Life story
Let us start at the beginning. I was born at SiA, now Ahus on November 30. 1983 after some careful planning by my mom and dad. Actually, the planning was not that good since I was born around 3 weeks too early. But hey, being early from the start might be good, right?
After a few days we went to the place that would become my home for the next nineteen years, Gullverket We had a lot of fun in Gullverket, organizing our own ski championship, making cabins in the trees, playing football or just running around with no specific goal. As always, there were some cuts, broken bones and smashed windows. During my childhood I experienced four or five concussions. Those concussions might be connected to my love for bicycling on frozen lakes, doing some ice skating or just running around on icy roads :-)
School
After spending my first years in safe surroundings, it was time to go to school. My primary school was Vilberg barneskole. During the six years I spent there I had some ups and downs. The most important lesson learned during those years was not something you usually learned at school at that time. Thanks to my godfather, Vidar, I learned my first, harsh lessons with computers. After breaking my father's laptop a couple of times I got my own computer. As you might have understood, computers have been a great part of my life ever since.
My junior high school was Vilberg Ungdomsskole. While I was attending this school I became interested in computer parties such as The Gathering and The Summit. Me and some friends had regular meetings at each others homes to play together and learn new things about our computers, but The Gathering was actually one of my first computer parties. After attending TG98 my future was pretty much determined. A few guys and me spent the most of the weekends playing around with our computers. My mom and dad got really good at transporting expensive equiment around in their car.
My years at junior high also taught me the value of work. My first job was as a gardener at a local housing cooperative. Being paid 75 NOK per hour was not much, but is was a start. I later moved up the ladder and got a job as a freelance journalist in the local newspaper where my dad works. Both jobs paid for a constantly growing phone bill due to massive surfing on the net :-)
Three years after I started on junior high it was time to move on. High school was next, and I chose to attend Eidsvoll Videregående skole My course of choice was general subjects with specialication in maths, physics and computer science. The choice of course was not the most exciting one, but it was important to have the math and physics classes to be able to apply for the university. After three more years at school I graduated as a red russ in 2002.
The army
As Norway is still practicing compulsory military service, I was inducted to
the army in October 2002. As a proper geek, I selected to join the signal corps,
located at Jørstadmoen at the time. Together with nearly 800 others I learned my
basic skills and learned that the army food at Jørstadmoen really sucks. No beef
for me - luckily, I was just an hour and half away from home :-).
Two month into my service it was time to relocate. In the drawing I "won" a
place at FLO/IKT located in Trondheim. I most say "won" since we all had to go
somewhere. Anyhow, I was happy with it. It was not north of Stjørdal which ment
that I could keep my only promise to myself: never to go north of Stjørdal in
the army. As it turned out, the food at Luftkrigsskolen was much, much better
than at Jørstadmoen. It was quite boring a lot of the time, but hey, it could
have been much worse.
It was also during my year in the army that I got my first position at The Gathering. I had visited The Gathering every year since 1998 and tried to get into the crew since 2001. During my years at high school I had been an administrator at The Summit, giving me some much valuable insight in how to organize a computer party. Being a member of the crew at The Gathering was much, much bigger.
Becoming a student
During my army days I also found out that I was accepted as a student at NTNU. I had applied for, and been accepted to HiG the year before. But, while I was on leave, organizing a computer party in Bergen, I found out that I was accepted to NTNU. That was a huge surprise as I knew that the grades required to be accepted was quite high. But, being accepted to NTNU I had only one choice: move to Trondheim on a permanently basis and start on my master's degree.
Current status
I am currently working with IT operations in one of the largest firms of its kind in Norway.