Amat victoria curam!

We visited Noor and Niek to view their extended gardens and to meet their new dog - a Italian Brack Dog ("Keetje"). Both were beautiful. As is this car of Niek...

Deutsche Bracke

1. Deusche Bracke
2. Irish Wolfhound
3. Jack Russel
4. Labrador Retriever
5. Doberman
6. Otter hounds
7. Weimaraner
8. Barzoi
9. Jura laufhund
10. Pointer

and counting...

Ger & Mien

We celebrated the birthday of Ger and Mien with the whole family. It was nice to see everyone again.

wow they were big weren't they?

Boris

The Next Web Salon was a nice event at Boris en Tessas' home. I met new interesting people, heard some nice stories and had great food.

Tom Roozendaal - 4th of the left - 1st row

Tom is a guy at the Oscar Romero School in Hoorn and he is suffering from bone cancer. Because of his radiation treatment he lost his hair: so did his class mates :-))

New work from photographer Erwin Olaf of his Fall series. Now at the The Hague Gemeente Museum.

Carly Fiorina

"To run a business you have to have a lifetime of experience in
business," Carly says. "But that's not what Sarah Palin, John McCain, Joe
Biden or Barack Obama are doing." Isn't Carly the same woman that was fired at HP as CEO because she was destroying the company?
If John McCain's top economic advisor doesn't think he can run a
corporation, how on Earth can he run the largest economy in the world
in the midst of a financial crisis?... :-|

Shoes

Mc-Blackberry-

McCain’s senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin pushed
the senator’s economic qualifications today, highlighting his role on
the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. But when pressed about what McCain
did as a committee member that gave him the kind of experience needed
to handle the current market turmoil, Holtz-Eakin did something
unexpected: He pulled his BlackBerry out of his suit jacket pocket.

“He did this,” Holtz-Eakin said, referring to McCain’s role in
developing telecommunications in the U.S. “The premier innovation in
the past 15 years comes right through the Commerce Committee. You’re
looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create and that’s what
he did.” ;-)))

Lazareth Customs

In his new flick: Babylon AD Vin Diesel rides a Lazareth Customs bike. Look pretty good...

Great in all shapes and colors

I like flowers more then just plants. These are my favorite ones: follow the link to see great pics at flickr...

1. Orchids - just beautiful
2. Cala Lili - gracious
3. Cherry Blosom - brings back life to nature in spring time
4. Tulip - Dutch
5. Poppy - Simple
6. Sunflower - Real sun power
7. Roses - scent
8. Iris- striking colors
9. Crocus - they are first
10. Daisy - just funny

German Tank

Everywhere were you ride you can see stuff related to the battle in 1943 between the last german forces and the advancing Allied troops. This tank seems to be stuck in this villages (Celles)...

passageway to the outdoor pool

The first thing we did when we arrived in Spa was... to swim and to linger in the Spa - which is a very modern complex. So modern that Ingo had an agrument with the electronic lockers ;-)

Milk in the Rain at Valkenswaard

Together with Ingo I went of to a long weekend riding our bikes in The Belgium Ardennes. It was pooring with rain all the way down to Belgium. Luckily we were wearing our Rukka Motor suits - which are terrific and we were completely dry and warm ourselves. It took us - through a special tour almost 7 hours to reach Spa (the orginal one).

Human_powered_gym_080908_mn

It sounds like something you'd only see on the Discovery Channel:
people pedaling ferociously to create enough energy to power the
television, stereo and lights. Launched last week, his "human-powered" gym (The Green Micro Gym) is one of few fitness
centers in the world that runs on power generated by people working out. The goal is to generate 100% of the electricity used in the Gym. With my workout routine that would be peanuts...

Ballet of Rudi

I was with Noelle and eddie at the special ballet performance for Rudi van Dantzig commemorating his 75 birthday. It was a unbalanced evening with some highlight and some downsides.

But Steve looks still really thin and unhealthy

In the New Yorker of this week

coincidence?

I did see it at the moment but good old Thijs sent me this analysis of NYT - the stage of the democratic convention was a copy of... the White House setting!

Jerry Seinfeld and Bill gates in Microsoft Windows commercial

Mac World

Zinio is a great way to read magazines everywhere and to get to know new magazines at a reasonable price.
This is my current top ten:
1) MacWorld
2) Amercian Photo
3) Motorcycle
4) Cycle world
5) Motorcyclist
6) Photoshop user
7) The Advocate
8) FitnessRx
9) Science
10) Avantoure

as seen in my local grocery

diesel soive jacket

all votes to Barack...

