As promised, here is my Halloween picture. It was a great night; although Halloween is officially today, most parties were last Saturday. My impression of an eighties rock star was mildly successful. But at least I made some effort, as almost everybody is dressed up. The best costumes I saw were probably the Mario and Luigi (from SuperMario).

The weather here is continuing to amaze me. Did I write last week that it was still a delicious 80°F/25°C outside, on Monday I had to put on the heating for the first time. 40°F/5°C, pretty big drop in temperature within a week. In the Netherlands this would probably mean that it is dark and grey, but over here it is blue and sunny! Which makes cold weather easier to accept. The biggest news from the weekend was of course that the Red Sox won the World Series. This happened on Sundaynight. Unfortunately I more or less passed out on the couch that night, due to the hangover of the Halloween party. But it was a very big party all through Boston. They will have to win again next year so I can celebrate too!

It is time to introduce some of the American customs that I am not quite used to. On October 31st, we celebrate Halloween. Not to confuse with the great German powermetal band, Helloween, of course! Halloween is a Christian holiday on which traditionally the Church celebrates its saints.

Nowadays it is a fest comparable to carnaval in other parts of the world; people throw parties and everybody is dressed up. I got invited to a couple of parties tomorrownight and am making plans to go as an eighties rock star (Dee Snider is my example. I have been told it is not required to be spooky, although I think Dee is pretty scary). If it works out I ll try to post some very embarrassing pictures on this site! It is great to see that people are making an effort to make their house as spooky as possible, including spiderwebs, cut-off heads and witches on the front porch _{(Crystal - is this positive enough? )}

When I woke up on Saturday (around 11:30) and looked outside, I thought I was still dreaming. The weather has been 80 plus degrees (that is over 25 Celsius degrees) all weekend!

I happened to be in Boston around this time last year and remember that it was freezing then! It is probably does not relate to global warming of any kind; the weather in New England is in general very unpredictable. That was not the only great news this weekend. The Red Sox made it to the World Series! If you live in or around Boston, you live in Red Sox Nation. Everything radiates Red Sox. For the ignorant: they are the local base ball team; base ball being that ’sport’ for which one game takes forever (up to six hours!) and which is played by teddy bears with a base ball cap. Yesterday the Sox qualified themselves for the creme-de-la-creme of base ball; the World Series. This is the grand-finale of the season, comparably to the Super Bowl of the NFL. Boston will be even more Sox-crazy then usual the next weeks! It is surprising how easy you get attached to local customs; I am planning to go to the Fenway park area (Fenway is the stadium) and follow the games there. Go Sox!

To be able to follow what is happening in the Netherlands, I read the online version of the Volkskrant; a gift from some friends. With amazement I read that there has been discussion to allow a particular type of hunting on one of our national parks.

I absolutely despise hunters. For me, they come pretty close to the lowest form of life on earth. You must have a very small penis and low intelligence plus low self esteem to get your kicks out of killing defenseless living beings. Nazi death camp guards were probably all hunters. Hunters consider them self sportsmen; I think it is as much a sport as that the Tutsi massacre in Rwanda was a sport. Our previous minister for Agriculture, who owns three big bioindustry type farms, was an absolute disaster for the Netherlands in terms of animal welfare. He did just about anything for his farmer buddies including allowing this type of hunt. (Other policies included the complete diminishing of our animal welfare laws). The current minister (who happens to be a farmers wife) is of the same type and is planning to neglect our Senate and allow these hunts. As always, the Dutch Hunters Association is continuously telling lies to get their permits. In this case, there is no relation between recreational hunting and effective animal population control. Fortunately, we have Marianne Thieme of the Animals Party to the rescue! Living in a country where hunting is an accepted form of leisure and with at least one channel broadcasting hunting stories 24/7 is frustrating. I hope that my friends at Wakker Dier will be successful and stop this stupid type of leisure for imbeciles.

I mildly panicked when I opened my blog and got a big database error. My host upgraded some software changed a lot of configuration settings. Fortunately fixing it was not as scary as I thought.

So it is Saturday again, what do we do on Saturdays? I got up late and started the day by making some fresh orange juice and checking some work related things. I run a lot of computer processes that take a few days to finish, and I have to wait for them to finish before starting the next job. So this is often the first thing I do on any day.

My other plans for today are to hang up some curtains as the weather is getting chilly outside. Then I need to go shopping for a bike (which got stolen). The gym will be the next stop. Tonight I plan to go out for some beers with some friends. There were plans to go to a Smashing Pumpkins (youth sentiments) concert, but it was sold out. Ah, saw them back in the days anyways! Before going out, I need to remember to bring my passport. It is impossible to enter a bar without ID, which is used to check your age (drinking is illegal under 21). I will probably be home by 02:00, which is the absolute end of the nights here - all bars close then. And I will not smell like smoke, since smoking is not permitted! Another great day in the land of the free.

A few days in the serenity of home sweet home. Due to family issues, I flew to Amsterdam on Thursday and came back yesterday. As always I really enjoyed myself. Living abroad makes you miss the stupidest things, such as listening to live football matches on a car radio. And I love my family, it is never easy to say goodbye.

Especially when my 4-year old niece was clinging on to my legs while telling me that I should not leave. But enough about the sad things, let’s focus on the positive things that are going on in Beantown. Such as the ski-season fast approaching and the exciting stuff happening at the Broad. I never had so much fun at work since I started working here. Not that other places were bad or boring, but they are no match for the fast-paced environment that the Broad constitutes. Argh, the difficult choice between an exciting job and an exciting social life! I want it all!

_{NB if you have the Queen best of CD’s on mp3, please contact me.}

I am lying on my bed in a hotel room in Toronto and watching some Canadian TV show. Just had a drink with a former lab mate, who started working at University of Toronto a few years ago. I came here for ‘a meeting of the International Cancer Genomics Consortium. Two days of interesting presentations lie ahead.

One of the talkers is Francis Collins. Collins has been leader of various genome projects; interestingly, he is also an active christian. This lead my lab mate and me to discuss the role of God in life and science. He is an active believer, where I am not. However, I think that every body should be able to believe whatever he or she wants; I generally do not agree with the senseless Christian bashing that happens a lot. On Tuesday I fly back, and then off to the Netherlands on Wednesday for a few days. Better start with Trees for travel!