Although there don’t seem to be any visible changes for the reader (you), I’ve updated the backend of this blog’s software to WordPress 2.0. This update is really great, with a very much improved writing process that lets me write in bold, italics and strikethrough with just a few mouseclicks. I also tweaked the way the permalinks work, so now I use /archive/

as the permanent links. I prefer that approach instead of the standard, cryptic way.
I just came home from the long trip to the U.S. that me and my family went on during Christmas. We saw many beautiful sights of California and experienced our most warm Christmas holidays ever. Some random observations from during the trip:

• Everybody is crazy about christmas
• There are just as many ways to build a sink that there are sinks, I got really annoyed by having to figure out how to get water to shower in or wash my hands. Can’t people just use the straightforward and powerful approaches we use in the civilized world (Europe)?
• The only thing that is more stupid than stupid sinks are cars. We spent a long time figuring out why the rental car we had needed to have the seat-adjustment controls placed that one almost always pressed them when opening the door.
• Food. Enough said.
• Elephant Seals are really cute

We saw the giant sequoias, the Pinnacles national monument, the Salinas valley, Morro Rock, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and many other places. We all had a great time and surely we will return to those parts of the world in the future.