What a week! Phew, I needed this weekend. Four all day meetings at work along with three late night work dinners, two presentations to prepare, two major projects to stop (and the aftermath to deal with) and one sudden invite to present to the senior management of both our company and our partner company. I'm wiped out!

On the other hand, most of these all day meetings were about getting to know our teams and our new leaders better, and I have to say, I'm pretty happy with what I see. I have some really strong colleagues and very strong managers around me. I'm happy with the direction the job is headed and I finally feel like we have a goal to work toward. It's exciting, actually. Now I need to make sure what I'm doing is helping us get there. (That damned organization problem again!)

I had a lot of time to think about how other people think this week. That's often a part of these team building exercises and it often makes me think about how my mind works as well. It is my observation (your mileage may vary = YMMV) that Americans and Europeans approach problems differently. European civilization has close to 2000 years of history (or more, if you count the Greeks) and that seems to lead to a more thought out and careful way of thinking. I think the Dutch are particularly risk adverse, but I also notice a certain complacency among all of my European colleagues. There is a bit of "well, it's been done that way for years, why change it now?" sentiment. We Yanks, on the other hand, have only a little more than 200 years under out belts and much of that was moving west and figuring out how to solve this problem or that problem. Not much is "sacred" to an American.

Now, individuals are a different thing, and I see cultural differences in this just between the marketing and R&D site I work with, but the difference is something like this. When faced with a problem on a project, Europeans get focused on the problem, while Americans continue to focus on success. It's a subtle difference. There's a lot more "Oh well, I guess we won't make it now" feeling here than the go down fighting attitude I'm used to. Again, people, companies and communities are different in both places, and I've certainly seen Dutch colleagues set their jaw and fight through a problem and American colleagues give up at the first sign of trouble, but it's something almost tangible in the way people talk and act. It's the willingness (or stupidity or wishful thinking) to not give up, to fight until the end to try whatever crazy thing you can think up to make it work, to not give up until it's completely salvageable. It's infectious, and if you succeed once in the face of insurmountable odds, then you're willing to try it again and again, even if you fail on occasion. Now I just have to figure out how to teach that style to my project leads.

This weekend, we ordered a Wii. The boys have been playing more and more games on the computers, and this has gotten to be a bit out of sight for M and I. I think a Wii will encourage more mutual cooperation and makes the game playing much more visible. It also lets the adults among us (that would be M) have more control over the content of what's being played. Both boys have taken to playing fighting games when we're not looking, and there's been a lot of Kung-Fu style play around the house because of it, often leading to actual Kung-Fu Fighting. As amusing as that sounds, it's not so amusing when they get mad at each other and punches really start flying. Maybe I need to get them in to a martial arts class. I know that sounds counter intuitive, but one of the main teachings I remember from Karate is the discipline to not fight. If I can find a father-son class, more the better.

The other big thing going on now is that we're planning our yearly trip to the US. We'll be back there for two weeks, starting at the end of June and going to the weekend after the Fourth. When we had first started talking about this trip (back before we moved here) I had hoped to get to see siblings and parents from both sides of the family, but when confronted with just two weeks, I suspect we'll only end up in one place. The plan we've been discussing involves visiting our home, and M's family (who are just a day's drive away.) I'm not sure how to tie my family in this year, since we're sure to only get back once a year. Maybe we can convince them to visit us here. Either way, I'm going to have the feeling that we've left someone out, but if we visited everyone, that would involve four states and 5,000 miles (or more) of travel.

As a last note, our moods seem to be lifting overall. Summer being here doesn't hurt, and the fact that I'm feeling more like I know what to do at work helps me a lot. We still have a ton of hurdles to get over, but we're getting back into our stride and at least identifying the big issues, if not solving them all. Hopefully you'll see that reflected in more optimistic blogging on my part from here on out.

I had intended to post last Sunday, but it got too late, so I went off to bed. I haven't had the time and energy in the same place to finish off that post until now. That's a bit of an indication of how the week went.

