Guus Bosman

software executive and technologist

You are here

Home
politicsnews

Awful news from West Virginia

Wed, 01/04/2006 - 8:45am
While preparing to go to work we usually watch the news. This morning we were watching an awful story about the miners of the Sago mine in West Virginia.

It's a tragic accident and it's incredible that it took almost three hours to correct the invalid story that 12 of the miners were still alive. We saw some live interviews with the people who were in the church last night, awful stories.

USA Today 1/4/06.


This morning's paper still had the news as it was known around midnight, before the terrible news and miscommunication around it became apparent.
»
dailylife

Bulgarian - Dutch combinations

Tue, 01/03/2006 - 9:30pm

Monday morning we watched the traditional New Year's Rose Parade in Pasadena, California on TV. It was the first time since 1955 that it was raining during the 117 year old parade, we were told. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was the Grand Marshall of the parade and she was driving through the crowds and waving to everybody.

When I looked at the living room table that we had prepared for the New Year's Eve dinner, I saw some nice symbolism in the Bulgarian salt-and-pepper set sitting next to the Dutch tulips.

After some research I found two other sets of items in our house that symbolize a combination of Bulgaria and Holland.

»
ourhouse

Work in Middenmeer

Tue, 01/03/2006 - 9:15pm

Work in Middenmeer.The livingroom of my parent's house in Middenmeer is being renovated.

Ettie and Jaap are taking out the wood on one of the walls, to replace it with a new, white wall.

More pictures on Jaap's blog.

»
movies

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Mon, 01/02/2006 - 11:24pm

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.Sunday morning we slept in, of course, and we took it easy all day. In the late afternoon we went to AMC theater next door, to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

This movie, based on books by C.S. Lewis, resembled Harry Potter and Alice in Wonderland, with a little bit of the Lord of the Rings as well. It was a good movie, pleasant to watch and with a good, if slightly predictable story-line.

The special effects were excellent and they were blended very well into the story: no effects for the effects, but genuinely adding value to the story. The computer generated characters such as the Witch' general or the beavers on Aznar's side, were real characters, with real personalities. The beavers by the way are amazingly funny characters -- constantly bickering and arguing, and their facial expressions are very vivid.

After the movie we went to Summers where we saw the Redskins, the Washington football team, win an important final game of the season against the Philadelphia Eagles, This means that they will meet the Tampa Buccaneers next Saturday in the playoffs.

»
dailylife

New Year's Eve in Arlington

Mon, 01/02/2006 - 10:25am

New Year's Eve in Arlington.On Saturday, the last day of the year, I organized most of the paperwork that we collected in the last year. I bought folders and plastic holders and arranged and sorted all the papers. A tedious but rewarding job.

At 5 pm Sasha called Perushtitsa, and she was on the phone with Milan and Nadia when 2006 arrived in Bulgaria. An hour later the Netherlands was celebrating the New Year and I called Middenmeer to congratulate my parents, Ettie, Gerben and Len who were watching the fireworks in the street.

We started cooking around 6.30 pm, and we prepared a lot of delicious things. With the rakia we had a mlechna salad. Irena had advised us on the brand of yoghurt to use and it worked out very well. The garlic prevents us from eating it during the week and it had been quite a while since the last time I had mlechna.

Our main course was not turkey; after Thanksgiving and Christmas we choose to have a chicken instead. We prepared it using the broil setting of the oven, and it came out very soft and juicy. On the side we had small red potatoes, roasted with rosemary and salt. We had a garden salad, that we served in the new bowls we got for Christmas. We drank a red wine, a Bulgarian Asenovgrad Mavrud from 2001, that won a Golden Riton prize and we found in a wineshop in Georgetown a couple of weeks ago.

Although we had planned to go to an Irish pub nearby for the midnight celebration, we were having such a good time at home that we decided to stay and watch the ball drop on Times Square on CNN. We opened our champaign at midnight and celebrated the New Year. An hour later we also saw the ceremony in New Orleans, where a giant gumbo pot was being dropped.

»
dailylife

Happy New Year!

Sat, 12/31/2005 - 6:00pm

Happy New Year!

To all our readers, no matter in what timezone they live: Happy New Year and all the best for 2006!

»
dailylife

New house Daniel and Erika

Fri, 12/30/2005 - 7:55am

New house Daniel and Erika. On the left is Daniel, their house is the 2nd balcony.Two good friends, Daniel and Erika, have bought a new house!

They have been living together in Hungary for a long time, but this is the first house they are buying together so it's a great step. Congratulations!

Daniel sent out some pictures and it looks like a nice place, large and with a great view. It's on the second floor of a three-story building, in a medium sized city called Solnok.

Daniel mentioned that they will have some renovations done before they move in so they will move to their new place in April next year.

»
internet

Noise-cancelling headphones

Thu, 12/29/2005 - 8:05am

Sasha gave a me a very nice present for Christmas: noise-cancelling headphones!

This is truly a very special headset -- it filters out monotonous low noises by generating an "opposite" sound waves for those noises. Even when you're not listening to music it sounds like someone lowered the sounds of the world around you to a really, really low volume -- awesome.

I tried them for the first time on our long bus trip from New York to Washington and they worked great.

»
washington

American images: A duck at the Memorial

Wed, 12/28/2005 - 11:30pm

A duck at the Lincoln Memorial.A duck in a pond full with leaves.

This is the pond between the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial at the National Mall.

»
travelling

Traffic, traffic

Wed, 12/28/2005 - 8:21pm

The bus driver adjusting the pressure in the tire.The journey from Washington to New York on Friday went very smooth, mostly because of the professional bus driver who managed to evade the most congested roads. On the way back we were not so lucky.

We woke up early Monday to take the train to New York at 10.30 o'clock. Irena brought us to the trainstation. We said goodbye and had plenty of time to take the train. When we arrived in the city we had a cup of coffee and walked to the bus stop. However, when we came there we saw nobody waiting, while there are usually people in line. So, we double checked the ticket, and we realized that the bus company had changed the location of the bus stop! We ran eight blocks across town, from 34th to 42nd but we were too late and just caught a glimpse of the bus leaving. I yelled and waved to the bus driver but that did nothing than attracting several cab drivers who offered us a ride.

Well, what do you do when you have a good hour to kill on Times Square? Indeed, we went to Starbucks and spend our time well. We were really early at the bus stop for the 1 pm bus (the correct location this time) to make sure we would get on. That was a smart move because a lot of people were waiting and some people couldn't get a seat.

»

Pages

Recent comments

Recently read

Books I've recently read: