When Doris Lets Me Down

(Image from mappery.com)

The Evolution of X recently wrote a post about maps versus smartphones. Unlike E of X, I do like using the narration on my smartphone. It saves time, money and gas.

When I look at a map to get somewhere in a city, I have to look several times because I have a memory like a sieve. Now, looking at a map while driving is never a good idea, not to mention

Raft Books: My Excuse For Browsing

I’m not big on collections. I used to be. I had all sorts of collections. If I saw something I liked, I would start a collection. Until I felt that I was surrounding myself with things just for the sake of surrounding myself with things, and I got rid of most of them.

Beyond the Mopac Bridge

(Image from forum.dallasmetropolis.com)

Time for another bridge post. And no, this one isn’t about the Mopac bridge. For the first time ever, I present to you the bottom of a different bridge. The Lamar Boulevard Bridge, the one east of the Mopac Bridge across Town Lake in Austin, Texas, the United States of America.

Inventive Roads From . . . the Netherlands

This is cool. And Dutch.

An Audience of One: My Dad

The daily writing prompt a few days ago: to write a post for someone I wish was reading my blog.

It feels a bit weird to write to you in English, and I don’t think I can call you Dad instead of Pappie, but here goes.

The Great Divide: A Question of Color

Photo: redandwhitekop.com

For many years now, there has been a huge rift within our family, caused by traffic lights. T and I are in permanent disagreement and our son B is pretty firmly on my side. R is undecided, but I’m convinced she will see the light (I couldn’t resist)  in due time.

A Little Rant About Bikes

There’s nothing quite as aggravating as buying a bike in this country when you’re Dutch. The kids needed new bikes and I kind of wanted a bike, too. I had bought one at Goodwill a few years ago, but it didn’t feel right.

Spending TIme in the Clouds

There’s something strangely soothing about cleaning clouds. I suppose it also has to do with being a perfectionist. I can (and do) spend hours cleaning clouds, removing every little speck of dust, every tiny hair, every little irregularity. I just enlarge a piece of cloud as much as I want, hover over it with a circle, and click–gone, like it was never even there.

U TTLY KWIM, Right?

Photo: Wikipedia

One of the many enjoyable things about translating is that I’m always learning something new, no matter how short the text. I just finished translating a sample from a Belgian novel for middle-school-aged girls, in which the characters communicate face-to-face, on the phone, via email and via texting. 

They Landed Where?!?

I recently discovered Ted Talks, when a really good and amusing Ted Talk video about book cover design was going around on Facebook. It has since become my new magazine of choice.

I especially like to select the videos that have been labeled “jaw-dropping”.

The Gap

 The first time I visited America, at age 18, I visited my great aunt and her husband in Bakersfield, California.

The evening I arrived, we went out to dinner at an Elk Lodge and at some point after we had finished our meal, my great aunt asked me if I wanted to join her in the restroom. I replied that I wasn’t really tired, but she insisted.

So I followed her, fully expecting a room with lots of couches and chairs

My Relationship With Dictionaries

The Daily Post today is about dictionaries. It concludes with the question what dictionaries are to me and if I have any favorites.

Well, it wasn’t love at first sight, I can tell you that. In fact, I avoided dictionaries as a youngster–too much hassle. I preferred the DIY method: inference through context.

As a student in library school I learned extensively about all imaginable dictionaries, but it was one of the most boring classes. Probably because the teacher had the stage presence of a bibliography of bibliographies. Dictionaries were a necessity, a useful tool, but I still wasn’t turned on.

Fillaflah Revealed

Okay, this is neither here nor there. Or it’s both. It has nothing to do with being an immigrant, though. Just with being a 51-year-old user of modern technology. Every now and then there’s this technology moment that blows my mind. The younger you are, the less you will understand this, but my contemporaries will.

Holland, What Are You Doing?

A Flamingo in Utrecht  is a great blog because Alison, an American in Utrecht, the Netherlands, takes pictures all around Utrecht and it’s wonderful that I can see the familiar places and streets. Most of the time it’s also nice to see what’s new. The Nijntje (Miffy) statue is new, for instance. But then I see this picture

The Joplin Tornado

I’ve posted before on my frustration about above-ground power lines and how dangerous they are in a storm. And in certain footage of the tornado that ripped through Joplin, Missouri, two days ago, the first thing you see when the tornado touches down is a power line being snapped.

Food Poisoning

This is an almost 20-minute video, but the information Robyn O’Brien gives is important to know. Coming from Holland seventeen years ago, I felt like almost everybody here is allergic to something. My husband would jokingly say, “Oh sure, the Dutch are never allergic,” thinking it was just another of my everything’s-better-in-Holland observations, but seriously, there didn’t seem half as many people allergic to stuff in Holland as there are in America. Now it turns out this might be true. So there, hubby!

Lethal Weapon Free

In this economy, businesses have to be extra creative. And are they ever! For example, if you go to the RadioShack in Hamilton, Montana, to sign up for Dish Network right now, you get a free gun or pizza. Isn’t choice wonderful?

Broad Strokes

We have been remodeling. Or rather, we have people do it for us, since neither of us has the time or the skills. Well, we’ll get to the skills… We needed new windows in the front of the house, because the old ones were rotted out. We bought ready-made wood windows, and in August the remodeling began.

Once Upon a Time

Having hit fifty a few months ago, I find myself increasingly looking to the past, at the people, places, books, music, and movies that helped shape me. It used to be, I’m sure, a time for musing, wondering what happened to those elementary school friends, trying to conjure up faces on favorite television series watched as a child in a different country, remembering only the feelings provoked by movies that impressed at age fifteen. The past moved further and further back, getting smaller as—inevitably–less of it was remembered.

Powerless

One of my pet peeves is above-ground power lines. Electricity still gets to many houses in this country via wires that run along roads on tall wooden or metal poles. Every single time there’s a bit of wind or a cold snap, people lose power.

Inventing the Wheel

One thing that comes with America being The Greatest Country in the World is that everything has to be an American invention. Even when it’s not. Even when it was invented decades ago, half a century ago, a century ago, in another country.