Will Woodhill

Ik ben er nog!

2009-11-22T13:52:00.001-08:00

Woepie, het is alweer een tijdje stil op deze blog. Ik ben er nog steeds, maar ik denk dat papa het een beetje te druk heeft om mijn fotootjes op tijd op deze blog te krijgen…

Bumbo

2009-10-13T13:10:00.001-07:00

Ik heb zonet voor de eerste keer mijn “Bumbo” stoel uitgetest. Het is geen potje (daar is het nog wat vroeg voor) maar een soort zeteltje waarin ik zonder extra steun kan zitten. Zo ongeveer:

Ja, in het begin ging dat natuurlijk wat moeilijk. Maar eens ik het gewoon begon te worden, werd het wel lollig:

Hééél lollig zelfs…

En nu kan ik zitten zoals de grote mensen!

Alweer iets bijgeleerd zie…

Manamana!

2009-10-02T14:59:00.001-07:00

De laatste tijd word ik tegen de avond wel eens vaker een beetje krikkel. En dat is zacht uitgedrukt: ik wil niet eten, niet spelen, alleen maar heel hard wenen. Dit fenomeen is blijkbaar gekend als “het huiluurtje.” Het enige wat tot hiertoe hielp is een wandelingetje met mama in de draagdoek. Papa heeft nu iets nieuws ontdekt:

Fietskar

2009-09-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Vandaag ben ik met Mama voor de eerste keer met de fietskar een toertje gaan doen:

Gelukkig dat ik warm aangekleed was, want het wordt wat frisjes buiten. Ik heb er in elk geval van genoten!

Daag!

Pas Wakker!

2009-09-08T13:26:00.001-07:00

Oeps, sorry! Was efkes in slaap gevallen… Zal zo snel mogelijk nog eens nieuwe fotookes uploaden hoor!

Tuinfotoshoot

2009-08-14T03:51:00.000-07:00

Daarnet heb ik met mama en papa een fotoshoot gedaan in de tuin. Dit is het resultaat:

Wel leuk hoor, maar na een tijdje moest ik hen er toch op wijzen dat het stilletjes etenstijd was:

Mijn eerste identiteitskaart

2009-08-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

Eind augustus gaan we op vakantie naar Frankrijk. Daarom moet ik al meteen mijn eerste identiteitskaart aanvragen. Op zo’n kaart hoort een foto en die heeft papa vandaag proberen te nemen:

Eigenlijk mag mijn arm er niet mee op, maar ik vind het toch beter zo! Papa heeft nog geprobeerd om mijn arm beneden te houden, maar ik heb hem duidelijk gemaakt dat hij zijn tijd aan het verliezen was:

Het zal dus de bovenste foto worden!

Geef acht!

2009-08-08T14:06:00.000-07:00

Ik word later soldaat!

Ballenbad

2009-08-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

Vandaag ben ik voor het eerst in mijn ballenbad geweest:

Heel plezant, alleen weet ik nog niet juist wat ik erin moet uitrichten…

Ik zal er nog eens hard over nadenken tegen volgende keer:

Dada!

Tummy Tub

2009-08-07T14:14:00.000-07:00

Vandaag ben ik voor het eerst in mijn Tummy Tub badje geweest:

Het zit niet zo royaal als het badje dat we van Eve van Papa’s werk hadden gekregen:

De Tummy Tub heeft echter wel 2 belangrijke voordelen:

Er gaat minder water in, en alle kleine beetjes helpen gezien het voor iedereen crisis is
Er gaat minder water in, en dat is dan ook sneller ververst als ik AL mijn spieren een beetje teveel laat ontspannen…

En dankzij Erik Gnorglgenoot kan ik ook voor de eerste keer samen met Mama en Papa op de foto:

Aan de achtergrond zien jullie hoe hard nog steeds gefeest wordt voor mijn geboorte…

Nog zoveel bezoek!

2009-07-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

Tja, ik had beloofd nog te vertellen wie ons nog allemaal is komen bezoeken in het ziekenhuis. Er zijn echter zoveel lieve mensen geweest dat dat onbegonnen werk zou zijn. Een greep uit het aanbod dan maar:

Papa zijn Bomma

en zijn Bompa zijn geweest:

En Johan was één van de eerste vrienden van Papa die op bezoek kwamen:

Ook mijn advocaat meester Lecoutre is ook al eens een kijkje komen nemen:

Samen met mijn bankier Mattias die stond te trappelen om mij eens vast te houden, en dat dan ook voorbeeldig gedaan heeft:

En natuurlijk was er ook Shary, van wie ik al zoveel mooie kleedjes heb gekregen:

Ze had die gekke Kyeno meegebracht. Daar zal ik later nog veel pret mee beleven denk ik:

Al dat bezoek is wel prettig, maar ik word er toch wel heel erg moe van:

en daar is maar één oplossing voor:

Slaapwel, en tot de volgende keer!

Hello World—Again!

2009-07-27T05:14:00.000-07:00

Een nieuw thema in een nieuwe taal op deze blog! Op 26 juli 2009 werd Felix geboren, en Papa en Mama hebben besloten dat hij deze blog mag gebruiken om enkele fotootjes te verspreiden bij het bredere publiek…

Hier ben ik, twee minuutjes na mijn geboorte:

De bevalling was relatief kort maar wel pijnlijk en vermoeiend. Voor Mama niet zo leuk dus maar ik denk wel dat ze het er voor over had. Ik heb het wel proper gehouden voor de foto en dat kon Papa wel appreciëren!

De volgende dag mocht ik al in bad:

Gewassen worden vind ik niet zo leuk, maar in het warme water rondhangen vind ik zalig. Het doet mij zo’n beetje denken aan de afgelopen 9 maanden.

Mag ik de rest van de familie nog even voorstellen? Dit is mijn meter Tinta:

en hier is mijn andere meter Ann:

Blijkbaar kende ze Nonkel Kris al voor mijn geboorte, anders had ze mij nu vast de liefste van de hele wereld gevonden:

Een beetje raar, maar blijkbaar zijn Papa en Mama ook kindjes. Mama is een kindje van Oma en Opa:

en Papa is een kindje van Moeke:

en van Vake—van die naam ben ik nog niet zeker maar Papa zijn vake heette ook Vake, vandaar:

Tenslotte zijn er natuurlijk nog mijn coole nonkels. Nonkel Tom heeft een motor maar ik weet nog niet juist wat dat betekent. Soit, hij ligt ook wel zacht:

en dan is er nog nonkel Bruno:

Nonkel Bruno is nog een jonge nonkel maar dat is goed want dan kan hij later nog met mij spelen als de anderen allemaal al arthritis hebben!

Ziezo, dat was een korte voorstelling van mijn familie! Nu ga ik een dutje doen, en volgende keer vertel ik wat meer over wie er in het ziekenhuis nog allemaal op bezoek is gekomen.

Slaapwel!

Felix

The Clement Peerens Explosition does China!

2009-01-19T13:38:00.001-08:00

Has it ever occurred to you that 1.2 billion people on this planet have never had the opportunity to enjoy the Works of Art of Antwerp’s main artist? Oh yes, it is true that the Chinese can enjoy Rubens, but let’s be honest: who cares?

After all, the Chinese are very well aware that they will forever be starved of the quintessence of Antwerp Culture. That is, because they don’t all master Aantwaarps very well—seriously, they don’t –they will never be able to fully enjoy the timeless rock music of the Clement Peerens Explosition, aka CPeX…

So here is the deal we made with Bill Gates: while he will tackle the world’s malaria problem, my brothers and I will teach the Chinese what real subtle rock music is all about. Meet CPeX in Chinese:

Oh yes! Let’s cut to the chase here—introducing our first song “Vinde gij mijn gat”:

For those interested, this is the introduction to the movie clip, in Chinese, of course…

And finally, the original can be found here:

为安特卫普文化服务！CPeX万岁！

Needless to say, all praise is of course welcome in the comments…

Road Trip from New Orleans to Chicago

2008-12-14T12:24:00.001-08:00

Kristof and I are back in Belgium after a very pleasant road trip from New Orleans all the way up to Chicago. I don’t have much time for writing, so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…

Here we are still in New Orleans, more specifically in a bar in Bourbon Street were a blues band was playing:

On Thursday, Michaël, Kristof and I went to visit a sugar cane plantation close to New Orleans. Here we are next to the Mississippi River:

while this is the nearby “Oak Alley Plantation”:

The plantation’s site says that “The quarter-mile canopy of giant live oak trees, believed to be nearly 300 years old, forms an impressive avenue leading to the classic Greek-revival style antebellum home.” Impressive? For sure!

On Friday morning, we hit the road for Chicago. This shot was taken from the window between New Orleans and Birmingham:

We stopped briefly in Birmingham, Alabama to visit the Civil Rights Centre. This is of course the ideal spot for a statue of Martin Luther King:

After the visit we hopped back into the car and off we went. Another typical view—note the Greyhound bus—through the rear window:

and one through the front window:

We spent Friday night in Nashville, Tennessee. Because of lack of space: pictures only on request… On Saturday we continued from Nashville to St Louis, Missouri. There, I defied the bitter cold and the shrieking gale to bring you this picture of St Louis by night:

And on we went to Chicago…

The first snow started showing up and it was getting bitter cold:

However, freezing cold or not, this picture was certainly worth while the stop:

And then, finally, Chicago! This picture was taken on Sunday morning on top of the John Hancock building. In the far right you can see the Sears Tower, the highest building in the USA:

Then we went on to Grant Park and Millennium Park, where the famous Cloud Gate—more commonly known as The Bean—is situated:

We spent a very pleasant last evening in company of Filip—who happened to be in Chicago at the same moment as we were—and some of his very congenial American friends.

