Two weeks ago, when I was in Washington, I noticed that a harddisk of the server was slowly stopping. This Tuesday it broke down completely, taking down the whole server.

Repairing turned out to be harder than I had thought. The harddisk was completely broken and some other parts weren't looking too good either.

Sponsored by my parents I bought some new hardware for the server. Currently the site is back up, and it's running on a 1,6Ghz processor with 512MB memory.

I would like to thank Edo, for providing me with the hardware that this site has been running on for the last year. Thanks a lot!

Every now and then I read the website of the Haarlems Dagblad (the local newspaper).

Today I saw some good news: the cacoa-factory will close in September 2004. They are moving to Amsterdam. The factory sometimes causes a nasty smell in the whole city; it's especially bad in the summer.

Also, the Draaiorgelmuseum seems to have found a new location, in the Waarderpolder.

Yesterday I went to the birthday of Manuel, a collegue. He didn't know there would be a party as his girlfriend organized it for him without his knowledge -- he liked the surprise!

Mr. Verhagen is back from his stay abroad.

He has updated his diary, with a discussion on the Democratic caucuses in Iowa. He writes very well... I missed his comments ;)

I visited Tibor and Janneke in their new house yesterday. They bought a house at IJburg, a new part of Amsterdam.

Had a good time there and a delicious dinner. Janneke is pregnant. She's in her 28th week now and has a big belly.

It's a nice house they live in -- there's still some work to be done but the important things are ready. Everything in the house is new; even the neighborhood.

Yesterday night Joris gave a party to celebrate his PhD.

The location he choose was the club-house of a rowing club in Amsterdam,
near the Amstel. It was quite a party with a lot of people. There was a
DJ but I didn't really dance. Talked instead spoke with a number of
people, which was very nice.

Max brought us back to Haarlem by car (thanks!), I was home around 2:00 o'clock.

I'm leaving in a few minutes to the promotion party of Joris, a collegue from Chess who received his PhD. Wednesday.

The party is in Amsterdam, I'll travel with Manuel and Aida.

For the first time in a week I had time to sleep in, and I took my chance. Woke up at 11:00 o'clock, totally refreshed. A nice feeling.

This morning I've been reading one of the many books I got for my
graduation. This one is from my uncle and aunt: "The Words we Live By",
a wonderful book about the American Constitution.

And yes -- this picture is the first one online made with my own digital camera.
Thanks a lot Ettie for borrowing me yours many times, but now I won't
need it anymore.

I am at Chess again, after being two weeks on holiday. I had a wonderful time in Washington and a great day Wednesday; now it's back to normal life.

Yesterday I submitted the last paperwork to the VU. The only thing left is signing up for the alumni newsletters.

After being away from the office I had to re-conquer many parts of my docking
station: the monitor, mouse and most cables were 'borrowed' by other projects and temporary computers. Now I'm back in business. Today I'm working on small improvements to the main project I have been working on since March.

There are a number of pictures online of my graduation yesterday. No longer a student, but with a M.Sc. title and a memory of a great day!

In the morning I tried to get up at 9:30 o'clock, but I still felt a little sleepy from the time-difference so I stayed in bed till 10:30. Then I hardly had enough time: I had to prepare quite a few things, buy some fresh bread etc... and my parents would be there at 13:00 o'clock. In fact
they came earlier (surprise!), which was nice because they helped me out with the shopping while I quickly took a shower and dressed. Unfortunately the coffee machine was broken (now fixed), so we were craving for some coffee.

We arrived at the VU around 13:45 and met Alrik in the main building. The graduation was in the Computer Science building and there also were many familiar faces!

It was a very pleasant surprise to see so many people: Alrik, Ankie, Bianca, Ettie, Gerben, Harm, Jaap, Jennie, Jerry, Joost, Len, Marjolein, Mieke, Oma, Paula, Petra, Ralf, Richard, Rob, Steven,
Wouter... I took some caffeine shots. It was funny that quite some people had read my remark on the website in the morning that I was having difficulties getting up.