Totally Snarly

Den Haag, Nederland

A journalist's favorite word for describing the painful cocktail of heavy snow and transportation delays is "snarl." The word was apt yesterday because everyone was "snarly." The girl in front of me in the line at the gate was brought to tears when the gate agent gave her the option of (a) taking a flight to Philly, potentially missing her international connection, and being stranded there (Monday) or (b) getting a confirmed ticket for a flight on (Wednesday). "It's your choice. I cannot tell you what you should do." Thanks a lot!

The Lego Liberty Bell nestled off a very long people mover between gates at PHL

Door to door it took me 24 hours to get back to the Hague which seems normal. Here are my take-aways from spending most of that time in airports:

• Try, try again - If you don't get the answer you want, hang up / spin yourself around, and ask the next agent. Airline rules are often arbitrary and an agent who is tired may not be willing to help you. Yesterday I tried to go standby to PHL and one agent said "No. Philadelphia is closed, I am not going to change your itinerary." About 30 minutes later, I asked the agent standing next to the previous agent and he skipped the standby list and handed me a boarding pass for the next departing flight. I was in Philly 1.5 hours later.
• Free WiFi in some restaurants - The Green Turtle in BWI had an unsecured, free internet connection. Isn't WiFi like water fountains and bathrooms nowadays?
• Philadelphia is a bad airport - It is a sprawling layout with a confusing system of shuttles and terminals. I believe kindergarteners designed it via write-in contest. On the plus side, they do have a Lego liberty bell.
• Always go standby on earlier flights - A lot of times airlines remove their change fees during weather situations like the one in the Northeast this week. If you can get out earlier, do it. My original flight never made it to Philly. The flight I got on was four hours late but "on time" for me. Of course, you risk getting stranded somewhere but I think it is always better to be closer to your destination.
• Se habla español - I called the US Airways customer service line yesterday and the wait time quoted was "one hundred eight minutes" !?!?! I hung up and called back, pushed the number 2 for Spanish and the wait times was quoted as "once minutos"? I decided to go to the airport to change things but that's one I never thought of before.

I hope you don't get 'snarled' anytime soon. Let me know your suggestions for passing time in airport terminals.

Drie Fietsen (Three Bikes)

Columbia, MD, U.S.A.

In a mad-frenzy, before heading to the United States, I bought three bikes. This is below average for the Netherlands because most families have four bikes. I chose the type of bike I should buy the same way I make every important decision, I took a poll (Exhibit A) on this blog. A clear majority (53%) voted that I should buy an omafiets. In total, I bought three.

Exhibit A - Bike Poll Survey of 13 readers, 12/2010

All three of the bikes have a "ladies" step through type frame. It's also called "omafiets" or "opafiets" (literally "granny bike" or "grandpa' bike") here. Despite not being a lady or a grandpa, I was assured that my masculinity would remain intact if I rode one, as they are unisex. Interestingly, although they typically have three speeds, but they don't have a derailer like you would find on a normal ten speed or mountain bike. Plus, the cogs, sprockets, and chain are all sealed in a housing. That's pretty sweet.

Exhibit B - Maggie's new (used) omafiets

Bikes and biking culture in the Netherlands are fascinating to me. I am sure you could write books, people probably have, about all of the different customs and rides. My goal is for Maggie and I to be able to ride bikes, shoulder to shoulder and holding hands, as many couples I have seen by the time we leave. I have also seen parents riding a bike with there hand on the back of a child, helping them along (awwwwhhhh!) on their own bike. You know you are truly Dutch when you can drag a roller-board suitcase behind you whilst riding. Of course, people talk on the phone and hold their umbrellas, but that stuff is amateur.

