Get to know the team: Bloc

[bloc]

Name: Bjoern Kristiansen
Age:  38
Location: Molde, Norway
Quote: or Favorite Quote: not really..but "stay positive" is a good motto.
Position: Lead Graphics Designer
Picture: see attachment

1. Do you have pets? No.
2. What is your favorite color? Black, but have been known to wear dark brown/blue occasionally.
3. What kind of music do you like? Dark techno/jazz/drum&bass: Amon Tobin, Jack Dangers, Meat Beat Manifesto are some favourites. Although some days more quiet ones like Dean can Dance, Sting, Enya..all depends on mood.
4. What do you do on your free time besides spending time on SMF? Try to do some swimming every week, and spend as much time as I can with my family..but otherwise its pretty much data.
5. What are your goals/dreams in life? Nowadays many small ones...but my main dream has always being able to work fulltime on graphics/code and live off it. So far that time hasn't come yet.
6. What got you involved in SMF? I started out with yabbSE several years ago for a parenting forum I co-run, and when SMF came along I started using that. Eventually I took the plunge and showed off some of the themes I had been making for it, and started spending more time on this site. I joined the team in 2005, and has never regretted it since. Its a great team and a awesome script.
7. Who do you admire? Why? Hm, I don't think I really have one special...although always been fascinated by the findings and ever-lasting persistance of Thor Heyerdahl.
8. Are you into sports?  If so which ones? Not really.
9. What is your dream job? See question 5.
10. What was your first screenname? My real name : Bjoern
11. Do you have any piercings? No
12. Are you a lefty/righty or ambidextrous? Pure righthanded.
13. Do you have any tattoo's?  If not do you wish/plan to get one? No, and not really.
14. Do you have any siblings?  If so how many of each. Yes, I do. 1 sister and 3 brothers.
15. What is your favorite website? Nowadays simplemachines.org and tinyportal.net
16. Do you play computer games?  If so which ones? Not often, but when I do I like speed games. Need for Speed 5 is a alltime favourite.
17. Do you play video game consoles?  Which ones? Playstation2 is the only one, also there just car games...()
18. Are you married or planing to get married? Yes, I am married.
  a. If so do you have any kids? Yes
  b. How many kids? 3 of them - 2,4 and 6 years old by now.
19. How many languages do you speak?  If so which ones? Only 2 really, english and my native norwegian..but when in dire need, some german too. Understand written german better though.
20. Do you drink? Occasionally, mostly beer or vodka/rom.
21. Do you smoke? No, never had.
22. Did you play hookey from class? Yes. Not many, but they happened. 
22. Do you have a license? Yes
  a. Do you own a car? Yes, a big one to fit them all in.
  b. Have you ever been stopped for speeding? Sadly I have had my share of speed tickets yes.
23. Do you obtain a good amount of sleep daily? Probably not, I usually sleep around 5 hours, and sometimes it catches up on me and then I can sleep around the clock. But lately I gotten used to it, so I wake up on the right time anyway. Alarmclocks helps.
24. How do you sleep? Like a rock according to my wife.
25. Have you ever been on an airplane? Yes, many times.
26. have you ever broken a bone? No, I am lucky in that respect.
27. Do you wear jewelry?  If so what jewelry do you wear? No.
28. How do you dress? Normal days: black t-shirts and black denim. When more "dressed up": one of my many dark brown/black shirts and black trousers...kind of one track track mind there.
29. How many keys are on your keyring? 4
30. What time do you go to bed?  What time do you wake up? oh, it can vary. Sometimes 1 am, other times 2-3 am. Most times up again at 7-8 am.
31. What's the freakiest thing you have done?  //Keep it clean. One or 2 things, but I think i will "keep it clean"..lets just say it was during my graduate days at high school ( or what resemble that in Norway )
32. Do you live alone? No, we are a family of 5 in this hourse.
33. How many hours a day do you spend in the computer? Far too many. At least 3-4.
34. How many hours a day do you spend in SMF? 1-2 maybe...got so many projects lately so I have to divide some. But I am in every day, often several times.
35. What is your favorite beverage? Coffee, Tea, Soda, Beer, other? Cola without doubt, but Earl Grey tea I also drink a lot.
36. What do you hate?  //It can be anything. When things don't work out that I have worked on for a long time. When my car breaks down and I got a million things to do.
37. What do you love?  //It can be anything also. When it miracously starts up again in just the right time... great movies, great meals.
38. What is your religion? I belong to the christian church, but don't practice it as much as i should probably.
39. What is your hair color? Dark blonde.
40. How tall are you? 5' 4''
41. How much do you weight? 140 pounds..probably a bit too much
42. What's the feature on SMF you can't live without?
  a. As an administrator? The whole admin section i guess, I am pretty much everywhere.
  b. As an end user? Without doubt: the "show new replies" and "unread posts".

