. Specifically, it has a custom lugged steel frame, Dura Ace drivetrain and components, Brooks Swallow saddle, and 28mm Continental road tires. It's comfy and when I'm in decent shape I can (solo) average 31 kph in low wind over 100km. I did not bring this one with me and I miss it.

In white you can see my commuter/light-touring/randonneur. It's a Surly Cross-Check frame. It's fairly heavy. The handlebars sit level with the seat. the wheel-base is a bit longer. I have racks mounted front and back. I have the Nitto Noodle bars and like them. I have the Shimano Nexus 8 speed internally geared hub. It's a nice drivetrain, but really, really heavy. I run Conti CountryRide 37mm tires. I've got the Planet Bike Cascadia fenders. They're nice and long for good puddle protection. The racks are Surly's Nice Racks. They're powder-coated cromoly and just bullet -proof. I usually hang Ortleib Office bags on the back. Unloaded, the white bike gives up about 2 kph to the orange one and with loaded office bags, another 2 kph. It's very comfy, giving a fairly up-right position on the tops and a decent tuck in the drops. I'm using the HubBub adaptor to mount the shifter. I've read complaints, but I have made it work pretty well. Getting it set properly is key. I used a bit of the leather bar wrap on the end of the HubBub to help snug it.

The Surly works well in all the situations you'd use a Dutch bike and it has the advantage of being fast and comfy for longer rides (to Delft and back for instance). The one place that it fails is at the train station. I couldn't bring myself to leave this bike at the train station. It's not the theft that worries me. It's not very hard to be much more secure than the rest of the Dutch bikes. The problem is that people at the bike parking stalls have no respect for bikes. They literally shove them in any which way they can. For going to the train-stations, one must really have a cheap bike to which one is not in the least emotionally attached.

Sugino BB warning

One word of warning: I went with Sugino cranks and the matching Sugino BB. The BB had a bearing failure quite recently after only 1000 km. I won't be buying Sugino again soon.

Gotchaday

Adoption bonus

Gotchaday is the extra holiday you get when you have an adopted child.

One year ago today we got Leif. Here are the boys on 24 January 2008. It seems like we've always had him. Ethan claims he can't remember not having a brother.

To celebrate we had chinese food from Eethuis Li, our new favorite local dive, and cake.

Tired boy

We drove Leif to exhaustion at the market today.

Big old church

Here's a big old church because you're supposed to take pictures of big old churches in Europe. It's Hooglandse Kerk here in Leiden. To tell you the truth, I get more excited about small old houses. It changes one's perspective to walk into a 16th century house that is not an historical landmark but just in use. You can be born live a full life and die on time scales that are short in the consciousness of the local people.

Word of the day

Eergisteren.  The day before yesterday.  

Vandaag morgen gisteren en overmorgen vandaag eergisteren zal geweest worden.  Tomorrow today will be yesterday and the day after tomorrow today will be the day before yesterday.

See the word from a couple of posts back.  

Last inauguration post

OK.  I listened to the speech at my desk today and was struck by the Shakespearean overtones.  The NY Times ran a piece a couple of days ago noting that the President's celebrated communication skills spring from a love of literature and reading.  Indeed.  The speech has been called prosaic by Obama standards.   Perhaps, but check out the closing paragraph.  He claims to be paraphrasing Washington,

in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents

but I thought I could hear in the tempo and the tone

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

BHO, the sun of York? Perhaps he's not the messiah but Ra the sun god?

There's also a hint of the old ``Once more unto the breach dear friends..." perhaps Barry channeling Harry? Hey, it's a bit bloodthirsty, but a great charging speech.

Also note the reference in the next line to ``what storms may come'' an echo from Hamlet's``what dreams may come.'' Hamlet was not having happy thoughts and the dreams were those of an imagined afterlife. Likewise, Richard's warm words for his brother, the ``sun of York'' were uttered while plotting his overthrow. Perhaps I'm overanalyzing a bit, but that's pretty dreary stuff. There is, I suppose, an enormous mess to clean up. It was fun to watch W sit there and listen to his administration being eviscerated in the inaugural address though.