A few quick takeaways about Dutch biking:

• Bikes have two locks: one chain, one circular. You have to lock both. (BTW - I am going to bring the circular locks back to the States and make a fortune promoting, reselling, and installing them if you want to join me)
• Don't wear a helmet: I am going to try to bring back my helmet after Christmas, but I guarantee you that the local news will do an action news report titled "Strange American Covers Head with Helmet While Riding Bike. We'll ask: why?"
• Always go perpendicular to tram tracks: The tram track is exactly the same size as a bike tire. This is harder to master than you would think. Tram tracks are everywhere. I have talked to a number of people who have wrecked this way. Amazingly, no one I know has been run over by the tram.
• Do not put a rubberband on your pants leg: Besides being a total nerd there would be no need. Most of the bikes have a plastic housing around the bike chain so go ahead and wear your best wool pants sans dorky reflective velcro strap.

Now that I have three bikes, when you come visit you will be able to use one. I hope to see you soon.

EFL (English as a First Language)

The Hague, The Netherlands

Source: Wikipedia, "List of language by number of native speakers"
http://goo.gl/2QMLQ, Accessed 2010-12-09

It is getting easier to be a native English speaker. This is probably what it felt like for native Latin speakers in 117AD at the peak of the Roman empire. Blame internet domain names, Google Translate, the EU,  iPhones, McDonalds, Justin Bieber, or what have you, more people speak English, better, than ever before. Even compensating for my urban-biased life, I rarely run into someone, including in remote Luxembourg, who does not speak far more English than I speak in their native tongue. This makes me lazy and creates even more inertia for me to overcome my monoglotony.

One of the original goals for living abroad, for me, was to perfect my Spanish (see entry on Bogota). So I have been on the lookout for a new language to immerse myself, given our change in venue. German seemed like a good idea given its business applications, but we only get one German TV station and it is bad. Mandarin Chinese was a candidate for similar reasons, but intonation is really hard. Despite sounding more melodious than French and Russian to my ear, Arab was not a candidate given the unlikelihood of me living in a country where the average temperature is above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Then I threw all of that market-based thinking and rationality aside and made my decision.

Forthwith, I will use Rosetta Stone to try to learn a language natively spoken by nary more than 20 million people (compared to Mandarin with 800 million) and ranking only 45th in the world, Dutch. Sure, toss in the people of Flanders (Belgium) too, but that is not something to brag about and it won't boost Dutch's rank very much. 

Most expats I meet here think I am crazy to want to learn Dutch. I have met liberal polyglots who speak five languages that have lived in The Netherlands for over five years and do not speak more than three words of Dutch. Why would you when 50% of the TV channels are in English and everyone is bi-lingual is what I often hear. Unfortunately, I have also had expats say things to me like "Name one significant Dutch work of literature/film/poetry that would make Dutch worth learning?" 

The reason I want to learn Dutch is that this is my home, for the next nine months, at least. Shouldn't you speak the language of your homeland? Secondarily, I get tired of being so disoriented in public, especially when I spend much of my time alone. (Plus, I know everybody is talking about me behind my back!) Besides, would you want to learn a language that has words like kneuterdijk (songbird-dike), lekker (Tasty!), and alstublieft (please, if you please,...)?

So I'll update you on my progress and how I find Rosetta Stone (an expensive and potentially solitary endeavor). Feel free to enter some comments on language learning or Rosetta Stone.

Tot ziens (See you soon)

December 6th: Sinterklaas and 6-8 Black Men

The Hague, The Netherlands

Yesterday was December 5th. In addition to being a very special birthday, it was also Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) Eve and today is Sinterklaas Day in the Netherlands. If you have not already, I highly encourage you to read or listen to David Sedaris' Esquire piece about the Dutch Saint Nick, entitled "Six to Eight Black Men." Very funny and insightful.

Happy Sinterklaasje day everyone!

Nee/Nee, Nee/Ja, or Ja/Ja?

Den Haag, Nederland

We don't get junk mail here in the Hague. We have this little sticker on our post-slot that tells the delivery person that we want nothing to do with junk "Nee/Nee." This seems like something the US Federal government should take on as a reform. "Nee" or "Ja"?

Article: Bill Gates on Where Progress Comes From - WSJ.com

I have the same feeling about Bill Gates (more or less) that I have with Andrew Carnegie: not quite sure I like their business practices but I really like their philanthropy. For example, Carnegie, aside from suppressing worker's rights, funded the Vredespaleis (Peace Palace) here in the Hague, the "seat of international justice."

