Thursday, January 18, 2007

The Five Things Meme

You probably know the drill by now. The good Dr. Bob tagged me with this infectious Five Things Meme and now I'm supposed to tell five things about myself that you probably didn't know. Oh - the excitement! ;) If you fall asleep halfway through the list - come back tomorrow. Ok - here we go:

  1. In my childhood and youth I have had part-time jobs as a paperboy, flower delivery, painter (on walls, not canvas), secretary (writing letters based on dictation tapes) and programmer.
  2. I had my first computer experience at age 11 - my uncle had bought a Sinclair ZX-81 with 1K RAM (later upgraded to 16K). I was awed after playing chess against the machine and quickly wrote my first "game" - Guess the Number. I've been bitten by the programming bug ever since.
  3. At age 19 I participated in a youth exchange program organized by Lions. To keep costs down I traveled with two other Norwegian youths by train (Interrail) from Oslo to Istanbul - a three-and-a-half day journey. It was very interesting to live in an "ordinary" Turkish family (albeit a relatively rich one) and to get to know other youths from throughout Europe.
  4. I served my military service in the Navy as a radio-operator. We performed the work deep inside the nuclear bomb-safe mountain Jåttanuten outside Stavanger, Norway.
  5. I'm an active member of a local community group called GLA'Nordstrand. We are lobbying to improve the traffic conditions and reduce the number of pass-through cars that drive our local resident roads to get away from the queues at the national roads. It is a struggle the be heard and noticed by the municipality politicians and bureaucrats. One day I was interviewed by the regional TV news station about the traffic conditions, when two cars crashed just behind me - almost hitting a child on his way to school.

Wasn't that a thrill? Now you know why I stick to technical issues related to programming and Delphi in mt blog ;-).

Eh? I'm supposed to tag some more people to keep the ball rolling? Well, are there anyone left that hasn't been tagged yet? I dunno - but I'll have a go at Jon Shemitz, Dan Miser, Chuck Jazdzewski, Lars Fosdal and Ingvar Nilsen.



Copyright © 2004-2007 by Hallvard Vassbotn