We're in the National Gallery in DC, where there is a special exhibition on Jan Lievens.

Today we're in the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Ilana.

There is wonderful collection of Dutch art here, including Ruisdael and Hobbema.

We're on the road again! It's a great trip together.

Traffic is not bad at all, except the line at Starbucks.

Tomorrow after work we'll be on our way to New Jersey.

It will be a nice road trip (for which we'll take two days) and we're looking forward to see everyone in Secaucus.

I had a healthy lunch today.

Tonight we went for our first sub-freezing run of this year. It was cold, but with long sleeves and a cap it wasn't too bad.

Sunday afternoon we ran in the Old Reliable Run in Raleigh, a 10 kilometer race.

It was the first time Sasha ran a 10k race and she did well. I wasn't very happy with my own result, but after a week of no training and a terrible cold I couldn't expect much. It's very nice to be running a race together.

An hour before the start of the race, at the start line.

This week I received my new Dutch passport.

It was quicker than I had expected, it took only about two weeks for my passport to arrive back home after I applied for it in the Consulate in Raleigh.

The new passport is valid until 2011, and it's issued by the Ambassador in Washington DC which is kind of cool. I received my previous passport back also.

The consul told me that the size of the holes in invalidated passports is defined by government regulations. All Dutch consulates worldwide were required to purchase expensive hole-in-passport-makers issued by the Dutch government; commercial products don't make the right type of holes.

I upgraded the server to OpenBSD 4.4 yesterday.

They now have a sysmerge tool that helps in upgrading the /etc directory. It worked well, but I think it's somewhat overkill for my simple system. Using their patch files for /etc has always worked in the past, and I think I'll stick with that next time.

So last week I celebrated my 30th birthday. Thanks everyone for the many cards, calls, presents and messages! One loving family member sent me at least four electronic Happy Birthday cards.

I received a lot of nice presents. This weekend I'll go the Barnes & Nobles to use some of the gift certificates. And by the way, Snel en Woedend is a nice translation of Fast and the Furious.

Gerben sent me an article about the history of the English language, and its roots in the language of Friesland, where Ettie and Gerben live.

"Modern-day Friesians put bûter on their bred, with a slice of tsiis, to make a tasty miel".

See the article below, or read more here.