Anyway, a good book review by Gates in the WSJ if you feel like some Saturday morning reading.

Bill Gates on Where Progress Comes From - WSJ.com

Loving Coffee Without Being a Drip - NYTimes.com

Very fun article from Frank Bruni. I can sympathize with breaking the beaker on the press pot. I think that is how Bodum makes all of their profit.

Loving Coffee Without Being a Drip - NYTimes.com

Success! (at Submitting an Application)

Den Haag, Nederland

We had our penultimate visit with the Dutch Immigration (IND) last week. We knew going into it that they were simply going to accept our application and thank us for our 300 euro application fee. I think we were both secretly hoping that they would say something like "everything appears to be in order and you are, after all, a handsome american couple so you should expect your permit in a few weeks." Of course, that did not happen, but, the IND did give me a fancy temporary visa stamp in my passport that will allow me to return after Christmas for up to six months.

Fingers crossed, in that period of time the IND will approve my application and grant me a 12 month visa. Then we'll figure out what and if I need to reapply to extend that 12 months later.

Thanks to everyone who helped take the survey and/or review the business plan. Maggie pulled out some really great editing at the last moment for the business plan and it is something to be proud of, even if a Dutch bureaucrat is the only one who has the opportunity to read it. Now I need to execute on some of it.

Washers and Dryers Only the Pharaohs Could Love

Being a “cabaña boy” is not all piña coladas, tanning beds, and hot oil massages. Sure, that's what everyone sees, but there's a lot more to it than that. Like doing the laundry. One small wrinkle: the clothes washers and dryers here in Europe, for convenience to the manufactures, do not have any words on them. They are all hieroglyphic-like symbols, that, in fact, do not always mean what I would guess them to mean. This leads to a lot of confusion, especially among American expats, and because I have expressed my bewilderment aloud, I have gotten emails from other expats asking me to tell them how to operate their washing machines, as if my bewilderment had gone away...

You might ask, “why not read the manual?” I have. Besides being utterly confusing with eight, interspersed languages in the same manual, not written by a native English speaker, and named but unexplained buttons, the settings are completely different from washing machines in the United States. Yet the machine has the same inputs: water, electricity, soap, clothes. Where's permanent press? Where's cotton /sturdy?

Take, for instance, the “wrinkle guard” setting on the washer. On my Candy 1225T, that apparently means: at the end of the cycle, after four hours, the wash will remain soaking in water, and you won't be able to open the front loading door. The only way I could figure out how to remedy this was to remove the power, turn off the “wrinkle guard” and set the wash for a different, new, wash cycle. I can appreciate European washers being more “gentle” on clothes, but after four hours, I expect a complete cycle.

The dryer is interesting. Ours does not have a vent to the outside. It has a built-in condenser that stores the evaporated/condensed water in a small tank. The tank needs to be emptied just about every time you dry a load. If you forget to empty that, forget your clothes ever drying. I usually set the dryer on the icon with “3 suns.” This gets my clothes to the partially damp state. Then I set it for another 15-30 minutes on the timed setting or I place them on the heated towel warmers. You may not run the washer and the dryer at the same time. There is an electrical switch that has three positions: “washer”, “dryer”, “off.” This has the side-affect of wearing clothes much past their "sell by" date.

Every time, I wash the clothes, I reminded of trying to order from a Chinese restaurant in the Hague. Choose from numbers one through one hundred, and if you don't like the result, try something different next time.

Empirical Analysis of Dollar to Euro Conversions

Looking back at our bank statements, calling a few banks, and doing some web research, I found that Cambridge Trust and Fidelity give the best deals on foreign currency exchange, specifically when you pull money from the ATM. Those two repeatedly charge at the “benchmark” rate, including all fees, and I highly recommend you check-out setting up account with either one to use when traveling abroad.

