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Post by K Man on Jul 14, 2004 8:52:00 GMT -5
Man...leave for a week and a half and you have to come back and break out the Defibulators on these boards. That's right, KMan has returned and has the overwhelming urge to game right now. ;D So let's get this thing jump started again eh? I saw The Salt Flats of Utah, San Fransisco and it's Golden Gate Bridge (Also met Wizard there but am reluctant to admit I went to San Fransisco to meet a 'guy from the internet'  ) Saw California and it's crazy-ass drivers and wine valley, saw Oregon and it's beautiful scenery and damned hippies...but most importantly... I saw Boise Idaho! Just kidding on that last part. Anyways, glad you're all still around and I look forward to gaming again!! |
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Post by TheUdjat on Jul 14, 2004 8:55:08 GMT -5
Woot!  That's all I have to contribute. |
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Post by Japic on Jul 14, 2004 9:07:14 GMT -5
It's about time your ass showed up!
I was worried the mormons got their hooks in you. Salt Lake ones, not Cali ones.
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Xariach
Veteran of the War
Posts: 435
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Post by Xariach on Jul 14, 2004 11:43:16 GMT -5
Glad to see you return !
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Post by Cel on Jul 14, 2004 11:44:35 GMT -5
Yeah. The forums come back to life now.
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Post by Merovingian on Jul 15, 2004 12:04:16 GMT -5
If you liked Oregon you should see Washington, Just as green but with huge friken mountains.
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Zarni
Veteran of the War
It's not what you do, it's the company you keep.
Posts: 148
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Post by Zarni on Jul 15, 2004 12:07:36 GMT -5
why not come to england some time? visit the mother land ;D  |
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Post by sonnetinkinston on Jul 16, 2004 9:33:06 GMT -5
Hey, east coast is always open!  |
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Post by VemuKhaham on Jul 16, 2004 9:44:01 GMT -5
if your in a plane anyway heading east by then, fly over both these east coast and England and come to the Netherlands, and see absolutely no mountains there! But perhaps you like flowers? |
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Post by K Man on Jul 16, 2004 9:58:25 GMT -5
Thanks to everyone for the warm welcome back.
To address a few requests for visits.
England, definetly would like to, but the company closed their overseas offices in 2000...so this may have to wait but definetely on the 'To Do' list.
The Netherlands, umm...not into flowers and honesly, I know nothing about those lands. Anything else to lure me there?
East coast, love the east coast. In fact, the recent trip made me appreciate the east coast over the west coast. I would be happy to go out there sometime.
My upcoming trips for certain; (All of which are work-related which = having a PC with me.)
Dallas, TX (mmmm...bar-b-que) (Date not known)
Long Beach, CA (In early October.)
Washington D.C. (In Mid-November)
Next year, back to Salem and Boston cause I loved them! During the week of halloween.
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Post by Cel on Jul 16, 2004 10:06:07 GMT -5
Psst, I heard Iraq is beautiful this season. Many lights in the skies.
just kidding. ;D
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Post by sonnetinkinston on Jul 16, 2004 10:10:04 GMT -5
And in many different colors... a fun trip if you like sandstorms and 130 degree temperatures.
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Post by Wizard on Jul 16, 2004 10:39:15 GMT -5
Yeah, admittedly, "meeting a guy from the Internet" wasn't on my list of accomplishments I brag about, but whatever. It was fun. Oh, yeah---no parking ticket, and I was like an hour over!
Well, I've worked out a deal with my neighbor, so I'm back, but don't go crazy if I miss a day---'cause I might.
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Post by VemuKhaham on Jul 16, 2004 14:44:28 GMT -5
ROFL ;D ;D ;D You've asked for it.  Now I'm going to start my make-homeland-sound-like-heaven-rant... So read if you manage to remain interested, and stop... please stop whenever things start to get boring... However, sit tight and you might learn some things...