As seen on perspctv...

cool!

Beef

It was a long time ago when I last had dinner at Toscanini. Yesterday because of Noelles' birthday we revisited the place and it was excellent. I had Pumkin soup, Tuna & Mackerel Pasta and Limousin Beef with lemon: yummy!

Tracky

Sorry that you have the wicked witch as a mother...

Sarah Palin

Is it me or is the face of Sarah Palin completely ruined by photoshop on this official photo of the woman... ?
Look at the glasses, the cheeks, the teeth, the skin tone and texture: this is a really crappy photoshop job.

Levi in a suit: that's a first

Bristol Tattoo

How sad can you be: Stupid Levi Johnson (Bristol Palins' "boyfriend") not only made her pregnant (ever heard of condoms?!) but has a ring finger tattoo of her as well... Dressed up like a monkey he was attending the GOP convention. How long will this last? two more weeks? ;-)

Gay

rain

I was at my alma mater Nijenrode today with my bike and could finaly do what I wanted to do since I studied there: to drive the "Middle Path" of the park with my bike :-) Although it was raining cats and dogs: it was fun.

Frau ohne Schatten

A brilliant but heavy performace in the Amsterdam Opera: Richard Straus Frau ohne Schatten. Rarely the women screamed so muchand was the orchestra at full force - it was not easy to fall asleep ;-)
The director was Homoki (what's in a name...)

small dip half way ;-)

number 206!

Today I joined the Nike global 10k challenge and run 10k - it was my first. Normally I run 5k on saturday and sunday morning. Of the hunderd thousands of runners it turned ou that I came in as number 7131 - in the Netherlands as number 206 :-)) I am more then happy - but will try to run this distance next time under the 60 minutes...

Special Bank notes

Credit Suisse has become the first major bank to
target gays with a bespoke private banking service provided
by gay advisers. The Swiss banking giant’s new
service will cover all the traditional aspects of private banking,
alongside tailored services to deal with events such as civil
partnership and even adoption. Credit Suisse says that
"gay role models - such as Boris Johnson’s chief of staff Nicholas Boles
- have helped boost the confidence of the younger gay community -
leading to an increased desire to be dealt with by those that
understand their lifestyle.

Stephen
Connolly (the CEO of the unit) and his colleague Toby FitzGerald’s are openly advertised as gay.

What's next? Gay banknotes?

And it is the only video that I will ever like from John ;-)

Beau Biden, son of Sen. Joe Biden, talks about the trials and heartbreak that his father has had to overcome. This is honest, moving and powerfull.

In Off Corso Rotterdam

Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each -
giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up.
This is Pecha Kucha - a Japanese invention now in hundreds of cities all over the globe. Yesterday night it was in Rotterdam and it was a great experience.

Abdullahi Mohammed with Mainasara

Photos of Pieter Hugo at FOAM - amsterdam.

Matthew Mitcham

MATTHEW MITCHAM was brave enough to dive from a 10-metre platform
for Olympic gold and courageous enough to do what no Australian
athlete has done: he was
the first Australian to go to the Olympics declaring his
homosexuality

When Mitcham balanced on the Beijing diving tower last week the one person who was by his side for the entire tumultuous
journey was his partner, Lachlan.

He won GOLD for Australia.

Frederic Bourdin - The Chameleon

A balding 31-year-old Frenchman nicknamed the Chameleon fooled
social workers and fellow pupils into believing he was a teenage orphan
and spent weeks at a school before being unmasked. Frédéric
Bourdin passed himself off as an imaginary 15-year-old Spaniard,
Francisco Hernandez-Fernandez. He is said to have previously assumed 39
other false identities. This time he dyed his greying
hair blond, meticulously shaved his beard, applied facial hair remover
and covered his bald patch with a baseball cap to achieve the desired
effect.He was taken into care after a local resident
believed his account that he had run away when both his parents were
killed in a car crash.

Bourdin spent a month in a children's home and secondary school in Pau, south-western France, without raising suspicions... He spend a couple of months in Arizona before pretending to be a lost son of a familiy who took him as their own son... even with a terrible french accent :-) I found a youtube video of Frederic here.

Steinberg-newyorker

It is getting darker already here in Amsterdam. Time to read (even) more. More books, more online and more magazines too. I am a magazine junkie - reading at least 20 each week. Most of them in print, but more and more digital through Zinio.

1. New Yorker
2. Economist
3. National Geographic
4. Time
5. Motorrad
6. Mens' Health
7. Sothebys Preview
8. Photoshop User
9. MacWorld
10. Scientific American