Oh man, here we go…

From CNN:

(CNN) — Belgium’s Prime Minister Yves Leterme has offered his government’s resignation amid a row over the break-up of the stricken Fortis bank, according to national media reports.

Belgian newspapers and state television reported that Leterme was tendering the government’s resignation to the king.

Gotta love it! So much of my cash goes to the damn government, you’d think they would at least get their act together and make better decisions. The basics of democracy forbid the exact sort of meddling that Yves was involved in. I hope the King (*gulp*) accepts his resignation and makes this guy work in some cave in Wallonia so I don’t have to pay unemployment benefits. Does this make me a fascist?

Anyway, I propose a 2-state solution. Ethnic Kurds can have the nor… oh wait. Wrong country!

I’m happy to report that I no longer suffer from milk acid.

Perhaps I should explain. Last week at my osteopath appointment — and everyone should visit an osteopath immediately — the miracle lady asked me what types of ailments I’ve been having above and beyond the trouble that I was having with my back from my bike accident. I told her, half jokingly that I thought I was coming down with a case of carpal tunnel because my forearms ached after long hours in front of the computer. She wasn’t convinced, and unable to tell me what she thought the problem could be in English, she could only literally translate the Dutch expression, which I believe was “Melkzuur”, she said I had “milk acid” in my muscles.

Of course! Milk Acid. I should have known. But my friend Wikipedia states that “Contrary to popular belief, … increased concentration of lactate does not directly cause … muscle soreness.”

But you know what? It has been a full week since my appointment and I have not had any discomfort in my forearms. For something that I generally feel every day, I’m convinced that her magic worked. Before I send flowers though, I’m going to wait it out and see how I feel in another week or two.

And the best part? There is no temporary license. I will not be legally able to drive the whole time they fumble around with their procedures. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

After taking months to get the car inspected and registered, I thought that I was in the clear (I will most certainly post more details on this in a future posting). I already expressed some of the challenges opening a business as a non-Dutch speaking, non-Citizen. In that case, I can simply put my ambitions on hold and start a business in about 5 years. In the case with my license — no matter how inconvenient it will be over the next 6 weeks — I have no choice.

And get this — the town told us I need to come with my US license. That’s it. We asked them directly what we needed to bring. Of course, knowing how Belgians operate, my wife did a bit more digging. It turns out that we also need to bring some passport photos, my resident card, and 16 Euro. Thanks Mrs. Town Hall Worker! I may have just been dumb enough to come with my license and a smile, only to be turned away — and likely to have to take yet another day out of work.

I should say that when the government says it takes 6 weeks, it will likely take 3 months. Here’s how they do their math: The “6 weeks” will likely start when the right person assigned to the task actually starts working on the task. As I have seen, this could take a few weeks for someone to even look at it. Then, there are vacations and holidays. These periods do not count, so figure in at least 2 or 3 weeks for that. Then, inevitably, there will be some commotion that will need some official response or document. Who knows — they’re likely to give me problems about a speeding ticket from 5 years ago. Ugh.

The painful part about this system is that it promotes breaking the law. Do you honestly believe I can go without driving for 6 weeks (i.e. 3 months)? I have 2 kids; I work in Brussels. The train workers strike all the time (another annoyance here in Belgium). So when there is a strike, am I to just take a holiday?

If they can manage to get this done within 6 weeks, not only will I be amazed, but I would also call it a Christmas Miracle and post back here just how wrong I was.

When I first moved to Belgium, I knew that starting a new business would be more difficult than in the US. Boy was I wrong! It can be damn-near impossible! I’ve been reading a short introduction to starting a business in Belgium. The book is aptly titled “local knowledge guide to setting up and running your business in belgium”. A bit of a long title, but it matches the process.

For most businesses, the government boasts that you can start up in about 3 days. This assumes, of course, that you have all your paperwork in order, you know exactly where to go and who to talk to, and you know exactly what questions to ask. For a foreigner, all three of these conditions can be tricky.

