Good choices, all. If you can find the original Tom Swift series, some of them are seriously worth reading. I was a big fan of Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon. And it’s *totally* not compensating for anything. But it had some neat descriptions of real-life issues involved in building large scale weapons. Things like…

I did make one concession when I was packing up the books. I sorted them into three groups based on how unhappy I would be if they were destroyed in a fire. Group 1 was meh, group 2 was annoyed, and group 3 was seriously pissed. Group 1 will probably find new homes when I unpack them.

I’ll admit that I’ve functionally switched to ebooks for now, especially since I’m overseas for a couple of years and I’ve got 55 boxes of books sitting in a storage unit. But the vast majority of those will go back on shelves at some point. I have a complete set of the Tom Swift Jr. books and an almost complete set…

Yeah, here the crappy cheese is with the sandwich meats, which is nowhere near the milk, eggs, butter, or yoghurt. And if you don’t want crappy cheese, you shouldn’t be in the grocery store anyways, you should be in the kaaswinkel.

I already see one thing that would annoy me: grouping eggs and dairy together. I get how normal that is to a North American, but it’s not the case in Europe. Eggs don’t need to be chilled here, so they’re usually in a completely separate part of the store.

I managed to do a century ride for the first time.

Many airports also have an LLWAS installed to help manage problems related to wind shear.

I’m not saying seniors shouldn’t use them, of course they should! But we’re talking about Holland here. This isn’t trail riding, this is everyday commuting by 40% of the population. You haven’t had a proper near-death experience until you’ve tried to ride a bike in Amsterdam. All I’m saying is that there has been a…

E-bikes are getting popular in the Netherlands as well, but they’ve found another downside here: they’re leading to more injuries and deaths among seniors. Because they’re capable of higher speeds, they require better reaction times and coordination, which do tend to deteriorate with age.

It’s just a bit entertaining that in an article about American airports, your picture is of Schiphol. I suspect Dutch isn’t really a common language on signs in the US.

I actually found one of these trails out by Sohren, Germany about a month ago.

If you’re in the Netherlands for long enough, the visitor’s Museumkaart might be worthwhile. €60 and it gets you into almost every museum in the country for a month.

Your easiest options are being in a relationship with a Dutchie or having a job offer in hand. Option 3 is to learn Dutch and then show up on your 3 month visa and start job hunting. On the plus side, the job market is quite good right now. On the down side, housing is quite expensive in the Randstad, particularly in…

Actually, I think you’ve failed to understand the purpose of the custom. It isn’t necessarily asked because the person cares about how you’re doing, but it establishes a common ground, and also helps them assess your mood and what kind of service you’re looking for.

The laws in the Netherlands are set up such that in a collision between a bike and a vehicle, liability is automatically shifted to the vehicle driver. The cyclist would have had to do something really damn stupid to be at fault in an accident. Being a pedestrian here is occasionally terrifying.

Don’t count on it. The Netherlands is having one of the driest years on record. It’s 30 C and sunny all week. It’s been driving me insane because it’s actually too nice out.

So what? Lifehacker isn’t a news organization and hasn’t made any public commitment to be free of bias. In fact, doing so would be detrimental to their purpose in making recommendations and suggesting apps and products they think are more valuable to their readers.

If the park is manned, you can also get a pass at the gate. I went in to Banff yesterday, and the gate agent handed me a pass when we drove up.

My parents own one of those. You slip it down the sides of the cork and then twist it out. Story goes that it was developed by a monk who liked to sample wine without having anyone know he was doing it.

I did two weeks in Greece this summer on a chartered yacht.. A 49' Bavaria cost us about $1000 CAD apiece for 8 people. We did bring our own skipper though.