Who am I? Well, after graduation I used the completely useless year in the army to consider whether physics is really the right subject to study. Well, my curiosity prevailed and I spent a few years in the beautiful city of Aachen, trying to understand classical, relativistic and quantum mechanical processes.
Then I moved to Heidelberg. I did not even know where it is on the map, but fortunately the German Railways did. They talk a funny German dialect here. Now, with a grant from the Max Planck Society, the dream came true for me to work at the Institute for Astronomy in projects for the Very Large Telescope.
I finished the scientific career after five years, in favor of the vile Mammon. I sold my soul to an Internet advertising company, for which in return I built up a software team. One company later - still in the Internet business - I tought tele-learning coaches, i.e. teachers who sit in their armchairs in front of a webcam. ... But it had to come to an end.
I considered my real interests, bought back my soul and wanted a job where I take care of satellites not falling from the sky. I have it now. As spacecraft controller I worked as an employee of Serco at EUMETSAT in Darmstadt. Our team commands the fleet of Meteosat satellites and the Metop-A polar orbiter. We ensure that the evening news always has a good weather-image to show, weathermen get enough data for their predictions and that tsunamis can be noticed in the Indian Ocean if they should reoccur. Meanwhile, as an Instrument Data Processing Engineer, the team and I ensure the correct processing of the scientific data. Maybe I will not continue that until pension, but the industry is now the right one again!
On my private live there is also something to tell. During the time of the studies I got to know my wife. She comes from the north of Germany, and neither speaks Kölsch nor Kurpfälzisch. We lived together pretty soon, first in Cologne, then in Heidelberg and finally now in our house on the "mountain road". It took a while, but after ten years we ended up marrying. Christmas Eve anno 2000 our Christ child came into the world and our lives changed.
