I was born in the Netherlands in 1969. Spent most of my youth in the southern Dutch province of Noord Brabant. I did a number of educations, ranging from mechanical engineering, through social work, to sociology. Still, none of that had much impact on my current line of work. Playing with computers for a hobby turned out to become my line of work. I got a job in ICT in 1999, and currently I'm still working for a big multinational ICT company. Besides my love for whitewater paddling, I thoroughly enjoy communicating with interesting people all over the internet. There are a couple of forums where I can be found hanging around regularly, such as boatertalk, the Soulboater forum and rec.boats.paddle. E-mail is probably the most important medium for me to communicate with friends, especially with those who live all across the world. I get a lot of satisfaction out of communicating, it also helps me to improve my foreign language skills, and it gives me a good excuse to go to new countries and get to know other cultures! :-) I travel quite a bit, in part to visit my girlfriend and other friends who live outside of the Netherlands, but also to paddle new rivers and get to know other paddlers. I firmly believe that you can never know too many people to go paddling with. Besides the things I already mentioned above, I have a wide range of other hobbies. Just to name a few: camping, hiking, visiting museums, history, reading, drawing, playing games, making music. If there's anything specific you'd like to ask or talk aboout, just e-mail me. My e-mail address can be found on the main home page. Wilko