I believe

I am pretty sure Ted Kennedy died yesterday and the new president called him back. That's what I'm telling them over here anyway.

Word of the day

Haag.  Woods, forest, or hunting grounds.  As in s'Graven Haag, the Duke's forest that became Den Haag, known in the english world as the Hague.  It was never incorporated as a city  and today the parliment meets in the old hunting lodge. 

Factoid

 I finally figured out why I can't hear the difference between g and ch: there is none.  Apparently though, the guttural  g, which is the most distintcive of sounds in Dutch and is easily apparent as a hacking, coughing sound, is sometimes simply made silent.  I gain new respect for the twisted world of english pronunciation everyday.

The big day

Put the weight down, see what it feels like to walk unburdened

Any strength athlete can tell you that the best part of the farmer's walk is the feeling of lightness for the first few steps after you put the weight down.  Eight years is a long time to carry such a heavy load of stupidity and craziness.  Tomorrow, I will be at least two centimeters taller.  

We had a nice small party at our house in Leiden, I'm glad we did something to commemorate the moment.  

BHO is the first openly intellectual president since Wilson

OK, he's African-American, and yes, it's a big first.  I think that it is at least as improbable and more important in the long run that he is an uncloseted, openly-practicing, proud intellectual.  I really don't think we've seen that since Wilson.  Even FDR was not much of an intellectual.  Clinton was, but he hid it (perhaps wisely) behind the veneer of the Bubba persona.  Hoover might have been, but he was such a failure, nobody really wants to think about him.  So, I too feel like at last I have somebody who represents me in my little subgroup.  He's one of us, one of the academy.  The promised land indeed.

I hope the American people are reconnecting with the idea that important leadership positions should be held by well-qualified people.  You know, people who know stuff and like to think and reason and learn new things.  The incurious guy down the street with drug and alcohol induced neurological disorders impeding his language faculties, his gait, and his facial expressions might not be the preferred choice anymore.  

Word of the day

Overmorgen.  The day after tomorrow.  Most things in Dutch are longer to write or say than their English counterparts.  This is a nice exception.  One word for four.  Ik ga berijden mijn fiets morgen en overmorgen.  I am going to ride my bike tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.  

I think we should invent a new english word, overmorrow, to mean this.  Ethan reinvented a new english word himself recently: yesternight.  It's a real word already and he uses it correctly, but I really don't think he heard it anywhere, he just constructed it on the false assumption that language is rational.  

 

Words and deeds

So I thought I would be more inclined to write political screeds than I have been. There are already so many loudly held opinions of every variety it doesn't seem worth it.

Except today. And tomorrow, I expect.


I have had the distinct pleasure of voting for Barack H Obama four times now. He's spoken at my university and represented me in the Senate. I am not immune to the messianic fervor that surrounds him. I actually believe it a little.

On this side of the world, and I expect just about every where outside the USA, there is a buzz in the air. Like standing next to a van de Graaff generator just before it arcs. You can feel a bit of a tingle and you know that something beautiful and brilliant and awesome is about to happen.

With this in mind, I bring you the following excerpt from a speech we should all know well:

We are caught in war, wanting peace. We are torn by division, wanting unity. We see around us empty lives, wanting fulfillment. We see tasks that need doing, waiting for hands to do them.

To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit.

To find that answer, we need only look within ourselves.

When we listen to "the better angels of our nature," we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things—such as goodness, decency, love, kindness.

Greatness comes in simple trappings.

The simple things are the ones most needed today if we are to surmount what divides us, and cement what unites us.

To lower our voices would be a simple thing.

In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another—until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

For its part, government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways—to the voices of quiet anguish, the voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart—to the injured voices, the anxious voices, the voices that have despaired of being heard.

Those who have been left out, we will try to bring in.

Those left behind, we will help to catch up.

For all of our people, we will set as our goal the decent order that makes progress possible and our lives secure.

