Team Building ... again!

There is only so much team building a team can handle!!!

Last night we went on ANOTHER team building exercise. This one was for the project I am working on and involved Statoil (the main oil company in Norway), Acergy (our opposition - but who we are working on the project with) and Subsea7 (my company obviously). There was about 20 of us in total and we arrived at 5pm at a nice bar/restaurant on the waterfront called Timbuktu. We were greeted with sparkling and beers and appertizers. We then went to the beach volleyball competition which is set up in the Stavanger harbour. They even have these massive North Sea barges set up in the harbour with courts on them. The cruise ships moor right up beside the stadium and everyone on the top deck has a free prime seat view of the action. It is pretty cool.

Anyway we went to the main stadium to watch 2 matches involving the Norwegian male teams! Yes I can hear you scream "When you are in Norway why on earth would you be watching the Male teams?" Well the answer is that the Project Manager for the job is female. Needless to say if I had been organising it we would have been attending different matches! It is amazing how energetic the crowd is and how it fires everyone up - it is an awesome atmosphere.

Anyway after watching the two Norway teams win (we cheered hard for them - Noggie Noggie Noggie - Oi Oi Oi was a popular chant) we went back to Timbuktu ... where we stayed until god knows what time! Another good sized headache this morning was proof that the team is building fantastically well!

Here is some action from the Stavanger Beach Volleyball from previous years (found it on youtube).



Here are some more shots from Fister last week where we had our team building.


Here is our team winning the raft paddling race. We had to design, build, and race these rafts.


A proud winner of his first Norwegian "rowing" race!


The winners with their magnum of Moet!


Singalong in Fister. Many lubricating ales were needed to get things going - unfortunately it didn't help my guitar playing - but then again I think it helped the listening!


Some very tired work colleagues on the boat trip back to the office.

I almost forgot. I went to Holland for the day on Wednesday. I had to survey this new vessel we have been having built and are using it for its first project in July. It was a tiring but fantastic trip. The boat is pretty special and is bloody big (and shiny!). It has a sauna, big gymnasium (with concept II rowers for those with oars in the brains), and all big and fancy big boys toys (400 Te crane and another two 40 Te ones on deck, etc).


Here is a pic of her.

I went with Al from work and we managed to zip into Amsterdam to have a look around. That place is insane! We went and had a look around at the red light district and it was a massive eye-opener! Prostitutes are everywhere and dance in the windows of all the shopfronts of their "offices" with practically nothing on. Lots of bars and cafes everywhere with action a-plenty. There was even a funeral procession along the main strip (pun unintended) of the red light district! Nuts! Anyway we took a bunch of pics but not many of them are suitable for the G-rating of the blog - but i might sneak one or two up when I am at home.

I'm flying to Langesund (about 2 hours Southwest of Oslo) on Sunday for a couple of days. I am responsible for getting this big 100 Te template (a big hunk of steel used on the bottom of the ocean for producing oil and gas) onto a barge and shipping it up the coast (about 24 hours by Tug) to Stavanger where we will then lift it off and store it on our quayside until the big shiny red boat arrives in late July to pick it up and install it offshore. Should be fun. I'll post some pics.

Anyway - go the mighty Tigers. Snakkes!

Time for a big update

Ok here we are, we haven't published a good update in a while and it is Sunday night here now and we have managed to find some time to sit down and post! A fair bit has been happening so we will keep it as brief as possible - here it is in (few) words and pictures!

A few weeks back, Cooba found a friend wandering through the back garden.

He has a few more spikes than our echidna back home but was very cute. We haven't seen him since i scared him with the camera flash.



We have also started to do a few things around the house. We bought a cool self driven lawnmower and also have put up a fence for Cooby. This is me about to start digging holes for the fencing. It is mostly done except for 2 gates and makes the garden look surprisingly bigger!