30 days of charges relative to the benchmark USD/EUR benchmark rate Sources: ECB, personal financial statements, sendmoneyhome.org (Accessed 2010-02-11)

One of the best feelings I have had since we moved to Holland was the day I got my bank account! Not having a bank account means that you carry huge wads of cash around, get rejected when you try to use your silly american credit card, and wait in long lines at the train station to buy a ticket (the machines don't take Visa or American Express.) In general, you feel like an idiot all day.

Getting a bank account is not a simple matter. You have to have a dutch social security number, a job contract, and proof of owning a dutch oven. It took us five weeks to get everything we needed to get the bank account running! That's a lot of awkward situations at the kassa.

Once you have the bank account, you might wonder, “how do you get money in it to pay something like the rent in euros when all you have is dollars?” For me, moving money to the Netherlands boiled down to five options:

	+'s	– 's
Bring Loads of $'s	Easy to pull out of your bank You get to finally carry a briefcase taped hand-cuffed to your wrist	Insecurity Unfavorable exchange rates at Travelex and other Taping it to your person hurts to take off
Bring Loads of €'s Bank of America will sell you currency, usually requires advance notice	Hand-cuffed briefcase-factor	Poor exchange rate, typically a 2% “fee”
Use foreign ATMs Most commonly recommended by travel guidebooks	You get to feel like a dutch-pimp with giant 100 Euro bills	Limit of 300-400 Euros per day Hit or miss fees Insecurity
Bank Exchange + International Wire	No need to profusely sweat as you pass through a train station	Bad exchange rate/fees Fee also charged by receiving bank
Exchange Bank MoneyCorp All these guys do is exchange money so it's a “volume, volume, volume” business	More reasonable rates/fees	Sketchy feeling Still pay the fee to your receiving bank Unregulated bank-entities

After looking at my statements, calling my banks for quotes, and researching online, I found the best way to a lot of money is to use an ATM. This creates a ridiculous, insane ritual: (1) I go to the ATM put in one card and take out 350 euros everyday and (2) put in a different card and put the money right back into the same exact ATM machine!

Fidelity, Cambridge Trust, and CapitolOne (sometimes I wonder how fidelity makes money) all do not charge foreign exchange fees. Fidelity, I have been with them for years, they have low fees on trading and banking. Their web UI is very very bad though and not nearly as clean as ING's. Cambridge trust charges a whole dollar per non-CT ATM, but that is a small price to pay and they have really personal customer service. Last time we called, there was no robo-answerer, a human simply picked up the phone after two rings.

ING Direct and HSBC – usually the go-to banks for the thrifty, definitely loose on international purchases. This is especially frustrating since ING is the national bank of Holland and HSBC is supposedly “The World's Bank.” The straightforward 2% these guys charge accumulates fast. Save these guys for emergencies.

The takeaway – call your bank before you go on your next trip and find out what their foreign withdrawal fees are even if you have done this and think you know the answer. A lot of banks changed their fee schedules over the past 12 months in reaction to the new consumer finance "reforms" in the US. If the fees are around 2%, consider calling Fidelity, CapitolOne, or Cambridge Trust and setting up an account.

Chinese Supercomputer Embarrasses U.S. Supercomputer; U.S. Supercomputer Gently Weeps and Vows to "Go SkyNET"

Chinese Supercomputer Tianhe-1A Bumps U.S. Out of the Lead - NYTimes.com

Flemish Is the New Freedom

's-Gravenhage (The Hague), Nederland - 
Popular fast food throughout western Europe, "french" fries are served in paper cones with healthy dollop of mayo or just about any other sauce you can think of. These street stalls are open late and provide fortification for uninhibited partying. It is important to note here in The Netherlands, when the menu says "Vlaamse Frites" or "Flemish Fries" it usually means these are no ordinary fries. Vlaamse connotes they were made from cut potatoes, as opposed to reconstituted potato pulp (and heaven knows what else) found in Donor Kebab and other fast food venues. They are usually more expensive but significantly tastier.

