Personal blog: The Dusty Nomad
Future is to those who tell of fortunes and feast on wisdom
Recently, I enrolled in a writing class. This is my first poem. You are grand, my sturdy steed. Each day I skip the roses, leave my nest behind, instead I visit you.
When I was a child, my mother had many plants across the house and in the garden. As we lived in the colder climate of Belgium, some of my earliest memories are of her asking me to move her giant beautiful Yucca plants indoors at the end of summer. It was a harsh surprise when one after one, I seemed to be able to kill these plants with relative ease.
I'm a big believer in liberal institutionalism, the idea that the development of international organizations that work together, build partnerships, integrate closely, reduces the risk of conflict between states. This also means I'm very much in favor of international cooperation, and in particular was a big supporter of the Iran deal.
In May of 2015, I went on a weekend backpacking trip the seeds of which were planted four years before. I vividly recall sitting in my apartment near Union Square in SF, being a bit homesick of the Pacific Northwest. If you've ever taken the Alaska Airlines de Havilland Dash 8-4 turboprop from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, you will likely have admired its green landscape without realizing it.
When California started development on the famous State Route 1, which traces its inspiring coastline, it left 26 miles untouched. These miles ran right on top of the Mendocino Triple Junction. In order to get to the trailhead, you drive 6 miles on Usal road, a dirt road with big potholes.
It was June 2008 when I entered Israel through the King Hussein Bridge crossing the Jordan River, into the West Bank. I had come from Damascus just days earlier. This blog is a collection of photos and descriptions that hope to describe pre-war Syria, as I found it to be in 2009.
This post is based on a mail I send in response to anyone asking me about Seattle. It's not an exhaustive summary of the beauty to be found around Seattle, nor is it a listing based on priority. As you're considering going to Seattle, I wanted to share with you a list of things that are really interesting to visit during your trip.
Today I rediscovered a little piece of myself, age seven. This entire week, I've been distracted at work. The reason for this is a gorgeous C-5 Galaxy strategic airlifter parked in front of my office window.
A year ago today, my friend Tareq passed away. I met Tareq for the first time in 2008 at the DEFCON hacker conference. It was my third DEFCON, and I had a great time meeting people during those hot summer days.
When I was much younger, our cousin Pascal would regularly tease me and my sister with stories about demonic earth rays. In 2008, when I first moved to Seattle, I quickly discovered that the Pacific Northwest was a very unique place. On my first work day at Microsoft, I found a document warning me on what to do in case of an earthquake.
It was the fourth time that I attempted to maneuver my car into a small street parking spot, that day, when I suddenly noticed the fire hydrant. I barked, pushed the gas, and swiftly moved the car back out. I was there because my own temporary home just didn't cut it anymore.
About two months ago, I moved to Vancouver, in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. Alas, I have not spent too much time here, and I'm already moving away. The view from the roof is great.
Something truly sad happened while I was in Jerusalem. Around lunchtime, July 2nd, a Palestinian inhabitant of East Jerusalem who worked for a construction firm used his bulldozer to flip over a bus. One of the primary responses brought up by public opinion was to fence off Eastern Jerusalem.
Jerusalem and inhabitant. Picture from the Mount of Olives. Jerusalem, final destination of this overland trip, and one of the most contentious places in the whole world. People living in this part of the city have Israeli permanent residency, but mostly identify themselves with the Palestinians.
Tel Aviv. As seen from Old Jaffa. The last two days of my travels were spent in Tel Aviv, the closest major city to Ben Gurion airport. Tel Aviv is really a beach city with great quality of life for its inhabitants.
Culture Shock got a new name today. It's called Allenby Border Control, sometimes more affectionately referred to as Allenby Bridge. Heading down from Amman into the Jordan Rift Valley, Jordan's border with Israel.
Power in itself can lead to very painful defeats. Many of us learn this in business school or out of private interest by reading the works of Machiavelli. One of the more tragic lessons, however, is that of the Syrian queen Iulia Aurelia Zenobia.
The little town of Hama lies along the Orontes river in Syria. Fifth-largest in the country, with a population numbering a bit less than half a million. Alas, during my stay, the wheels did not crackle due to ongoing draught.
About two years ago, I spent an evening sitting in an alternative movie theater watching Paradise Now. Despite the convincing title, the movie actually doesn't portray paradise, but the life of Palestinians. Nablus, population 134,000, is one of the largest population centres in the West Bank.
Ever since the annexation of East Jerusalem, the town of Ramallah has served as the unofficial capital of the Palestinian Authority. It's a city of some 118000 which contains some of the most thriving businesses of Palestine. Getting to Ramallah from East Jerusalem is a breeze.
It's difficult to imagine a place of this beauty to remain undiscovered until 1812, when a Swiss explorer, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt discovered it. Anyway – no water here. Petra lies in the middle of the desert, close to the King's highway in Jordan.
At first sight, Hebron appears to be a bustling city of some 166,000 Palestinians, located deep into the West Bank. What we don't realize, however, is that this is in fact mostly fiction leading its own life. Hebron is the burial place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah.
If the reader kindly permits me, I'll wander off the chosen path and hop back to a swell summer evening in August 2007. Location is the Chaos Communications Camp. During one of the many evening festivities, a small number of fire breathers were invited.
