Short English version: I'm too lazy to update my homepage regularly. So sometimes there are only old news.   
 

Waltz not Walzer

Saturday, Oct 13, 2001

     Every girl I danced with in the past, knows that I'm not a very good dancer. So I decided to join a ballroom dancing class. This is very easy, because there are several schools that offer dancing classes and it's only $25 for 8 evening classes. 
Joe & Ida teached us how to dance Merengue, Rumba, ... The music was according to the average age of about 60 years. Holm & Gina, Lucy and me were by far the youngest in the class. I think our teachers were one of the oldest in the hall, that is normally the cafeteria of Spanish River High School. The famous Vienna dancing teacher Ellmayer wouldn't teach us, because some of us wear sports shoes for dancing. At the last evening we were suppose to learn the Waltz, one of my favourite dances. - At least until this day. The first shock was that the american man starts by stepping with the left(!) foot to the front. As a consequence everything is just vice versa than I was used to. You also turn in the wrong direction. Ok in Europe there is also a counterclockwise waltz, that I never succeded in dancing, but as far as I can remember the american waltz is also completely different to the european counter clockwise waltz.

At the end of this class, after most people had left, I put my Johann Strauss waltz CD in the teacher's CD-Player and enjoyed dancing a European styled Vienna Waltz with Lucy. Lucy had no problems when I started with the right foot, because she is originally from Russia. I think our teacher was impressed by our dance, though it was far from perfect. 
Afterwards I gave my CD (It was just a selfmade copy.) as a present to our teacher. 
 

Oktoberfest

Saturday, Oct 13, 2001

     There are several Oktoberfests in Florida. The German-American Club in Lantana. organizes one of the biggest. They have original Bavarian bands - playing Bavarian music, or at least, what American believe to be Bavarian music (Chicken dance, Schneewaltz, ...) -, bavarian food (bratwurst with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes, Apfelstrudel,...) and of course delicious german Erdinger Weissbräu on tap. The "Biermarken" are tickets and in stead of "Masskrüge" you get plastic mugs, but they also sell plastic pitcher. The price for the german beer is approximately the same as in Munich. And at the end a sheriff came and asked us to go home, because it was over (= Sperrstunde!)

Here are some photos of this event.
 

Holiday trip on the West Coast and to New Orelans

Summer 2001

     In July 2001 Betty, Patrizia and I invited ourselves to Christian's home in San Jose. Betty and Patriza have seen New York before so the were already used to the american lifestyle. From San Jose we two day trips to San Franzisco. Then we hit the road to the south. On the beautiful campus of Stanford University Christian and I were thinking over starting a PhD. Da mache ich ein anderes Mal weiter

Here are some of my photos of this trip. Christian's photo album is much more professional. You realize immediately that he is a computer scientist and that he has plenty of webspace available at the TU Vienna. 
... and you see, that we both love our Canon digital camera.
 

Dot.com and other curiosities

Saturday, Sep22, 2001

     Weird methods
 

My Job

Saturday, January 20, 2001;  updated Sunday, August 11, 2002

     In January 2001 I started with Optisphere Networks. We were about 120 persons to build terabit optical networks. One and a half years later the workforce was cut by half, due to the big downturn in the telcom industry. In the meantime Optisphere was reintegrated into Siemens ICN. The reintegration provided me with a new Siemens shirt, although I still like the old Optisphere poloshirt more. I think everybody misses the good old Optisphere times a little bit.
We are located in Boca Raton. Originally we worked in the building where years ago the first IBM personal computer was developed.
For all the Europeans: We all address each other by the first name. On Friday evening we (especially the delegates) meet at Rosies (Delray Beach, NW corner of Linton and Federal Hwy.) for a beer and to eat chicken wings.
When I started it was possible to get several $1000 for bringing a good engineer on board, but since mid of 2001 almost nobody was hired anymore. At the beginning a lot of new people were coming. - But then there were also a lot of people leaving for startup companies with stock options. In 2002 we had several reductions in workforce, also known as readjustments. Unfortunately also some very nice colleagues left.

Notes:
Some years ago some employees left the company to establish Qtera. Nortel bought this company two (?) years later and the Qtera guys became dollar-millionaires.
The supplier of some optical components came with their own business jet to the airport just miles away from Optisphere. In the menatime this company was acquired by Intel.

Old News from Florida

January 11, 2001

     Here you can find yesterdays news from me. 
 

 

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