And then, back to Belgium on Tuesday morning! Another unique experience in the USA had come to an end…

Back in the US of A

2008-12-06T08:46:00.001-08:00

Here we are again in the USA for the Globecom 2008 conference in New Orleans. A city still heavily marked by the devastating passage of Katrina 3 years and 3 months ago: only about half of the inhabitants have returned, complete neighborhoods are still in tatters and the rebuilding of infrastructure such as bridges and roads is not yet finished. All in all the city gives a sad impression. The blues, you know…

One area that has fully recovered however, is the French Quarter. This is the place where the colonial presence of the French remains very visible. It’s like walking through a small French town, with as only difference the rectangular street pattern. The oldest pub in town, which belonged to the pirate Lafitte if I got it right, is situated here:

We went for a drink here with Peter and Michael, two colleagues from IMEC:

Afterwards, we went for a local beer:

in the good company of Kristof:

Kristof is a PhD student from the KU Leuven and like Michael also a friend from at university. After the conference, Kristof and I will rent a car and make a road trip all the way to Chicago. More about that later…

At about noon, we left for a “swamp tour”: a boat visit of one of the many swamps in the surroundings of New Orleans. We were not sure whether we were going to see alligators, so I ate them instead:

Indeed, a combination of two “local” specialties: American beef jerky with Louisiana alligator meat! For dinner I also had an alligator appetizer. Tastes and looks somewhat like chicken…

In the swamps, we saw this house that was lifted from its foundations by Hurricane Katrina, was carried a couple of hundreds of meters by the water and smacked down in the middle of the swamp:

It’s a sturdy thing: it remained pretty much intact after the hurricane. However, it was impossible to move it back to its original place so the inhabitant had to find another residence…

We also saw a couple of cool birds:

and I even held a small alligator:

I’m not kidding here, it really was a live animal! It had been abandoned by its mom and the rangers picked it up. Now it is raised by them, and it will be set free once it is big enough to survive on its own. Unlike other animals, alligators don’t lose their instinct while held in custody, so they can be released afterwards without re-training them to catch their own food.

Now this picture allows me to end with a little joke:

Michael walked into a doctor’s office with an alligator on his head. The doctor asked “What’s the problem?” and the alligator answered “Well it all started with a wart on my left foot…”

First Snow!

2008-11-23T10:13:00.001-08:00

Belgium just had its first snow of this Winter. Bad for drivers, good for photographers. This is what our garden looks like now:

Back to Secondary School!

2008-11-10T08:44:00.001-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I ran into my former secondary school teacher of Latin and Greek, Jan Defauw. In his spare time, Jan is a city guide in Antwerp. One of his favorite exhibitions at this moment is the one in Het Steen in Antwerp about the Red Star Line:

So when Jan and I met these couple of weeks ago, we soon hit upon the idea of organizing a guided visit to this exhibition with our former class of Latin and Greek. Last weekend, that moment had come:

The Red Star Line was a shipping company that was active from about 1870 until 1930. Its main activity was the immigration from Europe to the USA. Apart from some ship models and utensils, the exhibition was mainly focused on photographs. The vivid and passionate arguments of Jan however, made every picture come alive so that we all hung on his lips for the whole time:

After the exhibition, we went to a nearby cozy bar to catch up on the evolution of our former school, what everyone had been doing since we left there, and the plans for the future:

We promised ourselves not to wait another eight years to organize the next meeting… After the drink, Jan and some of us left. The others continued to the restaurant De Negen Vaten for dinner:

Underway, I had a nice chance to take this picture of Het Steen by night:

By the way, the good pictures in this post—that is, the first and the fourth ones—were taken by Philip… In the restaurant, Evi and Elke joined us for dinner. The food was nice, the atmosphere even better:

I forgot to take a picture of my plate before starting to eat. However, this one was taken afterwards:

You have to admit that, even eaten, it still looks delicious, doesn’t it?

Jan, thanks again for sharing the catching and vivid stories behind the pictures of the exhibition with us! We all agreed that you still haven’t lost any of your teaching vigor and enthusiasm. We will certainly contact you again soon to show us more hidden gems of our gorgeous home town…

Bike Trip to the Ardennes

2008-11-01T13:38:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we went on a trip to the Ardennes by motorbike. We, that would be Maarten, who is a former fellow university student and now a good friend, his cousin Ben, Lynn, a colleague PhD student from IMEC, and her boyfriend Dries. Or, from left to right: Ben, Wim, Maarten, Dries and Lynn:

Why on Earth would we take a girl on a motorbike trip, I can hear those who own a bike think. Well, for cooking, obviously! However, as you can see from the black spaghetti pot, that was not such a good idea:

But we have to admit that Lynn did a good job saving our lives by keeping us away from the tempting abbey ales. Oh yes, those are all hot chocolates there:

Lynn must have known that I would put the spaghetti-disaster story on my blog: afterwards, she did not want to be recognized in the pictures anymore:

Obviously, another way not to be recognized was taking the pictures herself. Here, we are in the abbey of Orval. Next year, we’ll just leave the bikes at home so that we can pay a “decent” visit to the brewery!

Dries and Lynn went home on Sunday evening. Maarten, Ben and I stayed until Monday evening. By then, we were getting a little fed up of each other, so Maarten started to talk to the ducks rather than to us:

The Castle of Horst, home of Johan the Red Knight, was our last stop together:

Here, our roads split. An amazing weekend, without accidents or bad weather, with an excellent atmosphere and beautiful rides had come to an end.

Last year, we were three. This year, Dries and Lynn joined us and assured us afterwards that they would very probably come again next year. Any other volunteers will of course be very welcome too…

A Writer-Engineer’s Dilemma

2008-10-03T06:40:00.001-07:00

I haven’t had much time to write lately, but here we are again. This post is not about any topical event. Rather, it is about the musing of an engineer trying to write correctly. More specifically, about quotation marks and how they relate to other punctuation like periods and commas. So, Ellen, stop wasting your time here…

For the engineer’s viewpoint, let’s start with the mathematics. In mathematics, parentheses serve as “delimiters” of a part of an expression. Therefore, regardless of the context, the following mathematical expression can never be correct: x = [a + (3.b - c]). Ouch, it even hurts to commit this to paper. (Never mind that the parentheses are not even needed at all in this expression.) Indeed, the matching pairs of parentheses should be closed accordingly: you first have to close the parentheses ( ), and only then the brackets [ ]. Therefore, the correct expression is x = [a + (3.b – c)].

Now for the language, that is, the writer’s domain. If you think of a sentence as being “delimited” by its starting capital and its period at the end, this capital and period are the equivalent of mathematical parentheses. The same applies to quotation marks: the first pair (“) opens the quotation, the second pair (”) closes it. So far so good…

Now what happens if an engineer/mathematician tries to correctly combine quotation marks and punctuation? Upon asking the engineer, he stated, “I really prefer this form”. That is, you open the sentence with a capital (Upon), then you open and close the quotation with quotation marks, and finally you close the sentence with a period. Logically, the closing quotation marks should precede the period.

Afterwards, the engineer added, “However, I am aware that this is the correct form.” In other words, you first open the sentence, then the quotation, then you close the sentence and only afterwards you close the quotation. That would be the mathematical equivalent of stating x = [a + (3.b - c])—plainly wrong! Nevertheless, in language—at least in English—this seems to be the correct way to construct your sentence.

You could argue that the closing period matches the capital at the start of the quotation (However), and that that is why the period should be placed before the closing quotation marks. But then the only correct form would be “However, I am aware that this is the correct form.”. And that looks even more awkward, doesn’t it?

More of this? Try this site (or more specifically for this post) or the matching book—an excellent reference for writers in English:

Don’t buy it for my birthday though—I already own it. As you would have guessed…

Meatless Meatballs!

2008-09-15T02:24:00.001-07:00

1824 pictures, 1756 miles, 345 redwood trees, 71.23 gallons of gas, 53 sequoias, 23 curses for left-driving Americans, 12 drive-in Starbucks americanos, 7 bagels with cream cheese, 2 major cities and 1 bear later, we are back in Belgium.

That is, not to forget 6265.13 air miles and 1 extraordinary surprise party of course! Thanks Papa, Ann, Tom, Evi, Kris and all those present for making it such a success!

I’ve had quite some positive feedback about this blog. Some of you even asked me to keep on writing, or at least post an epilogue. I think I’ll try to do the former. However, as I prefer quality to quantity, let’s aim at one post per week.

For this week, I've been rummaging around a little in my 1800-plus pictures. Maybe soon to hit the market in Belgium: MEATLESS MEATBALLS!

