Last Saturday I hosted my Ph.D. celebration party in the beautiful party rooms at my friend's house (Have a look if you are looking for really great and stylish party rooms in Schramberg, Germany). More than 25 friends attended my party. Most of these people I know from my time in Mannheim (e.g., fellow (Ph.D.) students) and from my childhood in Schramberg. It was a great party and we had a lot of fun. It was nice talking to all my good old friends and having a beer with them. However, it was also interesting to realize that we have been maturing in the last few years. The party finished around 3am while there was still some beer available. A few years ago this would never had happened. :-)
I selected two pictures that were taken during the party. The first picture shows my girlfriend (the gorgeous girl that is partly covered by me), my father, me and a few friends. The other picture depicts a delicious cake a friend of mine prepared for me. It was made by healthy organic ingredients and hence it tasted so good it was just unbelievable. Thanks to Daniel for this great cake.
My friends gave me many really cool gifts. I really appreciate any of them. However, I have to talk about one especially here in this blog. My friend Hans-Jörg Happel recorded all my blog postings that I have created since August 2005. In total he recorded more than 2:25 hours of readings. He also designed a really cool CD cover for the CD including all the readings (see the subsequently shown pictures). The best thing is that he also mixed the readings with some really fancy music as bonus tracks for the CDs. It sounds really cool!!! Unfortunately, I cannot provide this bonus tracks as the music he used for his composition is licensed by others. However, Hans-Jörg is a very creative and great musician. Thank you very much!!!
It was great to meet all of you! See you at the next party! :-)
Cheers,
Thomas
Posted by Thomas King at 23:35 2009-09-14 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Bachelor Thesis about "Monitoring the DE-CIX Hardware - From a Concept to an Implementation" (DE-CIX)
Last week, Jan Stumpf - a student from the University of Applied Science Furtwangen - submitted his bachelor thesis about "Monitoring the DE-CIX Hardware - From a Concept to an Implementation". I adviced Jan's work during his stay at DE-CIX. In this thesis, Jan first summarized and structured the theory about monitoring hard- and software infrastructures. Secondly, Jan talked to the engineers to understand the requirements they have about monitoring the DE-CIX hard- and software. Thirdly, Jan implemented a monitoring system based on the results of the two previous mentioned parts. The results are very impressive. DE-CIX is considering to apply most of his findings and newly developed software tools! It was great fun to advise Jan and I am looking forward to work with him on other projects.
Best regards,
Thomas
Posted by Thomas King at 21:32 2009-09-06 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
Irobot Roomba 560 - My Maid is a Robot :-) (General)
Last week I bought an Irobot Roomba 560. The Irobot Roomba 560 is a robot that is able to vacuum an apartment. After my Roomba 560 has been delivered - I gave it the name R2D2 (in my world R2D2 is male :-)) - I unwrapped it and charged the batteries. After a couple of hours the batteries were fully charged and I pressed the button to let R2D2 do his job. I have to admit, I am really impressed how well he cleans. Even after I have vacuumed my apartment by myself a couple of days ago R2D2 was able to collect half a box of dust during his 25 minutes ride through my apartment. He covered the complete floor space and even moved into corners. The video attached to this blog message shows R2D2 vacuuming my living room.
So, now thanks to R2D2 I have approximately 30 minutes more time a week to do more interesting stuff than vacuuming. :-)
Best regards,
Thomas
Posted by Thomas King at 21:17 2009-09-06 | Trackbacks (0) | Comments (0)