As we reach toward our hopes, our task is to build on what has gone before—not turning away from the old, but turning toward the new.

In this past third of a century, government has passed more laws, spent more money, initiated more programs, than in all our previous history.

In pursuing our goals of full employment, better housing, excellence in education; in rebuilding our cities and improving our rural areas; in protecting our environment and enhancing the quality of life—in all these and more, we will and must press urgently forward.

We shall plan now for the day when our wealth can be transferred from the destruction of war abroad to the urgent needs of our people at home.

So, BHO? NO! Richard F**ing Nixon, first inaugural address. A man who ran TWICE on an antiwar platform and pledged openness and reform in government.  How in the name of all that is good and decent can a man run on an antiwar platform in a reelection campaign?  As we have again had demonstrated over the last eight shameful, torturous, cognitively-dissonant years, we get the government we deserve.

Let's give our new president time and leeway, but let's not forget to hold him to his promise and his promises. Let's not accept a Nixonian Janus.  Let's not be happy with Clintonian nonfailure.  Let's demand the greatness we see is possible.

Ok. I'm putting the soapbox away for a bit.

Word of the day

Blij.  Happy.  We would be happy to see you.  Wij zouden blij om u te zien.  I learned this word after being told that gelukkig was a bit archaic, a bit like merry in english.  You might say ``Merry Christmas" or ``Gelukkig nieuwjaar" but you wouldn't be merry to see someone.  

Boys' Weekend

An American saves Europe once again

Sure they look cute, but there lurks chaos ready to be loosed again on  Europe.  Once again an American stands in the way.  I have been left to contain the menace while my wife and mother-in-law tour London for a long weekend.   So far: two broken plates and a few muddy outfits.  A fairly limited damage report.  Mission accomplished.

Riding the bakfiets  

I took the boys to the saturday market in Leiden.  Ethan rode his own bike and I rode the bakfiets.  I see why Deborah likes it.  The center of gravity does stay low and so the bike is relatively easy to keep upright.  On the other hand, it steers like a battleship.  

One of the advantages of the Dutch style of bike, sitting upright with the hands close to the body and high, is that any given bike may be made to work for a wide range of body sizes.  I really can't ride my wife's racing style road bike without some circus music playing in the background.  The bakfiets fit fine with just an adjustment of the seat height.  By fitting fine, I mean it fit Dutch-style, which I find hard to like, but Deborah likes.

 

Word of the day

Lief.  Sounds like my younger son's name.  Means sweet, not like sugar, but like Leif.  Also liefje, a sweetie. 

Biking to Delft

Luke, use the Garmin

 

One of my new colleagues at TU Delft is a fan of the Star Wars series.  Yes, imagine, an engineering prof as sci-fi fan.   Hard to believe.  Anyway it reminded me of something that struck me when I started trying to pack some Dutch vocab into the old hat rack.  The Dutch for father is vader.  George Lucas is as subtle as a fork in the eye.  

Nobody compensating for anything here, nope, not at all. 

I have failed my technology

So I decided to bike to delft today.  It was about 4 degrees, balmy compared to last week.  I mapped a 24 km route.  I also had the new Garmin with the extra fietspad (bikepath) maps.  Things didn't quite work out.  I wound up going back and forth across Zuid Holland (South Holland) till I had racked up 38km in 1:45 .  I was a little miffed about the garmin.  So coming back I used google maps printed at the office.  

I realized as I came into Leiden that the garmin hadn't failed me, I had failed it.  I had misunderstood the directions in a crazy little intersection of two canals, three major roads and an uncountable number of bike paths.  That set me on a path that went way too far east (though it was very pretty) and thus the 38 km.  Initial conditions are so very critical. 

The short route was 24 km right next to a lovely canal almost all the way.  I'll take pictures next week.  It's very pretty, going through farm country with very active sheep and dairy farms.  Some of the little communities like Leidschendam look like really nice places to live for someone working at Delft. 

