Guus Bosman

We had a good and productive weekend. Yesterday we went for a walk near Falls Lake, a little north of Durham. We had never been there before and it was beautiful, but we stopped early because of a sign that warned that we were now entering a hunting area. "Reflecting clothes are recommended." Hunting season has recently started. Until October 1st hunting was limited to the use of bow-and-arrow, now other weapons may be used as well.

We left and walked the safe and enjoyable Al Buehler trail instead.

Today I visited the International Festival in Raleigh to take pictures for the other website. In the afternoon we went for a walk together, the Al Buehler trail again. We also reorganized the 2nd bedroom/office and finally put away the luggage and boxes from New Jersey and Washington, DC. Now we have a usable office again.

Yesterday Sasha and I went out for dinner at the American Tobacco Campus.

A great start of the weekend.

Today at work I played with an iPad for the first time.

It's indeed a great product but it's not for me, I think.

Today I received a package with a paper that I wrote 16 years ago, in high school.

The package didn't contain a note, nor did it have the name of the sender. I thought that perhaps Ettie or my parents had sent it, but I couldn't understand why. Thirty minutes later, when I took a picture for this article, it dawned on me that Niels had asked me for my address recently.

A great surprise! It was fun to read the paper. Papers like this motivated me to learn to use a computer. Teachers would tell me that my handwriting was so awful that it was hard to read. I believe this was the first document I created with Microsoft Word, after using WordPerfect for years. The title page was made in Microsoft Publisher.

I was 15 years old when I wrote it and remember the process (and the stress) quite well. Good times!

Monday is a day off, Labor Day, so it's a nice long weekend. In the morning I studied some French -- a new project I took on -- and in the afternoon I had a great long talk with Natascha, a Dutch lady who we met a while ago.

We talked a lot about food and now I'm frying kroepoek on the balcony.

Today Sasha is wrapping up a successful internship. She gave a closing presentation on Wednesday that was very well received. A good feeling. I'll go for lunch at her work today.

Tomorrow we'll travel back to Durham! We'll miss the cats.

The release that I'm working on for work is coming to an end and we're starting to do planning for the fall release.

The house we're staying in has an apartment in the basement, and the two dogs of the owners are living there now. Someone comes in twice a day to feed them and walk them.

Every now and then I go downstairs to play with them. They look intimidating but they're very sweet.

When I went downstairs after lunch I heard a cat meowing, and after I put the dogs back in their apartment I looked for the cat. It turned out that the lazy cat was stuck in the cleaning closet. It must have hidden there yesterday when the cleaning ladies were here.

The cat was stressed out after a night in the closet and very happy that I let him out. Sure enough, the first thing he did was run upstairs to his food.

So I thought the other cat was sleeping all the time, but in fact it is only lazy after breakfast.

In the morning it's very active. When we come downstairs it will run towards us and with loud 'miauws' announce that it's hungry.

We went for a nice long walk yesterday; the same 6 mile course that I ran on Saturday. No running today.

I arrived back in Georgetown late last night. The owners of the house where we're staying are coming back soon and they dropped off their two cats recently, so we have some nice company.

Most cats that I know pretend not to like people, at least in the beginning, but not Scruffy. It follows us everywhere we walk, and likes to play. It's twelve years old but very active. The other cat is pretty much sleeping all the time.

I'm staying here a week; Sasha's internship is coming to and end and we'll return together next Saturday.

Jonathan, Irena and the kids visited us in Georgetown yesterday and we had a great afternoon in the city.

It was very warm so we stayed mainly in the shadow, and walking along the waterside.

Some pictures.