History, yes we need that!

It’s quite common that children in their school period doubt why historic education is needed and useful anyway. I’ve doubted myself as well as a youngster.

It’s not often people experience an unique, historic experience or moment. The reason is simple, once you experience something, it’s very difficult to realize that moment will be historic yes or no. If fact most of the historic moments are regarded as historic after a some period. Reviewing or looking back in time and putting facts in a greater context/perspective, are the determining and deciding factors.

One can question why I’m already now are quite sure that the fact I witnessed last Saturday will be regarded as historic. There is only one reason why facts can be qualified as historic right at the spot, the moment you are at the place of action. This reason is that one already knows the historic background of what is happening. Let me illustrate this is an example which happened exactly 20 years ago. The fall of the Berlin wall was and is a historic moment. No one will question that statement, because everyone knows the backgrounds of the wall and all what happened the months before in the Germen Democratic Republic. The fall of the wall was against everything the German authorities have said and done in the previous 40 years.

Now let me come back to what the moment was I witnessed. On Saturday November 7, 2009 the first people in my home town could get their vaccination for the Mexican flu. At 10:00 a drove in car and passed the doctor’s station I used to go myself. About 150, most 65+ people queued up to get there vaccination. Knowing that a equally flu type only comes every 50 – 70 years to the Western world, I knew instantly that this as a historic moment. Maybe you regard it as a small one, but it’s an occasion which will not happen next year or the year after again.

Eldery queuing up for Mexican flu vaccination

So I stopped my car, got out and looked over the situation. I even took pictures, knowing that I never, ever have seen a queue in front of the doctor’s station before. So I conclude that knowing history, helps individuals a lot to understand the present situations and events. It also leads to the conclusion that historic education at school and home is essential for our children to understand things in their future lives.

Oculus

1/2 marathon the result

Dear reader,

As I mentioned in my previous post, last Saturday I ran a 1/2 marathon. It was close to my home town Emmen. The weather was perfect, dry and sunny, air temperature of 22 degrees Celsius and not to humid. Perfect conditions, all agreed.
After the start I tried to keep a good, not too fast pace. The 1-st 11-12 km went pretty well and my time was good, about 5:08 per km. Just a small bit faster than my plan.

However after the 12 km, things went wrong. I was able to keep running until the 16-th km. Than, all of a sudden all my energy was gone and although I very much tried to keep running, my brains don't control the body any longer and I started walking for a short time. Form previous experience I know that once walking means you keep on walking So I did and lost a lot of time according to my schedule. My time, 1 hour, 55 minutes and 51 seconds. The worst result in the last 3 years. I was really sad and frustrated.

Directly after the run I felt a bit tried, but I knew that I didn't went to the bottom of my abilities. See also the finish picture, it shows to me that I'm not "worn out".

Yesterday, 2 days after the run, I still felt a bit sad. So I took my racing bike, drove 58 km within 2 hours. While riding I thought, last October my doctor said: "quit jogging, do something else..." and just after 8 months I complete a 1/2 marathon in less than 2 hours. Maybe the result is not too bad after all. Writing this I get to know 2 things:
1. How strange does the human brain work, making and believing this so called coping/accepting thoughts and really feeling better after having the thought!!
2. I feel lycky and some sense blessed that I have this coping strategy. It makes my HAPPY!!! And from experience in my environment I see many people having trouble to work out these sad and frustrating feelings.

Take care and stay tuned, Oculus

Soon coming up: a half marathon, YEEEEESSS

Dear reader,

The coming weekend, on Saturday, I will run a 1/2 marathon. Over the last 3 months I've been exercising quite much. Or should I say, as much as my left knee allows me. Last autumn I have a look & feel operation in my knee. The doctor concluded that ma patella is in a bad condition at the back side. The soft bone tissue is degraded to a level 2-3. Zero is optimal, 4 is no tissue at all, including constant pain, no active sport, no stair climbing and probebly a new knee. I should also tell that a normal healthy man of my age (50) has a level 1 patella.

