Category: Life
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Biting the Weblog Bullet
Despite my initial reservations, I’ve decided to jump on the Blogging bandwagon, and replace the News section on my http://www.technicalauthoring.com/ website with a real ‘blog, provided by those nice people at Talking Forest (although I’m not sure what their angle is yet…). The main advantage of doing this is that I can post from anywhere, which is a bonus as I seem to be traveling a lot at the moment. Plus, I have a lot of stuff I need to get off my chest… Read more
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The Joy of Driving (Or Not)…Belgian Style
Nowadays, a car is pretty much a necessity. And just about everyone here in Belgium has one. So why do the Belgians make getting a car on the road such a difficult, lengthy, and truly exasperating process? Here’s what I had to go through… When you buy a car (even a second hand one – and even from a private sale) in Belgium you don’t get the number plates with it. These are actually issued by the local authorities (it’s another way of getting tax).  We bought a couple of cars from a dealership, paid the money, and asked for… Read more
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Born Free, But You’ll Pay To Prove It…
We’re finally back in Belgium, and going through all of the requisite administrative steps to register ourselves here.  Given that Belgium is home to the EU, it should come as no surprise that it boasts world-class bureaucracy.  Here’s an example of Belgian bureaucracy at it’s finest… When you move into a house here (Belgium) you have to go and register with the local commune (which is like a city council). You have to do this in person, and can only do so once you have physically moved into the house. You have to take with you a signed copy of… Read more
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Hey, where did the road go?
OK, I’ve had my first taste of country living. I was driving home from work in my tiny little 1.0 liter Opel Corsa, and decided to take what looked like a nice shortcut. I started hacking down this road that rapidly narrowed to only one (very narrow) lane wide, with trees on either side, clipping the wing mirrors. It was night, the road was very winding and I had about 10 yards visibility, but I gave it a go anyway. After about a mile, the tarmac gave way to gravel, so I slowed down to about 60mph and kept going.… Read more