New personal weblog

My wife and I have started a new personal weblog, about our emigration to New Zealand: http://naarnz.blogspot.com/. This new weblog will be in Dutch, as its primary purpose is to keep our families and friends back in Holland and Belgium up to date. So, if you understand a bit of Dutch and want to know more about our decision to move to the other side of the world and follow how we fare, have a look!

Moving to New Zealand

Karen and I are taking the plunge together. Well, another plunge: we are emigrating to New Zealand at the end of this year.

This is not, of course, something you decide on a whim. We've both long felt that we might like to make a "big change" for the better, and a long holiday spent getting to know New Zealand and its people convinced us that it is everything we were hoping it would be. New Zealand is an absolutely breathtakingly beautiful place, its people are friendly and easy-going, and for what is basically a predominantly Anglosaxon culture they actually make very good coffee as well.

The plan is quite simple. We have both obtained our permanent residence visa, and will move to New Zealand, to the Wellington area, in December. Although neither of us has secured a job yet, I am actively on the lookout, and confident that something suitable will turn up. NZ and especially Wellington is full of smaller and larger IT firms, and every job vacancy site I check literally posts 2 to 6 positions for (Java) developers a day, at least. However, what I've not been able to find much of yet, is companies or institutes who work in Semantic Web/Ontologies, or who have a need for expertise in that area. If any of you have tips for me (or a job offer ;-)), it would be much appreciated!

I will post updates on developments now and then on this weblog. Oh and yes: we will of course be giving a farewell party later this year ;-)