Back to San Francisco along the West Coast

2008-09-05T06:23:00.001-07:00

Thursday morning, August 28. Filip has left for Belgium, Evi and I are starting the last three-day episode of our trip, returning from LA to SF along the Pacific Coast. We will cover most of the distance on Highway 1, which is supposed to be one of America’s most scenic routes…

Our first stop is Santa Barbara: another cute coastal town with the inevitable pier. On this latter, we shared a very fine “Maine lobster”. Afterwards, we played a little with the digital camera, photographing the pelicans on the pier:

Yes, I know that these animals can carry nasty diseases and no, I am actually not even touching the bird! Take a closer look and convince yourself…

In the afternoon, we continued toward San Luis Obispo. This city has a vibrant college life, as it is home to “Cal Poly,” another one of University of California’s campuses. In the evening, we strolled a little on the local farmers’ market, had dinner there, and then returned to the hotel for a good night’s sleep:

The next day, we had our breakfast in Morro Bay, named after the “Morro Rock”. Or maybe the rock is named after the bay, whatever. Anyhow, Morro rock is an impressive block of granite smack in the middle of the bay:

After a good American breakfast—omelettes and bacon, French toast and free-refill coffee—we continued toward “Hearst Castle”. William Randolph Hearst was a media tycoon and must have been one of the richest men in the World around the end of the 19th century-beginning of the 20th century. He really lived the American Dream: his father came to California, discovered silver, invested the proceeds in huge amounts of land along the Pacific coast—where huge means HUGE: they own more than 100km of coast line, pretty much all you could see from up the hill is their property. Anyhow, son Hearst became a very successful media tycoon and set about building his mansion on the family grounds. This is the outdoor swimming pool…

while this is the castle’s main entrance:

I must admit that I was a bit skeptical at first about the whole “castle” thing. But we were very happy we made the visit in the end. It is an amazing piece of architecture, exaggerated in size but pretty elegant, completely designed by one of America’s most important architects of those days, surrounded by gorgeous gardens:

After our visit, we headed for the “Big Sur” region, which stretches along the coast and encompasses many state parks with redwood groves. Along the way, we encountered a couple of seals basking in the sun on the beach:

and we visited this beautiful bay with a waterfall falling right into the ocean—it is in the picture, but you have to look closely:

We then continued to Monterey, where we spent the night in the century-old “Monterey Hotel,” but only after Evi enjoyed another Maine lobster—making the most of the cheap dollar, you know… I settled for crab this time, because even with a cheap dollar, this kind of trips and all the shopping were starting to weigh heavily on my credit cards ;-).

The next day, we visited the Monterey Aquarium. It features a three-storey high tank with, among others, huge tuna fishes and a small white shark. We couldn’t use the flash for photographing this tank though, so you get some jellyfish instead—they seemingly don’t mind being in the spotlights:

And I was allowed to use my flash on this creature, too:

At noon, we left Monterey for Santa Cruz . This is a surfer’s town with a less upscale, more laid-back attitude than Monterey. It features a classical “boardwalk”: a collection of luna parks, a roller coaster, and some other attractions:

We then continued toward San José, more or less the capital of Silicon Valley. This is its oldest house, an adobe structure from in the early days of Spanish settlement:

and this is one of its newer buildings:

I think these might be the headquarters of Adobe, a giant computer firm, probably named after the type of house in the previous picture. These modern buildings now dominate the city’s streets. You immediately notice that this is a place where a lot of money is made. The streets are very clean and pleasant with cozy restaurants, and most remarkably: there are hardly any fast food chains present here!

Afterwards, we briefly passed by Palo Alto. The atmosphere is pretty similar to San José but the city seems somewhat smaller. After a quick visit to Stanford University’s campus—huge, expensive an pretty nice—we continued to Half Moon Bay where we had the best dinner of our holiday in the Mediterranean restaurant “Café Gibraltar”.

Then we drove to the airport, slept in the car at the drop-off point until 5AM, and got our flight back to Belgium. All nice stories must come to an end…

Los Angeles

2008-09-01T01:15:00.001-07:00

On Monday, August 25, we left Sequoia National Park after a refreshing swim in the hotel pool and headed for LA. We arrived there at about 5PM and immediately set off for Venice Beach. This beach is known for its many weirdos and quirks hanging around. One of them gave me the opportunity to feel what it’s like to have 2 pythons hanging around your neck—live pythons, that is:

Why “Venice Beach”? Because back in the days, someone got the idea of creating an American Venice here, complete with canals and all:

In the evening, we went to Santa Monica. This town is pretty cozy and an ideal place for some shopping, strolling around and easy dining. Which is exactly what we did…

On Tuesday, we first spent a couple of hours on the beach in Malibu. Where San Franciscans would hang around in the park on a lazy Sunday afternoon, the Angelinos flock to their beaches en masse. Understandable, as the city itself is a vast and amorphous grid of freeways without much charm. It is even strongly discouraged to loiter in downtown after dark, as it is not safe. Therefore, downtown was not on our to-do list…

Instead, we headed for the Getty Museum in the afternoon. This beautiful museum is a little over 10 years old. It presents a well-balanced collection of paintings, sculptures, photography and other arts in an amazing setting. The buildings itself are neat pieces of modern architecture:

surrounded by lively and colorful gardens:

The Getty Museum has a pretty impressive art collection. Evi had a ball imitating some of the more peculiar pieces…

After visiting the museum, we set off for Beverly Hills. A short ride through posh neighborhoods such as Bel Air proved a little disappointing: you can only guess what the impressive villas of the World’s most famous movie stars look like, as they are all quite keen on their privacy and shelter their properties well from any nosey tourists.

On Wednesday, we witnessed a horrible scene smack in the middle of LA:

No, seriously, this is the decor of the film “War of the Worlds,” which can still be seen in Universal Studios Hollywood, the so-called “LA’s Entertainment Capital.” Seeing the studios where some major Hollywood productions were/are being shot was impressive, but far more importantly: Evi and I got to meet Shrek in person!!!

Even Filip could not resist having a picture taken with one of Woody Woodpecker’s friends, though I had to insist a little…

It was already getting dark when we left Universal Studios. Anyhow, we couldn’t return to the hotel for dinner before making this last quick picture…

On Thursday morning I dropped Filip off at the airport for his return to Belgium. Evi and I set off for our last three days, returning from LA to San Francisco. As usual by now, you will get that part with a little delay…

Sequoia National Park

2008-08-28T10:54:00.001-07:00

No time for writing…

When: August 24, 2008
Where: Sequoia National Park, CA, USA
What: huge trees, stunning views, amazing nature (continued)

Filip and me driving through a sequoia: the “tunnel log”:

Evi and me sitting in the roots of another dead sequoia:

By the way, these giants don’t die from disease or age, but they topple over after a while—although this while might be more than 2000 years….

And this boy is the biggest tree in the World (in volume, not in height):

You basically feel like an ant in these groves…

Not only impressive flora here, however. We spotted this bear in the wild:

Don’t worry, Mum, I took this picture with our new impressive 300mm tele-lens, so we kept our distance ;-)

Okay, that’s it for Sequoia National Park. We are now leaving LA after three days here. Expect news on that later…

Yosemite National Park

2008-08-25T00:36:00.001-07:00

Boy oh boy! On Thursday, 21st of August, Evi, Filip and I set off from Berkeley to Yosemite National Park. Briefly: [(Yosemite + Sequoia National Park)/4 days].(Nikon D40 SLR) = (fun AND amazement)^3…

On our way from SF to Yosemite National Park we made a quick stop in Sacramento, the capital of California. Logically, the city houses the state capitol:

Inside the capitol, we saw the office of Arnold Schwarzenegger, currently the governor of California. However, Arnie “The Governator” wasn’t there. Probably he already returned to LA, where he lives. I can understand why he leaves office so early: it’s a commute of roughly 620 km (he does it every day), so you’d better leave on time if you want to be in time for dinner…

Then for our visit of Yosemite on Friday: what’s the Chinese proverb about the 1 picture and the 1000 words again? Have a look yourself… Stunning views:

Amazing wildlife, both big…

and small:

so you can really put a tele-lens to good use:

In late Summer, all falls are reduced to a trickle—that is, compared to what they are in Spring:

with special thanks to Philip for lending me his wide-angle lens:

We concluded our 6-hour hike with a refreshing swim in a unique decor to escape from the afternoon’s heat:

(The two tiny dots in the bottom right corner are Evi and me…)

I could still put my other 10.000 pictures in this post, but you would probably exceed your Internet provider’s volume limitations in trying to view them all. Expect some news from Sequoia National Park in a couple of days…

Picture-post…

2008-08-21T00:42:00.001-07:00

Last Friday evening, Evi arrived in San Francisco. We have started our very busy holiday-programme, so there won’t be much time left for me to write. I’ll let the pictures do the talking…

On Saturday, we visited Berkeley’s Farmers’ Market together:

On Sunday, we visited San Francisco. This picture was taken with our new digital SLR camera, with a shutter speed of 2 seconds:

On Monday, we went to Sonoma Valley in Wine Country. There, I reserved a horseback-riding trip for the two of us:

Oh yes, I mounted that horse voluntary! In the afternoon, we visited one of Sonoma’s wineries:

and its caves:

On Monday evening, Filip joined us in Berkeley. He will travel with us for one week and a half. On Tuesday, we went back to SF all together. In Chinatown, we saw a “fortune-cookie factory”:

In the afternoon, we visited Alcatraz, where I put Evi behind bars for a while:

In the evening, we went to The Mission for a couple of cocktails and a fine dinner. The cocktails were good, the alternative might even have been better:

On Wednesday finally, we went to Napa Valley. More vineyards:

more wine tasting:

and finally some real Californian sunshine for Filip and Evi:

Next on the agenda are Yosemite, Sequoia National Park and LA. Expect some new pictures by next weekend…

Stuart Little

2008-08-15T12:53:00.001-07:00

By now, Evi should be waiting for her connecting flight in Washington, D.C., about to swap rain for sunshine. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that she will ever read this blog post. Finally, I can share a little secret with my eager readers: I have not passed all my nights in Berkeley alone…

An evening a couple of weeks ago, I was working in my room. All was quiet and calm, except for the occasional rustling that I attributed to the leaves of the bushes under of my window. I felt like I deserved a cold beer for the good work of that evening, so I headed for the kitchen. With all the environmentalism here in California, I didn’t want to switch on the lights, so my path lay in darkness…

Upon entering the kitchen, I suddenly heard a panicky scuffling on the shelves right next to me. A very hasty being hit a couple of jars—bing, bing—rushed past some plastic bags—rustle, rustle—to finally—pouf—drop on the floor and escape into the darkness!

