Random remarks

Yesterday I saw some extracts of an interview with Isabelle Allende on the Dutch television. At one point in the conversation she states that Chileans are rather shy people who talk quietly and use a lot of diminutives. When Argentinian tourists come over to Chile, the Chileans feel uneasy at their loudness, big movements that are consideret as arrogant. The Dutch interviewer was nodding all the time when she described the Chileans and then said in all earnesty that the Dutch were exactly like that too: shy, quiet and using a lot of diminutives.
*choke* cough*....did he really say that? Huh? Has he any idea whatseover how Dutch tourists are perceived abroad? Has he ever worked in a Dutch open office and measured the decibels?
Oh gosh, the idea that the Dutch on average would be shy & silent. Yeah sure :p

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A friend of us bragged on FB that she had just made some pudding and how good it tasted. The entire afternoon I had this strong urge for vanilla and had nostalgic flashbacks to childhood moments where I could make a big pot of vanilla pudding with my mom. It seemed ages ago.
Later on Jan comes home and all of a sudden claims out loud "oooh I feel like making some pudding " (yes he's on FB too) and he headed to the kitchen where he cluttered with some pots and pans. I was quite curious because I knew we had no vanilla pudding powder , if not I would have already surprised him with some fresh pudding.
Sure enough a bit later a nice sweet smell drifted from the kitchen into the living room. He was making semolina pudding. And so we ended up late in the evening each with a big bowl of pudding in front of the tv after all. We can't remember who and when we've ever bought semolina though :p.

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Now and then I get a wave of attention to work on my family tree. I started off with all the descendants of my great grand mother at my dad's side since that part of the family has shattered over 2 continents. I also prefer tracing down all the descendants as they are still alive rather than climbing back into history. when I was a teenager I had drawn on a few dozen papers a very wide tree. But as years progressed, I had clearly not left enough space among the people in the lowest row to add their partners and their multiple children below.
So a couple of years ago I tested some genealogy freeware to digitalise my previous work and find an easier way to share it with other people. I had built a big gedcom database but never found a good way to share beside some tacky PDF's or html files. During my search my cousin first removed invited me on http://www.geni.com/. Great tool to share, very interactive where multiple can add to the tree, add to their personal profiles, link events , pictures etc.... but I couldn't upload my database at that poing.

Yesterday a far Canadian relative had asked me if I could send my old files once again. It gave me the motivation to log onto Geni again and complete the work (the entire Belgian part was very accurate as my entire family contributes). After a couple of hours I had added all Canadians that I am aware off (last births were in the nineties so I am clearly a bit behind) and I invited them to join. And now some of them are contributing there as well and our tree is growing. Coooool. I can't wait until the upload some pictures so I can finally picture some of these "names".

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Tomorrow is supposedly the most depressing day of the year (calculated by some professor). I hope that's not a bad omen since I'll have my surgery check-up in the hospital tomorrow. And we're getting a big delivery at home...dadum dadum, pictures tomorrow I hope! So I really hope it isn't going to be depressing at all.

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I'm quite looking forward to Obama's inauguration on Tuesday. But I fear that so many people now have such incredible expectations that are unrealistic and I fear that Obama's popularity will inevitably start decreasing. I hope not, but I fear so.

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Looking at the footage of the operations to lift the crashed airplane in the Hudson river , I still can't believe that nobody got seriously hurt. How fantastic to know that those pilot training sessions are truly valuable and those guys can save our life (sometimes) in case of a crash.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Serieus onder de indruk dat uwe Jan zomaar ineens een pot vanillepudding op tafel tovert!
En damn... ik begin er ook zin in te krijgen!
anno said…
Oh yes, I remember, the very quiet, shy, and understated Dutch!

Hope you are still enjoying that vanilla pudding... sounds delicious!
Korie said…
Heh, all I have to say on the quiet understatedness of the Dutch is Flodder.

And I have the same worries over Obama. People need to be realistic.

And I think I'll check out that link. I love geneology and family trees.
Leen said…
ik denk dat ik opnieuw wat pudding ga maken. enzovoort :)
Allie said…
Pudding from scratch? Never knew that could happen nor even how to attempt it. I am definitely the package kind of girl. :P

And yes, Obama's popularity will decrease in no time flat because people are fickle and are willing to assess blame for all that goes wrong.

Yes - I received your invitation and am crunching numbers as we speak. Hopefully come the weekend, I will be able to know exactly where I stand and if I can make it happen. I would love nothing more than to take a very important and special trip. :P

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