So the conclusion was, no jogging, swimming, cycling are much more appropriate sports when it comes to my knees. At the revalidation I contacted a physiotherapist. He explained, jogging we have a try. So I got exercises and started to jog after 2 months. First short distances, later longer ones. On top of that there were 2 things to do: a) "listen" to my knees, if they hurt, don't jog and do something else b) run only on "soft" tracks like grass/lawn, forest etc. avoid any hard tracks.

So I did and it worked out great. I run a bit less than last year (120 km/month), only soft tracks and attended a clinic to prepare for this 1/2 marathon. For 1,5 weeks ago I tested my condition in a 15 km run. I managed in 1:17:06, which is pretty ok, since I had fever 2 days before. Average speed 11,7 km/hr. The picture was made just 2 km before the finish line. You can see some sign of fatigue..



Next Saturday I hope to finish at about 1:50, which means 11,6 km/hr. I keep you posted.

Stay save, Oculus

Moral & Ethics

Dear reader,

Moral and Ethics are big words, important words, often used words and even more often misused or abused words. Let me tell you why this is right now on my mind and what my contribution might be in the near future.

As you all know the present economics are in a downturn. This means that many companies are executing saving program, streamline the organisation, close site, fire people, sell parts of a company, and there are many more variants. Also within my working environment these things are happening on a daily basis. More precise, 2 months ago the organisation was drastically changed from site (country) oriented to a global organisation. As for many others, I got a new boss, which residents 700 km away.

At the same time initiatives were and are undertaken to cut cost. Subjects like inventory reduction, increase launch accuracy and product cost structures were tackled by short running projects, implying almost immediate success or fail. I myself was involved in the launch accuracy initiative. In this team we set some immediate action, however we also had the goal to secure our efforts in the long run. Stating that we also came across that the way people/employees behave, act and react in our organisation is of utmost importance. We listed statements like, “lack of respect”, “too little accountability”, “unclear responsibility” and “no authority”, harms the company’s result. During a short discussion, we concluded that each and every person has his/her own definition and ideas on these words. So the answer was, this needs more study and discussion. So here I am, with my task to sort out this. Fun job, to be honest.

Right, my starting point were 4 words in random order: respect, accountability, authority and responsibility. My first start was to look and find out what is the correct definition of these words. Some after I found the first words on Wikipedia, I learned that these are not words, but more. Respect, Accountability, Authority and Responsibility are rather concepts. Also after reading the first few pages I learned that there are even more important concepts underlying these 4 words, like Culture, Moral, Ethics and Values. And I have the feeling, it’s not clear to me yet, that philosophy is some way is the glue between all these words.

By the way, I write the important words with a capital letter, just to remind you and me that these words are not given, clear, valueless words. On the contrary, these words are major and important words and misunderstanding the definition, misuse or abuse will cause a lot of trouble.
Ok, my list of 4 words is not extended to 8 words. Right now I’m at the stage that I have some idea about each and every definition. But the interaction between them is not clear at all. In some one I regret, in the other I sense that it simply needs time in my brain to understand the full impact of the definition. And understanding the impact, might also give insight about the interaction.

How this process of understanding the impact, works, I will tell you. Last Thursday at a jogging session out in the forest I started to think about the very common value in the Western world: “the highest rewarded athletes in a time competing sport are those who go the fastest”. I don’t expect any one to comment this. This value is part of the Western way of thinking. It’s common sense to us that the one athlete who is first at the finish, had to do most work, stretches his abilities an talents to the most. So in this thinking we as spectators at a marathon run scream and shout for the one finalising the run, giving to the best of his ability (or even a bit more) in around 2:05 or a bit more.

"The Winner?"

But……..there is another way to think. What about the athlete who completes the marathon in 4:10? This athlete is running over 4 hours at his/her maximum ability, squeezing every drop of energy available in his/her body. If we value the best one in competition is the person working the longest at your maximum ability, the last one finishing is the one getting the prices. Interesting and appealing idea this was to me.

A hero!!

