The last weeks have been hectic. I had my last day at work (eZ systems) on Friday and now I'm unemployed. It feels great :) I have been to interviews with Accenture, CapGemini and Spring, and on Friday I'm visiting Teleplan for an unformal chat. I have however decided to start freelance. In a few weeks I'm moving to Oslo and starting there as a computer consultant. I'm very excited about this and have already gotten in contact with potential customers.

Today it's only two weeks before my last day at eZ systems. I didn't get job as a skydive instructor, tried both in USA and New Zealand but I was a bit too late. Now I have been aplying to jobs in Oslo and expect to move there in a couple of weeks. Both Accenture and Capgemini have asked for me to visit on an interview and Bekk have asked for some more information so I'm very excited to see where I end up. I think all three companies sounds very interesting.

As mentioned earlier I have resigned eZ systems so my next mission is to find out what to do next. I think my last day will be October 8th, so thats about four weeks untill I'm unemployed :)

I have two options: working as a skydiving instructor or working as a computer engineer. Well... it's not a very hard choice actually, at least not if I can find a nice drop zone to work at. At the moment I'm checking some of them down under in New Zealand, but I have also sent my resume to some Norwegian companies in case I don't get a job as AFF instructor. I will probably move to Oslo, either in October or when I'm done skydiving (in about 3-5 months).

I really like the idea of not knowing what business in working in or even what continent I'm living at in four weeks time :)

It's been a while since I got back from California but here is what happened:

At Gardermoen I tried to check in for my travel but had some problems. I was booked without seating and had to get a temporary boarding pass. I got on the plane in the end but had to wait for about one hour and we got delayed of course. I arrived at NewarkAirport about 45 minutes to late and had only one and a half hour left before my plane departed to Los Angeles. First we had to wait in a *huge* line to get into the US. They registered all sorts of information and asked a lot of questions. We also had to fill out a form with information about duration of stay, address while in US, criminal record, deceases and even if we had been sympathising with the Nazis during WWII. As I hadn’t planed where to stay yet I left my address open, this was very unwise thing to do.

After the passport control I picked up my bags and realized that I only had about 30 minutes to my next departure. When I came to the customs I gave them the form I filled out earlier and when they saw I hadn’t filled out address during stay I was sent directly to another office for interrogation. The guy checked all my baggage and asked all sorts of questions. After a while I was free to go.

Finally inside Newark I tried to find out where to go next. I asked a lot of people and everyone gave me different answers. To problem seemed to be that I had only got a temporary boarding pass back at Gardermoen and had therefore not a boarding pass for my next travel. After about an hour in different queues I finally found the correct place to go. My plane had of course left so I had to reschedule. I had to go through Cincinnati.

I arrived at Cincinnati some hours later (delayed again) and only 30 minutes before my next plane to Los Angeles departed. I ran to the security and they stopped me there of course. I had to sit down and answer a lot of questions while they checked my shoes, pockets, wallet and so on. I had my parachute in my backpack and they were very intrigued by it. They looked at it for 10 minutes without knowing what to do, just asking silly questions. In the end I was allowed to go.

Finally I arrived in Los Angeles at about 23.30. Almost four hours later than planned. I got a rental car and headed to the city. I had to find a place to stay for the night and I drove a bit around but everywhere I checked it was all full. At 2.30 I was very tired and back near the airport when a car suddenly hit me hard in the rear. I sat still for a while to check if I was all right and after about 30 seconds the car that had hit me gave full speed and left. Just what I was missing at this point :( Luckily I had full insurance.

I went to Santa Monica beach and at about 4.30 I found a (hopefully) safe place to park my car and went to sleep in the front seat. I got about two hours of sleep before the city started to come alive again. It was then my birthday (I turned 26) but I wasn’t in a mood for celebrating. I was tired and just wanted a good bed. Fortunately my neck problems from the crash was gone during the night.

The car rental company gave me a map when I got the car and I found a street called Melrose (couple of blocks south of Hollywood). Someone had told me it was very nice there so I went there. I walked around in the street for a few hours and found an internet café where I got a room for two nights and I went there. I fell a sleep instantly and slept for about 15 hours. Some birthday celebration :)

After that everything went a lot better. I had a great time, visited Long Beach, Venice, Hollywood, Beverly Hills and a lot of other places. I also went to CaliforniaCity where I met Jay Stolkes again and passed my AFF exam this time. Then I went directly to Las Vegas to celebrate. Las Vegas is the biggest circus I have ever seen. I had a blast the two days I was there :)

Back in Los Angeles again I just relaxed. Never stayed more than two nights at the same motel so I got to see a lot of different places. Back in Norway I felt I had been gone for a long, long time. It was a great vacation although I found out that US is kind of a trashy place :)

Tomorrow I'm setting off to California. My flight leaves on Wednesday morning and I arrive in Los Angeles at 1900 local time. I'm going to take the AFF-instruction course again, so I'm heading for California City at the end of the week. My birthday is on Thurday, so I guess I have to celebrate that in some way in Los Angeles. I don't have many other plans than the AFF-course, but I would like to go to Vegas for a few days as well. It's going to be great with vacation :)

This weekend I was invited to a class reunion. It's ten years since we left one of my schools (Nord-Aurdal Ungdomsskole) and that is of course a good reason to party. It didn't show up that many people, but it was still very fun. Some people had changed a lot while others were mostly the same. I really had a nice time with my old class mates.

I have now resigned from eZ systems. I have been with the company for a long time (about four and a half years) and things are not really turned out like what I had in mind when I started. I feel I need some changes, and I believe quiting eZ systems is the right thing to do.

My last day will be in the beginning of October and I hope the best for the company also after I'm gone. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do, but I am also selling my apartment and leaving Skien. I hope to take some time off and skydive, but I haven't figured everything out yet. I am really excited about the while thing, and actually like the fealing of not knowing what I'm going to do :)

I haven't updatet my blog for several months now, but here is a short summary of what I've been doing since last time:

This has been my last week at the Adventists and I was back in Skien this Wednesday. Today, Jon Anders was comming, but this was canceled yesterday :( But since today is my fathers birthday, so I'm heading back to Fagernes today instead.

I'm heading back to the Adventist today. This will be the last week I'll be with them so I hope we will be able to do a lot.