The things other than Boats and Machines that make up my world.
I live in Zuidoost Amsterdam, near the end of one of the Metro lines and close to the Gaasperplas. Amsterdam is a lovely city to live near, the history and culture make it always interesting and dynamic, but the tourist load is making the Center a bit too busy for my tastes these days.
The best things in my life; Bob the Mekong Bobtail, and Chucky the Ginger Tom.
Bobby arrived as a kitten in need of a home from a friend, Chucky came via the local animal shelter. Together they conspire to bring me company, sympathy, bugging for food at midnight and hairballs in the hallway. I love them to bits.
I used to have Cars and Motorbikes, and like them a lot. But living in Amsterdam made them redundant, and these days I simply have a nice electric bicycle, a public transport card, and feet. I like my Electric Assist Bike a lot, it is (frankly) faster and more reliable for going to Amsterdam than the Metro..
The only 'car' I drive these days is very red, and rather slow, but quite useful since it is the grass mower at my local sailclub. Where I volunteer as part of the maintenance crew and look after the gardens where I can.
Everywhere I live, I always seem to end up keeping fish. Currently I have a couple of community aquariums with lots of small inhabitants living in relatively peaceful co-existance. The golden rule is that 'nobody fits in anybody else's mouth'.
Prior to that one of the tanks contained 'Kali', a beautiful Longtail Comet Goldfish. I cared for her for 14+ years, and she was a big mature fish when I first met her in 2005. We went through a lot together, and I miss her.
I've worked in the Software industry most of my adult life, always working with the tools and technology, building other peoples software, helping them manage their code, tracking their bugs. My job has had many titles, 'build manager', 'toolsmith', 'app manager', 'devops engineer', but one thing I've never done is write the code itself, until recently.
Working on Arduino and other projects has finally forced me to learn some C and javascript programming, it has been a fun experience.
Owen Carter, born in 1968 in Aldershot; the United Kingdom.
I attended Thatcham and Chievely primary schools, then The Downs School in Compton and Hamble Comprehensive. For college I went to Southampton Institute of Technology, where I got a BTEC Diploma in General Engineering.
After that I Studied Cybernetics and Control engineering with the Department of Cybernetics at Reading University for my BSc. Before getting a job with Motorola, where I worked for 10 years.
I emigrated to the Netherlands in 1998, and have been living and working here ever since.
My apartment building, looking quite nice in the sun.
Wonderful while they lasted
The potato barrel on my balcony always gets a good crop
Color and life on a otherwise dull wall
Hiding under a leaf
What I use when I have a big load to transport
Nicest thing I have ever owned and ridden
Oh My! look at his eyes
Bob loves to sleep in impossibly uncomfortable looking poses
The cats are not, exactly, firm friends. But neither are they poperly enemies. Quite happy to share a space when it suits them.
There is something about Ginger Tomcats, when in the mood they can become total love sponges
I do not have a garden, so my balcony has to do
I used to paddle with the EHDC, our local club, and this is when we paddled to Bijlmer one day
The old crew, I had a lot of fun with them, and got very wet on occasion
A nice view of De Waag on Nieuwmarkt