Then there are more issues to overcome. For an SPRL(U) — the popular private limited company — you need 18,550 Euro in capital to start (an SA, a public limited company, needs 61,500). Depending on where you plan to run your business, you’ll also need to have all your documents in either French, Dutch, or German. As I am only learning Dutch, I would need a lot of help establishing the paperwork for the business. Not to mention that the details of all the social laws are only available in Dutch or French. This would require me to not only rely upon, but to trust, another party with ensuring that I meet all the requirements, file all the right reports, and pay the right fees and taxes.

There is also a potential issue — which should be a minor formality and nothing more — about proving your competence in basic management skills. I would think that my BA in Business Management would be an easy score. But after reading about some of the horror stories online about other non-EU folk trying to start a business, I’m not so sure. Non-citizens also seem to face additional difficulties, although I’m not sure what they are (likely some procedural red tape).

In the end, I’m looking at about a 5 year wait. By then, I should a good understanding of the Dutch language, my citizenship, 5 years of managerial experience, and money in the bank. And in the meantime, I can simply freelance, provided my income is low enough.

My sister-in-law and son, this past Sunday, built a killer snowman. As I watched from the warmth of the living room, through the large plate-glass sliding doors, I couldn’t help but be amazed at the quality of snow falling from the Belgian sky. Don’t be mad at me though. I fell off my bike last week and was nursing a bum knee (a likely story).

I honestly thought that my snowman-building days (or at least watching others build snowmen) were over once I moved to Belgium last winter. I honestly thought that good quality snow for snowman-making was something we could only look forward to on our winter trips back to the US.

Pleasantly surprised is an understatement. I grew up playing in the snow — red fingers, icy feet, runny nose — so to see my son (who is 3) out there braving the wilds of nature to roll some frozen water around the yard was great.

Kudos to his aunt who did all the real work. She was the muscle behind it all. But I must say it took quite a bit of coaxing for her to create a 3-balled snowman; she was happy to make a short, fat two-baller. In the end, Mr. Dingledobe (ok, I just made up that name now) had 3 parts, a carrot nose, walnut eyes and buttons, and two sticks for arms.

I’ll post pictures as soon as they become available!

So I’m standing in a long line at the ING cafeteria for lunch today. The line next to me (equally as long) had to close due to a malfunction in the cash register. Ugh. All those poor buggers — close to 30 people I think — left standing dazed and confused, unsure if they should get out of their dead line and head to the back of mine, or if they should hang tight for the register to get fixed.

But then something magical happened. A guy ahead of me in my line let the first guy in the dead line cut him. Then the guy behind him did the same. And so on.

There is something poetic about two long lines of hungry people merging together before you; a giant, human zipper. It didn’t bother me one bit that I went from 10th to about 20th in line.


But some people just don’t get it.

Four women in the dead line were gabbing away (in French, so I have no idea if they were discussing national security or nail polish) next to me. It was my turn to perform the zipper move, so I let the first of the gabbers cut me.

And what do you think happened? Gabby #2 proceeded to follow her friend close behind not letting me in!

So what do you think I did? I dug my shoulder between the birds, looked at Gabby #2 square in the face, and in my best Rhode Island accent asked: “Evah hear of a zippa?”.

She looked confused. Either she didn’t understand me, or she didn’t know what a zipper was. Clearly, her and her friends were not paying attention. Or maybe they were being arrogant, or playing the “I’m a woman, so you need to be chivalrous and let me through” card.

What is this, high school? Must I be courteous in the face of such blatant disregard for the zipper?

I felt proud of my actions and I also take comfort in the fact that I would not have hesitated to do the same if four burley maintenance workers tried pulling the same. Burley #2 would have gotten an earful!

Reporters Without Borders recently published their Press Freedom Index for 2008. I saw a report the other day on al-Jazeera’s English news station. The results of the list — which I recall seeing several years ago with the same reaction — are surprising. Most notable is how low the US is on the list, with most of Europe coming in before it. The report on the Index’s website says:

Two aspects stand out in the index, which covers the 12 months to 1 September 2008. One is Europe’s preeminence. Aside from New Zealand and Canada, the first 20 positions are held by European countries. The other is the very respectable ranking achieved by certain Central American and Caribbean countries.

