I had written a rather longish post, but it seems to have gotten lost by this web tool. Yet more reason to switch to a different blog system.

I'm too tired at the moment to try to re-create the whole thing, but here were the main points:

Copenhagen was nice - we ended up at a restaurant that was beyond our expense budget and the maitre d' embarrassed us when we got up to leave.

The boys had their first soccer match on Saturday. They were very nervous at first, but had a great time. It was fun to watch, but a bit of a swarm of bees.

I had my mid-year review this week, and I'm still fooling everyone. They seem to think I know what I'm doing.

Two managers from my office in the US were visiting this week and I had dinner with them. It was good to catch up, and they discussed some job possibilities for when I decide to come back.

There were a few other things I had written, including a comparison of working here and in the US, but that update will have to wait for another time.

These past two weeks have been quite busy. Sorry I didn't update last weekend, but things have been a bit busy.

We had a good time in the South of France, but I managed to make myself a bit sick. We spend the first two days on the beach, and I got entirely too much sun the second day. I spent the next few nights with fever like symptoms and general exhaustion. I'm not sure if it was the heat, or just a cold, but it was unpleasant.

On Tuesday, our friends from the US arrived and we drove north into the mountains. We had a very good few days there with them, hiking and visiting the mountain villages. Entrevaux in particular was beautiful. We stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast in Villars sur Var. Our hosts were friendly and helpful in finding things to do and see.

We flew back to Amsterdam late in the day on Sunday. I decided that it would be worth the money to take a taxi from the airport, and even so, we weren't in until midnight.

The next morning, I got up early and drove to the new R&D site. The drive is an hour and twenty minutes, but I managed to forget my briefcase and had to drive back to pick it up. I was only 15 minutes from home, but with morning traffic, it took 45 minutes to get back home, putting me about an hour behind schedule. I ended up late for my day-long group meeting. In the evening, we had a going away party for one of our colleagues. We went carting, and it was great fun, but with the long drive home, I wasn't in bed until midnight.

The next morning, I flew to Berlin for the IFA and an internal company meeting. I didn't get to see much of the city, and the all day meetings were followed with late night dinners. Thursday, I flew back to Amsterdam at six am. I met my boss' boss at the gate and we had a good discussion of the past week and the future of the business. He's a great guy, and good at what he does. I explained to him what I'm trying to do with my job, and he was very supportive. It was very confidence building.

With all the sleep I hadn't gotten, I decided it might be wise to "work from home." A week off, coupled with internet problems led to a rather full in-box. I still don't feel that I've caught up, and I suspect I should do a bit of work this weekend if possible.

On Monday, I fly to Copenhagen, again for work. At least I'm only gone for the day this time, but I'm ready to be home for a bit. There's also a big deadline due this Friday, so I could really use the time to get things done before then. On the other hand, this is just how things go, so we cope and manage.

I'm writing this on Monday, the 25th of August, but although we have internet access, the online tool I use to update the blog seems to be down. Yet another reason to consider switching the blog to somewhere else.

Last week was a flurry of cleaning up things and getting ready to leave work alone for a week. I did remarkably well (in my opinion) by reducing the number of things on my to-do list from somewhere north of 60 to around 20. There's lots to do when I get back, but it can wait a week. Although, I spend the first week back largely in Berlin at IFA. This seems to be the European version of what Comdex used to be with home appliances added this year for the first time. I'm looking forward to it, but I suspect it will be a bit like taking another week off from work in terms of my e-mail box filling up again. But I'm on vacation now, so I can worry about that later.

Here we are in Nice and it's lovely. The architecture feels a lot different than any of the other European cities we've visited so far. I recognize similarities to Southern California, with the tiled rooves and stucco walls. We flew in on Saturday after a bus to train to bus to plane to bus to car journey. The kids were troopers, as usual. Two hours is a good flying time, as it's not so short that you think you should have driven, but not so long that you get worn out by it. The drive would have been over 12 hours (not including inevitable stops) and the train would have been longer, so this was definitely the right choice (although not the cheapest.) The flight seemed to be populated by Italians, which makes sense if you look at a map. We're about an hour's drive to the Italian border, and on the way we could pass through Monaco. Somehow the French Riveria and James Bond are irrevocably linked in my head, and I have the feeling that this should feel more exotic than it does, but I can't complain about the blue skies, 80 degrees and deep blue sea.

Yesterday, we got up late and had French pastries in a park just two blocks away. We have a little appartment less than a kilometer from the beach, and after a quick stop back to pick up swim suits, that's where we headed. The entire water front is alternating private and public beaches. Every so far, someone has set up a fenced off area where they charge you to sit in the sun on comfortable lawn chairs with umbrellas. Towels and drinks are also available, as are shower and changing areas. We went on the cheap and took to the public beach. It lacked the shade and chairs, but we brought our own towel and for just a few Euro cents, we got access to a WC that doubled nicely as a place to put on our suits. The sea was warm and very salty. I spent a lot of time standing at neck level while one kid or the other hung on me as we rode the waves up and down. I got a bit of salt water up my nose, and every so often M and I would need to switch as the one in the water got tired. The kids got knocked down a few times in the surf, but they recovered quickly. It was a bit too much for actual swimming on their part, but they enjoyed themselves and announced they wanted to go back again today. Unlike the stretches of sand that you might expect, the beaches here are all rounded rocks, which, while not sharp, are still a bit hard on the feet. Even so, the place was wall to wall people. When we got there at 2, we had no trouble finding a place to put our towel, but by the time we left, people were wandering around wondering where they could sit.

Our apartment has the minimum facilities, but things are laid out in a strange way that makes it difficult to put two pots or pans on the stove at the same time. Even so, we managed to make dinner and now breakfast without too much trouble. It always amuses me when my friends or colleagues talk about the "great restaurants" in the places we visit, since we usually prefer our own cooking and sometimes it's just too difficult with kids. I get the impression a lot of other people find ways to take vacations without their children, but that is a bit of an alien concept to us at the moment, especially when our families so far away. I am looking for the day when the two of us can sneak off somewhere for a week by ourselves, but I think we have a few years before that will really happen.

Today our plan is to hit a museum first, then spend a little time at the beach later in the day. We'll see if that happens or not. We're getting a late start, which tends to be a good thing as stressing on time or rushing around makes the kids (and us) more high strung than necessary. M remembers the museums here as her favorite in France. She lost a bunch of lovely posters on way home from her time here, and she has expressed hopes that she can replenish them. If that's going to happen, we'd better get moving, since this is effectively our last day in the city. We check out tomorrow at 10 am and meet up with our friends. We're staying about an hour north of here in Villars-sur-Var, a very small town up in the mountains. We're looking forward to several days of hiking around in the wilderness. I expect it to be a big contrast to here where we're right in the middle of a busy thriving city. I love the contrasts, but I'm sure we won't see as much of Nice as I would like.

Tuesday is our 13th wedding anniversary. I glad we'll be spending it here. We have a tendency to skip these kid of occasions if we're just at home, and I hope we can leave the kids with our friends and sneak off to dinner for the evening. Of course, I don't know how many actual restaurants there will be in the neighborhood, but I suspect we can figure something out. It's hard to believe it's been this long already. It seems like only yesterday we were getting married and yet when I think of all the things we've done (and all the places we've lived) since then, it can't possibly have been only 13 years. I love you, my wife, and I'm looking forward to a lot more of these with you.