Personal History

Statistics
Born 10th May 1964, in Leiden, the Netherlands
Younger sister Mieke and brother Joost, 2 parents and lots and lots of aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins
Married to Issie, with 2 children, Lucy (born April 1999) and ?? (born a few days ago, August 2002, a boy, still looking for a name)

Childhood
At the age of 4 my parents moved to Voorhout, a town (6000 inhabitants) 20 minutes cycling from the sea. Voorhout had clear boundaries and layout (surrounded by fields, main road through the middle), so I could roam the village from an early age

At the age of 7 I joined the Scouts, kicking and screaming (my parents thought it was time I made some friends). I loved it and stayed for many years, from cub scout through scout, senior scout and scout leader. This is where I got my love of forests and camping. Every Saturday I spent at the club house. The main event of the summer was the summer camp

My parents owned a toy shop. I especially enjoyed the collection of racing cars, trains and tracks, which were left by the previous owner and were no longer sellable. I could cover my whole bedroom floor with racing tracks and have a great time with my friends. And I had unlimited access to the children's books and comics (as long as I read them very carefully)

Education
I went to a Catholic primary school, from the age of 6 till 12. Being fairly bright the teaching was too slow for me, eat least in most subjects

Secondary school, from the age of 12 till 18, suited me much better. There was a choice of subjects, and I concentrated on topics like Maths, Physics and Chemistry

I bought my first computer at the age of 16, a kit which I had to solder together. It miraculously survived to bumpy 2 hour cycle ride home and my soldering and worked first time. 256 bytes (not KBytes, not MBytes, but single ones) and a hexadecimal keyboard (0-9, A-F) and display (2 digits) made me very happy. A little while later the first Apple II's arrived at school and I was one of the lucky few who was allowed to play with them

Then on to university to study Computer Science. Home at last :-) Many years nothing but computers, although there was always a human element too, either teaching and training others to use computers or helping others with problem solving

Move to England
In 1988 I went to England, supposedly to spend 4 weeks programming, finishing off a small project I was doing for someone who had set up a new company in England. The new company looked interesting so I decided to join

Family
I met Issie whilst playing badminton ('our eyes met over net' :-) and we got married in Scotland 9th April 94. Our daughter Lucy was born April 1999 and our second child, a son, was born a few days ago, August 2002