In addition to the above, I selected a few of the countries that I thought stood out.

• 1 Iceland
• 7 Belgium
• 13 Canada
• 20 Germany
• 25 United Kingdom
• 35 France
• 36 Bosnia and Herzegovina
• 41 United States of America
• 46 Israel (Israeli territory)
• 92 Congo
• 103 Turkey
• 119 United States of America (extra-territorial)
• 132 Malaysia
• 146 Egypt
• 151 Zimbabwe
• 156 Afghanistan
• 161 Saudi Arabia
• 166 Iran
• 172 North Korea

You can read how the statistics were compiled here. You can also get the full report here. What do yo think? Are you as surprised as I was?

Buses 79 and 21, to be exact.

I attended a business event with my colleagues at our new offices in the Tractebel region of Brussels. From Troon, which is where I am currently stationed, Tractebel is pretty far. The only way to get their aside from driving is by bus.

So I logged into the SNCB (b-rail.be) website and planned my route. I like their site, it makes it fairly easy to get from place to place in Brussels. I wish they had some better mapping, but no biggie.

After I got my route together, I took hold of my jump pass and hopped on the 21. Totally uneventful except for the fact that it started to rain. It always rains when i head to a work event *sigh*. Next came the 79. Again, totally boring. But this time, at least, the bus was pretty much empty so I had more room to sit and relax. There was a pretty interesting fellow with his seeing-eye dog. I really have no idea how that works. This man, using his dog as a guide, walked right over to the open doors of the bus and up into it without troubles. He then went right over to a seat and sat down. How did he know some old lady wasn’t already sitting there? Certainly his dog couldn’t relay that info.

Anyway, I sat through a DRP (disaster recovery plan) and Business Continuity presentation from a colleague that was both very interesting and thoroughly boring. Later I ate some oddball Belgian food then got a ride by new friend Frank to Central Station.

So there you have it. The most mundane adventure yet. I hope to have more interesting things to say… at some point… hopefully…

So I had an aha moment the other day while in Amsterdam. I was talking with a new friend about the Dutch language and he said something that really made me stop and think. For all my life (well, for as long as I could count to at least the number 13), I never questioned where the “teen” came in. We go from twelve to thirteen to fourteen and so on. I reasoned that “teen” was just a better and more fluid way of saying “ten”. Thirten and Fourten just don’t sound as cool.

But here is the aha. Ten in Dutch is “tien”, which is prounounced like “teen”. Also in dutch, numbers are built backwards (which I am still getting used to). So, for example, the number twentytwo in dutch is translated as “two and twenty”.

Just like our “teen” system! Three and ten, four and ten, five and ten, etc… Get it?

I feel so much smarter now. It turns out that our “teen” system is likely a derivative of Dutch and/or Germandeveloped before 900AD. Real linguists out there will know for sure. But I don’t really care about the specifics!

Last night I jumped on the train to Amsterdam to attend a conference put on by Q4K (Quest for Knowledge). (I’ll blog more about the content of the conference over at Tod means Fox.) The conference runs ’till Friday.

The train ride was long and hot. For a stretch (between stops Brussel Centraal and Mechelen), I had to stand. Not a lot of fun when you have to stand with about a dozen other people in a poorly ventilated tin can. And not a lot of fun when you have a laptop and suitcase resting at your feet. One kid took a tumble when the train hit a bump and his foot got caught on the exposed wheel of my bag. I felt bad, but hey — he was alright. Nothing broken. No blood.

The train got significantly lighter when we dropped off passengers in Antwerpen Centraal. And then again in Roosendaal. By the time we reached Den Haag, I was living large. I bought a Coke from the cart guy (a dirty old man wheeling a cart of expensive goodies down the isle like a stewardess on Northwest Airlines). I had a seat next to me all to myself, and I was cruising along in my new book: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell.

I really enjoyed Malcolm’s Tipping Point, and am really enjoying Blink so far. I’ll be posting more about this soon…

…

So here I am, at the hotel. Questing for knowledge and thinking without thinking. Sort of ironic I suppose.