Okay, the final packing is ongoing. I will dismount my computer and my desk as soon as this blog post has been made. It has been a fun 3 year period in my life here in Skövde. I have enjoyed almost every day here thanks to all my friends.
I have spent the day eating
First I went to the hospital to check how everything works now when I move to Gibraltar and all. Then I went to Thai House (again this week) with my old CEO David Rosén. We had lots of stuff to talk about and he gave me lots of valuable tips about the new job and what to do and what not to do and so on.
Later on, I met Jeanette and Cattis, to talk about Gibraltar and everything about the job and so on. Last but not least I had dinner with my parents that only just arrived to Skövde.
I will probably have more to write about moving everything tomorrow though, but here's a photo of what my apartment looked like before everything was dismounted and sold:
Now things are starting to become more real. I'm actually moving to another country. My friends and family will be countries away. :/
I'm beginning to feel a bit nostalgic, escpecially after the party we had last saturday when Ölf started to talk about memories from our first year at the University. The first year was maybe the best year of my life so far. It's the year I met some of my greatest friends as well as my girlfriend.
It's hard to top that, but I will give Gibraltar a fair chance!
It will be fun though!
I think this is going to be very fun. Especially if some of my friends manage to get jobs in Gibraltar as well. Even if they don't, I've kind of forced all my friends to come and visit me once in a while. =)
Well, only a few days left in Sweden now, and even fewer days left in Skövde. I'm moving on friday, having my parents coming to pick up all left over furniture and some boxes with stuff that we don't want to bring to Gibraltar, but still want to keep. From Friday to Monday we will be in Stockholm, waiting for the flight and hanging out with some friends.
On Monday 08:00 the flight to Madrid departs and we will only have to wait 1h and 20 minutes in Madrid before the final plane leaves for Malaga. In Malaga we will be picked up by a taxi guy from PokerStrategy.com and be driven to the Gibraltar border where we will jump into another car on the other side of the border, taking us to our apartment.
Will miss all of you guys ALOT, but I will keep this blog and Tjamörsk updated with everything that is happening there, and of course I will post all my crazy ideas and thoughts into the blogs as well ;)
The party was a huge success! Many of my friends was there and we had a great deal of fun. It made me see what I will be missing when I and my girlfriend move to Gibraltar. It makes me sad.
Thanks everyone for being in my life, I will truly miss you all. I hope that you guys can come visit me in Gibraltar and I will do my best to visit you all when I visit Sweden from time to time.
I will depart from Skövde on this friday, flying to Gibraltar somewhere between the 27th and the 30th.
Hi everyone! Today is the big day, the final party of me, my girlfriend, Ölf and Kim-Kim. We are having a goodbye party for me and my girlfriend and a birthdayparty for both Ölf and Kim-Kim. So it's a lot to celebrate and a lot of reasons to bake cakes and stuff!
Me and my girlfriend will try to bake as much stuff as we possibly can for the party. I encourage everyone else to do the same. We are going to get fat and a little bit drunk =). Also, for you guys and girls that didn't know: There's going to be Rockband 2 on HD projector, that means KICK ASS!
See you at the party, and for you following this blog: tomorrows picture time! Stay tuned!
This has been inevitable, so I guess most of you already figured out that I had to quit my non-profit job working as the Community Manager of Dreamlords: The Reawakening, because of my new job coming up.
I first met Lockpick Entertainment at...
... the Dreamlord release party, spring 2007. I was a young journalist back then, aspiring to one day become a game developer my self.
The party was great, although my camera only got 4 relatively non-blurry pictures, their smoke machine was overheated and the floor was kinda permanently messed up the floor. And yes, David was a little bit "tipsy" when I and Oscar interviewed him (there is footage of this, but David will kill me if I tell you where) ;) .
At my third and final year...
... I had my final degree coming up and got the opportunity to do my degree project at Lockpick Entertainment, thanks to David Rosén.
I started working at Lockpick Entertainment in the beginning of February and officially ended in the first half of june, when my final examination started. After that I used my spare time to Community Manage Dreamlords every day until today, when I officially passed on the role to Daniel.
Thank you guys and girls!
During this time I have made a lot of new friends, both at Lockpick and inside the Dreamlords Community. I have had many long interesting talks and many intense discussions with pleased or displeased players.
I would like to thank you all for being such a good community, even if there evidently was a few people that did more harm than good to the community. Keep playing and enjoy the game. I hope you treat the new community manager, Daniel, as well as you treated me =).