Jeez, I must admit that my heartbeat skyrocketed! And to confirm the cliché: if only there had been some light and a chair nearby, I most probably would have jumped upon it. Seriously, that was my first reflex. To complete the picture, if I had been wearing a skirt, I would probably have lifted it well above my knees.

That was my first encounter with Stuart Little. Ever since, I can often hear him nibbling away at the cardboard boxes in the kitchen. Therefore, every morning I check whether my cereal-box is still intact, which so far was always the case. If he touched my food, the house might be too small for the two of us—oh no, Joey doesn’t share food! But he seems to prefer Hilary’s nuts to my cereals, so why bother?

Yesterday evening, I finally got to actually see him. I was cooking, and suddenly he decided to make his way from one side of the kitchen to the other, probably going out for dinner behind the stove. However, in doing so, he also gave away his hideout:

The hole was probably made for a tube or something, and Stuart Little put it to good use after it became unnecessary.

Evi and I will still pass a couple of nights in Berkeley before we leave for Yosemite National Park. That’s why I couldn’t tell this story while she was still in Belgium. Imagine that she refused to share the house with Stuart wandering around at night!

Now here’s my dilemma. Should I tell Hilary and the others about Stuart’s hole? On the one hand, Stuart has been eating Hilary’s nuts for quite a while now and this situation will sooner or later lead to conflicts. But then again, Stuart and I also shared some very passionate moments in the last weeks (if you measure the degree of passion in heartbeats per minute, probably on both sides) so I cannot just give him up, now can I? Maybe they are going to use napalm or cluster bombs on his nest…

Let’s put it to a vote. If you think I should tell Hilary about the hole, then add a comment to this post stating “YES,” followed by a convincing reason that can ease my conscience. If you think I shouldn’t, say “NO,” followed by a good excuse that I can use later when Hilary will no doubt blame me for not having told her, after grandpa Stuart and his extended family had a serious party in the kitchen or something.

Why UC Berkeley?

2008-08-13T21:25:00.001-07:00

My internship at UC Berkeley is coming to an end. Next Friday, Evi will arrive and we will travel through California for two weeks by car.

However, I promised you in a previous post to explain in a little more detail what I have been doing here. Let’s skip that—I will write a paper about it and gladly share it with you if you insist—and address a more general and far more simple question: why UC Berkeley?

In fact, this picture says it all:

No, “NL” does not mean that the Dutch can park their cars here for free. Rather, it stands for “Nobel Laureate.” Indeed, so far, UC Berkeley has 20 faculty members and 24 alumni with a Nobel prize…

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a Nobel prize for engineering. But still, try to Google for instance “engineering university ranking,” or add “electrical” if you want to be more specific. On average—considering this, this, this and this site for instance—we could more or less agree on this being a realistic top-3 of engineering universities in the World:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
University of California-Berkeley

where Stanford and Berkeley are often rated ex aequo.

Ouch, that’s quite enough for some serious boasting here! In fact, it turns out that I did not even contribute to all this: apparently, Berkeley was already in all those rankings before I arrived…

So let me just conclude that UC Berkeley has a very fine engineering department and some pretty bright minds hanging around. Cooperating with some of these researchers—first and foremost with professor Bahai—was a very enriching experience, and provided invaluable input for my PhD project. Moreover, it was a unique opportunity to discover the culture and dynamism of one of the World's foremost high-tech regions, where a close cooperation between academia and industry spurs innovation and creativity as nowhere else.

Would I do it again if they asked me to? Definitely…

Berkeley’s Farmers’ Market

2008-08-10T23:40:00.001-07:00

As promised last weekend, I will write this weekend about what I did back then… Don’t worry: I didn’t do anything special this weekend: just wrapping up things, preparing for Evi’s arrival next Friday and putting the finishing touches to our planned journey of the last two weeks of August. Therefore, from next weekend onwards, I hope to be more or less up-to-date again…

On Saturday, August 2nd, I went to visit Berkeley’s Farmers’ Market with Sofie, Bart and a couple of people who came over from San Francisco. And guess what: Barack was there, too:

On the face of it, this market is comparable to what we know in Belgium:

However, in general, the produce sold here is more fancy and upscale: all organic vegetables:

beautiful flowers:

fancy apple cider—I would call it “apple juice” but then again, that might not sell as well:

decent bread—exceptional in the US, which is why you pay for it so dearly…

and finally, “squash,” a sort of vegetable comparable to eggplant that we don’t have in Belgium but is pretty popular over here:

In general, I felt the atmosphere to be more “recreational” than “functional,” as you could tell from the musicians all over the place:

After a delicious Thai “red snapper” lunch, I saw this lady who obviously took her careful biking seriously:

A bike helmet with lights attached to it! Only in Berkeley… Anyhow, after visiting the market we still hung around a bit and met this utterly charming couple:

She is a Mexican-Californian teacher—how could I ever meet one without giving in to their charm? ;-) She chattered away in her perfect teacher-English, every now and then throwing in some Spanish phrase “like we would say in Mexico,” really refreshing!

As for the old man—which might express physical age, but certainly not mental decline in his case—he was not smiling for the picture. I don’t think he would ever consider wasting his time doing anything else than smiling, with those twinkling stars in his eyes. Believe me, you couldn’t stay for 10 minutes in his company feeling bad. He was infectious… He was special too: a real San Franciscan of over 50 years old! You only seem to meet young people in SF. I guess you come here to work, but once you are retired, there is no more reason to stay and pay the skyrocketing rents…

In the evening then, we had dinner in “Little Baobab,” an African restaurant in The Mission with nice cocktails:

After the meal, they would just remove all chairs and tables and start dancing. In no time, the place was literally reshaped into an exuberant party-hole.

Because of all the dancing—and the cocktails, I must confess—all I needed the day after was a lazy Sunday. And that’s pretty much what I got, so no more news for now…

Bike Wars!

2008-08-07T11:35:00.001-07:00

For those who remember my “bike-accident blog post,” a recent update of the situation from The Economist…

Thanks for pointing me to this article, Nicolas!

America, Not Belgium: Wooden Houses

2008-08-06T09:49:00.001-07:00

“Honey, I told you not to put the barbeque too close to the house!”

I think this might be one of the reasons why you hardly see any wooden houses in Belgium…

Shooting the “Berkeley Marina” and “Fourth Street Shopping District”

2008-08-03T22:32:00.001-07:00

I’m lagging behind a bit with my blogging, so in this post you get what I have been doing the weekend before last weekend…

On Saturday, July 26, I went to the Berkeley Marina to play a bit with my newly-acquired Nikon D40 SLR camera. It is an amazing digital photo camera with interchangeable lenses. However, you have to learn how to handle it so my pictures might actually be worse than before for now. I hope to change this in the future…

Anyhow, on my way to the marina, I encountered this bagpipe-player next to the railroad:

If you have ever heard one of those things from nearby, you know why the guy was practicing here rather than in his apartment.

After some more camera-experiments in this industrial quarter, I continued towards the actual marina:

As one would expect from a marina, they have boats…

boat houses…

and painters!

By then, I was getting pretty hungry and I just couldn’t resist the smell of this guy’s barbeque:

so I had a one of his “steak burgers.” Just delicious! If an American sells you a hamburger—bar in an ordinary fast-food place—there is pride involved. This one was no exception: juicy meat, crisp onions, crusty bread and a luscious sauce. Getting hungry there at the other side of the screen?

Back to the photo-taking then. Another advantage of an SLR camera: these things are fast. When you press the shutter-release button, the picture is instantaneously taken. This allowed me to capture these playing (?) squirrels:

And yes, they belong on this blog because you see lots of these buddies all over the place. In Belgium you hardly ever get to see them, and if you do, it is probably in a forest—or at least what we call a forest in Belgium… Anyhow, in the US they really abound everywhere.

That day, there was a kite-festival going on at the marina:

Okay, it would have been nicer with a clear blue sky, but you get the idea. There were some amazing kites, obviously handled by Chinese—they adore kiting—as you can see from this dragon:

And yes, that flag in the background is actually a kite too…

By then I was getting a little cold—this place is very windy, and the Sun stayed away—so it was time for a nice cup of coffee. I found it in this coffee house in the “4th Street Shopping District,” next to the marina:

You can say what you want about Starbucks and the like, but I love them. On top of my coffee, I got a chat with this “US Merchant Marine at War” veteran, Dan, who asked me the time, noticed my accent and wondered if he could join me for a while:

He served in WWII as a “merchant marine” which means that he was a sailor on the ships that supplied Great Britain with all kinds of goods. It was a highly dangerous job, as their boats were sunk by the dozen by German submarines. However, these marines never got the benefits and compensations from their government that other soldiers did get. Dan still fights for this cause, and he maintains this site to promote it.