It's difficult for me not to see Prague as one of those enchanting Eastern European beauties. It's magical flair is sooo generated by the scarcity effect. Time which, alas, I never seem to possess.
Heading down to southern Thailand, I stayed on one of the beautiful West Coast beaches. However, don't prepare for any pretty pictures – I spent two days in marvellous sunshine without a camera. I rented a small bungalow for 100 baht a night.
Bangkok is a giant. A 2000 census revealed a total number of inhabitants of 6,355,144 with a dazzling population density of 4,426 inhabitants in every square kilometer. I had already visited Bangkok in 2003, but while there, never managed to get to the Royal Palace.
Georgetown is the capital city of Penang, Malaysia. The state of Penang is an island based in the Straits of Malacca that has about 1.5 million inhabitants. My encounter with Penang actually came as a stopover on the train from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok.
Having room for a ten-day stopover in South East Asia, I took MAS's nice Boeing 747-400 back to Kuala Lumpur international airport. Malaysia Airlines is a highly coveted airline with incredibly friendly people. Once in Malaysia, I checked into what is probably one of the nicest and friendliest hostels in the world – Red Palm.
Getting back to Perth, there wasn't all that much time to relax. On the 5th of December I was presenting a research paper at the 7th Australian Information Warfare and Security Conference. The abstract of my paper: The concept of covert channels has been visited frequently by academia.
Having lived in Australia for a year, it sort of became time to visit the nation's capital. The above picture was taken from the top of the new Parliament house and shows how nicely this building is aligned with the old Parliament house.
The evening we arrived in Sydney, the finals of Australian Idol were being held at the Sydney Opera house. Completely oblivious to this fact, we walked straight down to Circular Quay. The first few nights we stayed just across the botanical gardens that lead to Circular Quay.
Getting me in an up-mood again, however, the three of us soon arrived in New Zealand. In the seventies, my father had visited some people there which he really wanted to visit once more while in Perth. Over the next few days we visited the upper Northland cities of Kamo and Paihia.
On November 15th, some visitors arrived on my humble doorstep here in Perth. My sister, Hilde, and father, Herwig, had decided to come and visit Australia and New Zealand and arrived at 2 AM. In the meanwhile I spent a lot of time finishing my final assignments, packing my belongings.
Each year, the Royal Agricultural Society of Western Australia organizes a mega event, called the Perth Royal Show. The goal of this event is to bring the country into the city. It turned out to be a massive event, attracting some half a million visitors yearly.
A long, long time ago, there was an area called Boorloo, inhabited by a peoples that knew themselves as the Whadjuk Noongar. In 1829, all that changed. In their goal to keep the French out of this forgotten part of Australia, the British had already established a port.
The old and the new. Sydney effectively has it all. Even though it's winter, daytime temperatures were 21 degrees and there was hardly any rainfall. A view of the city and Circular Quay, Sydney's main tourist hot spot.
Here are some pictures from the long trip from Perth to Sydney by train. Indie rolled out of East Perth train station on Wednesday at 11h55 in the morning, arriving at Sydney Central train station on Saturday afternoon. Early morning surfers at Cottlesloe beach.
It seems like I only just finished unpacking from my trip to Fiji, but I'm heading off again. Tomorrow at lunchtime I'm taking the train to Sydney, to help out at a one-week wireless auditing course. Trains have always been my favourite type of transport.
The picture really doesn't do this scenery justice. Depicted is Prevally Park, close to the area where the Margaret River exits into the Indian Ocean. Margaret River is a town about 280 kilometers from Perth with about 10 000 inhabitants.
Fiji was wonderful with temperatures of about 25 degrees during the day. It was winter however, and they had quite a cool seabreeze coming in. The picture above was taken on an island called Matacawa Levu, which is situated in the Yasawa group of Islands.
I promise I won't be making too much covert advertising anymore, but today is an exception. The Pacific Pleasure is a great juice created by Java Juice, a local Perth juice bar. The reason I'm bringing this up is that I'm going to look for some pacific pleasure myself.
Don't you just love that view. This is just about one hour and fifteen minutes' drive outside of the center of Perth. On the 29th of April I paid a visit to Nambung National Park, about 250 kilometers from Perth. The national park is especially known because of a small stretch of desert called the Pinnacles.
No pictures this time. The last few weeks have been exceptionally busy with a large number of assignments that needed to be finished. This thursday, semester 1 finished. The last few weeks we've also seen the weather turning to its winter state.
Hello again! Exams are over, all assignments have been completed – time to explore Australia a bit. Today I went to the mid-west, to have a look at Western Australia's mini version of Ayers Rock, called Wave Rock. On the way over there, spotted a nice example of how recruitment is done in small townships.
Albany is a vibrant little community of about 30 000 people located on the southern tip of Western Australia. It is built between three massive granite hills, being Mount Clarence, Mount Melville and Mount Adelaide. The town was founded in 1826, as the first European settlement in Western Australia.
After a twelve hour delay in Brussels and London, I finally arrived in Kuala Lumpur late in the afternoon of January 25th. KL, as called by locals and many visitors, is an impressive city of approximately 4 million inhabitants. During my four days in Kuala Lumpur I stayed in an area of town called Bukit Bintang.