about

So you want to know more about me, huh? Ok then, let’s start at the beginning…

My first 30 years
I was born December 12th 1975 in Trondheim - Norway’s third largest city. I lived with my parents and younger sister until the summer of 1992, when I decided that I wanted to travel to another part of the world and live for one exotic year as an exchange student. Instead, I ended up living in rural Arkansas, USA - not so exotic, but certainly interesting. I lived in Gravette, AR (population 1201) with the Thompson family (mom, dad, two brothers and a younger sister) for almost a year, and in May of ‘93 I graduated from Gravette High School along with my brother Robert. I had a great time with my American family, and it was definately well worth my parents’ money. After that I moved back to Trondheim and graduated from high school in ‘95.

Norway has mandatory military service for all males, so the following year I served in the air force. First I went through two months of boot camp just outside Trondheim, then two months of military police school in Stavern, at which point I applied for and was accepted to serve as one of only two Norwegian mandatory airmen at the NATO air force base in Geilenkirchen, Germany. A great eight months abroad, and it even paid enough for me to buy my first car - a 1977 Mercedes. In the fall of ‘96 I returned to Trondheim and started college. Well, sort of. See, I didn’t take any math or science courses in high school, so I spent one year doing that before getting accepted into the undergraduate computer science (CS) program at Høgskolen i Sør-Trøndelag. In the spring of ‘97 I met this hottie named Julie, and somehow I managed to convince her that it would be a great idea for us to buy an apartment and move in together. Also during my four years of college I worked closely with and became a good friend of a guy named Andreas. Strangely enough, he also moved in with me and Julie. After we moved to the US that is…

All three of us wanted to travel and do something different, so we decided to move to the US to go to school there. Julie would finish her CS bachelor’s degree there (one year in the making), while Andreas and I would get our master’s degrees, also in CS. Long story short, we ended up at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, AL. Mobile is a city of approximately half a million, about two and a half hours east of New Orleans, LA and about one hour west of Pensacola, FL. We enjoyed life there so much that the three-or-so years we had planned to stay in Mobile in the end turned out being five years. I was offered a position as an instructur in my last year of graduate school, and taught undergrad courses for three semesters altogether. Julie decided to get a master’s degree too, and finished her degree in the beginning of the ‘05 fall semester. Andreas fell head over heels and got married to Erin, a fellow student and Mississippi native, and they still live in Mobile with their daughter Susannah. They claim they’re moving to Trondheim this summer, but I’ll believe that when I see it.

30+
In March of ‘06 I was hired as a software developer at Norconsult in Trondheim. I work with two other developers on a product called ByggOffice, an application used to estimate costs of construction of all types of buildings. Coming from a pure CS background I had very limited knowledge of the construction industry, so learning that part of the job was just as complex as wrapping my mind around the existing program code. A year later I’m still getting to know the construction industry - and I probably still will for many years to come - and there’s always new technology and methods to learn when it comes to programming…

Just recently Julie and I sold our old apartment and moved into a newer and bigger apartment in the downtown area of Trondheim - closer to work and to all the stores, cafes, bars and all the other amenities that the city has to offer. I gotta tell ya, life is good here - you should try it!