A ferocious Lynx (possibly high) destroys some "Vlaamse Frites"

Being on a single income, Maggie and I don't have the discretionary money for such luxuries. Instead, we decided to ring-in mussels (rhymes with Brussels) season by making our own Vlaamse Frites at home. Of course, we turned to Mark Bittman for the recipe and had a delicious, decadent meal. I highly recommend you try this "slow cook french fry recipe". Just bring your Visa card to the grocery store because you'll feel like you need a 55 gallon drum's equivalent of olive oil. The preparation is not messy or smelly at all. Aside from moving the vat of oil around, no trouble to clean up. You can even reuse the oil because of the low temperature you cook the fries. The downside, that Bittman notes, is you cannot make vast quantities (unless you have a giant paella pan). I tend to view this as an upside since we destroyed the batch in one sitting. We somewhat resembled the scary flemish fry lynx pictured.

Booking Hotels in Private Homes

Of course, I have been crashing on friends' couches (and overstaying my welcome) for most of my adulthood. So when I heard that there was a formalized way to achieve this, I thought our travels to The Hague would be the perfect time to try out some of these new ways to lodge and to connect with people. We used AirBnB.com, found a great place, paid half as much as we would have with an equivalent hotel. Best of all, we got to meet a great Dutchman.

The frugal traveler had talked about using couchsurfer, but that did not seem like an option for Maggie and I, unless the couch was a sleeper or sectional (she takes an awful amount of space for being so small!). Instead, we found a place through airbnb.com. Besides being half the price of a three star hotel (priced in dollars to boot), the arrangement included a delicious dutch breakfast (cheese, muselix, yogurt, etc.)  every morning.The guest room was in a beautiful old house with a "garret" on the third floor (American 4th floor). The room had a nice view of the tip-top of the Peace Palace (http://goo.gl/Wz0m) and was near the downtown area where we were looking for an apartment. Our host even provided the use of his house phone for making calls to real-estate agents. Given we did not want to use our mobiles (calls on European mobiles pay on outbound but not inbound), that was a huge money saver as well. The owner even provided some insights into the forming of the Dutch government, advice on bike-buying, and permitted the use of his well-equipped kitchen.

The downside of this place was that, while we had a private bath, the toilette (separate from most *bath*  rooms in Holland) was on the floor below. Going up and down a steep, Dutch staircases in the middle of the night is a perilous trek. The other problem is that while our host was great, we did not exactly feel as if we had the privacy/anonymity you would have in a hotel. Purely in our heads of course.

I would definitely try it again and would even consider placing a spare room of mine on there as a way to open my own home and make a little extra bread. Friends can breathe a sigh of relief that I will be taking advantage of their hospitality a little less often.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Without fail, I encounter things when I travel that I cannot understand why they have not made it state-side and vice versa. Of course, this is an age old phenomenon. It's probably why Marco Polo traveled back to the West because the things he found in the far-East like spaghetti, paper, and feng shui. Mark Twain wrote about the efficiencies of German stoves and their failure to diffuse. What with the internets and iPhones today, there is absolutely no logic to it. I am going to compile a list, and then get rich on arbitraging a few of the items when I head home:

Needed There (The United States)

Towel warmers / heaters - New England homes commonly have water boilers but I cannot think of a time when I saw towel warmers connected to one of them

Beer glasses of different sizes - Here it is Fleisja and Glaasja (frankly, ordering a beer is still a bit confusing) at the bar. Au contraire! These small glasses are not just for the ladies! Sometimes I can only drink five and a third pints of beer and that's when the economy of the smaller glass comes in handy.

Bike lanes with bike signals - In most places I have seen these in the U.S. they are inconvenient, often double-parked, going one way, next to car parking, etc.. In the Netherlands and Germany they are often separated from the road and well-signed. I read that bikes carry forty percent of the people traffic in dutch cities. I feel like I am in first grade because I cannot wait to get a bike.

Pay bathrooms - I will gladly pay to have clean, public bathrooms

Convection ovens - Seemingly standard here judging by the apartments we saw

Tilt Windows - Most buildings have these nifty, double-glaze windows that open two ways (1) like a door (2) tilting in to form a "V" with the frame

Needed Here (The Netherlands)

Tap water - Would it be so much trouble to have a glass of water with my 15 euro cheese burger in a restaurant? And... yes. I know. I'll risk sterility...

