Betrayal is an absolutely amazing documentary. The movie is filmed during a period of over 23 years, and starts in Laos, where the filmmaker and main character of the movie lives with his parents. They are forced to leave Laos when the Americans lost the war in Vietnam and the Communists come to power in Laos, because the father worked with the Americans.

After many travels the family ultimately migrates to the States, arriving in a very bad neighborhood in Brooklyn. They are without the father who had been sent to a 'reeducation camp' in Laos. I won't give away what ultimately happens in the film, but it's breathtaking to realize that this is an actual, real-life documentary and not a fictional movie. Very gripping, very beautiful.

Sasha and I saw this documentary last year at the Full Frame festival in Durham. It is now nominated for an Oscar.

We saw Slumdog Millionaire last weekend, an impressive movie about a boy from the slums who participates in Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

The film provides a glimpse of life at the bottom of society in India. It has a strange combination of despair about the desperate circumstances the main characters live in, and happy optimism and humor. Over-all it's an upbeat movie with beautiful camera work and great music.

Definitely recommended.

The other day in CVS we saw a pan for "Pancake Puffs". Well, that looks like a poffertjespan to me! (Got to love to nice long Dutch words).

There is a mail order store in the US that sells real, Dutch, poffertjespannen and even a poffertjesvork, for flipping the poffertjes over.

Today there was no new snow but the world was still white.

There were some traffic warnings in effect but my travel to and from work was uneventful, luckily.

The car, before I cleaned the windows.

Today was the Inauguration of President Obama, a beautiful day. Over lunch we saw the swearing-in ceremony and the Inauguration speech. The crowds were amazing, and at the same time I was very happy we were in the warm environment of our home and not on the street since 4 am. CNN estimated that there were about 1.5 million people on the Mall today.

Here at Guus Bosman.nl we had the first article on this candidate back in January 2007. In September I saw then Senator Obama and Senator Biden in Greensboro, and it was great night when he was elected President in November.

It was nice to see the new first family at the balls tonight; dancing like must feel somewhat awkward but it's a nice tradition. The Obama's are such a young family compared to many of the politicians in DC -- truly a new generation.

The snow today impacted a lot of traffic, and I worked from home today. In the afternoon the Governor declared a state of emergency for North Carolina due to the snow. I hope that I can get to work tomorrow because I have meetings from 10.00 am through 5.00 pm.

Today is the first day of snow in North Carolina this winter.

Travel hazardous as snow builds.

My cup of coffee this afternoon had a special Inauguration sleeve.

The red, white and blue sleeve on the Starbucks cup featured a quote by Abraham Lincoln. The Inauguration of course, is tomorrow. This will be the second Presidential Inauguration since we moved to the United States. I had absolutely no desire to go to this Inauguration in person, knowing how large the crowds would be, and the freezing weather strengthens my feelings.

Even in North Carolina there's snow predicted for tomorrow -- the first snowfall this year here, up to two or three inches.

The other night we were at Crabtree Mall in Raleigh. It was rather quiet.

The shopping season is over and the recession must have its influence also. The Whitehall Jewelers was closed; the company went bankrupt a few weeks ago. Circuit City, a big electronics retailer went out of business also.

We found a sofa! Yesterday morning we visited the remaining furniture stores on Glenwood Avenue; we have practically visited all of them. In the very last store that we visited we found the sofa we immediately loved. It will be delivered this week.