July 2007
Ocean's 13
Submitted by Guus on Sun, 07/22/2007 - 10:04pm
Jokes about the Dutch
Submitted by Guus on Wed, 07/18/2007 - 8:13pm
Ben sent me a link to a page with jokes about the Dutch that I found quite amusing.
“Don’t make holes in the dikes. Such behaviour is commonly disapproved and in extreme cases it can get you stoned by wooden shoes. But feel free to put your finger in the dike if you feel the urge.”
The Departed
Submitted by Guus on Sun, 07/15/2007 - 1:48pm
Last night I watched The Departed. A great movie!
The Departed is an brilliant police informant/mafia film with outstanding acting by Jack Nicholson, Matt Daemon and even Leonardo di Caprio.
The dialogs are great. Favorite quote: “You know past days, situations like this I’d kill everybody, everybody who works for me”. Another one I liked: “I’m the guy who does his job. You must be the other guy”. There’s a remarkable amount of swearing throughout the movie.
7/7/7
Submitted by Guus on Fri, 07/13/2007 - 10:25pm
Last Saturday Michael celebrated his birthday with a lot of 7’s and he had a big party at his pool.
I arrived around 2.30 pm while listening to Live Earth on the radio and later Paul Simon on CD.
We played a couple of volleyball games and a hilarious relay race. It was a great afternoon.
Wine 101
Submitted by Guus on Thu, 07/12/2007 - 9:36pm
Tonight I attended a Wine 101 class at A Southern Season in Chapel Hill. It was really enjoyable.
The wine buyer of A Southern Season, Jay Murrie, introduced the group of about 20 people to six different wines, three whites and three reds and explained some of the differences about the various grape types and wine regions. I don’t know a great deal about wines and this was a very nice introduction.
Somewhat unusual post-Sideways, I don’t really care for Pinot Noir too much (or perhaps I haven’t found the right one yet). A very pleasant surprise was the 2006 Merkelbach Urziger Wurzgaten Riesling Spatlese, a German sweet wine. I didn’t think I would like it at all: a sweet, white wine but it was quite good.
I took a cab to the store because I wasn’t sure how much drinking would be involved. I’m happy I did — those six glasses were well over my driving limit.
All you can do with 1 finger
Submitted by Guus on Tue, 07/10/2007 - 8:52pm
I saw a funny commercial the other day from E*Trade: “All you can do with 1 finger”.
The Dutch lady says something like “Dank ou mistah” — presumably meaning “dank u mister”.
Eno River Festival 2007
Submitted by Guus on Sun, 07/08/2007 - 6:16pm
Today I went to the Festival for the Eno River in Durham.
It’s a 3-day music festival to raise money for conservation of the Eno River. I parked at the Durham stadium and a bus took me to the festival site. I walked around alone for a while and then met up with Mike.
There were a lot of different bands from the Carolinas and surrounding states. It was a very warm day, and it was great to sit in the shadow and listen to good music. I liked the performances by
Nina Violet and The Grandsons quite a lot.
Fourth of July
Submitted by Guus on Thu, 07/05/2007 - 8:27pm
Yesterday was the Fourth of July, Independence Day in the U.S.
I spent a very enjoyable afternoon at Michael’s place where he had invited some friends. The weather was beautiful and the pool was great.
Around 5:30 pm Belen, Emily, Esteban and Christoph picked me up and we went to downtown Durham. At the American Tobacco District we enjoyed the sun and a live R&B concert. Later in evening we walked to the baseball stadium, which opened after the 7th inning of the game between U.S. and Japan (the U.S. won).
There was a children’s choir singing the National Anthem, and a fireworks show closed the day.
Duke golf course running trail
Submitted by Guus on Tue, 07/03/2007 - 9:53pm
Sunday I tried a new, excellent running trail.
It turns out Duke University has a golf course fairly close to our home with a running trail around the golf terrain. Esteban and Belen had mentioned it last week — thanks a lot!
It’s a great 2.5 mile long nature trail with distance markers and a public water fountains. It’s a little over a mile from our home so all together I ran about 5 miles on Sunday. This was a bit more than I should have done and it took me 2 days to recover.
I hope that I feel good enough to go for a shorter run in the morning. It’s Fourth of July tomorrow so a day off, and before all the festivities start I hope to try out my new running shoes.
Dutch Gap, Virginia
Submitted by Guus on Mon, 07/02/2007 - 6:23am
On my way home from Washington I saw an intriguing sign next to the highway: “Dutch Gap Conservation”.
I took the exit and followed the signs. It turns out the Dutch Gap is a short cut in the James river that was created in the Civil War by General Dale.
He had been to the Netherlands and had a number of Dutch engineers in his army, which explains the name.