On my way back home, I still saw this bus:

Funny to see what people do to their cars here…

So far my last weekend. I will try and post what I did this weekend before next weekend. Got it?

Berkeley Bizarre: The Fishmobile

2008-07-30T11:16:00.001-07:00

Berkeley is no longer the hotbed for leftish politics that it used to be. However, hippies and homeless can still be found in a higher concentration than elsewhere, as well as the smell of weed in the street. Therefore, I wanted to make “Berkeley Bizarre” a returning topic, covering “odd” things that I encounter in the streets. As I will only be three more weeks in Berkeley however, this plan might never really materialize…

Anyhow, consider this “Fishmobile” for instance, that I encountered yesterday while running:

I don’t have the faintest idea of which purpose it should serve, or about the motives of its owner to create such a masterpiece, but anyhow it looked quite cozy inside:

I didn’t want to linger on too long to take more detailed pictures. In the end, that might have looked a bit… fishy.

America, not Belgium: Danger!

2008-07-27T12:24:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, Americans seem a little obsessed with risks in daily life, especially when it concerns their health. I found this one at the entry of a supermarket. It doesn’t need too much explanation I guess:

Rockin’ in Aantwaarpe!

2008-07-23T09:50:00.001-07:00

No more San Francisco this time, but time for a flashback to Antwerp! As some of you know, my sister got married in the month of May. My father, brothers and I set up some sort of “family-surprise-rock-band” and played a couple of songs on her wedding. And yes, my dear friends, this blog is proud to bring you an exclusive preview of our whole set…

So crank up the volume, hit the play button, boost the movie to full screen and dig this!

Crazy Little Thing Called Love from Flaming Philip on Vimeo.

In the movie, you might have recognized my father at the bass, my brother Tom at the mike, my other brother Bruno dealing with the drums and me handling that gorgeous Fender Stratocaster lead guitar…

After this song we played “You don’t know me” from Milow and “Nothing else matters” from Metallica. (If you should check out the latter’s site: these guys might be better than us, but for sure they are also far more ugly!)

To view the other songs of our set, just click on the link under the movie and browse the other movies by Flaming Philip, our professional photographer/movie maker—thanks again, Phil! For those too lazy to click through to the movies, allow me to put my second favorite here, the last song of our set:

Rockin' In The Free World from Flaming Philip on Vimeo.

Oh Lord, what about that ending! Ain’t we rockin’ the place! Actually, this video was cut at the end because women of all ages just invaded the stage—a little embarrassing, and certainly not suited for this blog. One of them even tried to steal my boxer shorts, can you imagine? So, although we are clearly not short of groupies, you might want to leave your profile information in the comments, you never know!

And of course, please do lavish your praise for them funky bass lines, those compelling vocals, these thrilling drum riffs and that fat guitar solos on us in the comments…

More SF: Chinatown, North Beach, Russian Hill and Batman in IMAX…

2008-07-21T21:37:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday morning, Jimmy, some guys from the lab and I went to see “Batman: The Dark Knight” in an IMAX movie theater in SF. IMAX means that he screen is HUGE and curved such that it fills your whole view, with sound coming from behind the screen. Quite impressive…

Afterwards, we went for lunch in “The Stinking Rose,” an Italian “garlic restaurant” in North Beach:

The whole menu is built on garlic—enormous amounts of it. They even have “garlic ice cream” for dessert! We tried it, and it was not bad actually. Maybe because our taste buds were already completely saturated by then…

After lunch, I went to visit Chinatown. I entered by the gate on Bush Street:

It’s a colorful quarter that really makes you feel a little in China:

Compared to the ones of New York and Honolulu, SF’s Chinatown is pretty clean and open. Maybe that is because of the busloads of tourists that descend on the main street—Grant Avenue—every day. However, even the back alleys were clean and quiet, without the touristy crowd:

You can tell that you are dealing with “real Chinese” here from the old men playing Mahjong in the streets, giving the finishing touch to the China-atmosphere:

After visiting Chinatown, I returned to North Beach, the city’s Italian quarter. I certainly want to return here to sample some of the myriad of cozy Italian restaurants.

However, after our garlic-lunch I could not stand lingering too long in this neighborhood any more, so I continued along Columbus Avenue towards Russian Hill, a primarily residential neighborhood with some incredibly steep hills and matching views:

This is the quarter where you can find the famous “Lombard Street.” It is so incredibly steep that cars’ brakes used to give up on it every now and then, with tragic consequences. Therefore, the city decided to add some artificial curves to it, which makes the street so unique. The Sun was already low when I got there, and I could not manage to make decent pictures from the street, but if you look it up on Google maps, you can use “street view” to take a virtual walk around there:

View Larger Map

Then, it was time to go home again…

If You’re Going to San Francisco…

2008-07-17T10:03:00.001-07:00

Okay, do not read on below the movie yet! Just turn on your sound, push the play button of the YouTube movie clip below and watch the song until the end…

I will first insert a completely irrelevant picture here such that you will not even glance further down during the song: these are the elevator buttons of the lab:

And this is what I have done to them while waiting for the elevator, after figuring out that they were not fixed:

Fun to watch people hesitate before choosing the right button! ;-)

Anyhow, back to the song. For those who did not make it until the middle of the song and for those who did make it until the end, but are not very familiar with the World’s Epicenter’s cultural heritage, this is where the movie clip was recorded:

View Larger Map

In Aantwaarpe nondedju! I will gladly offer a “Keuninckske” on a “terraske oep de Groenplaats” to the first one to explain this queer coincidence to me in the comments!

Another Day in SF: The Mission, The Castro, Twin Peaks and Golden Gate Park

2008-07-14T09:31:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday I spent another day in San Francisco. I took my bike on BART and got off at 16th St. Mission Station. The Mission District takes its name from the oldest building in the city, Mission Dolores, built by the Spanish in the late 1700s. However, nowadays the adjoining basilica is far more impressive:

The Mission is a lively and colorful neighborhood, well known for its hundreds of colorful murals, one of the most impressing ones being on the Women’s Building:

However, probably the most peculiar fact about The Mission is that it is so ethnically diverse. Latinos dominate, but Chinese also abound and Italians are never far off either. And unlike in the other American districts I have already visited, here all these cultures are seamlessly integrated. This is quite strikingly illustrated in this picture—pay attention to the restaurant signs:

Even the cars in the streets contribute to the unique atmosphere:

Anyhow, after loitering about for a while in Dolores Park—where we had our 4th of July picnic—I moved on to the next district: The Castro. This district is the epicenter of SF’s sizable gay community, which you can tell from the color of some houses: ;-)

After The Castro, I went on to climb the Twin Peaks, or at least one of them. I had already experienced that covering distances by bike in SF can be deceiving, as the maps in my guidebook do not show elevation contours. However, this climb still surprised me a little… It was really worth while though, as on top of the peaks you have an impressive view on the whole city:

The straight road, clearly visible in the picture, is Market Street. It leads into the financial district with all the skyscrapers. Behind it is the Embarcadero. On the other side of the peak, I could just discern the Golden Gate in the distance:

However, the typically San Franciscan fog—no smog thanks to the ever-present ocean breeze/wind/gale—makes it hard to see. After descending from the Twin Peaks, I continued towards the Golden Gate Park, SF’s largest, which is more than 5 km long. In the park, I visited the Conservatory of Flowers:

This conservatory is home to thousands of exotic plants:

and some butterflies:

The park is not only huge, it is also perfectly maintained and has innumerable quiet, scenic spots with water and beautiful trees:

I don’t know if you could get enough of it soon—I couldn’t…

Having traversed the whole park from East to West, I finally arrived at Ocean Beach:

There, I turned northwards where I still saw some stunning cliffs:

and crossed the last district of the day, The Richmond, following Clement Street all the way back to the east. Here, I found out that there is actually a New Chinatown growing, with Clement Street as its hart. Considering that the old one is already the biggest in the World, that says something about the Chinese population here…

I returned to Berkeley, tired, hungry and a despite all sunscreen a little sunburned, but utterly satisfied and ready to tackle a new week!

