The L word at the big X

April 15th is traditionally the tax day over here in the States. And it seems like everybody is once again surprised by the upcoming deadline to finish their income tax returns. But this year my company also had a surprise up their sleeve. After having their last 'workforce adjustments' in June of last year we knew that there are new clouds on the horizon once again. On Monday we knew already that something big is going down and we were right...

The official numbers are 6% reduction... most of them in Europe (Ireland got badly hit). For more information just read the official statement. Anyhow... I got 'adjusted' as well... which is really a strange feeling. I am glad going through that at least once in my lifetime but I would love to leave it at that. At least we had a very nice layoff party at the end of this day... and they even put a lucky shamrock into my Guinness... for good luck I guess :-)

And I also had a very nice layoff dinner with my roommates at Joe's Crab Shack... lucky enough Dani was working here before so she could order the 'proper stuff' for us.

Well after nearly 6 years with the big X it is time to say goodbye. Best of luck to my remaining colleagues... they will need it in the coming months. I still feel that I got the better side of the deal! So long...

The end of winter wonderland

What did I say in my last post? In a few days we'll have a BBQ on the porch again? Well... that's how Colorado is. One day you have warm temperatures and sunshine, then you have a blizzard pulling in leaving us with 17 inch of snow and a state shutdown for the day and the next morning everything is thawing again. The end of a winter wonderland.

Which kind of amazes me is how quickly all that is happening. Even though the temperatures are well below freezing the sun comes out and melts the snow in no time. At around noon the streets were cleared and the remaining water was steaming (!) off... look at this picture! Amazing... you have to love the Coloradan weather ;-)

Whiteout in Colorado

When I went to bed at midnight there was not even one snowflake in the air. The entire day I was running around in my T-Shirt. The previous weekend was even better... sunshine and temperatures in the mid 70s (21+ C).
When the weather forecast issues a blizzard warning once again I didn't really take it seriously. Well the last blizzard warning on Monday just missed us by a few hundred miles and hit Wyoming instead. What can happen to us... in March, right?

Well the answer is simple... a foot of snow (30 cm) in less then six hours. Enough to shut down all highways around us and making the daily commute a nightmare for most of us. Working for a high tech company has definitely advantages... we could simple stay in and work from home instead... and missing out on the fun on the freeway. Oh well.

Interesting is that blizzard warning is still in effect till tomorrow... not speaking about the temperature drop to freezing 19 F (-7 C). Tomorrow's commute could be fun too!

And finally I saw some proper white outs... with so much snow in the air that you have difficulties to spot your neighbors house across the street!

This is Colorado, man! And I am sure that in 3 days we will have BBQ's on the porch again :-)

Happy St Paddy's Day

It's once again this time of the year when we all start wearing green, watching parades and having (sometimes green) pints of Guinness. Even the local television station reported from the greenest holiday in Denver... the connection they made to how good environmental wise this particular holiday is I really couldn't make myself. Oh well... that's what you call Zeitgeist I guess.

On the other hand we had a fantastic parade downtown Denver. To make it more accessible for everyone (because Paddy's Day is not a national holiday over here) we had the parade already last weekend.

And what a parade that was: 4 hours of marching bands, pipe bands, Irish dancers, horses, lamas, floats and even Denver's mayor which I barely noticed among all other politicians. He also wore a green scarf :o)

But of course it is all about the Irish heritage and I am still amazed about how many Irish dancing schools are in and around Denver.

And about how many Americans which think that wearing a kilt is typical Irish ;-)

But we also had plenty (stereo-)typical American floats like a Native American Pow-Wow, cowboys herding cattle and of course Ronald McDonnald. I still wonder were the King from Burger King was this year ;-)

And like the last three years the Star Wars crowd was there again Which is really funny to see on St. Patrick's Day I think: First you have the marines, the young marines and then a crowd of people dressed in old uniforms (like world war or civil war uniforms) marching... followed by a bunch of Stormtroopers in white :-) I guess in this stage it is now part of the American culture... like the bunch of people dressed up in Stargate (TV series) uniforms who followed ;-)

But all that matters is having a good time: HAPPY PADDY'S DAY to all of you!