The above thoughts and examples give me some ideas about how the mechanism of Moral and Ethics and all the other words, works. And again, if people in a group, organisation, marriage or family talks and there is no common understanding of these basics, things can get confusing, misunderstanding is on its way and much more.
As I said, I’m not finished with my thought and I promise that is keep you posted about new findings and thoughts. In the mean time I’m curious about your thoughts and comments, so please post them.

Stay save,

Oculus

The Ant

Dear reader,

Over the last half a year to a year the world economics are changing drastically. Since the banking sector almost collapsed in September/October last year, also the real economic is affected a lot. Consumption is decreasing, people and cooperation are going bankrupt, administrations are trying to put a lot of tax money into the economy.
But also on a micro level, your and my household and our work, things are changing. I have already 9 (out of 70 employees in total on this site) colleagues laid off. And more to come, I fear. Since the company I work for is internationally established and this site is quite remote, also higher management is trying to strengthen control and discipline.
In bad times this is quite a normal, almost Pavlov, reaction. And in the view of the employees we suffer from the control, questions, new templates, planning tools, reorganization and so forth. By coincidence I came across one of these many Power Point presentation, which people send around to each other. And I like to share this with you, so please take 2 minutes and watch the movie I made out of it:



This is the way I feel and let me tell you, it's not a nice feeling and I hope it will end soon.

Have a nice day, Oculus

P.s.: If you like a PPT or PPS version please send a mail to oculus@live.com

Yes I made it so far..

Dear reader,

A few days ago I succeeded to get a start position at the most famous jogging-events in the Netherlands. On Sunday September 20, 2009 I will run 10 English Miles (16,1 km) from the centre of Amsterdam to the centre of Zaandam. Both cities do have a big square in the centre called "The Dam". From this fact the name of the run originates; "Dam tot Dam"-run, see link.
In order to control the event the number of runners is limited to 35.000 people. And guess runners are like cattle, they all go for the same run, on the same day, etc... At April 1, 2009, 00:00 hrs the run opened up for subscribing. In less than 2 days 35.000 people did and the run was closed. Alright it's the 25-th edition, but still I find it incredible that so many runners in so short time do subscribe. A quick calculation shows, that from the 16 million inhabitants of The Netherlands, 50 % is either too young, too old, too sick or no runner at all, 0,5% is joining this run. Still amazing to me!!
AND.... many of the runners styad up until after 00:00. I didn't, but......... I got up at 6:15 in the morning and was lucky to find no overloaded, slow and unreliable website. I finished my application in 5 minutes.


At the start of my 1-st Dam tot Dam-run sept 2003


Start of the 2004 edition. I'm the runner in black short & shirt in the middle passing the start

So here I am to prepare this run carefully and most important stay healthy since I missed the 2007 and 2008 runs due to injuries.

I keep you updated about how things are going, stay tuned, Oculus

It has been a while ago

Dear reader,

It has been a while since I've posted new items. The remaining of 2008 has been a very busy time. Both privat and professional. And to be honest my expectation is that it will remain the same for the coming time.

However I feel that I really need to take up issues, write about them and discuss them with you. The fact alone that issues are discussed helps me to generate new energy, views and help maybe in the end to help people to start thinking about our world, because I sense that due to all economic and human missery people stop well thinking. And this is dangerous, since my believe is that when people stop thinking, small, medium and large scale conflicts will escalate and end is fighting.

And the result of fighting has no positive influence on the world population. Old fights are never forgotten and might lead to new ones.

So, I promise to be back soon and share my thoughts, ideas and observations, stay tuned, Oculus

Chaos in the middle

Dear reader,

Last week I travelled back by plane from my business trip to Sweden. Since I was in the south of Sweden, Copenhagen was the most appropriate airport. The flight from Copenhagen to Amsterdam is short, just over 60 minutes.

While descending to Amsterdam I looked out of the window to catch a view from the Dutch landscape in springtime. What I saw was a well organized structure of fields, roads, water way’s, offices, greenhouses, houses, train tracks, etc.