Free museums and buildings - I admit it. I am spoiled after having lived in DC where virtually all the great museums and public buildings are free to tour (except for the Newseum). We went on a one hour dutch-only tour (sorry. no English tours available) of the Binenhof for 6 euros each (approximately 30 USD at current exchange rates ;^) ). That is not the best value in the world.

Free public libraries - There is an annual subscription and a price for just about everything including new books, audiobooks, reserved items, and even VHS cassettes (really?!). Free health care though.

Target - Actually, there is a store called Hema that is close to Target. Unfortunately it is 1/3 cafeteria. I think Target beats Carre Four and Tesco too.

Send me yours. If I take it to market, you can ride on my yacht when I make my fortune

Ons nieuwe huis!

The people have spoken, all eight of you (including me). We are renting the place on the canal and we moved in already. The street is called Veenkade and we are already settling in after an obligatory run to IKEA (with the USD/EUD exchange rate swiftly moving to 1.4 dollars per euro, not such a bargain).

Veenkade as one word does not appear to mean anything but if you look up "veen" and "kade" separately in Google Translate, it compounds as "peat-wharf", which seems appropriate. Although, I don't see any peat and you cannot really call it a wharf if there is only a boat with a pull-start outboard motor moored.

Most canals and streets seem to have the same name here, but this one does not. Also, the streets have different names on either side of the canal. The nearest intersection has a congested and weird traffic pattern. I never know who I am supposed to yield to: tram, bike, car, boat, etc. I am sure it will somehow lead to my early demise. Also, there are two coffee shops and a really nice vegetarian cafe that seems ripped right out of Portland, OR.

Our place is on the edge of the city center (aka centrum), on the cool tram line, and next to the palace gardens (Paleistein) and what everyone refers to as the "royal stables." Although heavily guarded, I have not heard any neighing nor seen any Phaetons coming or going. I'll be sure to note any royal sightings.

Babel Redux

Google Translate is another one of these developments that Google seems to roll-out, for free no less, and no one seems to blink an eye. To me, it is further proof of not being evil. It makes Yahoo babelfish look like some sort of throwback translation algorithm in the eighties. The translations seem very accurate, at least the English translations of the Dutch things I have looked are coherent and require little additional decoding and it is tightly integrated with Chrome.

I had been using this a little since Google introduced it, usually for work assignments to research competitors or learn information posted by partners for marketing purposes. Now that I am living in Holland, it has become critical daily tool. Even one of those things that you wonder how you could live without it.

The translation box "instantly" translates (duh!) the words as you type them and is Google-ized, meaning it is clutter-free. It also will try to auto-detect the language you are typing (very cool). There is a robotic pronunciation which I don't find very helpful, but usually entertaining. You can also copy and paste multiple lines and it will keep it nicely separated (babelfish made it hard to do this before)

Not only does Translate provide a copy and paste box web-page, but in Chrome, it automatically translates pages as you surf them. Once it sees you are translating a lot of pages into a certain language (e.g. Dutch), it automatically starts translating without even asking you. Of course, you can turn it off. Equally helpful is the mouse-overs/tooltips/hovers contain the original text, so that you can see what words it is translating, in case there is confusion or you want to learn the word in the original language.

The browser translation is not perfect by any means. For example, when I am looking at sites in Dutch, like marktplaats.nl (local equivalent of craigslist), it will not translate all of the frames or the picklists, yet. Still, it is a leap above what we had before, and will help homogenize the world, for better or worse.

A View of Delft

Delft, The Netherlands

We took the day off from the hustle and bustle of apartment searching and Den Haag chores and did some sight seeing in Delft. Delft is approximately 30 minutes from The Hague by tram, 20 minutes by intercity train. It is a very cute town, well worth visiting. Some of the guidebooks recommend staying there and visiting The Hague by day. I can certainly see that.