Word of the day

Schat. Like many Dutch words, this one requires a throat-clearing midway through: a bit of an 's' then clear the throat, then the 'at.'  It means a treasure and it is used colloquially to say that "You're a treasure," that is "Jij bent een schat," as a phrase of endearment.  The diminutive form "schatje" might be used with one's SO, but not otherwise.  

Milestone

I find news casts are great for learning Dutch.  Unlike in the US, speaking clearly and properly seems to be a job requirement for news readers.  Kids shows are usually good too.   I'm still at the simple conversation stage, though I find I can get through entire social transactions as long as the other speaker is willing to go slowly (A.u.b. spreekt je langzaam).  Speed matters because I am still translating backward and forward and my brain does not work that fast.  

Tonight, I passed a milestone.  Without thinking about it, I listened to 4 or 5 sentences in Dutch on the news cast about a local building plan and I understood it without translating in my head.  As soon as I realized this I lost it, but it was pretty cool.  

A few more weeks and perhaps I will at least be able to understand without translation regularly.  I have always found that producing the language without translation takes much longer.  We'll see.

Group meeting

My main agenda at Delft today was Taco's group meeting.  Here that meant an audience of 6 faculty and one grad student.  I spoke about contrast modulation for about 45 minutes.  Questions were many and insightful.  I really like the group here.  

You're older than you've ever been and now you're older still

That's a little They Might be Giants

TU Delft

So I've spent the last couple of days at TU Delft.  It's a nice place.  Quite different from VU with it's own charms (it's not different by being nice, it's just different and nice).  I've met a number of really interesting people: Hans Blok: Ad de Hoop, and today Geert Jan Olsder.  Prof. Olsder is a really nice guy on top of being a great mathematician and a collaborator of my friend and colleague, Tamar Basar .

I'm in the easiest building to find on campus, the EWI, 23 stories in a perfectly flat land with nothing like that tall till Rotterdam.  

I might get some science done soon.  I spent a lot of time talking with Bert-Jan today about nonlinear inversion methods.  We'll see where that goes.  I'd like to interest him in my contrast modulation idea.  

I meandered a bit on the way in and have these jems to show for it. One is a drawbridge, and one is the oldest remaing city gate in Delft.  The city gate is 500 years old.  The arches along the side house the sort of openings that fan out to the inside for better shooting lines.  So now would you like to pay our tax?

The Garmin

Well, Like two years ago when I broke down and bought heated undergarments for winter motocycling, I have taken a step into dotage I swore I never would.  I bought a garmin 250 gps system.  I got the extra card with all the cycle routes in Holland on it.  I'm giddy.  I'm embarrassed.  It's ok, yesterday was my birthday.  I'm 37.  Old.  Very old indeed.  I'm biking to Delft tomorrow with some confidence that I won't wind up in Belgium.

The Birthday

Yeasterday was my birthday.  At school Ethan discovered that kids get a crown of paper on their birthdays.  So he made one.  So I wore it.  All day.  I'm pretty sure it's only for kids.  At school.  

Anyway, people are very nice to any who appears slightly mentally handicapped and accompanied by a small child, which is how we went shopping yesterday afternoon for the garmin and a few other thing.  I got plenty of "Fijne verjaardag" which is really nice, but also usually reserved for kids.  Here though I think this is ok as the dutch can often seem a little dower, but at the same time really celebrate the beautifully strange, wild, and unexpected things.  Like a camel walking down Herengracht in A'dam monday.  

We had a nice dinner out.  The trick to fast service here is to go for chinese. I generally like slow service, but not with the kids in tow.   So for my birthday I got  dinner, a crown for the day, cards, some fine chocolate, and some bathsalts.  I'm pretty satisfied, though a little frankincense would have been nice.  Now I smell like vanilla coconuts.

Boy, I think the drugs are working.  I should go to bed soon.

Bike of the day

No great words or cultural observations, so we'll try a new catagory.

