Guus Bosman

Friday night stayed at Jonathan and Irena's place (thanks a lot guys!), which was fun. We had a couple of beers in the evening. Irena just came back from Charlotte, NC, where she had been a week for a week for a her work.

Slept in Saturday morning, and Jonathan later gave me a ride to the busstop in Secaucus. The bus I took to Times Square got stuck in traffic (again!) and I made it just on time. Another long, bus trip, but no work this time, I read "the Secret Life of Bees" instead (marvellous story).

We spent our weekend nice and quiet. It's nice and sunny and I spent some time on the balcony on Sunday, but it's really getting a bit chilly.

The summer signs on our building have been replaced by a fall theme, the outside swimming pool has been closed for a while... getting ready for the fall.

Today I went to work with my coat -- I hadn't used it for a long time, but it's that time of the year again.

Saturday morning we woke up late. It had been a busy week and an intensive evening, so we slept in which felt excellent. Check-out was at noon so we left our luggage at the counter when we went for breakfast.

We found an amazing place nearby -- Crestanello . The sandwiches were outstanding... great juice and of course Italian coffee, an excellent breakfast.

In the afternoon we went shopping. We went to Macy's, "the world's largest store", where we spent quite some time. I bought two pair of jeans.

In the late afternoon we took a bus from Port Authority to Secaucus and we visited Jonathan and Irena. They have been remodelling a part of their living room and it became really nice (of course -- Jonathan is an architect). They basically took out a stone wall and replaced it with a semi-transparant one; it's nice and bright.

We spent a very nice evening there -- long talks and great food. Sunday morning we slept it again, and after a lazy day we took the bus back home. The bus didn't stop for dinner (it often makes a break at Burger King) but we were prepared and had a late lunch. We were home around 23:00 o'clock.

Tonight there was a party in the Holiday Inn because it has been open for almost a year. I never really realized that the hotel was so new (although it certainly looks good) but it was a nice occassion for some entertainment.

On the invition it said "techno party". I wasn't sure what to expect but "techno" turned out to mean "related to technology" and it was just a buffet with drinks afterwards. The music after the speeches was actually DJ Tiesto. Of the 350 nights that the hotel exists I have been a guest around 50 nights.

Today was my last day in Puerto Rico, I'm leaving tomorrow morning early... a 7:40 flight to New York. Really excited about that, Sasha and I will meet each other there in the afternoon, and in the evening we'll go to U2!

This afternoon we went for lunch in San Patricio plaza, a shopping mall nearby.

Puerto Rican food tends to be a bit heavy and to compensate I had a salad for lunch. It came with a really nice soup, creme de calabaza.

Work goes well, UAT testing started and we're making good progress. It's nice to see everybody here again.

On the street in front of Court House Plaza a couple of new pedestrian stopping lights was installed.

The other day I was crossing the street, and wondering: "hey, have I been ignoring that light for the last year?!"

Tomorrow morning I have the 7 am flight to Puerto Rico -- setting the alarm for really early. I just called Blue Top to reserve a cab, these guys are amazingly efficient in how they deal with phone calls, in about 15 seconds you can reserve a cab:

"Blue Top -- phone number?"
"What time do you want it?"
"Where are you going?"
"All right, you're all set."

Wow... it has been pretty crazy these days at work. We are completing the IT testing phase of my project, and that means we've been working in 'crunch' mode the last weeks.

However, the end is coming closer and the good thing is that the code looks pretty good. It will be quite busy tomorrow and Friday, but most IRs have been fixed and we're now basically cleaning up some of the smaller stuff.

Anyway -- it took quite some time and energy so I took less time to update the website. Should slowly improve next week.

By then I will be in Puerto Rico, I'm travelling Monday morning, to assist the customer with the start of their UAT testing.

Tibor and Janneke are moving to Italy for a year. This Thursday they are leaving their house in IJburg and moving to Palazzo del Maggiore, in northern Italy.

They'll be working in a hotel there, owned by Tibor's father and enjoy the good life in Italy... an excellent plan. Tibor and Janneke created a website about their plan.

Tibor being Tibor, he also has great plans to connect the (mountain) village to the world wide web using an ambitious wire-less uplink to the coast, where a multi-line DSL connection will connect a number of villages with internet.

We wish you an enjoyable adventure and a great time!

Today we spent the afternoon in Alexandria where there was an art market in the main street. There were many different artists and styles. We had a good time looking at the different paitings and sculptures, but found nothing for our house.

When the market was closing, we had a few beers on the main street. The waiter said: "oh yeah, we might have some Belgium beer: Heineken is Belgium, right?" It was a special day today, as we celebrated our 7th aniversary together, and we went for dinner in a really nice French restaurant. The food was delicious and we spend a lot of time there. It was an outside restaurant, we were sitting in a garden.

When we took the metro back, the orange line had a huge delay and according to the sign we would have to wait 20 minutes at the Rosslyn station, so we walked home.

We are leaving in 30 minutes to the Chesapeake Bay. It's Labor Day Monday, so we have a long weekend, and Rosa invited us to join her to her summer house.

We're leaving early, to beat the worst traffic -- it will be very busy on the road and it's a trip of a couple of hours.