I will still stay in touch, so if you want to catch a talk or just want my opinion on anything, just hang out at my blog or pm me in the Dreamlords forum. Although I will check my blog a lot more often than the Dreamlords forum. ;)
What happens now?
If you guys don't already know what I will do now, I can tell you that I have just recently signed a contract to work as a Community Manager for the PokerStrategy.com community.
Here's some old pictures I recently got hold of, showing me and my friends trip down to Malmö where we worked at Nordic Game Conference 09.
We had a lot of fun in Malmö. It's always fun working at NGC, but this time we managed to get time to do a lot of other stuff.
We went to some restaurants, bbq'd outside their apartment, ate some tiny but... special ice creams and drank a whole lot of stuff that made us funny. ;)
I thought the old design was crap (yes I chose it so it's my fault), so I updated it a bit. The blog is a bit freaked out and in Swedish so everyone can't read it =(.
Anyway I put up some new design and hope that this will motivate the scribes to be more active. I know most of us have our own personal blogs to maintain, and ANOTHER blog might just be too much sometimes.
Also, I'm thinking of buying a separate domain for the blog, but I haven't decided yet.
I've signed and sent the contract back to PokerStrategy.com. Now I will just have to wait for having them call me about the plane tickets and the exact date that I will move in.
I'm very curious about which date it will be, so that I can plan everything with the apartment and all. As soon as I know I will let you guys know!
Also, I will take pictures and stuff on the party coming up this Saturday, so that you that weren't there can see how much fun we had ;)
If anyone wants furniture, or an apartment, let me know!
Trying to get all of my stuff sold, so that I wont have to throw anything away. Contact me if you are interested in ANYTHING and I will give you the list and some pictures. You can even come on a tour in my apartment if that's what you want ;)
As I promised, here's the footage from the celebration dinner two days ago on Mangos in Skövde. We had a great deal of fun and after the dinner we had some drinks at my place.
As you can see, my friends are just as geeky and weird as me. I guess that's exactly why they are my friends. Gonna miss you all! I hope that all of you are coming to my goodbye party (which is also Ölf and Kim-Kims birthday party).
I thought it was about time I got a new poll up and running. Check it out at the right of this post! But now on to the results of the old poll:
Votes: 15 | Who are you?
I've updated my Games' site adresses!
The Four - Battle at Wind Peak site can now be reached through the following URL:
... while the Neverwinter Nights 2 module Fools War can be reached through this URL:
Dinner tonight!
Tonight I'm going to Mangos with 12 of my closest friends (even though some of my ultra-closest friends couldn't make it). We are having some nice dinner and afterwards we will enjoy some drinks at my place.
I've even heard there might be a secret guest showing up, one who doesn't need letters on his keyboard to write fast ;)
Party next week, and you can come!
Me and Ölf are hosting a party together, at Saturday 19th at Peach Pit. It's a goodbye party for me and a birthday party for him. If you are a friend for either me or Ölf, you can come, but only if you behave because it wouldn't be a good birthday for Ölf if he didn't get back his deposit fee. ;)
There might be Rock Band 2, and there will be Biljard, Ping-Pong and some serious couch sitting & drinking.
If you are going to attend, please go to Facebook and find the event for this party and announce that you are comming. We need to know how many we are going to be, just in case.
Hi everyone!
As you might have heard, I got the job at PokerStrategy.com. I had a long and deep thought about this and finally decided that I have more stuff to write about than just two subjects.
Meet THE JOAKIM BERGMAN BLOG!
I will continue to cover the same topics, but will blog about more topics and more often. Expect new posts on an every day basis (at best). I will cover the following subjects:
If you're reading this not long after it was posted, please don't be alarmed by the blog looking weird at points or stuff disappearing and so on. I'm just experimenting with the new layout.
Let me re-introduce myself. My name is Joakim Bergman and I'm the future Community Manager for the Swedish Community at PokerStrategy.com. I will start working at October 1st and will move down to Gibraltar in a matter of weeks.
Btw, I found this out right after I wrote the previous blog post, but wanted to wait until the morning for the announcement. Although my father seems to already have spread the word to everyone, so I guess it's not that big surprise to you after all ;)
Got to get rid of all my stuff! Wanna buy?
As I'm moving to another country I can't really, and don't want to, bring all my stuff with me. I'm therefore selling any furniture worth selling and putting the rest at my parents house, or throw it away. I got couches, table with chairs, computer desks, a vitrine shelf, another table, two TVs and a 180 cm bed.
I'm going to make a better blog post later with pictures and stuff.
The Celebration Party!