[jerm]

Position: Lead Graphics Designer
2. What is your favorite color? Black, but have been known to wear dark brown/blue occasionally.

eessh, that scares me. i was told one day that black wasn't a colour and it pissed me off :|

lol, anyways *starts it off*
how long have you been married?
what was the highest speeding ticket you got?
if you could go back in time, what would you change?(if anything)
out of all the themes you've created, which one are you most proud of?

[bloc]

Well, regardless if black is a color or not, thats whats on my clothes... 

Position: Lead Graphics Designer
2. What is your favorite color? Black, but have been known to wear dark brown/blue occasionally.

eessh, that scares me. i was told one day that black wasn't a colour and it pissed me off :|

lol, anyways *starts it off*
how long have you been married?

I have been married almost 7 years.

what was the highest speeding ticket you got?

Luckily not very high...about 200$. 

if you could go back in time, what would you change?(if anything)

Hm, tough one..many things I reckon, but one thing I always regretted - not continuing the engineer education I started on. I was tired of school back then, and started working instead. In retrospect that would have made things different.

out of all the themes you've created, which one are you most proud of?

I would have to say Simplicity, that one was a real challenge.

[Deaks]

if you had £1million  what would you spend it on?
if you had 3 wishes what would it be?
Out of all the themes what is your favorite?


BTW Black isnt a colour its a shade :p

[Aaron]

Have you ever watched Star Trek or one of its spin-offs? If so, did you like it?

[forsakenlad]

Are you having a difficulty managing the Design Team alone?

[Tim]

What did you learn while being on the design team?

[Prasad007]

Wow my favorite SMF team developer
i wud first of all like to say that i love ur works
especially ur helios multi theme which im using in my site @ www.tech-ultimatum.uni.cc
and secondly ur wonderful Tiny Portal!!
keep up the gr8 work!!

my question:
what made you choose ur username 'bloc' ?

[bloc]

if you had £1million  what would you spend it on?

oh, down-payment on the house, trust-savings for the kids...lots more I guess.

if you had 3 wishes what would it be?

The whatever-you-wish kind? then 1.) the world being a peaceful place 2.) my family staying in good health and 3.) SMF being the leading free forum script    

Out of all the themes what is your favorite?

Themis. I enjoy using it, always has. Like the others too of course, but that one is always been something of a fav.

BTW Black isnt a colour its a shade :p

If you want to take the philosophical route it can be many things...

[bloc]

Have you ever watched Star Trek or one of its spin-offs? If so, did you like it?

Yes, I have. I liked the original and the Next generation series. After the first season of the latter I kind of fell of the wagon, but any good SF enthusiast needs to have at least seen a Star Trek episode/movie or two. Its a classic.

[bloc]

Are you having a difficulty managing the Design Team alone?

I guess not. Things have turned out be that way by various circumstances, but I think it works ok.

What did you learn while being on the design team?

Having a more specific role to fill in the aid of getting SMF to be the best forum script one can make it. And getting to know a great bunch of people that devote considerable time and effort to the script and community - which is simply inspiring by itself. 

[bloc]

Wow my favorite SMF team developer
i wud first of all like to say that i love ur works
especially ur helios multi theme which im using in my site @ www.tech-ultimatum.uni.cc
and secondly ur wonderful Tiny Portal!!
keep up the gr8 work!!

my question:
what made you choose ur username 'bloc' ?

Thank you.

"bloc" comes from a comic book character I was a fan of years ago. The fantastic four figure "the thing" or Ben Grimm, was strangely named "Bloc" when it first came out in Norway. I liked it then, and it never left me totally. Nowadays you could say "Bloc" also have another meaning as it resembles "block" - which is what TinyPortal is all about.

[Aaron]

I have another question which I can't seem to answer myself: what the heck is on your avatar?! I figured it's some kind of creature, but what kind, I have no idea!

[dtm.exe]

Bloc, what exactly does the image in your avatar depict?  I can't quite make out what it's supposed to be .

[Aaron]

Bloc, what exactly does the image in your avatar depict?  I can't quite make out what it's supposed to be .

Eh, Dan, that's exactly the question I asked just before yours.

[bloc]

Hehe, its actually a picture I made a long time ago..its "rocks with alien skin". See a couple of eyes in there? That is meant to be "the one that awoke"....I know, strange.

[Tim]

Tables or CSS?

[forsakenlad]

Hehe, its actually a picture I made a long time ago..its "rocks with alien skin". See a couple of eyes in there? That is meant to be "the one that awoke"....I know, strange.

Well I thought that picture was an abstract drawing of a bear where your name comes from

[bloc]

Tables or CSS?

Oh, I am a fan of both. Starting to learn slowly the world of css, but it won't solve every layout problem, sometimes only tables can make a specific theme come together.

But using this awesome new site theme as a beacon I am committing myself to use more css from now on.

Hehe, its actually a picture I made a long time ago..its "rocks with alien skin". See a couple of eyes in there? That is meant to be "the one that awoke"....I know, strange.

Well I thought that picture was an abstract drawing of a bear where your name comes from

Yeah , "Bjoern" is "bear" in norwegian.

[Thantos]

rofl I was reading bear as beer
Whats one thing that you wished SMF has but currently doesn't?