Friday, 1 August 2008

Randy Paush dies

From a mailing list I got a link to the video of Randy Pausch' last lecture and even though it did not change my life, probably because I am too old, it did made me think about my priorities in life and my relationship with my kids. I have to admit that I am too often stomped by a brick wall but for important things I am stubborn and from time to time I get passed such brick walls. Still I would suggest to everyone to watch the video of his last lecture on Really Achieving your Childhood Dreams.

  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 9:53 PM in Personal

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Friday, 27 June 2008

Third Jump this Morning

Another day another jump. This morning I had my level 3 jump which means that I did not have to do much but the jump masters would let go of me after I was stable and did the initial checks and the practice touch (touching the puller that will pull the chute open went pulled out). My master jump master was confident enough to move in front of me leaving my side meaning I did good. So next jump will be the same but with only one jump master and we will jump out backwards and not side ways as we did up to know.

Have fun - Andy

Posted by schaefera at 10:40 AM in Personal

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Thursday, 26 June 2008

A License, Second Jump and Thoughts about Risks

Yesterday I decided after all the adrenalin cleared my body that I love Skydiving and that I want to make the A license to become a certified skydiver. So today I was back at the Drop Zone for my second jump which was more or less the same drill just with turns rather than forward movement which is more exiting because going forward is hard to judge on 8,000 feet and 120 miles free fall but a turn is quick and noticeable. The jump went through quite well even though I have to make sure that reading the altimeter is not glancing at it but really understand what it means and to read it right. Around 6,000 feet I oversaw the altitude and later on 5,500 I though we are still at 6,500 because the altimeter runs counter-clockwise. After I saw the needle move I realized the mistake and pulled the chute.

  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 3:58 PM in Personal

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Wednesday, 25 June 2008

Jumping out of a Perfectly Good Airplane

Today I got an early Birthday present in form of a jump out of a perfectly good airplane at around 12,500 feet above ground. Living in Lake Elsinore, California, has the advantage that there is a Skydiving facility just around the corner.

Yesterday I took the First Jump Course lessons which ends with a jump but because of strong winds that was not possible. Therefore this morning I was at the facility bright and early to take the first plane. There I met my jump master which went through the procedures of the first jump several times. Eventually it was time to gear up and to rehears the jump again:

  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 12:42 PM in Personal

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Sunday, 22 June 2008

The Clock is Ticking

Sorry for not blogging quite some time. First I was busy with the j-community.org site and then my wife started to building a nest for our forth son which is due by the end of the month. I, due to some experience, am still relaxed because the baby will be two weeks late like all the others. But one never knows and so I let my wife do what she has to do. So far everything goes nearly as smooth as glass and we are looking forward to our first, and hopefully last, home birth. My wife's sister is here helping us with the kids and to make sur  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 9:02 PM in Personal

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Friday, 30 May 2008

Welcome Sid as Our Newest Blogger

Siddharth Chhabra is our newest blogger and you can visit his blog here. He started with an introduction into the Log4J SMTPAppender which lets you send logging statements in an email. I hope you like it as much as I do and I am looking forward to read more from him.

Over the last few years I discovered that writing a technical blog is a good way to show one's knowledge as well as communication skills. At the beginning I blogged regularly at Java.net but then started to focus more on my own blog because it is time consuming to w  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 11:11 PM in Personal

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Saturday, 17 May 2008

I joined Twitter

As you may noticed on the right hand side I joined Twitter and you can find me under Bad_Andy or Andy Schaefer if you join twitter and then search for me. You might even use the link at the bottom on the little Flash Widget on the right hand side which will post to you my latest update.

I hope to hear from you guys even more often - Andy

Posted by schaefera at 2:47 PM in Personal

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Friday, 2 May 2008

Dr. Phil and the A*hole TV

I know a few people how like to watch Dr. Phil but whenever I saw anything of his show it looked more like a circus to me than a serious self-help show: "And on the left we have the philandering husband with his wife how did not figure it out for twenty years and on the right we have a mother with her 150lb toddler and she thinks that is normal".

  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 9:34 AM in Personal

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Wednesday, 23 April 2008

Technology that really makes a Difference

In my job and even in field of software and electronic gadgets technology often does not serve any other purpose than serving peoples egos, exhibitionism and narcissism. Well, this week I found some new technology that really makes a difference in peoples' life beyond their vanity and it comes in a field where most people would not expect some ground braking invocation. And here it is the revolutionary Stop Saw table saw that is able to nearly avoid an injury to an operator if he/she touches the saw blade. If you know a carpenter then you probably also know that many of them have lost a finger during their job and so a table saw that can avoid that is worth every penny. If you want to see how that would look like then check out their Hot Dog demo. If you want to see what happened to people check out their saved finger pages.

