wissel.net :: Five things you don't know about me

So Kevin thinks it's my turn.

As a pre-tenager I was singing in our school chorus. I had a beautiful alto voice and according to my teacher talent. Then the hormones kicked in and brought an abrupt and terminal end to my aspirations
My college paper was about thermos dynamics and the Carnot cycle. As part of the preparation I acquired a set of old fridges, which I hoped to turn into a heat pump. The endeavour utterly failed but helped to found a urban legend at my college with wild stories about that student, who had all sorts of mishaps turning fridges into heat pumps.
I was working for Club Aldiana as computer trainer for a while. As part of that job I had to bring computer equipment to Tunisia. There I spend a whole night being trapped at a police post since I refused to pay the officer a bribe for letting me go. I only got of the hook when the head of police arrived, who was a golf buddy of the local Aldiana manager.
I was member of a motorbike club named "Die Kuhle Wampe" (named after a movie by Berthold Brecht). The club was politically active and the federal board was heavily infiltrated by the West German Communist Party. On the regional level we were much more pragmatic running campaigns for safer driving and we poked fun on the infiltrators. After that I never understood how my NATO security clearance for my national service at the German Airforce got approved.
As a young IT contractor I moved to Munich. The company I was working for got into trouble with a large project delivery and couldn't pay the salaries. We were all hanging in to finally deliver (what luckily worked out and gave me both the outstanding pay as well as first-hand experience in crisis management). Due to the lack of cash I had to survive on ten bucks a week for about three month. My pride stopped me from going back to my family and ask for help. In that three month I even did a weekend trip to the Netherlands. Then hitchhiking was still an acceptable mode of transportation.