User:MichaelNaumann

From Grundschule Haffen I made my way to the Konrad Duden Gymnasium Wesel (formerly known as Staatliches Gymnasium Wesel and Städtisches Gymnasium Wesel Nord). After interludes at University Duisburg and RWTH Aachen I studied Physics and Astronomy at Astronomical Institute Münster (AIM) and finished in November 1991 a diploma thesis on Statistical Methods of Distance Determination for faint Clusters of Galaxies.

In March 1995 I started working in the ESO Archive Group, part of the Data Management Division (DMD) at European Southern Observatory. Since March 1996 I'm ESO's WebMaster as member of the ESO User Support Group and dealing with information retrieval, Web application development, quality control, Web software administration and maintenance, HTML, Perl, Java, C authoring, user support. To stay on top of Web technology I attended the major Web conferences since 1995, also WWW 2003 in May 2003.

The Information Universe is attractive to me, as are hypertext and hypermedia. But I also like to do 'the real thing': In 1996 I visited Andalucia, Paris, Barcelona, the US (from East to West to East ... by car).

April 1997 saw me travelling the Great Deserts of the Southwest enjoying them in bloom while in September 1997 I cruised the Central Plains and the Pacific Northwest of the US.

A dream came true in April 1998 when I visited Australia, its Red Centre, the Wet Tropics and the Reef.

In 1999 I enjoyed British Columbia and crossed the Arctic Circle on the Dempster Highway up in the Yukon, Canada. In the second half of 1999 spent 4 weeks in the chilean Atacama and watched the Leonides in November, while vacationing on Lanzarote (it was cloudy, merde).

March 2000 was another chance to visit gorgeous Chilean national parks and volcanos at the border to Peru and Bolivia: Lauca, Parinacota, Surire, Isluga, among others. In June I've spent a month above the Circulo Polar under the Midnight Sun in finnish, norwegian and swedish Lappland while in December 2000 I enjoyed the summer in the south of chilean and argentine Patagonia and Isla Grande de Tierra Del Fuego.

In May 2001 I set foot to Asia for the first time in my life, travelling through Yunnan and Guangxi in Southwest China, also paying visits to Hongkong and Macau. Only a month later I flew to Iceland, exploring the western half of the island for two weeks in a rental car, enjoying sunsets at midnight on splendid camp grounds.

May 2002 I enjoyed in Venice and Summer of 2002 brought me to Cuba, where I spent two weeks on tour with a rental car, all the way from Holguin to Santiago, Trinidad, Viñales and of course to La Habana, the world's most beautiful city.

During the first 6 months of 2003 I visited Traunsee, Barcelona, Carcassone and the region of Lago Di Garda, notably Villa Draghetto in San Pietro di Cariano. In September 2003 I went to Portugal for the first time, visited the western coast of Algarve, hiking inland and sun bathing on wide sandy beaches.

Valentine's Day 2004 was very romantic in London, and April in Paris was even more. In summer 2004 I headed for winter in the south, 3 weeks on Mauritius and La Reunion (don't mention the beaches).

For the first time I visited Chile during the hot summer months, in January/February 2005 for 3 weeks of work and joy. In May I got lost in translation like many before me during a 2-weeks stay in Japan on occasion of WWW 2005 in Tokyo, followed by a week of vacation in Kyoto and surroundings. The last week of July was hot in Barcelona and the Castell de Montsoriu area and Brussels in September during the CSAIO conference was a pleasant surprise.

Music and Movies are also kind of travelling for me: Shimmering soundscapes of heavenly songs can for example be heard from The Cocteau Twins, one of my favourite bands. If you like weird french films you should take a look at the works of Eric Rohmer, Agnès Varda, actresses Sandrine Bonnaire and Isabelle Huppert... also look out for the Inti each'n'every day.