Guus Bosman

software executive and technologist

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ourhouse

Starting to move

Tue, 05/14/2013 - 11:34pm

Slowly but surely we're getting ready to move into our new house.

In the afternoon a technician from Comcast, the cable company, came by. The cable ends at our outside wall -- I need to bring it inside myself -- but he tested the connection and we should be ready for cable internet.

Tonight we visited the house together. Sasha and I were talking about the paint color, Balboa, and Nora liked the word and started repeating "Balboa, Balboa".

We started packing too. We can't move anything in the main rooms yet, but most of the things that will be in storage in the basement are already moved. This will save us quite a lot of time during moving day, which is going to be Monday or Tuesday.

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internet

Cloudera Sessions

Wed, 05/08/2013 - 11:05am

Yesterday I attended the Cloudera Sessions, an event on using Hadoop, HBase and other "big data" tools organized by Cloudera.

Big Data is an interesting field and I enjoyed this well-organized day. Cloudera is a provider of commercial solutions around the open-source Hadoop stack. There were speakers from Cloudera and several of their commercial partners, talking about the practical experiences so far and plans for the future.

An event like this is meant to convince people to use Cloudera's stuff -- but it is also a good way to find out how people are actually using Hadoop in commercial applications. This is the part I liked best. There were several speakers who talked about their (very) recent experience with commercial roll-outs and I spoke to people at my table and over lunch about what they are doing with this technology.

Many companies are still experimenting, but there are several early adopters who have real production deployments. Unsurprisingly, the latter includes many starts-ups.

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ourhouse

Our first house

Mon, 04/15/2013 - 7:43pm

Today we bought our first house!

It is in an awesome location, on a few minutes walking from the Clarendon metro station, in the heart of Arlington.

We are very excited, and after we feed Nora we will be on our way to check out our new place.

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sports

Cherry Blossom 10 Miler

Sun, 04/07/2013 - 11:56am

Today I ran the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler, a beautiful race along the monuments and the Tidal Bassin, and it went quite well with a 9:06 minute/mile pace.

I wasn't fully prepared for the race, but it went pretty well. Over the past few weeks I've started doing longer training runs, including two 8.5 mile runs, but I hadn't planned on doing a longer race so soon. However, turns out that my employer is a sponsor of the Cherry Blossom race and two weeks ago I signed up. This is actually the longest run I've done in over two years (the Greensboro Cannonball half marathon).

There were around 15,000 participants and the race was very well organized. The start and finish where at the foot of the Washington Monument (which is being repaired from the earthquake damage) and the run was straight through the cherry blossom area. Very pretty.

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dailylife

Opa going back home

Tue, 04/02/2013 - 8:10pm

Opa Jaap left today after a fun month. All four of us really enjoyed the time together and Opa's presence was especially useful in the past 10 days.

Nora learned many new Dutch words from "Apa", as well as the ability to make some ugly faces, haha. New words include "pen", "dicht", "mee" (as in, "ga je mee?") and "peer".

Whenever an airplane comes over Arlington, Nora will now lift her finger in imitation of Opa and say "hoor"!

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dailylife

A snowy surprise

Mon, 03/25/2013 - 7:33am

We woke up to a snow-white world this morning.

In the morning Nora likes to watch the school buses with children ("kicheche" -- for "kindertjes") but there were none today, since it is spring break.

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dailylife

Long walk

Sat, 03/23/2013 - 7:12pm

Today was a beautiful day and we went for a long walk, the four of us.

The moon was visible and Nora liked to point it out: "maan, maan!"

Just like last weekend she skipped a nap today. She usually takes two naps, but today only one.

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dailylife

New word: beker

Wed, 03/20/2013 - 7:37am

Yesterday evening Nora looked with interest at Sasha's travel mug that was on the table.

Jaap was holding her and explained: "Dat is een beker". Nora giggled and said "beber".

She is constantly learning new words these days, which is a lot of fun. In the mornings, when she is getting ready for breakfast, she'll stare out the window and say "buh buh" -- she likes to watch the school buses.

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dailylife

Nora's first time in the zoo

Wed, 03/13/2013 - 7:33am

Last Saturday we visited the National Zoo in DC -- the first time that Nora went to a zoo, and she liked it a lot.

When we first entered, she was overwhelmed by all the people and she kept looking at all the kids. When we showed her the first animals -- several zebras -- she wasn't very impressed yet. A few minutes later we saw the pandas, and she did like those. She even learned the name. She liked seeing them eat, but she also enjoyed the pictures of pandas on the walls.

Nora recognized the American wolf as a "waf waf" and a highlight for her were the ducks, which we were able to see real close. We've been reading a lot about ducks, and even though these weren't yellow and chubby she was happy to see them ("kwak kwak!").

She was also impressed by the crows, who were noisy and said "ka, ka". At the end of our walk we saw the cheetahs.

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sports

St Patrick's Day 8k, Washington, DC

Sun, 03/10/2013 - 8:04pm

This morning I ran the St Patrick's Day 8k in Washington, DC. St Patrick's is celebrated next week and the traditional color to wear is green. While I don't have green running shirts I wore some beads. During the run I gave them away to enthusiastic spectators, that was fun.

Getting up in the morning was tough after a short night (Nora & DST).

I left home at 7.55 am and had to wait 15 minutes for the next metro train. The race started at Federal Triangle on Independence, and it was busy -- almost 3,800 participants. With the various lines I made it to the start just in time: the race had already started but my corral (9.00 minutes/mile) not yet.

It was beautiful running on Independence Avenue towards the Capitol. It was sunny and nice weather, great for a run. The field was really crowded, and when after 5 minutes that was still not letting up I started the run on the side of the crowd.

I'm satisfied with my time -- a little under 8:30 minutes a mile, which was my target.

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