I lived in a lunatic asylum for a year, but not as a patient. It was rather interesting to meet supervised groups of helmeted and straitjacketed "inmates" on forest walks.

I spent my army time in the elite 898 Communications Batalion, intercepting high-speed Morse code communication between Russian armies in East Germany.

My favorite vegetable is Purslain, which is considered a weed in the USA.

The relationship with my first girlfriend fell apart when I found out she had several boyfriends to increase the number of presents she received. I was 5 years old. The parents were not amused.

I got my drivers license at age 31 after moving to the USA. You don't really need one in the Netherlands or Sweden.

Some of my less appreciated childhood hobbies included a fungus collection and experimental pyrotechnics.

I love genealogy and heraldry.

My brother once convinced me I was better than Tarzan. The leap of faith that followed resulted in a shattered wrist with more than 60 bone fragments.

I love the smell of tar in the morning.

My dad, a chef, thaught me how to cook from age 5 onward.

I had a dissociative experience after being hit by a car and thrown 20 feet over parked cars onto the walkway. Our crazy neighbor told my mom: "Your son is lying dead in the street."

My other brushes with death were being stuck under ice as a child and an emergency appendix operation as a teen.

I was formally schooled in the arts of gold- and silversmithing, gemology, enameling, and hand-engraving.

I served in the North European division of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust as a translator and editor for 5 years, producing a.o. 7 cantos of the Bhagavata Purana (one of early India's major socio-religious works).

I have a total fascination for prime numbers.

On several occasions I have personally witnessed the mysterious, floating islands in the "Hellish Lake" near Korsnäs Gård, Sweden.

I have taken the 24-hour train between Delhi and Calcutta. It took 36 hours. The toilet was a hole in the floor and the AC system consisted of open windows. During every stop, garam-chai (hot tea) sellers would climb in and out of the train through this AC system.

My biggest pet peeve: wet socks.

My grandpa claimed that our family descended from nobility and had arms to back it up. We didn't descend from nobility. My forefathers were a chef, an iron worker, a floor layer, a policeman, a stoker, and a blacksmith (a child out of wedlock). In that order.

I have no interest whatsoever in ball sports or motor sports.

I can only dance when seriously drunk. I don't drink; ergo, I don't dance.

Willingly deadbeat parents are high on my list of people I despise.

After 20 years of earnestly trying to understand the nature of awareness and the phenomenal world through religious thought I have returned to my atheistic roots. I have found religion to be regressive in all respects.

I am a non-fanatic vegetarian, mostly because of health considerations.

My appreciation of art is purely on a case to case basis. Every era and style has its gems and garbage. No human-made art can come anywhere near the art of nature, ever.

I have been an avid reader since childhood. I have a pretty broad taste if it comes to reading, as long as the writing style is engaging and the subject either scientific or relaxing. I used to read a lot of SF, especially books by Jack Vance and Keith Laumer. Now only occasionally. If I need some mindless chilling after a long day of work, I hit the comics.