Happy 25th

Twenty five years... quite an age for a high tech company like the one I am working for. Time to contemplate about the last six years, about the fun, about the friends I made, the countries I have seen, the ups ans downs, and all the rest... and of course having some cake at the anniversary party we had on Monday.

First of all here you can see me with my current team... the Design Solution Verification team at our Longmont office in Colorado.

Even though this is a quite easy going and cool team (we even took our team picture in front of a Forsters beer truck!) there are many geeks around this place... and where there are geeks there are also geeky presents our company gave away in the past, like this awesome license plate frame... sweet :o)

But at least we are staying in a fancy office building which is often referred as the 'ski resort' by our headquarters. And it is not that far fetched... we have meeting rooms with sofas, fireplaces and balconies here. Really a nice place next door to the Rockies.

Well... Happy 25th! Thanks for the great time we had so far :-)

Superbowl

Empty streets, deserted highways, sold out beer sections in liquor stores and potato chip shortages in the local super market... oh yes... these are the best indicators for the Superbowl, the biggest sport event in the world. Well that's at least what people over here think. Let's settle on the biggest American Football tournament in the world ;-)
I was invited to a Superbowl party at my friend Thomas's house and had a great time watching a very exciting match between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals which was literally decided in the last minute.
But it is not all about the match... it's the whole show which keeps you entertained for more then three hours... like the half-time show (Bruce Springsteen) and even the commercials. Those are as much entertaining as the match itself and they have even polls voting for the most popular one after the show. Even O' Reilly was discussing the television add and if they would have a bad influence on the youth... speaking about which... in Arizona they had a new Nipplegate when a local 'adult entertainment channel' was sending their content on the same frequency for a couple of seconds... the FCC is investigating...

But altogether a great show even if you normally don't like American Football!

Ekki on top of the world

On top of the world, ey? Well more like on top of a mountain you might say. And other might even argue... only a hill. But 'on top of the hill' doesn't really looks that good as a title. And it doesn't even describe remotely the fun you have skiing down... a hill... fast :o)

So being out on the piste (slope) a second time this year shows you how much fun I have following my new hobby taking me outdoors in the winter time. Usually not the best time of the year to get in front of the door you might think.

And you are right about that. This time was the coldest skiing day I had so far. 15 F (-10 C) is quite chilly when you have snow falling on top of you as well. But brilliant ski conditions with as much new powder snow as you can ask for!

Hope to see you down the slope in one stage :-)

New season - new fun

The winter is back! I still remember my very first ski season like it was last year... oh well... it was last year ;-) And it was great fun too! At the end of that season I finally managed to conquer a blue slope (second easiest level) without falling. I was so proud of me, simply ignoring all the 6-grader who were flying past me in the process :o)

So this season I planned on improving my skills and maybe getting the same success with a black slope (a really easy black slope) at the end of this season. I started off on the bunny slope (green) and was surprised that I didn't even crashed ones. It's a bit like riding a bike, once you learn it you don't loose it. So next week I will try my luck on the blue ones! Fingers crossed.

Back in Colorado

But every good thing has to come to an end... even my amazing travel through Europe. I have seen my friends in Ireland, my old office, was on the annual Christmas party and had plenty of proper Guinness.
Then I saw my parents, my brother and my friends in Germany... I traveled to Frankfurt to meet my old mate Heiko, in Hofheim I had some drinks with Siggi, in Nuremberg I saw a great comedy show with Christine and went to the Imax with Torsten. I celebrated New Years Eve with Annika, Pete and Christine and also got a chance to hang out with my buddy Gerald. Oh... and I had a BBQ on the first Christmas day :o) I really felt that I spend an entire lifetime in only three weeks while I was over there. Thanks everyone for having me!

But now it's time to head back to Denver, Colorado. I am sure I am needed there as well :-)

Home sweet home

And finally I found some time for going back to my hometown in the principality of Waldeck: Nieder-Werbe. At summertime this place is full with tourists hanging around the second biggest man-made lake in Germany. But at wintertime the water level is lowered and all you can see is a frozen peace of wanna-be lake in the middle of the village. Hence not that many tourists are finding their way over there...

