Ok,... I admit,... I’m a Belgian.

Second generation offspring of Flemish brewers and farmers.

You know about Belgium :

Flanders poppy fields, Brussels capital of the European Union, providing the first European President Herman Van Rompuy, home of ancient castles, old fortresses & citadels, Pieter Breughel, Victor Horta, René Margritte, James Ensor, P.P. Rubens, Jan Van Eyck, mannekin Pis & associates, Antwerp, Bruges, waffels, asparagus, the Brussels Griffon, home of the genuine (first working) Speech Technology, Bakelite (the first plastic), Yperite (musterdgas WW1), poppy fields, the first country to ban land mines (easy for us,... we have none), tennis icones like Kim Cleysters & Justine Henin, the Ardennes and WW2, Belgian chocolates, Fries, Julius Caesar who said that Belgians (Belgae) are the bravest of ‘em all (after beating the crap out of them).

I got mail from Kelly Adams.

He urged me to mention the Chimey Bleu quality beer. I’ll also mention Lambic, Geuze, and Palm as my favorite traditional Belgian beers. Perhaps you’ve also heard about Trapist, Duvel or White Beer (know Celis White Beer)?
Any specific beer questions,... don’t ask me, ask Kelly. He’s the expert.

Belgium : Europe in the palm of your hand.

The small multiethnic nation of 10 million has mind-numbingly complex bureaucratic systems. The country is divided in 10 provinces, 589 communes and run by a national government and six overlapping regional governments representing the French, Dutch and German language groups and as a second overlapping division we have the Brussels, Waloon and Flanders regions with each their own parliament and more ministers than there’s hair on a dog. Our national slogan is :”Union makes force”. This fragile balance is often interpreted as a typical Belgian quality to find a consensus for every problem. The land is evolving into a federal state with largely independent regions. In that option, Belgium is the nucleus of the European community. In the 20th century, it were the Belgae who placed the cornerstones of the monetary union linking the evolution of their “Frank” to the German “Mark” and equalizing their frank with the Luxemburg Frank. The Belgae were also the people to boost a first economic European pact among carbon and steel producers. So if today’s Europe seem like a hen house with to many roosters, blame the Belgae ;-)

Read more on this website about the (in extinction) ancient Brussels dialect.

I’ve lived more than two decades in and around Brussels, now capital of Europe. Believe me when I say that’s it’s still a village in the mind of most inhabitants.

Origin :

Born and raised between the green slopes north-east of Brussels in times when men still dreamed of walking on the moon, the Beatles did their first gig, a highway was something never seen by most farmers, God was still Almighty and the major, the priest and the nobles spoke French as a token of upper class. Today, Belgium offers fiberglass high speed internet access in every home, internet technology in every day’s life. Most kids have a PDA and a computer of any kind. Nowadays modern Old Continental Facebooked- & Youtubed kids think that milk is created during an industrial process, that it is a white variant of Pepsi & Coca Cola. Should I shock and tell ‘em that their favorite drink comes from between a cow’s rear legs? Nah,... they’ll find that on Google!

I am an old fart that (besides MP3) still listens to Jimi hendrix, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin & other Uriah Heeps on vinyl.

My all-time favorite musician was (in memory) Tommy Bolin - www.tbolin.com. In the Beatles versus Stones test I go fot the Stones. When I was a young teenager, I listened to the Sweet, Mud and Suzy Quatro. Later to the rock & blues of the Runaways, Warren Zevon, Rory Galagher and stuff. My today’s favorite is the American punkband Nirvana. Don’t erroneously call it ‘grunge’ because it’s punk finally played by genuine musicians. Eurgh... what? Lead singer Cobain is dead allready? Has been since many years now... forgotten by youngsters? Gosh, time flies. So let’s go Brittish and listen to The Darkness. A mixture of Deep Purple gone drunk and Van Halen without Rilatintin®. Huh,... equally forgotten by youngsters. Gosh,.. i must be getting old. Fortunately, in Belgium, we have some great rock- & blues dudes that survive burning their candles both ways. Yes, Belgium has an excellent heath care system.
I don’t have a fancy car, but do travel daily in a VW T3 bus and on a Suzuki 1200S bandit.

Professionally :

I work 4 days a week (psychiatric nurse / counselor) in a beautifully located Brussels Hospital. This historical university hospital was build by Victor Horta (Art Nouveau) and also contains a building made by Lacoste. A day or so a week, I work independently (for my pleasure) in the motorcycle business. And I manage a small company with an associate for the remaining time where we teach/instruct professionals about palliative communication, violence prevention, aggression management and digestion after being a victim of violence in a professional context.

This Nondisputandum project:

Eurgh... Let’s say that I started it due to personal needs as I never seem to remember a url and forget how exactly it is to fix a Windows based computer. Fortunately I also discovered Apple computers many years ago. Comparing a Mac with a Windows computer is like comparing a Ferrari with an Oldsmobil. They both hit the highway but only one of them roars. The advice in this website is 100% Windows based. No complaints whatsoever are accepted. Use software at your own risk.

My native language is Flemish aka Dutch.

Both Flemish & French speaking in my private life though to keep things simple mostly French speaking in Brussels because else I would have to translate myself after every second phrase. German speaking when visiting the eastern Belgian regions, English speaking for Global comfort and Flemish speaking when working in the motorcycle business. It makes me no exception in Flanders where most natives are polyglot.
 

These are the images that I think speak form themselves.
Perhaps they do not show who I am, but at least they shown how I would like you to see me.

Et si Omnes Ego non

Nondisputandum.com
Linguistic disclaimer : Consider that English is not my first, neither my second language. It’s perfect as nowadays Esperanto.
Info : The painting in the top banner is a fragment of the School of Athens, painted by Raffaello Sanzio. Read More.
Zeno of Citium : Epicurus : Federico II of Mantua : Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius or Anaximander or Empedocles : Averroes : Pythagoras : Alcibiades or Alexander the Great : Antisthenes or Xenophon : Hypatia (Francesco Maria della Rovere): Aeschines or Xenophon: Parmenides: Socrates : Heraclitus (Michelangelo) : Plato (Leonardo da Vinci) : Aristotle : Diogenes : Plotinus : Euclid or Archimedes with students (Bramante) : Zoroaster : Ptolemy : Apelles (Raphael) : Protogenes (Il Sodoma, Perugino, or Timoteo Viti)
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