We arrived home from a wonderful trip to Savannah, Georgia. It was only for two nights but it feels like we had a much longer vacation.

Going on a road trip together is fun no matter where we go but Savannah is a great place to visit. It has a really nice historical downtown that is preserved in the original European style. More American cities should have stayed with the city plans and European architecture that the first settlers introduced, haha.

We stayed in a bed and breakfast in the city center and everything was in walking distance. There's lots more to say and many more pictures; all this later.

This morning I brought the car to the dealership for maintenance service. We've driven more than 30,000 miles in the car by now.

The maintenance took a while, they cleaned the fuel injector and some other internals, but with their wireless access and a cellphone I could work pretty well.

A car wash was included, so the car is shiny inside and out. It drives better now, more smooth, and the brakes feel more responsive, especially the parking brake. In a few minutes I'll go back to the car for some final cleaning.

All this in preparation for the road trip that we'll start tomorrow afternoon. We're going to Savannah, Georgia and I'm really looking forward to it. We'll arrive late on Friday night but we'll have 2 full days in the city. The weather forecast is good; it's going to be 81 degrees.

Yesterday evening there was a birthday party for Ben and Cynthia in Raleigh. It was a nice evening with a cookout and good conversations.

In one of the rooms there was a Rock Band installation set up. Rock Band is a video game where the goal is to make music together. I had read about the game before, but it's quite something else to see it in real.

In the room was large video screen, a console and a sound system, but also two guitars and a drum set. The guitars and drum sets are peripherals that are connected to the main console, and allow 4 people to join together to make music. I played the bass in a song by Blondie (on the easiest level), and it was really fun.

Friday afternoon on the Full Frame Festival I saw Bigger, Faster, Stronger*, a movie about American sport culture. The films asks why anabolic steroids are illegal and forbidden in sports, while so many athletes use it and there are so many similar drugs and techniques in use. "Is it still cheating if everybody is doing it?"

It was an amusing documentary, but it fails to make a strong case. The style of argumentation is that of Michael Moore, albeit less stark. There are lots of insinuations but hard data and solid arguments are lacking. I didn't care for the part where the main character talks to his congressman, who is not completely up-to-date of all the facts and has to consult with an assistant. A cheap shot on somebody who was only sideways involved. Over-all, I don't believe this movie made a compelling case.

Nevertheless, it is an entertaining and interesting film. It does a really good job of mixing general commentary with the personal history and developments of the family of the main characters, three brothers who grew up working in a culture of weight-lifting. The main character is trying to determine for himself whether or not it is all right to use steroids, and among other things looks at his brother, a failed WWE wrestler. The film keeps an upbeat tone, and the part about the LA Times picture was very funny. The incorporation of old family video material is well done.

The asterisk (*) in the title refers to the by-line: "* The side-effects of being American". A good film, interesting and entertaining.

I transplanted some of the herbs that I planted three weeks ago.

It's the first time I'm doing this; I'm curious to see how things will work out. Not all plants looked ready to go outdoors, so I'm keeping about half of them inside.

The weather has been really nice, but with the herbs outside I'm a bit worried about frost at night. It would be rare, but one night could be enough to do damage. I haven't found an RSS feed yet that can tell me if there's frost predicted for our area.

What a beautiful day! The temperature is in the 80's and the sun is shining brightly... spring is coming up to speed.

I woke up early this morning and went for a nice run at 8.30 am. The swimming pool opened last week, so maybe we'll go there later but for now it's coffee on the balcony.

Over the last few months we've been making (wonderful) plans for the summer and things are starting to finalize. Jaap and Mieke will visit us in July and booked their flights today.

The trees are losing their spring blossom, and everywhere you go there's a yellow or white coating of little blossoms.

Thursday afternoon Michael and I traveled back to Raleigh/Durham. We had planned to take a 5.30 pm flight from Newark, but unfortunately the flight was significantly overbooked. We arrived at the airport about 50 minutes before departure time, and the machine didn't give us a boarding pass but a "priority seating ticket" of some kind. Bad news!

Anyway, so we were bumped off the flight, but with the help of our excellent travel agency and some creativity we got seats on a flight to Charlotte, and American Airlines paid for the minivan we took from there to RDU. We were home at 1.30 am, but at least we didn't have to stay another day and take a flight on Friday night (the first thing the AA agent offered us).

A bottle that I refilled with water in Charlotte airport... I decided not to didn't drink it.

I'm in New Jersey today and tomorrow for work. The weather here is nicer than at home although it's usually the other way around. Since I'm here for only a short time there are a lot of meetings in a short period of time.

American Airlines is canceling a lot of flights because of maintenance issues, but so far it looks like the aircraft that we'll take tomorrow is not affected.

The Full Frame Festival 2008 Awards were announced an hour ago. Not surprisingly, Man on Wire won the Audience Award and got an honorable mention from the Jury (we saw the film last night and it was amazing). The Jury award went to Trouble the Water, a movie about Hurricane Katrina.

Two other movies that I saw received awards: Lioness and At the Death House Door.

This afternoon I went to the Durham Armory where the tickets are being sold and I was in line from 2.00 pm so I was the first one to buy tickets -- Sasha and I will see Betrayal at 3.45 pm and in the evening I'll see Trouble the Water. Betrayal is playing in Cinema One, a small venue, so it was getting sold out quickly.