Using a dvd-player it is possible to play regular CD-ROMs with pictures, and this morning we were watching some old pictures on our TV, that was very nice. It's a nice and lazy Saturday morning.

In Middenmeer it seems like the spring is carefully starting. According to this picture on Jaap's photo project the ducks in the water near my parents' house are looking for a place to build their home. Traditionally they use the backyard as a breeding place, and when Ettie & I were living there we gave names to the ducks and the same ducks came back every year, and later their offspring.

A nice commercial in the metro: "for the ipod who has everything".

It's a commercial for a speaker set to attach to an Ipod.

I guess it's some kind of sign if the people in Starbucks say "dopio espresso, sir?" whenever I walk in.

An even stronger sign is if they know your name by heart and write it on the cup to indicate the type of coffee.

Work is less busy than the last few weeks, which is nice for a change because it's been quite hectic.

The first days of the week I was home early but yesterday I wanted to finish something and I left work late. Sasha was also still at work, and we didn't feel like cooking. We went for dinner at Cosi's, a nice place near the Courthouse metro station. they serve a lot of different salads and sandwiches, the bread for which they bake themselves in a wide oven. I had a cobb salad, which is my favorite salad there, with a small bowl of chili.

This morning it was snowing; a stark contrast with the previous days. In fact, a "winter storm" warning was issued by the government and all schools were closed.

I took the metro in the morning. If you look carefully at the picture you can see the snowflakes in the air. On the right is the bus to downtown D.C. I could also take that to get to my work, but most of the time I walk and if I don't feel like it or the weather is too bad I take the metro because it's more frequent than the bus.

Here's a part of the bridge between our office building and the shopping area above the metro. I took it when I went to lunch. It was snowing all day (it still is), but the snow is not very sticky and disappears after a while.

Yes, Rob is the one who read between the lines correctly.

The cake we had for dinner on Sasha's birthday was a birthday cake, and of course no such cake is complete without candles.

I had accidentally bought "magic candles": when you blow them out, they automatically go on again. The only way to turn them off completely is put them in water. Now, that by itself would have been okay, but it specifically said "keep 3 inch between the candles and don't use more than 12 per cake".

Well. Pictures below.

Yesterday morning we celebrated Sasha's birthday with presents and the postcards that she received. We had breakfast together, fresh bagels, and I went to my work late.

In the evening we went out for dinner. We went to Club Sake, a Japanese restaurant in north west D.C. The food was very delicious: we had sushi and other Japanese dishes. I like the dishes in which the food was server: authentic and very stylish. The restaurant itself was beautiful in real Japanese style.

We had a desert at home, hazelnut cake with cream. We learned a useful lesson about "magic candles": when it says you should put only 12 of them of a cake then that's probably a good idea.

Today is Sasha's birthday!

A nice start of the day, with presents and a lot of mail to open.

Today was a nice and easy day. In the morning I wrote a couple of e-mails and verified some things for work, but everything's under control and the UAT push worked out nicely. In the afternoon I went to the office for a little while; my parents called me there because I still don't have a cellphone.

Below are some pictures of last night, when I was assembling our new furniture. So far I've installed the couch, one bedside table, a chair and two lamps.

I'm not done yet, but I'm missing one (crucial) box with things for the cupboard that was supposed to be in one of the big packages but wasn't there. I wanted to assemble the cupboard this morning but without the bolts and screws that won't work. I'll have to call Ikea tomorrow.

This week Ikea will open a shop in Haarlem as well.

The final result, the next day.

There are still working on demolishing the office building opposite ours.

Yesterday there was a huge cloud of dust when I came back from Starbucks to get some coffee: they used an explosive top bring part of the building down.

Here's a picture of about a week ago.

Monday morning is an important deadline for the project I am working on. We want to deliver a new release of our software, with a lot of new features, that is ready to be tested by the customer.

Our company has a strict quality process for such a release that includes a separate, professional testing team and 'certification' of the software to determine whether is good-to-go or not. It's been quite busy the last day, but we've made very good progress. This is the first release that will contain functionality that I've designed, and it's exciting to see it getting ready for its interaction with end users.

Sasha left to New York this morning; of course I'd rather be with her and her family in NJ but there's no way I could leave this weekend.

Tonight I was home earlier than the previous few days, and it's great to have some time off. It's the first night I'm alone in a long time. I'm assembling the furniture, which is very rewarding to do, with a glass of triple beer, incense (wierrook) burning, and while listening to relaxing music.