Guus Bosman

software engineering director

You are here

Home › Monthly archive
travelling

First day off in San Juan

Sat, 04/23/2005 - 12:11pm

I moved to a different hotel for this weekend, because the hotel were we originally stayed was booked for the weekend. A nice change to check out a new hotel, and Sasha checked in before I came home. It's much nicer to be on a tropical island together with her than alone.



Although I've been here about a week, I didn't get a chance to see much of the island yet -- something we'll make up for this weekend. There is some work that I need to do (that's why I'm in the lobby now, using a wireless connection for my e-mail), but we'll definitely go out and see the places around here. Pictures later.

Thursday evening I went out with 3 colleagues. First dinner together, then drinks on top of the Intercontinental hotel overlooking the ocean, and then to a surprising bar: a very interesting evening.

»
dailylife

Sasha arrived!

Fri, 04/22/2005 - 6:06pm

This morning Sasha arrived in Puerto Rico!

She took an early flight and checked in the hotel around 14:00 o'clock. I'm still in the office, but looking forward to the weekend!

»
dailylife

To bed

Thu, 04/21/2005 - 12:11am

To bed.It's been a long day today.

We were in the office around 8.30 o'clock, and we stayed till after 20.00 o'clock. We got a lot of work done, obviously.

We went for dinner together again, my two colleagues who I'm working with and I. This time we went to an Argentinian restaurant, a steakhouse. A lot of meat, not very healthy but delicious.

The weather is still not that very good, it's been raining every now and then since I came here. Today around noon we had a rather spectacular thunderstorm. Let's hope in the weekend the weather is better.

»
Work Arlington 2006

First day at work in San Juan

Wed, 04/20/2005 - 9:10am

Yesterday was my first working day at the customer. I met many people that I spoke with only over the phone in the last months, as well as many new people. In fact, we have a few people of our company on-site all the time, and it was nice to see them again. Yesterday was a day off for the customer, this was the first working day of the week.

For lunch we went to a place with typical Puerto Rican food. I had rice, with beans and chicken with a nice sauce. A side-dish that I had was fried bananas (or a fruit that looks suspiciously like bananas); very nice.

The coffee here is outstanding! Even the coffee from the vending machines is very acceptable.

We stayed till late in the office, there were a lot of things to arrange and set up. It is extremely convenient to be so close to the customer; many questions and issues that we'd typically process by e-mail followed by a lot of phone calls can now be resolved by simply walking to another desk. The people here in the office, and for that matter, on the entire island have been very friendly.

»
travelling

In Puerto Rico

Mon, 04/18/2005 - 11:00pm

In Puerto Rico.Today I travelled to Puerto Rico. I had a direct flight from Dulles to San Juan, and in the plane I was studying Spanish. Although many people in Puerto Rico speak English, it is very useful to know at least a few phrases in Spanish. And it's just a lot of fun to learn a new language.

I arrived in Puerto Rico around 13:00 o'clock. It was raining when the plane landed! I'm prepared for sunny weather, and the rain was a surprise. It took a while before my luggage appeared on the carousel and it was a relieve when I finally got my suitcase.

Today is a holiday here, so we are working from the hotel today. The rooms all have internet connection. The are a lot of tools available that make working outside the office much easier: e-mail, chat, cell-phones, conference calls, online document repositories... the combination of these makes it easy to work with the people in the office in Virginia.

I went for dinner with two colleagues in Old Town San Juan.

»
Work Arlington 2006

Preparations

Sat, 04/16/2005 - 2:13pm

Today I'm preparing for my journey Monday. Last week I prepared my laptop, business cards and PowerPoint slides, today it's time for shorts, sunblock and other things.

I'll go to San Juan, Puerto Rico to visit our customer there. I'll do requirement analysis and discovery for new phases of our project, something I'm really looking forward to. I'll stay at least a week, but probably longer.

»
dailylife

Rosa's birthday

Sat, 04/16/2005 - 1:50pm

Rosa's birthday.We spent the previous weekend very pleasantly. Rosa had invited us to celebrate her birthday with a brunch in a resort outside Washington. Of course, that was an invitation that was gladly accepted. The brunch was on Sunday morning, abd we took the opportunity and booked a night in the hotel at the resort as well.

So, on Saturday morning we travelled to the Landsdown resort, where we arrived at noon for an early check-in. It's a very pleasant place, just 15 minutes from Dulles airport. We went for a swim, had lunch together, used the spa, got a massage... very relaxing.

Sunday morning we woke on time, and went for a nice swim again. Then around 11.30 o'clock Rosa and the other guests started arriving, and at 12:00 we went for the brunch. We were pretty hungry by then, so we enjoyed the great buffet very much. There was a huge variety of food, from typical breakfast (bacon with eggs) to oisters to fresh pasta to great cheeses. Very delicious and it was very cosy too. A lot of the guests were Rosa's family members, as well as friends and colleagues.

»
dutchusa

ING Bank commercials

Tue, 04/12/2005 - 5:55pm

ING bank in the Washington D.C. metro.ING Bank is a Dutch bank that started an intensive marketing campaign in D.C. for their internet savings account a few months ago.

It's nice to see a familiar name in the metro: I did a project for ING bank at my previous employer. In December they sponsored the commuters in the metro by paying for everybody's ticket in the morning.

Their product is called the Orange Savings Account -- the color of their logo here, probably not related to the fact that the Dutch national color is orange.

»
dailylife

Spring, spring, spring

Mon, 04/11/2005 - 11:38pm

Our apartment building.Spring really started now. The weather is starting to get really nice, Sunday was especially gorgeous and although it was a bit colder today, it's great weather and people are walking around in shorts and shirts with short sleeves.

I had my lunch break outside today, in a park near my work, enjoying the sun and I'm walking to work without a jacket these days.

»
washington

Washington blooming

Sat, 04/09/2005 - 9:47am

An event that attracts a lot of tourists in the spring is the blooming of the cherry blossom trees. In a period of about a week, all the cherry blossoms downtown are blooming, which makes for a beautiful Washington D.C. The area around the Jefferson memorial is especially popular.

Sasha and I went to see this event after work. Because of the day-light savings time it was light till late -- very nice.

Yesterday I was home extremely late from work, there's an important event for our customer this weekend.

»

Pages

Recent comments

Recently read

Books I've recently read: