Hans Nelisse's Homepage

Hi, nice to meet you!

Let me tell you something about myself. First, I'll give you some basic facts about myself:

• Official name: Nathan Cornelis Nelisse
• Gender: Male
• Birthdate: 5^th of march, 1965
• Height: ± 1.85 m. (6'2")
• Weight: More then i would like :)
• Eyes: Blue
• Hair: Blond
• Bloodgroup: A pos.

I was born on the 5^th of march 1965, in Schuddebeurs. When I was 4 years old I went to kindergarten in Noordgouwe. 2 years later I went to the primary school, also in Noordgouwe. At age 12 I went to the "RSG Professor Zeeman" school in Zierikzee (VWO). After that, at age 19, I started studying electronics (with emphasis on digital hardware) at the Hogeschool Zeeland (HTS) in Vlissingen. Since 1998 I live in Rotterdam. Currently I work as a technical programmer.

My main hobbies are music, computers and traveling (see below).

Some other hobbies and things I like are:

• Playing Chess. In 1995 a friend introduced me to a local chess club. Until I moved to Rotterdam, I used to play there every week. My chess skills are still a bit average.
• Riding my bicycle. (only when the weather is good...)
• Electronics. I started this hobby when I designed and built my own guitar amplifier. My 'masterpiece' is a guitar preamplifier with digital controls, based on a 6502 microprocessor-system. All of which was my own design. This was in 1990. Nowadays I don't do that much with electronics anymore.
• Cats.
• Humor. Some examples: Heinz (newspaper cartoon), Barbaraal (comic strip), Jiskefet (TV program), Mr. Bean, Eddy Murphy.
• Tasty food. My favorite cuisines are italian, turkish, indian and indonesian.
• Belgian beers.

Music is something that I like a lot. It can cheer me up. It can touch me in the heart. It can arouse my lust for life. And it can give me comfort and solace.

When I was a teenager I mainly listened to (hard)rock and old 60's music. My favorite band at that time was the dutch band Golden Earring. Other favorites at that time were Herman Brood, The Rolling Stones and The Who. At that time I was very interrested in the 60's. Not just about music, but also things like lifestyle, politics, etc. One thing that had led me to this fascination for the 60's was the movie 'Easy Rider'.

A few years later I discovered punkrock. It wasn't just the music that I liked, but also the aggressive attitude of punk, because at that time I often felt frustrated with school and society. My favorite band then were The Ramones. And even nowadays I still like their music very much. Other bands I liked were The Stranglers, The Damned and the local punkband Pleemobielz.

In the later 80's my favorite bands were Claw Boys Claw (dutch garage-rock), The Gun Club, The Smiths, The Pogues and The Pixies. And I also discovered some more 60's bands like The Doors and Jimi Hendrix, both of which I didn't know too well yet until then.

In the 90's "grunge" became my favorite style. From the moment I first heared their album "Ten", Pearl Jam became my favorite band. And they still are... In late 1997 I joined the Pearl Jam mailinglist "Bugs". Some other grunge bands I like are Nirvana and Soundgarden.

A second style which got my attention in the 90's was rap. Though in general I like crossover-rap more than the original hiphop. Some examples: Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill, NWA, Urban Dance Squad, Bodycount and Osdorp Posse.

Some bands I especially like nowadays are 16 Horsepower, the Dandy Warhols and 't Hof van Commerce.

If you're looking for a nice summary of my musical taste, you could take a look at my record collection.

Apart from listening to music, I also enjoy making music myself. I've been playing guitar since 1982 and bass since 1995. Although I must admit that my enthousiasm is probably bigger than my talent... :-)   You can listen to some samples which I recorded several years ago. I've also built my own amplifiers. That's how I got into the hobby of electronics.

Another hobby of mine is computers. This started when I was 13, when I took a TV course from Teleac about microprocessors. Nowadays it's not uncommon for 13 year olds to be into computers, but at that time it was quite rare. A couple of years later my school got a couple of Commodore-64's and I used to spend a lot of time on those. Occasionally I even skipped some other lessons to play with them.

Later I got my own Commodore-64 at home. Apart from playing games, I also liked to program a bit myself (for example, I wrote a 'pac-man' game in Basic). And later I also learned myself assembler language, and I enjoyed learning as much as possible about how the machine worked. Sometimes I tried to "hack" games or to write graphic demos.

