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random obama congratulations

so i was at the cash machine on the corner just now, and waiting for the woman who was standing there to finish, when she turned around and said, "ben je blij over obama?" (are you happy about obama?) with a big grin on her face…

i grinned and said, "ja, ik heb voor hem gekozen!" (which i’m pretty sure is bad grammar, but whatever… "yes, i voted for him").  and she looked at me funny, so i added:  "ik ben amerikaans!"  so she smiled again and said she’s brazilian but EVERYbody’s happy…

then another woman walked past and the first woman said, "hey meisje!  obama!!!!" and the new woman gave her a big hug and they congratulated each other then me, then my welsh colleague who walked up just then.  then they walked off.

🙂  it was really sweet.

where is the little friend?

this morning i walked out the front door to a very foggy hazenstraat.  it was gorgeous.  i love foggy mornings, always have.  when i was a kid, the fog would drift over the valley and sink – specifically into the upper field across lincoln creek road from our farm.  i loved it.

when i got to my bike, chained on the lauriergracht bridge, i saw that i’d had a friend visit with a present sometime between last night and this morning, but i don’t know where he (or she) went… not under the seat, not under the straps of my saddle bags.

anyway, here is the present:

combichrist and the IT guys…

so last night was the long-awaited and oft-rescheduled drinks at the offices of our IT guys.  their office, it turns out, is a perfect little dance floor.  wood floors, high ceilings, no big windows for people on the prinsengracht to gawk in at us through…  so after listening to a bunch of stuff, i took over with combichrist, suicide commando, and grendel, which were what i was thinking about at the moment.

a good time… 🙂  the combichrist went over particularly well.  yay! 

naturally there was drinking.  come to think of it, although i’d love to tell the stories of what my colleague got up to with the gorgeous one, you never know who might be reading these things. 

i’m ravenous this morning.  i’ve eaten 2 croissants, a banana, a bakje of red grapes, and 3 lattes (counts as food, there’s so much milk).  have been offered some muesli bread, soooooo…… going to go get me some.  this is a lot for a non-breakfast eater.

film review opportunity

my colleague reviews films for a radio station, and they recently lost one of their other reviewers.  they’re looking for another reviewer – 1 film every other week.  you get to choose (with some overseeing) what you watch/review, and you can record the review either at their studio in hilversum, or if you have access to a soundproof recording studio, you can record it wherever you like.

they will pay you, they won’t pay for another studio space. 

by the way, this is an english-language program.

tami, i know you might be interested or know someone who is – they can email her directly:  mutaleni.nadimi@gmail.com.

sudden decision

matt and i are coming to minneapolis.  both of us this time, not just matt.  we found cheapish tickets.

i have a question for minnesotans: 

does anyone know anyone who would be willing to "rent" a car to us, so that we don’t have to pay the outrageous fees from the rental agencies?

for that matter, does anyone understand the liability coverage requirements of the rental agencies?  we always seem to run into trouble, which i’m trying to avoid this time, because we MUST have a car to drive around.

yay!  see people soon!

lost photos… found!

big scare when i came in yesterday.  i wanted to upload my recent photos onto my computer from my camera, and couldn’t find where the others were.  last week i got a new computer, and i had moved all personal files from my computer’s hard drive into my personal file on the network, since my old computer was badly damaged and being disposed of.  and a year’s worth of photos wasn’t there this morning!!!!  everything else was, but no photos! 

then in the afternoon i went back to looking for them… and about half of them in some weird folder that i’d never seen before, in a completely different drive, but where were the others?  i looked and looked, and they weren’t anywhere i could find.

i was just about to email our techie guys to ask them if it would be possible to check on the old abandoned computer hard drive, and was checking the location of the file where i had found half, and LO… all of them were there.  now that’s just weird.  but count me super happy!

and in celebration, here’s one of the ones from that "lost" group:
me and dad hanging out in a dublin pub… right before the literary walk.  we’d been slowly drinking ciders & beer, and just shooting the breeze, when some of his travel companions showed up and offered to take our picture.