Damn. I bashed in the left side of my car against that stupid light-pole while backing out of the parking spot. There was this huge bang and then sounds like a tin can getting crinkled flat. A huge dent, lots of scrapes and scratches, and the door won't open anymore from the outside.

Why didn't I see it? I mean it was right next to my back door when I got in the car, and I even remember thinking I should be careful while leaving such a precarious spot. Before getting distracted by the BBC news on the radio and then throwing the gear shift into reverse without thinking.

The guy said it's going to cost me at least a couple thousand euros to get fixed. Oh well, there goes my golfing trip to Scotland. Damn.

The weatherman predicts that the chances are pretty good that we will be having the first white Christmas in more than ten years. I sure hope so.

What could be better than life balanced between golf, computer programming and spending time with the kids, wife and dog?

What's the link between childhood and old age?

When you dream are you in another more real world?

If God doesn't exist then is being compassionate still a logical alternative?

Today is a nice day to get the ladder out, climb up to the roof and clean out all the rain gutters which have become pretty clogged up with leaves.

Last weekend I already did the right side of the house, and stopped because it turned out to be alot more work than I had expected.

This afternoon I will continue on the left side of the house and not stop until all of our rain gutters are freed of leaves and other gunk.

How to clean rain gutters.

"Als er een vloek valt breekt er iets."

"Whenever a curse is made something breaks."

Bond tegen het vloeken is een organisatie die zich inzet voor respectvol taalgebruik, zonder vloeken en schelden.

Just as the weather man predicted on the news yesterday evening, the first snow flurry has hit the area at three o'clock this afternoon.

Mathematical precision completed with just the right mix of chaos, coming down from Greenland, crossing over Iceland and then past England, moving across the North Sea and curving up from the south, the cold front has pushed its way to Gouda.

After a good work out at the fitness center, followed by a nice warm sauna, it's always a nice refreshing feeling cycling back in the snow as the soothing snowflakes fall on my face. I don't want to forget to bring my gloves.

That's what I plan to do in about ten minutes. See you later.

At this rate it will soon be too dark for me to play golf in the afternoons anymore.

Just a few weeks ago, I could make it to the ninth hole although the low-setting sun made my approach to the green slightly difficult.

Last week, the sun had just set behind the trees but I could see the ball on the fairway just enough to whack a nice approach to the green.

Today after the seventh hole it became hopelessly dark, and my drive off of the ninth tee felt like it went down the middle of the fairway, but I was never able to find it.

Tonight at two in the morning winter time will take effect, so perhaps next week I'll have a slight extra crack of light before the winter darkness ruins altogether my late afternoon golf sessions.

These are the wonderful scenes of nature that call me when it is time to escape from a long day's work and inspire me to bicycle clear around the local lakes called Reeuwijkse Plassen

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In Dutch it's pretty easy to remember. Even is 'even' (ay-fun) and odd is 'oneven' (own-ay-fun).

However, in English uneven means something subtly different, e.g. slightly lopsided, unequal, rugged. For example: her breasts were uneven.

So when I got confused today and started referring over and over to odd numbers as 'uneven' numbers, some Dutch person got brave and decided to question my inaccurate use by saying in front of everyone:

"Hey, I didn't know they were called uneven numbers, I thought it was called odd."

I was so convinced that this use of uneven was correct, that I told everyone in the room:

"No, you can also say uneven which is the same thing as odd."

Coming originally from American, my expertise in this area was not challenged and everyone accepted my observation.

Unconsciously though this started eating away at me until I came home and had the urge to look it up. I guess I was wrong, so please accept my apologies here as is.

(Actually, according to the dictionary, odd is indeed an archaic meaning of uneven, but that's another story for another blog entry)

Here in Holland one refers to Mother's Day as "moederdag", without the letter s.

I keep calling it "moedersdag", with the letter s like it is called in English, but this is wrong.

For the life of me I cannot remember this subtle difference of a single letter, and keep on pronouncing it incorrectly.

"Moedersdag," sorry. I mean: Moederdag, moederdag, moederdag!