Here is the side gate section and this is a pic of the massive stump that I dug out the other week. We still haven't figured out what we are going to do with it. Any suggestions are welcome in the comments section below. Joel is keen to mount it on the wall in the entrance hall. Quite proud of it really!


Coobs helping out with the fencing project.


Here is a pic of Emma before her beauty treatments! Actually this was from the "world famous San Diego Zoo". He was pretty cool I thought and it is quite amazing how human-like their traits are.


This little bastard attacked me. Not sure why he gets his picture up as he bit me quite hard. Lucky for him I didn't drop kick him into the aviary wall!


Definitely wasn't going to kick this one - far too cute. Spitting image of a teddy bear!


These guys (sea otters) were actually my favourite at the zoo. Reminded me of Cooba I think.


So I went all the way to Sunny San Diego to see this guy - I reckon I could find one in my neighbourhood on a cold night in winter.


Obvious.


Pretty cool I reckon.


Me on San Diego's Mission Beach. Pretty crap compared to what we have back home in Oz - but good to get salt in my hair after so long without here in Norway (although that changed the other night at teambuilding when I went swimming sans clothing in the Fjord at midnight - at a place called 'fister' - hahaha Em).


Yes the Norwegians have these great activities whereby all the work people go away and get very drunk together and call it team building. Presumably they charge it to the oil companies also. It was in a lovely place called Fister as Emma said and was at the end of this beautiful fjord. We arrived by boat and went on these inflatable high powered boats. We had a ball flying along at close to 50 knots jumping over other boats wakes. Here is Al and me having fun up the front.


Here is another Noggie tradition. Polser on a stick. It is basically a sausage, poked along the end of a stick with dough wrapped around it. They tasted pretty good actually - mind you when you have free beer in an amazing location anything would taste pretty good. We had to build these rafts and race them along this fjord - needless to say we won and had a great time. What a way to spend 2 working days!

Anyway, thats about the update for now. Looks like a busy couple of weeks. I'm off to Amsterdam on Wednesday to check out this vessel we are using for our project and then down to Southern Norway (Langesund) the week after to lift our 100 Tonne template we are installing onto a barge and transported up the coast to Stavanger. Lots of excitement - although staying at home and working on the house and garden is pretty good fun as well.

Don't forget to leave comments - we love hearing from you.

Dicko and Em - we tried calling you at home the other day - let us know what evening on a weekend you will be home and we'll give you another buzz.

Oh yeah - go the mighty tigers!

Summer Party

Boy do the Norwegians know how to drink! I joined the annual company boat trip last night, basically a big booze cruise - 200 people. It was a beautiful afternoon, and seeing as it doesn't get dark until midnight at the moment it was a great chance to see some of the islands and fjords around stavanger. We had prawns and salad for dinner and plenty of drinks. Good chance to get to know some colleagues from other departments, after a few drinks everyone becomes a lot more talkative. Joel gets home tomorrow morning so Coobs and I are looking forward to seeing him after about 9 days away.

Snakkes!

This is Jules, a colleague who has recently moved here from the UK. We are struggling through Norsk classes together!

Well its just Coobs and I at home at the moment with Joel away in the USA. We had a fun weekend, I went to a free concert in town on Saturday. It was put on from Statoil, Norway’s biggest oil company. It featured the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and two Norwegian stars – Morten Abel and deLillios '85 . It was absolutely packed, we found a tiny patch of grass to sit on. The weather was spectacular – we have been having mid 20’s temperatures throughout the day and night for the last 5 days. Just lovely! When I hear about the dreary Melbourne weather I can’t help but NOT feel sorry for you!

Saturday night we went to see an Aussie Comedian, Tim Minchin. Joel uploaded a you tube clip of one of his more well known songs below. He was sensational, really funny. Haven’t laughed that much in ages! Just as funny as the stand-up was some of the audiences response – some cultural Australian things just don’t translate over here. A joke about bumper stickers was met with stony silence. They don’t have bumper stickers over here. Anyway, very very funny. Sunday was spent relaxing, watching some McLeod’s Daughters episodes that Sal sent over (thanks Sal and Sam!) and doing some gardening. Well its not so much gardening as just weeding at the moment. The garden is a tangle of weeds. We have to pretty much start from scratch. The previous owner, a 24 year old guy clearly wasn’t a green thumb and everything has been neglected.

Tom – an expat Norwegian from Laerdal who is working in Melbourne just arrived this morning for a visit. He brought with him The Motherload – 2 x vegemite, 3pks timtams, 2 magazines and a Herald Sun! Absolutely sensational, can’t wait to read the newspaper. Oh how I miss it.

Hmmmm ... USA

Well after a surprisingly long series of flights (couple of hours to Frankfurt, 8 .5 to Chicago, then another 4.5 to San Diego with some 4 hours stopover in each place) I made it to San Diego. I got in late at night and headed straight for the hotel where I crashed out.

Anyway the conference doesn't start till tomorrow so I figured I would head into town and have a look around. So I caught a cab into the city - nice enough cab driver, but I just wasn't impressed with downtown. It was just buildings, rubbish, streets, and there wasn't a lot to see. I went for a decent walk but just couldn't find too much. I was at the largest shopping mall in town and it wasn't even a pooftenth of what Chadstone is. I contemplated going and watching a movie but i though nahh there has to be something better to see. So I headed towards the port area. After passing about 30 beggars (and spotting the first beggar i've seen on a mobile phone!) I made it to the port area amongst derelict blocks and more rubbish. The water was pretty filthy (certainly nothing on Norway's crystalline blue water). Anyway there were quite a few boats and things around so I took a shot of this aircraft carrier which has been converted into a permanent floating naval museum:

It wasn't as big as I imagined aircraft carriers to be although I'm sure there are different sizes of these big beats. Here were some cool planes on the top.


I also came across "Stars and Stripes" which was Dennis Connors America's Cup yacht from 1995.

I then decided to go to "Fashion Valley" which is the biggest shopping mall in San Diego area. It maybe was about 3% as good as Chadstone. So all-in-all there wasn't many good things to say about the US just yet. I plan to go down to the beaches either tonight or tomorrow when the conference starts and hopefully that will be a bit better but with American's lust for big pick up trucks, smog, filthy neighbourhoods, and run-down old buildings, I'm not too much of a fan of their consumerist attitude. I certainly much prefer the clean waters, clean air, beautiful and relatively untouched fjords, amazing drinking water, and relaxed lifestyle of Stavanger.

I spoke with Em as she got home from her fun Saturday without me. She had had a couple (read: many) of wines so was pretty happy to chat! She went to Tim Minchin who is a very funny Aussie Comedian. Click on the youtube link below if you want a good laugh. Anyway she went with Al (the scot), and Mari and Kev and apparently had a really good night.



Emma is going to be spending Sunday in the garden with Cooba doing some much needed weeding. I'm looking forward to getting back and working on the garden. Anyway, till next time - have it good.

Internet

Oh yeah - forgot to say - we now have Broadband at home.

You can now call us on our melbourne number which gets diverted to us. Only costs you a local call cost from melbourne as it goes through the internet (skype) to reach us. Has an answering machine there also.

The Melbourne number is 9016 4461.

Otherwise if you have skype you can call for free to our skype account. Username is joel_ireland but you can do a search for Emma or I through skype contacts.

Hopefully this will make it easier for you to keep track of us!

You can always text us (about 25c o 50c from Australia) on:
Emma: +47 9096 4837
Joel: +47 4680 0199

Joel

Relaxing at home

Well I think today was the best weather we have had since our arrival in Norway. Mid to low 20's, no wind, no clouds, amazing weather. It was a pity I couldn't ride to work to enjoy it (I had to take some stuff into work so made the rare car trip in).