The Netherlands, or Holland, is a very very small country, situated right in the middle of the three more-known countries of Europe: France, England and Germany. History of the Netherlands is quite interesting if I say so myself, because in most parts we filled the role of nasty businessmen. We were known the world over for our (in)famous trading company the VOC, and we colonised the bulk of Indonesia, Southern Africa and some places around the Caribean. Dutch colonists founded New York, in fact in it's early days it was called New Amsterdam (Amsterdam is our capitol). The Dutch have also been fond of slavery for a long time, and we brought thousands of Africans to America, and realised entire mass emigrations this way. Yes, it is good to be a Dutchmen... After WWII we lost our last colonies (Indonesia and later Surinam to name the largest). Other things of note is that the Dutch became independant after they fought out the Spanish. Holland was always a republic until it became a monarchy which it remained until today, although the royalty has no real power anymore. On a sidenote, the Netherlands were, only second to the Roman Empire, the first republic. We entered our so-called "Golden Age" in the seventeenth century, when our art florished (Rembrandt van Rhijn, Vincent van Gogh e.a. as our most famous painters). In this time and through our entire history the Netherlands were known as a tolerant people, and many religious and political refugees, like jews, protestants and catholics etc, fled to here, as there was great freedom here. Those are the general lines of our most well-known history. Now some features that might interest you: - Amsterdam, the capitol city. It isn't a large metropolis, but it has a very distinctive antique centre, with a lot of famous moats that circled the city as it grew ever larger. Some palaces stand there. Anne Frank, a jewish girl, wrote her world-famous diary describing her life during WWII in oppressed Amsterdam there, from her secret 'back chamber', and on the spot where this chamber was there is now a famous and touching museum. Other things: Because of our (dubious in my opinion) neutrality in world conflicts (yes we did remain neutral in WWI, but that's all I can think of) we have the international High Court in The Hague, another large city. We currently have a prime minister who looks like Harry Potter. The general countryside in the Netherlands can be described as very flat (we have one mountain, but it isn't much, and it is in the far end of the country). Distinctive and world-famous are the many mills which dot the landscape and again; flowers: Dutch flower producers export their flowers the world over and many important occasions make use of Dutch flowers. We have a lot of internationally known flower gardens which really are (even to someone not really into it, like me for example) a nice thing to visit. If you ever heard of them, wooden shoes originate from Dutch culture. They are world-famous too. Among certain groups of people who come from everywhere in the world, the Netherlands are certainly heaven: this is because we have extremely progressive, if I may say so, rules concerning many things that are today's taboos and ethical issues. We were, if I'm not mistaking, the first country to allow abortion and euthanasia. But, more importantly, we are the Walhalla to people who seek to legally use an awful lot of drug types in legal but controlled coffee shops. Most alcohol is is the Netherlands for age 16 and higher. Prostitution is also regulated by the government in the Netherlands, so it is legal, and especially in Amsterdam, one can find everything in that area. For these reasons, the Netherlands and especially Amsterdam are famous also. Some of today's issues: Our military made some blunders in the past (Bosnia for instance) but overall we support the UN and NATO greatly. We currently have forces in Afghanistan and Iraq too. The Dutch have always tried to participate in world politics, but the world power it once was is gone and in the future most of our nationality will vanish in the European Union I guess, which isn't a bad thing if things get handled well. Anyway, even though we have not that much international influence anymore, trade continues to be remarkable in world standards, which is especially due to the big rivers that run through our low country, and these are the main ports to europe, as the Maas runs into France and Belgium and the Rhine through Germany into Switzerland. This brings up another thing of great note: in the Netherlands is the largest harbour of the world, which stands as a testimony to the trading nature. Another symbol world-famous are the Delta-Works, an immense network of dikes, bridges and dams. It prevents half the surface of our country from flooding, as half of it is below sea-level. Oh: and if you now have the image of a big countryside stretching for miles and miles with a couple of big cities, you're almost there: only realise that Holland is, after Bangladesh, the most densely populated country in the world, with 16 million people on a very small surface. Furthermore it is a wealthy nation with a great BNP, and a large social structure for the poor and unfortunate.
And now you think, if you got this far... wew... doesn't he have anything better to do then ramble ever on about a sad little country? Well, then the answer would be "yes". I am bored. And to tell you the truth; I didn't expect you to hang on this far, so if you did: I hope it wasn't disastrous to your day and you have my cookies for perseverance... Who knows, maybe it has even been interesting... |
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Post by K Man on Jul 16, 2004 14:53:20 GMT -5
:oDamn Vemu... I don't think 20% of Americans can spout half as much info about the states as you just did about Holland. I am impressed and I just didn't think about it, but Amsterdamn is on my list to see...so maybe I'll drop by sometime. Oh and, Was really all you had to say... |
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Post by Japic on Jul 16, 2004 15:04:18 GMT -5
There are a few things that he left out about the history of said people though. Keep in mind I am by far no great authority on them, but my family does have close ties to Holland. My great grandparents on my fathers side came across some long time ago and settled down here in the US. Aside from a little of the looks and a last name, we've melded together with the population quite nicely.
