On my way home from Washington I saw an intriguing sign next to the highway: "Dutch Gap Conservation".

I took the exit and followed the signs. It turns out the Dutch Gap is a short cut in the James river that was created in the Civil War by General Dale.

He had been to the Netherlands and had a number of Dutch engineers in his army, which explains the name.

The Dutch Gap canal. The bridge is I-95, the highway I took from Washington D.C. to Richmond Virginia. The highway starts in Canada and goes all the way to Florida.

I arrived at Rosa's place on Friday evening. Saturday morning I had breakfast in a Cosi restaurant in Rosslyn -- I really wanted to have their great Cobb salad again. It was still delicious, but they had changed the recipe somewhat.

Next to my old work a new building is being constructed; it's almost ready.

I had lunch and coffee with friends in Fairfax and Herndon; it was great to see them again. I drove quite a bit through North Virginia; the last time I did that was to practice for my driver's license. Of course I took a few wrong exits but I'm pretty skilled in U-turns by now.

In the evening I went for a very enjoyable dinner with Binish at Kramer's. Around 9.30 pm went together to Prakapalooza: Prakash' birthday party in a bar at Dupont Circle. It was great to see him and other ex-colleagues again and it was a fun party.

The next morning I had breakfast with Rosa and Mila and after a short pit shop in Rosslyn (my good old Starbucks) I went back on the road. There was hardly any traffic and I enjoyed the drive. My 'rule' is that I won't drive more than 5 miles over the legal speed limit (mostly 65 mph in Virginia and North Carolina). That sometimes makes me feel like one of the slower cars on the road, but safety first.

I'm now in Washington DC after a smooth car trip.

It took six hours door-to-door. I got a little bit lost in Washington D.C. but once I found the White House I knew where to go.

Sasha's presentation in Finland went quite well. After the conference she stayed a few more days in Helsinki for sightseeing, and then went to Bulgaria.

She's now in in the summerhouse with her parents (it's very hot in Perushtitsa) and enjoying a well deserved break after a long study year.

Last weekend I spent quite some time programming something for work. During the day at work I usually don't really have time for development and it isn't urgent, but since this is such a cool component I took it home. I wish I could write more about it!

Sunday evening I had a really nice dinner with Belen, Esteban and Christoph. The next evening I had my first 'official' meeting with the Chapel Hill Jaycees and that was very entertaining. After the short meeting with went for dinner with about 8 people and it was nice to get to know the group.

Saturday and Sunday I tried to complete a 3.8 mile run. Both times I almost completed it but not quite -- it's a little bit too long for me, still. I tried it again tonight with the same result: I couldn't get myself to run onto the steep hill back home. Tonight for the first side stitches forced me to take a break; perhaps I didn't drink enough water.

I really need new running shoes... the ones I run with now are completely worn out and it's really not good for my feet and knees to run longer distances with them. They must be about 5 years old by now.

I bought an expensive bottle of water, $2.50 for a liter. It's Fiji, imported from the Fiji islands in the Pacific and it tastes just like the water we get from our water cooler.

I bought it because I like the bottle -- it's strong and has the right size. I used to drink from a huge glass at work in the Netherlands but I starting using these bottles in Arlington.

I should really get a plastic bottle that is not made of PET though; it's more healthy in the long run. Even better, I should get a big glass!

Inspired by the website with routes I found I went for a longer run tonight.

It wasn't too hot so I ran before dinner. The route took me across the Duke campus, which is beautiful. I saw squirrels and another animal that I don't know the name of. It looks a bit like a fox, but with longer legs. It was wandering behind a bush, very close to people and apparently used to humans (no, it's not a dog).

A 3.2 miles route.

This afternoon the I sold beer with the Jaycees in the Durham Bulls Stadium. It's Father's Day and the weather was great so it was a busy afternoon. One of the six types of beer we sold was "Pabst Blue Ribbon", a beer I had never heard of.

I went shopping after the game I saw cans of 'PBR' in Whole Foods. When I told the cashier I bought it because I was curious she said hesitantly: "well, eh, it's a very light beer. It's the cheapest beer we have. It's the indy-rock beverage of choice". She asked me where I was from and when I answered "Holland, the Netherlands" she said "well, at least it will be a cultural experience for you".

She was right -- the beer was very watery and I switched to drinking water after a few sips. Still, it was nice to try it out. Last night I went out with friends from Argentina and we had a very nice Micro Brew beer in On Top Of The Hill. It's called Swim Test Saison, "A French Belgian style beer flavored with spices and East Kent Golden hops". It really tasted good, unlike "Belgium style" beers in the supermarket, and we enjoyed it in the outside seating area of the restaurant, overlooking the main street of Chapel Hill.

Tonight I had only one break instead of my usual two when I ran.

I left around 9.30 pm and it was colder than usual. When it's not too hot, I prefer to run a bit earlier in the evening that this, especially when I'm alone. The route goes mainly over the Duke campus and it's completely safe, but it just feels better when it's not fully dark.

We run a few times per week, usually the same track. Tonight I calculated the exact length of our route. It's 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) which is not as far as I was used to running in the Netherlands, but the route is much more elevated than in Haarlem.

Tonight I attended a lecture by Sapna Kumar, a faculty fellow at Duke University Law School.

The lecture was organized by TriLUG, the Triangle Linux User Group at Red Hat in Raleigh. Before the meeting Larry and I had dinner and later a cup of coffee with Donald K. Rosenberg, author of a book on Open Source licenses.

The topic of Ms. Kumar's lecture was v3 of the GNU Public License (GPL), a popular open source license, and the relationship between patents and open source software.

Ms. Kumar gave a good talk on the new provisions and new aspects of the GPLv3, insightful and brought with a sense of humor. She gave an excellent overview of the recent developments around software patents and how they relate to GPLv3. She took a lot of questions from the audience.