Yesterday was equally as lovely. Ryan came round for a visit to our new house. We cracked a couple of Nøgne Ø Wit Øl bottles open along with a special treat from Ryan of his Bundy cans which he has been saving - cheers mate. Here is a pic of us relaxing after a BBQ on the deck in the sun.



I also did a mountain bike race Sunday morning. It was 50km long and was fantastic - great fun and beautiful scenery although I didn't have the pleasure of enjoying the scenery too much as I was working pretty hard to stay up with the leaders. It was very a enjoyable way to spend the Sunday morning. Emma and Cooba also came and while I was racing they went for a lovely walk with Bråstein and through the Figgjoelva (Figgjo River) which Cooba loved.

I also managed to get out that beast of a stump on Saturday. It took a lot of effort, swearing, chainsaw fuel, patience (something I lack at the best of times) and persistence but I finally got it out. Emma did a fantastic job weeding also so we will nearly be ready to put our fence up for Cooba. We actually bought all of the materials on the weekend so hopefully I can get a chance to put it up soon. It is actually very similar to the Nes's (Tracey & Kids) fence in Tassie so we will be very happy with it we think.

I am off to San Diego on Friday for a week. I am presenting at an offshore conference titled Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering 2007. Subsea7 were fantastic in supporting me to go but I think that Yuiry Drobyshevski should take most of the credit. He was my fantastic industry supervisor for my thesis last year and he put an incredible amount of time into the paper (which he is co-author of - as is Gregor MacFarlane who was my other brilliant supervisor) so I am fortunate enough to have both Yuriy and Subsea7 in my reach for this experience. It will be a bit daunting but hopefully it goes OK.

Here is a picture of the object that spawned this thesis and conference presentation.



Anyway till next time - have it good!

Having breakfast in the sun!

Hi all,

Emma and I are currently sitting in our kitchen at the breakfast bar. We are connected wirelessly through some neighbours connection as our fibre optic cable connection is still a couple of days away from being connected.

Emma just cooked scrambled eggs with Worcestershire sauce and Cooba is under our feet as usual waiting for any scraps! As you probably saw from the countdown (which is now removed) we are well and truly settled in to our lovely house in Våland. We still have a few odd jobs and things to do so it will take a little bit of time to get everything perfect. We are going shopping today for a fence for the backyard so Cooba can roam around freely during the day. He is currently living on the fenced in terrace.

Here is a shot of Cooba from last weekend in the green area at the back of the house. As usual he has his teddy with him!

This is me trying to chop out the big stump in our back yard. We need to remove this to put up the fence but we want to get rid of it anyway to make our garden nice and pretty. I will be back at work on this stump again today. I don't want it to stump me (sorry for the bad pun).

This is the breakfast bar where we are currently sitting. The light streams through the big window in the morning. It is a lovely place to have breakfast. The fridge, freezer and microwave are integrated into the cabinets on the far side of the kitchen.

Another pic of the kitchen. Once again integrated dishwasher. Cool!

This is the all important beer fridge down in the cellar. Brother Zac gave me heaps of bottles and the brew kit so it is thanks to him that there are Carlton Draught bottles (albeit with Noggie home brew in them) over here in Norway!

This is a pic of the Kjeller (Cellar). This is where we store heaps of stuff as well as my 3 bikes and emmas 1 bike (and the beer and wine of course).

This is the main bedroom which has a lovely outlook onto the backyard and green areas behind the house.

Pic of the bathroom.

This is the loungeroom which is really pretty although when we get our new couch it will be heaps prettier and more comfortable and we can put these two couches downstairs.

This is one of the front of the house with our little blue Polo in the shot!

There is also the washing room in the cellar, the study, the 3rd bedroom, the Loft, and the hallways that i haven't put up so there will be plenty of room for visitors from all over the world.

Anyway, we have a list of things we need to buy as long as Emma and Mine arms and legs, and cooba's as well (even his tail!) so we must get moving. Speak soon.¨

Be so good!