Category: Really old entries

Still in Stavanger. Or, rather, back in Stavanger, as I’ve been in Oslo for the weekend. A bit of an all outer, with people from work meeting up at BarBeint on Friday and Ingun and Øystein having a housewarming on Saturday. Alchohol was consumed, and not just by me, either. It struck me, yet again, how my tendency to try to avoid making assumptions leaves me out of the gossip-mill. At least, there might be gossip about me, but I’ll be the last person to catch on to any gossip about other people. Take Ingun and Øystein – colleagues of mine, met at work and obviously somehow got it together to the extent that they have now moved in and are having a housewarming. And did I have an inkling? Nope. Not even when the invite landed in my mailbox. “Oh, so they’re having a party together. How nice. Well, since they’re both leaving at about the same time I suppose it makes sense…” Not a smidget of an inkling. Until someone said something about it that was completely unambiguous. And a lot of things suddenly clicked into place. Not the first time that sort of thing has happened either. So, a bit of advice to y’all: I don’t mind being on a need to know basis, but please don’t assume that I have guessed at what’s going on. Odds are I haven’t.

Anyway, back to Stavanger. Nice town. The centre is nice and compact, so it’s a nice short walk from the hotel to the harbour where there are loads of restaurants and places to have a pint or two in the sun. My colleagues do not approve of the local beer (Tou), which is served almost everywhere and sometimes exclusively, but I don’t care, because A. I don’t drink beer and B. Skagen Brygge Hotel has a mile-long list of single malts on the menu. Besides, I’m broke.

Thought I’d get around to going to the gym today – can go to any branch in Norway, theoretically – as I haven’t been for weeks, now, and I really do need some excercise. And my the front wheel on my bike’s been flat for weeks, too (ok, so I should’ve fixed it, but I only got round to it this weekend), so I haven’t even been cycling to work (or back, which is more to the point, as that’s all up-hill).

On a different note: I hate interviews. I realise the necessity, but I do wish I could be let off. Especially for jobs that I really want, and I’m sure I could do well. Couldn’t they just take my word for it? Ok, maybe not. I’ll probably be so sick of interviews so quickly that I’ll just jump at the first job that offers, even if it’s the check-out at the local supermarket. I will try to restrain myself, though, as this whole situation is really something I ought to view as an opportunity to search for “the perfect job”. Unless the present prospect actually comes through (which seems unlikely from the sheer point of Too Good To Be True), I think I’ll get a paper round. I could do with the excercise. Maybe it’d take away the tension from all these interviews.

Music in my head: Head over Feet – Alanis Morisette (v.g. compared to yesterday when I managed to get the “Slå på ring” stuck in my head for hours, I nearly went mad – or at least madder)

I find myself in Stavanger today. I suddenly have work to do. It’s quite nice to get out of the office, actually. What with everything going on there is a lot of tension and tendencies to bickering, even when the discussion centres on trying to get the best deal possible by presenting a joint case.

Anyhoo. Stavanger in the sunshine. Unfortunately, my work, of course, keeps me indoors. Though there might be time for a pint or two in the sun this evening. Nice.

Music in my head: Why do fools fall in love?

Harumph. Someone is coming round my block of flat to check the radiators today. All very well, I guess, a leak would not be good. However, in order to check the radiators they do rather need access, and I happen to have a row of shelving units in front of them. You know this storage problem I have with books? I really am not kidding when I say I don’t have room for any more bookshelves. So I need to empty the shelving units and partly dismantle them.

And to add insult to injury, the check is supposed to happen some time between five and nine tonight, I have to be there to let them in and I am invited to a cognac tasting at six. Bet you they are going to get around to my flat at about ten to nine, unless I go to the tasting anyway, in which case they’ll get to me five minutes after I’ve left my flat.

Music in my head: Mr Jones (Dylan)

Uhm. Did I mention the sofa is long enough to sleep on (for me, anyway, which means it’s long enough for most people I know).

Love sofa.

Music in my head: So Far Away from Me (Dire Straits – because I misheard the line for years as a kid, though I couldn’t figure out what they meant by “Sofa away from me”)

Mmm. Nice weekend. Linda and I have a very bad influence on each other, so we both need to go on a diet now, but who cares?

