Sat, 07/31/2010 - 1:37pm
The African Department at the I.M.F.We’re in the African Department of the I.M.F. this afternoon. Sasha has to wrap some things up and I’m doing some work on my websites.
I arrived in Washington D.C. Thursday night. Friday I worked remotely; it’s great to be able to telecommute every now and then. At work we’re wrapping up a major release, so I’m “bug scrubbing” our tracking system and discussing bug fixes every day.
Thu, 07/29/2010 - 7:47pm
A delegation of a European customer visited our headquarters in New Jersey this morning and I spent three hours with them (through a conference call). This is a major financial institution, and they were one of the first large customers for my product a few years ago. It’s great to see them using the product, and talk with them about their needs. The product is deployed in several of their data centers now and they’re using it extensively.
By chance I visited a second huge customer in the afternoon. They are located in the Research Triangle which makes it easy to stop by and discuss things. That was a productive visit as well.
It’s great to make software that solves real needs.
Sat, 07/24/2010 - 11:30am
Ettie and Gerben have a son, and his name is Jasper!
He was born yesterday at 10.30 pm, he’s 4030 gram and 52 centimeters. Mother and child are doing well.
Gerben and Ettie called us late last night from the hospital, and I heard my nephew’s first cries.
We’re very happy — congratulations!
Mon, 07/19/2010 - 10:57pm
I’m back home in Durham after a fun weekend in DC. We did some shopping in the morning and had a late lunch together in Sasha’s house.
I left at 3.00 pm, and even though traffic leaving Washington was pretty bad, I arrived in Durham at 7.30 pm.
This picture shows highway I85, as seen from a rest stop in southern Virginia.
Sun, 07/18/2010 - 2:13pm
We’re spending the weekend together in Washington, DC.
The weather is great — warm and humid but not too hot. Yesterday we went for a long hike from Riverbend Park to Great Falls Park. We walked for 135 minutes. In the evening with had dinner at Cafe Belga, great as always.
Mon, 07/12/2010 - 9:01pm
Well, that was very disappointing. It was sad to see the Netherlands lose after so many successful games.
On the bright side: we spent part of the weekend together, which was great after two weeks not seeing each other. We watched the game with a large group of Dutch and Spanish supporters in a bar in DC and Mike joined us there (thanks for coming out!). Later I talked with Petra in real live, which was nice.
We walked back past the Embassy of Spain in Georgetown, where we saw a happy crowd of Spanish supporters.
Today I worked remotely, spending most of my day in Starbucks (which now has free WiFi, which is very convenient). I’m back in Durham now.
Sun, 07/11/2010 - 10:34am
I left early this morning for DC, and I just arrived at Dulles Airport where I’ll pick up Sasha. I’m early — her flight will arrive in an hour.
We’ll be watching the final between Spain and the Netherlands in Mackey’s Pub in DC.
Fri, 07/09/2010 - 8:28pm
Last week Rome, Italy, then Washington, DC and now Montreal, Canada… Sasha is traveling quite a lot. She is presenting her paper at a conference there tomorrow.
Sunday morning she’ll take an early flight back to DC to get ready for the big game! I’ll drive up on Sunday morning. Things on my other website are absolutely crazy — so many new visitors, all looking for a place to watch the final. A lot of fun.
Thu, 07/08/2010 - 9:18pm
Tuesday I took the afternoon off — something I seldom do, but then the Netherlands are seldom in the semi-finals. Petra and Diana hosted a great event at their house to watch the game.
It was an entertaining game to watch, with a nerve-wrecking last few minutes.
Yesterday Germany lost 1-0 from Spain in the other semi-final. It would have been cool to see a replay of the 1974 final. With a different end-result, of course.
Mon, 07/05/2010 - 1:35pm
Yesterday was Fourth of July, and we spent a nice evening at the American Tobacco Campus.
The weather was great, and we listened to several good bands, drinking ‘mate’, an Urugayan drink, and ‘locopops’, a local Durham icecream. Around 9.30 pm there was fireworks in the Durham Bulls stadium.
I’m a software engineering manager in Arlington, Virginia. I love technology and working with people to build great software.
Send me a message, find me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
I was quoted in The Economist and my site was posted on Slashdot. I speak English and Dutch fluently, and pretty decent German, French and Bulgarian. I founded Dutch in America.com which has more than 3,300 Facebook fans.
