Thankful Thursday

[mdlbear]

Today I am not feeling particularly grateful, given what's going on in my former homeland. But I'll try. Today I am grateful for...

• Having gotten out of the US in time.
• Having enough drugs to continue treating my cancer for another five months or so even if I can't manage to connect with an oncologist before then. NO thanks for the twistiness of the Dutch health care system.
• Having opened enough boxes to have finally found most of the things I've been worried about. Most of the recording gear was in a large box labeled "AV" -- we just had to unpack enough other boxes to uncover it.
• The stepdown transformer I got for N's fancy sewing machine, which wants 110V with a polarized plug. NO thanks to idiot manufacturers that don't internationalize their products.

Comments

[redsixwing]

I'm very glad you did. Best of luck with the health care system there!

[mdlbear]

Thanks. We could have chosen better in that respect.

I guess nowhere is paradise

[robinthefiddler]

I kept hearing about how everywhere is better about health care than the US, but having navigated an emergency appendectomy in Luxor, I’d have to rate it as “not better, not worse. Nursing care was a little bit worse (not bad, but I was expecting attention I didn’t get) but I think they expect your family to take a more active part, and I wanted Fred to continue on the trip we’d paid for. And I had to pay the entire cost immediately after (thanks for credit limits entirely more than I should routinely use) and then fill out paperwork for my trip insurance.

[jesse_the_k]

I'm so glad you've moved to wetter climes!

[mdlbear]

Actually, the climate here in The Hague is quite similar to that in Seattle, where I was living before. The average temperature and rainfall are about the same, but the standard deviation is smaller. (My move from San Jose to Seattle is another story.)

The reason we moved had nothing to do with weather, and everything to do with politics.

[jesse_the_k]

I was thinking more about the hydrogeology, having just finished a [quick introduction to Dutch water management infrastructure][wet]. (Engineering YouTube is a happy place thanks to the long time scales.)

[wet]: https://youtu.be/qQCB3N8Vaxk

[mdlbear]

Thanks for the link! I'd seen a thumbnail pop up a couple of times in my YT wanderings, but hadn't followed it until now. Well worth the trouble.

There's a saying here: "God made the world. The Dutch made the Netherlands." It's a great comfort in stormy weather.

[jesse_the_k]

Ha! That's a great saying. (Why didn't my Markdown work?)

I wish I'd had Grady and Practical Engineering to watch when I was a kid.

[mdlbear]

A link in Markdown is text in brackets followed by the URL in parentheses. Most (all?) Markdown translators will also accept a standard HTML link, along with (some) other standard HTML tags.