After a long flight (actually not that bad, a direct flight of eleven hours or so), I made it back to good old California. Rented a car for two weeks and made it down to Monterey in no time.

Not much has changed, and it feels great being back in familiar territory. What a relief it is being able to speak only (American) English again -- and having everyone understand all of what I am saying.

Heard the following quote on the BBC Radio this early morning in the car driving around who knows where:

"Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead..."

For some reason, it really struck a chord somewhere deep inside of me, making me think about one thing in particular and then another.

That's when the chorus began and the wonderful notes echoed inside of the distant cathedral somewhere, inside and around my head, probably in another dimension of time and place.

... (Matthew 8:22)

In exactly one week from now if all goes according to plan I should be wandering around aimlessly somewhere in California at or around this time.

Well not precisely.

My son told me proudly this morning early just before he was ready to open up all his presents, that as of today he was one millennium old.

For a child just turned ten, I guess there isn't that much of a difference between becoming ten to turning a thousand, now is there?

Just a little over a week ago someone got robbed and now some bothersome man refuses to pay. There we were in the middle of nowhere and the train could not leave because this guy was making a big scene.

In Holland it is traditional when parting that you tell the person you are leaving to give his family and friends your greetings.

In Dutch they say 'groeten' which means greetings. Doe maar de groeten...

For me it is not so very important at all how super smart or brilliant someone might be or whatever kind of fantastic education one has had.

The most important thing is how well one uses this knowledge in selecting creative and original tid-bits in order to accomplish the most with the least.

Sorry, but this great blog (Gibberations) has been discontinued and replaced by:

Kiffin's Blog

There she was this lady sitting next to me in the train this early evening.

The whole way back, nearly sixty minutes non-stop, she just stared into the world of nothingness ahead of her, blinking only rarely to let a microcosmic ripple of a tear-drop gently wash the flotsams from the surface of her eyes.

While rummaging through my Stanford class of 1979 book for the 25th reunion, I was surprised to discover how successful all these so-called graduates had become in life.

There was this grumpy old man sitting next to this happy young girl, more than likely greater than half a century of time separating them.

Ironically, the reality of the situation was that the true distance between them was less than half a meter.

Things are often more similar than they appear to be different.

Forty seven is a nice round number, especially since the two digits add up just right to my favorite number. Four plus seven equals eleven.

We were all quite surprised when she started acting that way, as if she had been awakened with new magical powers, to do whatever she wanted as if that was all it were about.

I immediately sensed that there was something wrong, but stared in eager anticipation with the rest of the family who were visiting her on her seventy-ninth birthday. Naïve, prepared and unknowing at the very same time.

Staring with groggy eyes into the seemingly infinite darkness becomes much less disconcerting when your mind awakes and clears up the situation.

The window is not painted over but it is as transparent as can be. An occasional distant pinpoint of light skimming over from the left to right attests to the fact that I am moving with impressive velocity.

Do not worry because you will not become swallowed up. Instead you tear through the invisible brown paper bag of awareness so that you can see the light better.

Velocity is an illusion, but getting there is not.

So what if the lady had her carry bag stolen? That is no excuse to hold up the train for twenty minutes or longer. There she was all ranting and raving as if her only child had climbed out of the moving train window and jumped. Oops, sorry about that.

There was this spider hanging from its invisible strand connected to the bosch clock above, and it was descending ever so slowly, not more than a foot and a half from my right shoulder.