It's that time of the year again. I arrived in The Netherlands just in time to hear my favorite weather guy, Piet Paulusma, proclaim that we would not be having snow on either Christmas day (we have two). Whenever I visit this place it's him declaring either that or its summer cousin, "it's not a heat wave until the temperature reaches X at location Y." Shorter version: people here like to keep track of the weather, even though it mostly just rains. And I like it that way... strangely enough.

The end of the semester had a few highlights. The main highlight was the semester... ending. I also went fencing with Professor Weimer Wes and Isabelle. The pictures and movie were made by Isabelle -- thanks!

The semester ended, got some grades, nothing terribly exciting.

My trip home was actually not as grueling as it usually is. I got to Charlottesville Airport with Blake and Chris without too much excitement (thanks for the ride Soos), and I got to Philadelphia without too much ado. I had a fairly long layover, so I deviously convinced Najat to hang out with me for lunch (thanks!) :-p The actual flight to Amsterdam was unpleasant for some reason. I was off to a good start; I slept through takeoff. After that I kept waking up, though, for no apparent reason.

Home has been great. I finally got to meet Nathan, my nephew, and he rocks! I think it's mutual too...

Oh and in unrelated news, I beat SMK the other day -- see screenshot I've also been keeping busy... sending out letters and invoices mainly. Ok... so *one* letter and *one* invoice. But still.

• Pieter and Nathan
• Fencing (links to UVa CS)