  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 7:22 PM in Personal

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Friday, 11 April 2008

We are back Home again

Uff, after a 27 hour trip back home we can finally relax at home and trying to get over the jet lag. With 3 kids I don't feel the jet lag that much but I am more tired that usual. The vacation were fun, at least for my kids, and we could enjoy the Swiss and Italian cuisine for some time. I think I gained some pounds over there. This week I am mostly busy with getting everything working again, to get our pets back home and to pick up all the loose ends of my work including Guilder for which I did not any time to work on.

Have fun - Andy

Posted by schaefera at 8:25 AM in Personal

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Friday, 21 March 2008

Far Away

I short update from abroad. Unfortunately I am in Europe and stuck with a dial-up connection which drives me nuts. Since more than 10 years I did not use a dial-up connection to the Internet and so this is sort of a culture shock. Eventually I will be back and then I can recover from the pain and enjoy a fast and reliable Internet.

Have fun - Andy

Posted by schaefera at 12:42 PM in Personal

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Wednesday, 2 January 2008

Happy New Year: 2008

To all my readers I wish you a Happy and Prosper New Year and with a little bit luck it will be as crazy as the last one. For a personal project I went through all my pictures of the last years and discovered that even though we went to the US to advance my career we found quite a different type of wealth. Instead of the riches in our wallet we found it in the hearts and smiles of our kids.

We at Madplanet.com survived the second full year of our business and even though the year started on a low note me scrambling to find a new contracting gig I am still hopeful tha  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 12:47 PM in Personal

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Tuesday, 25 December 2007

State of Emergeny Averted

Well, last Friday the Coffee Machine was delivered and I had to unpack and to try it out right there. Now a few days later we are quite happy with it and think that overall it makes the better coffee than the 2 1/2 times more expensive Italian machine. Here is a picture of the entire machine: KitchenAid Pro Line Espresso Machine:

KitchenAid Pro Line Espresso Machine

  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 4:22 PM in Personal

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Friday, 21 December 2007

Schoene Weihnachten

Which means Merry Christmas in German. Back when I was a kid living on my parents' farm Christmas was quite different than it is here in the US. First we celebrated Christmas with the presents and lighting up the tree on Christmas eve and probably this year we will do this with our kids as well because I don't like the concept of my kids running down on Christmas morning ripping of all the presents and an hour later complaining about not having got enough presents. We will sit down for a nice dinner and afterwards I will put the presents under the tree and we sit around it enjoying the tree and giving the kids the presents.

Actually back then as well as up to now where my sister is keeping up with the tradition the tree was lit with real candles and because the tree was fresh and just brought into the house a few hours before there was never an accident as far as I can remember. But of course you can only light them up when you keep an eye on them until they are burned down and when I am back home I enjoy to watch the candles go out one by one and the room gets slowly darker.

As our family grows with the fourth on the way Christmas becomes more and more a family event where we try to celebrate our family and the love we share for each other. Even though I hate the commerce surrounding Christmas in the US even more than at home I like the aspect of the family event because the excitement, anticipation and the glowing in the kids eyes seem to be gone and is a thing of the past. I don't know if that is just because I am a parent now and my parents thought the same thing or if it is because Christmas is used and misused for commerce and to make more and more money.

That said we are keeping the amount spent for presents in tight limits and are not going to max out any credit cards or anything else like that. We want to enjoy Christmas and not worrying about the upcoming credit card payments. We also like to buy toys made out of wood rather than plastic and this year showed that this might was a wise decision with all the poisoned toys and their recalls.

Happy Holiday, a Merry Christmas and Thank You for Reading my Blog

Andy Schaefer

  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 1:13 PM in Personal

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Monday, 17 December 2007

State of Emergency

We are in a state of emergency because our coffee machine shows signs of an eminent breakdown. Everyone who knows me knows that I prefer good food in general but when it comes to coffee then I do not compromise. This is due because of traveling through Italy many times because my wife's mother grew up in Italy. That means that I want to have a good shot of espresso and cannot stand drip coffee or, even worse, peppermint while mocha, yikes. Having owned many espresso machines in my life my wife and I decided that only an espresso machine with a boiler is going to work for us. The ones with a  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 8:32 PM in Personal

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