A very nonDutch bike in my view, but I loved it.   It looks a little like a pre-war BMW stripped of the motor and given pedals.  I'm pretty sure that was the intended effect.  If I discover that this is a production machine I can get for less than body parts, I must have one.  It is clearly only useful as a citybike, but what a lovely design. If the mechanicals are well implemented, it looks like a superb design. Notice the shaft drive.  Much like the motorcycle community, there is now a fight bewtween belt drive and shaft drive for the market of high-reliability, low-mess drivetrains.  

Anyway, I took this foto right infront of the Boterhuis cafe in Delft square.  I don't have enought detail for  a maker.  Front and back appear to be sprung.  Brooks springer saddle (a whole lotta suspension for that bottom) and despite the physically huge headlamp, it looked to be battery power and thus likely LED.  Hopefully I'll see it again. 

Not the word of the day

I do have a new favorite, but it is unprintable.  I am enormously enjoying to learn to curse in Dutch.  I can now curse well enough to start a fight in at least 8 languages.  You really only need to learn the word for "mother" and say it with a fair bit of sneer and derision.  Everybody loves their mama.

OK, my not-word-of-the day means to make the sex act with ants.  Say that in your best Borat voice.  It means to be fussing over silly details and to be really obsessive about it.  It's a great word really and I find myself using it a lot.  I will probably be introuble over it quite soon.

Insanity

Repeating the same experiment, expecting a different outcome

We went together to Amsterdam today.  The five of us.  Didn't I just post about the probability of someone being unhappy going to one?  Anyway,  It was ok.  We went to the train to Amsterdam Centraal and got the hop on/off boat tour.  Here they call them boat tours.  The french use the slightly more evocative bateaux mouche (excuse my spelling, it's been a while).  

Leif was fine for a while and then made the tour a bit unpleasant till I got off at the Rembrandt House and walked him back to Centraal in the the stroller.  Of course he was asleep  moments aftyer I stepped from the boat. 

Ethan was a little fragile for some reason too.  (Oh yeah, he's five and living in a new country where he doesn't speak the language, have his dog, have his friends, know how everything works.  He's such a superboy, I forget when he's normal.)  As you can see from the picture, even his displeased humor is pretty funny and tolerable.

We spent the afternoon at Taco and Anja's place on Prinseneyland (Princes Island) which is a lovely place on the north side.  The train home at least went perfectly when we just walked up in time to catch the snel train (fast train, few stops) to Leiden Centraal. 

Favorite new word

I'm going to try throwing in favorite new words, especially when I don't have cultural observations for the day.  I am liking the Dutch language and there a plenty of great words.  

ingebakken: literally, baked in.  It's in the nature of the thing.  Like what the scorpion said to the frog. You shrug, shake your head and mutter, ingebakken.  

Bonus word:  dolhuis:  sounds like doll house, means insane asylum.  It's a bit archaic and is literally the dummy house (seems a little offensive doesn't it?).  More common is the gekkenhuis, or crazy-house.     

Naar een dag in de boot met de kinderen, ik ben gereed voor het dolhuis. De fout is niet met hen, het is ingebakken.

The Taxi service

Turning the mother-in-law loose in Amsterdam

After the Delf excursion we realized that with the five of us going anywhere the probability approaches one that someone will get sick, overtired, overhungry, or hurt.  So friday Marilee came to Amsterdam with me.  

The trickiest part of the trip is getting from our house to the train staion, Leiden Centraal.  It's about 2.5 km and it's anomalously cold here.  We've gone twice by taxi with varying results and expense.  So Marilee was going to bike, but her broken arm was sore, so I put the kid's seat on the rack of my bike (the landlord's bike actually, not my good bike, I wouldn't leave that at the train station).  Unfortunately, this is the best picture we got.  The bike is the Dutch step-through type and a fairly cheap one at that, so it starts of whippy as a wet noodle.  Put my mother-in-law over the rear axel and with great will power applied, it will almost go around corners.  Nonetheless, we were passing several other two-uppers with skinny little teenaged girls on the back and big young strapping guys up front trying to get it up the slope approaching the station. 

