Greetings from belgium.

[whimsical]

Hello everyone. As mentioned in the thread subject title, I'm from belgium. My name is Wim, I'm 24 years old and I've been bowling since I was 12 but took a few years off after I got too old to compete in the local youth tournaments and the like.
On my birthday this year, 23d of august, I went bowling with some friends and decided I wanted to start playing more regularly again, not much later I joined a league and actually began lurking this forum since it has a lot of interesting and educational posts. Now I'm playing 2/3 times a week and generally just trying to have fun, which depending on how I play is not always quite as easy.
So far this year, I've been averaging 170 across all of my games combined (including the ones in practice) and I just threw my first 600 series this past tuesday evening, today I almost followed that up with my first 800 series over 4 games, falling 4 pins short with a 796. This motivated me to actually sign up and join instead of just lurking more, as fun as it may be.
So to conclude, nice to meet you all, good luck on the lanes and see you around on the boards.

[Bizwan65]

welcome

[billf]

Welcome to the forum. Always nice to see a lurker register. Congratulations on the 600 series!

[Perrin]

Great job and welcome to the forums.

[Brother_jd]

Welcome to the boards. Congrats on the first 600 series.

[ArtVandelay]

Congrats on the 600!

I'm jealous of your beer... mmmmmmmm.... I had a buddy who lived in Holland for a couple years for work, and when he came back with knowledge of Trappist beers, my life changed!

[wimsical]

I do love our beer Art, though I don't actually drink any while I'm playing because I want to be clear of mind while I play. Plenty of time after though! Chimay always tastes good.

[UBowling]

Welcome to the madness!

I wish I could go check out the bowling scene in Belgium. I would love to be able to travel worldwide and visit all of those awesome places.

What do you do besides bowling?

[ssclary]

Welcome to the group. This site has helped my own game. Definitely glad I am here.

[wimsical]

My home bowling alley is actually not that big, I play at a 6 lane bowling alley, heh. Most are a little bigger but I think that on average the bowling alleys here are still smaller than they are in America, I can only assume it's the same for amount of people playing. Can't say for certain, having never been over there myself.

Besides bowling, aside from work, I'd say my main interest is music, rarely a time where I'm not listening to music. My interest in music is pretty broad, though I won't pretend I listen to everything. Don't like most pop, rap, new r&b and most of the current hip electronic genres out there at the moment. Aside from that I fill my free time mostly with reading and gaming and watching some tv (though I don't really watch tv anymore, mostly watch things on my computer when I feel like it). I have to admit I read mostly geeky stuff (fantasy and science fiction with some detective novels thrown in for good measure).
I'm not very good at gaming, I usually miss moving targets by a proverbial mile, so I die a lot in most games that involve a decent bit of targetting. I'd say my favourite book is American gods by Neil Gaiman and for gaming I love the mass effect series, except for the third maybe, though it was still ok. I can't tell you what my favourite album or band/musician is, cause that changes on an almost weekly basis.

My knowledge of the english language is a direct result of these hobbies, when I was younger I learned the basis from television with dutch subtitles (my native language) and I refined this knowledge through books, which I read mostly in english now since most of the authors I read are english or american and you pretty much always lose something in translation. People always look at me funny when I'm muttering to myself in english at work, I still don't know if this is cause of the muttering or the language in which I choose to do the muttering.

[UBowling]

I would never have guessed that English is your second language. I think you type out English more proficiently than 70% of Americans I know!!

[billf]

I second that. Clear, concise thoughts in a well written manner are a lost art in this day and age.

[75lockwood]

Welcome!