Good Food: Ethiopian

2008-07-10T10:15:00.001-07:00

Last week, Jimmy’s girlfriend Angelique joined us for two weeks. We celebrated her arrival in an Ethiopian restaurant:

By the way, if anyone can tell me how to are supposed to make good pictures of black people in the dark, please do share it in the comments. Either you use your flash and they are all shiny, or you don’t and you just see one big smile. ;-)

The meal in the next picture is not just a huge American portion:

but a regular Ethiopian meal, which is—like in a lot of Sub-Saharan cultures as Jimmy told me—served on one big plate in the middle of the table, from which you all eat together. And no, I am not being impolite, you are really supposed to eat the food with your hands. However, if everyone is really hungry, this can lead to rather embarrassing scenes…

Last weekend, Jimmy and Angelique were out for a couple of days, whereas Alex has left for a holiday in Europe. In the meanwhile, I was surviving on less noble food:

Not just cheeseburgers, mind you, but microwaveable cheeseburgers! I know, old habits die hard…

Independence Day Weekend

2008-07-08T10:39:00.001-07:00

Last Friday was the fourth of July—Independence Day—which meant a prolonged weekend. On Friday, I went to a picnic in Dolores Park with Tom, his girlfriend Jen, and a bunch of people I never met before. Picnicking is really popular here: everyone brings something to eat or drink and you just hang out for a couple of hours talking, playing cards, frisbeeing and what more. The weather was beautiful so the park was pretty busy:

Around 6 PM we returned to Tom’s place. Tom only moved from Atlanta to SF a couple of weeks ago. Therefore, he still lives in a temporary apartment rented by his company. The complex includes a heated outdoor pool with Jacuzzi, a sort of “mini-cinema” with a HUGE flat screen, but far more importantly: a pool table…

We decided on playing a couple of rounds, not aware that a Chinese inhabitant of the complex had planned a party in the entertainment area. (Afterwards we found out that he had actually reserved the place for it, so we really “crashed” his party—albeit unknowingly.) I think he had invited about half the Chinese population of SF, and that means a lot of people: the Chinese were “imported” by the thousands to work on the transcontinental railroad in the late 1800s. They stuck around ever since, which is why SF has the largest Chinatown in the world.

So there we were in the middle of this merry crowd of partying Chinese. We decided to play pool in teams of two, Tom and I played together. The winning team would always stay on for the next game, the loser was to be replaced by a new team. With an enormous amount of luck Tom and I stayed on for about 7 games, after which—still unbeaten—we “generously” gave our position away. By then we were amply supplied with beers, Korean BBQ, hamburgers and excellent roast beef by the impressed Chinese.

Shortly after dark, you are supposed to go and see the fireworks for Independence Day. However, San Francisco is often pretty cloudy with a fireworks-visibility factor approaching zero. Therefore, Tom and I decided we could just as well spend our time on some more practice—a little quieter this time as all the Chinese were out:

After a while the Chinese came pouring back in. By the time we planned to leave, the beer had rendered most of the chatter into Chinese. Upon leaving, I could just not resist asking them “为什么你们说汉语?”—I know, vanity… ;-) Anyhow, the effect was startling. The crowd went nuts, I had to tell them were I studied Chinese, why on Earth I started it, if I had already been to China, what I thought about it and so on and on. Never before have I been offered so many beers in such a short time span. I’m definitely going to use this trick this again—next time I will just think about it a little earlier in the evening…

Consequently, you can understand that Saturday was bound to be a quiet and lazy affair. By Sunday anyhow, I was ready to discover another piece of SF. I had an appointment with Reya to pay both Jimmy’s and my rent. As we had agreed to pay cash, and as the ATM machines only deliver 20-dollar bills here, I went there with this huge wad in my pockets: $1700 in small notes, go figure… We met on 2nd and Market and decided that it would not be wise to make the transaction in the street. So we found a quite, dusky corner in the nearest Starbucks—which was obviously not far off. There I shoved the wad, folded in a paper, towards Reya for her to count it—again such a “movie-moment.” We had to recount three times each before we were finally convinced that it was the right amount, but then the case was settled and I could go on discovering.

I started off at Union Square, the area where most major hotels are situated and therefore the place to be if you want to do some serious shopping:

Then I passed by the Yerba Buena Gardens, where an open-air opera concert was going on:

It was an amazing spectacle—in a truly unique environment:

After a quick burrito in one of those small “taquerias,” I continued to Civic Center, where SF’s town hall is situated:

In this neighborhood you can also find some charming bookstore annex coffee shop places. The urge was too strong: I went in and bought On The Road by Jack Kerouac—if I was ever to read it, the moment could not have been better. I spent about an hour reading the first chapters with a nice espresso. However, I promised myself that this was the last book I bought in a “physical” bookstore as on Amazon.com they only cost approximately half as much…

Afterwards I wandered around a little by bike, amazed by the abundance of charming, beautiful houses:

I really did not expect this kind of homes in a huge city like SF:

Anyhow, on I went, down Van Ness Avenue towards the Bay. Tom warned me that Fisherman’s Wharf is really a tourist scam and I cannot deny that. Compared to the rest of the city it is really super- and artificial. However, I did like the sight of the sea lions basking in the sun at Pier 39:

And I must admit that, for all its kitsch, this little floating restaurant looked quite cozy for a waterfront candle-lit dinner:

Anyhow, it was not for me to try that evening as Tom and Jen called me to come over and have dinner in the “21st Amendment”: a bar/restaurant with its own micro-brewery:

After dinner I passed by the Embarcadero for a last glance of the Bay Bridge by night:

and then I hopped on the BART to return to Berkeley. Another exciting weekend in SF had come to an end…

John Will Rambo

2008-07-05T14:49:00.001-07:00

Sensitive readers, beware! This post might not be suited for you.

You are probably all too familiar with the following scenes in an average Hollywood action movie. A hero has just been shot cowardly in the back by a brutal villain, but then manages to escape by elegantly wire-starting a car and swiftly shaking off his enemies—who got hold of a car by brutally dragging an innocent driver from it—in a breathtaking pursuit. However, as our hero is hiding for the police because of a major conspiracy including a dozen U.S. senators and a Russian cold-blooded serial killer at loose, he cannot just walk into the nearest hospital’s intensive care unit and ask for a decent treatment.

No, our hero will have to take care of himself. (He cannot ask his dazzling girlfriend for any help either, as this would seriously endanger her. Moreover, his best—black—mate has just disappeared mysteriously because of some shady love affair. The colleagues at his agency aren’t any good either: some are compromised and there is a breach in the agency’s security network so that his profile has been widely spread on the Internet now, scaring away the remaining ones who he could possibly still have trusted.)

Therefore, at dusk he walks into one of these American pharmacy ‘supermarkets’ (open 24/7) with his hat drawn deep over his face and goes like: “I’m gonna need two liters of pure alcohol, a couple of sterile scalpels, a pair of pliers, a box of cotton wool, five candles, matches and oh yeah, throw in a bottle of vodka too! Actually, make that two bottles.” Afterwards, our hero withdraws to a dimly-lit, shabby room somewhere in a backward neighborhood to set about the horrifying task of removing the bullet, himself being on the brink of collapse as can be clearly seen from the sweat pearling on his pale forehead.

That’s more or less what I’ve been through lately—although the context was slightly different. Due to my minor accident of last Sunday, my left big toe (that is, the one on my left foot, which happens to be the rightmost toe on that foot, which, however, does not make it any less my left big toe) was still severely swollen. The problem—and this is a nasty detail which might be skipped by the aforementioned sensitive reader—was that a lot of fluid was captured under my toe nail. And that pressure hurts—badly. (It occurred to me that the guy who came up with pulling out nails as a torture method in the Dark Ages must have been in a similar situation.)

Anyhow, consulting the Internet quickly turned up the right remedy: heating a needle until it is glowing red, and simply poking a hole in the nail such that the fluid is drained. On YouTube you can actually even find some demonstrations of this technique.

If by now you have lost the parallel with the above described movie scenes: I did not want to go to the hospital for nothing as I rather spend my money elsewhere, my girlfriend couldn’t do it as she is some 10.000 km away, Jimmy left with his girlfriend Angelique for L.A. and Las Vegas and my colleagues? Honestly, have you read my previous post?

So there I was in the kitchen, at 1 Am, gathering enough courage to stab this red-hot needle through my toe nail. I left out the vodka as I had to go to work the day after, so no sedatives for me. However, I was not yet familiar with the technique. Therefore, I did not know how much pressure to apply to get through the nail, at the same time not applying too much pressure because under the nail was still my toe… Anyhow, I managed it quite well in the end.

Remains the pharmacy. I needed chloramine to disinfect the foot and ibuprofen pills to further reduce the risk of infection. So I limped to ‘Walgreens,’ one of those supermarket-pharmacies. However, the pharmacist behind the counter had never before heard of chloramine, although I think that it is a pretty common molecule. So I asked for a similar product, anything that you can dissolve into water to disinfect. However, such a thing did not exist to her knowledge. Explaining her that I did know that it existed because I remembered having read about it a thousand times between my ages 7 and 13 in my ‘SAS survival book’ (pink pills, one per liter water to disinfect it for drinking, two to render the water safe for cleaning wounds and three to obtain an antiseptic solution—I am not sure about these details, so don’t try it at home) did not help either. Finally I ended up buying some regular disinfectant that I guessed would do the trick.

The ibuprofen though is another story: yes, they did have that. Aisle 7. This did not mean that the ibuprofen could be found in aisle 7. No, aisle 7 is the ibuprofen aisle:

I do not have a wide-angle camera so I could not capture the whole expanse of ibuprofen products but believe me: there were a lot of them. So I set about picking the right one—somewhere knowing that it was all exactly the same molecule, even ‘Advil’ and ‘Motrin,’ which are just brand names, and I suspect ‘Tylenol’ to be more of the same too.

Concluding, quite a contrast between the absence of what should be a rather dull and common compound, and the abundance of a best-selling product with which you can fill a whole aisle.