I'm going to have a celebration party before I leave and you're all invited! Or well not EVERYONE but almost everyone, you know if you are close to me IRL and stuff. If you feel unsure about if you can come or not, just give me a call or send me an email. I will probably answer: Of course you can come!
I have yet to set a date, but I'm THINKING about having the party together with Ölf, when he is having his birthday party. It's easier for those who have to travel if we have it together. In that, case, it will probably be the weekend of 18th-20th of september.What do you think about that?
OH YES! this feels good! Just had to say that...
Hi everyone!
I have nothing new about the job at PokerStrategy.com in Gibraltar to report yet, but in the meantime I would like to tell you a little bit about their business, as I have gotten a lot of questions about that.
PokerStrategy.com's interest is not to take all your money while playing poker. In fact, they hardly profit anything at all from players that are loosing their money. PokerStrategy.com has a genuine interest to make you a better poker player. When you win, they win.
My role will be, if I get the job, one of three (?) Community Managers for the Swedish Community. If I get the job, I will start working on the first of October, most probably.
I just came home from Gibraltar, from a total of 5 hours of flight. Sitting in my much missed desk chair, I wish to share my diaries from the trip to and back from Gibraltar.
I love Gibraltar, you could say I'm gibbed. I also grew very fond of PokerStrategy and their office, so I guess I'm poked as well. :P
For those who don't know why I disappeared for a few days: I had an interview at PokerStrategy.com for the Swedish Community Manager role.
(2/9) Day 1: The flight and the farting cab driver
I started my journey on Wednesday, from Sweden to the far corner of Spain, which isn't really Spain - Gibraltar. My alarm rang at 05:30 AM, though it didn't do any good as I was already awake. Am I the only one waking up just minutes before the alarm, when I have something important to do that same day?
At the airport, everything seemed to go smoothly, but it didn't. Besides from the fact that I had to rush to Stockholm the very same day that they booked the flight, they had unfortunately booked me by the wrong name. I was lucky enough to get it fixed just before plane was ready to leave. *Phew*.
A four hour flight to Madrid... Four long hours. I just wanted to get to Gibraltar and meet the wonderful people of PokerStrategy.com. Finally, after sleeping in the most uncomfortable position EVER, the plane had arrived at Madrid Airport.
As this was my first time out of country by my self, I didn't dare to go outside the airport, even though my next flight wasn't leaving until 6 hours later. I wandered around, checking out the place and all the stores. I found the Whiskey Ölf wanted me to buy for him. It cost €25, but I never bought it. The next few hours I spent trying to sleep on a chair, not the most comfortable thing I've done but it beats the airplane.
Yay! The speedy flight to Malaga! Finally I was on the plane, which wasn't as "high" class as the first plane, but it was okay. After being used to wait for very long periods of time, this flight seemed instant. By no time I had landed at Malaga Airport and after trying to find the right place to look for the luggage, I also found my driver.
The fastest driver alive! This guy must have been a race-driver. Heck, I didn't even think regular cars could go that fast, but in Spain this seems to be the standard velocity of all vehicles. After a surprisingly brief car trip down to Gibraltar, my driver dropped me off that the border and I caught a cab.
Omg, did the taxi driver just FART? After about half way to The Elliot Hotel, the taxi driver said "Oh, I'm sorry about that. It's just so hot today and no air conditioning, so my head isn't working so well." At first I didn't know what the heck he was talking about, but then I felt the smell. Nice going Mr. Taxi Driver, beans for dinner today? Well I didn't say that, but that was what I was thinking. Anyway, after going up through the narrowest streets that could fit a car, I finally arrived at the hotel.
I'm a prom night dumpster baby, and I'm taking a stroll... After checking in and getting my stuff into my hotel room, I grabbed a map and started to navigate around the area, also marking important stuff on the map. The area is really nice and the hotel is JUST above main street, maximum one minute walk. There are palms everywhere and it must have been at least 23 degrees Celsius that evening.
Well, after all this I was evidently very tired, so I called my girlfriend to let her know that I'm alive and after that I went to bed...
Day 2: Another stroll in the town
I woke up at 09:00 AM, my alarm harassing me as usual. Hungry as a beast, from not eating any dinner the day before, I took the elevator up to the eighth floor for some breakfast buffet. It was some nice stuff on the table, but they didn't taste anything like I thought. The baguettes didn't taste anything, the cool colored juices was bitter and the scrambled eggs didn't quite taste as would have wanted it to. But it was okay, nothing serious.
After the breakfast, I went into the pool room next door (with open ceiling) to look around and of course to look at the great view. I took some pictures from there but also from the solarium floor, which was at the very top at the building.
