Author Archives: Dennis

Two days before I was going to India I wanted to go to Kung Fu. I couldn’t find my car keys. I searched everywhere, since I knew I had used them on the Friday previous, also to go to Kung Fu. I looked everywhere. The last place I hadn’t looked was at work, though I was fairly certain I hadn’t taken them there. So today, I finally get a chance to search at work, and nothing. I’m going to have one more look around my apartment this weekend before asking the Honda dealer to come and pick up my car. You see, I have a spare key, just not the thinger I use for my car alarm, and without that the car won’t start. :(

About once a year I get ill and usually it’s not so bad that I don’t have the heart to go to work. Today, it’s the fourth day that I’m ill, and it’s the third day I’m not going to work because of it. I feel incredibly guilty even though I know that I shouldn’t, for fear of contaminating my colleagues with my cold.

My brother is ill, too. And my mother has just gotten over her cold. Aparently it’s going around and I’m not the only one. I keep wondering what a flu epidemic like this one would cost the country of the Netherlands in lost revenue.

I came back from my trip to India yesterday, and I have a lot of thoughts that I would like to type out. India has assaulted my senses and my sensibilities so much that these thoughts shoot in and out of my mind and I can never focus on one thing completely without being dragged off down a different thought, and even that is much like India. While you’re in traffic (the worst traffic I’ve ever been in, by the way) you zoom by some of the most amazing buildings I’ve ever witnessed, and some of the most heart-wrenching scenes of poverty you can imagine. But before you can focus on any of that, you’re already trying to make sure you don’t hit the scooter with three people on it riding in front of you, or making sure the bus full of people – with people on the roof, and hanging off the side – isn’t about to run you off the road. A land of incredible opportunity, as well as incredible limitations. And get this; all the while I was meeting my girlfriend’s parents, getting to know her family (and extended family, and friends, and servants, and friends…oh boy), so I really didn’t even have time to focus on that properly. But luckily, Moulsari’s father is very knowledgable about India, history as well as the different cultures that live and thrive within its borders, and is always willing to talk about it. So I feel I got a crash-course, and it’s slowly sinking in.

I want to thank Mr. and Mrs. Jain, and all their brothers and sisters, Palash, Praachi, Mayank, Gautam, Pooja and Saleem, for making me feel very welcome in a country so far away from – and a family so different than – my own. More as I collect my thoughts.

I think I found hell. It’s right here.

About two weeks back I noticed that I could only get either hot or cold water in my apartment, but not both at the same time. I asked my uncle, who’s a very experienced plumber, to come and take a look at it. He was generous enough to do so but due to scheduling it was only done yesterday. He came to the conclusion that the water-heater was getting only enough water to run either warm or cold water, but not enough to run both. He explained it all to me, with water-passage per minute, and the pressure capacity of lead vs. copper piping, and the difficulty of over-pressure in the area of Amsterdam, but I’m not going to bore you with it unless you ask me to. It basically comes down to this; I will either have to get another water-heater installation – probably a boiler – which will give me warm and cold water at a lower water-pressure, or get an electric pump installed to artificially crank up the water pressure, enough so that the water-heater can both supply cold and hot water. I asked my landlord to look into it with all haste. I’ve done everything except register at that address, move my clothing and computers over because I can’t take a normal shower there, and I want to get all of it over with.