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.