.JPG)
After that, I took a long walk around the town and moved towards the PokerStrategy.com Office building, just to locate it, and then towards the Ocean Village. It wasn't very hard to find, this place is quite small actually. Gibraltar is more like a district than a town really.
.JPG)
After I'd checked out the Ocean Village, I moved on to the main street for some shopping. I found a Jack Daniels whiskey bottle for only €17, which I bought for Ölf. Besides from my mission from Ölf, I had the "GIVE ME A FREEKIN' TEA BOX" mission from my girlfriend. I found some, but it wasn't easy surprisingly, and it was about the only flavor I could find. You would expect a place like this to have hundreds of dedicated tea stores, with all the English people living here and all that. I finished off my shopping spree by buying myself some lunch, Bacon Covered Chicken Breasts with Garlic Sauce and Pommes (rated 4/10 by me).
Okay, so I went home to prepare myself for the interview. By preparing I mean checking what outfit that looked the most professional... yeah I know how that sounds like, so shut up. 45 minutes to go, I started walking down towards Waterport Place, where PokerStrategy.com is. I arrived 30 minutes early, but it's better to be early than to be to late.
While waiting outside, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Beggar. This guy sat on the stairs for a while before approaching me. With a very British accent he said "Can you spare 50 cents for some water, I'm getting my paycheck tomorrow so I don't have any money right now." But I don't like that kind of stuff so I told him that I didn't have any on me. He looked surprisingly happy and shook my hand "cheerio" or something like that. Then he looked mad and I fled into the Office building.
The interview! Finally you get to read what you only where interested in, in the first place. The interview started and in front of me there was the HR manager, a Team Leader Community manager and this third guy who I forgot what he was working with, but he was good with the numbers ;). They asked me a series of questions and after answering them all I asked them a few. Apparently I did a good impression, so I hope that my impression is better than the other 2-3 that are applying for the job. After the interview, the two guys left and the HR Manager had me doing some tasks, to see how good I am at writing articles, interviews and support. I also translated a 3 A4 long article from English to Swedish. It took a while, but it was no problem... or wait it was. There was no Å Ä and Ö on the laptop, so I'm unsure if they will get what I wrote. Also, that damn auto-correction script made all my "i" to "I" and similar - very irritating.
The result: They will contact me within a week or so, to let me know if I get the job or not.
If I get the job, I can move down at the beginning of a month, into an apartment that I'll share with someone else or having one myself if my girlfriend moves with me. In 30 days I have this place for free, but then I have to find a new place. But they were very keen to help me with that. Oh, by the way. They wanted to cut down the salary a bit, from what my recruiter had told me. A bit disappointing, but not really. I thought it was too high in the first place anyway. Heck, I'm a grad student. Hopefully they will in time realize that I'm Mr. über skills and give me a boat or something.
That's it for today, I'm going down to the town and eat something, and maybe visit Ocean Village again.
Day 3: Headache, noxiousness and no pictures
The third and final day at Gibraltar was five hours long, where of four I was asleep. At 05:00 AM I crossed the border with this guy called Ramon, no real English speaker unfortunately... or fortunately (kind of enjoyed the silence as I didn't feel so good due to the 140km/h Spanish car-rollercoaster). I was very unsure about us making it to the airport in time, but we did - on the minute!
I slept all the way from Malaga to Barcelona, which by the way had the shiniest floors ever to be seen. It was funny, they had some people driving around in super-speedy floor polishers. They looked like mini race drivers, gave me a laugh.
OH NO! I missed the... candy (you thought I was going to say flight there right?)! Every time it's time for landing, they hand out some candy to everyone, but I was asleep so I didn't get any. The thing is, I woke up when they'd just passed me, and sadly one can't shout "MY CANDY!!”.
I got into a bad mood about not getting any, and started to stare at the guy next to me that had 4... yes FOUR of them! Even though I stared quite intensely I didn't get any from him either. By the way, his feet smelled exactly like garlic chips - and yes it was his feet.
Right now I'm at the train back to Skövde, satisfied about soon getting home and because of the Max Frisco Burger resting silently in my stomach. Oh btw, I talked to my recruiter 15 minutes ago or so (when I entered the train... on the wrong wagon). I told him how the interview went and that the salary he told me earlier wasn't the same as PokerStrategy had in mind. I just want to say that I know SQUAT about how much I can demand for salary, so I'll let my recruiter do that for me. I would really be happy if I got the job and could afford to pay the rent.
Well, wish me luck, an announcement will come within 7 days or so if I get the job or not. I'll keep you updated!
