Under increased pressure from my family, I finally gave in and voted this afternoon for the current Dutch elections.

Actually, it's only the second time in my life that I have ever voted, the first time being way back in 1976 when I cast my ballot for Jimmy Carter. Back then it wasn't so much about which policies he represented, but more the highest chances of winning. I figured it would be very symbolic for me to choose a winner the very first time that I voted, and indeed it turned out to be a very significant unique moment in my life.

The second time I voted is here in Holland, where politics is so complicated with many parties fighting for seats that's it's impossible to follow who's saying what. There's even a website for confused people that you can go to and answer a bunch of questions in order to discover which party best matches your beliefs.

So I went with Lennart on our way to playing squash together, stopped by the voting center, and I cast my vote for the PvdA, De Partij van de Arbeid.

At first I was against socialists and figured it'd be better for me to vote for the more liberal democratic party VVD, De Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie. But if I did that, then I'd just nullify Lennart's vote with mine. I didn't want to make our fun father-and-son outing meaningless by making our efforts to go out and vote completely useless.

Afterwards, Lennart showed who was the boss by killing me 3-2 at squash. The first match was pretty embarrassing, I was leading 10-2 and he came back to win 15-13. By the fifth match I was pretty burned out, Lennart's youthful stamina and perseverence no match for me.