Month: August 2015

What are the odds of being able to capture this historical moment on film? That's the equivalent of having driven my car more than three and a half times around the world. Funny how after all that time I seem to keep ending up at the very same place.

My handicap has reached a new low of 4.1 despite a terrible score of 86 on Sunday after shooting an 81 and 77 on Saturday during the sixth Rijnmond Open.

On the first day I had two good rounds: 81 and 77. I played with two enthusiastic young bucks combine age more than twenty years less than my age.

I chose my 52-degree wedge, took the usual practice swings, and then I hit the ball crisply right on the sweet spot. The ball flew straight as an arrow with a nice high arc falling down wind directly at the flag. Right down the smoke stack as we used to say. Not sure how it missed the hole. Looking at the direct line between the ball mark at the front of the green and the ending position of the ball right behind the flag, it doesn't seem possible. Oh well, better luck next time.

The 14th hole at Liemeer

This is a very interesting video which gives you a taste of the things to come with the Phoenix web framework and the new web.

Web developers have typically been presented with a choice between performance or a productive development environment. With Phoenix, developers can have both while enjoying a wonderful set of abstractions for working with the new web, making streaming data to browsers, native mobile application or embedded clients a breeze. Finally, we will see how Phoenix leverages the Elixir language and the Erlang VM for writing maintainable and scalable code.

Whatever you do be sure not to take the very last slice of cake. Even if it has been lying around on the plate the whole day.

The Dutch are very traditional in many ways, and being very polite when partaking in another person's birthday cake is one of them. Just like during lunch or dinner you are expected to have good manners, not talk with your mouth full, eating slowly and partaking in relaxed conversation, and not gulping down your food greedily. The cake is offered to you as a gesture of kindness, and you are expected to display a keen sense of thankfulness. You wait until offered and that's just the way it is.

The last slice is sliced thinner and thinner.

One of the unwritten laws is never ever take the last piece of cake. This rule also applies to cookies or biscuits during coffee or cheese or a bowl of nuts or whatever. The last bonbon must remain like some artistic decoration. So at work it was a colleague's birthday and he treated everyone to cake. One slice after another was made to appease the eager cake lovers who stood ever so calmly in line, until there was just one slice left.

So what do you do if you really would like some cake but do not want to be cast from society for having grabbed the last piece? Well you take a very sharp knife and carefully slice this piece in two and take the half. Depending on the number of people and the size of the original cake, the last remaining piece of cake can be bisected several times until there is a paper thin slice left on the plate, mostly balancing ever so precariously on its side.

Since I am a boring and impolite American without proper manners, I waited until most people had gone home and the room was nearly empty, checking that no one was looking when I grabbed the thin slice and gobbled it down. It was so thin that it melted in my mouth, but it still tasted great.