This afternoon we did some shopping in the outlets in Smithfield and we went for a walk in the Cliffs of the Neuse state park. It's a very nice park, not very big but pretty. It must be very nice in the spring also.

I'm still working on the pictures of Punta Cana... There is so much to do and think about.

A great article in the New York Times about electronic voting machines.

A very true statement:

"One might expect computer scientists to be fans of computer-based vote-counting devices, but it turns out that the more you know about computers, the more likely you are to be terrified that they’re running elections."

We're in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic and things are absolutely fantastic!

From the beach we wish you all a great year end, and all the best for 2008!

Tomorrow morning we're leaving for the Dominican Republic where we'll celebrate Christmas and New Year's Eve. It's going to be a great vacation and I'm really looking forward to it.

Yesterday evening and today we've done a lot of preparations -- shopping, laundry, last minute things etc, and now we still need to pack our bags. Our flight is at 6.10 am tomorrow.

Our good friend Marjolein today successfully defended her dissertation, and now has her Ph. D.

The ceremony was in the Agnieten chapel in downtown Amsterdam. Jerry and Gerlof were her paranimfs.

Well deserved, after lots of hard work: many congratulations from both of us!

Terry Pratchett, the author of the Discworld books, announced yesterday that he has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. I've been a fan of his work for over 10 years, and this is sad news for him and his family.

From his website:

"PS I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as 'I am not dead'. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think - it's too soon to tell. I know it's a very human thing to say 'Is there anything I can do', but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry."

Saturday afternoon we went to a surprise party for Angelo, who celebrated his 30th birthday.

Chris had organized a party for him at noon in the International House with food, drinks and music and we had a good time. It was nice to chat with everybody again.

We went home for 1,5 hour and prepared for the Christmas party of the Duke Economics department. It was in George's Garage, and they did a pretty decent job of feeding the 250 people or so at the party. We had a really nice evening there, and spoke to quite a few people. A lot of our friends are leaving for their home countries with the holidays, many are leaving this week already.

Angelo's cake.

This morning I was with the Jaycees in Chapel Hill to help in the organization of the Chapel Hill Christmas Parade. The Chapel Hill Jaycees did that for the first time this year, and things went really well.

I was in the "walking groups" area and we made sure all the marching bands and other groups started in the right order. There were about 2,000 participants in the parade, and with 15 volunteers and some experienced community members things worked out really smoothly.

There was a nice variety of participants, I liked the Chick-fil-a cows. There was even a girl in a traditional Dutch costume and a Sinterklaas!

Early in the morning the first vehicles were getting ready. The streets were closed from 8.00 am, and the parade started at 10.00 am.

When there's a parade, you don't want to have your car parked on the street...

We made sure all walking groups were in the right order, and they lined up on the parking lot of the Moorehead Planetarium.

Lots and lots of people walking in the parade, including many kids. Almost 250 girl scouts!

Santa's sleigh.

Waiting to start walking.

Dutch girl and Sinterklaas.

Today is December 5 and in the Netherlands we celebrate Sinterklaas.

Like last year I brought strooigoed in. This time I brought it from the Netherlands (we bought it in Wieringerwerf), instead of through mail order.

Of course, nobody has the nice childhood memories associated with pepernoten that I have, but still my coworkers generally like the 'ginger snaps with candy'.

On Schiphol airport there were both Sinterklaas and Christmas decorations.

The Christmas ornaments in this tree are in Delftware style.