Please allow me to introduce myself, DU members

[Amsterdammer]

...hope I haven't infringed on any Rolling Stones copyrights!

Hello, DU, my name is Greg. I currently reside in Atlanta, GA, with my wife of 13 years, Ivana. We met while I was living and working in Prague, Czech Republic. We have no children. We moved to Atlanta from Palm Beach, FL two years ago, where we had lived since moving from Prague in 2005. We moved to Atlanta to be closer to my mom, who is getting up in years and ill of health, not to mention a job offer managing a medium-sized real estate law firm that was too good to refuse. My father passed away in 2010. My wife works from home for a large health insurance carrier.

My family is a family of immigrants- my father's family moved from Denmark to a farm in Iowa during the Great Depression, my Dutch/German mother immigrated at age 19 from Germany to Milwaukee. I am extremely proud of my wife, who gained her U.S. citizenship in 2007, a Masters degree from Florida State in 2010, and probably speaks a higher level of English than I do, even though her native tongue is Czech. We both have dual citizenship (U.S.-German and U.S.-Czech) and plan on retiring to Europe some time after my mom passes.

My entire family has always voted for Democrats and, because we compare and contrast our lives in the U.S. to that in Europe, have great reason to. Our greatest concerns are health care, gun control, women's rights, education/student loans, environment, job contracts/ security...all of which are not perfect in Europe but much better handled and addressed than here stateside, in our opinion. I want to point out that I am not here to lambast America, it is I that am damned for living and working on 2 continents and, therefore, more sensitive to differences.

So, enough said for now. Thank you for allowing me to have a say here and I look forward to many many discussions to be had!