We left work early today, with Tropical Storm Hanna approaching.

The storm is expected to become a weak hurricane tonight before it makes landfall between South and North Carolina. We won't have much problems here in Durham, but there'll be a lot of rain and obviously a lot of wind.

So far it's quiet. It started drizzling around 3.00 pm and raining around 7.00 pm, but no real storm yet.

Since we came back from California it's been politics around the clock.

I watched quite a bit of it: the Democratic convention last week, Mr. McCain's announcement for a running mate and the following review of that surprising choice in the weekend, and this week the Republican convention.

This election year has been incredible so far. So many surprises, so many debates, so much going on. For many years I've enjoyed following the US elections (in 2004 watching the debates online, and watching the election results with friends). It's great to be in the USA and to experience this amazing election cycle from close.

We spent a great day in the San Diego Zoo two weeks ago.

The Zoo is beautiful and very large. There's a huge variety of animals and plants; the grounds are lush and green. It was the first time we saw koala's in real live.

Elephant getting his or her nails done.

The Zoo is very large. On our way back we took a cable car from the Polar Bear's area back to the main entrance.

Tomorrow morning we're leaving to California!

We're going to make a roadtrip from San Diego to San Francisco, and we're taking plenty of time for it. It will be my first time in California, and we're really looking forward to this vacation.

We're enjoying a cup of Dutch coffee that our guests brought last week.

Some final touches for the release this weekend, but it looks like we're in good shape.

What a pretty date: 8/8/08.

A nice date for the Olympic Games to start in China where 8 is a lucky number. In North Carolina 0.08 is the legal threshold of drunkenness and today there is a campaign against drunken driving.

The opening night of the Olympics didn't get much attention tonight, due to the shocking news about John Edwards. It's horrible what he did to his family, and it's absolutely incredible that he decided to run for President when he knew this sword of Damocles was hanging over his head.

Ettie and Gerben left for New York Tuesday morning. We had a really nice time together, and it was sad to see them go. Tuesday morning we celebrated Gerben's birthday, and we had apple pie for breakfast.

On Monday night we went to Peony, a favorite sushi place of ours, and we afterwards we had ice cream next doors.

Work is going well, the release date is approaching soon so there's the usual rush of last minute bugs and things to resolve.

My parents returned to the Netherlands last weekend, and Ettie and Gerben spent a week down south.

It's been a busy week -- we're working on a 1.0 release and that is always a lot of work. I'm excited about the product; it's stable, and looks pretty good.

Ettie and Gerben will be here tomorrow and in the evening we'll see another baseball game, Team USA will play against Canada tomorrow night in Durham.

Yesterday we spent another great day with Ettie and Gerben. In the late afternoon we went to see a ball game of the Durham Bulls. The weather was good, and it was an entertaining event. I still find the sport somewhat slow but with all the different side shows in the breaks it was fun to watch. The Bulls won with 2-0 over the Louisville Bats.

We had dinner at Tyler's. This morning Ettie and Gerben are leaving to Savannah, Georgia, and they'll be back in Durham in a couple of days.

The week with all our guests has been great. Yesterday we had a nice dinner in our home with the 6 of us, and we had a lot of fun. Ettie and Gerben showed us a video of their new house.

Today is an easy day. After lunch Jaap and Mieke left for the airport. They are flying back over Detroit, and will arrive in Amsterdam tomorrow morning. We're taking it easy today -- it's been a tiring week, both at home and at work with a 1.0 release coming up.