My Year 2000 (part one)

During the year 2000 I did not find much time to tell you about my life. Until now you only know about New Year together with [ex] in Paris and my Easter holiday. It is time to tell you the rest of my story of The Year 2000.

In brief: I left Isny and did my final practical training. I finished my studies, moved together with , and now I am working in my 1^st job.

After 3 years of studies at the engineers collage in Isny and 6 months of practical training in between, I had to write some final exams on the theoretical part of my studies in the middle of February 2000. The exams in microprocessors and in electronics went very well. Until the end of the month I had time to get all that was mine put in cartons and boxes, and at the 1^st of March I left Isny. Fortunately, I could leave most of my belongings in the loft in Isny.

For 6 months I had to work on a project in a company, and I went to Ballard Power Systems in Nabern, which is situated close to Stuttgart. It was an interesting time with many important experiences. I had times when nothing would work at all and other days when everything was splendid. I was developing a circuit board for a microprocessor to record several data sensors such as temperature or pressure. The collected data was to be stored until the circuit board was connected to a PC. The programme to transfer the data to the PC and to configure the microprocessor I had to write, too.

In August I had a very good presentation in front of the people from Ballard and the professor, who was responsible for my final practical exam. But I had to leave my project unfinished after some very serious problems had occurred within the last weeks. Anyway it is over and done, and I did receive a good mark.

During these months I also prepared everything for [ex] and me to move together. I found a very good flat with only one disadvantage: we have only a contract for 12 months and have to move out afterwards. Still, it is a great flat (2 ½ rooms with 64 m²) completely furnished and rather cheap. No matter how often we will move around my e-mail: christof.tuerk@homemail.com will not change.

Moving to this new flat was a big job since we had to collect all our belongings at 4 places. On August 25 / 26 of 2000 we finished this job. In Stuttgart we rented a van (3.5 m space for fright) and went to Isny were most of my belongings were stored. It was a nice trip across some little mountain ranges. And further we went along the lake Bodensee to s home and further to Freiburg. With the van packed we travelled on roads with beautiful views along and across the mountain range Schwarzwald back to Stuttgart. Within 2 days we travelled 700 km and enjoyed it very much.

Another weekend I want to tell you about is the great birthday party we had on September 9 / 10 of 2000 in Schwerin. We were celebrating 3 birthdays: my mum turned 60 in January, I celebrated my 25^th in July and my little cousin Annemarie turned 15 in October. All together we collected a century of lifetime. [ex] and I already arrived on Thursday and helped my mum with the preparations. We were celebrating in the weekend house of my godmother, which has a garden reaching down to a lake, and family and friends were invited. My aunts and uncles from Rostock and Warnemünde (with my little cousin and a friend of her) joined the celebration as well as a friend of my mum and some friends from Schwerin. We were almost 20 people and we had a great time together. We went for a long walk, had a B.B.Q., made some funny games and watched a slide-show of historic slides of the my mum, me and my little cousin.

After this weekend I had to make a hard decision. I had contracts offered from 2 very different companies, and both of them were very interesting. One was from debis (a subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler) and the other was from itelligence a smaller IT company. I choose the smaller company and my contract started on November 1^st. Before this new chapter of my life started, I had some holidays (from 9/20/2000 until 11/1/2000). I spent this time in Stuttgart because [ex] had to go to school. I organized my finances and worked as houseman. It was a joy to cook some good menus for [ex] and me.

On Thursday the 2^nd of November 2000 started that chapter of my life during that I have to sell my knowledge to a good price. However the beginning of this chapter would be to learn even more. After I had studied Electronics, I started now working with a pure computer company. Anyway, I had been assured I would get much training to learn all I need.

Just briefly to itelligence. It is present in 18 countries (mostly European) with almost 2000 employees, but Germany is the main-focus. Actually I am not employed by itelligence but by APCON PC, Frankfurt. But APCON merged with SVC to itelligence on 01/01/2001. And I am something special: I am employed by the APCON subsidiary in Frankfurt to work in the SVC office in Stuttgart.

At the first day I have been told: „And tomorrow you are in Frankfurt. There is a project and you can watch and learn.“ It was an internet-shop we were programming for a customer. I was not only watching but I became a member of the project. Until 01/19/2001 I spent every week (Mo - Fr) in Frankfurt. The project was successful and I enjoyed my task very much, and I did learn a lot. The result of our project you will find under www.testo.de in the internet. My part were some pages of the shop (everything under „produkte“).

At this point I will finish the part one of My Year 2000. In the part two I will tell you about some nice weekends and great events of the last three months of the year 2000.