February 2004

Tonight I went to Jean-Paul and Inger. They live in Aalsmeer with Arjen, their two-year old son.

We had dinner together. Jean-Paul made some kind of lasagna that was called "lasagnette" -- very nice. Arjen ate with us, he was a bit shy with me the first minutes but then he got used to me and called me "Huus".

I hadn't seen their house before; it's quite large. They will have a second baby soon so they're working on a second children's room.

I'll start a course German language next week!

This afternoon I received a phone-call from the educational institute that there is a place in the course that starts next week. I won't be able to go to attend the first class, next Monday, but the homework assignment will be sent to me.

The course is given by the Goethe Institut, an organization active in the promotion of the German language and culture. When I was traveling to Frankfurt a fellow-passenger told me about this course and that it would start soon.

I'm looking forward to start the course and revise my German. There will be a lesson once a week and the course goes on till June.

Yesterday I spent the night in Ettie & Gerben's place, and after breakfast I went to visit my grandmother, who had a birthday last week.

My parents were there too. It was a very nice day, in the afternoon we went for a trip to some small villages near Heerenveen.

I took the train around 20:00 o'clock, and I came home about 30 minutes ago.

I'm in Leeuwarden now, visiting Ettie and Gerben. We had dinner together, and we did some homework later. Now we're watching "There's something about Mary", a movie I really like.

On the picture here is Boris Hammie the 2nd, the hamster of Ettie and Gerben. Cute little animal, isn't afraid of the camera.

For a long time there has been an issue with displaying this website correctly in Internet Explorer.

The problem is that sometimes text on the frontpage disappears. This happens when there is an article with a picture; the picture would be visible but the corresponding text not. Reloading the page sometimes fixes the problem, also selecting the invisible text with the mouse would make the text readable.

I never knew how to fix this, but today I found a detailed description of the problem, and a number of possible solutions.

I have applied one the easier solutions, and on my Internet Explorer the problem disappeared! I hope this doesn't cause problems on other browsers though, so please let me know if the website doesn't look correctly in your browser anymore.

For the CSS insiders: I've added a line-height: 1.2em; to the div that contains the article content.

In the screenshot below you can see Guus Bosman.nl in Internet Explorer 6 before applying the fix.

A reader, who had perhaps had worked a bit too long with computers today, pointed me out to this nice one: Computer Aggression.

Specifically recommended after working hard on a Friday morning.

The Economist has a short, wonderfully written article on the differences between American and British newspapers in reporting about Janet Jackson's breast. I had a great laugh this morning:

"The Economist, of course, deplores the degradation of the British press. As a service to American readers, who should know how low it has fallen, we reprint the picture below."

Next weekend will be Sasha's birthday (February 21st) and I'll go to see her then.

At the end of the afternoon I went to Amsterdam and picked up my ticket.

Jennie and I had dinner together tonight. The previous time she cooked hot pot, a great Chinese recipe.

I made a Bulgarian meal: a kyuveche with meat. We had ruska salata as a predish, a potato based salad with ham and pickles.

Of course we had a glass of rakia too; we finished the bottle of magnificient rakia Gesho gave me in Bulgaria. Boy, that is delicious stuff!

Smack the Pingu, the game that was such a success a little while ago, has been the inspiration for a lot of creativity.

Visit "Yeti Sports" for all the things that can happen to a penguin.