At that point in time my thought was: “what a great order” But how come that once you as human being are in the ground again the order is gone for the most part. People are running around, cars are driving in all directions, small road in the county side are not smooth, no they are full of bumps and holes. In fact it’s complete chaos!!

The following though was, if magnifying all I see around me things get structured again. Everything is build up according the rules of molecules. And molecules are build of a very limited set of atoms. And atoms themselves are build out of only 3 elements, neutrons, protons and electrons.

So the conclusion is: that once you are on a much bigger level (in the sky) every thing looks organized, neat and in a way simple. When being on a very low level, things start to become organized and neat again. What remains in the middle is chaos….so on our personal level, when we are look at entities with a dimension close to your own dimension it’s chaos that rules. Interesting thought, because mankind lives and survives in the jungle of chaos….I find that a very positive idea.

Have a nice day and take care, Oculus

Sentiments.....

Dear reader,

Today a short post about how I feel....well kind of sentimental....the weather is great, finally after a long, I say too long winter ending. Outside it's finally more than 15 degrees Celsius. You might imagine that I don't long after work...instead my thought run away with me in fact all day.

The picture I took this afternoon visualizes want I really wanted to do. Let me tell you:

1. The bottle is a small plastic bottle with syrup. Soon, in 1,5 hour, I start a 90 minute jogging run.
2. The bottle is of the brand Perfekta, a Swedish company making bottle belts for runners. Sweden reminds me of my 3 yrs stay in Småland, lond and winding roads and endless forests..wow what a country........I would love to move there again...
3. The clear blue sky in the back of the picture shows how beautiful the weather is today, it's too much of a pity to stay inside
4. The phone on the right is an old GSM phone from 2001 or so.... as I work a lot with phones (telecom industry) it's museum part right now, however only 7 years old..

How about your thoughts?

Have a nice day, Oculus

View from my office

Dear reader,

I managed to connect my Sony Ericsson W710i phone to connect to Blog directly. Let me explain how it works. You take pictures with your camera phone and choose the option send to Blogger.
A new screen pops up where you can add post title and a more complete description. After you are done, you just push the poblish key and there it goes directly to you blog.
If you do this operation for the first time, you need to access the net and complete the setup of the blog. If you like you can choose to send you pictures to an existing blog. Easy, smart and for me a real wow factor. Finally something that works as a consumer likes to.

The picture than, it's a poor one, I agree and I promise to make better ones with another phone I have. You can see the reflection of the phone and even in the back some reflection of my office. What you can see, is that I have a great view from my office. A view over a new quater under construction. The rest is agriculture area, forest etc.

Finally my thoughts go back to my teenage time, the time only some main frame computers by IBM, Sun, HP and Digital exist. So the pre-PC time. Realizing how pictures were made, printed, distributed at that time, compared to the online publishing gof the above picture, makes me proud of the ability of mankind to be extremely innovative. My hope is that mankind uses this ability not only for technical stuff, but also to cope with today's world problem like ending wars, solve problems in the 3-rd world and take care of our environmental crisis.

Take care and have a nice weekend, Oculus

Jogging

Dear reader,

Like many others in the (Western) World, I like to keep in a good physical shape. So I care about my nutrition (healthy and too much), don't smoke, drink alcoholic only occasionally and try to do my exercises, mostly jogging.

When I was young I started with speed skating, later cycling and as a student (already 30 years ago) jogging/running. Upto 2003 I ran 1-2 time a week, for about 5 - 10 km (3,5 - 7 miles). During that year many things happened in my live and I looked for a way to not only stay healthy, but also stay mentally well. And from the past I knew that lond distance running felt good. So I increased the number of training sessions and the distance as well.

So from 2003 I train 3 times a week, steadily increasing from 7,5 (5) to 10-11 km (7,5 - 8 miles)per training. Summing up the total during 2006 I made over 1500 km. In 2007 I was not able to do so much, because of an injury. I have/had heel spurs and nowadays I can cope with that and I'm very glad about that fact.

