Guus Bosman

software executive and technologist

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Work NC

Out for lunch

Tue, 05/12/2009 - 12:15pm

A coworker drove us to lunch today in his hobby project, a Jeep.

Without doors, that was fun.

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internet

Amsterdam in SMS

Mon, 05/11/2009 - 7:08am

Amsterdam in SMS.Amsterdam as you've never seen it before: Visualizing SMS messages

(Thanks to Rolf).

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foodanddrinks

Chicken with tarragon

Sun, 05/10/2009 - 10:30pm

Chicken with tarragon sounds less delicious than 'poulet poêle à l'estragon', but that is of course what that is.

After an easy Sunday I cooked a Julia Childs dish and that turned out delicious. I used the huge Dutch oven that I recently bought. We had Argentine sweets for dessert.

This weekend is graduation weekend, and the parking lots are completely full since many parents are in town for the ceremonies and to help the graduates move out of their apartments. Classes have officially ended, so the 'quiet time' start again, until the end of August. Oprah Winfrey was at Duke today to give the commencement address.

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theater

A Prairie Home Companion in Durham

Sun, 05/10/2009 - 12:52pm

Garrison Keillor.Yesterday Sasha and I attended a broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion", a weekly radio show that's been on the air since 1974.

We've gotten to know the show since we bought our first car; it is on the air in North Carolina on Sunday afternoons. The show consists of a variety of acts, including live music and comical performances, and was created by its host Garrison Keillor. A Prairie Home Companion usually broadcast from Minnesota but occasionally they're on the road and last night the show was in the Durham Performing Art Center (DPAC).

It was very enjoyable to see a live performance of the show, which had many references to North Carolina last night. Graduation weekend, magnolia trees, North Carolina BBQ and of course the rivalry between Duke and UNC. It was great to see Fred Newman perform live creating a wide variety of sound effects with simple instruments.

This was our first visit to DPAC, which opened in December of 2008. It's a beautiful theater and it's very large with 2 levels of balconies. It's a great addition to downtown Durham. In the evening we celebrated Analia's birthday until late at night.

Yesterday's show will be placed on the Prairie Home website for listening sometime this week.

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movies

Quantum of Solace

Tue, 05/05/2009 - 9:51pm

Quantum of Solace.We had a fun weekend. On Saturday we attended a very nice and romantic wedding (congratulations Sylvana and Daniel!) We had a great dinner with a good friend on the balcony.

On Sunday I went for an ambitious run. I tried to do 16 miles, but it was 85 degrees and I gave up after 14 miles. That meant I still had to walk another two miles to the car. Since it's also pollen season I was sneezing quite a few times during the run. Beautiful course though, through Umstead and the Cary Greenway.

I was pretty much wiped out Sunday night, and watched "Quantum of Solace" which was exactly the right movie at the right time. Simple, uncomplicated with a lot of car chases and explosions. I enjoyed it.

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politicsnews

A sad day

Thu, 04/30/2009 - 10:14pm

It's a sad day today in the Netherlands.

During a parade in honor of Queensday, a crazy guy drove a car through a crowd of people, killing five and wounding many others, in an apparent attack on the Dutch royal family.

The Geen Stijl weblog had the most update information, both factual and rumored (viewer discretion advised).

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dailylife

Hot

Sun, 04/26/2009 - 8:27pm

It was 91 degrees Fahrenheit today; 32 degrees Celsius. Summer has began!

I went for a run in Umstead park in the afternoon. Of course I ran slow to be careful about the heat; it's good to start getting used to the high temperatures again. The humidity has increased but it's not as muggy yet as it will be in the summer here.

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dailylife

Queen Beatrix

Sun, 04/26/2009 - 10:22am

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.Yesterday we had a dinner from the Duke Economics department, with a traditional 'pig-out': North Carolinian style barbecue (pork) with hushpuppies, coleslaw and other 'fixings'.

Later in the evening we had a fun birthday party. Our Argentinian friends told me that the newspapers in Argentina were full of speculation that Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands may announce her abdication next week. The official state press agency is denying it -- so it may be true.

Ettie is celebrating her birthday today -- happy early birthday!

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dutchusa

Cafe Amsterdam

Wed, 04/22/2009 - 9:45pm

Cafe Amsterdam.Next to the bookstore in the National Gallery of Art there is a lunch restaurant.

When we walked by it I was surprised to see a menu in Dutch, with dishes such as gebakken vis and rode kool. In line with the exhibition, the menu was in Dutch style and the restaurant was temporarily called "Cafe Amsterdam".

We had already had lunch so we didn't eat, but the appeltaart was on a buffet and looked very authentic. According to the menu there was also boterboek and flensjes with apples.

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Work NC

Ruby on Rails and Adobe Flex

Tue, 04/21/2009 - 9:29pm

Roadierage.comTonight I attended a presentation on Ruby on Rails and Adobe Flex by Rob Kainz and Derrick Heffner.

We went to the presentation right after work; it was organized by the Triangle User Experience group (an Adobe Group) and sponsored by Railinc.

Rob and Derrick founded Roadierage.com, a website for the music industry. Rob has been developing the website using a combination of Ruby on Rails and Adobe Flex.

In the presentation Rob spoke about the caching and paging mechanisms that he used, including an interesting trick to cache the Ajax responses (essentially query results) as XML files on the file system to speed up repetitive queries. Using a Ruby sweeper method to invalidate the cache when model objects changed made for an elegant implementation.

My main interest was to learn more about Adobe Flex and it was useful to get hear some real world experiences; it was a well spent evening.

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