Delft, besides being the namesake of a famous, impressionistic Johannes Vermeer painting, is Vermeer's birthplace and deathplace. There is a museum dedicated to him (without any of his approx. 33 attributed paintings) and a few "Vermeer painted here" markers clustered in the Catholic part of town. Besides some really impressive churches/cathedrals that have all sorts of the House of Orange buried in them, there are also a number of lively, open air markets.

I posted some of the pictures in Picasa. The day was much sunnier that the pictures evoke. You'll see some pictures of the square and the statue of Hugo de Groot (aka Hugo the great). He is the godfather of international law. That was news to me but it seems appropriate that it is here in The Netherlands, where there is so much international lawyering.

I'll try to post some more pictures once we get the desktop up and running.

Parental Misunderestimation

I really like these articles about how our cognitive brain fails to estimate risk. Here is a good piece in the NYTimes that talks about how parents underestimate and overestimate all at the same time.

Apartment Hunting in Holland

The Hague, The Netherlands

We have arrived in The Hague. This will be our fourth day of apartment hunting and hopefully our last. Having never really spent that much time in Holland, I forgot how steep the stairs are in most homes. I think it is a space saving / space generating measure to allow Dutch to build higher and tighter. We have been climbing and climbing all week. Some of the rooms we climbed into were literally ladders like the one you have on your attic that fold down from a hatch. The only guidance given by the agent showing us the apartment with the hatch and ladder was "watch your step." Ha!

We have seen a lot of apartments and just as with any house hunting, you never find the perfect mix of price and size. The plan is to make a final decision today. It is a fun equation because we are balancing a furnished apartment, city center location, gas/electric inclusion, and price. Use the poll to let us know which one you think we should take.

CSI: The Netherlands = Very Boring

Columbia, MD

Someone recently quipped to me that our chances of getting murdered have gone down dramatically with our reversal of direction from Bogotá to The Hague. I actually looked at this data a few weeks ago and plotted it because of ongoing admonitions from family about choosing Bogotá. It turns out, the smartest thing we did was move out of DC.

My life looks like it will be very boring in the The Hague. For all of the criminal courts, it does not appear there are many local violent criminals. As it were, all politics and murder are local. I don't think of Detroit as particularly dangerous, but I am sure for certain people and locations it is extremely dangerous. Wherever you live, I hope it is not Caracas, Venezuela.

Sources: US Cities, Wikipedia, FBI, NYTimes.com

Den Haag

Bound for Bogotá The Hague

Bad news: We are not going to Bogotá, Colombia. Good news: We are moving to The Hague, The Netherlands (here is *The* Wikipedia entry). So I chucked my designer salsa pants for a sturdy rain jacket. We are going to be there for at least a year. At the last moment Mags got a job that was too great to turn down. As for me, I will still be doing entrepreneurial things, learning to make 101 different dishes with herring (pickled being the first), and learning how to smoke ... gouda. Let me know if you have good suggestions for learning Dutch quickly or good places to go in Den Haag. Proost!

The Rooftop Bar

I like to visit these in every city I visit and I am always surprised when tall buildings lack them..

The Tipsy Diaries - Manhattan’s Rooftop Bars - Heaven’s Gates - NYTimes.com

Many English speakers cannot understand basic grammar

Interesting post about the passive vs. active voice and the decay of basic grammar rules in English

Many English speakers cannot understand basic grammar

Experience This Video for Yourself and Remember It Yourself

Very fun video and thought provoking video about taking vacations and when income (of lack thereof) buys misery.

Buffett Doles Advice for Potential Successors

In Buffett's latest shareholder letter, lots of Buffettisms for the rest of us.

• "Sing a country song in reverse, and you will quickly recover your car, house and wife"
• Dramatic growth is no gauruntee of profit
• Be a supplier of liquidity
• Understand what you own
• Defense beats offense

Clearly It's the Cheeseburgers

When the olympics come around, I turn nationalistic, and all I really need to know is in the medal count. Really cool chart from the WSJ. And they don't usually have chart porn like this...

