  We report on the residence times of capillary waves above a given height $h$
and on the typical waiting time in between such fluctuations. The measurements
were made on phase separated colloid-polymer systems by laser scanning confocal
microscopy. Due to the Brownian character of the process, the stochastics vary
with the chosen measurement interval $\Delta t$. In experiments, the discrete
scanning times are a practical cutoff and we are able to measure the waiting
time as a function of this cutoff. The measurement interval dependence of the
observed waiting and residence times turns out to be solely determined by the
time dependent height-height correlation function $g(t)$. We find excellent
agreement with the theory presented here along with the experiments.