Of course I also had time for meeting my parents again who are always happy to see me once in for a while. America is still quite a way to go I guess ;-)

Home sweet home!

Happy New Year

New Years Eve... all over the world it is celebrated, but of course with different traditions. Being in Germany at that time I noticed a few 'strange' German traditions myself... like 'Dinner for One' (original title). Every time there is a native English speaker in our party he/she is asked about this British skit about an old lady and her butler having New Years dinner with 'old friends'. But of course... nobody else knows it except the Germans... a David Hasselhof moment once again ;-)

The next very traditional thing everybody has to do at New Years eve is 'Bleigiessen' which roughly translates into 'lead casting'. You need lead, a candle and a cold water bowl. You are then telling your fortune out of the shape of the molten lead you poured into the water.

Interesting... I got a swan! I leave it up to you investigating what 2009 is having up its sleeves for me... but it could be worse I guess ;-)




And then of course fireworks. Not in every country this is the way of welcoming the new year. In Ireland and even in Colorado fireworks aren't sold in public and you have to trust your city for setting something up. Over in Germany... not a problem. I hope the owner of the Benz didn't have any problems with his insurance too... or that would have been a bad start into 2009 :-)

A Happy New Year to you and yours!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Meanwhile back in Germany... finally I got the chance to see several proper Christkindle markets. It is a similar thing like Irish pubs back in Dublin I guess... we have an own Christkindle market downtown Denver too which again is nothing compared to the real deal back home. So what's so special about them then? Well... lots of people freezing in the cold, drinking steaming hot mulled wine, listening to Christmas carols, also sprinkle some snow on top of them... DONE.

So I spend my time several days before Christmas going from one Christkindle market to the next one. The biggest one I saw this year was the one in Kassel. No snow though :-(

Still plenty of mulled wine and good food!


But that is not what Christmas is all about, right? Christmas is the time of year where we can slow down, relax and forget about our stressful life for a moment. And appreciated that there is something more important in life then work and money... love and peace among all people!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Winter horror hits Denver

Well... winter is not always fun and games as we know. Especially when it sneaks up at you like it does over here. One day you can have quite pleasant temperatures, people running around in T-shirts and the next day you have suddenly 6 inches (15 cm) of snow covering the highways. What happened in the meantime you might ask? Colorado has one bis advantage: most of the time the weather happens at night which is great in the summertime where most of the time no cloud is disturbing the sunshine (hence the advertised 300 days of sunshine).

But this has one big disadvantage in the wintertime where you suddenly awake to lots of snow on the ground and lots of traffic blocking the roads which makes up for the perfect winter horror which we had now the second week in a row. I better get a sleigh and some Huskies and leave my car at home ;-)

Winter is here

Finally winter made its comeback. After a quite weird few weeks with temperatures in the high 70 F (20+ C) we got back to normality again. Snow in the mountains and the foothills, low temperatures down here in Denver and Longmont. And most of the ski resort are opening these weekends so we are up for a jolly good time ;-)

Election showdown

Well... finally we don't have to watch all those TV adds anymore, don't have to run into campaign supporters in shopping malls and have to answer phone calls of phone robots. And the winner is... Barack Obama! Even though it looked like a quite close call last week... at the election night everything moved very quickly towards Obama. Already at 8 o'clock it looked quite bad for McCain.

At that time McCain already had to win most of the swing states as Obama won the most important high density states in the east. But still an interesting night with lots of news network entertainment around that. Most of the stations had again their sports-like view of the swing states where they were drawing strategies on the map... and CNN had even live holograms from all over the country where people were shown in 3D at the studio. Interesting how different these broadcasts are from those in Europe :-)

And in the end I was able to vote too! Just kidding... I just found one 'I voted' sticker on the sidewalk. For a moment I was tempted to get myself a free Starbucks coffee or a free ice cone at Ben & Jerrie's for voters. Oh well... I'll have free pretzels at the upcoming general election in Germany instead ;-)

