A while back Sasha and I watched V for Vendetta, an action-thriller set in London in the near future.

We now have Time Warner as cable provider, and although the selection of on demand movies is slightly smaller, they have pretty good and up-to-date selection of movies.

V was a delightful movie -- a bit predictable but with great visual effects, which I like.

I didn't know them, but the movie is based on a comic series.

When I was in Middenmeer Mieke and I went to the bus stop to pick up Jaap.

Jaap and Peter went to the Frankfurter Buchmesse for 3 days. Initially my plan was to arrive in the Netherlands on Wednesday stay until Sunday which would have meant that Jaap and I would see each other only on the last day, but I was able to arrive in Holland a few days earlier and Jaap and Peter returned on Friday from Germany, so thankfully we could spend a lot of time together.

We wanted to pick Jaap up from the trainstation in Alkmaar, but he didn't have a cell phone so we didn't know when exactly he would arrive. We guessed the arrival time of his bus in Middenmeer, there were basically 3 busses he could take.

When we were waiting for the first bus I took some pictures of Middenmeer. I enjoyed this Friday, spending time at home and shopping with Mieke.

Waiting in the car. It was raining a bit.

A milk car in a Dutch polder.

Middenmeer.

The first bus arrived but Jaap wasn't on it.

Later we went to wait for the 2nd bus, which was in the center of town, and there he was.

I am really concerned about the last cutting of the Starfish.

A week ago it still looked healthy, but I am afraid it's not doing well at all.

This Saturday Sasha and I spent a day exploring the area we live in.

We started by opening new bank accounts. The accounts we have are with banks in the Washington DC area and they don't have branches here. Most of the transactions we do via internet, but it is useful to have a local bank, especially for cashing checks.

As expected, opening the accounts took a while but after an hour or so we completed all the paperwork.

The lady in the bank recommended us a nice diner to go for brunch, in downtown Durham. It was busy (we were there around noon) but we got a table quickly. It's a place for classic American breakfast, and with unlimited refills for coffee which was great.

After lunch we walked through the main street of Durham. It's not very large but there are nice shops and restaurants. We bought a bread at a local bakery.

After a quick stop at home we drove to Raleigh. Instead of taking the exit to my work, as I usually do, we continued to downtown Raleigh and parked near the state Capitol building.

We went for a long walk in that area. It was quiet on Saturday afternoon -- it's mainly a business district. Later we came in the more alive areas, although many shops were closed because of the NC State Fair.

Explanatory sign at the State Capitol.

State Capitol.

Downtown Raleigh. It almost looks like a big city!

A map of downtown Raleigh.

From downtown we walked to this area, with restaurants and little shops. It was really quiet because of the NC State Fair.

The other day I saw this car with many stickers.

A true pacifist: "I am already against the next war."

For a long time I couldn't upgrade Guus Bosman.nl to a new version of the operation system, OpenBSD. There is a step in the upgrade process that requires physical access to the console, which is located in Middenmeer. My parents are hosting the website on the attic (thanks!)

It had been about two years since the last upgrade, to 3.5, but since OpenBSD releases a new version every six months I was almost 4 releases behind. Almost, because 4.0 will be released November 1st.

However, if I keep updating (from source) everytime a new release comes out I should be able to upgrade the server remotely.

Server.

Install script.

Yesterday morning when we woke up the house was very cold and we switched on the heating for the first time.

The temperature in the morning was around 37 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celcius) and it climbed to 67 degrees during the day. I was wearing my jacket for the first time this fall.

In our apartment in Arlington the heating would only work when management switched the whole building from AC to heating, but here both can be used which is much nicer.

Sure enough, after all the traveling I woke up on Saturday with a stuffed nose and I have a cold. Still, we had a really nice day yesterday when we went to see both Durham and Raleigh.

It looks like only one of the cuttings of our starfish will survive.

After a week in the Netherlands we had to throw two completely dead cuttings, and the third one, which I placed in a pot will follow soon.

I still have hope for number four -- it doesn't look extremely strong but at least it seems not to be affected by the disease that killed the rest of the plant.

Tonight Sasha and I went for dinner in The Symposium, a restaurant in downtown Durham.

Saturday evening Tibor brought bulbs for tulips and other flowers, for me to bring back to the States.

We were all curious if it is allowed to bring flowers bulbs into the States. On my way home I had the tulip bulbs in my hand luggage and when I arrived I showed them to a custom representative -- she said it was fine to bring them in the country.

Yesterday evening I went out for dinner with my colleagues. We went to downtown Raleigh and there was a really interesting parking meter. It was a pay box with where you have to place money into slots. It was just a box, so it didn't print a ticket or anything like that. The picture below will explain better how this low-tech solution works.

We had dinner in The Flying Saucer, a nice bar with a large beer selection. I had a Kwak beer with the bradwurst dinner. Unfortunately the Kwak didn't come in its traditional wooden glass. Still, a good beer.

The bar organized a Trivia game and we participated. We didn't win but it was interesting to learn the wide variety of knowledge we had as a team -- from European geography to gravity meters to Ninja Turtles: we knew it all.