Tears

Once in Amsterdam, we went to the Anne Frank house.  What can you do but cry?  

There is a new exhibit since last I was there.  It's an interactive bit on the limits of freedom.  E.g. should it be allowed that the NeoNazis march in front of a synagogue or that the Irish protestants march through Catholic neighborhoods to celebrate the victory of William of Orange?  I'm generally libertarian on these sorts of things, but I know that US law strikes what I think is a good balance.    Your free-speech rights end when you are obviously trying to incite violence either by encouraging others to commit violence on your behalf or by picking a fight directly.  The law even defines ``fighting words." Seems like the aforementioned marches are pretty blatant attempts to pick a fight by choice of location.  Anyway, you get to vote on the answers and see how other visitors have voted.  

We had lunch and I left Marilee on her own to wander.  She managed to make it to VU on her own later in the day by tram and we caught the intercity back to Leiden for dinner.  

I am not South African

A worker at the Anne Frank House thought my Dutch was good enough that I might be South African.  I'm not sure what to make of that.   It's a bit like being told your English sounds like you might be from the American South.   

Einstein Cafe

Albert Einstein was on the faculty at Leiden fora couple of years and his time here is still celebrated.  Today Ethan and I went to the Einstein Cafe.  I had the Einstein hamburger:  sliced boiled egg, chease and mayo sauce on a burger that's made like meatloaf with bread and spices.

 

More taxi service

I got to be taxi service for my wife tonight when we went out for a little date with out the kids.  She probably would have been better-off on her own bike as she just got cold sitting on the back of mine.  We had an American-sized meal at a chinese place and then stopped off for a beer and Irish coffe at an English Pub.  There's a smoking ban in Holland now, but some of the pubs in smaller towns a re flaunting it.  This one had out a jar to collect for the fines.

Cultural observation 2

Most Europeans do not smile and acknowledge strangers.  This is a very American thing to do.  If I smile and nod to someone I pass on the sidewalk leaving my house ( they're neighbors after all ) I automatically get a ``Hello" in English instead of a ``goedemorgen."   They know.  The Dutch, at least, think we are overly polite and sweet.  The French think we're grinning idiots.

One week in

Excuses

OK, so the pace has fallen off a bit.  First I suffered unusually badly from the jet lag (my ever greater age?).  Then, we were having too much fun to stop and write the blog.  

Touristy stuff

We've done a few touristy things.  We went to the museum of the big old windmill in Leiden,  Molen van Valk. I went to Delft to work and the family came along. They went to a tile factory and Ethan painted his own tile. I'll post a pic when we get it back from firing. Delft china really is pretty.

The return from Delft was a bit ugly.  Deborah started coming down with something involving a fever and sore throat.  We then had a walk that was too far for an already-tired 5-year-old.  So I wound up carrying him for a km or two.  Then we missed the train and had to catch the next.  Then when we got back we decided to try the bus system and wound up waiting a long time for a bus.  My Dutch is getting better though and I managed to navigate the system talking to busdrivers in the local tongue.  I don't think anyone else found this comforting.  We still had to walk half a km or so after the bus and poor Ethan was about to bust a bladder.  He made it with me carrying again and running.  The one-hour trip had taken almost three.  All in all, a good work-out and a fun day.  Deborah has sworn off the busses and will only bike to the city center for the train now.  

A cultural observation

I managed to get a bank account.  Americans may not appreciate that this is a real accomplishment here.  They need proof of residency here and back in the us, passport, a letter from the host institution,  and various and sundry other bits of bureaucratic detritus.  

Anyway, some fellow Americans I met had not had such good luck and after a little conversation I think I know why.  They expected it to work and were a little upset (though I expect still perfectly nice) that it is not a simple matter of walking in and opening an account.    I expected failure and only showed mild disappointment when I was told that it would take a few days to process.  My disappointment elicited a respond of eager helpfulness and concern and got the application expidited.  

