About this website

Guus Bosman.nl is my online home, which I use to stay in touch with friends and family. I started this website in June 2001 so everybody who’s interested can stay up-to-date on what’s going on in our lives.

About Sasha & Guus
I am a software engineering manager in an IT company in Raleigh, North Carolina. My wife Sasha is pursuing a PhD at Duke University and we live in Durham, close to the Duke campus. We’ve traveled a lot in the last year. From November 2009 we were in Somerset, New Jersey for 7 months for my work. I’m now back in Durham but Sasha is doing an internship at the IMF in Washington, DC through August.

My official name is Guustaaf Bosman, in daily life people call me “Guus”. This is a typical Dutch name, and some non-Dutch speakers use “Chris” instead. I was born in the Netherlands and Alexandra (Sasha for short) is from Bulgaria. We speak English at home, though Sasha speaks Dutch fluently and my Bulgarian is quite decent.

I love technology and really enjoy my work. You’ll notice that I don’t write much about my work or the technology, tools or processes that we use. It is my policy not to mention anything that can identify my employer or our customers. Outside of work my interests are broad; I keep track of some of the books I read online. I enjoy reading about technology, management, psychology and history. I have a big to-read-list with classical novels that I’m slowly working through. I like running half marathons and hope to run my first full marathon sometime in 2010, or perhaps 2011.

I really like languages. In 2004 I did a German language course in Amsterdam, in 2006 I attended a Spanish language course in Virginia and I continuously keep working on my Bulgarian language skills. In 2010 I started brushing up my French.

I’m not a native English speaker, and every now and then I’ll come across a word or expression that I haven’t heard before. Interested in experiences of a Dutch immigrant to the States? Then this topic is for you. I’m the publisher of a successful newsletter & website for Dutch-Americans, Dutch in America.com (also on Facebook).

The website that you’re visiting is a hobby — it’s not very advanced but it’s fun to have my own server. The server is running OpenBSD and Drupal. The server is located in the Netherlands — it’s still running strong after all these years. If it breaks down one day I’ll move it to SliceHost. (Read more about this website).

A small open source project that I’m somewhat proud of is Java Config (http://javaconfig.sf.net): it solves a simple problem really well and it’s well written and well tested software with a code coverage of over 95%. It is now “old” and lost its usefulness years ago when newer tools like Spring came along. I’ve contributed some other code to open source projects, mainly tiny things such as a recent comments block for Php-Nuke in 2003 and more recently a patch and scripts for Drupal. I’m proud to say that, where appropriate, I’ve approved many patches and contributions to open source projects in my work.

Management philosophy
I’m an engineering manager by trade and I combine the roles of technical architect and people manager.

I’m the only manager in our remote office, and I always keep in mind rule #1: ‘whatever it takes’. So yes, I’ll get on the phone with IT to get the phones working, or get the suite door fixed if needed.

I subscribe to the Agile Manifesto and professionally I’ve worked with a variety of agile methods, including XP and Scrum. I enjoyed reading “Rework” — it had a lot of statements that reflect how I approach work and business.

Technology wise, I’m pragmatic. I believe Java/J2EE has its place in the enterprise, and there are places where Ruby on Rails or Python may be more effective. I used PHP/Drupal extensively for my personal sites.

I’ve written kernel code in C, used full-blown enterprise integration stacks based on XML transformations and web services and designed and architected great products from scratch. I’m most proud of a product I’ve made for my current employer, which my team and I created two years ago and is now in use in some of the largest data centers in the world.

About us
Sasha and I have been together since we met in the summer of 1998 in upstate New York. Sasha moved to the Netherlands in 2000 and studied one year Dutch language there. Two years later she received a Master’s degree at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

I graduated from the Vrije Universiteit (a MsC in Computer Science) and started working at Chess iT, an IT engineering firm where I learned a great deal about J2EE technology.

After her graduation Sasha found a job at an international organization in Washington D.C. and a year later I moved to the US. I moved to the US in 2004 and worked two years for a consultancy firm in Rosslyn, VA, managing large J2EE development projects.

In the summer of 2006 I started work at my current employer in Raleigh, NC.

On-line

Time line

• 1978: born in Opperdoes, the Netherlands
• 1981: Ettie, my sister is born
• 1987: moved to Middenmeer, the Netherlands
• 1991: high school, “Wiringherlant” in Wieringerwerf, the Netherlands
• 1997: graduated high school, trip to China with my father
• 1997: started Master’s Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit; moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• 1998: worked summer job as a short-order cook in Diamond Horseshoe Ranch (Antonio’s), Tannersville NY. Alex (Sasha) and I met there.
• 1999: worked summer job in Six Flags Great America, Chicago IL
• 2000: Sasha started Master’s Economics at the Vrije Universiteit; started working at Net.Footworks (part of the Chess group)
• 2001: moved to Amstelveen, the Netherlands
• 2002: moved to Haarlem, the Netherlands
• 2003: graduated university, full-time work at Chess
• 2004: moved to Washington D.C., USA
• 2006: moved to Durham, NC
• 2007: Sasha & Guus engaged
• 2008: Sasha & Guus married

See also the year overviews:

Hope to see you soon in real life,