Anyhow, my toe seems to be fine now, and I have a new story for long cafe-evenings and family-gatherings. However, I see that I have written a quite extensive post here. I promise to be a little bit more succinct in the future…

A Look Inside the Lab…

2008-07-03T08:09:00.001-07:00

I have shown the U.C. Berkeley campus in one of my previous posts. More specifically, Jimmy and I are working in the Connectivity Lab, a lab ‘bridging theoretical concepts and design issues in communications.’ There you go! If I get an overwhelming surge of requests for more details about the actual research we are doing here, I might write about it in a future post. If I don’t get any requests at all, I will certainly bother you with a more extensive survey.

This is the lab’s entry door:

Quite a door aye? No, I just include this picture here to point out that every piece of infrastructure, every room, lab, building, or even campus bears the name of a most generous sponsor or of an important scientist related to the university. Most often the former, though in this case the latter.

Today is a good moment to have a look inside, because our 60 GHz test chips have just arrived:

The left one is the transmitter, the right one the receiver. Or the other way around. Whatever. This was quite an exiting moment, so all the nerds wanted a picture:

Yep, still more of the same but in another different color…

This last picture is of Guangrong Yue, a postdoc from Chengdu who is heading the 60 GHz activities in the Connectivity Lab.

By the way, talking of nerds, this is how Wikipedia defines them: “Nerd is a term often bearing a derogatory connotation or stereotype, that refers to a person who passionately pursues intellectual activities, esoteric knowledge, or other obscure interests that are age inappropriate rather than engaging in more social or popular activities. Therefore, a nerd is often excluded from physical activity and considered a loner by peers.” This definition is a little more accessible, though inevitably also less accurate: “A person with limited social, but advanced technological skills and interests.” The most accurate one however, must be this one: “A nerd is very similar to a geek, but with more RAM and a faster modem. Nerds often find geeks dull because geeks don't spend enough time talking about computers.”

Anyhow, we still have Carl, the director of the lab:

and Ian, a graduate student who is always very obliging whenever Jimmy or I have a practical problem:

Indeed, a lot of Asian people, although Carl and Ian are as American as it gets. Most of the time however, Jimmy and I are in our office, not in the lab:

together with Jiwoong, another graduate student who is working here towards his PhD:

The two most important people for our project are missing: Sofie Pollin and professor Ahmad Bahai. Sofie is currently in Belgium for two weeks, but probably you have already seen her in previous posts. As for Ahmad, I have not yet dared to ask for a picture with him ;-). Maybe if the internship is a real success, you will encounter him later on this blog…

King Car and Dick the Driver

2008-07-01T11:05:00.001-07:00

Wide roads here in Berkeley. Wide enough to let two gas-guzzlers pass and on top of that accommodate the occasional biker you would think. Dead wrong, as I had to experience Sunday afternoon.

Jimmy and I were riding our bikes along University Avenue, heading for the Berkeley Marina. When I passed the parked truck in the picture—while staying nicely in my lane—, I was hit by one of those dangerously oversized ‘vans,’ made some spectacular leaps and bounds and ended up on the asphalt…

Don’t worry—I’m fine. Some bruises, a painful knee, a bloody toe and slightly damaged hands aside I can really consider myself lucky not to have hit anything with my head. No serious material damage either, just some scratches on my bike and clothes.

But then again, it didn’t feel very good. The driver pulled over—he must somehow have noticed that his metal monster had brushed alongside some rare road-occupant that should not have been within its perimeter. He turned out to be a slightly retarded nincompoop—I admit having had to look up the specific vocabulary here. If it wasn’t for his motorized vehicle and undetermined though clearly 20th century-headgear, he could just have emerged from his cave, growling at the unwelcome intruders. If you would ever like to encounter one of these dopes here in their natural habitat, rest assured. They are not about to become extinct yet: a second creature soon emerged from the vehicle. At first sight it showed a striking resemblance to the driver in both body mass and way of moving about, but later it turned out to be female. Their mutual grunting suggested that they had already mastered some form of communication, albeit a very rude and basic one.

Interaction with these simpletons would prove difficult, as I realized once I had more or less recovered from the first shock. Luckily, a witness showed up and made a quick and clear analysis of the situation. Not “You look pale, maybe you should sit down for a while!” or “Are you sure you don’t want me to call an ambulance?” No, the diagnosis was clear: if I was going to sue the driver, I would probably have to prove that he hit me, not the other way around. And that would be very hard. The moron driver endorsed this with some resigned nodding. Very hard indeed. If anything, he could probably sue me for the scratches that my bike’s handlebars made in his car.

Moreover, the nitwit lady helpfully mentioned that it was illegal to ride a bike without a light—in plain daylight, after her husband just smashed the light off my bike by hitting me with his four-letter-wording-tank. I was flabbergasted. At that moment, I must confess, I was inclined to support the idea that one should be free to carry a firearm anywhere, anytime, to quickly and properly settle this kind of disputes.

Fortunately, the lawyer was not far off. An uncle of Alex explained to me that I could sue the driver up to two years after the accident, if it should turn out that I had to go to the doctor in the end. I could better wait and see how my bruises evolved. Himself a fervent biker, he confirmed that riding a bike here was tricky business.

The attitude that exists in Belgium towards ‘fragile road users’ is just not present here. However, it seems to be badly needed if you want to let pedestrians and bikers participate safely in traffic. You cannot just rely on people’s common sense telling them to leave a little room for bikers or to just wait with overtaking them until they have safely passed a parked truck. Sofie told me that an angry driver once shouted “Get off my road!” at her husband while he was biking. These eruptions give away a deeper mentality that apparently takes years to change.

I have been riding my bike in quite busy traffic to school for 3 years, to university for 5 years and to work for another 3 years. I only got hit once in all those years. It’s not that I drive like a fool. It’s not that I am not aware of the risks. Bikes are just not supposed to be on the roads here. Car is king, the rest should consider themselves lucky if they can find a free spot.

The thing is, traffic seems very courteous and calm here, and that turned out to be deceptive. Last month I was in Beijing. There, you know that the streets are governed by the law of the strongest: trucks overrule cars overrule bikes overrule pedestrians. It’s as simple as that. If you follow this rule, you might emerge unharmed, although I would think twice before riding a bike there. The situation here is far more deceptive: no honking, no sudden yanks at the steering wheel, no crossing red lights and no squeezing out the last drop of performance of your engine to make that green light. But no inherent attention towards bikers or pedestrians either. These roads were built for cars and so far they remain dominated by them.

Maybe these are not the kind of stories one is supposed to put on a blog. But then again, the scratches of a sharp pen give more satisfaction than those of my bike’s handlebars in the driver’s car. If I don’t think of my painful leg or my damaged bike, I can already laugh at the situation. And finally, this time you will feel pretty obliged to leave a short note in the comments, no?

America, Not Belgium: Food Labels

2008-06-27T21:01:00.001-07:00

This will probably also become a returning topic on this blog: small things in daily life that remind you that you are in the U.S. and definitely not in Belgium.

One of those things are food labels and the messages they carry: from the pretty comprehensible ones like ‘organic’, ‘non-fat’, ‘calcium enriched’ and ‘zero sodium’ over the slightly more cryptic ones like ‘no trans fatty acids’ until the downright incomprehensible ones like ‘no partially hydrogenated shortening,’ it seems like every product has to carry at least one message about how it is going to improve your life… Sometimes it’s really as if you were shopping in a pharmacy rather than in a food store.

But then one thing you cannot really say a big deal about would be fruit, right? Not really…:

Baseball Game

2008-06-26T09:55:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday evening, Hilary, Alex, Jimmy and I went to see a baseball game: the Oakland Athletics—the A’s—versus the Philadelphia Phillies. We took the BART to get to the McAfee Coliseum, the home stadium of the A’s

and started off with a beer and some pretzels:

From our seats, we had a really good view on the game:

The A’s were playing at home. As Oakland is right next to Berkeley, they were ‘our team.’ Unfortunately, they didn’t perform very well… Nevertheless, we had lots of fun and some more beers with hot dogs, peanuts and popcorn

until the game finished at about 10 PM. Oakland lost with 0 to 4, but that couldn’t spoil the party…

Another cool and ‘all American’ experience, thanks Hilary and Alex for taking us there!

Congratulations, Tom!

2008-06-25T09:33:00.001-07:00

Recently, my brother Tom obtained his diploma of social work. Moreover, he became godfather of my cousin’s third kid Elena. But most importantly, he reinforced the family-bike-collection with a couple of new wheels and some 50 additional horsepower! Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of either the diploma, the baby or the motorbike…

Those who know my brother can send him an email to congratulate Tom and wish him good luck for next year, when he will pursue a further degree in Leuven while at the same time trying to make enough money to lavish on his godchild gifts every Christmas, New Year, school report (not immediately though), birthday, name-day, school year’s end, Easter and oh yes, for a new helmet, boots, gloves, jacket, pants, fuel, insurance fees and taxes for his newly-acquired motorbike. For my part, I will try and help him save a little on maintenance costs (of the motorbike, that is).