Major accomplishment this weekend: Have been planning to get a sofa for months (since November, in fact), but have been hampered with the idea of getting a fold-out one from IKEA (trying to remember the name of the one I want, but can’t). Finally realised that not only have I not got 8000 nok to spend on a sofa, there would not actually be room to fold it out anyway. So I made a decision to try to find a second-hand one. Preferably a cheap one. Preferably one that could be delivered (cruical point, as, though I am getting somewhat used to climbing up five flights of stairs to get home, I am not up to carrying a sofa up the same stairs). Linda and I checked out a second-hand store on Saturday and found a sofa which was the sort of thing I was looking for, but a little more expensive than I could have wished, so I said I’d think about it. Sunday we went to a flea-market and found the perfect thing. Probably a fifties or so model (though it’s hard to tell), it’s been reupholstered very neatly at some point, and in what seems to be a very durable material (judging from how little worn it looks). The material is in one of my favourite colours, a sort of blueish sea green. And it is soooooo comfy. Not to mention having a sofa at all is such a nice change from just an armchair (I’m of the “legs off the floor” persuasion). And sofa including delivery came to 500 nok, and the money going to a good cause at that.

Music in my head: It might as well rain until September (and at the moment it looks like it will, too)

I want to marry an author, too. Someone who knows how to REALLY write a speech. It could just be the champagne (and wine), of course (the one I had, I mean, don’t know what the bride and groom have been drinking).

Music in the room: Lær meg å kjenne dine veie (Sissel Kyrkjebø singing in the church, watching the “highlights” now)

Linda arrived a couple of hours ago for a weekend visit. She’s currently back at my flat cooking dinner. Me like. I’ll be leaving work shortly and then we’re going to kick off our megakitch weekend… The Norwegian princess Martha is getting married today. As if a royal wedding wasn’t kitch enough, the official wedding colours are barbie pink and mint green. I am wearing a pink hairclip today to show my solidarity (cool colours). And tomorrow night is the Eurovision Song Contest.

Lotsa fun for the kids (i.e. Linda and me).

Music in my head: “And it won’t be very long, ’till I’m going, going, gone” (and so on – from the Reality Bites soundtrack, can’t remember the group or anything like that.)

Tuesday afternoon we had an emergency staff meeting… We are all being invited to resign. All very odd, as they do want to keep 3-4 people, but did not tell us until yesterday afternoon which ones (though it was generally possible to guess). I hope, for the sake of the company, that they actually talked to the people they do want to keep. For my own sake it doesn’t really make a difference. As I have been thinking of finding a different job for a while anyway, I’m not really in any doubt of what to do – in a way they are doing me a favour by forcing me to get off my butt and go out and do some serious job-hunting. I would have preferred, obviously, to have a new job before resigning my old one, but one can’t have everything.

So: Anyone want to hire me? I’m very employable, really. I can code (though this web-page isn’t the best proof of that, as I haven’t had the time and energy to add any fireworks – I might get around to that now). I can work with anyone (at least I have yet to meet anyone I couldn’t work with). I can also work very well independently (in fact, I’m quite happy to be given tasks such as: “Code this by the end of the week” and be able to go off into a corner and become absorbed in the gobbledygook of ints and inxs and fprintf and malloc). I can write quality technical documentation (and I don’t fill it with parentheses, either, that’s just my journal/letter style). I love workshops with clients to determine requirements. I have pretty extensive knowledge of the testing process, from unit test to print and mail testing.

In addition to all that, I can serve up a decent analysis of any Shakespeare play you like, explain why alien* species are a serious threat to the biodiversity of almost any country today and ask intelligent questions regarding practically any subject (even football, though I more often make wilfully stupid observations on the subject of football, not being a great fan and being rather sick of the subject’s dominance at lunch).

The one thing I can’t do, at least not at all well, is sell stuff. I’m not a sales person. I can do my utmost to perform well and please the clients once the deal is clinched so that they will want to talk to someone about buying even more stuff, but I cannot do the actual selling bit. And that, of course, is why I have been thinking about getting a different job for a while – to a large extent, consultancy is about selling and it is wearing me down a bit. That and the fact that there has been very little work to do (there is a reason, after all, why they are downsizing the office…). Some days I am bored to tears.

Hey, if you do think you might want to hire me, mail me and I’ll send a CV. I guess I should put it up on the web. OK, it’s on my to-do list.

Music in my head: Just ask the lonely (Vonda Shepard – hey, makes a nice change from yesterday when I had “Kaptein Knudsen” stuck up there for hours on end)

* Alien as in “not native”, not as in “from outer space”, in case you were wondering.

Pretty much out of it. Also, pretty much busy all week. Will try to get myself gathered up, but it may take a while. Had a lovely weekend – lots of pictures to be uploaded (also may take a while).

In the meantime, have a laugh at Donna’s favourite poem.

Ooooh, feeling whoozy… Been to Tusenfryd and gone on big rollercoasters (fun, fun, fun) and had too much sun and fresh air. Will try and get pictures up tonight but might feel too knocked out.