[meteorite-list] [Fwd: Waht I du] (Bernd Pauli)

From: David Weir <dgweir_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 14:03:17 -0500
Message-ID: <458C2BF5.6090503_at_earthlink.net>

Hello List,

This short autobio was submitted by Bernd to the List during our "What I
Do" thread in 2000.

David
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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Waht I du
Resent-Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 16:14:12 -0500 (EST)
Resent-From: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 22:08:54 +0100
From: Bernd Pauli HD <bernd.pauli at lehrer1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>
To: Meteorite List <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>

Hello All,

Sorry for the delay but I am swamped with work at school :-(

As for biographical information , I will be 55 next May 12th. I was born
on May 12th 1945 - i.e. four days after Nazi Germany surrendered. I
attended elementary school in 1951, later high school, passed my final
exams in 1965 and served in a German combat tank unit (M41, M46, etc. -
American tanks) from 1965 till 1967. Then followed my years as a student
at Mannheim University - Mannheim is my hometown (only about 30 miles
away from where I live now).
At the age of 12, I developed a keen interest in astronomy which soon
turned into a life-long passion. I now have a Celestron 8 with a C-5
mounted piggyback. But strangely enough, I used to skip those pages in
my astronomy books that dealt with meteors, comets, and meteorites,
until, in the mid-80s, I got hooked on meteorites at mineral and gem
shows which I attended regularly because I had, by then, become a
passionate rockhound (quartz, agate, smoky quartz, rock crystals
amethysts, fluorite, etc.). More than once I risked my life and my
health in some of our quarries, but I wouldn?t miss any of those
moments.
One day, in the early eighties, I bought my first moldavite from an
Austrian dealer - a Mr. Zensinger, but I don?t quite remember his name -
then a tektite, and a small, round, cut and etched Mundrabilla iron
specimen from the Zeitschels because I thought it was the proper thing
to have for an amateur astronomer.
A Canyon Diablo soon followed, then an Odessa, an Allende for about $
1.00/gr (!) and a Nuevo Mercurio for $ 1.00/gr (!) and soon I realized
that I had become addicted to meteorites. I offered the man who sold
them to help him with his meteorite business at mineral and gem shows
and we soon made friends. And I bought books, old and new, about
meteorites - among them the 3rd edition of the Meteorite Catalogue that
was later followed by the famous 4th edition.
After enthusiastically reading Heide's booklet on meteorites "Kleine
Meteoritenkunde", I wanted to find out if the statistical results about
falls and finds were still valid. I started typing the third edition of
the Meteorite Catalog into my Commodore 64 but after about 300 records,
got the inevitable "out of memory" messages. I continued with a C128,
and then, finally I bought an Epson PC, and continued my time-consuming,
tedious work of entering data from the 4th edition manually.
Having accomplished that, I became a member of the Meteoritical Society
in 1987, and got subscribed to the Antarctic Meteorite Newsletter. From
then on, I also had to enter meteoritical bulletins, lots of references,
abstracts, and scientific papers. For a short time I cooperated with
Rolf B?hler?s SML to produce and publish WinMetCat 1.0 (We even sold
licenses to the Smithsonian, to Gero Kurat of the Vienna Museum, to R.
Wieler of the ETH Zurich, and even to some of our list members like Guy
Heinen - just to name a few) until I joined the List in January 1998.
I have been a teacher since 1971 and I teach English and French at a
German ?Gymnasium? - comparable to a British ?grammar school? or an
American high school. I've been married for 32 years now, and have a
daughter (31 years old) who made us grandpa and grandma on April 24th
1999 (Last Sunday was a special day in our family - Baby Fabian?s
baptism ceremony :-) and a son (24 years old).
When I am not busy working for school, you often find me scanning new
meteorite-related info, or typing answers for our List :-)
I also collect stamps (especially German stamps), Australian Kokaburra
and Kangaroo silver coins, I very much love to work in our garden (time
and weather permitting). Several years ago, I got hooked on another
field of interest: Ancient Egypt. I now own more than 50 books on
Pharaonic Egypt and have also learnt the basics of hieroglyphs.
And I almost forgot: I am also a member of a pop group. We just play and
rehearse for fun - no public performances. Every now and then some of my
buddies congregate to play good ol? rock n? roll music and lots of
oldies; especially songs of the late 50s, 60s, and early 70s with
instrumentals like the Shadows? ?Apache?, ?Midnight?, ?FBI?, etc. (I
play the lead guitar with these instrumentals) or ?Needles and Pins?,
?Love Potion No.9?, ?Hang On Sloopy?, and many more. The group's name is
"The Fameless Four" but Alex Seidel loves to nickname it "The Shameless
Four" - Shame on you, Alex :-).


Best regards,

Bernd

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Received on Fri 22 Dec 2006 02:03:17 PM PST