Hi, my name is Alexander van Loon and I welcome you to my personal weblog. Here I write about everything which interests me. It is part public diary, part political opinions. I enjoy writing because it allows me to create order in the torrent of thoughts which flows through my mind.
Next to my weblog, I also have a presence elsewhere on the Internet:
Who am I?
I live in The Hague (Den Haag) in the Netherlands with my wife Stephanie and our daughter. I possess a bachelor’s degree in History from Utrecht University and a master’s degree in Public Administration from Leiden University. Somehow my career took a turn towards IT, however.
Apart from this weblog, I spend considerable time on writing Wikipedia articles. I love open source software, in particular the Linux operating system. I used to play video games often, but nowadays other things have more priority for me. Other interests include gardening, photography and stock trade. My political preferences match most closely with the Dutch Green party, GroenLinks.
Living in The Hague is a blessing due to all the water sports I can practice here. I like swimming in the sea, surfing, windsurfing and kiteboarding. I also practice kickboxing and running, which includes a slow finish in the Rotterdam Marathon.
Cooking is important to me. I like my native Dutch cuisine, as well as the Italian, Indian and Indo(nesian) cuisines. Out of concern for sustainability I eat vegetarian and vegan dishes almost exclusively. Sustainability and climate change also guide the way I travel during my holidays. I don’t want to use aircraft, so I prefer taking the train or if necessary the car to destinations in Europe.
Contact
Because I want to avoid receiving spam I give my e-mail address in the form of a riddle. My e-mail address ends with the domain alexandervanloon.nl, in front of it comes the ‘@’ character. My e-mail address begins with the first letter of the alphabet, followed by a dot and then my surname written without a space (e-mail addresses never have spaces anyway).