Greetings from Holland

[Nico Kempe]

..or actually The Netherlands.

I'm Nico, and I, or my ego and this body, have been dwelling (I love that word!) on this earth for 26 years, and I'm stunned on how populated this forum is already.

Nico is a geek kinda guy, he loves Open Source and the Open Source spirit, and so his computers at home run only *nix systems, he likes to be a bit different..)
Also I like nature, I try to decorate my home that way (spend 4,5 hours painting a strip of giraffe spots on the wall, wooden floor, and some plants that strangely still seem to be alive), and just this morning I welcomed one of the last flocks of geese to fly into this country, really some amazing thing to think about, those migrations of birds.

Currently I work at a large Dutch telecom provider where I coördinate technical incidents for the ISP part of the company.
To be honest though, it is not what I _want_ to do for much longer. I would like to learn more about *nix systems, get a LPI certificate, and see if I can become a Linux engineer or something in that direction.
And so I'm investigating in taking courses via my work, and doing some more self-study.

I began developing an interest in personal development about 8 years ago, and it has grown quite a bit since then.
I've always had a little trouble in accepting the "normal" way of living, just working, earning money to support yourself and family, and have some fun, then die, and exhaust the resources of this planet while doing it.
Of course that is somewhat black and white too, but at least I thought about it.
Anyway, I am working on my personal development and I am very excited about what I will find next.

I'm very happy to have stumbled upon Steve's website, it really stimulates me to hold on to my ideas and develop myself further.
I tried to use the problem solving techniques on my brother, but unfortunatly my brother is more stubborn than a donkey (that's a dutch saying..), so that didn't really work out. My family was really amazed about my aquired skills though

Oh, did I mention that today I succesfully finished my 30-day trial on meditation? Thanks Steve! I do need some improvement on that though, but hey, it's a great start.

So here are some things I'm currently working on:
- Photoreading (I bought just the book to try it out, but haven't had much success yet, but I do want to get the whole set when I can afford it)
- getting more knowledge on *nix and getting certified
- learn to meditate better (would probably help on the photoreading too)

Right, well, that's about it, time to explore the forum..)