drs. P. D. J. de Meer
Working as a test analyst in the ICT branch.
In the summer of 19-- I was born in a nice small town in the middle of the Netherlands. I grew up with my parents, one brother and one sister.
On the picture left it was queens-day. Every year Dutch people celebrate queens-day on 30 April because it's the birthday of the queen. These days queen Juliana was the queen of the Netherlands. Today it's queen Beatrix who's in charge.
Here I was two and a half years old. I'm standing in the garden and it's beautiful weather. I've the Dutch flag in my hand and a orange belt around. Look to my left leg and see it was heavily bandaged. I will tell you what happened: I was often playing around in the yard. One time I climbed on the roof of the garage (as a small boy I was already trying to reach the top) and jumped from the roof to the ground. I didn't see there was glass laying on the ground and I felled with my left leg in the glass. Poor boy!
It was heavily bleeding and I ran quickly to my parents. They applied the bandage.
As a small boy I went to the primary school and after that I followed secondary education, the Athenaeum. The topics I followed were English, Dutch, mathematics, physics, chemistry, economics and biology. I really had an aptitude for mathematics and physics and was an A student. I was interested in space technology and wanted to become an astronaut or a pilot.
I attended some sport clubs; did oriental fighting sports like karate. I swam and ran a lot, also played volley-ball in some teams and played tennis.
In the school year 1985 / 1986 I went to the United States of America. I lived one year with an American family in Olive Branch, Mississippi. This small town is located in the Mid-south, close by Memphis Tennessee, across the state line. It was really great to be there! I was a cultural exchange student and attended the senior class on the high school.
One week after the arrival in Olive Branch the host family took me on a summer holiday to California. We stayed in San Jose, we had a great time and seen a lot of the West-Coast. During our car drives we enjoyed the environment a lot! The highways passes through empty prairies and beautiful mountains.
In Los Angeles we visited the Universal Studio's, the place where a lot of movies are recorded, and Beverly Hills, the place where many famous movie stars live in there big villa's.
We've also been on a sunny day to the beach in Santa Cruz. We're burned in the sun. Santa Cruz is a nice water sport resort. The coast is suited for surfing and diving. There are enough possibilities for renting a surf board. The seals were swimming under the piers there, the Pacific Ocean was blue and clear. Some people were fishing from the piers. A lot of entertainment parks are present there on the promenade.
We've also been in San Francisco. Here I'm standing before the Trans American Building in San Francisco. The view from the top is great.
The cable train is a famous tourist attraction in San Francisco. People use the cable train when they are travelling from one point to the other in the down town. From many spots in the city you can see The Golden Gate and Alcatraz. In the harbour of San Francisco you can take a boat and visit the prison island Alcatraz and have a guided tours in the former prison. It's also possible to take a flight with a helicopter to Alcatraz.
There are also a lot of homeless people in San Francisco. They sleep on the streets or under bridges. You can see some beggars looking in the trash cans for old food or for bottles / tin plates with deposits, they even will bag you to give some money. The United States of America is not the promised land for everybody. For them the American dream became a nightmare!
In Chinatown a great amount of Chinese people managed to build a life in freedom. In the beginning of the 19th century a lot of Asian people arrived in California. Often they worked on the railroads there as the Cantonese railroad workers. A lot of them left California and went to New York's. In New York's Chinatown they formed Tongs (a kind of Mafia-organisation like the Triads) were they kept the order, even today. Although Chinatown in San Francisco is not as tall as New York's Chinatowns, it is pretty big and it is worth while to see. A lot of Chinese restaurants offer good meals and as a tourist you feel welcome.
In the spring of 1986 we went to Florida by car with a nice group of cultural exchange students from different countries. We stayed in a hotel in Orlando, a beautiful city. We've visited Sea World, Epcot Centre and Walt Disney World.
On the picture left I'm standing with some other cultural exchange student on the main road in Walt Disney World. From left to right are Mary from Finland, Pieter from Holland (it's me), Willey from Norway and Carlos from Brazil. We've done a lot of attractions and enjoy our visit to Walt Disney World. It was a pity that the waiting lines were so long. On this picture I'm standing with Pluto.