Those who don’t know him can of course do so in the comments…

BBQ near Point Bonita Lighthouse

2008-06-24T10:36:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday we organized a BBQ near Point Bonita Lighthouse with a couple of Belgians who live here in SF. Jimmy and I took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit—a railway system servicing the SF Bay Area) to SF and continued by bike to Tom’s place. Tom is from Brussels, and arrived here about one month ago after having worked in Florida for several years. He was still preparing an excellent tabouleh for the BBQ when we arrived at his place:

From there, Tom and I would continue by bike to the BBQ place. His professional biking outfit was a bad omen of the ride ahead: it’s not as flat here as it is in Belgium… Anyhow, we drove along ‘The Embarcadero’ to the Golden Gate Bridge, where we crossed the bay:

After a two-hour drive with a couple of stunning views, a murderous climb and a life-threatening descent, we made it alive to the BBQ spot:

As it took us a little longer than expected—my bike didn’t quite match Tom’s, must have been that, hmm—the others had already prepared the BBQ and most of the food:

In the distance you can see the Golden Gate Bridge. Behind it is SF but that is hardly visible in this picture. I found my preferred job at the BBQ:

while the others were enjoying a delicious meal:

And yes indeed, more flags for you, Eduardo:

However, I wasn’t the only ‘Fleischmeister’ as Bart put it so nicely:

Jimmy did like these pictures and he also wanted one—including the BBQ tool. Not that he turned a single sausage however…:

And for once, I was not the youngest in the company, which made me a little envious as you can see in this picture:

Around 4 PM it was about time to get back. In return for our physical suffering in the hills we still got some amazing views on SF:

on the Golden Gate and the entrance of the bay:

on Alcatraz Island (we certainly plan to visit it—more news later),

and on some nice parks in SF:

And then finally, back into the urban jungle:

and return to Berkeley by BART. A beautiful day, an excellent BBQ and a good night’s sleep afterwards…

Sunshine State!

2008-06-22T18:46:00.001-07:00

As correctly noticed by Mattias, California is also known as ‘The Sunshine State’. In San Francisco however, sunshine is not always guaranteed:

Although the Golden Gate is veiled in fog here, the nicknames for the states are in general quite telling. Let’s take a look at where my PhD took me so far so you can judge yourself. First we had ‘The Aloha State’:

and I can assure that life is pretty ‘aloha’ over there. Then we had ‘The Empire State’ which certainly didn’t steal its name either:

Next, Valéry, Eduardo and I visited ‘The District’:

Washington, D.C. indeed breaths ‘governmentalism’ from all its pores. In March finally, Jimmy and I conquered ‘The Silver State’, more specifically ‘Sin City’:

And yes, that 40-dollar chip we had just won later completely disappeared back into the system, as it is supposed to do…

By the way, we still have some open PhD positions at IMEC, anyone interested…?

Telegraph Avenue

2008-06-22T00:14:00.001-07:00

Saturday is still scorching hot and moreover we are pretty tired of last week. Therefore, it will be a rather lazy day…

In the morning I went shopping for running gear. A pair of trainers is only half as expensive as in Belgium (exactly the same brand and model) so I just left mine at home and bought new ones here. I plan to go running in the hills east of Berkeley.

In the afternoon I went for a stroll along Telegraph Avenue:

According to my Lonely Planet travel guide this is “undeniably the throbbing heart of studentville in Berkeley, pumping out a sidewalk-flow of students and shoppers, vagrants and vendors, brisk walkers and sluggish strollers, those trying to squeeze their way out an those who never seem to leave.” On a Saturday during summer however, the place is pretty calm:

Noticed the carillon tower in the back? This avenue indeed runs more or less from our place to the university campus. It is known for its ‘alternative’ shops – often second-hand places like this bookstore

where I found a second-hand copy of ‘Atonement’, ‘One hundred years of solitude’, ‘One flew over the cuckoo’s nest’ and ‘Lolita’. I indeed resumed my plan to tackle Time Magazine’s top 100 all-time novels…

I also got a shirt at ‘Buffalo Exchange’, a store where you can buy, sell and exchange clothes. The odds are high that Evi is going to spend a couple of hours here when she comes to visit me in August! The second-hand trade also applies to music, the most famous store being ‘Rasputin Music’:

Not really my cup of tea though. Finally this street has some charming typical brick buildings like this one:

All in all indeed an enjoyable avenue for a leisurely stroll!

Welcome, weekend!

2008-06-21T23:40:00.001-07:00

It’s been another busy week. We had a couple of really interesting meetings and discussions. I feel that we are going in the good direction for the internship project. More about that later…

In general, the evenings in San Francisco are rather chilly. Not yesterday, as Friday was really hot. This allowed us to spend a nice evening in the front porch with our ‘roomies’ Hilary and Alex:

Of course, a couple of good beers were indispensable. It didn’t take Jimmy and me too long to find where we could get them:

We have already tried quite a lot of American beers here but honestly, the Belgian ones have not met their match yet ;-). Moreover they are not much more expensive than the local ones so the choice was not too hard…

Noppie, tijd om Engels te leren!

2008-06-19T10:34:00.001-07:00

Beste Nederlandstaligen onder mijn lezerspubliek,

Waarom schrijf ik deze blog in het Engels? Voornamelijk voor het niet-Nederlandstalige lezerspubliek op IMEC en –wie weet?– op het CLT. Eigenlijk weet je met een blog nooit helemaal wie er meeleest, en met Engels bereik je natuurlijk een breder publiek.

Aangezien de grote meerderheid onder jullie toch Engels verstaat (of binnenkort zal verstaan en voorlopig wel wat hulp kan vinden he Nop) is de keuze snel gemaakt. Alleszins gaan Nederlandstaligen vaak prat op hun goede kennis van het Engels dus voor wat hoort wat! ;-)

Wie weet wil Marleen af en toe zelfs een foutje tegen het Engels verbeteren in de commentaren? Zo kunnen we allemaal nog wat bijleren…

Hoe dan ook, aangezien een tekening –foto– meer zegt dan duizend woorden, probeer ik sowieso veel beeldmateriaal op te nemen zodat iedereen optimaal kan meegenieten.

(Tenslotte vermijdt ik in het Engels ook het risico op dt-fouten…)

Laat zeker je mening horen hieronder!

Campus Tour

2008-06-18T10:09:00.001-07:00

Let’s have a look at what U.C. Berkeley’s main campus looks like. We enter the campus every morning via Telegraph Avenue (I’ll come back to this cool street in a later post – remember that you can follow via this map) and pass through this elegant gate:

We then turn right and pass by the campus’s main hallmark: an elegant tower with a carillon inside it:

This place is really no less than a beautiful park…

perfectly maintained…

with some really magnificent trees (my limited photographical skills didn’t allow me to fully capture the beauty here…):

Some places look like a real forest, including small streams of murmuring water:

Most buildings perfectly fit in the ‘park’, like the library:

and the Botany building:

Inevitably, right in the middle of the campus we find the American flag (especially for you, Eduardo) and below it the mascot of U.C. Berkeley (a bear, not visible in this picture):

Even a field of grass is suitable for some ‘PR’ (‘Cal’ is the common abbreviation for ‘University of California’ of which U.C. Berkeley is part – now you know at once what the ‘U.C.’ means):

And finally, there is ‘The Pomodoro Orb’:

Apparently, a couple of these things can be found all over the World and one of them happens to be here. I don’t have a clue why it should be here or what it signifies but it is a nice piece of art. Google can probably satisfy your curiosity should it be pressing (please do share your knowledge in the comments).

Want to take a look inside the lab? Keep reading the blog!

Good Food: Korean BBQ

2008-06-18T00:40:00.001-07:00

Hmm, I feel that this is definitely going to be one of the returning elements in this weblog: food… Contrary to what some may claim, in my opinion America has a really fine food culture. I know, you might argue about the ‘Americanness’ of Korean BBQ. But then again, that is what America is –or at least should be– all about, no? Absorbing cultures, accepting them into the big melting pot while at the same time allowing them to keep their distinct identities?

Anyhow, you can eat very well in the U.S. for relatively little money. Yesterday, Jimmy and I had a fine ‘Korean BBQ’ meal:

In the bottom right corner of the picture you might discern a tool that does not belong on a Korean table. In the top left corner however, I demonstrate how it should be. It took me some effort to convince Jimmy that the meal actually does taste better if eaten with chopsticks. Here is the resulting scoop: Jimmy handling chopsticks!

A Closer Look at Our Place

2008-06-16T20:32:00.001-07:00

Let’s take a closer look at our place. This is our street:

No, the blue air has not been ‘Photoshopped’ and yes, that is actually a palm tree standing right there in our street… This is California, remember! If we turn around 180 degrees, we see our house:

That would be this one:

It is a wooden house, typical for this neighborhood. I especially like its porch and the way it welcomes you by creaking warmly every time you come home:

Entering the front door and immediately turning to the right brings you into my room:

On your left is my desk:

And on the right is a large window:

Altogether it’s a rather small place but there is plenty of light everywhere and I really adore the hardwood floors. I’ll show you the living room and kitchen later, for now they are still a mess ;-).

Where am I?

2008-06-16T19:50:00.001-07:00

I arrived in the U.S. on Monday, June 9. As it is a big country, you might wonder where I actually live. That would be here:

View Larger Map

If you should not be familiar with Google Maps yet, this might be a good time to take a closer look at it. It’s a really useful and cool tool. You can zoom in from ‘global level’ down to ‘mice-in-the-street level’, view satellite images, calculate distances, or even take a virtual walk through the neighbourhood where I will be living the coming months using ‘street view’. I will try to keep this map up-to-date with all the interesting places that I will visit during this summer.

Hello World!

2008-06-12T18:31:00.001-07:00

I plan to get this blog up and running by next weekend. By then you can expect some context about my stay at U.C. Berkeley’s Connectivity Lab, some impressions from Berkeley, CA, some pics and more!