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Double fun

June 14, 2000

Dear [lots of names],

First of all: I'm sorry for not writing back to many of you. Thank you so much for all your e-mails and I'm so sorry for not replying properly. Sometimes I manage to type a few lines saying that I have no time to write more. I'm sorry. I really love reading your e-mails but I simply have no time to answer each and every mail. The average e-mail in which I write more than a few lines takes me at least 15 minutes to write. I sometimes receive 40 e-mails per day, of which 10 are personal e-mails. Answering those 10 e-mails would cost me 2,5 hours. I don't feel like copy-and-pasting e-mails because that's deception. I prefer not to write back at all rather than copying stuff from other e-mails. Please keep writing me, though. Don't be insulted that I can't write you back. I enjoy reading your e-mails.

I had a visitor from the Netherlands! My father came to visit me. That was very, very nice. I showed him my house and MIT. He was a little surprised about the mess at MIT, though. I don't really notice it anymore, but as a matter of fact this place really looks like a garbage dump.

We flew to New Jersey, did some shopping and then drove to New York. We saw a musical (Jekyll and Hyde), walked around, and ate good food. He flew back to Holland and I flew back to Boston. That was it.

My mother is coming next weekend. Divorced parents are a blessing in disguise. Not only that I always had 2 houses, 2 trips in one vacation, and 2 birthday parties, but now I also have 2 trips to New York, 2 musicals, and 2 rounds of good food. Yes, I'm also going to New York with my mother and yes, I'm also going to a musical with my mother and yes, she is going to bake me a chocolate cake for my birthday. If your parents aren't divorced yet, do whatever you can to break them up. It's for your own good, believe me.

Last weekend I have gone to Connecticut with my friend Liz. We went to her parents. Her parents live in the middle of nowhere with forest all around. They have a huge house with a humongous grass lawn, a swimming pool and a Yamaha grand piano. Pretty close to my definition of paradise; if only the grand piano was a Steinway. I spent 24 hours playing piano, swimming, biking, eating, sleeping and throwing a frisbee. In the morning Liz and I went for a bike ride. I had trouble keeping up with her. When we arrived back at the house (mansion...) we both jumped in the pool with our clothes still on. Wet underwear for a whole day is yuck.

I have written a thesis proposal. It describes the work that I plan to do and it defines what I will (and will not) write in my Master thesis. I will implement and describe a data structure that I think should be part of a mechanism to detect and stop denial-of-service attacks. My thesis will talk about all the boring details concerning that data structure. I call my 'invention' DYPERS (DYnamic Per Endpoint Router Statistics). (A, I'll send it as soon as F signs it; he hasn't yet.) DYPERS come in handy with wet underwear.

OK, I'm going to quit now. I have lots of photos. I'll scan a few of them and put them on my MIT Web page within a few days.

Bye now,

Thomer

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