The Dutch are at once dogmatically egalitarian and still somehow caste-aware.  I let it be known that I was a university professor ( a fairly high-status position here ), but only by way of giving my card with all my address information.  I never said "Oh, I'm a professor and I need this done promptly." I took the attitude that I was just a little guy caught up in a confusing system and I was completely appreciative of anything my friend the clerk could do.  If he couldn't help me further, that was ok, I was sure he had done his best to help me since we're just in this together.  Generally, this is the right attitude in Holland.  I like it like that.  I am just a little guy trying to get by in the world and I do feel that we are just in this all together. 

The system here has a negative compressibility.  Start to demand things be done and they will get swallowed in the vestigal remains of the Dutch empire, the bureaucracy.   Appear the pleasant and innocent victim of the same bureaucracy and people jump to help.    

Science 

I have checked in and gotten offices at both Vrije Universitieit (VU) and TU Delft.  I have met a lot of interesting people, but so far the high-light is Hans Blok.  I haven't really done much myself yet other than chit-chat.  That should change this coming week with some real work.

The Family

The family seems to be settling well and adjusting to the Dutch life.  Deborah loves the relative simplicity of the lifestyle here.  I agree.  No bloody car and biking is easy because everybody bikes and the bikes rule the road.  Marilee is doing really well, especially considering she's never before been outside the US and she's got a broken arm.  I don't think she's learning any Dutch, but she gets out there and isn't intimidated.  

Ethan started school today.  He is learning a little Dutch, but I would not by any stretch say he speaks it.  He had a great time.  His teacher looked a little amazed at the end of the day and told us that he just watched what was going on and followed along.  He got on well with the other kids and built with blocks and played tag.  It helps that the Dutch have muchlower expectations for their kids at this age than we do in the states.  They are just learning their letters while Ethan and his classmates in Illinois were reading simple books.  Anyway, he's the greatest boy ever and continues to amaze.  

Leif is finally getting on schedule and is happy to always be on the go.  It's his favorite phrase now actually: "Go, go."  The Dutch word lief is pronounced the same way as Leif and means "sweet."

Pics

Ethan at the playground by his new school.

People skating on the canal.

Deborah with Leif in the bakfiets.

The boys help me make use of the jet lag insomnia and build the bike and tagalong.

Leif: toolmaster.

The great swinging pendulum

I wrote, or tried to write a follow-up to the post on the U of R.  It was long, boring and mostly about me.  So, I have fallen right into the trap I first tried to avoid in writing a blog and then embraced as a way out of detched boredom, and now have turned into long winded drivel.  I will try to swing back a bit to center and write something of perhaps broad interest.

The great man

In writing stories of my own experiences at UR, I was just trying to drive to this point:

I was extremely fortunate to do my thesis work under Emil Wolf.

You can read the public accounts of him elsewhere.  And I recommend A Tribute to Emil Wolf both for scientific content and personal comments by his many students and colleagues.

  

My own personal experience with him was deeply rewarding.  We had lunch or coffee together a few times a week.  These were very productive times and taught me the value of casually kicking ideas around.  I learned not to cling tightly to every idea and demand to be a coauthor on every manuscript to which I made a minor contribution.  I learned to offer coauthorships to anyone who had made even a minor contribution.  I realized that science was a gateway to a world of great friends scattered over the globe and that for most of us, the friendship will have more lasting power than the science.  That last one is a hard thing to accept for a young go-getter.  I don't think many mentors can teach these things as well as Prof. Wolf.  He simply makes himself a powerful example.  

For all the personal time and real friendship Prof. Wolf  offered me, he was also slightly formal.  I was well into my post-doc when I saw him at a meeting and he took me by the arm and said "Scott, we've known each other a long time now.  I think you should call me Emil."  With that I entered a very rarified club and one of the few groups membership in which I'll take pride.  

The flight, arrival in the Netherlands

The flight was surprisingly easy.  The boys were angelic and the people at the airline were helpful.  I think we won a fair bit of pity.  Here are some photos.