Leguan

Hi Horatio, I wish you a merry Christmas! Well, quite a bit happened since my last login I guess. I finished my Ph.D, but quit academia and did a qualification in quality assurance. After moving a couple of times, I'm now back in my home region and live in Solingen. You may have heard of it. Not a big city, but internationally known for its long tradition in manufacturing quality blades. I'm now working in a company for molecular diagnostics (no blades :D) where I'm a member of product development teams. For instance, I'm involved in the development of improved COVID testing solutions. Private life also is going well. I got married to a wonderful wife and became the father of two wonderful little children. My daughter got 2 years last September and my son will celebrate his first birthday next March. I guess that is all, in a nutshell.

So awful. Also hope you were able to rebuild in the meantime.

Happy New Year! Everything fine here. 2017 will be a busy year. My contract at the university ends in June and I decided to leave academia. Perspectives for permanent positions are extremely bad and I don't like to live with that uncertainty. So I decided to switch to industry. Perspectives for R&D are also quite bad, there are not enough positions on the job market. I will do a half-year qualification in quality management and then try to get a position in pharma, food or agricultural industry. Unfortunately the qualitfication overlaps with my contract which means that I have to spend all my leave days for that. I planned to go for a skiing holidy in February which I had to cancel. Here it was really really cold as well. And snowy. However, yesterday we got freezing rain. It was sooo slippery. A was in Hannover and even walking was really tough. You could go ice-skating on the roads... I had to drive back to Göttingen which took me 4 hours for just a bit more than 100km... Lots of accidents everywhere.

Hi everyone. Just stepping in to wish you happy Christmas holidays.

Hohoho. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone! Enjoy your holidays! Long time no see, but I'm still alive. ^^ I've been quite busy, but everything is fine here. I graduated in September and the project got extended for two years, so I'm continuing as a postdoc and staying in Göttingen. Driving back home to my family for Christmas and New Year tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to some holiday.

Oh no. Another parallel to Christmas. There was again a severe accident on the Autobahn 7 yesterday, not far from the place where the accident before Christmas happened. And again, the road is blocked for an uncertain time. This means to avoid the area and all the chaos, I'll have to drive rural roads through a mountain area where they have for sure more snow than here...

I wish you a Happy Easter. Or is it Christmas? Well, when my Christmas Cactus started to set some flowers I thought it may be a bit confused, but if I look out of the window now...

Ice skating with my neece.

Happy New Year! I've been on a party at New Years Eve and enjoyed the fireworks. Driving back home was really tough, though. It was extremely foggy. In some areas, I could only see the road marks directly in front of the car and had to drive at walking speed. So at this speed it actually wasn't a problem at all that the roads were extremely icy and slippery. They even closed some sections on the Autobahn to prevent accidents. Good decision, because the rescue teams would also struggle and take lots of time to get there... Otherwise, I really enjoyed the time with my family and friends. I went iceskating for the first time, it really is fun and I didn't do as bad as I thought I would. Now I'm back in Göttingen, going back to work tomorrow. I already passed by and checked my plants, they are prefectly fine.

Yes, the sunset is my favorite, too. Really awesome with all the clouds and the reflections at low tide. In reality, it looked even better. And then imagine the wind blowing and the smell of the sea. Really awesome. I've been to Baltrum years ago. I actually walked there. At low tide, you can take a guided tour through the mudflat and just walk to the island. ^^ I'm still in the office at the moment, but just about the finish for this year. Just have to write an email to my boss and then I'm done. Everything is prepared quite well. I'll be quite busy at home visiting everybody and celebrating and so on (there's also a birthday and stuff), so I already wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Hello... Ok, quite delayed, but here's some photos coming. I have soo many, so I could just choose a few. And I had to resize them, the original ones have way better resolution. The photos are from my trip to the North Sea in August. I would love to show you more, but its really annoying to resize and upload them one by one... As for the collaboration with the lab using super resolution microscopy, I'm afraid that I'm not allowed to tell you any details before the results are published. Well well, Christmas is getting closer. I have to work until tuesday and then I'll drive home to my family at 24th. Hopefully this time I'll have more luck with the car. Last time my old car broke down on the highway and my "new" one is also a crappy old one... Lets see. I hope the Autobahn 7 will be reopened until then. There was a big accident just very close to Göttingen on friday and its closed in both directions since then. A truck crashed through the separation between both directions, lying on its side over all 6 lanes and catching fire. It carried rat poison. Due to the fire, toxic gases evaporated. The salvage is still ongoing and then the asphalt needs to be replaced, which will take a while. There is really massive chaos going on at the moment. The A7 is one of the most important North-South connections in Germany and quite prone to traffic jams under normal conditions already. And it is holiday season with increased traffic...

Yes, I've been in one. On Rangitoto Island, New Zealand. Just wanted to pass by and say hello. I didn't forget you. Don't remember when I passed by last time, must be quite a while ago. Well, what happened in the meantime? Not that much actually. Work and work. I'm finally getting some nice results now, after lets say 90% of my work during the last 2.5 years turned out to be useless. Well, that's science. But as I said, we're getting really nice results now, it's just some more work to complete the project. It just got extended until end of July next year. I was very excited to learn that one of the recent Nobel prize laureates is working nearby at the Max Planck Instiute. And we actually have a collaboration ongoing with some of the people of his department. How cool is that? The guys were at our lab just a few hours before and showed us their latest results and some really awesome microscopy pictures. I actually also have been there already and saw those fancy new microscopes they are working with. What else happened? Well, I had some nice short trips to Berlin, Hamburg (check out "Miniatur Wunderland official video" on youtube, that's a must-see in Hamburg), Goslar, Duderstadt and Einbeck. And I went for holiday at the Wadden Sea National Park in the north of Germany. I have tons of photos and actually really awesome ones. A friend (well, another thing that happened, we met online at a dating website and in the end she didn't turn out to be my girlfriend, but at least a very good "normal" friend) has a good camera and loves taking photos. Yesterday I went to a new motorbike museum. Really nice. And today I went mushroom-pcking with a friend, as I did quite often recently because it's mushroom season at the moment. Oh yes, I also went for a couple of rides on my little Honda, too. So as you see, my weeks are packed with work and my weekends are packed with fun.

Happy New Year.

Oh, that's sad. I really feel sorry for you. I know how this feels. I'm sure Hedwig had a great life with you. 3.5 years is really old for a hamster. One of my rats also reached this age, but most of them passed away a lot earlier. That's also the main reason for switching to the Persian jirds. Their normal life expectancy is 5-6 years.

Nice pictures. Seems like you enjoyed your meal. Do you still have ice storms? We also had some storm and a bit of snow, but now we have weather like in spring. Today was a very nice sunny day with temperatures well above the freezing point. For me it would be perfectly fine if winter was over already. Well, I bet the worst part is still to come. Last year we also had a very mild winter until January, but then it really came with tons of ice and snow and it stayed until mid-April... I went to a conference in Freising close to München (Munich) a few weeks ago. For the weekend, I stayed in München. Went to the famous Christmas market. Didn't like it much actually, too touristy (overcrowded and expensive). I like the local one here in Göttingen more, even though it is much smaller. It perfectly fits into the historic city center. Speaking about history, in München I also visited the "Deutsches Museum" (German museum). That's the largest museum of science and technology in the world and it is really awesome. I spent the whole day there and still didn't see everything. And I even didn't visit their outposts (one for aviation based on an old military airport and the other one is called "traffic center"). If anyone is interested in science and technology and visits München, this place really is a must.