This whole week (until Saturday) was perfect weather. A bit hot even. I would come home from work and change into shorts and we had some trouble sleeping due to the heat. A very nice change from the cold weeks we've had for the last several months. Since Friday evening, it's been colder and wetter, but still much warmer. Right now, it feels like spring again, and I guess this was typical for the whole summer last year, but I'm hoping for something better this year.

This week has been a whirlwind of work and more work. Lots of changes are coming together in the next couple of weeks, and I don't feel ready. I spent yesterday hiding from my work by reading comics online. I did manage to wash the dishes while M was out shopping, but other than that, I accomplished nothing.

I'm starting to realize that I need to pay more attention to my sleep deficit. I felt really good the week after we got back from London, but I'd just spent an entire week of waking up when I wanted to, instead of at 5:30 to catch some train. I have a lot that I want to change in my life (like eating better, exercising more, getting more ahead of my work load, etc.) but all of these things require a certain level of energy that I just don't have when I'm tired.

Unfortunately, there's a lot to do over the next week or two (including three work dinners next week) that is going to make it hard to do any catching up without a focused effort. Given the current scientific thinking on willpower, it's going to be a challenge, since I'll need my willpower to get myself to bed, but also need it to finish my real work in between these work dinners and all day meetings.

Speaking of work, I need to go review my lists and see what I should be doing today. Don't expect an update until next weekend. This is going to be a mess of a week.

I just noticed that my last post was about the British Museum, which seems like forever ago now. I guess I'll start with our trip back here.

On Sunday, we got up early, packed, got the kids moving and walked to the train station. There, it took us a little while to buy train tickets since there was a line of what looked like people that were just heading home from their Saturday night revelries. We had (as usual) the typical hurry up and wait moments at the Underground station, at the train station, on the train, etc., but overall, the trip when without a hitch. We even "adopted" an older gentleman with poor English and helped him through security in London and into his proper train car and seat. I saw him in Brussels chatting with someone who looked like they'd come to pick him up, so that felt pretty good.

When we got back to Hilversum, we discovered that Summer had come while we were out. All of the trees are now fully in leaf and many of the summer plants are in bloom. The temperature is in the mid-20's with sunny skies and very late sunsets. It feels a bit like we're living in a forest now, with all of the trees about and our moods have all lifted in the last two weeks.

This has been an interesting week at work. Lots of changes are now starting to take effect and I'm really re-evaluating what my job is, and what it should be. I get the sense that I'll be spending a lot more time in Amsterdam (which is closer to home anyway) and a lot more time traveling abroad (which is not so good in some ways) than I have in the past, and I'm re-thinking how I want this job to be and if I want to be doing it. I don't suspect this will lead to us leaving the Netherlands early (although it could) but it may lead to a different job for me in the short run.

Now that I say all of that, it sounds a lot more dramatic than it is. I suspect I'll be doing a very similar job a year from now, and, having the American job market mentality, the worst case is I my company ships me back early and I have to find a job I really like in Seattle. Job hunting is stressful, but I also find it exciting and I like new things in my career enough that it's hardly ever a bad thing. I've found that the job mobility concept is only just sinking in here. I had a conversation with a colleague who isn't happy, has another job offer on the table making 20% more with better job responsibilities and closer to home and he isn't sure he should take it. I wanted to shake him...

We've used our car very little so far. It's been on exactly 6 trips. One to come home, one to take the cat to the kennel, one to fail to pick up the cat from the kennel, one to actually get the cat, one to take me to work in Amsterdam and one to take us to dinner at a co-worker's place in Amsterdam. When I write it out, it seems like a lot, actually. So far we're pretty happy, but we've seen a little bit of twitching in the speedometer when M is driving, so we may need to have that checked out.

As I mentioned above, we went to dinner at a co-worker's house on Friday evening. This also involved getting a "real" babysitter for the first time. Dinner was really lovely. Good food and good discussion. The baby sitter was hit and miss. I think she probably did a great job, but she was a lot more inflexible than we were about getting to bed on time and the boys didn't like that much. I suspect we'll have her back, despite their protests.

