Hello friends! I have compiled here some of my favorite quotes, photos, historically significant events, and meaningful passages for you. I will update this page as time permits, so please check back often!

I travel so often that many people ask, "Dieter, what is it like back home?" Above are pictures from San Luis Obispo County, in California. There is a historical Spanish Mission (upper left), Morro Bay (upper right), the Performing Arts Center at Cal Poly State University (lower left), a picture of the wine country in Paso Robles (lower right), and Hearst Castle in the center.
	Columbia OV-102, at Launch Pad 39B, the Space Shuttle Columbia is bathed in the soft glowing colors of the setting sun. Columbia, the oldest orbiter in the Shuttle fleet, was named after the Boston, Massachusetts based sloop captained by American Robert Gray. The spaceship Columbia continued the pioneering legacy of its forebears, becoming the first Space Shuttle to fly into Earth orbit in 1981. Four sister ships joined the fleet over the next 10 years; Challenger, arriving in 1982 but destroyed four years later; Discovery, 1983; Atlantis, 1985; and Endeavour, built as a replacement for Challenger, 1991. Columbia was commonly referred to as OV-102, for Orbiter Vehicle-102. Empty Weight was 158,289 lbs at roll out and 178,000 with main engines installed.
	As photographed by the crew members aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, a full moon is about to set beyond the limb of the Earth. A full moon should be round, but when it is near the limb, or edge of the Earth, the atmosphere tends to distort the shape. The atmosphere, stratosphere, ionosphere is in reality, acting as a lens, thus the distorted shape of the Moon. As the Moon reaches the Earth’s horizon it will become “egg shaped.”
	Titan IV, USAF 1991-2005 The last launch

John Milton 1608-1674

I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible looks. I see her as an eagle viewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam. Oftentimes nothing profits more than self-esteem, grounded on what is just and right.

Mark Twain

"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In sharp contrast with Newton's theory that white light is composed of different wavelengths of colored light, Goethe held with the classic notion that cool blue colors represented a lightening of black and warm red colors were a darkening of white. He expressed himself poetically with the line: "Colors are the deeds and suffering of light."

December 1984 Bhopal, India

About 5000 people were killed and perhaps 200,000 injured by the release of methyl isocyanate and assorted other gases.