So now I am in Zagreb, Croatia.
I traveled last Monday from Zuerich to Zagreb with a flying autobus. The plane is made for only 34 people and had 2 propeller engines, quite noisy.
I did not see too much of the city yet, but it is a new experience after working almost everywhere besides Europe.

Totday I talked with one of our local guys and we also talked about money. He said that the average guy earns only about 250 Euro a month... just enough to survive... Most of the people I have met are looking for a chance to work somewhere else... I would try the same if I were them...

When I returned from the USA the major event of the year was waiting for me - my brothers wedding. Unfortunately the event was planned earlier in August - but I had to be still in the USA, so my brother and his wife rescheduled everything and I was very happy about it - I did not have to travel twice in one week!!!

The first event was a so called "Polterabend". The party was well organized and we all had a good time..


Two weeks later we met again for the wedding. First we went to castle "Schloss Biebrich" in Wiesbaden for the wedding at the "Standesamt". This is a very nice, romantic place and we were so lucky to have a day without rain!
Afterwards we had an apero and many thousand pictures were taken.
In the afternoon we went then to the castle "Burg Reichenstein" close to Bingen. There the main event took place. The wedding in the chapel of the castle, the party, the dinner, the dance and many other things... it was a great event and I am very happy for my brother and his wife... aren't they a great couple???

Sometimes stories in your life become true. I remeber the days during my studies in Mannheim. I worked as an apprentice in the Gasturbine Service department. One day we had a meeting and the topic was the punch list of one of the sites in Germany.
I was presented to the other people as Mr. Schlueter - he will take care of the punch list items. People were obviously impressed (just because of my shoulders I guess). This all was meant as a joke...

A couple of years later with my new company I am the guy taking care of the warranty items and punch list, 3 units in Germany and 1 in Austria. It is not a bad start and gives me lots of opportunities for trouble shooting... that is the stuff that keeps the challange in the job...

I am wondering what all the other guys of the DH 04-4 class are doing....

Yesterday we had a great party in Albisreute, south Germany. Even if I had only a gew hours time it was a great party with a lot of guys and friends I have not seen for a long time...

Many thanks to Rainer H. and Daniel W. for the organisation, and also to Juergen R., Markus F., Michael H., Joachim D., Thorsten L., Julia, Melanie, Maria & more...

There we go. Only 8 days remaining and already graduated. Now I can name myself GE Field Engineer. It is amazing how fast the 6 month went over. They kept us quite busy, especially in the last weeks with all the webbased training to be finished...

Last thursday we all had a good breakfast in one of the finest Hotels in Saratoga Springs. A few coffees and presentations the Graduation Certificates were handed over and I saw a lot of smiling people in the room - it means we all will go home soon.

I hope I will see many of you in the field again...

Two weeks ago I reached my limit here on the webpage, it was not possible to paste more pictures. I was thnking of changing to a different blog, for example hotmail... but I like it here, so I stay and pay.

I will try to keep this site a little bit more active, there was no input from my site for almost 2 weeks... I will change that.

The ELC Program here in Ney York is proceeding well, we have only 45 more days and many of my new colleagues are looking forward to go home, and so do I.

Heute in meiner Mailbox:

Jetzt haben auch ehemals tolerante Länder wie Holland & Frankreich
langsam die Schnauze voll von der grenzenlosen Kriminalität.

In Holland greift immer mehr der Islamismus um sich "dank" der
ausser Kontrolle geratenen Masseineinwanderung.

Die Rundschau von SFDRS berichtete letzte Woche wie immer mehr
ehemals tolerante Holländer zB. nach Kanada auswandern müssen.

Wir Schweizer müssen auch flüchten aus dem eigenen Land, wenn
Sie sich heute nicht wehren. Das Land ist in existentieller Gefahr!

Sagen Sie am Wochenende NEIN zu Schengen/EU, um nicht vor dem
EU- und Islamismus-Elend demnächst ebenfalls flüchten zu müssen.

