May 23rd, 2010

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May 23rd Pentecost

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

We celebrated my sister’s May 22nd birthday today. Her son Dirk Jan and his wife Fransje and their two sons and Marieken his oldest sister with her daughter all came to the house in  Badhoevedorp. I went to 10 o’clock Pentecost service in Badhoevedorp. Vaas, an 8 year old gave a spirited organ intermezzo of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D- Minor. Flawless. When he turned around on the organ stool, on the loft, to acknowledge the applause, his short legs were dangling a foot from the floor. They must have had extensions on the pedals.

I worked all afternoon and evening in putting the boat back together. This weekend the club has their bi-annual cruise to the island of Marken Just like the last weekend of September. There will again be a club race on the Gouwzee. We will do the usual mid night convoy through the Amsterdam canals, the so called Standing Mast Route. Then I plan to stay near Marken in Monnickendam on the old Zuiderzee from where I’ll have better access to open water for sailing to the picturesque and historic fishing towns.

The Saga of my well travelled lap top continues, it broke down in Vietnam in early March. I tried, in vain, to have it fixed and the data recovered in Saigon, San Francisco and Tacoma and finally a shop in Florida assured me they could fix it within two weeks. They received it April 1st , it finally arrived back to Tacoma on May 5th. A week after I had left for Amnsterdam. It arrved here last Thursday and I had to refuse it since Dutch customs had slapped $115 duty on it. So, I’ll be trying to get this reversed on Tuesday when the long Penecost weekend ends.