Guus Bosman

The match between the Netherlands and Russia was the first one I saw live in Euro 2008, and with the 1-3 result it was also the last Dutch game to see in this tournament.

We went with a a couple of friends to Woody's Tavern in Cary, where about 40 Dutch people were watching the game together. It was nice to meet Dutch people in the area, and to watch the game together. Petra was there, and we met Maarten for the first time as well. Two years ago in the World Cup I watched the elimination of the Dutch team against Portugal in a bar in DC.

After the first 90 minutes the result was 1-1, so another 30 minutes were played. About half way that extra time all TV screens stopped showed the game, and a Weather Alert interrupted the broadcast for about 3 minutes, without showing any information on the game... A big storm was coming over the Triangle, and when we drove home we were right in the middle of it. In the evening we had friends over for dinner and it was a very nice evening.

The other night we went to Kroger for groceries, and the self service checkout machine crashed half-way.

Perhaps it was the cucumber I was trying to scan.

This morning Sasha and I competed in the competitive 5k run during the Race for the Cure event in Raleigh.

This was Sasha's first race, and she did great! Her time was 31:19 minutes. I think she's caught the bug so she'll be doing more races in the future. I was happy with my time too, around 26 minutes. I think I improved with about 10 seconds compared to my first 5k, but I'll have to wait for the official results to be sure.

It was an impressive and emotionally charged event. It's an important fund raiser for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, to support research and prevention of breast cancer. There were a total of 30,000 people running and walking (2,600 in the competitive race), and a large number of women in pink survivor shirts. It was clearly not just a race for time, it was a race for a cause. The organization was superb, with clocks at each mile, two water stands at the course and at the finish, and tons of people cheering for the participants.

When I left home in the morning I smelled something burned or burning, and I was worried about fire. Luckily there was nothing and I left for work. Then when I arrived in Raleigh, 30 miles further, it still smelled of smoke.

It turns out there are 3 large wildfires near the coast, and the smog and ash from those fires is blown across the Triangle and even as far as Greensboro. There's a serious health advisory in effect, strongly recommending against outdoors exercise. Let's hope the 5k race on Saturday won't be impacted.