A Minty Fresh Chart

Because I like data analysis so much, I often think that sweetest gig in the world would be working at someplace like Google where you have tons of data that you could mine for interesting behaviors and trends. I think Mint.com is the same thing. Although, they often do post cool charts with all of that data on the Mint Life blog. Although, they have a lot of other worthy stuff too. I liked this job growth chart that they posted this past week.

Predictably Irrational Reading

For some reason lately I have been reading a lot econ stuff. Which is funny because I did not read econ stuff when I took econ...Its funny there have been a proponederanceof books about a return to irrational markets. Justifiably so given the markets swings as people seek to explain and understand that. I ready predictably Irrational by Dan Arley and enjoyed it immensely. Dan's book reads a little more like a text book than something you might read in the Times Magazine, but that does not stop it from being a glass of fun juice.

Key Takeaways (a month after reading it):

• Its better not to ever charge the parents of children in daycare for picking up their children late. Guilt is a much more powerful motivator.
• Students, even ones at Harvard, cheat on exams.
• "Free" is a a powerful thing, even if people don't need the item. E.g. buying a $20 Amazon gift certificate for $7 is better than getting a $10 one for free.
• Make sure your potential brother-in-law is a deadbeat. it will give you much better chances with attractive mates.
• We overvalue what we have. I know this from trying to sell a lot of stuff after I sold my house.
• Options have values, except when you try to go back through open doors.

I strongly recommend this. As I think back about it, it makes me want to reread it and make sure I am not procrastinating anything.

My Personal Pollan Fad

Ever since I watched the documentary "The Botany of Desire" I have been hanging on every word of Michael Pollan's. I am sure this is some sort of fad that I will laugh about in the coming years, but it has had a significant impact on my thinking if not my habits. This is surprising because I read part of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" a few years ago but I did not make it all the way through before the library recalled it, and I never renewed it, which tells me something in itself.

However, I recently read his "Food Rules" and enjoyed it immensely. It is a fun little collection of 64 rules divided into three parts: 1) What should I eat? 2) What kind of food should I eat? 3) How much should I eat? (answers below)

Here are the rules I remember after reading the book over a week ago:

Section 1: Eat Food; Eat only foods that will eventually rot; Avoid Food products that contain more than five ingredients; Buy only foods with ingredients you can pronounce
Section 2: Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk; Eat like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. (i.e., not like Americans)
Section 3: Cook; The Banquet is the First Bite; Breakfast like a King, Lunch like a Prince, Dinner Like a Pauper; Do All Your Eating at the Table (this one is especially tough)

answers: 1) Food 2) Mostly Plants 3) Not Too Much

Rent v. Buy: Ask a Dinosaur

When I am in the right mood (no not that mood pervert!), I find the dinosaur comics make me laugh. I like to read them with a childish dinosaur (think husky) voice. This one goes back and forth about rent vs. buy, so I could not resist linking to it.

Enjoy..

Book Review: The E-Myth Enterprise: How to Turn A Great Idea Into a Thriving Business; Michael Gerber

The E-Myth Enterprise: How to Turn A Great Idea Into a Thriving Business

I borrowed this from the libary because it was recommended by the author of another book I read. Actually, it recommended a different "E-Myth" book and I mistakenly checked this one out of the library.

It was an easy read but not very prescriptive. This was the first book in the "E-Myth" series that I have read.

My takeaways:

• Business is a creative action
• Successful business solve customer problems (Duh!)
• The best companies are process driven not people driven. That was counter-intutive when I first read it, but I have seen this in a number of the places I have worked and I really agree with it. Some employers (managers) blame the person and wrongly believe if only they had a different person, the outcome would be different. Process driven companies believe that they can perfect the process, even with imperfect people employing it. Now, I am not saying that people should not be dismissed, but I do believe that we should all aspire to delivering a process that ensures success and constantly refine and reinvent that process.
• There is a great anecdote about a guy who started a business in Arizona called "Three Day Kitchens". The description was really fun and I think it is something everyone who has owned a home and contracted out work can sympathize with.

I recommend you check it out if you would like a quick read with some fun business anecdotes. It is relevant to entrepeneurs and employees and I hope to check out another one of the E-myth books soon.