A couple of odd/small things from the week.

It took two tries to get the cat from the kennel. This is because we got home mid-afternoon on Friday, and I started out to get the cat, not realizing that the kennel was open from 9-10 and then from 5-6. I got there at 4, so instead of waiting around, we came home and went back later.

I got to the train station on Tuesday and discovered that the tunnel that goes under the tracks was flooded. This meant that people getting on the trains into Amsterdam had to either wade through the water, or climb over a construction barrier to get to their platforms. Fortunately, the stairs to my platform were on my side of the flood. I suspect this was due to some construction accident involving either pumps or plumbing.

The boys have been off of school this week (it's the second week of spring break) and have been spending most of their time outdoors in various states of undress. I think this has had the greatest contribution to lifting their spirits (as you might expect.) To top it off, Monday is Pinksteren (Pentecost or Whitsunday in English) and is a day off for all of us. I'm not sure what we'll do yet, but sailing or biking is a possibility.

Well, I'm off to run some shopping errands. Hopefully I'll blog more this weekend.

Today, we went to the British Museum. This is the place where the Brits keep all the stuff they stole from everywhere over the long years of their empire. They seem to have taken a lot of stuff from Egypt and Greece, if what we saw is any indication.

Don't get me wrong, it's cool to see the Rosetta Stone and the carvings from the Parthenon, but I had to wonder if these things really belong in London. It was especially weird to see carvings that had the note "the heads for these were taken by Sir John so and so and are on display in Copenhagen." Somehow this messes with my sense of order. Wouldn't it be better to put these things all back together if possible? And better yet, put them where they belong? After all, I'm not sure the Greeks agreed to have all this stuff hauled away, but I suppose some of these issues have been worked out before now.

None of that made the collection any less impressive. The boys were less than interested (they decided they wanted to stay home and play video games) so we hauled them through part of the museum and then stopped for lunch. After lunch, the Younger still wanted to leave, but the older got taken in by a tour that was passing by, and was fascinated by the detailed explanations that had been missing before in our visit. M stayed with him, while the Younger and I went out and sat in the sun and discussed the week. He told me he couldn't wait to get back and tell his best school friend about LegoLand, so that was something anyway.

Later in the afternoon, we went back to our hotel and the boys played games on the computer. I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood and turned up no less than five churches within a stone's throw of the hotel. Some of these were really old and one was bombed out during the Blitz of WWII. This place literally drips with history. It's very cool, and very strange at the same time. Hilversum is not so rich, as it was nothing much until early this century when the broadcast industry took root there.

Tomorrow, we head back bright and early. Our train leaves at 8am, and we need to check in 30 minutes beforehand. It's likely to be a long day with lots of hurry up and wait. We also have about 40 pounds to spend before we leave town, so there's likely to be some shopping as well.

Well, better get back to packing.

Yesterday, we had hoped to see Stomp! and a few museums. It turned out that we only managed to see Stomp! But, that was quite cool enough for one day.

Today, we went to Windsor to Lego Land. The boys had a great time, and the park managed to separate us from a lot of money (but not nearly as much as they tried to...) Lego Land was a lot more about amusement park rides than building things with Lego, but there was some of each, so that's ok.

Not much else to say today. Tomorrow, we hope to hit the British Museum and then it's back to the Netherlands very early Sunday morning. I have to say, It's been nice being away from there. It's surprising how much living in a country where you don't speak the language weighs down on you. It makes me wonder if I don't want to try to transfer us over here, but I think the hassle would be more trouble than it's worth.

M and I have been talking (a little bit) about what to do to make our lives in the Netherlands better. I think we need to start planning our weekends and having more friends over to visit. We also need to join a club or two so we get a little more exposure to the Dutch outside of school (where most people aren't Dutch anyway) and work. We'll see if we come back with any renewed ideas.