Dear visitor (m/f),
Nice to see you here! In 2016 I decided to look back on what I had been doing while walking the globe. Seems to happen at a certain age ...
And because I am reasonably at home in the IT world, it seemed appropriate to do that in interactive form. Hence these "Showcases".
The idea for the showcases came up while when visiting the permanent art exhibition of Akzo Nobel in Amsterdam with Frans Oostrik, the then chairman of Stadsdorp Zuid. We contemplated a work of art that looked suspiciously like what we used to produce in kindergarten: mats plaiting!
That led to a reflection on the transience of one's own productions, and I realized that I still had a lot of what possibly might be of interest to others. All that thanks to the computer age, which for me had already started in the sixties of the last century, and which enabled me to continually transport my produce in binary form from floppy disks to hard disks to virtual storage.
In my present digital vaults (2x2Tb local and 120Gb at Google) most of my working life can be found.
I decided, also because I was working for Jan de Jong, a good flying buddy from the Air Force, to help him shape his memoirs, to do something about it.
The search for the form took a few months, and in the end I came up with these shop windows.
I've built them with Google Sites, Google Docs, Ms Word, Ms Flight Simulator X, ShareX, MuseScore, Screenhunter Pro and many more software tools that I have learned to use and appreciate over the years.
The interactive shop window structure ensures that modifications are always possible and that, like actual shop windows, they can be redesigned over and over again. Thus I may continue to build and rebuild as long as I can - hopefully for a long time to come.
Much of what you find in the Shop windows has to do with the golden threads in my life: flying, information technology and persuasion techniques.
You will find stories, product descriptions, photos and flight videos. Feel free to just look around!
Nowadays I spend my time mostly on what we used to call hobbies: choir singing (Duivenkoor & Hoofdstadkoor), playing club bridge (Pegasus) and playing tennis (Tulip). Often there are associated websites and support systems designed and maintained by yours truly. I am also a member of Stadsdorp Zuid, NIN (Dutch Institute for Navigation), KNVOL (Royal Dutch Air Force Association) and of the P.G. Wodehouse Society. I have also been a member of the (now Royal) IGC (the Industrial Groote Club) in Amsterdam for a number of years, but left in 2015 when the club changed course for the big commercial money. It's the way of the world ...
Finally I have been blessed with four children, six grandchildren, two ex-wives and one loving Jacqueline, whom I have been living with for almost thirty years in Amsterdam.
Salute! I wish you a life that is at least as rich, challenging and varied as that of myself.
My avatar is called JC4Real because of my initials (JC). The corresponding image is from the animated movie UP! highly recommended..