By Guus , 28 November 2018

I just completed the exam for AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, a certificate that shows I have basic knowledge about the different Amazon Web Service offerings.

The exam was relatively easy. I've been preparing for this conference for a while, and done quite a bit of studying on the various AWS products. I did study a few trial exams from Udemy.com, and those were helpful for questions on more basic stuff like the Billing and Support models -- the less technical topics.

Still, it's been a while since I had done an official test and I was a little nervous, and now I'm very happy I passed the test. "Certified individuals" also get access to a special area here at the re:Invent 2018 conference.

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By Guus , 27 November 2018

I'm attending a conference this week, and this morning there was a charity run. It was a fun morning. We walked 30 minutes from our hotel to the start of the race, did the race and then walked back -- so plenty of exercise.

I was wearing my E*TRADE T-shirt and halfway the race someone ran next to me and shared that he used to work at E*TRADE. In fact, someone I vaguely knew -- it was nice catching up with him for a few minutes.

Back in the MGM I finally had my first cup of coffee and a nice breakfast. Then immediately on to the first session of the day, on Amazon Prime Video technology.

By admin , 25 November 2018

We had a lovely Thanksgiving meal with the Zane family and my cousin Eva.

More text later -- here are the pictures.

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By Guus , 20 November 2018

Eva arrived today! She is joining us for Thanksgiving and she traveled from Chicago today. In the morning she went to the Dutch Embassy, and in the afternoon she came to Arlington. Eva and I picked up Nora from the bus -- Nora loved it. She jumped up and down and pretending to be shy but then they walked home hand-in-hand.

We made a Sinterklaas kijkdoos together and in the evening when Sasha came home we to Pilates the three of us. At night Eva read a story to the kids, and more went they went to bed (though Adrian insisted to be read by me).

It's great to see her, and an excellent start of the holiday.

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By admin , 17 November 2018

The cap of a soap bottle got stuck in the drain of the bathtub. We use it for bathing the kids, so it's no big deal if draining is slower, but next week we'll have guests so I wanted to fix it.

I spent 30 minutes trying to get the bottle cap out, no luck. I went downstairs to call a plumber, when I did a quick Google search. Someone recommended to use a shopvac for this situation and sure enough -- that did it! The cap came out in 5 seconds.

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By admin , 11 November 2018

It's really wonderful to work with a kid one-on-one, teaching them.

Even on Sunday morning at 6.30 am.

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By admin , 10 November 2018

There's no denying it -- 40 is not young! But I am very, very proud that I've been running now for over a decade. I'm not an athlete by any stretch of the imagination, but in the past 10 years I have consistently been running and that's a great feeling.

By admin , 8 November 2018

It's been a busy week after a conversion weekend.

Was good to run.

By Guus , 4 November 2018

We went to the Haring & Paling event at the Dutch Embassy last night, always a nice event. We had a really good time together, enjoying the good food and having a relaxed dinner. The kids loved the sandwiches with Dutch cheese and vlokken and Adrian even had a haring sandwich which he liked a lot.

Nora did all the ordering of our food and drinks for us, which went well, and the kids played with another Dutch girl they met.

We bought vlokken, drop and a package of herring to take home.

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