The Kennedy Space Centre is an interesting place to visit. It's located in Florida on the east coast. The Kennedy Space Centre is a big area where all the space shuttle's are kept in a big hangar and launched. It is possible to watch a launch of the space shuttle from a distance. You can walk through a rocket garden, where a lot of small rockets are exhibited. Also used space vehicles are exhibited, some are even black coloured because of the heat when they passed through the atmosphere when returning to earth. There's a big control room with a lot of monitors, where the moon missions in the sixties were guided.
On the picture left I'm standing before a big rocket in Kennedy Space Centre. It was used by the Apollo missions in the sixties. It is amazing that such a giant volume can be launched in space! Most of the volume is used for fuel storage.
A lot of research is done here in the aerospace laboratories. New idea's are tested and are changed for the better. The America's aerospace program is mainly carried out by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). For the more than 40 years that NASA has existed, NASA is committed to share the unique knowledge that flows from it's aeronautics and space research. This commitment grows from a mandate for NASA to provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof.
You can find out more about NASA by clicking on the next link;
NASA.
After secondary school I did some small jobs, like working in the clothing-store C&A, selling clothes mostly for men. I did also a voluntary job in a library during a few day's a week.
In 1990 I started studying economics at the university of Groningen. I've rented a room in a student house in the city Groningen. I'd a good time, attended some clubs (I was active in a political student association and I have also guided foreign students in Groningen) and did a lot of sports, like volley-ball, squash, swimming, fitness and circuit training etc. I've studied a lot and passed through all the exams I did.
Find out more about studying on the university of Groningen on the website RUG.
In the summer of 1997 I graduated on the university in Groningen. On the picture left this Golden Boy got his diploma in the academic building, it was in the autumn of 1997. I had a nice graduate party and invited a lot of friends and family.
These days I joined the Groninger Students Aero club (GSA), a gliding-club that flow in the weekends on a local field in Groningen and flow in the summer months on a field in the middle of France.
Later on I became active in deep water diving. I got my PADI certificates for Open Water and for Advanced Open Water.
After the graduation I got my driving licence and found a good job by the software house the TAS Group. I followed a couple of courses in COBOL, Structured Programming, C++, Visual Basic and Object Modelling Techniques. I've had interesting projects by the company KPN telecom in Den Haag and did some project by DTO (the Defence Telematica Organization) and a social security company.
I've also worked on the international airport Schiphol by the Air Traffic Control the Netherlands. Schiphol is a nice and friendly environment to work. I was functional developing and maintaining systems regarding meteo data, Instrument Landing Systems
(ILS) and the (advised and actual) use of the runways for arrivals and departures. I participated in Top Level Design (TLD) meetings concerning these systems. Beside this I made monthly reports for a lot of departments and I analysed there information needs. It was a very responsible and interesting job!
In January 2001 the TAS company merged with PinkRoccade, like it or not.
PinkRoccade is a high quality software house that offers a broad scale of IT services in developing and managing applications and computer systems for clients in information intensive sectors, such as industry, banks and insurance companies, social security, health care and government. PinkRoccade's aim is to achieve leading positions in these sectors in the Netherlands. PinkRoccade is also active outside the Netherlands. It has places of business in Australia, North America and the United Kingdom. In these places PinkRoccade mainly provides services in the field of IT infrastructure. Today PinkRoccade merged with Getronics.
You can get more information about the company PinkRoccade by clicking on the next button;
I learned how to write in HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language) and things about web-publishing.
HTML is a language which describes how pages with text, pictures and other information will be arranged, drawn up and coupled together. Hypertext is text saved in electronic form in which there are cross links between web-pages. I made my own homepage and placed it on the World Wide Web.
After some years working for PinkRoccade I found an other good job in Amsterdam by ACAM, Accountancy and Consultancy Amsterdam. It is a municipal office for the local authorities of Amsterdam, located in downtown. Amsterdam is the capital of Holland and has always been the biggest city of Holland. It is a centre of culture and art and attracts a lot of tourists. Amsterdam has a lot of canals and old houses, it is really a beautiful city! Find out more about the city Amsterdam on the website Amsterdam.
Today I'm working for SYSQA. The name SYSQA is derived from qualitySYStems and 'Quality Assurance'. It is an independent and leading company specialized in applying quality management in the ICT. It provides all kind of testing services for their clients. Read more about this company on the website SYSQA.
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