Sasha is now traveling to Finland where she'll give a presentation on Saturday.

Sasha was invited to a conference in Helsinki to present a paper she wrote last year. In the morning I worked from home (PowerPoint, mainly) and we went to the airport together.

The journey to Europe didn't go as smoothly as planned due to a thunderstorm in Raleigh, but she's now boarding a flight to London and she'll will travel from London to Kopenhagen, and from there to Helsinki.

Tonight I went out with the Jaycees to a sushi restaurant.

The Jaycees is a civic (volunteer) organization that I recently discovered. I've been to a fund raiser and a volunteer event and it's been fun so I'll become a member.

Tonight was "Random Sushi Night" and this evening's pick was the Peony Asian Bistro in Durham. It was a good choice: the sushi was delicious and the restaurant has a nice atmosphere. I had the 'sushi basic', 10 different pieces of sushi.

It was a fun evening with nice company that we ended with an ice cream in a creamery next door.

The plant I brought home from work seems to be doing slightly better and it hasn't lost as many leaves anymore the last few days. I've placed it next to a window in the living room where it gets plenty of sunlight. I am under the (unproven) impression that the lack of unfiltered sunlight in our office was the cause of the plant's problems. We'll see.

Because of the incredibly beautiful and sunny weather I have the water our plants almost every day.

Jason, a colleague, and his wife Liza were blessed with a baby son, Gabriel Louis last week. Congratulations!

This weekend I played with some software for work, experimenting with a Java client for a C++ server. They work nicely together. I expected that, but it's always nice to see that it actually works in practice.

Some of the leaves that are about to fall off have brown spots on them. I hope it isn't a sign of a disease.

It was really warm today, around 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 in Celcius). I went running late at night to evade the heat, but even at 10.30 pm it was still 85 degrees and it's very humid.

Tomorrow is the Race for the Cure in which Petra will participate. Let's hope that it won't be too hot and humid. Good luck Petra!

It certainly wasn't for the lack of love or attention from my co-workers, but unfortunately my new plant wasn't doing very well at my desk.

For a few weeks now it has been losing leaves, and while in the beginning I thought that the plant had to get adjusted to its new home (our office) it became clear that it was fundamentally unhappy. I think the main reason is that the windows are tinted, and not enough natural light makes it through to the plant.

So today after work I placed it in the car and drove it home. We still have to decide where we'll place it, but I hope it will do better here.

I spent the morning of Memorial Day at the pool with gorgeous weather, a cup of Starbucks coffee, and a good book.

And a with lot of sun, as I realized somewhat too late, so I got burned.

Listening to two Bulgarian Economics PhD students:

"Защото consumption level ... е равно на investment ... ръсте growth ...".

"Това е когато price level ... плюс q без i-w ... когато имаш current level".

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, and this weekend is the start of the summer season. The weather is excellent; it's close to 90 degrees.

I made a summer lunch: baked caprese salad (slices of baguette with tomato, mozzarella and basil) with an insalata mista from radicchio, arugula and cumcumber.

We had a little bit of wine left from last night (Luigi Bosca, one of my favorites) and it was a delicious meal.

A few weeks ago I bought a present online, a Dutch book to be delivered in the Netherlands. Since bol.com, the largest Dutch online book retailer, canceled a similar order without notice last year I tried Bruna.nl.

I won't bore you with the details but online shopping is definitely new for Bruna and I was disappointed with how slow and unresponsive they were.

Anyway, today I received a paper receipt (factuur) for that order. It's pretty cool that it arrived because it was addressed to "Durham, NC, Engeland".

Somebody in the Dutch post service must have understood that this shouldn't go to the U.K. but to North Carolina instead.

(I've blurred our address for privacy reasons).

I've never really enjoyed gambling but when you're in Vegas you have to at least try it once. Before I left, someone close told me: if you're playing roulette, make sure to put a bet on number 25.

When we came back from dinner, we walked through the casino in the hotel. I was getting ready to go home but I wanted to place at least that one bet. I asked my colleague how it would work and I put a $10 bill on number 25. The lady changed it into a chip and I thought "why is the minimum $10? So much money to lose...".

Well -- the ball fell on number 25 and I won $360! A guy next to me said "who the $%#! are you?!" and I received a handful of coins. I left the table and cashed it at the cashier, and left for the airport.

A handful of coins. The black ones are $100.

Even at the gate you can still gamble.