this is an example of the public art in my new neighborhood.  i believe that it is the only public art in my neighborhood, but at least we have some, right?  i think it's a dear little sculpture relief thing on the wall.  i'm looking forward to posting more images like this.  being a large format man, i haven't done too much off the cuff shooting of my friends and surroundings since my massart days.  i don't even own a digital camera - gasp!  i just got a swell new iphone though, and it has a meager camera built in, so if i can force myself to remember that i have the capability, i will take some pictures of my new surroundings while i'm engaged in unemployed meanderings throughout rotterdam and the rest of the netherlands.  keep in mind that those meanderings are quite frequent, so there could be some interesting posts in the coming days.  

speaking of being unemployed, i've decided that once i have employment clearance from the very precise and rule abiding dutch government i would like to have a job naming dutch products that are supposed to sound american. this profession may seem unnecessary in a land filled with people who speak english almost as well as they speak their own language, but after today, i've decided that this new profession is a viable option.  the dutch tend to name things that are kind of big or have chocolate chips in it "american."  that's just lazy and obvious.  i recently encountered a brand of ice cream from the albert heijn supermarket chain that is supposed to compete with or offer a reasonable alternative to a product like ben and jerry's.  i'm not sure if it's marketing genius or a serious oversight, but they call one of their ice cream flavors "nut explosion."  i find the name hilarious, but am i the only one who believes nut explosion is an inappropriate name for a sweet creamy and delicious dairy dessert?  think about it. this is a family product. 

anyway, it's not that i don't find the name nut explosion funny, but i think they should hire me to come up with appealingly inoffensive names for their flavors of ice cream among other things.  

best wishes,

jim

p.s.  we got albert heijn ice cream for later tonight, and i was going to take a picture of the packaging for you.  marleen thought she grabbed nut explosion, but she got the boringly named cookie caramel instead.  i'm still looking forward to eating cookie caramel ice cream this evening it should still be quite good even if the name is not as racy.