Bald ist es soweit, vielleicht noch 10 bis max. 15 Jahre, wenn es
so weitergeht. Sie müssen kein Prophet sein, schauen Sie nur nach
Holland!

Die EU garantiert NICHT unseren Wohlstand und unsere Sicherheit,
sondern braucht DRINGENDST neue Dummköpfe, die alles zahlen und
das Elend dieser Welt bei sich aufnehmen; das ist die traurige
Realität.

Eine grenzenlose Schweiz führt ZWANGSLÄUFIG zum EU-Beitritt,
auch wenn gewisse Charakterlumpen aus Bern und Brüssel das
Gegenteil behaupten, um das Volk zu zermürben.

EU/Schengen bedeutet für die Schweiz:

Grenzenlose, unkontrollierte Masseneinwanderung aus Ostländern
und Terror bzw. Islamismus wie heute schon in Holland!

Unsere Kinder bekommen bereits heute in Zentren wie Zürich keine
richtige Schulausbildung mehr. Wachen Sie auf und verhindern Sie,
dass die Schweiz zum Abfallhaufen der Geschichte wird.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NEIN ZU EU/SCHENGEN-DUBLIN
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

DENKEN SIE AN DIE ZUKUNFT IHRER KINDER!

DAS HEIL LIEGT NICHT IN DER EUROKRATIE, WACHEN SIE AUF,
BEVOR DIE SCHÖNE SCHWEIZ UNTERGEHT.

IHR LAND RUFT SIE JETZT, STRÖMEN SIE AN DIE URNEN,
ES IST DIESES MAL ÄUSSERST DRINGEND.

Wenn Sie jetzt nicht NEIN sagen, geht es schon im Herbst weiter
mit der vollständigen Übernahme des EU-Osterweiterungsrechts.

Schritt für Schritt gehts dem Untergang der Schweiz entgegen.

Lassen Sie es zu? Im Gegensatz zu Deutschland ist Ihre
Meinung als Bürger (heute noch) gefragt.

Schon interessant, wie da in der Schweiz Meinung gemacht wird...

The Palomar Energy Project was very nice to work at. It is located in Escondido, CA - very close to San Diego. It is a combined cycle power station, 2x GE 7FA+E Gasturbine and one D11 Steam Turbine, total power output 550MW at averaged ambient conditions...
The big advantage this time was that I had to work only 8 hours straight, all weekends off, therefore I had lots of time to go shopping in the Carlsbad Mall, Fry's Electronic Shop, go to SD Downtown and walkaround in the Gaslamp Quarter...
Unfortunately the 2 weeks are over and I will return to Clifton Park this weekend and continue with the course in the ELC...
It will be interesting to hear what the other guys have to tell about their Field Assignments...

As many of yu know, I changed my job in the beginning of this year, basically I am doing a similar job with a different company.There were many reasons to do this, some were related to personal reasons, other to the way my fromer company is handling the jobs nowadays. I miss many of my former colleagues, working with them, hanging out with them... I am very happy that I am still in contact with many of them I really care about and I appreciate that a lot.

Here with the new company the jobs are handled in a very different way. First of all there is not so much menpower on site - and that is a good thing. With the former company it was like that too many people where hiding and not taking any responsibility. The jobs here are done with much less personel and more efficient. I like it that way, I like to take responsibility. I think I made a good decision to change. Of course it is not the perfect world here and with a big company there is always room for improvement.

I remember many of the "lessons learned" meetings after the outages, unfortunately nothing happened and it was continued making the same mistakes over and over.
Here people listen to what you have to say and they are open for improvement.

Many people ask me where I will be working in the future, therefore I ad this map here. Basically I will work in Europe - and that is a big region as you can see...

Today I had a day off and I wanted to drive to LA and do some sightseeing. This was a mistake. As usual the entire highway was blocked and I would have needed more than 4 hours for the 100mls to LA, so I went back to Goleta. I have been to the beach and enjoied the sun. Now I have to take care of the sunburn...