But in the end I am very happy that I was here while history was in the making. Congratulations to Obama and good luck for his first term. It'll be a though one with all the problems right now which certainly will restrict him from implementing his programs simply because of the lack of money. But I am confident that after several years of stagnation America will move in the right directing now. So much from Ekki's election studio and now back to normality :-)

Election countdown

Things are heading up over here... only 2 more days to election day and both campaigns are using the last remaining hours smearing each other. My European readers will ask now if the race is not decided yet looking at the latest polls. But the strange system over here with the electoral vote making it possible winning even with loosing by the number of voters. This divides the country in save banks for each party and the battleground states where the voters are not decided yet. Either way 100% of the votes will go to one winner in that states that's why it is not over yet.

And there is also the so-called Bradley effect which makes the race even more interesting. Apparently the political correctness over here is spoiling the result of polls in elections like that. So even though the polls are showing Obama's lead right now, nothing is decided till Tuesday. That's why everyone is still keeping campaigning I guess...

...and writing books. While there are several books about Sarah Palin describing her raise from a Hokey Mom to fighting the establishment (I really didn't see that, oh well) I couldn't find any book about McCain. Maybe they were sold out???

Also I found a book about Obama... in the children section!!! I thought that was a bit strange... so if you want to read your children a bed time story, why not about a politicans?! That makes sense to me now... politics, put you to sleep since 1776 ;-)

Happy Halloween

Its again the time of the year when everyone seem to be obsessed with ghost, vampires, monsters, blood, skulls and... candy. What a mixture ;-) Even though Halloween is getting more and more popular in Europe it is nothing compared to the US American Halloween. Even on TV there is nothing else on except haunted houses, werewolf and of course the election... which is kind of spooky too I guess...

But of course it is also the time of fancy dresses and costume partys. After being the German Elvis last year I went for something more serious... a Ghost Buster!

After wearing the costume for a while I realized that this might have been not the best choice for younger people at the party... well the movie is from 1984 which might be quite recent to me but not for everyone at the party :o) But I still had a great time with the young folks ;-)

Wedding time

To make it short... one bachelor down, three to go! My good friend Justin got married to the fabulous looking Dani this weekend... and what a great party that was. The wedding took place in an old mansion in Morrison surrounded by the great looking red rock formations. And as a bonus the ceremony took place right at sunset.




And we also had our friends from Europe calling over for this special occasion. All together we danced the night away and had a great time. Just the morning after was tough ;-)

I wish Dani and Justin all the best for their future together! But the question remains... who is the next Bachelor we are loosing? ;-)

Skydiving out of the blue sky

I always wanted to try skydiving in one stage and last weekend I finally got the opportunity to do so. My friend Richard (on the far right in the picture) is on the best way to become a pro in the short time he is staying here in Colorado. So I joined him for a little tandem jump.


Well... to be honest it was not as easy as that. The night before I couldn't get much sleep I have to admit. There are so many things you think of before the jump but everything is so easy by the time you get on that plane. As you can see on the picture on the left I know exactly which is the way we are going... I am pointing at it :-)


And the landing was as smooth as could be too. Funny is that jumping out of 10,500 ft (3200 m) is over that quickly... after 40 s of free fall and a few minutes of gliding the ride is over, which makes it quite pricey time and money wise. On the other hand you can't really compare the rush you get out of it to anything else in the world. So I might try it again... this time without human backpack though :-)

Drive-in flu shots

Well... last year I wrote about it here on my blog, this year I have photos to proof it: the drive-in flu shot clinic ;-)
Once again my health insurance promoted a massive vaccination event on several locations throughout Denver. Their goal is to pass their flu shots to as many members as possible in only two days. And what better way then using the McDonnald proven drive in method.


So basically you are driving with your car off the highway on the hospitals parking-lot where policemen are leading you to one of those vaccination stations.
There your first stop is the nurse who asks you about basic health issues and the second stop with a doctor gives you the actual flu shot through the open window. Even though it might sounds strange getting a flu shot in a car park... it is more then convenient. And 10 mins later I was on my way again... without leaving the car! Brilliant ;-)