Now, I have a few points that revolve around the ship going nature of my forefathers that Vemu didn't really touch on:
At some point the Dutch had one of the greatest navel fleets in the world. This fleet allied themselves on more than one occasion to form naval powerhouses with early european countries. The ships were small and fast and their knowledge of the waters they sailed was second to none.
A decent portion of pirates that sailed the Carribean back in the golden age of piracy were indeed dutch sailors. As I recall there were no overly famous ones, but some were sucessful none-the-less.
I guess that's all I can remember offhand, but it'll have to do for now. See you around.
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Post by VemuKhaham on Jul 16, 2004 19:33:46 GMT -5
Well, if you find yourself in Amsterdam next time, I'll just give you one hook to where you wanna' go: it is a place, or more of a street called 'De Wallen': it's quite famous too even though I can't speak out of experience. Oh, and did you write 'AmsterdamN' on purpose or as a typing error, cause it's actually the name of a computer game. Nevertheless, didn't expect any serious reactions but I'm kinda' pleased to see my ranting resulted to something . And I actually didn't knew about the Dutch piracy, but as you mention it I can imagine it easily, yes. And yes, we had a truly powerful navy, and as I mentioned the VOC before (the trading company) I hadn't stated that they were a company, but they differed from normal companies in one way: they had the right to maintain their own army and occupy and conquer new territory, just like a country could. So indeed as they grew larger they gathered quite a navy. The end of their height came however when an enormous amount of European countries all had war against the Dutch at the same time, including Great Britain, Denmark, but I dare not name any more specific countries, but there were many more, and I think the French were among them too. The British managed to block the North Sea, so the Dutch fleet could not reach their oversees colonies anymore, and with that the VOC died. If you want, I could go on a little deeper into the history, for example how we again used the water to free and fight the Spanish that had controlled the Netherlands for a long time. You see, when the Spanish besieged larger Dutch cities like Delft in the simple way (blocking all trade to the city till it starves to death), the Dutch destroyed their own dikes to set the river loose upon the Spanish encampments, leading the water exactly in a way so that it would avoid the Dutch city. The war started when the Spanish king Philip forced the catholic religion upon the Dutch people. Protestants didn't like that and they began too rebel against the Spanish. Of course the Spanish reacted with force, only throwing oil on the fire. This resulted in the so-called "Beeldenstorm", or, if I'd try to translate it, something like "Statue Storm" in which protestants ravaged the catholic churches and destroyed the wealth of the church, including statues etc. The resistance kept growing and Willem van Oranje began to unite the Dutch and fight for independancy. After a while he succeeded and the Spanish left, and with that the first real Dutch nation and state was formed, as a republic. Later however, the French came under Napoleon and Holland was ruled by the French. When Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo the first king was born in Holland, named Willem I, and so the republic was gone. Furthermore, as I spoke about New York being founded by the Dutch as New Amsterdam, I'll add a detail: Wall Street was there already when the Dutch were still in charge, and when the British tried to take over New Amsterdam, the Dutch had installed their defenses on this road. Maybe, some fantasts now claim, if the Dutch had managed to retain the largest colony in northern America in that battle, we wouldn't be reading English now here on the net, but Dutch. To me, that's just a fairy tale and a lot of talk afterwards, but next time you go to visit New York, maybe you'll view the city from a different point of view now... Ow, and please do not take these words as true without doubt: this is what I can memorize without using other sources, so some info might just be wrong or something, but I don't think so myself. Again this day continues to be not very interesting, but now that I can write up some things here, wether people read it or not, the clock has resumed it's ticking... |
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) Saw California and it's crazy-ass drivers and wine valley, saw Oregon and it's beautiful scenery and damned hippies...but most importantly...
Now I'm going to start my make-homeland-sound-like-heaven-rant... So read if you manage to remain interested, and stop... please stop whenever things start to get boring... However, sit tight and you might learn some things...