In late 1987, my father bought a PC. I used to play a lot on that one too. But after a couple of years, that old XT became a bit outdated. So then I decided to buy myself a new 386 PC. Well, after a while that one slowly grew outdated too, so I started upgrading it. And I kept on doing that again and again. At this moment nothing of my current system reminds of that old 386 anymore.

I use my computer quite often. Sometimes to write programs or to play games or to just experiment with new software. But nowadays I mostly use it for the internet. In 1990 I got my first modem and I used it to call Fidonet Bulletin Boards. A new era started on the 1^st of may 1993. At this date the first public internet provider in the Netherlands (XS4ALL) started. I subscribed to them that same day... ;-)  

I also enjoy travelling. I made my first real trip when I was 18 years old. It was a bicycle tour to France together with a friend. Our goal was a town called St. Hilaire in Normandy. This is a town which has cultural ties with our own town Zierikzee. We rode a total of 1400 km (870 miles) and I felt very proud of that, not being a real sportsman myself.

A year later we made another bicycle tour to France with some more friends. This time we went to the Champagne area and along the Loire river and then back north through Normandy.

The next years I made a couple of hitch-hike trips with my friend. The first one went to Paris and then even further south to Dijon and then back north. Hitchhiking went quite smooth, though sometimes we had to wait for hours... The biggest problem was leaving Paris by thumb. After trying in vain for a couple of hours we decided to take a train instead.

The second hitch-hike trip went to Germany, Northern Italy and Southern France. It was our first time that we traveled this far. So we felt very proud that we had done this all by thumb! (even though a couple of times we had to take short train trips when we were "stuck" somewhere). I really liked Italy and the mediteranian.

The third trip went even further. At first we took the same route through Germany to Italy, but this time we went all the way to Rome. And then we crossed the adriatic sea to Yougoslavia. From there we travelled back north to home.

The next year I made an interrail trip with a group of friends. One month unlimited travelling by train through Europe. Maybe not as adventurous as hitchhiking, but still a very nice way of traveling. The four of us had a lot of fun on this tour. Our trip went to Yougoslavia, Greece, Italy and France. I had already been to many of those places, but Greece and most of Yougoslavia were new to me.

A second Interrail trip went to Northern Spain (Catalunya) first. And then we travelled quickly through France and Italy to Greece. After spending some time there on Corfu and the Cyclades islands, we moved on to Turkey (Istanbul). On our way back home from Turkey we made a stop in Austria.

On our last Interrail trip we went to Spain, Morocco and Portugal. Morocco was very special, but we both got sick when we were in Marakesh. We would have loved to do more interrail trips, but both me and my friend were 25 that year (the age limit for interrail at that time). This was in 1990, by the way.

The next year we went to Greece and Turkey. This was the first time I flew by plane. From Athens we took a ferry to Samos and from there to Turkey where we visited places like Efes, Pamukkale, Fetiye and Marmaris. Then we went back to Greece where we visited Rhodos and some Cyclades islands.

In 1992 I went to Prague and Budapest. This was a rather short trip. It was the first time for me I visited the eastern-european countries.

In 1993 me and my friend went to India for 7 weeks.

(Click on the link for more information and pictures of this trip)

In 1995 I went to Indonesia for 5 weeks. The first part together with my friend. The second part on my own.

(Click on the link for more information and pictures of this trip)

In 2000 me and my girlfriend went to Turkey. We visited Istanbul, Capadocia, Konya, Olimpos and Fethiye.

(Click on the link for more pictures of this trip)

In 2001 we went to Italy by car. It was the first time for me to drive such a large distance, but it went smoother than I expected. Places we visited were Venice and Firenze.

In 2002 we took a short trip to Portugal. Not an active exploring journey this time. Just a lazy week at the algarve coast.

In 2003 we went to New York and Philladelphia. The first reason to go there at that time was to see some Pearl Jam concerts. They don't often come to Europe and I'm a fan, so that's why. Another reason was to see New York City. I had not been there before yet.

Apart from the travels described above, I have also had some short trips to Belgium, London, Switserland, Berlin (after the Berlin Wall came down, but before the unification) and the USA (Kentucky).