At some occasions each year I like to run events. From 7 - half marathon distance. On Dec 31 there is always a run close to my home town called the “oliebollen race”. 7,2 km cross country running. I have been participating 4 times in a row now and due to the changing weather conditions this time of the year, each year was different. Snow and ice, wind (almost storm) and rain, frost and warm temperatures.

The Dutch landscape

At the start

Cross country

Oculus

Happy New Year

Dear reader,

I hope 2008 will be a successful and healthy year to all of you. And may bad things happen; I hope you have the courage, braveness and wisdom to overcome these.

Oculus

Christmas crib

Dear reader,

Still my relatives, my wife and myself are dealing with the loss of my father and mother as well. They both passed away this year. On top of that my 47 year old brother had a heart arrest beginning of November. Due to his wife's perfect and very quick reaction (she is a hospital nurse) we saved his life. He recovers greatly and so far there are only signs he will recover completely. Only a matter of time and rest.

Back to the subject, the Christmas crib; my parents bought a ceramic (clay) Christmas crib about 50 years ago and I was privileged to possess it since 2 years. As a tribute I pictured the crib last week and we send it as our internet season greetings e-card.

I add some more pictures to show you how beautiful this crib is and I'm sure the crib will last many more years.


Happy new year, Michaël

Oculus-senior passed away.....

Dear reader,

Lately I haven't been posting anything. Beside many busy hours at work, home, trips, there was very sad news 2 weeks ago. On December 10, 2007, my father Ernst in the age of 82 years passed away.
As death is a fixed and no point of return, it is always a sad moment for relatives, friends and others. However, like my father was really suffering from disease, both mentally and physically, it's a relief for him in the first place and for other in the second place.
At the cremation I held a speech looking back on my personal memories of my father. I picked out some very dear and worth full events he and I participated in. For instance, the fact that I travelled through The Netherlands late 60-ties when my father as asked to take pictures for the annual report of the AKZO company. He and I in a week time from north to south, east to west, 2 locations a day in summer time, waiting for the correct clouds, light, shadow etc, was an unforgettable experience.
As I mentioned in my first post, I inherited some of his passion for language writing and most of all observing things. I’m not as good and experience on the writing part, but I coming quite close to his ability to observe, listen and analyse my environment. That’s why I used his writer name “Oculus”, because his work is continued in some sense and through the eye, people watch the world.
My conclusion was that my father made out the best of his life. After the cremation we had some coffee and many supported me that Ernst lived the live he wanted to live. He experienced a lot, was always busy, never a dull moment, always looking, seeking for new things. He lived his life, and I'm sure he rests in peace, together with my mother, his wife, who only passed away 7 months before him. They would have had there 50-th anniversary last October.
At the end of my speech I took a phrase from a song saying that a person is really dead when people don’t share memories anymore.

Michaël

Ernst as photographer

Trelleborg (Sweden)

Last week I had a course in the south of Sweden. To be more precise in Trelleborg. The course was interesting (indeed and not just because my boss thought I had to go there), but that this of less interest for you blog reader. No I like to tell a bit about the town Trelleborg, the hotel I stayed etc. In this post I start to tell about the place Trelleborg.

Trelleborg is a rather small town at the real south edge of Sweden. Trelleborg is harbour city with several ferry connections to Germany and Poland. There are living about 25 thousand people in the community. The term "borg" as part of the city name means in Swedish "castle". Being at the coast and south tip of the country, it's clear that Trelleborg was of strategic value in history. Already the Vikings around 1000 used Trelleborg for trading and defense.

Walking around in town, I came along the remaining of a old monastery. The monastery was founded in 1267 by Franciscans.




















"Franciscan monastery"

Being and old city there are not many real old buildings left. I came across an older building from 1867. I guess many buildings have been taken down from before.

As in many Swedish town and cities there is a main street (often called "gå gatan" and a street free of cars, only allowed for pedestrians and bicycles) and a main square (called "stor torget" in Swedish). Typically for Swedish houses are the different colours of the facades.















"Main square"
















"Main street"















"Colourfull facades"

Next post I tell you about the place I stayed Dannegården.

Oculus